Sgt. Frog Manga Volume 16

–> Buy Sgt. Frog 16 from Amazon.com!

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

In chapter 126, Keroro’s plan involves turning themselves into plushies to invade Earth. Chapter 127 has Natsumi, Mutsumi, Koyuki-chan, and Fuyuki in a strange bowling match against the Keron Platoon for Earth. For chapter 128, the invasion plan involves human’s love of chewing gum. The invasion plan for chapter 129 has the platoon build a giant iceberg. In chapter 130, Keroro takes Fuyuki to a hidden alien rest stop on Earth where they have ramen with the Mojaranian biker who helped Keroro some time back. Chapter 131 sees Fuyuki debunking some pictures Natsumi and others bring him of supposed spirits, including one that the ghost Yuurei-chan shows him.

For chapter 132, Momoka-chan’s mother decides to pay a visit to Keroro, defeating the Keron security and troops in the process. Keroro ruins one of Natsumi’s shirts, forcing him to take refuge in the only toilet room of the Hinata home in chapter 133, so Koyuki-chan takes advantage of Natsumi needing to use her toilet. In chapter 134, Fuyuki is denied the opportunity to stand in line for a rare video game release, so Keroro uses the new, improves human suit to stand in line for Fuyuki. Keroro has a parody Space Invaders game created to challenge Natsumi as an invasion plan in chapter 135 but Mutsumi crashed the party with a video game champion — Fubuki-chan.

Thoughts/Review:

To start off, I’m glad to see that TokyoPop is using the colored pages for the “pin up” image (and images on either side) still. For a time, TP stopped using the color pages and I was concerned that they might do so again as a cost-cutting measure. They still may in the future, but I hope not.

The stories in Sgt. Frog 16 are pretty much the standard Keroro Gunsou fare — have an invasion plan which will fail. I thought about this, having recently commented on Urusei Yatsura episode 96 and how the endless jokes of someone failing an objective wasn’t funny. While these failed invasion plans do cause me to laugh, I do find them entertaining. So, I suppose the difference is that in the case of UY, the character that I like failing is annoying and frustrating. For Sgt. Frog, naturally the audience doesn’t want the platoon’s plans to actually succeed, so the fun becomes seeing how the plan is thwarted.

The story I liked 2nd-best was Fuyuki debunking the ghosts and spirits in the pictures brought to him. That’s amusing, considering how Fuyuki wants these things to be true. The truly amusing part though is how something we want can be right in front of our nose, but we just can’t see it. In this case, Yuurei-chan brings Fuyuki a picture she took of herself trying on Natsumi’s school swimsuit, have freaked herself out about what she thought was a scary face in the background. Fuyuki shows how that face isn’t anything supernatural and is a bit depressed that all these pictures showed no supernatural activity, forgetting that Yuurei IS a ghost. ^_^;

However, the story I liked most is the one with Momoka-chan’s mother invading the underground Keron base. Momoka’s dual personality is well known and her mother’s dual personality was revealed at the end of her introduction story. I have to say that Momoka’s mother is much more interesting as a dual personality because she’s not manic about things like Momoka is. Her serious side is all business and her other side is fluffy and nice. So it was amusing seeing the two sides of herself take turns doing things, especially when the serious side schooled the platoon. I couldn’t help but laugh and I hope Momoka’s mother returns again.

Speaking of returning, Alisa-chan scores a cameo on the last page of the volume’s content. I hope she comes back again because I rather enjoy her character a lot for some reason.

So a good volume and six months or so to wait for the next volume since Keroro Gunsou is only published monthly in Japan.