What a Wonderful World 2
Posted: October 12, 2009 Filed under: What a Wonderful World! 1 Comment »Inio Asano – Vz – 2009 – 2 volumes
Wow. I like this. I like it a lot. It’s just… it’s overwhelmingly positive. Even when it has no right to be. It’s got drama, and sadness, but in the end, the characters always find something to be happy about, which is just about the best message a story could possibly have. I know I like to read soapy dramas, but I love seeing that kind of thing balanced out here.
In the end, I think I did like these stories better than Solanin. Solanin was somewhat positive (though very, very sad) and had character development, but I can’t help but love the number of ways these stories illustrating… well, the characters just coming to terms with their lives and being happy, even if it doesn’t seem like they should be. Guy who just lost his part-time job and fell down the stairs? Well, he’s still alive, and so is that stray dog he saved the other day. Guy who died unsatisfied because he only went from job to job looking for something more to his life, rather than just enjoying it? He comes back to life satisfied, because… well, he’s alive again, and his girlfriend forgives his fickleness concerning work, and that’s enough. Boy whose girlfriend succombed to a disease which makes a person like a vegetable for the rest of their lives? He still has her, and she still appreciates the cherry blossoms, and hey, he just got a new part-time job.
As one of the characters put it, the characters in the stories aren’t heroes, just background characters. And they’re all ultimately satisfied with that. I thought the last chapters were especially appropriate ways to end the book. The character who experienced his own death, then was given another chance by the shinigami, the little black dog that appears in almost all the stories in this volume that seems to mourn the death of the homeless man, and the last story, with the girl who “caught a disease” and no longer responded to events in the world… that story in particular was quite touching since her boyfriend simply takes it in stride, and cares for her and does what he can anyway. We never seem him despair or complain. He just does what he can to make her happy, including trips out to see the cherry blossoms and dinner conversation she is completely unaware of.
There’s not much else I can say in praise of these stories. The simple pleasure I got from always reaching the end and seeing the bright side of the situation is one that I probably can’t adequately express, but just know it was fantastic. I am forever Inio Asano’s fan now, and will be keeping an eye out for any future work.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Four-Eyed Prince 1
Posted: October 12, 2009 Filed under: Four-Eyed Prince Leave a comment »Wataru Mizukami – Del Rey – 2009 -4+ volumes
I reviewed this volume for Manga Recon, so you can check it out over there.
I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to shoujo. I’m not sure why mediocre series sometimes strike me the wrong way. I hated this one, though it wasn’t really awful in any particularly notable way. It did have the dreaded “siblings by marriage” plot device, which soured me from the first chapter, but other than that, it’s mostly unremarkable. I’ve had worse, and I could see there being plenty of people who like this, but I’m just not one of them. It makes me sad.
Eyeshield 21 26
Posted: October 10, 2009 Filed under: Eyeshield 21 Leave a comment »Riichiro Inagaki / Yusuke Murata – Viz – 2009 – 37 volumes
Forget About Love reminded me of Hiruma’s threat book, which reminded me I’ve still got two volumes of this series to read. Hiruma’s threat book hasn’t been seen in a long, long time, but I’ll forgive it that since this game with Ojo is pretty epic.
The game volumes are always a little slower and less enjoyable, somehow, but they still rock since Eyeshield 21 is still good at making the games very exciting. The main points in this volume are that Monta has a new, nearly unstoppable catching technique, and Sena has devised a way to delay Shin’s tackles. And… yeah, they play football.
I read for the jokes, mostly, which are few and far between during the games, but still there. At one point, during a particular sappy scene, Hiruma mimicks everyone’s faces and lines to make fun of them, which was pretty amazing. There was one chapter where Hiruma and Ojo’s quarterback make fun of each other during a play by continuously acting angry, and then following it with the line “Is that what you thought I’d say?” as they recover from whatever trick the other has pulled. Hiruma comes out on top, of course.
The cute skits between chapters that are mostly reader questions are still very funny, too. Most of the volume compares characters from Deimon and Ojo on various points. For instance, Sena and Shin are compared on things like social skills (Sena has a little, so he wins over Shin’s zero) and “Neither fight, but if they did, who would win?” (Shin beat Sena by quite a bit here). In Hiruma vs. Takami, Ojo’s quarterback, the stats are things like “number of books owned,” “room tidiness,” “Japanese chess,” “honesty” (neither is at all honest), and “neither goes to karaoke, but if they did, who would sing better?”
I think the game will be over next volume? They have three minutes left, but that rarely means anything in shounen manga. I’m pretty sure Deimon will win, but stranger things have happened, and I’m sure there’ll be some technicality that will allow them to advance to the Christmas Bowl if they do end up losing.
Forget About Love 1
Posted: October 10, 2009 Filed under: Forget About Love 1 Comment »Lee Sang-eun – Tokyopop – 2008 – 7 volumes
I believe this series was another casualty of the schedule upheval Tokyopop experienced last year, along with other Korean series like Hotel Africa and Martin & John. Those two were better than this one, but there was something about the description for this that made me pick it up even while knowing I’d never get to read the rest.
The premise is okay. Basically, a girl has amnesia, and is trying to get her bearings back. This sounds a bit cliched, but when I thought about it, I couldn’t recall another series that opened with the main character as a blank slate like this (other than… well, Blank Slate, but that was an action series and completely different). It gets better when the two girls that insist they are her best friends are obnoxious and unlikable, a fact commented on by the main character herself. Wacky shoujo hijinx occur when they shove her into the locker room in pursuit of a mystery boy (something she’d written about in a diary, the only clue she had to her old personality), and she winds up accidentally stealing the underwear of a hot boy and gets chased around the school by him. Better still, this activity ceases when she encounters another hot boy (who could also be her mystery boy) who seems to loathe her very existence.
As the facts come forward more and more, we realize that Se-Lim was a horrible, vindictive harpy that enjoyed manipulating and blackmailing people to get what she wanted. Her two friends are actually her minions, scared that she’ll turn evidence of their wrongdoing over to the teachers. The boy who hates her is the subject of one of her more public humiliations, where she outed an affair between him and one of the teachers. The only thing missing is her “account book,” which seems to work exactly like Hiruma’s book of threats from Eyeshield 21, a fact that amused me to no end.
Se-Lim is rightly horrified by all this. She decides to set her life down another path. And then the volume ends.
There are lots of strange plot threads that started here. One of the more bizarre is that both she and her brother have a weird undercurrent of a relationship going on, which could mean that he’s not actually her brother. He’s a nice boy, though, not at all like the kind of person you’d expect to hang out with the former Se-Lim. One of her blackmail victims gives her the cryptic remark that he’s only under her power until he gets the operation. And the rich boy that was trying to seek her out for stealing his underwear finds out that she’s the one person he’s been ordered to keep away from. Also, the boy who had the affair with the music teacher… I had briefly imagined an affair between him and Se-Lim’s brother when he said something that sounded very much like “I don’t date girls,” but that was probably just hinting at the fact he liked his older music teacher.
There are also really nice touches of humor scattered throughout. The book opens with an introduction describing the perfect boy, who is literally unattainable. Se-Lim’s banter with her friends frequently and hilariously runs to the question of why she would ever hang out with these people. One of the friends has a really long and embarassing name. Little things like that. The worst thing about it, other than the fact that there aren’t any more volumes, is that all three of the boys featured so far, and sometimes even her brother, look exactly alike. There are some scenes where this is a serious problem. There’s not even different haircuts to distinguish them. They are just the same boy. It’s sad, really.
It’s not so good that I’m wishing someone else would pick it up, but I would certainly read the other volumes if I was given a chance. This is yet another one of those cutie Korean series, and another from the pages of Wink, and these are almost always instant favorites for me, probably because the characters are vindictive and horrible in ways that they never are in Japanese shoujo manga. But whatever. It’s good. Not the best, but still very, very good.
What a Wonderful World 1
Posted: October 10, 2009 Filed under: What a Wonderful World! 3 Comments »Inio Asano – Viz – 2009 – 2 volumes
This series consists of a pair of volumes full of short one-shot stories about the lives of average 20-somethings. Even more than josei, this genre of stories about young people not doing anything in particular is one that is infinitely fascinating to me, and I am desperate to see more work just like this.
The first story in this volume is about an office worker who decides to quit his office job when he sees a group of his friends has (sorta) made it big in the indie music scene. This sounds like it’s going somewhere, and I was suspicious at first, but it ends with the man deciding to go back to work when he realizes that the dream that his friends finally captured turned into reality as soon as they got it. It’s an interesting lesson, and it was very understated in the story itself.
The fact that the story built up a music career that never actually happened made me think immediately of Solanin, a large one-volume work that shares the theme of 20-somethings not doing anything in particular. I was very suspicious of the similarity, because they were exactly alike. Then I realized the same artist drew them both, and felt really silly.
Between Solanin and this volume of short stories, I preferred Solanin, one of my favorites of last year. I enjoy the themes immensely in both, but Solanin came out on top because the story had time to develop and ride through things like hope, stagnation, love, loss, and career ups and downs with the same set of characters, which made the themes that much more effective. All of those themes are on display here, but they happen to characters I’m not as attached to, so their impact is lessened. They are all still quite good, though.
I struggled through the entire volume to come up with connections between the stories. They may not actually be there, but it sure felt like they either led from one to the other, or characters from one occasionally made a cameo in another. The connections between them aren’t important at all, but the brain enjoys finding patterns, so there is another maddening layer of enjoyment to be had, should you so desire.
The stories themselves… hm. Most are about the characters reflecting on their unremarkable lives. Some find it lacking, but most find it lacking and then realize that it is exactly what they want, and they are very happy. This is precisely why I love these stories, and Solanin as well. There is no goal. There is nothing remarkable about these people. They are not passing their entrance exams, they are not climbing the corporate ladder, they are not conquering goals or chasing after a lost love. They are just living their lives. They have the same problems I do, and possess the same aspirations, which is precisely nothing. And they came to the same conclusions I have: that it’s damn easy to appreciate what you have in life, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first.
Several of the characters seem to be conptemplating suicide, but nobody actually goes through it. Some stories play out among high school students, some are entrance exam ronin for two or three years running, some are people holding down jobs or trying to hold down jobs. They run the gamut of themes, but they all share… well, some of the stuff I’ve already discussed. The best thing about all of these is that they don’t rub the themes and morals in your face. The characters quietly come to their own conclusions, most of which are not shared with the reader, but are easily interpreted. I loved this about the stories, too.
There are some strong symbols in some of the stories, too. In one of the first ones, a girl trying to decide if she wants to get back together with her friends/former bandmates goes home after meeting one to find that her apartment building has burned down. She then lapses into a fantasy about her poor pet turtle stripping out of its shell and running from the building, because that’s what it had to do in the end. The image of the fleeing turtle is kind of a powerful one, even if it doesn’t really have any strong… associations in the story itself. The one after this is about a bullied girl who is followed around by a talking shinigami crow that insists that she wants to kill herself. The crow only goes away when she stands up to her classmates by pulling off a dangerous and stupid stunt. Not a traditional method of confrontation, and I’m not even sure the results are what the character wanted, but she is happy in the end.
My favorite story was the last one in the volume, called “Syrup.” It was about three boys who had not passed college entrance exams for two or three years in a row. After awhile, one admits that he’s giving up on his dreams of being a professional skater and is taking over his family business. The other gets angry, and the two fight when the first insists that the second’s dreams of being a photographer are just pipe dreams. The next day, the third boy, named Syrup (after his habit of consuming cough syrup), speaks to the photographer, telling him that it doesn’t really matter what comes of dreams, what matters is the present, and it makes no difference in the present whether or not your dreams are actually attainable as long as they’re there to aspire to. It’s one of the healthiest views of “dreams” I’ve ever seen in a manga. Syrup’s ultimate fate after this is deeply disturbing, however.
In short, Inio Asano comes through again with realistic portrayals of young people living life in an unremarkable way. There is nothing heroic, adventurous, or romantic about these stories. They just are. It makes me want to talk at length about the escapist nature of manga, and of the entertainment value of these non-escapist stories, but I will refrain. Just know that everything Inio Asano writes is about as close as I’ve ever seen manga get to reality, and there’s something pretty incredible about that.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
I”s 15
Posted: October 10, 2009 Filed under: I"s Leave a comment »Masakazu Katsura – Viz – 2007 – 15 volumes
Normally, after finishing a 15-volume series that I liked a lot (and one that took me, like, five years to read), I would have a lot to say. But the final story arc in I”s is much like the rest of the series. It doesn’t feel like much has changed, and what went on in this volume wasn’t too different than what came before. Mostly it just felt like it stopped, and we were promised that nobody would ever do anything bad ever again. The end.
I was furious that the last volume still went around in circles. Ichitaka briefly entertains dating Aiko at the beginning of the volume. He and Iori keep passing like two ships in the night. When he finally does get to see her again, he gets tongue-tied and then decides to break up with her (which was one of the biggest “what?!” moments in the series for me). Then he gets to be a knight in shining armor when a creep begins to stalk Iori. All of this has happened before. I hated that nothing changed and nobody seemed to learn any sort of lesson. I still liked pretty much everything a lot, for some reason, which is the power of I”s.
Something relatively serious and strange did happen, and for a little bit I was concerned that the series was going to end on this bizarre note… then even the bizarre note began chasing itself around in I”s circles where Ichitaka lost his will and couldn’t talk to Iori. And I got even angrier.
But the actual resolution, and Iori’s way of dealing with all the obstacles in her life, was relatively satisfying. The series ends with a drunken party among all the friends, which is very, very important, and one of the things I”s does best (though this party isn’t nearly as spectacular as the ones that have come before). And Teratani came through like a true friend through this entire volume, as always.
I guess, if I take anything away from this series, it will be Teratani. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but he’s one of the greatest characters shounen romance has ever and will ever produce. Rock on, Teratani. Rock on.
I”s 14
Posted: October 8, 2009 Filed under: I"s 3 Comments »Masakazu Katsura – Viz – 2007 – 15 volumes
I’m not sure why I thought the twister fun would stop last volume. I think I assumed we wouldn’t get to see the game, since it was a break between volumes and, well, the wild party is something the series has covered before.
But then we would have missed out on Masakazu Katsura lovingly drawing a game of twister. Complete with face-sitting and Teratani getting increasingly irate. It was certainly the high point in the series so far, and we can only hope that the climax will somehow involve a repeat of this beautiful incident.
A good chunk of the beginning of the volume was a party with Teratani, Ichitaka, Izumi, and Aiko, but after that, things sort of fell apart as Ichitaka kept getting more and more negative about Iori’s celebrity status and their relationship begins falling apart… and apparently Aiko’s does, too. And yeah, she looks just like Iori, so go ahead and cue the fantasies that begin with Iori and end with Aiko. I’m a bigger fan of the good times, and the series has had quite enough drama, but I suppose a little more for the road can’t hurt. The climax is coming next volume, and it promises to be super-creepy, but I hope that Iori and Ichitaka wind up happy in the end, because that’s just how these things are supposed to work.
There must have been quite a negative reaction to Iori’s short haircut, because it’s back to its normal length here, presumably because time has passed since she got it cut.
On one last note, Teratani really is the best friend any shounen romance protagonist had. He’s still just the right mix of creepy, fun, uplifting, and… actually the giver of good advice. Not only does he own things like twister, but he also knows how to deliver some cool lines later in the volume. Teratani is certainly the best thing I will be taking away from I”s, and he’s probably a better character than anyone in Video Girl Ai, too, seeing as how Moemi’s boyfriend/Yota’s best friend turned out to be a creep for no reason in that series.
Beast Master 1
Posted: October 7, 2009 Filed under: Beast Master 7 Comments »Kyousuke Motomi – Viz – 2009 – 2 volumes
I think there’s an entire genre of shoujo manga that doesn’t come out in English that often that consists of a high school romance with something absurd thrown in that lasts for a volume or two. Light stuff. I can’t really think of a better way to explain it. I suspect we don’t often see them in English because they aren’t very good, but I think sometimes the gimmicks save them from oblivion. Reading this made me think of Kedamono Damono, another gimmick-y shoujo series without a plot that I enjoyed immensely despite the fact there wasn’t much to it.
Here’s the gimmick here: Yuiko loves animals, but they hate her since she tends to smother them with love when they let her close. A mysterious boy saves her cat from a tree during a lightning storm, and she finds the next day that he is a transfer student at her new school. He’s a really terrifying-looking boy, but Yuiko has no problems approaching him since he saved her cat. Turns out he’s nice. He was raised in the wild though (?), and will go feral when he gets scared and/or sees blood. Yuiko is the only one that can stop him when this happens.
That’s… well, that’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s not terribly deep. I really liked it, even though the shoujo plot devices were making me cringe. I think it helps a lot that both Yuiko and Leo are so goofy and have distinctive and likable personalities. They aren’t terribly deep, but both are pretty unique, and their relationship is one of friendship rather than a deep attraction, an approach I liked. Of course, by the end of the volume, more is hinted at, but I think the “taming of the beast” segments are more effective when Yuiko isn’t crying and screaming at her true love to stop. She just… tells him to stop. Very calmly. And he does.
One of the other things that I liked a lot was its sense of humor. At one point, while rumors are flying around the school that Leo is from L.A. and is involved with gangs, Yuiko catches three pretty stereotypical Japanese gang-types calling Leo out. She calls one of them “boss,” and then they very casually slip into a conversation where, apparently, these three stereotypical gang guys just wanted to meet Leo. They agree that he’s a nice guy, and then part amiacably. This joke is reused several times, and neither Yuiko or anyone else lets on that these guys really should be a gang, or scary, or something. They usually show up doing something that would be stereotypical of a gang, then turn out to be doing someone a favor. For instance, in one chapter they show up patrolling a neighborhood, but are, in fact, looking for someone’s lost dog. Later in the chapter, a stray, feral german shepard is adopted by the boss, who gets a really scary pose with it.
Yeah, the gang joke was the best, but there are a lot of other quirky things that are just passed off by the characters, which make lame jokes a lot funnier. It helped make reading the volume quite fun.
There’s a very short story at the end of the volume, and it cracked me up when the author admitted it was a debut work that finished in nearly last place in a reader survey. She said she wasn’t sure why it was being reprinted, other than it was hilariously bad. It wasn’t hilariously bad, but… yeah, it wasn’t good, either.
Beast Master… isn’t going to go down in shoujo hall of fame or anything. There’s no plot, and it’s pretty silly. But it’s good at what it does, and I wound up enjoying it far more than I should have. Since it’s only two volumes long, I’m definitely picking up the second.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
I”s 13
Posted: October 7, 2009 Filed under: I"s Leave a comment »Masakazu Katsura – Viz – 2007 – 15 volumes
Oh, I”s. Just when I’ve thrown up my hands in defeat, thinking you’re all out of good ideas, Teratani shows up with the twister board. That’s why I love you. That’s exactly why I love you.
I was disappointed to see the story fall back on relationship troubles with Iori and Ichitaka, complete with break-up scene. The break-up was drawn dramatically, but it was nowhere near as intense as the scene where they finally hooked up. Plus, I knew it was fake, just like the plethora of fake love confessions that came before. I was a little worried, since although in story time Ichitaka and Iori have been together for some time, it’s only been two or three volumes for us. I feel like we should have some nice volumes of them having fun together as a couple for a change.
Unfortunately, there is a “new neighbor” plot device, which is one of the things working against their relationship. Hilariously, the new neighbor looks exactly like Iori (with a mole as the only difference) and is named Aiko, which is a sly concession to the naming conventions in the series.
Also hilarious is a scene where Ichitaka dreams of the various women in the series showing up in his bedroom to chastise him, and when he wakes up and finds Iori, he asks straight out if she’s real. Because… because he dreams of this stuff all the time, you see.
Iori’s career seems to be the next new focus, so let’s see where this goes.
