It’s Yakitate!! Japan 18
Posted: July 14, 2009 Filed under: Yakitate!! Japan 1 Comment »Takashi Hashiguchi – Viz – 2009 – 26 volumes
I’m just saying. That’s what the volume is called.
Anyway, I continue to be addicted to and mildly put off by the weirdness in this series. Again, I have to tip my hat to the “reactions” when people eat something they like, which somehow get better and better and have even spread to other characters in this volume. They’re easily the best part of this series, and go to such great lengths to come 100% out of left field. For instance, here the best reaction was a gigantic two-page spread of a crowd scene containing a number of Kosaku Shima with different titles. Other reactions drastically change the art, the names, and one was a gag I thoroughly loved where Kuroyanagi plunged his face into burning jam to make it swell up and look like Jam Ojisan from Anpanman (I have no idea how I remembered that Anpanman existed just now, but whatever).
On the other hand, the humor is heavily based on Japanese culture, and I always feel like I’m missing out on something with the jokes. The two examples above are great, because the jokes both hinge on really famous manga series that I’ve barely heard of. There’s an excellent joke with a turtle, but I suspect it’s parodying a Japanese cola ad. The opponent at the end of the volume is a Japanese celebrity… who passed away and whose likeness is still used for selling nori? He’s drawn in an exaggerated caricature, which is awesome, but again, a joke I’m sure I’m not getting the full impact of. A lot of the humor is based on puns, too, which… is just hard to pull off in translation. When they do work, they’re brilliant, but for the most part, you have to kind of scratch your head and wonder at a few of the jokes. Of course, there’s also the possibility that the jokes are just weird in Japanese, too. I didn’t make the Anpanman connection until I was writing this review, but even knowing what the characters were talking about, the joke still doesn’t make much sense aside from the weirdness/hilarity factor in Kuroyanagi’s face. And the weirdness/hilarity factor was high indeed with that joke.
Some of the humor isn’t based so much on culture. There’s a great gag about Matsushiro becoming a Yakuza boss, and that works fine because that’s just what he is, and it’s even better that nobody seems to care but him. The joke where the drawing style shifts at the end of the volume is good (though the reason/pun doesn’t make much sense), as is the gag that ties in to the changed title for this volume. The turtle joke is also good, if only because one character says something along the lines of “Why am I supposed to be surprised by this turtle walking by? Actually, now I’m more interested since he’s standing bipedally…” and then everyone strikes a pose for a full-page ad-looking illustration. For no real reason. Awesome, but weird.
There’s plenty to like, and I’m definitely going to keep reading. It’s funny, and the humor goes to greater lengths than any other manga series I’ve seen, even from my beloved Ai Morinaga. I respect it for that, and I love that these energies are being used in a manga about baking bread rather than anything normal. The weirdness factor is a little high, and like I said, I’m pretty sure the original has its share of unattributed weirdness, but I suspect that goes through the roof when the cultural contexts for the jokes are missing. It still works, but it’s just… really, really weird.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Bride of the Water God 3
Posted: July 14, 2009 Filed under: Bride of the Water God 3 Comments »Mi-Kyung Yun – Dark Horse – 2009 – 9+ volumes – Korean
Honestly, I didn’t think this volume would ever come out, but I’m absolutely tickled that it did. I like this series despite the fact that the majority of the small details were lost on me in the first two volumes. And it is very, very pretty.
My problems with not really knowing who the side characters were and the bad sense of place and time mostly didn’t apply to this volume. I was a little worried after not reading the series for so long that any plot details I may have once known would have left me and absolutely nothing would make sense, but the plot takes a turn and narrows quite a bit in this volume, and I wound up getting a lot more out of it than I did from the first two combined. Part of this is because the setting completely changes after the first third of the book, and it’s easier for me to understand who the characters are and what is happening to Soah here than it was among the Gods, who all look kind of similar, speak with carefully veiled speech, and who have hidden intentions.
The plot also becomes a lot more about the melodrama between Soah and Mui/Habaek and less abut Soah fitting in. In fact, Habaek’s feelings towards Soah become a little more apparent, and there are some touching displays of fondness and loyalty from him. There’s a misunderstanding between the two at the beginning of the book, but Soah’s memory is wiped, so I wonder if it’ll have an impact on the later plot.
I’m happy to see that Dark Horse decided to continue this series, though. It’s quite pretty, and it looks like things are just starting to get good.
Pluto 4
Posted: July 13, 2009 Filed under: Pluto 3 Comments »Naoki Urasawa – Viz – 2009 – 8 volumes
I love it. Professor Tenma appears on the cover of the volume, but isn’t mentioned until almost the end, and his face isn’t shown until the very last page. Even better, it seems he has a massive role to play in the overall plot. At least some of Atom’s origin story is intact in Pluto, we see brief flashes here of Tenma’s memory (his son Tobio’s death, Atom being activated). One wonders if the whole “I got disgusted, so I sold him to the circus” element will come up. Or can we just… you know, ignore that odd bit of continuity? It would probably be for the best. On the other hand (feel free to skip this geek moment), Hamegg makes for a delightful evil ringmaster, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Urasawa draw him.
At the beginning of the volume, we meet up with Ochanomizu again in a rather nice story where we see compassion for older, less important robots. But nice things don’t last in this story, even little Aibo-looking bots, and the main plot sneaks in when we (presumably) meet the assassin that’s been taking out the Bora group of scientists. Dirty tricks are used, and Ochanomizu’s grandson and robot dog Bobby are threatened. Uran and Atom go to his rescue.
And then something… rather unexpected happens. Something that you just can’t believe in this type of story, because it breaks things. In the original Astro Boy… this never would have happened, and didn’t (well, not like this, anyway). I’m left speechless after this particular plot twist, because not only can I not imagine the end of the story now, it’s just horrible and sad. I can’t say much more than that.
Elsewhere, Gesicht is sent to guard that anti-robot radical that has been trying to kill him. This is kind of an uncomfortable twist, but we learn that the former king of Persia, Darius XIV, is literally insane. This is also very uncomfortable and somehow frightening, and it remains to be seen how it will tie into the plot.
We also learn of the three great robot master scientists, one of which kicks the bucket here, introducing Epsilon, the last of the Seven Great Robots. One of the three is, if you hadn’t guessed already, Professor Tenma, a rather evil dude who perfected robot AI, yet insists in order for the AI to be perfect, failsafes regarding the inability to kill humans have to be removed and negative emotions like hate, despair, and anger have to be put in their place.
It’s also suggested that he may be behind everything, which is strange because… Professor Tenma isn’t really evil, just moody and depressed. I suspect allegations against him here will either later be proven false or explained further.
In any case, this is still one epic ride, and I was shocked and disappointed when I tore through the volume so fast. Some of the pieces aren’t fitting together quite right for me (like the finer details about the history of the war, and the identities of people like Goji and the guy he pals around with, and the teddy bear, if anything has been said about that). A few things clicked into place during this volume, but I’m actually very much looking forward to re-reading the entire series just to digest finer points of story I may be missing between volumes or just passing over as I tear through for maximum enjoyment. There’s a lot to digest here, and it’s one of the few series I don’t begrudge the necessity of a second reading. Everything about Pluto is just worth it.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
My Heavenly Hockey Club 8
Posted: July 13, 2009 Filed under: My Heavenly Hockey Club 2 Comments »Ai Morinaga – Del Rey – 2009 – 12+ volumes
I reviewed this volume for this week’s Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, so check out the review over there.
It’s still funny, and I didn’t even notice the plot wasn’t going anywhere in this volume (but I couldn’t help but notice the horrible teaser pages in the back, which make it look like something exciting happens next time). One thing I always fail to mention when I talk about this series, though, is the food. That’s actually the main theme of the series (hockey is mentioned all of one time in this volume), and it’s quite good at spotlighting different types of Japanese regional delicacies. I learn more about Japanese food from this series and its end notes than I ever will from Oishinbo, which is both sad and amazing.
Iron Wok Jan 24
Posted: July 13, 2009 Filed under: Iron Wok Jan 1 Comment »The most notable thing about this volume is a gaiden-type story in the back about Kaiichiro and Mutsuju being jerks in China sometime during Japanese occupation. They both more or less have the same attitudes as Jan, something I wouldn’t have expected of Mutsuju (the current owner of the Gobancho restaurant), but I liked seeing the story about when he and Jan’s grandpa were friends. Of course, they accidentally do good deed during the course of their cooking studies, something that would never happen to Jan, so maybe I overestimate their evil. Hilariously, they run into Oitani and his father, and Oitani was a really bratty babydoll-looking youth.
Otherwise, the only other things going on in the main storyline are the slaughter of the ostriches and the very, very early prelim stages of the final round of the cooking competition. This will be a slow one, folks.
Actually, two other awesome things happen, things that keep me reading and very, very interested despite the slow pace and repetitive nature of the competitions. One is a horrible, horrible joke that Ransei Koh makes at the end of the volume for no reason about teeth. It’s like the type of joke that’s supposed to be a pun, but isn’t. I can’t say if it’s a bad translation making it fall flatter (Iron Wok Jan doesn’t have the best or most consistent adaptation), but I’m willing to bet that it was that horrible in the original too, and I love it a little more because of it.
The other is the extreme way that everyone kills their ostriches, but especially Jan. Kiriko’s method is purposeful and relatively straightforward (aside from the fact she’s using a meat cleaver to decpaitate them), Koh’s method is kind of silly, which seems to fit with him, and Jan… well, he uses a gold-colored cymbal monkey, a closed-off room, and gas. Yes, that’s right, he gasses the birds to death. I know that’s a minor spoiler, but I feel it necessary, because if even one person decides to pick up the series, it will be worth it. And if you’re still on the fence, know that things like that happen all the time.
Crimson Hero 11
Posted: July 10, 2009 Filed under: Crimson Hero 1 Comment »Ooh, here’s something novel: a sports manga starring girls. There are two things we were missing for sports manga in America: baseball and girls. Here’s one of them, and apparently it’s been running in Shoujo Beat for years. I’ll ‘fess up and admit I only ever bought two issues of that magazine (the first and the one with Princess Knight in it). I’m more fond of graphic novels, but never let it be said that there’s not something to being able to sample series you wouldn’t normally read.
In addition to being about a girls’ sports team, it’s also about volleyball, a semi-unusual sport, and that usually makes for a better read. There’s also a boys’ volleyball team, which wasn’t so much covered in this volume, but I assume the focus pops in and out depending on what’s going on romantically. I’m looking forward to a sports manga with romance in it, something that I, as a girl, say that all sports manga could use a little more of. I’m looking at you, Prince of Tennis. You really could do something other than play tennis over there, you know. Not even romance, necessarily. Just… anything.
This was a good volume to jump into, because it’s got just about everything I would imagine this series having. The volume starts somewhere at the beginning of a semifinals match. One girl on the main character’s team (Crimson Field) is fighting against an injury, and the other team is exploiting her weakness as much as they can. Of course, the Crimson Field team rallies to help this girl, and there’s lots of displays of support and friendship and whatnot. We also find out that the opponents are subject to a horribly competitive coach, and the ace on that team struggles with friendships she left behind in order to become a star. Her team has to fix their friendships if they hope to put up a fight and unite on the court.
The short girl pulls off the winning play in the end, and the injured girl is rushed to the hospital amidst a forfeit and general worry and angst. We find out that the boys also won their semifinals match. But now that the match is over and the next one is a ways off, it looks like the series is looking to shake things up in the romance department.
I can see the formula, but I don’t enjoy it any less. I loved seeing a competitive, team-oriented sports manga about a group of girls for a change, and it doesn’t hurt that there’s romance mixed in, though it’s hard for me to enjoy it jumping into the series this late. I also liked seeing a volleyball manga, because of the inherent confined, scaled-back nature of the sport.
About the only thing I didn’t like was when Crimson Field criticized the other team for playing dirty when they started targeting their injured player. It didn’t make much sense to me when the coach failed to substitute another player when the first girl began having trouble (apparently Crimson Field didn’t have any girls to spare, but I didn’t find this out until later), but it also seemed like sour grapes to call out the other team on an obvious strategy. It’s not the other team’s fault that the injured girl couldn’t play, after all.
I like what I see, but this strikes me more as a casual read than something I’m going to follow with great interest. It was definitely a wonderful choice for the now-defunct Shoujo Beat magazine (and I do realize that I say this as someone who never bought the magazine and was thus part of the problem). I may pick up a few more volumes from here just to see if I get to liking the story or characters any more.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
You’re So Cool 1
Posted: July 9, 2009 Filed under: You're So Cool 1 Comment »Once again, I love cutie Korean series like this one. I’m not sure what it is about them, but they never fail to entertain me.
This one’s really, really awesome. Which is probably what I say about all of them, but I seem to always mean it. The main character is Nan-Wo, a freshman with a huge crush on the dream boy in her school, Seung-Ha. Everything about Seung-Ha is perfect, from his manners to his looks to his sports abilities. Nan-Wo, on the other hand… well, her clumsiness is legendary, she’s constantly late to school, and is apparently only average-looking. But fates align and Seung-Ha zeroes on on Nan-Wo and asks her to be his girlfriend. And… wait for it… turns out Seung-Ha is also a legendary punk outside of school.
The buildup to the first date is just perfect. There’s lots of Seung-Ha being nice at school, lots of Seung-Ha standing up to the merciless teasing Nan-Wo has to put up with after the two of them start going out, and lots of perfect shoujo moments between the two. Nan-Wo has extended fantasies about the date the two of them will go on. And then… well, the date happens. Seung-Ha hits all the punkish jerk buttons, and I loved every minute of it. From there on out, he also terrorizes her at school with a nice-boy smile, something that turned out to be absolutely terrifying and hilarious.
There are a few other things the series has going for it, the most interesting being Nan-Wo’s home life. She seems to have two brothers and absentee parents. The two brothers have their own lives that aren’t really commented on in the story, but seem like they will be developed further in future volumes. Seung-Ha also offers a dark look when a teacher comments on his home life, so there’s probably something there… and I really have to know what makes Seung-Ha pull off the perfect Jekyll and Hyde act.
It’s not extraordinary, but it is a highly enjoyable cutie Korean comic, and I’m pretty sure anyone that feels inclined to pick it up won’t be disappointed.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation 12
Posted: July 9, 2009 Filed under: Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation 1 Comment »Wow, that might be the longest title of any manga series I have on my site. Interesting.
Anyway. From the title, I was hoping that this would be similar to Nightmare Inspector, ie the two title characters investigate… well, supernatural stuff. That’s not quite the case, at least at this stage in the series, and it’s more about a massive black magic attack and a group of friends from school trying to save the world. You know how that goes.
This has the typical Shounen Jump hurdle of having way too many characters, but this book picks up after a major battle, so not very many of the characters are that important to what’s going on. The volume starts with a brief battle between the bad guys (I’m pretty sure it was part of Teeki, the main bad guy) projecting out of a brand on the breast of a character named Rio. Things wrap up pretty quickly, there’s a few chapters where the characters recover and regroup, and the action switches to a Magic School that they are trying to infiltrate in order to find a stone that will help them defeat Teeki. Roji is feeling particularly inadequate since he seems to be the only member of the group without phenomenal cosmic powers, so he’s trying to pick some up while at the school.
I liked the fact that Roji doesn’t have magic power and was observing the group from an outsider perspective/as a kind of cheerleader. I think he’s got some powers that haven’t been developed yet, and the story throws out a hint that he could be a very important part of Muhyo’s massive powers, but for the most part, he seems pretty useless in a battle. Usually this role is reserved for a female character that is tossed aside more often than not, so it was nice to see one of the main characters in this role.
I also really liked the art. It’s cartoony and really, REALLY weird, but in a good way. Many of the characters have weird-looking eyes, in particular, and there’s lots of creepy detail given to backgrounds, all the little magic artifacts and monsters, and pretty much everything. It’s confusing at times, but it’s unique and fits the series perfectly. I especially like the particularly unflattering way Muhyo is drawn. Also, for all the cartooniness of the art, the girls are all drawn with massive breasts, which I found to be a fascinating concession.
This was a good volume to pick the series up with since it gave me a good look at what’s going on in the overall plot, and the story taking place at the Magic Law School looks like it will go very interesting places. But I’m going to need to read a few more volumes in order to digest some of the smaller details, of which there appear to be thousands.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Dogs 1
Posted: July 7, 2009 Filed under: Dogs 3 Comments »One thing that fascinated me through the entire volume was the art. The artist only draws in black and white. Screentones are only used every few pages in spots, and then usually only as a solid shape in the background. Characters rarely have any value on their clothing, and usually it is the sparse female characters that have one or two items toned in (and Badou, because he has red hair). There is no hatching to make up for it, either, like One Piece uses hatching for value instead of screentone. The art is literally almost entirely black on white, and the effect is pretty impressive. There are problems with the fight scenes because of it (usually I had problems figuring out what was going on when Heine strangled people with the chain attached to his gun), but still, it lends something extra-pulpy to the plot and was what I noticed most while reading the book.
I liked the format of the prologue stories a bit better, but I still liked what I saw going on in this volume. The action starts immediately with Badou failing a mission and Heine stepping in to save him. From there, we are taken more and more by a character from Heine’s past that seems to be stalking him and… either hired or is somehow related to the gang he took out while saving Badou.
Also, Frank Miller can eat his heart out, because one action sequence after Heine was captured featured a panel from inside Heine’s mouth, with his teeth in the foreground, the instant before he bites and tears half of a mob boss’s face off when he unexpectedly lashes out after capture. Holy crap.
In case that wasn’t enough for you, immediately afterwards he engages in a fight with another immortal, and the two of them fill each other with bullets and kind of hack each other apart in general. It was a good fight, and I approved.
Part of me liked the fact that Heine kept what appeared to be a wallet chain attached to his gun for the purposes of strangling dudes while he shot other dudes at the same time. I mean… wallet chain? Really? For strangling while you shoot? Is that a step too far over the top?
Probably not.
There’s some plot developments, mostly surrounding Heine and his past. Not a lot of details are revealed, but it’s clear that this is the general direction the action will take the story. There’s also a brief look at Naoto’s quest involving the twin of the sword she wields, but she’s only in the story long enough to hack some guys apart and meet up with Heine and Badou. There’s also a kind of antagonist for Heine introduced named Giovanni. I can’t tell if Giovanni really likes Heine or really hates him, but the two do engage in some epic battles, and he’ll be back for more later.
It’s… well, you aren’t going to be reading it for the plot at this point, but the action’s pretty awesome. Good enough to keep me entertained for a few more volumes, at least. The characters and the quirks of the world they live in are also pretty fantastic, so it’s possible the plot will be quite good when it gets going, too.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Love Control 2
Posted: July 7, 2009 Filed under: Love Control | Tags: BL Leave a comment »I reviewed this for the weekly Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, so you can check out the review over there.
More BL books, but I’ve been pretty happy with what I’ve read lately. This volume was extremely by-the-book plot-wise, but in a good way, and was enjoyable because of it. Also, it featured yet another older couple, which I tend to prefer to the high school stories. I liked it well enough that I’ll probably go buy the first volume now, actually.
