ION
Posted: June 6, 2008 Filed under: ION 15 Comments »Hm. I don’t know how I feel about Arina Tanemura other than she writes the most boring sidebar material on God’s Green Earth, which sometimes contrasts unpleasantly with things like Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. Tanemura is VERY popular. I’ll give her all the credit she deserves and more for KKJ, but thinking about the end of Full Moon still makes me angry, especially since I loved the beginning to bits. Full Moon scared me off her new series, which I heard wasn’t that good, but I thought I would try her shorter works, seeing as how they were first and KKJ was her first long series.
Well, the story in this volume is definitely a rookie effort, but it’s still pretty fun. It’s basically just a cute little Ribon-style high school romance with some psychic powers thrown in. The main female character is actually kind of strong-minded, which is refreshing. Of course she falls for the brainy kid who finds a way to unleash her latent psychic ability, and after several short episodes where Ion saves the day with her powers, the question comes up as to whether the boy likes Ion for herself or her psychic powers. There’s a rival love interest that Ion has no interest in. He was actually really annoying, but I was rooting for him anyway, he had a bit more personality than the main boy.
I really liked the way Ion’s powers were unleashed, which was always done by chanting her name as I-O-N. I’m not too big a fan of psychic power, but it was hard not to get caught up in the cute stuff in this volume.
The story and romance isn’t really all that exciting or original, and it just feels very rough and unpolished, which is understandable given that this is her first work. It’s a pretty good first try though, and is pretty enjoyable and fun in a shallow way. It brought my opinion of her up a little bit, but I still have to come a long way in order to forgive her the ending to Full Moon.
[...] vol. 1 of Hotel Africa at Prospero’s Manga. Connie checks out vol. 12 of Hikaru no Go and ION at Slightly Biased Maga. Matthew J. Brady goes on a manga binge at Warren Peace Sings the Blues, [...]
Off-topic, but…HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! ^_^
Thanks! I really appreciate it ^_^
You should give tanemura another try. Her Firecracker Is Melancholy (out in August; 1 volume in length) is pretty much the same quality as ION, since they were written about the same time. Her Time Stranger (out this month; the first of three volumes) is a magical girl manga like Kamikaze, but was no where as good, it was written before Kamikaze.. But it it had cute characters (too many) with cute background stories. While Full Moon had references to the little mermaid, the Gentleman’s Alliance had several references to Cinderella. It also has cameos of Jonathon and Mitsuki (in the background art) somewhere with in the series (can’t remember where) and one of the characters is related to Kamikaze’s Kagura (though this is never revealed or explored in the actual manga). Oh, and there’s a cross-dresser in volume 2 that becomes a semi-important character. And despite its length (11-12 volumes) there is never a volume were nothing happens and has a great cast of colorful characters. I really recommend it!
I’d heard some pretty negative things about Time Stranger Kyoko (the one that sticks in my mind was that it sounded like it ended early), but the premise sounds good. I’d also heard some mixed reactions to Gentleman’s Alliance, but I’ll probably give it a try anyway, because it sounds like something I could really get into. I was definitely going to pick up Firecracker is Melancholy because her early work seems to my liking. Thanks for the recommendations though, I really appreciate it. I hadn’t heard much about Firecracker is Melancholy, so it’s good to hear at least one endorsement.
I thought Time Stranger Kyoko came after Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and before Full Moon, but you may be right, it seems odd that she’d have a series cut off in between two really popular ones, it would make more sense if it came first.
Oh yeah, Time Stranger Kyoko (that’s name always reminds me of Skip Beat and Fruits Basket) DID come after KKJ (you can tell it’s been a few years since i read them). But yeah, I really liked The Gentlemen’s Alliance, not so much as for the main character, she was cute enough, but for the awesome secondary character’s like a the student council and (doesn’t want to spoil anything) her family history.
I’m getting ready to start Gentlemen’s Alliance, I’m kind of excited about it after finishing Time Stranger Kyoko. I just finished that one, and liked the ending a lot even though it was a little rushed. I’ve liked enough of what I read of Arina Tanemura that I’ll probably keep buying her series forever.
You mentioned her newest series in another entry, is it called Nocturne? When did that one start?
Nocturne is a oneshot that came out in a later volume of the Gentleman’s Alliance. It’s about a romance between a model and her school teacher. Yoshiki Nakamura (Skip Beat, Tokyo Crazy Paradise) did a oneshot called Dramatic Love Album that was ALSO about a model and her relationship with her teacher. They were both good and it was fun to see how different they came out.
Arina just finished a three chapter (one volume) series called Mistress Fortune that was really bad, but it’s bound have oneshots or sidestories in the volume with it, so I’m bound to buy it anyway . . .
Also, she just stared a new series called Sakura Hime Kaden (Gaiden) that didn’t really impress me. But new chapter are starting to pick up the story and make it more interesting. So i’m going to wait and see how it develops before I judge it. It’s a another magical girl manga, by the way.
Still, you’ll really like the Gentleman’s Alliance. It really goes into the lives (or rather loves, as is mandatory in a shoujo manga) of all the interesting little characters. The pretty Viz volumes are taking to long to come out!
By the way, i know you have more than enough to read (your list makes me dizzy!) but i really thought to recommend an author to you (man, i’m crazy aren’t I?) Minari Endoh is really good. Her Hatenkou Yuugi is very good (though it had a slow start). The anime was pretty bad though. Her Maria Holic is good too. Her crack-ish manga is too much fun, and i had to recommend it.
Thanks for all that info. I’m pretty bad at keeping up with new series by artists I like coming out in Japan. It just occurred to me that I’m not entirely sure what Kaori Yuki is up to right now, too. Ningyo Kyutei Gakudan?
And I’m always open to suggestions. I think Hatenkou Yuugi is published in the US as Dazzle, right? That one was definitely not on my radar, but I may check out the first few volumes next time I see a Tokyopop sale. I’m always up for a super-addictive series.
And I do like reading different takes on the same idea. The one that I always think of is the anomaly of Ouran High School Host Club vs. My Heavenly Hockey Club. They have A LOT in common, but they started around the same time, and while it seems that Hockey Club is a parody of Host Club, sometimes Hockey Club uses story ideas first, before they appear in Host Club. It’s really weird. But they’re completely different series, and both are really great for their own reasons.
Yeah, i really liked both Heavenly HC and Ouran HSHC. The only difference (according to my mother) is that Heavely HC continues on the same track for all eternity, while Host Club includes *shocker* CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!!! lol I don’t honestly know since I’m not up to date on what’s out in Japan, but I am interest on how both those stories turn out. The Wallflower is another good manga in the parody genre (though it’s like eroica, it never ends; you’re there for the ride, not the destination)
Kaori Yuki is doing that (achingly slow Ningyo Kyutei Gakudan), but she’s a mom, so it’s expected that family would come first. (she had a son in 01, i think) Still, it’s pretty interesting, I’m still waiting to see what will happen there.
Unfortunatly, I have to wait for scanlations (which is ok, cause i always buy the manga when it comes out the in US) since i can’t read Japanese and it’s way too expensive to learn it in the colleges in my area. So i can’t say too much about it either.
Yeah, the going-nowhereness of Wallflower kind of scared me off.
I am kind of bummed that Hockey Club doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, it was actually my favorite by a wide margin when I started reading the two series. Host Club didn’t really hook me until around volume 5, and a lot of the character development happens after some really silly parody stuff that put me off in the first few volumes.
I do remember Yuki Kaori mentioning the birth of her son while I was reading the asides in Fairy Cube. I really didn’t like that series, but I can see how becoming a mom might put your mind elsewhere. I was wondering if she’d come back strong after she settled into a new life, but it always seems like drawing manga leaves little time for anything else in your life. I do wonder how many women drawing comics also have families.
Most mangaka are unmarried for life. And when they DO get married, they aren’t always happy. Gosho Aoyama (Detective Conan) divorced after a marriage that lasted no longer than 5 year, and Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakasho’s creators are married with a little boy, but it seems that he is dying (or at least that fan theory for why he can’t seem to stay out of the hospital). It’s kind of lesson: if you wanted marital and familial bliss, don’t go into manga.
Yeah, the only instance I could think of where a mangaka mentioned being married and having a family is Akira Toriyama. All the other instances I could think of, the person retired to start a family. Well, I guess Miwa Ueda came back and is working on Papillon. I haven’t read that one yet, I was pretty disappointed by the Peach Girl sequel she was working on just before she had her kid.
I’ve read Papillon. My mom likes it, but I think it’s so-so. Akira Toriyama is married? I guess that explains why he’s not publishing manga . . . Sakura Hime Kaden has proved really disappointing, but I’ll be reading it to the end, since Arina can do a good ending when she makes up her mind to.
Speaking of married manga-ka, Kaori Yuki may be publishing very slowly, but her stuff seems to only be getting better. Ningyou Kyuutei Gakudan is licensed for next year. Now that it’s about 13 chapters in, it’s really started to show off its potential. I know Kaori Yuki can work miracles and the last thing did (Camelot Garden) shows that she has the talent to pull it off, so my expectations are getting pretty high. Zombies, creepy dolls, and psychopaths oh my!
Akira Toriyama is married, though I’m not sure that’s the reason he stopped drawing manga. I’m pretty sure he was married before the start of Dragon Ball, and he may have had two children during the run of that series, though my memory’s a little foggy on that point. They’d both be adults by now. He may have just been more-or-less permanently burned out by manga after the end of Dragon Ball, save for the few one-shot volumes he’s had since then. That’s a shame.
I started reading Papillon… I like it okay, though by the end of volume two the series seems to have taken a rather unfortunate turn from being about improving the main character to a teacher-student relationship. I’ll keep reading.
I’m pretty excited about Grand Guignol Orchestra. It sounds pretty amazing, and it’s been a year or so since the last time I’ve read anything by Kaori Yuki. I keep forgetting I’ve still got Godchild to read. I did like the Cain Saga, so I’ll have to read Godchild before the new one starts coming out. I’m still holding out for some of her earlier volumes, too, though I wonder if there’s some reason that they aren’t released here. Viz doesn’t seem to be shy about releasing her other series.