Sugarholic 1
July 3, 2009
This is one of those cutey Korean comics I like so much. You know the kind I’m talking about. They all have a remarkably similar art style, and are usually comedic and somehow non-dramatic romances with strong characters in relatively realistic situations. I’ve read several of these, and have yet to be disappointed by any of them.
I thought this one might break the mold a little since it featured an older heroine (she’s 20, not a high school student), but a lot of the same plot devices are in play. Jae-Gyu is kicked out of her house by her grandma for being a lazy, unemployed slob, and is sent to live with her brother in Seoul to find work and a general joie de vivre. The only other person she knows in Seoul is her best friend Hyun-Ah, who moved there with her family just before graduating from high school. Because this is a girly story, immediately upon entering the city, she has a run-in with an incredibly good-looking man and makes a quick enemy of him. Also, a former childhood friend she hasn’t seen in years is now a singing sensation and also has a crush on her. The good-looking man (Whie-Hwan) winds up coercing Jae-Gyu into a cohabitation situation by the end of the volume. Despite the fact it sounds like this runs along a tight formula, the story is actually very enjoyable, and I loved all the little twists and jokes even as I saw them coming.
The childhood friend situation is a few levels more advanced than it usually is in this type of story. The singer has been holding a torch for Jae-Gyu all these years and just doesn’t know how to tell her, where normally this type of relationship goes from animosity to friendship to awkward admiration to love. Jae-Gyu is, of course, clueless.
Whie-Hwan’s situation is the most interesting element in the story so far. He was apparently trained in a type of Thai martial art and has a deep connection to the man that taught him, who was also a world-famous fighter. His family background is mysterious and kind of scary. His father seems to have the power to send a squad of suits after him when he does things like go out with the wrong girl or refuse to stop seeing his teacher. I do want to see where that goes.
Whie-Hwan is a huge jerk at the moment, so I’m not all that excited about the forced relationship between he and Jae-Gyu at the end of the book. I suppose that’s what Jae-Gyu’s childhood friend is for, though, so I have that to look forward to. And since I’ve come clean about Whie-Hwan… I don’t like Jae-Gyu that much either, since she’s so lazy and kind of bland, but I like generic female characters in Korean comics a bit better than the typical shoujo heroine since they tend to stand up for themselves and refuse to be doormats.
So far, I like it. I like it a lot. It’s sticking close to common shoujo plot devices, but I still enjoyed the first volume quite a bit, and hopefully the plot devices are just serving as a base to build an awesome story on. Even if they aren’t, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the same type of stuff in future volumes, honestly. I can’t help it, I have a soft spot for cutie Korean comics. Like I said, they’ve yet to let me down.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press
Otomen 3
July 3, 2009
This gets better and better every time I read it. I honestly can’t tell if it’s a parody of shoujo manga or just reveling greedily and hilariously in the plot and art devices at this point. There are things that make me laugh with their over-the-top shoujo nature, but on the other hand, the plot of the series is such that these things… well, they fit really nicely, and I enjoy them for more than just the easy gag. I feel conflicted, like the series might be making fun of me somehow. I’m pretty sure all the nuances are intentional, though, and that is exactly what makes Otomen magical.
Well, those nuances and the fact that the subplot is that the best friend character is drawing a manga exactly like the one we’re reading for a magazine exactly like Betsuhana, and his characters are just the characters in Otomen with their genders switched to suit each one better. As I’ve said before, the levels of meta at work here make my head spin. “Love Chick” makes me feel a little better about liking Otomen so much, because it shows you what the series would look like without its sense of humor and parody, ie totally boring but still shoujo enough to fly.
I want to say that Juta, the manga artist, is my favorite character, since I’ve never seen anyone molest the fourth wall so thoroughly without breaking it. This volume has a chapter focused on him, and I adored it since it showed both his home situation and exactly what kind of friend to the ladies he is. I like him a lot more now, since he really does do his best to offer his friendly attentions to as many girls as possible, and both he and the girls seem to love it. His family situation is suitably nutty, and the crisis point in the story where Asuka steps in makes for an extremely awkward and hilarious exchange between Juta and Asuka at the end of the story.
There’s some slight plot development for the series as a whole, but the fact that the story has technically moved forward doesn’t mean anything significant has changed. I didn’t mind so much in this volume, since it was full of exactly the type of stories I wanted to see. The story where the plot development happens was another one I liked, where Asuka and Ryo take a trip to an amusement park. Ryo drags Asuka through all the scary and extreme rides. Asuka is too manly to complain, but the entire time he wishes they could ride the carousel and the Love-Love Cups.
A rival character for Asuka is introduced in the last chapter, and I liked him quite a bit. The boy hates Asuka because Asuka is superior to him at kendo (apparently they are the #1 and #2 ranked kendo practitioners in the country), but the two bond over a girl’s makeover and a power rangers-type live action show. Alas, they are still rivals as both otomen and kendo practitioners.
I love the art in this series, which is suitably over-the-top when it comes to flowery screentone, sparkles, blushes, and ridiculously girly decorations made by Asuka (Juta is my favorite character, but I cannot deny the appeal of Asuka in all his girly majesty). Everything looks absolutely perfect. I also like the way character’s eyes blank out when they are worried, scared, surprised, or what have you. It’s a lot more comical than other visual effects that might show the same thing, plus I’m pretty sure it’s kind of a throwback to a 70s manga technique.
Also, for the conflict I was feeling between parody and lovingly-portrayed shoujo manga… the cover is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the best cover ever. On one hand, it’s the biggest fairy tale girly stereotype image you’ll ever see, and on the other hand, it ties directly into one of the stories in the volume. I’m not sure that either of these things has much bearing on what makes it awesome, because without knowing anything about the series or the stories in the volume, I think it would still make me laugh/make me happy to look at. It makes me think that the series would still be funny if I didn’t know anything about shoujo manga or stories for girls in general. Or gender roles either, I guess, another big part of the humor.
It… it works as a loving tribute to shoujo manga with the twist of the protagonist being male. That’s just what it is, and why it works, and why it’s awesome. It’s executed perfectly in every way from that idea. There’s not a lot of plot development, but there doesn’t really need to be as long as the variations on the otomen theme keep coming up. I am officially addicted at this point.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Golgo 13 10
July 3, 2009
After reading about Takao Saito in A Drifting Life and learning that Mickey Spillane changed his life and birthed Duke Togo, I couldn’t help but follow up with a volume of Golgo 13. I’ve actually got a good balance going tonight, because Golgo 13 is one of the manliest manga I can think of, and I’m also going to write about Otomen, the girliest manga I can think of, so… you know.
Unfortunately, I was kind of disappointed with this volume. Most of the volume is taken up by a story about a nuclear power plant outside LA going through a crisis just before the Olympics. This story isn’t bad… it’s actually pretty tight, but it just wasn’t to my liking for some reason. I’m not sure why, because all the insane elements are there: the crisis starts when a political bigwig somehow has the power to override the safety inspector’s orders and open the plant when it wasn’t ready and several major repairs and tests still needed to take place. It continues when a minor crisis flushes a bunch of honored guests out of the plant, including the governor and other politicians, and in the middle of the panic, Golgo 13 randomly appears and takes a shot. It builds when the safety inspector saw Golgo 13 take his shot and finds him at a local decontamination plant and hires him by robbing a bank that had been evacuated because of the crisis. Golgo 13 is needed to snipe a pipe in order to relieve pressure needed to cause a coolant system to engage. The ending has some of the best dialogue EVER between Golgo 13 and the safety inspector.
Yeah, it’s one of those types of stories. It just keeps building on itself, but I guess I was soured on it initially because the premise of a safety inspector being overridden so abruptly was less realistic than I would expect in Golgo 13 (which sounds weird, given some of the insane things that have taken place, but still).
There’s a strange scene at the decontamination camp where a woman is being tackled in order to get her head shaved, which needs to happen because “Mr. Geiger Counter” says so. I think I found it more disturbing than it was intended to be.
The last story didn’t make much sense to either me or my roommate, but involves two assassination attempts and some Vegas mob-type stuff. I don’t really have much to say about that one, it was a simple story.
The material in the back included an interview with Takao Saito, where he mentions some things that make what characters say about him in A Drifting Life sound potentially true. Take that as you will.
Kiichi and the Magic Books 3
July 2, 2009
Oh! I forgot how much I liked this! The slow release schedule made me forget how much I liked it. I’ve got 3 and 4 here to read, and apparently the story wraps up in volume 5, which should be out… oh, now? I… need to go do something about that.
This story is one of very few that makes me happy just reading it, which is surprising given the fact the subject matter isn’t all that light in this volume. In fact, things get pretty dark. Kiichi is hunted down by librarians and researchers, and is even threatened from within his own traveling party by the birdman Saame. Most of the chapters are Kiichi stumbling into traps and people trying to take advantage of him, with Mototaro and company helping him out of his jam. That’s fine, given the variety of people that show up wishing Kiichi harm. The librarians are always a vague background threat, but the main points of contention directly related to the plot of the story (ie linked to the huge fire that happened last volume) include a lone female researcher that Kiichi helped last volume, a wily old man trader that tries to swindle the group, and a village of what appears to be blind old men that pull a pretty creepy kidnapping act.
The thing all these stories have in common is their ability to pull off a really convincing feeling of safety. Because of the relatively light nature of the story, when Kiichi runs across someone who is treating him nice, you are inclined to breathe a sigh of relief since that means he’s found a safe haven. But that’s almost never the case in this volume.
In addition to the people connected to the Book Depositories/out for personal gain, there’s also a chapter featuring monsters that escaped from books. I forgot what an incredible plot device this is, and the chapter that has gigantic cycloptic troll-like creatures melting and chasing Kiichi and Saame through the fog is pretty incredible. It always feels like a fairytale-within-a-fairytale when things like that happen, and it’s one of the best things the series has going for it.
There’s some foreshadowing for next volume, mostly about the continued trip to the next depository and how Kiichi seems to be magnifying everyone’s power. I’m definitely looking forward to it.
Mixed Vegetables 2
July 2, 2009
I’ve got a few volumes of this in my pile, so I’m embarking on a bit of a marathon over the next couple days. Hopefully this won’t wind up being like my I”s marathon, where I remember to read a volume once every couple weeks, but there are far less volumes of Mixed Vegetables than there are I”s.
I was initially quite surprised by the dark mood of this series. I didn’t pick up the first volume, but the plot explanation lets you know the premise, that Hanayu is a baker’s daughter that wants to be a sushi chef and Hayato is a sushi chef’s son that wants to be a baker, both go to a kind of specialty cooking high school. The two begin going out, hoping for the mutual benefit, but hiding the facts from one another. Apparently Hanayu felt bad and admitted that she was only dating Hayato in hopes of getting in on his family’s sushi restaurant, and even though Hayato’s motives were the same (he just wanted in on her family’s bakery), he coldly rejected her, and things are pretty awkward and hostile between the two for the first quarter volume. It’s not at all what you’d expect in a shoujo manga like this.
It mellows out after a little while, and it turns out Hayato’s horrible attitude was (apparently) to spare Hanayu’s feelings. Even more surprising, although there is very generous subtext, the two are also not an item, and not even really close to being a couple as of the end of volume two. I’m sure that will change in the very near future, but again, usually shoujo manga are a little more flirtatious than this. In fact, Hayato and Hanayu are downright abusive to one another in the friendly, comedic kind of way.
Otherwise, most of the other shoujo manga plot devices are in effect. There’s a best friend that stands up for Hanayu, a cute little brother, lots of parental expectations pinned on both Hayato and Hanayu, lots of awkward misunderstandings, and lots of sparkly friendship moments, mostly involving cooking, which is kind of the theme to this series. Surprisingly, given the title, not many vegetables are used. Honestly, not all that much sushi is prepared in this volume either, given Hanayu’s dream of becoming a sushi chef, but there is lots of baking taking place.
It’s pretty cute, and has enough twists going on to be interesting, but one volume wasn’t quite enough for me to get a feel for it. I should have more on it tomorrow.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Nightmare Inspector 8
June 30, 2009
Ooh, I love this series so much! I skipped a volume since the last time I read this, but the story’s episodic nature is very forgiving and I don’t seem to have missed out on anything. There were less “plot”-related chapters than in the last volume I read (volume 6), but the short stories this time were better. And a little worse, but the ones that were worse were still pretty okay, and the ones that were better were pretty awesome.
The best story involved a client trapping Tsukishiro in a clever dream-trap. I was a bit disappointed when things didn’t work out quite how I wanted, but that didn’t make the story any less clever. That was Tsukishiro’s only real appearance in this volume, but he comes up again maybe two other times for exquisite gags.
A couple other good stories involved a half-remembered chant from childhood and a haunting by a ghost that only the client could see, and another involving a ghost and a nightmare at an inn. The inn story had some narrative problems, but it’s hard to deny the charm of a story that involves a diagram of the human digestive system drawn on a paper screen in blood. Birthing blood. There was also an excellent story about a girl in love with an elevator operator and a nightmare where he couldn’t escape the elevator. That one was good simply because it wasn’t a nightmare situation at all, and I enjoyed the twist at the end.
Aside from the great horror stories, the other thing I like about this series is its sense of humor. There were two chapters in particular that were exploited for all the gags possible. The best one was at the end of the book, and involved Hiruko’s assistant Hifumi in an arranged marriage with a woman that looks exactly like him. Gags include things like a good chunk of the chapter devoted to Hifumi running around naked in “clothes idiots can’t see,” Hiruko trying to put himself to sleep to escape the two enjoying each other’s company, an extended power rangers-type hallucination from another character in “invisible clothes”, and other simple, yet effective gags.
Another great thing about this series is that it seems to be wrapping up in the next volume. 9 volumes seems about right for something like this with minimal plot, and I’ll probably catch up on the past volumes before reading the end. I’m just so impressed with it, since it seems like a lesser xxxHolic, but it’s not. Nightmare Inspector is its own thing, and it’s really, really great at what it does.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Shining Moon
June 30, 2009
I reviewed this for the weekly Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, so you can check out the review over there.
The Junior Escort yaoi series gets a little more interesting in this volume. Its scattered plot seems like it’s collecting itself, and also that it was scattered for a purpose. Apparently there is one more volume in the series, and I will be blown away if it manages to keep up the momentum here and finish off the story in an entertaining and sensical way.
I mention this in the review too, but the other thing that helped this volume out was the fact that the chapters were episodic, rather than being big chunks of plot like the last volumes. The shorter stories make more sense, and I actually grew to like the characters more in this volume because I wasn’t completely lost in whatever was going on with the plot.
Kingdom of the Winds 3
June 30, 2009
If I haven’t mentioned it already, the art in this series is worth talking about. It has an early 90s look to it, with soft, rounded character designs, and there is frequently a lot of care put into detailing the background and sometimes the clothing. I also like the creature/spirit design, though they aren’t really the best you’ll find. The place Kingdom of the Winds truly excels, however, is the composition of the panels, and the way composition and abstraction are used to generate mood in the volumes. It’s fantastic, and there are very few other series that can get away with the dramatic stuff used for composition here. I love it.
Of course, there’s the epic story, too. I feel like I’ve got a pretty good grasp of all the characters and plot nuances as of this volume. Since it is (I think) based on a historical novel, it’s got a lot of the same problems as Hoshin Engi. Hoshin Engi makes up for the problems (ie too many characters with too many things going on to keep track of in a manga) with humor and originality, but this one makes up for it with mood and foreshadowing. It’s harder to keep track of things in Kingdom of the Winds since the gigantic cast of characters all have different motivations and different stories and stakes in what’s going on, but I love the dark mood, and it’s not too difficult to keep the gist of things in mind. Some of the smaller details (there are still a number of footnotes comparing the story to the Korean history book and giving additional details into what’s going on) I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully get into, but it doesn’t seem that important.
This volume was mostly exposition. Aside from some excitement at the beginning where the king’s sister Seryu falls prey to spirits in the mountains and King Muhyul slays a demon in the prince’s chamber, something that is apparently extremely unadvisable, most of everything else going on are third parties getting the spirits riled up in order to attack Muhyul or delay his progress in some way. There’s also lots of foreshadowing and flashback with both Haemyung and Goeyu. To give you an idea of their situations, Haemyung (the king’s elder brother) killed himself at his father’s request some years ago, and I believe his ghost still talks and advises Goeyu, though this could be flashbacks, too. Goeyu’s bigger problem is his wife, who is a celestial being that descended to earth to be with him. She’s up to some bad things… it’s not terribly clear what, but he wants free from her love. They are currently living an isolated lifestyle in the mountains.
Silver Diamond 3
June 29, 2009
Ooh, nice! Very nice! Lots of plot is laid out here, and the vague hints that have been dropped thus far begin to shape up into what appears to be a pretty intricate fantasy plot. I’m not unhappy with anything I saw in this volume, and everything from the death of worlds to twins the polar opposite of each other to characters that appear as both heroes and villains… Silver Diamond has it all. I am so impressed. Even better, it’s definitely taking its time about setting all this up. Normally a shoujo series with this much to say would be rushed through all its exposition, but apparently the exposition will continue through volume four, and then the plot will begin to move forward. Excellent, excellent stuff.
I was a little put off at first with what seemed like a forced relationship between Chigusa and Rakan. Of all the things this series doesn’t do well, its requisite fanservice is one of them, which is truly amazing. I like to think it’s because it’s so awesome that it can’t pander to an audience. There are a lot of strange, forced scenes between Chigusa and Rakan. I then realized that these scenes were kind of bad because Chigusa doesn’t have any emotions, and that everything he was saying was supposed to sound hollow and forced, which took things to a new level of meta/awesomeness… but didn’t quite explain Rakan’s strange reactions. I remembered this during a rather nice scene between Chigusa and Rakan towards the end of the volume, and while I’m still not that big a fan of the couple, I can mostly forgive all the awkwardness between them since there are reasons in the story for it.
So… yeah, pretty much, I’m going to read volume four right now, because I want to see where else the plot goes. I’m pretty excited, because apparently the life-sucking prince now has a sanome, and is all ready to recreate the world with people of his choosing… who may or may not be misfits?… but at any rate, everyone’s about to cross dimensions to stop him. All the little sub-races and numbered people also have yet to be explained, and what has been established for, say, the Narushige tribe might turn out to be a lie too, and…
Yeah. Anyway. I’m going to go read more. Awesome stuff, this Silver Diamond.
