The Spellbook Library Volume 1 Review

“They’re practically asking us to do the impossible!” Tohru to Yan. “Find a spellbook in a library we’ve never been to before!”

In the royal capital, it’s the day of the Employment Exam for the National Spellbook Library. Hopeful candidates include street-smart troublemaker Yan (a young man with a debt he’s eager to pay back from childhood) and Tohru, a slight, dark-haired youth whom Yan rescues from a couple of young thugs trying to steal his pendant necklace. The two team up for the examination, Tohru telling Yan that he’s spent his whole life ‘in the manor’ with only books for company.

At the Spellbook Library, they’re dismayed to find there are many candidates. The librarian conducting the examination is a young girl, Emel Sultad, who announces herself as Head of Public Relations (but Yan recognizes her as a princess of the royal house). “The exam will be testing your ability to utilize your references,” she tells them. They have thirty minutes to find their ‘designated spellbook’ with their partner and to submit it to the librarians. If they pass, they’ll have to learn how to seal dangerous spellbeasts in spellbooks – although not every new librarian will be allowed to join the sealing department. But first, they have to pass the examination!

It’s always good to see a new fantasy adventure manga arrive with a 13+ rating (and it’s not an isekai too!). The Spellbook Library has been available for a while via the Kodansha Reader Portal as the first of their ‘English First’ initiative but only now is it appearing in physical form. Mangaka Uta Isaki is introduced to us by the publishers as ‘best known for their yuri (girls’ love) and comics centered about characters navigating their experiences and relationship with their gender and sexual identities.’ However, in their afterword, Uta Isaki tells readers, ‘Somewhere deep in my heart, I’ve always wanted to try my hand at shonen manga and I was already vaguely planning out a project myself.’

When introducing readers to a fantasy, how does an author/mangaka suspend disbelief and ease them into this new world of make-believe? When does story exposition slide over into info-dump? Some mangaka are very skillful at this – Kamome Shirahama in Witch Hat Atelier eases her audience into the new world with ease, neither over or underloading the information. But it’s a rare skill and needs practice (and a wise editor to guide the way). Unfortunately, Usa Itaki throws us right into the middle of everything: everyone’s shouting the dialogue, spellbeasts are escaping left, right and centre, and a bewildering amount of story information is being imparted in these opening pages.

But after this noisy start (too much information!) things settle down. If this had been an anime first episode, I suspect I’d have tuned out and turned off by now but luckily, with a book, you can look ahead to see where the story’s going. And during the second chapter, matters improve. Yan – whose ambition in life has been to repay his debt to the librarians who rescued him from a dangerous spellbeast ten years ago – is surprised when he gets to meet the man he remembers saving his life. The encounter does not play out in the way he’s anticipated at all, leaving him with many unanswered questions. Then there’s Tohru. Who is he and why has he been confined to ‘the manor’ until now? And why does Emel feel so uneasy in Tohru’s presence?

The translation for Kodansha is by Jacqueline Fung with lettering by Phil Christie; both make this a straightforward and accessible read (thinking especially of younger readers, wearing my librarian’s hat). There are four colour pages at the start of the volume including an impressive double-page spread. The first volume includes some attractive character designs at the end, an Afterword from the mangaka and a page explaining about the English First Kodansha Reader Portal. Volume 2 is out at the end of December.

I would describe this as a promising start – with the caveat that I’m not yet a hundred per cent convinced that the story won’t go off the rails by introducing too much material again. It’s a tricky balance to get right with this kind of tale but, given some attractive (yet also generic) character designs, I hope there’s enough of a hook at the end to reel readers in for the next volume.

Read a free preview at the publisher’s site here.

Our review copy from Kodansha was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.