Black Bird 11
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Black Bird 1 Comment »Kanako Sakurakoji – Viz – 2011 – 14+ volumes
Guys. I don’t know about this. Part of me still remembers what a guilty pleasure this series can be. When it’s good, it’s fairly steamy, and part of me can’t help but get caught up in all the hot and heavy drama between Misao and Kyo.
But the other part of me just read this volume.
Now that… certain things have been taken care of on the Misao/Kyo side of the story, the plot shifts gears into a full-out war in the supernatural world. This is largely due to the efforts of Sho, Kyo’s evil brother. Not only is he fighting the other supernatural clans, he’s attempting to rally the village against Kyo and Misao, since Misao possesses the Senka Maiden blood that can cure all their ailments and Kyo insists that she is not to share it.
The problem is… Sho is out in the open, and the way the story goes, he’s not a bad guy. He just believes in chaos. Misao cries when she learns this, as if this explains why he would turn the village against his own brother. For some reason, the characters accept this as a valid course of action, and are upset because it goes against their goal of, you know, peace and whatnot. There’s also a lot of Misao crying about lots of other things, too. Sick villagers she can’t help. The way everybody gangs up on Kyo. The whole Sho situation, which again, is ridiculous. Misao isn’t doing a whole lot except stirring up controversy by just being there, and it doesn’t quite make sense that all the villagers do is congregate around her and glower, either. I was pretty tired of her just crying and being upset the entire volume.
Misao does have one great moment where she depreciates herself in order to make Kyo look better, and I thought that was interesting, but unfortunately, that doesn’t come up again in the conflict with the villagers and senka maiden. That would have been way more interesting than all the tears.
Part of the problem may be that the story is moving too fast through these parts. If more time was taken to develop this stuff, I bet I could believe it was happening. As it stands, everybody appears to be working themselves up again and again over the same stuff, and all Misao can do is cry. There are a couple scenes with her and Kyo that are a bit romantic, but it’s nothing like the previous volumes, and again, I think the story is setting the romance aside for awhile.
Unfortunately, while it still uses some folkloric references (I liked the casual reference to a han gon resurrection spell), it doesn’t really dwell on these things. This is just something that happens, or the way the world is, and not a whole lot of time is spent on it. That’s a shame, because the folklore is one of the more interesting things about this book, and it’s glossing over it in favor of some sort of chaos/war plot that is not going so well right now.
I’m beginning to worry that the series has lost it’s groove. I’m going to keep reading for another couple volumes to see how things go. But… I don’t know. I just haven’t been feeling these later volumes.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Wild Adapter 5
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Wild Adapter Leave a comment »Kazuya Minekura – Tokyopop – 2008 – 6+ volumes
I thought the story had skipped a bit weirdly in volume 1-2, so I was happy that this volume covered the “missing year,” where Kubo picked up Toki and the two get used to one another. The vehicle for the story this time is a little boy named Shota that lives next door to Kubo. He doesn’t have any friends, and winds up with Toki as a best friend by the end of the book. He’s a good narrator, though slightly too wise for his years at times.
It’s a pretty dark story, since Toki is dealing newly with his memory loss and has nobody but Kubo, a stranger, to help him. He doesn’t like Kubo and doesn’t trust him, and all his instincts tell him to run. He actually does run away, but Shota finds him passed out and helps Kubo bring him back. It’s Shota that helps Toki and Kubo get together. Toki won’t trust “adults,” so Shota is the one that brings him his meals and entertains him initially. All three characters have mini-drama events by the end of the volume, one of which is a beating for Kubo that involves all three.
This is a somewhat slow volume compared to the others, since there’s not an overarching yakuza plot or anything that Toki and Kubo are trying to unravel. It’s very character-focused, and the development happens slowly. I quite like it, and especially in a story like this about Toki and Kubo getting together. A lot of time and effort goes into the relationship here, which makes it that much better.
Again though, it took me two or three readings to parse some of the metaphors the characters were using, particularly anything Kubo says. What’s wrong with that guy? They’re nothing too complex, and I think I’m trying to read too much into them, but still, they slow the story down a bit for me. But that’s a relatively minor nitpick, and it’s hard to imagine that Wild Adapter would be as good without them.
I don’t have that much to say about this volume since the premise is so simple, and saying more would probably spoil it. As good as this was, it also suffers from being in between two really, REALLY great volumes. Volume 6 was a fine volume to leave off on, though.
Boys With Tomorrow to Conquer 2
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Boys With Tomorrow to Conquer | Tags: BL 2 Comments »Satoru Ishihara – Digital Manga Guild – 2012 – 2 volumes
Yay! The wait was shorter than I thought for the second volume of this series! Because I sadly stalk eManga, I found this when it was posted on Monday. Also, I feel like plugging Ludwig II, which was also posted and can be read very cheaply (400 points buys you a 300 page volume). I love You Higuri, and that’s my favorite of her work.
Anyway, I was somewhat disappointed by the second volume of this series. It’s still very good, and my beef is a petty and superficial one. It’s a bit of a spoiler, and also a deal-breaker, so I’ll keep it to myself. But let’s just say it doesn’t finish like a good romance manga should. And not in the exciting and different way, either. It just kinda… stops. On the other hand, the romance isn’t really the point here, it’s all about the coming-of-age story, which is still very good.
We get two more stories with Kei and Atsushi, and two short works at the end of the volume. My Caged Beast, about yakuza, wasn’t great, but Indigo Blue was wonderful. It features two best friends who appear to be running drugs on a lark. One is the front man of the operation, and the other constantly watches his back from the shadows in case something goes wrong. The backup also has a sleeping disorder, and will sleep for days at a time. He sleeps so soundly that the front man gives him elaborate tattoos to entertain himself. The story follows their operations in Mexico, and then moves to Japan for the second half. Neither of the men appear to be bad people. The front man seems to be doing it for the money and the fact he loves the Caribbean and hates Japan, and the backup just seems to follow along. I didn’t quite get their relationship, or what happened when things went south in the end, but it was still a beautiful story, one of the best BL one-shots I’ve read. Actually, the BL was only lightly implied, but I still loved it.
The Kei and Atsushi stories were good, too. The first was the final chapter in the story about Kei rejoining the track team, and the second was yet another story about gang members beating up Atsushi and Kei rushing in to save him. I was a little disappointed with it as a wrap-up for the series, but even so, there’s a lot of good stuff in there, and both stories were a lot of fun to read.
I do like the characters in this series a lot. While neither are developed too deeply, they definitely aren’t the hand-hold-y type of couple that one usually finds in these stories, and their fights amongst themselves are a refreshing change of pace. It’s less about their relationship and more about the trouble the two of them get into, and finding their place in life and whatnot. It’s not too heavy, or romantic, but I tend to like tough-guy stories like this, and it’s very good for that.
Highly recommended! I did like the first volume better, but it’s hard to find fault with more of the same type of stories, and this volume is worth a read for Indigo Blue alone.
Ze 4
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Ze | Tags: BL Leave a comment »Yuki Shimizu – 801 Media – 2010 – 11 volumes
Yeah… this is not for me. I was hoping that the Genma/Himi story was finished as of last volume, but I forgot Waki was a doll maker and could just bring Himi back for more abuse at Genma’s hands. This storyline lasts through more than half the volume. Genma shows up to abuse Waki, then abuses Himi after he’s revived with no memories. Then abuses him some more. Somehow, Genma is the sad one in this scenario. It has a happy ending, but man. I hated reading through these parts.
Abuse and sex aside (a difficult thing, since there’s a lot of both in the story), Genma can’t come to terms with Himi’s death, so he approaches Waki and asks him to “fix” Himi, his kami-sama. Himi can’t be resurrected because his core was destroyed, but Waki promises to do it anyway if Genma just wants Himi back in any form. So of course Waki resurrects Himi without any of his memories. He also lacks his personality. Genma, who’s rude and abrupt at the best of times, can’t take this change and casts him out. Himi doesn’t understand what he’s done to upset his master. It takes all the members of the Mitou house to show Genma the error of his ways.
And yes. While it does have the outline of a touching story… uh. Genma rapes Himi a lot, and the story makes no concessions for this. It just happens.
But that story is a flashback with minor characters, and it ends. The story comes back to the present, where we’re reminded that Genma is meeting Raizou for the first time, and that all the kami-sama and kotodama-sama are converging on the Mitou mansion for kami-sama maintenance. During this event, we meet Seiji, Tsukito, and Hatsuhi.
Now, the Seiji/Tsukito/Hatsuhi story is neither a flashback nor drama-tastic, and is exactly what the series needed after that Genma business. Seiji and Tsukito are twins that make a living doing voice acting for BL drama CDs. This is revealed in the most hilarious way possible, with Seiji giving Raizou a CD of their work without telling him what it was, then Raizou listening to it all the way through with Seiji, Tsukito, and Hatsuhi filling the roles of stereotypical terrible BL characters in his mind. It’s beautiful. Seiji and Tsukito both have a light touch, and also know how best to rattle the cage of the most powerful kotodama in the house.
And later, they have a very long threesome with Hatsuhi. This was shocking only because it made me realize I’d never seen a threesome in a BL book before. How has it taken so long? Surely this is the perfect solution to a romantic triangle in a smutty book? I suppose the romantic triangle isn’t all that prevalent in BL, either.
So yes, while I did like the Seiji and Tsukito story, sitting through the rest of the Genma story was not my idea of fun. I do have the other two volumes of this series, so I’m just going to finish the English translation of it despite my feelings. I do wonder what volume five will bring, though. More Seiji and Tsukito, or a different set of side characters? Maybe more about Ouka’s family, mentioned briefly here? They seem to have a love of cosplay, and that might be a lot of fun.
On a different note, it blows my mind that this ran in Dear+ magazine. I thought that was mostly hand-hold-y vaguely BL/shoujo? So I guess lightweight series like Color and Kyudo Boys (which is totally not BL) run alongside smutfests like Ze in Dear+? Well… the more you know.
Step 1
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Step Leave a comment »Yanshu Yu – Yen Press – 2009 – 1+ volume
This is actually Chinese, which is a little fun because these so rarely make it over here. It’s also in color, and very short. It leaves off in a strange place, but given the amount of time that’s elapsed since volume 1 was published, I’m guessing volume 2 is somewhat unlikely at this point.
It’s a strange story. Each chapter is a few pages long, and contains a self-contained story about vampire hunter and supernatural menace Mr. Han and his ward, Dynasty Tang. The chapters feature various supernatural monsters, like demons and a cerberus that transforms into a boy and whatnot, and are fairly comedic in nature. There’s not really an ongoing plot.
And… I don’t really have that much to say about it. I put off writing this up for months because it made almost no impression on me. It’s a short book, at only 120 or so pages, and you either like the stories or you don’t. They weren’t really my thing. The comedy wasn’t that great, and they were fairly superficial and often felt a bit rushed, as if trying to cram as much story as possible in the short chapter length (10 pages). It’s a fun and quick read for the right audience, though, and I did like the novelty of the digital coloring. I wasn’t a big fan of the art, though, which is a little webcomic-y and not that great, and the coloring style is completely different at the beginning and the end of the book. Unfortunately, the color palette isn’t all that great either, something I’m very picky about in color comics.
Artist Spotlight: Arina Tanemura
Posted: January 21, 2012 Filed under: Artist Spotlight 2 Comments »Very rarely do we get to see a mangaka’s entire body of work in English. I can’t think of very many instances, actually. We’ve seen all of CLAMP, save for a few side projects. Rumiko Takahashi has had all her series translated into English, with the notable exception being the last 2/3rds of Urusei Yatsura. We’re missing a volume of short stories from Eiichiro Oda. We’ve seen almost all of Fumi Yoshinaga’s work, save for two one-shots and her newest series. All but the newest volume of In the Walnut may be available from Toko Kawai. So Arina Tanemura is in rare company indeed, as all her books have been translated into English at this point, save for a one-shot that came out at the end of last year in Japan.
Tanemura debuted in 1997, and has been working steadily ever since. She specializes in shoujo fantasy/romance, and her work is very much a textbook example of exactly what a shoujo manga should be. Lots of romance, action, excellent character development, a little bit of humor, unusual plot twists, and very, very pretty art.
While it’s true that her character designs are in a Ribon Magazine house style (particularly the hair and eyes), even in her very first story she uses an unusually ornate style that, while a bit stiff, was still overflowing with cute details and lacked the usual composition and flow problems young artists often have. Over the years she polished her art and made it more organic, more detailed, and now lavishes a lot of attention in particular to costumes and settings. Her books really are a feast for the eyes, and few can measure up to the insane amounts of adorable that flow off of every page.
Her work always appears in Ribon magazine, and the age range on that tends to skew slightly younger. That’s apparent in her early work, but later series become surprisingly mature, and she has a depth to her writing that makes it appeal to shoujo fans of even my age. While most of her books were published by Viz and are still in print and widely advertised, still, Tanemura is worth discussing and celebrating, and this guide can hopefully shed some light on why.
Sakura Hime 5
Posted: January 19, 2012 Filed under: Sakura Hime Leave a comment »Arina Tanemura – Viz – 2011 – 9+ volumes
Bah, I did it again. Volume 5 disappeared from my to-read stack, so when 6 came in this week, I wound up reading that one first. Sadly, I didn’t realize I had skipped a volume. To be fair, I was puzzled by the fact I didn’t remember Kohaku being in the middle of a fight, and I thought it was odd that the backstory about the ninja village would be skipped. But I still didn’t realize I missed a volume until I went to mark this off my to-read list at Librarything.
But anyway. I still love this series dearly, and I like volume five just as much as I did volume 6. It had the missing Kohaku fight, as well as all the ninja backstory you could want. Bizarrely, there is a fight with Byakuya and Maimai that is just glossed over when Byakuya uses a strange power and grows younger. But, you know, whatever. The story will probably go back to that later.
One thing that did disappoint me a little was when the realization hit that… well, we are simply working our way systematically through the backstory of all the characters as they fight while working their way up to Sakura. Knowing there’s a formula to it isn’t that fun, nor is the fact that the main story is on hold while we learn all about the bad guys and… well, why they aren’t bad guys, I guess? One of my other pet peeves is when characters are blaming themselves (and others blame them) for some catastrophic event, usually a death or the deaths of many, that turns out to not be their fault at all. And after everything is explained, and it’s clearly not the character’s fault, everyone continues on as if it is. This happens to one character each in this volume and the next. The character in this volume does appear to be forgiven as of volume six, but he still hasn’t explained himself, nor does anyone else know he’s not guilty. Whatever.
After having said that, though, I still enjoy this series immensely. I love to nitpick, but really, this is continuing to deliver some fairly solid shoujo action/fantasy, and I’m a sucker for these stories when they’re this good. The ninja fights here are interspersed with flashbacks to the days at the ninja village. We see young Hayate, Kohaku, and Shuri train with Aoba, and we also learn about their various love triangles, how Hayate was turned into a frog, and the mission that drove Shuri into the arms of Sakura’s brother. As you can imagine, tempers run high through this, since it was a childhood friend that betrayed Kohaku, and with the barest hint of romance scattered through everything… well, that makes it exciting in a way that only a shoujo manga can deliver.
There’s a 50-page bonus story in the back of the volume, called “White Rose Academy: Vampire Rose.” It’s… about what you’d expect from a shoujo one-shot, but I really loved it. Tanemura has a knack for telling this kind of girly story, and even the shameless vampire element wasn’t enough to deter me. It has an unusually passionate climax, something you wouldn’t normally see in one of her stories since she tends to write for a younger audience. That was a little different. It wasn’t anything too terribly shocking, but it was satisfying enough. And what can I say? Vampires, vampire hunters, and the supernatural are pretty safe subjects for me.
But really, the thing that got me most excited was the intro to this story, where Tanemura reveals the fact she loves reading about out-of-place artifacts. I want to read a story by her with that theme SO BADLY now.
I imagine I’ll probably write up volume 6 in the next couple days. I didn’t gush as much as I should about this volume, but really. It’s great shoujo fantasy. You usually can’t go wrong with Tanemura’s longer series, and this one is the best yet.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Wild Adapter 4
Posted: January 19, 2012 Filed under: Wild Adapter 2 Comments »Kazuya Minekura – Tokyopop – 2008 – 6+ volumes
Okay. Volume 4 and volume 6 are my favorites in the series, because they deal with Toki and Kubo directly. This volume shows what happens when Kubo disappears and Toki has to get him back. Volume 6 is about what happens when Toki disappears and Kubo has to get him back. But that one is a very violent story for another day.
Interestingly, the past two volumes have been more about side characters than the boys themselves. Volume 2 had the lover of the W.A. victim, and volume 3 was about the reporter that the boys team up with to investigate the cult. This volume’s side character is a murderer, and we see him occasionally as the story makes concessions to the fact that guilt is driving him mad, but he doesn’t really have the starring role that the other characters did. This volume is all about Kubo and Toki.
While making a “sketchy” delivery for Kou, Kubo inadvertently winds up at ground zero of a murder. Kubo was delivering drugs to a prostitute, who is killed minutes before he shows up at the door. With no record of the man the prostitute was with, the police only have Kubo on the security tape and his prints on the buzzer. They bring him in, but unwilling to compromise Kou’s business by admitting to the delivery he was making, Kubo remains silent while the police torture him into admitting he was on the scene. This situation is made worse by the fact the police know he was a former yakuza boss, and has a prior for assault.
Meanwhile, he tells Toki to stay clear of the apartment, and nothing else. Toki gets angry, and begins to suspect that Kubo’s disappearance may have something to do with Anna, a girl that tries to get in touch with Kubo right before everything goes wrong. Toki doesn’t know anything about Anna, and while trying to figure out what happened to Kubo, realizes he doesn’t really know anything at all about Kubo. But that doesn’t stop him from digging to the bottom of the mystery, and it’s Toki’s detective work, along with Anna and the reporter from last volume, that help Kubo in the end.
Kotodama, the belief that something becomes true once you say it aloud, is one of the main themes in this volume. The murderer believes he was cursed into being a “small man” by something a grade school teacher said to him when he was a child. Kou mentions that Kubo doesn’t really believe in truth, that once something is said aloud it becomes a lie. And Toki doesn’t believe in kotodama, period. I wasn’t sure what to make of all this, particularly of the point that was made along the lines of Toki being Kubo’s truth. I know that there’s a shiny surface fujoshi meaning to it, but I wasn’t entirely sure what the metaphor was trying for. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that Kubo only relies on himself because he doesn’t really believe in anything else, so Toki has to be his “truth” and pull him out of this mess? There’s a conversation with Kou that makes sense in that light. Saying it aloud here makes it sound less sensical, but the dialogue in the book itself is a little… vague itself.
There are lots of beautifully ambiguous scenes. Aside from the stuff I mentioned above, other good ones are Toki and any other character. His interaction with Anna is especially ambiguous. He seems shocked by the fact Kubo has had sex with her, and tends to dodge her questions about who he is and what he’s doing. Anna also makes Toki uncomfortable in general. There’s more dodging of inquiries into Toki and Kubo’s relationship when the reporter asks what’s up with that. Whether it’s romantic or not, the ambiguity and the strong bond between the two is one of the best things about this series.
I am literally dying for more. Minekura is very ill, and I wish her the very best in recovering from her terrible illness. Drawing this and Saiyuki seem very important to her, and Wild Adapter recently changed publishers and was reissued in a new edition, so I hope her recovery has put her in a place where she can continue, if she wishes.
xXxHolic 17
Posted: January 19, 2012 Filed under: XxXholic 3 Comments »CLAMP – Del Rey – 2011 – 19 volumes
The main story in this volume is about the Jorogumo returning to the shop and asking something of Watanuki. It requires him to leave the shop, but we learn how exactly he handles such a task when it arises. The object of the Jorogumo’s desire also parallels Watanuki’s situation in several ways. It’s an interesting story, and the premise uses one of my favorite pieces of Japanese folklore. It reminds me a lot of the beginning of the series, save for the fact that everyone speaks in riddles and it was way less fun and more sad.
There are also lots of asides about Watanuki’s life in the shop. He’s getting better about his powers, he seems relatively aware of all the various goings-on and protocols in the spirit world, he doesn’t need glasses anymore, Domeki still comes over every day to take care of him, et cetera. Basically, the gist is that his magical power is growing within the shop while time passes outside the shop.
One thing that is bothering me about this later part of the series is that everyone seems to avoid talking about any subject directly. It can be an easy dodge, such as the Jorogumo constantly declaring “You aren’t as cute as you used to be!” when Watanuki side-steps her attacks, or it may be the general feelings and themes being conveyed through song. There should be a subtle air to such things… but I’m not really feeling it in Holic. It’s a little maddening to have to sit and decipher conversations, only to realize that, no, there’s not really a deep meaning to any of it. Watanuki loves Yuuko, and will wait as long as he has to at the shop, because it’s where he can be closest to her. Other little side-steps elude me, such as the reason why it’s bad news for Himawari to come to the shop, but I’m sure a re-read of the earlier part of the series would tell me why this is.
Sigh. I’m waiting for some major plot to start up, something exciting with Domeki and Watanuki to end the series. I’m not sure where it’s going from here, but hopefully something major will get underway next volume. While I haven’t been that impressed with the recent era of shopkeeping, I still enjoy this series immensely, and am looking forward to its ending.
Mister Mistress 2
Posted: January 19, 2012 Filed under: Mister Mistress | Tags: BL 3 Comments »Rize Shinba – Deux – 2008 – 2 volumes
I am terrible. I am incredibly ashamed of how long I hunted for this volume, waiting for the price to go down, and that I wanted it so goddamn bad. I don’t even know why. It’s not that good. But I have a soft spot for silly BL, and it is very good at being funny and horribly smutty. I have no defense.
Again, the premise is that Rei is an incubus that lives in dreams and feeds off the lust generated by humans, and he’s recently latched on to Fujimaru, who is apparently the horniest teenager in Japan. Fujimaru isn’t skeevy in the usual sense, in that he’s always trying to hit on girls or oogling naughty pictures or whatever. Fujimaru is actually fairly likable, and has a silly big brother desire to set a good example and watch over his younger brother, who apparently hates his guts. Fujimaru is fairly clumsy and bad at school, but doesn’t realize these things. He’s cheerful, sociable, and well-adjusted. He just really loves to masturbate, and has dreams about good-looking girls. That’s just part of who he is. As of last volume, most of his dreams involve steamy scenarios of Rei’s creation, though again, these only take place in the dreams. Fujimaru seems in turns mildly peeved and resigned to this. Rei has also entered the real world, for some reason, and is a teacher at Fujimaru’s school. Because that’s what these books do.
There’s the usual plot here, including interference from another incubus who was apparently a girl at one time, but has been changed into a boy by a witch’s curse, and a whole storyline about how Fujimaru may have fallen in love with Rei, but is upset because Rei is an incubus and unfaithful by nature. Blah blah blah. You’re not reading the book for reasons like that, though. This is fun because Fujimaru is such a goofy, likable character, and the fact that Rei keeps appearing in his dreams for… uh, sometimes rather creative scenarios. My favorite was one where jellyfish strips come to life and slither all over Fujimaru’s body, then Rei has to help him. I couldn’t stop laughing.
I hate myself a little for liking these two books so much. It’s a little hard not to get caught up in the silly fun when you read them, so there’s something to be said for that. But I prefer an older couple for these steamier volumes, so my conscience screamed at me through every page of this.
