Despite the title, this actually takes place during the first week of school /pedant
Will Supervillains Be on the Final? (Liberty Vocational Volume 1)
by Naomi Novik and Yishan Li
This is another attempt by Del Rey to combine the American tradition of superheroics with the manga format, which is why comparisons to X-Men Misfits are inevitable. Both books center around a "special girl" at a new school, both girls have a slightly older crushes/love interests, both deal with kids with powers, both have a teacher whose beliefs/plans aren't exactly in line with the school's philosophy. But all of it is done better in Liberty Vocational, probably due in part to the fact that the book uses original characters and doesn't have to shoehorn in characters from an established franchise. Though Misfits changed a lot of things to serve its story, it still suffered by being forced to include them at all. Additionally, it sucked to be sold an X-Men book that wasn't very X-Men-like at all.
But back to Liberty Vocational. Unlike Misfits, this book has a better sense of direction and a lot more action, which makes it a better read. Unfortunately, neither really seems to understand the nature of manga serialization. Since actual Japanese manga are published weekly or monthly, they have to have some payoff every few chapters, at least once per collected volume. But these books from Del Rey seem to have decided that the possibility of future volumes means that they can do a lot less in the first volume, which makes for an incredibly unsatisfying read. The entire book is about what will happen in future volumes, and not about what's happening now. Even the "first week of school gone horribly, horribly wrong" story in this book is really just setup for the villain's overall evil plan, a fact that is tipped way, way too early in the volume and thus becomes distracting. The biggest problem with this approach to storytelling is, as we learned from Misfits, you don't always get a second volume.
As a superhero story, especially as a superhero school story, it's nothing we haven't seen before-X-Men, Sky High-hey look there's a trope page for it. But it's decent enough, there's a good balance of scenes in and out of class (which is always a problem I have with a lot of books/TV shows/movies, where you only see the kids in the lunchroom or leaving school, and never actually learning anything in a classroom with a teacher).
The art by Yishan Li is attractive and clean, perhaps on occasion too clean, to the point of being sterile-it notes in her book listing that she worked on books like 500 Manga Creatures and Shojo Art Studio, so technically the bulk of her publishing experience is in creating stock art. I also take issue with her depictions of characters after reading the character write-ups in the back, where characters are given ethnicities that are not depicted in the story in any way, shape or form. My favorite is probably Paul Lyman, who is, according to his description, "of French-Muslim" descent. It's not that he has to be black, but why bother if you're not going to use it?
Diversity is great, but it's sort of suspect when everyone is "ethnic" except your protagonist and main villain; but then again, Leah is described as "Czech Jewish" descent so it's really just minorities versus the "typical mongrel Midwesterner, a mix of Scandinavian/British ethnicities" (read: white-on-white) guy. Additionally, two of the characters that actually get a skin color other than white don't even get the honor of a descriptor; their bio mentions something about their parents but no countries, religions, or ethnicities are mentioned. It's just weird.
This book may not have the X-Men name on it, but it does have the pedigree of a sort-of famous writer, so I hope it does get a second (and third) volume. I wouldn't mind reading more, as long as something happens.
by Naomi Novik and Yishan Li
This is another attempt by Del Rey to combine the American tradition of superheroics with the manga format, which is why comparisons to X-Men Misfits are inevitable. Both books center around a "special girl" at a new school, both girls have a slightly older crushes/love interests, both deal with kids with powers, both have a teacher whose beliefs/plans aren't exactly in line with the school's philosophy. But all of it is done better in Liberty Vocational, probably due in part to the fact that the book uses original characters and doesn't have to shoehorn in characters from an established franchise. Though Misfits changed a lot of things to serve its story, it still suffered by being forced to include them at all. Additionally, it sucked to be sold an X-Men book that wasn't very X-Men-like at all.
But back to Liberty Vocational. Unlike Misfits, this book has a better sense of direction and a lot more action, which makes it a better read. Unfortunately, neither really seems to understand the nature of manga serialization. Since actual Japanese manga are published weekly or monthly, they have to have some payoff every few chapters, at least once per collected volume. But these books from Del Rey seem to have decided that the possibility of future volumes means that they can do a lot less in the first volume, which makes for an incredibly unsatisfying read. The entire book is about what will happen in future volumes, and not about what's happening now. Even the "first week of school gone horribly, horribly wrong" story in this book is really just setup for the villain's overall evil plan, a fact that is tipped way, way too early in the volume and thus becomes distracting. The biggest problem with this approach to storytelling is, as we learned from Misfits, you don't always get a second volume.
As a superhero story, especially as a superhero school story, it's nothing we haven't seen before-X-Men, Sky High-hey look there's a trope page for it. But it's decent enough, there's a good balance of scenes in and out of class (which is always a problem I have with a lot of books/TV shows/movies, where you only see the kids in the lunchroom or leaving school, and never actually learning anything in a classroom with a teacher).
The art by Yishan Li is attractive and clean, perhaps on occasion too clean, to the point of being sterile-it notes in her book listing that she worked on books like 500 Manga Creatures and Shojo Art Studio, so technically the bulk of her publishing experience is in creating stock art. I also take issue with her depictions of characters after reading the character write-ups in the back, where characters are given ethnicities that are not depicted in the story in any way, shape or form. My favorite is probably Paul Lyman, who is, according to his description, "of French-Muslim" descent. It's not that he has to be black, but why bother if you're not going to use it?
Diversity is great, but it's sort of suspect when everyone is "ethnic" except your protagonist and main villain; but then again, Leah is described as "Czech Jewish" descent so it's really just minorities versus the "typical mongrel Midwesterner, a mix of Scandinavian/British ethnicities" (read: white-on-white) guy. Additionally, two of the characters that actually get a skin color other than white don't even get the honor of a descriptor; their bio mentions something about their parents but no countries, religions, or ethnicities are mentioned. It's just weird.
This book may not have the X-Men name on it, but it does have the pedigree of a sort-of famous writer, so I hope it does get a second (and third) volume. I wouldn't mind reading more, as long as something happens.