Yakitate!! Japan 17
Posted: March 31, 2009 Filed under: Yakitate!! Japan 1 Comment »I’m still getting used to the weird sense of humor this series has. Something tells me that when the characters are yelling and over-exaggerating things, the speech may have involved a pun in a few cases that just couldn’t be carried over. Or, at least, that makes more sense than what’s going on in some cases. There are also weird things like characters posing in the shapes of letters and things that don’t make much sense.
The curved scallions bread battle was interesting because both teams made the exact same bread. I was wondering where the battle was going, since the opponent swore to commit ritual suicide if he lost. He seemed pretty serious about it, and given the fact he had an expert on his side, I kind of figured the battle would go to the opponent. Things aren’t that simple, and I’m not sure if I liked the weird place things went at the end, but… it was not what I expected, and that’s a good thing.
The visual gag from the judge wasn’t quite as excellent as the tapir-mounted haniwa pose from the last match, but his relentless pursuit of what he wanted sort of made up for it.
The next battle is a little different. The opponent is an extremely famous and well-certified European Chef, and not only are the terms of the match in the competition completely different, the outcome of the match has a direct bearing on Kanmuri, one of the Pantasia teammates. I actually thought he was a girl until the second half of this volume. I’m not particularly sure why, since he’s sort of genderless. I guess I just figured it made sense there was a really smart girl working for the good guys.
I like it okay, but it’s not quite as addictive as the better shounen series are. Again, this may just be because the sense of humor just isn’t falling into place for me, because it’s certainly very quirky and unique, and it definitely stands out in the crowd of shounen series for its premise alone. I suspect if I read it from the beginning, I would enjoy it much more.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Black Jack 2
Posted: March 31, 2009 Filed under: Black Jack 3 Comments »It took me absolutely forever to find the hardcover version of this. Of course, it’s only available through Diamond, so you should ask your local comic shop to order it for you. Except I asked no less than six local comic shops about it and none seemed very willing to be civil to me, much less order a book. This is including the shop I go to at least a couple times a month. There was one nice guy out in the suburbs who told me when it would be in, then told me they weren’t getting it and couldn’t order it. eBay and Amazon both failed me. I finally tracked it down at scifigenre.com and had it in a matter of days. It pains me when stuff like that happens when I try so hard to support the series in comic shops, but really, how hard do I have to try to give someone my business?
There were two stories that stood out. One assured me that Tezuka realizes how ridiculous his stories get sometimes. An earthquake snaps the tip of a needle off in a man’s bloodstream, and Black Jack carves the man up in a desperate race to get the tip before it lodges itself in the man’s heart. It’s ridiculously over-the-top and melodramatic, and it reassured me about what lies behind the relatively straight face this series keeps. It also has a ridiculous ending to go along with it.
The other story that stood out was one about how one of Black Jack’s classmates gave him a skin graft for his face when he was very young. The only classmate who was willing to help young Kuro’o happened to be black, and after some misgivings from some of the doctors, they graft the skin to his face and save his life. Kuro’o's gratitude is such that he never has his face changed. Notably, the black classmate wasn’t an appalling racial caricature. I’ve read… I don’t know, 50 or 60 volumes of Tezuka’s manga, and this is the only time I can think of where that happened, which is really sad. Keeping his face as it was after his accident meant a lot to Black Jack since this friend was the only one who was willing to save his life. The message is one of racial tolerance, of course, and it works a lot better here than it does in Ode to Kirihito, where the caricatures are present. The chapter ends with the friend becoming an extreme environmentalist, a “doctor for the world,” who winds up losing his life in some sort of terrorist action to save the Earth. It is this point that the story leaves us to ponder.
I wasn’t sure what to think of that chapter, honestly.
Notably, even before this operation, while he’s being cared for right after his accident, he has his two-tone hair. I still want an explanation for this, now that I know there’s a reason half his face is black (but is never toned as such, and is usually illustrated in color as blue for some reason).
Pinoko still figures prominently in Black Jack’s life. She scares the living daylights out of me. She’s a little tumor robot girl who jealously guards Black Jack from EVERYTHING. It’s weird. There’s no other manga… couple like them. Are they a couple? Pinoko thinks so. Black Jack seems to take a fatherly approach to her, except sometimes the two of them seem to bond… not on a romantic level, but on a very friendly level. Pinoko is quite troubling.
The bonus story that was taken out of the original Japanese edition… well, it’s easier to see why people would think it was in poor taste. In it, a set of sextuplets dies one by one, with the only really healthy baby rife with horrible birth defects and deformities. Black Jack cannibalizes the dead babies onto the healthiest baby’s body. Yeah.
Actually, I’m not sure what to think of a lot of these stories.
Nephilim 2
Posted: March 31, 2009 Filed under: Nephilim 1 Comment »I couldn’t tell you a single thing about volume one of this series save for the fact I remember I really, really disliked it. Reading volume two was like starting at a clean slate (especially since events at the end of volume one took the main character out of commission for awhile), but I think the series turns into something completely different here.
It’s still only a mediocre series. Here, the nephilim from last volume is looking for the main character. After getting himself involved in a couple situations, he runs into an organization dedicated to freeing nephilim out of various situations (like enslavement, working in a brothel, et cetera). It provides a bit of structure to the series, though it’s kind of weird that the plot has taken this direction.
The main character from last volume, Guy, is just doing a lot of weird things here. He acts rather forward with the nephilim that has been tracking him down for over a year, but then he gets caught in bed with a woman who is part of the organization. He’s quite protective of the nephilim, but it’s also clear he’s got feelings for the woman, too. Weirdly, this situation lacks drama, though the nephilim does get pretty worked up about it.
Apparently there is a third volume of this series. I wonder if we’ll get to see it. The story definitely improved this volume, so maybe things will continue to improve each time. I have to admit, I do want to see Guy get himself out of the situation he wound up in at the end of the volume here.
Jyu-Oh-Sei 1
Posted: March 30, 2009 Filed under: Jyu-Oh-Sei 3 Comments »I usually don’t go for sci-fi, but I felt like I should probably support this series. It’s hard for me to pass up shoujo series for an older audience like this (or, at least, it seems like it’s for an older audience, the subject matter is a bit more mature, though the main characters are 12 or something). I was a little surprised when I learned the history of this series. Apparently it’s five volumes, with the complete edition that’s being published by Tokyopop clocking in at three volumes. The gap between volume 1 and volume 5 was… ten years? I was a bit taken aback by the retro art in the first volume of this. I assumed it was a contemporary series because of the anime a few years back.
I was pleasantly surprised by the plot, too. As I said, I tend to hate sci-fi, but this one drops a pair of twins off on a death planet after a political opponent murders their parents. The planet is biologically set up to kill anyone on it, with 180 days of daylight with blistering hot temperatures, 180 days of winter with subzero temperatures, man-eating vegetation, and a population of cutthroat convicts. Among the convicts and the native residents, there is an interesting society on the planet that the main character, Thor, sort of taps into in his attempt to escape the planet and figure out his parent’s death. He’s got a long way to go ahead of him, but a lot of the connections he makes in this volume are pretty interesting.
The politics on Kimaera are probably the biggest attraction for me so far. The races are broken down into separate “rings,” or cities on the planet, and from there, a select few get to winter in each ring’s fort. There’s a society of children that are offspring of the convicts that raise themselves in the deadly jungle, there’s separate rings for the few women, there’s lots of etiquette about the tops of the rings and what to do and not to do around women and authority figures. As tedious as some of this sounds, the series goes into a fascinating amount of detail.
The only thing I actually didn’t like about it was the whiny kid factor when Rai and Thor were together at the beginning of the book. Rai couldn’t take care of himself and complained a lot. This sort of set things up for Thor’s change of heart about Rai, and Rai’s departure, so it was necessary whining.
This volume was mostly exposition, but I’m already looking forward to the next, where Thor will likely continue to climb the ranks on the planet, we’ll get to see winter, more information will be revealed about what Kimaera is actually used for (there is a prison planet, so a death sentence planet like this one doesn’t make much sense), we’ll get to see the intentions of a few dark horse characters, and I’m sure Rai will put in a surprise visit as well. It’s an extremely well-constructed story, and I’m looking forward to where it goes in five volumes.
Basara 27
Posted: March 30, 2009 Filed under: Basara 13 Comments »So, the main thing about this volume is WHY ARE SHURI AND SARASA NOT LIVING IN JAPAN?! I understand the whole “spreading the culture” thing, but… they fought to get it to where it is today, then promptly left the country on a trip and stayed out. What?!
The best story was probably the first, about Shuri and Sarasa. It takes place immediately after the final battles, and shows some of the demons the two of them wrestle with. Shuri is particularly depressed after the battles concludes, and both of them still have a certain degree of mistrust between them, though they also still love each other quite passionately. While working out their issues, they go to China and help to sort out the political situation there. All in a day’s work, but it was amazing to see the two of them working as a team again. They’re both such good characters, and have changed so much over the course of the story.
Most of the middle of the volume is filled with shorter stories, dealing with the lives of the owls, tying up some loose ends for most of the characters, one about Tamon winning the Genbu sword, and one dealing with the life of the captain of the guard in Kyoto.
There’s another long story at the end about Hayato, set ten or so years in the future and with the Japanese government in upheval again. I was a little less impressed with this story because it didn’t really surprise me in any way. It was kind of a nice, non-fanservice-y ten years later chapter, though. Usually every character in the series shows up for those, but this one doesn’t really have that weakness.
The last story has Shuri and Sarasa set in modern times. It was subtle, and I loved it. That was a fine way to leave things for the series.
This series does not disappoint in any way, shape, or form. Aside from the awesome plot and strong character development, it just has so many twists and turns that leave the reader completely stumped and wowed along the way. Asagi is probably the best example of this. He was just a dark horse all the way through, and I’ve never seen another character used as well as he was. The romance was amazing, and even aside from that, this was one of the only series with a romance I was interested in that had an amazing plot, to boot. Usually one suffers in favor of the other in cases like this. Plus, Tamura is still one of my favorite artists ever, and while it seems her art is not to everyone’s liking, I think the series looks quite amazing.
It was worth every penny and all the trouble I took tracking it down. What a wonderful series.
Yakitate!! Japan 16
Posted: March 30, 2009 Filed under: Yakitate!! Japan 1 Comment »The sense of humor in this series is… weird. Very weird. I think a lot of it might be puns and jokes that don’t translate well, or I may just not get it, but there is some bizarre stuff going on in this series. Notably though, it went through all the trouble of finally explaining that the visual gag that has driven me crazy all these years (the gag where people have three holes on their face instead of features and have their arms positioned as if in a run… or the gyroids in the Animal Crossing games) is an allusion to haniwa statues, and it even talks about the area that’s famous for them and everything. I had a haniwa joke overload in the first half of the book.
It appears that the characters are embroiled in a bread baking competition where they need to make breads to bring out the flavor of localities chosen at random. The first area in this book is famous for mangoes and haniwa, and the second area is famous for… curves, I think. Most of the story in this book deals with the first city, though. There’s a chapter or so of aftermath from the last battle to build up the opponents, then a couple chapters where the bread is researched and strengths and weaknesses are discussed, a couple chapters dealing with the competition and its aftermath, a chapter about Kazuma’s grandpa and the flour he’s excited about sending Kazuma, and a couple chapters at the end about the preliminaries about the next battle.
Apparently every stage of the competition is judged by the same person, and his reactions are all conveyed in puns. The actual pun reaction in this volume isn’t a bad English pun (the bread is more than it “Tapirs” to be, where he’s riding a tapir around… hats off for coming up with a good pun for a tapir), but his second reaction is less a pun and more of a visual gag. There are a lot of visual gags in this series. Thinking about it, it’s not so much that the puns don’t translate, because great lengths are gone to in order to make the puns work in English, which is impressive… I think it’s just that I didn’t get the sense of humor. And there’s a TON of humor, to the point where if it’s not something you’re into, it’s not likely you’ll enjoy the series. A lot of extreme character reactions, weird faces, things going on that are opposite what you would expect… stuff like that. None of it falls flat, exactly, it’s just kind of quirky, and you’re not sure if they’re making a joke or not. It’s just kind of weird.
I do have another volume of this, so I plan to read a little more, if only to see that judge react with puns again. I have to admit that’s kind of cool. The rest of the series is just weirdness though, and I have to see if it’s something I can get used to.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
High School Debut 8
Posted: March 26, 2009 Filed under: High School Debut 8 Comments »Here’s another one of the high school romances from Viz. I think the reason I didn’t initially pick any of these up was because the stories all ran together and they sort of came out at the same time. But another good reason is that I probably knew somewhere, in the back of my mind, that I would secretly like all of them, and I really read too many series as it is.
I was under the impression that this series was more of a straight high school romance than, say, something like Beauty Pop (about the stylists) or Hana Kimi (which has the sports elements). I was right, since the initial plot of the series was mostly just about Yoh teaching Haruna how to blend in at high school better with the inevitable romance following.
I was actually quite put off by the beginning of the volume, which started out with a handful of admirers of both Yoh and Haruna following the latter around, and an accidental kiss happening as a result. Not only was the kiss itself totally unbelievable, Haruna’s reaction was totally out-of-proportion, and it drove me crazy waiting for the issue to be resolved (and I’m glad it was, I was a little worried it would drag out and become a huge drama point). Yoh’s solution to the problem was probably worth sitting through the story though, it was actually kind of clever. Unfortunately, it did leave me with an unpleasant impression of Haruna.
The second story was much better. It was about Yoh agonizing over what to get Haruna for her birthday. Initially he agonizes because she tells him to get her “whatever,” with no hints. Then he agonizes because the things that Haruna tells him she wants are really embarassing. The eventual birthday date was totally awesome and understated though. Usually these things are fancy and elaborate, but it worked out how you can imagine it might between two high school students, and the end of the volume was quite touching.
Yoh really makes things work for me. He’s quite devoted to Haruna, doesn’t have an over-the-top personality, and I really enjoyed the fact that their relationship seemed totally stable and they were always on the same wavelength. It’s rare to see a series with a steady couple, so I feel like I could really get into this.
So yeah. Unfortunately, I found another one I’m going back to the beginning of and consuming as fast as I possibly can. I just can’t resist this type of thing, and High School Debut is certainly far above average in the high school romance category.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Girl Who Runs Through Time 2
Posted: March 25, 2009 Filed under: Girl Who Runs Through Time 6 Comments »Oddly, I had a hard time getting ahold of this volume. It’s been too long between the first and second volumes, because I’ve sort of lost the plot of the story other than the obvious theme of the girl being able to time travel. I remember the first volume being quite good though, and I was a little disappointed to see that the story wasn’t going to be developed past this volume since it comes to a close here.
Kazuko’s time travel abilities continue to be a mystery, but she uses them to help her friend get through a bad break-up in the first chapter (I didn’t quite understand why she had to jump back through time to do this, but her time-stop at the end was understandable). Later, the love triangle between Kazuko, Goro, and Kazuo gets some more focus, and some mysterious jump forward abilities that don’t belong to Kazuko are revealed.
The climax of the series is pretty great, though I can’t say I was all that happy with the conclusion. A crisis that will injure either Goro, who finally admits his feelings in a picture-perfect moment, or Kazuo plays out, and the time travel abilities seem to injure one or the other. Kazuko attempts to go back to what she assumes is the source of all her time-travel problems, but then all is revealed. The conclusion is only disappointing because one of the romantic interests is totally eliminated, and rather than getting together with the other, who is very sincere and a more normal match, it’s implied that Kazuko will wait for the other boy to sort things out. It’s a little weird.
All in all though, this is really a pretty good 2-volume series. It’s subtle and does some interesting and understated things with its time travel theme. I think it’s based on another property (novel, movie, anime, I’m not sure), and I imagine it making a better movie or drama series than it does a manga, but it’s really quite a good story for being an adaptation.
Beauty Pop 10
Posted: March 25, 2009 Filed under: Beauty Pop 7 Comments »Unfortunately, this is one of those series that was hard to jump into because it has a ton of characters and things are a bit hard to sort out. Plus, this was the final volume, so the story was wrapping up and it’s definitely not a place for a new reader to start.
I’ve wanted to read this series for awhile now, though. It has novelty in its concept in the same way that V.B. Rose, a series about a girl that makes wedding dresses, does. In this case, Kiri is a gifted hair stylist, and she’s drawn into a group of three boys who are really popular around school for their ability to do spot makeovers to random girls. It’s an unusual theme, to be sure.
Apparently in this volume, Kiri has joined up with the three boys (who call themselves the “Scissors Project”) along with a few other random characters in order to enter into some sort of stylist tournament. Apparently they need to win in order to save Kiri’s house (?). Their team is sabotaged both at the contest and at an individual level when Kiri apparently has her special scissors stolen by a boy she knows (?).
Mysteriously, when all is said and done, Kiri moves away, which allows for drama between her and Narumi. Narumi apparently likes her but never told her. In fact, the pair seems to be of the type that are constantly yelling at one another comically but are clearly in love. I don’t actually like this type of romance that much, especially since Kiri seems like kind of a chilly match for the boy. But there you go.
There’s a great “ten years later”-type scene at the end. I always love these, even when I have no idea what’s going on.
I feel like I should point out that there is a page of really cute stickers in the front of the book, something I haven’t seen before in other Shojo Beat manga (or any other manga, for that matter). It made me want to get the rest of the series that much more.
I’ll likely go back to the beginning, even knowing full well I probably won’t enjoy the couple. The series seemed much more focused on the styling elements and friendship than romance though, which might be interesting. It’s not something I feel compelled to rush out and buy, but I’ll probably go back for it eventually, especially since it’s only 10 volumes long. That’s pretty short for a shoujo series.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Apothecarius Argentum 7
Posted: March 25, 2009 Filed under: Apothecarius Argentum Leave a comment »I reviewed this for the Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, so you can check it out over there.
But really, if you take anything at all away from this site, know that I love this series unconditionally. Even when I have to wait months and months for a volume where Argent and Primula don’t see or even think much about each other, I still love every page. It’s a subtle story, a great fantasy series, and a great romance. Things develop slowly, and a lot of the exposition is starting to pay off in the form of an oncoming war that looks to involve all the characters we’ve met so far.
I’m dying to get to some of the good parts I’ve seen in Princess Gold.
