From Eroica With Love 15
Posted: March 13, 2010 Filed under: From Eroica With Love 24 Comments »Yasuko Aoike – CMX – 2010 – 36+ volumes
Oh man. It’s been eight months, and I’ve been very patient. You know what time it is now, right?
It’s time for another volume of From Eroica With Love. The end of the Seventh Seal story, no less, which started way back in June 2008.
Normally I comment on the cover, but I have nothing to say this time since the cover matches the Japanese edition. Please allow me to distract you with these color illustrations from the newest installment, then. Maybe it would be more interesting to start pointing out where the small back cover illustrations come from, though. Some of those are pretty obscure. This volume’s is from a phone card, but I couldn’t find it in any of my artbooks.
Hmm… The ending to the Seventh Seal story didn’t go at all like I thought it would. I was wondering who would come out on top, since there was no way to make anyone happy in this situation. There were two nice twists to the end of the story, and I liked that part a lot. The twists also explain why the story was called Seventh Seal, something that has been bothering me. But since the ending was strictly business, there wasn’t as much humor. Actually, it was just the opposite, the Major nearly died, and wound up in the hospital. Which then opened the door to a few side stories that made up for the lack of humor in this brief part of the Seventh Seal.
One was a short two-page gag about Agent Lawrence writing the Major a “get well” letter. The second… the second was where all the funny was. It was about the office betting poll concerning when the Major would get angry and let himself out of the hospital. When they all realize that the Major intends to stay there as long as it takes, the espionage and begging starts. For the most part, it’s a fight between the Chief of NATO and Charles Lawrence/NATO’s Head of Accounting over two specific dates that would make them the winners. Dorian shows up to throw a wrench into the works, of course. It’s funny, and I especially love all the desperate/terrible methods that the NATO agents use to try and trick the Major, but it’s not quite as good as the birthday party for the Chief a couple volumes back.
The third story is about a supposedly haunted statue that Dorian takes an interest in. It’s mostly serious, and a pretty good mystery, to boot. There’s a strange scene with him and the Major where the latter shows up out of nowhere to “interfere” and the two seem rather friendly. Actually, there are a few scenes like this in the volume, where the Major seems to tolerate Eroica more than usual and the two are almost friendly, as pposed to the Major absolutely loathing the presence of Eroica. Then again, he also punches him and trips him, so it’s not like anything’s really changing.
One thing that made me uncomfortable were the weird STD jokes that were in this volume. There are three. The first was in such poor taste that it made me cringe when the other two came up. I mean… a line was crossed. It was kind of weird.
Another thing… the adaptation seemed slightly different this time. A little off, and not as punchy as usual. The story’s a little different in this volume, of course (not the usual humorous case), and the volume summary on the back cover is still absolutely spot on, but I wonder if the translator changed. I would check, except the last thirty pages of the Temptation on the Rhine story and all the stuff that comes at the end of the book (ads, next volume preview, and publication info) were replaced with the pages from the end of the first volume of My Darling Miss Bancho. Printing error. I’ve never had one that bad, and of course it had to happen in my favorite series. Usually these don’t affect many copies, so I’m going to pick up another volume from elsewhere, but still. Bah.
The next volume, which should come out in November, will begin the “Emperor’s Waltz” story. Now, this story was the end of the original series. I’ve got the Japanese volumes of this. It’s… very beautiful. It would have been an appropriate end, and it’s got absolutely everything good about this series in it, except for the disappointing and unfortunate fact that Dorian is afraid of ghosts through the first part of it. I absolutely cannot wait.
I have acquired volume 1 of this series! I gave up reading manga for Lent, though, so I do not have thoughts on it yet. But thanks (I think) for being such an enthusiastic fan and reviewer and prompting me to check it out :D
The error with the last 30 pages is pretty weird. I hope the next copy you get has the correct pages!
Bugger. Mine has an error, too.
Lys: Your purchase makes me very happy! I hope you like it, you’ll have to let me know. I always feel like I have to throw in the caution that the first volume is way worse than the rest of the series, but I think I’ve probably mentioned that to you before in comments.
Michelle: Aw, man. Whenever I hear about a printing error, it always seems to be an isolated incident, and I was really hoping that was the case with this. Your copy having the same problem doesn’t bode well. I thought about asking on twitter, but I didn’t want to sound like I was whining or anything, especially if it only affected a few copies. Also because I have a Dorian icon and would look like an incredible geek. I thought about sending an e-mail, but I couldn’t find a contact on the site or in the publication info in the book.
This is proof of how distracted I have been these past few months. I forgot that this was coming out. Thanks for reminding me.
I take it that the recent installment takes place in Venice? I suppose it was only a matter of time.
“…except for the lame fact that Dorian is afraid of ghosts”
You should read this.
http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/12/ableist-word-profile-lame/
You may not agree with it, but you should be aware of what you’re getting into when using the word ‘lame’. I only found out myself a few months ago.
Yes, I remember your comments on the first volume. I won’t let myself be discouraged too easily! And I will let you know how I like it once I read it :D
Thanks for pointing that out. It’s not something that would occur to me since I would never apply that label to a person, but you’re absolutely right. Funny it’s not something I thought of before, I have a screw in my ankle and had a pretty severe limp through junior high and high school, and off and on since. That whole series of articles is very interesting, and does get me thinking a lot about semantics.
I’m pretty sure most of the newest story takes place in Rome (they’re dodging the Italian cop that chases them during the pope story), but that image is from a dream Dorian is having. It may hop around Italy a bit, but I don’t think there are any scenes in Venice. Yet.
Ha. Whereas I both mentioned it on Twitter *and* e-mailed Asako Suzuki! :)
Did you hear anything else about it? I want to hold off on buying a second copy until I hear that there are okay volumes floating around.
The only reply I got was from their PR guy saying something like, “Weird. I’ll tell them about it.” It’d be nice if they did something like TOKYOPOP did with the copies of Croquis that had random German words scattered throughout.
Hello!
I hope one day I’ll finally give me the necessary kick (and take the time) to write you long “real” feedback about how much I like your reviews. That you’ve got a big heart for classic series is the icing on the cake (they deserve soo much more attention! *SOPPY SOB*).
But I want to inform you that, Hooray, it seems like not all of Volume 15 are affected by Miss Bancho. My source: http://community.livejournal.com/schlosseberbach/149355.html
Ooh, thank you for pointing that out! I am still a little worried since it sounds like it was a problem with more than a couple copies. I think I’m going to wait another week or two in order to see if there’s any official response from CMX, but I’ll probably wind up taking a chance and ordering another from Amazon.com in the end.
And I’m glad you enjoy my reviews, thank you very much! I do have a special weakness for older series, and I have a bad habit of buying them in Japanese when I get too wound up about not getting them in English. I am pretty excited about the Moto Hagio book coming out in English this fall, though,
I can’t wait for Emperor Waltz. It was probably my favorite Eroica story out of them all. I didn’t much care for Nosferatu, the one that comes after it, but after not doing something for a while it’s hard to get into the swing of things again, so I can’t blame Aoike that much.
Yes, Emperor’s Waltz was probably my absolute favorite, too. It just has everything in it, including the little taste of fanservice at the very end, which almost never happens. I was similarly disappointed with Nosferatu and one or two of the others that were around the same time, too, but I loved what I saw of the newer stories I picked up. Some of them are hit-and-miss too, but I thought the recent Christmas story was really cute.
My v15 came in the post today. I was jumping up and down with excitement.
I was rolling around laughing with the whole betting saga. Poor Mr.A!
And the scene with the Major and his trousers around his knees on the stool looking completely harrased had me in stitches too! XD
The few “gay desease” jokes had me a little upset for the poor earl. That Lawrence in gonna get whats coming to him. With the Major…..it’s more understandable. XD
Mine had the same printing error!!! I almost had a heartattack!!! what is going on??!!
Right in the middle of my favourite manga there are these stupid stick thin shoujo characters prancing around on some beach!!!!
Now I’m afraid to order another copy it case it has the same printing error. Anyone tried contacting Eroica Editing HQ about this? :(
Anyway cant wait for the next volume! ^_^
Well sadly I can only read as far as the scanlators translate, so I’m about 20-odd something volumes into the series (Pink Panzer for the win). Though one of my friends came back from Japan with volume 35 for me, and I laughed at Dorian and Klaus talking to eachother on cell phones.
How about the fact that though they’re over 40, the characters still look the same as they did in the ’70′s? I wish I could be as eternally young as all of them!
This was a good volume. I love the short stories between the longer missions, they are usually hilarious. My favorites are still the surprise birthday party story and the story about the Earl learning to be a thief, but I get a kick out of all of them. I’m sad the Temptation on the Rhine story was cut short, I liked the creepy mood that one had going, much different than the funny ones.
I don’t think anyone’s heard back about the printing errors yet, but it sounds like more people got bad volumes than not. I’m going to try ordering another copy from Amazon next time I place an order there, I’m hoping it’ll have all the right pages in it.
That Christmas story in volume 35 is the best. I can’t remember the other one-shot that’s crammed in there before the St. John storyline. I think the cellphone scene I always think of is in volume 35, too, and it always cracks me up to think of it.
I’ve been reading backwards from the current volumes, so I haven’t gotten to anything between… I think volume 19 and 26. Some of the new stuff is a little hit-and-miss for me, but I’m also missing out on a lot of the details due to my poor comprehension. The current story is cracking me up, though, there are a lot of good gags.
I wish I could read Japanese! D:
Just letting you know, the v15 that I ordered (which had the printing error) was from Amazon. You might just get another one with the printing error. :(
Bummer. The one I ordered initially was from justmanga.com. Maybe I’ll try the Right Stuf to see if I get a good one, but I think I heard someone else had got their copy with the printing error from there. I may try it anyway, I would feel better about returning it to the Right Stuf than Amazon, I think.
Connie, where in the world did you come across volume 35? I have been an avid follower of this series for a few years and to my knowledge it only has 33 volumes out right now.
That aside, I’m thrilled to find that other people love this series. I was beginning to think I was the only one.
It’s actually up to volume 36, I just picked that one up off Amazon Japan (volume 36 is here). Eroica just started to be serialized regularly again in January 2009, and other than the Christmas one-shot in 2007, I think it had been a long time since the last real story before that. Volumes 33 and 34 are only six months apart, but 35 didn’t come out until 3 years after that.
I try my very hardest to spread the word on Eroica. If I thought it would make more of a difference, every other post on here would be a mini-essay about that series.
“… but I wonder if the translator changed”
You probably know it by now, the translator/adapter is the same. I just got my copy of vol 15 today. And the convalescent Major story and the betting pool are funny. It’s a good thing that the new arc doesn’t start in this volume. This is such a funny series too bad we won’t see anymore in English :(
I did finally get my corrected copy of volume 15 (I think that was on the same night I read the announcement of CMX going out of business). The haunted statue story at the end was probably my favorite since it was a rare non-silly moment for Eroica, but the convalescent Major story really does have a lot of what makes the series so fun in it. It’s hard to resist the charm of the office betting pool.