Panel 4: Frowny Inebriated Emp, here, is one of my favorite images of our heroine from the entire volume, even if I’m not thrilled with the shot’s deliberately cartoony flourish of her “large head, small body” figure proportions.

Panel 6: Another goofy “ninjutsu subskill” jutsu brought to you via Japanese provided by my friend Tomoko Saito, best known as the letterer and retouch artist of the English translation of the manga Blade of the Immortal. Given the complex, brush-based inking approach she used to much of Blade’s many sound FX and yelling characters, she could be considered a calligrapher, in my opinion. However, any problems with the particular calligraphy on this panel’s kanji characters should be lain at my feet, as I hand-scrawled them on the page myself.

-Adam Warren