Mizushiro Setona - Diamond Head, vol. 01-05 (Chi. trans.)

Ichihashi Nanao has just transferred into super preppy Mehabia Academy, where one of the strange traditions is having a student judiciary club pass judgment on cases brought before them. She ends up being roped into the club by the charismatic Hanegi Reika, who plays the judge.

The series is largely very mystery of the week, looking into cases like a student accusing a teacher of sexual harassment to a case of possible plagiarism. As with all mysteries, nothing is as straightforward as it seems, although the sexual harassment case was actually extremely typical and not surprising at all considering the percentage of sexual harassment cases in fiction that actually have someone culpable, as opposed to IRL.

There are bits and pieces of character development scattered throughout the cases, from Reika's Angsty Background to Nanao growing into herself as a member of the club, but overall, I wanted more of the club members and less of the mysteries. I also felt that the series often fell prey to the Ordinary Girl Amongst Gorgeous Guys trope (see: Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran, etc.), although thankfully, the gorgeousness of some of the other guys in the club isn't emphasized as much as Reika's, as Reika is the capricious judge with a tragic background who is so beautiful he's probably more gorgeous than most of the girls. There is, of course, cross-dressing and a maid cafe involved.

Overall, this is not bad, and the art is clearly morphing between Mizushiro's older style and her newer one in After School Nightmare; you can see faces and chins getting less round, hair getting slightly less poofy. But it's not overwhelmingly awesome, and I wish it had more of an arc.

Liu, Marjorie M. - The Fire King

Soria is a Dirk & Steele agent who can understand and speak any language someone living is speaking. Karr is a long-imprisoned shapeshifter whom no one can understand. Together, they have adventures!

First, I would like to note that Soria's superpower is the one I currently want most. OMG. Immediate language proficiency! I swoon at the notion!

Second, Soria has one arm due to an Angsty Background that is later revealed. I am ambivalent about this. I love having a romance novel heroine with a disability in which she is portrayed as attractive, sexy, capable, and strong. Thankfully, Soria's superpower is not "compensation" for her disability and she seems to avoid many (but not all?) tropes out there. On the other hand, I was bothered by the focus on arm loss as Angsty Background (a la so much manga) and the relative dearth of characters with disabilities sans Angsty Backstory or characters with disabilities who have had a disability for a while and are living with it fine thank you.

It feels as though the stories All About Ablism or about people first adjusting to having a disability are written for people without disabilities to give them an easier way to sympathize with the character and to emphasize that having a disability is the exception and Other, and it reminded me a lot of books about characters of color that are all about OMG Racism! It Exists! And Sucks!

I am still trying to educate myself about a lot of this, so I may very well be totally wrong. I also do not want to discount the positives of having a POC (!) heroine with a disability (!!) be sexy and awesome (!!!): ergo my ambivalence. I just want more so that we aren't counting on a handful of characters to represent vast continuities of experiences.

I also found the commentary on shapeshifter interbreeding interesting. Had it been someone other than Marjorie Liu, I would have been annoyed at the implications re: mixed-race people, but since Liu has so many multiracial characters in all her books (including Soria), the chimera can be read as chimera instead of as metaphors for people. (Other SF/F authors who use supernatural creatures as metaphors for real people, please take note.)

Unfortunately, while I thought a lot about things in the book, I wasn't that into the book itself. There was a lot more adventure and not as much character/relationship, which may work for some people but didn't as much for me. I know Liu frequently has characters who are irrationally attracted to each other and trust each other, and in some of her other books, I believe it more than in this one.

Still, I loved the return of several minor characters from previous D&S books (older women for the win!), and I continue to be taunted by the presence of Eddie in books not about him!

Overall: fast-paced with lots of plot, but it didn't actually stick that much in my brain.