Nana 18
Posted: August 11, 2009 Filed under: Nana 3 Comments »Ai Yazawa – Viz – 2009 – 21+ volumes
I felt bad, because I wasn’t really in the mood for Nana and read it anyway. Nana is certainly one of the best series I’m reading right now, but reading it when I’m not feeling it is a total waste. It might also be telling that I reached for We Were There before Nana, but We Were There is new and shiny, and I’ve had a few years to grow into Nana, now. After starting the volume, it only took a few pages to get me completely sucked back in the story, and only the best series can do that after 18 volumes.
There were a few twists here. The present-day story continues, and the gang seems in favor of going after Nana. The relationship dynamics are interesting, because… well, it seems like everyone is present and accounted for, even people who we have yet to see. I’m a bit sad that it seems like Takumi and Hachi are separated and that Nobu is still some sort of rebound guy, because in the end, Takumi isn’t so bad and Nobu deserves better. I’m still half expecting the other shoe to drop, but Takumi’s only flaw is probably that he’s slightly less considerate than he should be, and even then, jealousy reflected through Hachi’s side of the story probably distorts that a bit.
But then again, I suddenly remembered that Takumi sleeps with the star of that soap opera, the one that Nana and Hachi like. So, yeah, there’s that. I don’t know. I like that the soap opera was referenced in this volume without alluding to the affair. I also like that the affair is a really minor plot point that’s likely never to come up again, when everything else that Takumi does is examined in such microscopic detail.
I’m still trying to figure out the general thrust of things in the present. Mosly it seems that Nana went off to be by herself and nobody knows where. In the past, the “main” storyline, well… there are lots of things going on. Nana and company are about to perform in a huge arena and are super-psyched. Life is good for everyone. Takumi and Hachi are doing well together. Ren and Nana are getting along. This is the happiest the series has been in a long time.
But Shin. Poor Shin. Life really hits him hard here. For no real reason. If he hadn’t been so lonely, nothing bad would have happened. And that pretty much derails everything for everyone.
On the bright side, there’s a bonus story in the back, this time about Takumi’s childhood. He was an adorable kid, and I’m happy that this story came when it did, because it helps shed some light on the relationship he has with Reira (which really is one-sided, though he does love her dearly like a brother). He also doesn’t think nearly as much of himself as I thought he did, which also makes him a lot more likeable. Takumi’s not a bad guy, and I hope that the story never proves that he is.
I loved how the volume began and ended with the same Trapnest song, too.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Wallflower 20
Posted: August 11, 2009 Filed under: Wallflower Leave a comment »Tomoko Hayakawa – Del Rey – 2009 – 23+ volumes
I reviewed this volume (as well as volume 19) for this week’s Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, so check out the review over there.
To be fair, volume 20 was a huge improvement over volume 19. I thought it might not be, since the volume opened with a single page that featured a joke about the heroine’s cooking, a random person appearing for no reason with stick figures diving out of her way, and no detail drawn in whatsoever, but it got better from there. The stories were at least far more amusing, and they didn’t all take place at the mansion, which made them better than the last volume by default.
But… when you’re 20 volumes into a series where the premise is that the main character likes creepy things, if the only jokes you make about the heroine are still all about how she likes creepy things… perhaps it’s time to develop the character more.
Speaking of character development… the shoujo moments in this volume were more frequent, but always completely underwhelming. They weren’t even a letdown the same way that My Heavenly Hockey Club lets you down, because at least the boy really likes Hana, and sometimes you wonder if Hana doesn’t like the boy, too. In The Wallflower, the boy only ever does anything romantic because he wants Sunako to cook for him. Any romance implied from his actions is a complete mistake. And Sunako has no interest in the boy, either, which is a real shame.
Bah.
20th Century Boys 4
Posted: August 10, 2009 Filed under: 20th Century Boys 10 Comments »Naoki Urasawa – Viz – 2009 – 22 volumes
This volume was all about a man named Shogun living in Thailand. I liked the way he was introduced a lot, since it set up a bit of a personal drama for him, and then connected the upheval in his life back to the “Friends” cult in Japan.
At first, Shogun’s just trying to save a prostitute named May from a crime lord. Then he realizes he’s going to have to go back to Japan, and “takes care of some things.” In addition to showing us some of the fear training he underwent (think Apocalypse Now, and keep that in your mind while you read it), we also see a possible connection between the cult and a new type of hallucinatory drug, which would explain a couple things.
Then the story moves back to Japan. Three years elapse, and Kenji, now with his pal Otcho, have to somehow destroy the giant robot that will inevitably wipe out humanity. The “Friend” has a prophecy for Kenji about this, too, and I’m sure we’ll see the “team of nine” gather in the “three weeks” we have before the apocalypse.
Again, as serious and straight-faced as this story is, I love that it is realistically trying to explain how a group of old dudes are going to take out a giant robot that shouldn’t exist. It’s what I’ve wanted out of every giant robot plot ever. And maybe it won’t actually be about that in the end, but I don’t care. I’m still not sure where the story is going next, because the plot is so out there that literally anything could happen and make a lot of sense in the context of the story. In that sense, 20th Century Boys is one of the best stories I’ve read. I’m just sad I have to wait so long between volumes, because I think this would be a much more incredible read if you could tear through several volumes at once, having these questions answered left and right. But the waiting and wondering are all part of the experience, I suppose.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Wallflower 19
Posted: August 10, 2009 Filed under: Wallflower 1 Comment »Tomoko Hayakawa – Del Rey – 2009 – 23+ volumes
I’ve got two volumes of this series, which I’m writing up for the Manga Recon, but since I like to have entries for each volume, I’m going to write a review for this volume here, then link the review at Manga Recon for volume 20.
I knew there was a good reason I was avoiding this series. It’s quite popular, but it’s really more of a humorous, episodic series than it is the shoujo romance-type thing I prefer. It’s a lot like My Heavenly Hockey Club, I guess, except Hockey Club is way funnier and has better art.
I know I’m not missing out on anything. I know the premise of the series, that four hot guys have to transform the horror-movie-loving, reclusive, shy Sunako into the “perfect girl,” or at least a girl who is somewhat presentable. According to her aunt, she also wants Sunako to find true love as well. The series seems to have paired Sunako off with Kyohei, one of the four guys. Sort of.
The chapters are one-shots, and while it seems like Sunako learns something in each one, it also seems like the episodes aren’t compounding the knowledge. And the jokes are things like… I don’t know, the boy who hates cleaning suddenly becoming a neat freak. I thought the jokes were kind of lame, but I’ll give it a pass since it’s very possible that it would be much funnier if I knew just how much of a slob that boy is. Whatever. In my head, I was comparing this to chapters of My Heavenly Hockey Club where Hana and company wake up with bears in their beds or are menaced by a persistent, swindling elderly couple. Hockey Club also doesn’t have really distinct characters, but the chapters are unique enough and funny enough that I forgive it that.
The one thing that is absolutely inexcusable is the art. I normally don’t comment on art, but I have to make an exception here. For the most part, the entire manga is drawn in a super-deformed sort of comic style. Characters are drawn “realistically” (ie like they would appear in any other shoujo manga) on close-ups of their face. Sunako is almost never drawn “realistically.” She’s drawn properly in maybe two or three panels per chapter. Most of the time she doesn’t even have a face drawn in. No detail goes into the art whatsoever, and even the close-ups of the face, or the “realistic” drawings of Sunako or anyone else barely have clothing suggested on their bodies. From what I can tell, the four boys may as well be the same person, and three usually act as a mob as each chapter spotlights a single boy. Except only two of the boys had stories in this volume, and honestly… they may as well have been one boy, because they weren’t all that different personality-wise (one is the “ladies’ man” and one is the “manly” boy) and they also look nearly identical.
Just… no. No. You fail, Wallflower. I try to find the good in everything I read, and like I said, it’s possible that I would enjoy the character-based humor more if I’d been reading from the beginning… but I don’t think so. The jokes are weak, and it seems like the plot, characters, and humor have not progressed since the first volume, where the basic premise was laid out. There was a chapter here where it seemed like Sunako was hooking up with one of the boys, but that idea is quickly abandoned and never spoken of again. I’m sure it’s come up more than once by now. Maybe… maybe I’ll like it if I read another volume.
We Were There 6
Posted: August 8, 2009 Filed under: We Were There 1 Comment »Yuki Obata – Viz – 2009 – 13+ volumes
What’s this? A volume of We Were There that’s actually… positive? I was totally shocked by the turn the story took in this volume. The beginning of it was pretty nerve-wracking, with Motoharu and Masafumi fighting with one another for the opportunity to confess their feelings to Nanami first. This was also touching in its way, because the volume started with Motoharu admitting that there wasn’t anyone who meant more to him than Masafumi, and he would never do anything again that would jeopardize their friendship. Then he amends that to anything short of winning back Nanami. But it was still pretty clear that he meant absolutely everything he said.
The reunion between Nanami and Motoharu nearly made me tear up. As with most such moments in this series, the characters quietly sit and gauge each other’s emotions, and then minimal words pass between them. Things aren’t better immediately, but it was still so wonderful to see the moment between them. This scene is actually informed even more later in the volume, when Nanami comes to the realization that the only thing that Motoharu is actually bad at is loving someone, but it’s clear to her that he really and truly does love Nanami. He tries so very hard to win her over, again and again and again. It really is very touching, and 100% true-to-life in a way that shoujo manga almost never is.
The quote on the back of the book is well-selected, too. As cheesy as it sounds, it broke my heart/made me very happy in the context of the story.
Nanami does the smart thing and doesn’t take him back immediately. She doesn’t trust him when it comes to his deceased girlfriend Nana, and won’t get back together with him until he’s explained just what Nana means to him. Motoharu doesn’t quite understand what she means, and this part is actually the only part of the series I’ve disliked so far, because I’m not entirely sure what Nanami wants here, either. Motoharu tries telling her a lot about Nana, but none of it is what she wants, and… it’s not clear what she wants, but I think it’s mostly just a product of her feeling like she can never match the love that Nana and Motoharu shared. That’s actually pretty clear almost right away, even though Nanami doesn’t realize it until she’s nearly let Motoharu go again. Her insistence that he share his experiences, and being dissatisfied with what he has to tell her, is frustrating, but also just a natural part of what Nanami and any number of other people in her situation could want.
It could also just be an issue of a girl wanting the boy to share his feelings and the boy not knowing how. It’s actually a pretty classic version of that, I think, except it’s portrayed in a very sincere way here, and not in the comical way it usually is.
But the volume ends on a very, very positive note. I’m looking forward to seeing if the mood changes, but even if it doesn’t… you know, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this series is better at portraying relationships and emotion than any other shoujo series I’m reading right now. Even Nana. That’s just what it does. It’s fantastic, and not something any shoujo fan should be missing out on.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Black Jack 6
Posted: August 8, 2009 Filed under: Black Jack 3 Comments »Osamu Tezuka – Vertical – 2009 – 17 volumes
On one hand, having just finished the volume, the moralistic twist at the end of the last chapter has me in shock. An officer who condemned three improving patients to death at the hands of Dr. Kiriko winds up slipping and falling on a cliff, and Dr. Kiriko’s laugh as he says he knows how to fix him is quite chilling in the context of the story.
On the other hand, this is one of those volumes where the morals at the end of each chapter wear on you. The second-to-last chapter in particular bothered me because of its ambiguity, but I think Black Jack’s position is supposed to be ambiguous, always. A little girl who had called Black Jack a devil at the beginning of the story asks him at the end why a devil would save the life of her mother. It’s unclear whether the meaning is that Black Jack isn’t really a devil, or if we were supposed to ponder the fact that Black Jack only found himself at that hospital because he was being paid well to perform the operation by the staff there. Is he an angel, or is he a devil driven by money? Such is the question behind most of the Black Jack series.
That particular chapter also featured the entertaining plot device of having Black Jack impersonate someone else. Now, when you think of Black Jack, you think of the huge scar on his face and his two-tone hair. But let’s say you cover that up with a beard and a wig, maybe he’d look just like whoever it is that you want him to impersonate if said person was in an accident that may have left a scar on their face. Except Black Jack also has a mismatched skin graft on his face, so his skin is actually two different colors and he would never look like anyone else, ever.
I liked this volume a lot for the strange medical conditions it showcased. It wasn’t quite as out there as volume 3, which is still my favorite, but it did have some of the most unusual cases yet. Black Jack deals with a case of “Lion-Faced Disease,” explains a hereditary condition that involves a shorter-than-usual ring finger, operates on a boy whose entire body is ossifying/”turning to stone,” and all sorts of other rare diseases, cancers, tumors, uh… and a man who kicks a rock towards a train and it ricochets and goes through a window and nearly kills his wife. You know. Most of the stories in this volume were compelling because of the strange and extreme extent of the things that Black Jack was being forced to cure.
My two favorite chapters were the one where the boy turned to stone (which has a very twisted outcome) and a later story where a boy was brought back to life, only to be tried for murder. I figured there would be some greater purpose to the requests to save his life, but there wasn’t. Black Jack’s point was that it was such a waste to offer him a second chance only to take it away when he’d already opted for suicide. My question came more from the fact that… why would the chief of police try so hard to revive the boy? Why? Why, when he knew exactly what would happen and made no effort to stop it? This was a case of the moral… really not making much sense, because normal people do not act this way. This story does feature an absolutely lovely panel/full page illustration when the boy makes the decision to end his life at the beginning of the story. This story also fulfilled my Lamp/Hamegg requirement, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before is all I ask of a volume of Tezuka manga.
Actually, Lamp appears again in the very next story. It’s strange he seems to appear in Black Jack as law enforcement, but my reason for bringing him up here was that the final panel in this story was actually the most touching moment I’d ever seen in Black Jack. Lamp had been trying to bust Black Jack for practicing without a license, and gave him the impossible task of curing his son. He expected him to fail, just like all the other “phony” doctors. But he succeeds. And the final panel is a wonderful one where the two characters pass each other on the street and Lamp doesn’t find the words for gratitude. The expressions on both character’s faces and the unspoken thing between them was just lovely.
And that’s all I have for you this time around, friends.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure 24
Posted: August 6, 2009 Filed under: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure 6 Comments »Hirohiko Araki – Viz – 2009 – 98+ volumes
published in English as volume 12
I may have been looking forward to Ooku most this year, but there’s little that can come between me and my love of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This is pure, undiluted, ridiculous entertainment. This is the very definition of “comic” in the pictorial story sense. This is what every comic book dreams of being at night.
This starts with the end of the story between Hol Horse, Mondatta, and the Joestar group. Mondatta’s stand has once again predicted that Jojo’s head will be split open, this time by Hol Horse’s bullets, and Hol Horse scrambles in the two minutes he has to make the elaborate prophecy (which is never wrong) come true. Hol Horse’s scrambling to try to force things to work, his inevitable oversight, and the way that Jojo literally dodges the bullet are all pretty funny stuff. I read these two chapters just waiting for the punchline that came when Jojo inevitably did not die. I didn’t see the loophole until it happened, and I really should have. It was fantastic anyway.
The next stand user is Pet Shop, with Horus as his stand. Since Pet Shop is actually a hawk, it only makes sense that his opponent is Iggy, the little dog that’s been traveling with the Joestar group and wields the Fool stand. I was hoping that the entire fight would be wordless, but we do get running commentary from Iggy (first just his thoughts, then, hilariously, he gets dialogue bubbles in later chapters). Iggy’s commentary makes the fight way better than it could have been otherwise, because he thinks a lot of himself, does not want to fight, and has the most hilarious reactions and facial expressions ever. In one of the best scenes in the book, after condemning a small boy to death, Iggy shows back up to engage the stand user, saying he just can’t abandon a dog-lover while striking a funny and strangely triumphant pose.
Here’s something to ponder, though: To my knowledge, there have been at least two scenes redrawn by Araki for the American editions to sort of lessen graphic violence against dogs. One was just a panel or so where a dog was beheaded, but one was a reasonably lengthy story sequence where a dog that had its skull lopped in half with brains spilling out was redrawn to look more like a rat. Here, two dogs are gratuitously decapitated and an ice stake is rammed through their skulls. This is shown a few times, just so the impact sinks in. Their owner, a little boy, shows up to look for them and gets to see Pet Shop pulling out their eyes in one of the most gratuitous eyeball-popping scenes ever committed to paper. It is one of those comedically violent scenes that Araki has a knack for, you can tell it’s drawn with love and a sly wink. But its presence makes me wonder why the other scenes were changed, since this is about a thousand times worse.
Pet Shop’s single-mindedness while hunting Iggy down is hilariously insane as well. Frequently, the panels will spend a lot of time zooming closer and closer in on one of his eyes to show just how tough he really is, which gets funnier every time. At one point, when wounded by Iggy, he takes the tip of his wing, swabs blood off his wound, and tastes it. While flying. And also while the eye zoom is going on. It’s great.
As for the actual plot, the characters are now in Dio’s mansion, which is heavily guarded by stand users. Even so, I believe there are only four volumes left to this storyline, so hopefully we’ll see the wrapup by the end of next year.
I just can’t see why anyone would dislike this series. Well, unless you love dogs I guess, in which case I would advise against reading it or anything else by Hirohiko Araki.
Ooku 1
Posted: August 6, 2009 Filed under: Ooku 6 Comments »Fumi Yoshinaga – Viz – 2009 – 4+ volumes
Here’s one of the last of my most-anticipated series of 2009 (the very last will probably be Itazura na Kiss). I’m a big geek when it comes to Fumi Yoshinaga, and for good reason. I have yet to be disappointed by any of her series, and I love seeing her characters interact with each other, no matter what they’re doing.
To let me know that this series was going to be worth my time, within the first few pages, a small child is attacked by a bear, which somehow (his mother thinks this is because he was cursed by the Gods) spreads a plague that kills most of the young men in Japan. On one hand, that’s totally sweet. On the other hand, it’s extremely unlike Yoshinaga to use such a strange plot device. But the premise of the series is just that, that most of the young men in Japan were wiped out and that those who remain are valuable commodities that are kept like princes, with women taking over manual labor and all other tasks traditionally performed by men. It’s a great idea, and especially interesting that the setting is feudal Japan. This first volume only dips its toes in the possibilities of a gender role reversal like that, so I’m very much looking forward to where that idea goes in the future.
Most of the volume follows a man named Yunoshin. Yunoshin is one of the few young men whose family has not sold him into sexual slavery, and also one of the only men who does not charge women desperate for children to sleep with him. In order to help out his family, he volunteers to go to the Shogun’s Inner Chamber, a harem, in order to send his family the money he earns. He does not fit in at the Inner Chamber with all its pettiness and lavish excesses, and sees the whole situation as wasteful, since a harem of 800 men so desperately needed elsewhere are being kept for a single 7-year-old girl, the current Shogun. But the girl dies, and her successor is a very no-nonsense woman named Yoshimune. Yoshimune is disgusted by the excesses of the palace. Naturally, Yunoshin catches her eye in the harem, and she picks him to be her first lover. Unbeknownst to either of them, the first lover is killed as part of an ancient ritual to punish him for physically harming the Shogun (ie taking her virginity).
After that situation is resolved (about 3/4 of the way through the book), the story switches focus in a very Yoshinaga-like way to Yoshimune herself, the small changes she is making around the palace, and her choice of lovers from the harem. She is quite a character, and works entirely and delightfully contrary to all the stuffy policies and ways of palace life. She and her right hand adviser, a female childhood friend from her home town, are also very clever about stepping around the old guard at the palace and satisfying all their various antiquated rules. The very end of the book is where Yoshimune begins to question why women need to dress as men and take on men’s names in order to do as they do.
Yunoshin’s story has all the best things Yoshinaga puts in her series. We see how deftly he deals with women, in a somewhat cavalier but caring way. We see the subtle tugs on his life that compel him to join the Inner Chamber (his parents are too poor to find a husband for his older sister, and he turns down all marriage proposals since he loves his childhood friend, who he can’t marry because of social standing). We see the lives and motivations behind different members of the Ooku, and the rather ugly politics that work behind it all. Yoshinaga has the gift of painting a lot of detail with a broad brush, so to speak. She tells an ambitious story with lots of tangents, but knows just how much to reveal of everything in order to make it touching.
And that last chapter just promises so many interesting things for future volumes. I admit, it’s a little unusual to read one of her stories with a female lead, but there’s no reason to be suspicious. Ooku is everything interesting I was hoping it would be and more. I was expecting a period drama involving lots of women and the members of the harem, which this isn’t. It’s far more interesting and involved than her other series, but I may need a couple more volumes to like the characters as much as the ones in Antique Bakery and Flower of Life.
Viz did a wonderful job with the presentation, too. It’s in the Signature format, which means it’s an oversize volume with french flaps and color pages, and the first page is actually vellum. There are copious translation notes in the back, and the graphic design on the cover and throughout the book is stunning in its simplicity. The characters all speak with a sort of Shakespearean inflection, which reflects the period and the fact they were probably using an older form of Japanese in the original. I’m not sure if I like it or not, since it seems strange that characters in Medieval Japan would be using Early Modern English, but I appreciate that the distinction was made, and there really is no better way to show it.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
I”s 9
Posted: August 6, 2009 Filed under: I"s 16 Comments »Masakazu Katsura – Viz – 2006 – 15 volumes
On one hand, I have to sort of force myself to read I”s. I’ve sort of fallen out of love with shounen romances, because I hate the plot devices they use. On the other hand, I can’t help but squeal and laugh at every volume of I”s, because it simply revels in all those plot devices. Its debauchery is unparalleled in even the most gratuitous shounen romance.
The first part of the book has the whole Izumi-wants-Ichitaka situation going. Of course, Iori walks in at three or four inopportune moments. I would loathe this in any other series, but I cracked a smile every time it happened here simply because you could see the scene setting itself up for the glorious moment of misunderstanding. There’s a fine art to this type of thing, and I”s has it down. It’s the pacing, the way the scenes play out, and the emotional balances between the characters that make everything perfect and make stupid things like that work every time. I’m not emotionally invested in any of the characters at this point, really, but I love watching them move along their paths.
Later, Ichitaka has an extended fantasy sequence the way he does where Izumi shows up in his room soaking wet and then has sex with him. Izumi interrupts the fantasy to do just this. Again, it’s too hokey not to like, especially when there are so many lovingly-rendered T&A panels. As I’m sure I’ve said before, Masakazu Katsura is a true Rembrandt when it comes to panty shots.
There’s a Christmas Eve date misunderstanding, a karaoke party, a drunk love confession, and the end of the volume is setting up the inevitable confrontation between Izumi and Iori when they realize that Ichitaka promised both of them Christmas Eve dates. All of it is beautiful, but the love confession scene in particular is quite remarkable. Even though I’m not really into any of the characters, the timing, the way the pages and panels played out through this particular scene was truly amazing. It was one of the best love confessions I’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t surprise me all that much that it came from I”s.
If you like shounen romance, and you like panty shots, don’t settle for anything less than I”s. It really does do absolutely everything right.
