Portrait of M & N 1
July 29, 2010
Tachibana Higuchi – Tokyopop – 2010 – 6 volumes
All I needed to know about this series was that the main couple consisted of a masochistic girl and a narcissistic boy. It’s an interesting hook, to say the least, and enough to sell me on a 2-volume series.
Even knowing that much going in, this book was weird. With such a ridiculous premise, I thought it would be a comedy, but instead it starts off very serious, and it turns out that both characters are trying to hide their respective quirks after being shamed out of their old school. Mitsuru in particular is painfully shy and quite ashamed of her weakness, and does her best to hide it. There wasn’t much funny in her situation, since she was teased for being pretty, teased for being standoffish (she’s too shy to talk to others, and her good looks make people think she’s stuck up), teased about rumors from her old school about her being “loose,” and then it turns out she’s a masochist because her mother beat her growing up, and she knew that as long as the beatings continued her mother hadn’t completely given up on her. It was downright depressing.
Mitsuru and Natsuhiko (the narcissistic boy) are thrown together by chance at first, and Mitsuru awkwardly pursues Natsuhiko for his friendship, who reluctantly relents after a chapter or two. They begin to lean on each other as a means for one to help the other out in a time of weakness. Natsuhiko freaks out when he sees his own reflection in any surface, so he has to wear glasses in order to impair his vision. Obviously his glasses fall off every once in awhile, since this is a manga. Mitsuru turns into a different person when she’s hurt, and tends to beg the nearest person to continue the pain.
Later, another character is introduced who is privy to Mitsuru’s secret and is deathly afraid of dogs. He… doesn’t really play much of a role, and mostly serves as a strange plot device to bring Natsuhiko and Mitsuru together.
An unrelated short story at the end features an abusive boy that forces a girl to date him, then yells at her a lot and scares her into doing a lot of things she doesn’t want to. There’s a sentimental story involved eventually, and to my complete shock, it’s implied that they have sex at the end, which never happens in shoujo manga. The abuse was not to my liking and hard to read, but I have to admit I really liked the story as a whole.
Mostly, this book is just awkward and abusive, and a little hard to read, but there’s still something entertaining about it. I think it really is just the hook that sustains it, because neither the plot or the characters really develop. I have the second volume, so let’s see if it gets any better.
edit: I misread an author’s note that made me think this series was only two volumes. The fact it’s longer makes it skew a little worse for me, but I’ll go into that next time.
Sugarholic 3
July 28, 2010
Gong GooGoo – Yen Press – 2010 – 5 volumes
There’s not really any surprises here, but I still think this series is highly enjoyable as a Cutie Korean Comic.
One thing that is a little different is that Jae-Gyu seems to be leaning towards Whie-Hwan rather than Hee-Do, the lost love from childhood. Admittedly, it isn’t even pretending that Hee-Do is in the running, but all the same, when was the last time the lost love didn’t get the girl?
Hee-Do is in this volume more than the previous ones, when he shows up to save Jae-Gyu from a rich creep and finds himself in a confrontation with Whie-Hwan. He has a heart-to-heart drunk conversation with Jae-Gyu, who is still under the impression that he hates her. Jae-Gyu doesn’t really have any feelings for him, but she is beginning to warm up to Whie-Hwan, and vice versa. She’s still not all that likable, and it’s hard when someone as useless as her is fought over by three men, but I think it’s a testament to how addictive this is that I didn’t give that a second thought when it came up in the story here. It helps that this has all the things that make Korean comics interesting, like characters that unintentionally needle one another, a lack of timidity all around, a fast pace, and a snappy contemporary mood. Couples in these series aren’t usually harboring shy crushes, but are generally drawn together after not getting along at first. I like that approach a lot.
A couple major and really cool things happen. Whie-Hwan brings Jae-Gyu out in public for the first time, but nobody is fooled and Jae-Gyu is kidnapped and attacked by the same creep that tried to buy her at the auction last volume. Hee-Do shows up and saves her, then takes her from Whie-Hwan and the relationship is developed on all sides, with a near-admission from Hee-Do and Whie-Hwan missing Jae-Gyu like crazy with her gone. Later, Jae-Gyu and Whie-Hwan go on a date, which is rather contrary to the usual rich boy date in that everything goes wrong in a tremendously embarrassing way, with just enough realism so that you feel bad for the characters (ie the characters aren’t run over by an ice cream cart or something equally ridiculous, but are in a couple fender benders, are stranded in a strange place, get caught in the rain, et cetera). Later, Whie-Hwan begins to open up, but I think most of that will happen next volume.
The characters still aren’t all that sympathetic or terribly deep, but again, this type of Korean girls’ comic is definitely a weakness of mine. I think I just prefer the character types to their Japanese counterparts (like the heroines being strong-willed and not shy doormats, or the sarcastic banter that seems to go on between couples, or the characters that antagonize one another and keep things interesting). They’re still light reads and relatively… trashy, I suppose, but I could inhale a countless number of these and never get bored. I don’t know what it is, but Yen Press really chooses good titles. I really hope these types of series are doing well for them.
Pig Bride 4
July 27, 2010
KookHwa Huh / SuJin Kim – Yen Press – 2010 – 5 volumes
The last volume had a pretty nasty cliffhanger, so this jumps right into the middle of the action, with Ji-Oh tied to a tree and poisoned and Si-Joon forced to figure out the difference between the real Mu-Yeon and an imposter.
This scene is pretty over-the-top action-wise, and I was surprised by the direction it took. Si-Joon’s deduction was the biggest shock since he seems more like the type of character that would luck out of a situation like that, and the climax to this confrontation results in Mu-Yeon’s mask breaking. That’s not to say that Si-Joon solving the situation in a legitimate way is a bad thing. On the contrary, it gives him a lot of depth that somewhat simple and selfish characters like him usually lack. He’s interesting in a lot of ways… he is selfish and rich, but he doesn’t use his status against others, and his selfishness is very innocent. He also possesses a surprising self-awareness on occasion, something else that characters like him usually lack.
Now, the mask breaking is significant, but we still don’t really see the aftermath in this volume. Most of the characters still don’t know what she looks like (not as big a cop-out as it sounds since the reader does get a very good look at her), and the breaking of the mask signals a huge drop in her confidence. In fact, she is so ashamed of what she’s done that she flees Si-Joon, who works his way into a funk until Ji-Oh suggests they find Mu-Yeon. Things get weird, and… well, the book ends in a very strange place story-wise. I’m sure the next volume will bring about a happy ending, but I’m not quite clear on how things will be explained, or why Mu-Yeon is doing what she’s doing. Unless it’s a status thing. That would make sense.
As a side note, the last couple pages are ridiculously romantic, even as wordless as they are. Si-Joon is not the romantic type, especially when it comes to Mu-Yeon, but his face says a lot on those pages. Wonderful stuff.
est em Update
July 27, 2010
At one point, I had planned on doing a lot of author-focused entries, but the problem is that I lack confidence in my knowledge. It’s not like getting the details wrong on Chameleon Army is going to incite a riot, especially if I plead ignorance beforehand, but it’s still not good.
This is a little different than what I had planned for this type of entry. I was curious to see what est em had done lately that hadn’t been translated into English, and thought others might be curious about her newer works as well, so here’s a little info. It’s not that helpful, since I’m terrified to google her name, but you might at the very least enjoy the covers.
Plus, a little info for anyone who isn’t familiar with her.
Black Jack 11
July 25, 2010
Osamu Tezuka – Vertical – 2010 – 17 volumes
I’m late to the party with this volume. Normally I read these as soon as I take them out of the box, but this one got set to the side and forgotten. For that, I am sorry, because Black Jack deserves better.
It is consistently good, and this volume is no exception. My favorite story this time around was probably “Showa Shinzan,” about the volcano that appeared in Japan in 1944. This was my favorite purely for personal reasons, since I recall reading an article about this in a magazine in third grade and it scared me so much I never forgot it. The story is good too, about Black Jack riding up to help a man who has his arm stuck in the rock face. The locals complain about the constant parade of tourists who scale the mountain despite warnings about the active volcano. Black Jack has to operate amidst the hot rocks and sulfur clouds, and has a great deal of difficulty for what turns out to be a simple problem. He gets angry when he finds out the real cause of the man’s problems, but responds in a wonderfully Black Jack-like manner.
Childhood trauma aside, “Whispers of a Dog” was the other winner for me this time around. A man, grieving after the death of his lover, asks Black Jack to implant a tape of his lover’s voice into the throat of a dog they loved, so that whenever it barks he can hear her voice. Black Jack reluctantly agrees, then the man’s life plays out over the course of a year with this dog. He gets over his lover and begins seeing other women, but of course he has a dog that says “Tadaaki I love you” whenever it barks, which tends to scare people off. The implications of this, and the climax, were most uncomfortable, but the love the dog had for its owner conveyed in such a creepy way was one of the most touching things in this book.
There were lots of others. Black Jack operating on a boy with a spinal chord problem in a war-torn country, Black Jack operating on a boy with muscular distrophy, Black Jack helping a skilled doctor get his groove back, so to speak, and the last story was the original end to the series in the 70s, though more stories were published after that. There’s an interesting essay about it in the back of the book, although it’s not hard to guess by the content of the story itself (a kind of “This is Your Life” Black Jack-style), I was pretty sure it had served as some kind of conclusion before I read the essay. There’s even a story about a man with amnesia getting his memory of World War II back, with disastrous results. There’s a little something for everyone.
It’s slightly more tame than other Black Jack volumes (the dog story was probably the strangest, although there was another where Black Jack was accused of murder and eventually saved by a pocket monkey), but there’s still plenty of strange stuff in here. Perhaps I’m slowly being desensitized to Black Jack weirdness too, I don’t know. I do know that every volume is uniquely satisfying, and while it doesn’t have Adolf beat for my favorite Tezuka work, it’s pretty close to the top of the stack at this point.
Fake 7
July 25, 2010
Sanami Matoh – Tokyopop – 2004 – 7 volumes
How is the climax to one of the most classic boys’ love stories we’ve seen in English? Well, pretty great. Especially considering how gag-heavy and tease-y the first couple volumes were. In fact, all that teasing has finally paid off in a big way, so this volume was quite satisfying as the last in a series I really grew fond of.
I was certainly caught up in the romance, but let’s not forget this series actually has a plot, too. The final case is pretty heavy, and involves watching over the wife of the man who killed Ryo’s parents. She’s informing and needs police protection, but keeps slipping out to meet with a lover (this involves some of the suspension-of-disbelief policework that we were conditioned to in the early volumes). Things build, murders happen, and souls are bared. It’s a good case, and I’m glad that Fake has come this far in terms of storytelling.
One of the other important things about the case is that it has an opportunity to be every bit as romantic as the Ryo and Dee parts. It makes you feel bad for one of the bad guys, and in one of his final scenes, he really wrings every drop of tragic romance out of the storyline. It goes nicely with what’s happening between the two main characters, especially when the spotlight is stolen by this serious stuff most of the volume.
Then there’s the Dee and Ryo parts. They were amazing. Having to wait ’til the end to get what I wanted definitely made it that much better. The consummation during the main storyline felt right, even though it happened at a time when Ryo was emotionally vulnerable. It is the norm for that type of character to get taken advantage of, but he’s the one who sought out Dee. Dee even had to ask the make sure. The aftermath was great too, not only the reactions from other characters (sadly, neither Bikky nor Carol gets to weigh in), but just seeing how both of them take it. Ryo takes it far better than I would have thought, but Dee will be Dee.
The main story ends, and there’s a short story at the end that is pure, undiluted fanservice. As much as I liked it (it did tie up some loose ends relationship-wise), it was almost too BL for Fake. Dee and Ryo are both older men, and they’re both police officers, but seeing them like that just turns them into 2-dimensional yaoi characters for me, even after everything they’ve been through. Also, I don’t know why, but seeing them naked really bothered me, too. It was like taking the mask off a superhero. You want to see it the whole time you’re reading, but then when you do, it takes all the magic out of it because he’s just a regular person underneath. Bah.
Having said that, I would not have had that short chapter any other way. It was the perfect note to end on, and the way the main story leaves off, Fake desperately needed some fanservice to send all us happy fangirls on our way. Plus… the Fake dialogue. I mean, it’s there through the whole series, but there’s something magical about that garbage being spewed in the bedroom. Magical and oh-so-right. That dialogue is terrible, but then again, so is Fake, and it just wouldn’t be the same without it. I would have enjoyed it far less if Dee had straighter lines.
In the end: two very happy fangirl thumbs up. I never in a million years thought that would be the case, because I loathed those first couple volumes. But I think I was just missing the joke. It took me a while, but I finally got it, and I’m much happier for it in the end.
Now, if we’re going to keep talking about classic BL, someone desperately needs to license Zetsuai/Bronze. Not a comedy. Not even close. But melodramatic to the point of being hilarious, and this is coming from someone who loves melodramatic BL. Also, super sexy and some of the most classic BL you can find.
Inu-Yasha 3 (Big ed.)
July 25, 2010
Rumiko Takahashi – Viz – 2010 – 56 volumes
This omnibus contains vols. 7-9 of the series.
I’m always at a loss when writing these big Inu-Yasha volumes up, because the thing I enjoy most is that it’s a rather pure exercise in shounen manga. It has very dynamic, exciting fights with interesting enemies and a nicely blossoming cast of side characters. Inu-Yasha himself makes a good prickly anti-hero, and Kagome is the perfect kind of love interest. It’s good because it fulfills the formula to a T, and that’s the most constructive thing I can possibly say about it. Everything else makes for a weak-sounding “oh, this enemy was great” or “so-and-so is getting on my nerves.” I think it’s even more overwhelming when it’s in a huge chunk like this, because I read the whole thing in one sitting and it still felt like not much happened, a sure sign of addiction.
There were a handful of good stories this time around. A fight with Sesshomaru that led to Inu-Yasha and Miroku finally meeting up with Naraku, an encounter with the resurrected Kikyo that included some strangely choice romance scenes between Inu-Yasha and Kagome, and a nice one-shot plot unrelated to the main storyline where the group has to steal a Shikon shard from a human who has turned to cannibalism in search of eternal life. We are also introduced to a village of “exterminators” in the last chapter of the volume, but I expect we’ll be hearing more about that next time.
Volume 8 has been my favorite so far. Character development is not the order of the day in a series like Inu-Yasha, but the Kikyo story here was good for quite a bit of it, with jealousy on Kagome’s side and a frank admission of his feelings for both Kikyo and Kagome on Inu-Yasha’s side. There’s also a rather sweet reunion at the beginning of the volume after Kagome had been in the present for an extended period of time. Again, while what runs between Kagome and Inu-Yasha is not a generous romance, it is far more than what other Takahashi leading couples have had in the past (and the present, for that matter). Volume 8 also reveals the origins of Naraku, though there is still quite a bit of mystery left to go as far as his story is concerned.
I also really liked the Peach Man one-shot. Both it and the Kikyo story share this series’ strength (aside from being true to the genre), which is its rich folk tale-inspired world. There is a neat monster at the beginning of volume 8, but the way Kikyo is revived and sustains herself, along with the way Naraku was birthed, lend themselves well to the amazing atmosphere of the place where Inu-Yasha dwells. The Peach Man is no different, making a story told in the human villages come to life as the group investigates what they think is an ogre tricking humans into his lair. There’s not that much to the Peach Man as far as motivation, explanation, and powers go, but he does have some neat tricks to keep things interesting, and the story takes place over the new moon, so Inu-Yasha has that complication to deal with as well.
I also love the continued insistence that Kagome’s school life continues even while she travels in Inu-Yasha’s world. She studies while in the past, and she still has to periodically return to the present in order to take tests and keep up appearances. It’s a small thing, and I can see how some might consider it an annoying detail that interrupts the story, but I think it’s very unusual and an interesting complication.
It’s good stuff, and it’s not for nothing that this was one of the most popular shounen series. You don’t need me to tell you whether or not to read it. But just know that, even after hearing all about the ups and downs of the story secondhand for years, I’m still finding a lot to like and follow in these compilations. I love the VizBig format, by the way. Such a good second chance for long series like this.
Sugarholic 2
July 24, 2010
Gong GooGoo – Yen Press – 2009 – 5 volumes
My backlog is getting ridiculously large as of late, and my Yen Press series have been suffering the most. This series has the best name, so I decided to start here. I probably should have just waited until next week, when the last volume comes out, and marathoned the whole thing, but I’ve never been the best at planning ahead.
This is pretty standard fare for Korean girls’ comics, but I still love it to death. Jae-Gyu’s bad decisions and selfish ways still have not caught up with her as she angrily sponges off Whie-Hwan for all her day-to-day living needs. At one point, some sinister women get Jae-Gyu drunk and take her to a… “slave auction” where rich men buy women and pay them as much money as it takes to get them to do whatever they want. She is saved by Whie-Hwan, but is neither grateful nor really aware of what he’s done for her. Meanwhile, her best friend is worried about her (for good reason), her brother is about to be thrown out of school for financial troubles, and the rich rock star she used to bully in elementary school is still floating around like a stalker.
Two rich guys vying for the attentions of an unlikable heroine is not a story I would expect to get into, and yet here I am, writing this so that I can move onto the next volume. It’s so hard to be sympathetic to Jae-Gyu, who is too strong-willed for her own good. She’s not at all boy-crazy, which is a point in her favor, and to be fair it’s hard to find a manga with heroines who are this… sharp, but she’s got a different set of negative qualities. She’s just really, really selfish and gives no thought to those around her. An excuse for her behavior might be that she’s supposed to be a country bumpkin, but she fits in with the city dwellers far too well for that excuse to really hold water.
So far, the biggest draw for me is Whie-Hwan, who fits nicely into the handsome and arrogant rich-boy stereotype, but is interesting enough to keep me reading. A connection to an old love affair with a former tutor is revealed, although the reason why he needs Jae-Gyu to be his fake girlfriend is still not clear (or perhaps I’ve forgotten, it’s likely a family issue), and I’m still curious where the Thai boxing angle will eventually go.
The series’ sense of humor is also a big draw. It’s not nearly as slapstick-y as a lot of shoujo manga I’ve read, and has more to do with Jae-Gyu embarrassing herself in front of others with absolutely no shame or reflection on what she’s done. She’s strong enough to do it without needing pity, which is key.
There are a bunch of side characters that are easy to keep straight and are responsible for keeping things interesting. The creepy rock star is developed a bit more here, although he’s still not playing a huge role in the story as of yet. And the forward momentum of the plot is also not clear, other than getting Jae-Gyu to eventually land on her feet.
With a few fun characters and a nice sense of humor, it’s good enough for me to be hooked, but then again, I’m a huge shoujo fan. Others might need a little more to sink their teeth into at this point, but I have high hopes the plot and characters will shape up into something wonderful in the next couple volumes.
Seduction More Beautiful Than Love 1
July 22, 2010
Lee Hyeon-Sook – Tokyopop – 2008 – 2+ volumes
publication suspended
This was one of the titles that came out during the great Tokyopop manhwa meltdown of ’08. Better titles than this lost their forward momentum (Hotel Africa, for one), but this one sounded pretty hot and heavy, and when I saw it on sale recently I thought I’d give the two volumes that came out a spin.
It is pretty intense stuff, and is one of the only series I’ve read that I’ve forgiven for being a teacher-student relationship. Daoun, a new teacher, begins to come under heavy and creepy courtship from Ryumin, one of her students. She brushes him off vigorously, but he comes on strong, sometime skewing his aim to keep her guessing about his intentions. He’s a mysterious boy, and gets along “well” with at least one of the female students. Daoun is smart enough to know to stay away, but the lingering pauses after Ryumin’s occasional acts of kindness, combined the artful way the panels are composed that screams “romance” lets you know that things will likely escalate. Realistically, it seems that Daoun has no feelings for Ryumin whatsoever, but all the nuances scream otherwise.
Complicating things (as things must be complicated) is a former college classmate of Daoun’s showing up to teach at the same school. He’s carried a torch for Daoun since he met her, but she has absolutely no feelings for him, either. He also manages to anger Ryumin, who begins acting jealous whenever he sees the two of them together. This character is rather hopeless at this point, but he’s interesting for what he brings out in Ryumin.
Ryumin’s an interesting character. He plays a genuinely mysterious beau whose real intent is completely ambiguous at the end of the first volume. At this point, if things were turned around and Ryumin was really just an aggressive creep, it would still fit. But he does a variety of nice things for Daoun anonymously, and Daoun seems to do her part by keeping Ryumin company at key times and listening to his various problems.
Ryumin is also a true romantic, and as I said, the nice art with excellent composition helps turn his various acts of kindness into something with a lot of hidden meaning. From loaning out his coat to lending an ear to tricking Daoun into a tutoring session, Ryumin has a number of approaches he uses. He is a little bit of a creep, but that hint of danger, combined with just a hint of silliness from Daoun, helps balance things out well.
But… after the first volume, other than nailing the atmosphere and artwork, nothing else about it really stands out. As interesting as they are, neither Ryumin nor Daoun is particularly likable at this stage, and no interesting plot developments have taken hold yet. There’s also not really a strong voice to the dialogue or storytelling, so there’s not much to keep the reader going. It’s pretty, but there are far better things out there. I got about what I expected, but my thresholds are pretty low.
I’m curious to see how far the story gets in two volumes. Is it an epic that goes on for ten more volumes? Maybe it wraps up in three? Maybe it’s a typical 5- to 7-volume series? I have no idea, but it’s interesting enough that I’ll probably read the second volume tonight.
