Bloody Kiss 2
Posted: December 23, 2009 Filed under: Bloody Kiss Leave a comment »Kazuko Furumiya – Tokyopop – 2009 – 2 volumes
I reviewed this volume for the weekly Manga Minis column at Manga Recon, so you can check it out over there.
This was the final volume of Bloody Kiss, and it was pretty much the same as the first. Nothing at all special, but still an enjoyable read, and not nearly as terrible as the vampire cliche would lead you to believe.
Totally Captivated 4
Posted: December 21, 2009 Filed under: Totally Captivated | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Hajin Yoo – Netcomics – 2008 – 6 volumes
This was where things really started to heat up. I was afraid things would begin to get more dramatic and serious, since some of the major issues in this volume include a bad encounter between Mookyul and Ewon’s friends and Ewon suspecting Mookyul of an affair with his adopted father (which sounds kind of funny in that super-messed-up soap opera way when I write it out). Fortunately, Totally Captivated keeps its sense of humor even at the most depressing of times, and I was alternately laughing and… I don’t know, completely engrossed in the story this time around as the romance heated up even more and Ewon’s little icy heart began to melt.
It’s the little touches of humor that I appreciate. The way Mookyul is drawn with a little super-evil face when the style switches to SD for a gag. The way Mookyul holds whatever conversation he wants wherever he wants, which includes detailed descriptions of his sex life in front of his men. Ewon’s frequent light touches and random jokes he makes in every situation that are genuinely funny. It’s stuff like that that makes Totally Captivated better than just a romance.
But there’s the romance, too. As I said, things got pretty intense in this volume. Ewon begins to grow nervous and wants some space, but Mookyul is completely in love with him and Ewon realizes that he can’t pull away. There are some rough spots, as I’ve mentioned before, and the two still fight pretty intensely. The one thing that always bothers me is that Ewon doesn’t seem to enjoy sex with Mookyul. Mookyul has to trick him into it, and he always seems to want to get away. This volume does cross the line to a point, since Mookyul keeps going when Ewon says no, but Ewon doesn’t seem that upset when he wakes up, and is touched that Mookyul stayed up to watch while he slept. The “I love you” stuff starts after that, too, and that’s handled in a way that only Mookyul and Ewon could do it.
This was my favorite volume in the series, I think. Really excellent stuff. Great romance, humor, and pretty much everything I look for in girls’ comics.
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle 16
Posted: December 21, 2009 Filed under: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Leave a comment »CLAMP – Del Rey – 2008 – 28 volumes
Okay, I’m just going to jump right back into the swing of things here. I picked a bad place to stop, because this volume starts right in the middle of an action scene and contains one of the biggest pieces of story explanation in the series. Reading it in English did help immensely, and I finally understood all of what was going on here (Kamui calling Syaoran “game” was pretty awesome, and I finally understood the subtle differences between Syaoran and “Syaoran,” aside from the latter going on a murderous rampage and all).
The X setting was marginalized in favor of the explanations and dimension-crossing and the breaking of the seals and reclaiming of the souls and divying up of the magic powers, but I still got to see Kamui and Subaru, so I was a happy camper. Additionally, when “Syaoran’s” murderous rampage started, he began by bending the cocky Kamui over and nearly ripping his arm off, so that was another great scene.
And then there’s poor Fai. I still don’t like what happened to him here, but I did like how upset Kurogane got over it. Much like CLAMP seems to have hung a sign in XxXholic that says “we would like to slash these two, but this is a men’s magazine” in relation to Domeki and Watanuki, the same thing happens here with Kurogane and Fai. Fangirls have been with it from the beginning, but it becomes harder and harder to deny in the story from here on. Harder than in XxXholic, where it’s not… all that prevalent, but still.
Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom 9
Posted: December 21, 2009 Filed under: Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom 1 Comment »Kazunari Kakei – Viz – 2010 – 9 volumes
Ahh! I was worried about this! I wasn’t sure how the story was going to fill out another volume, since most everything wraps up nicely in volume 8. It doesn’t fill the whole volume, and the second half features two short stories, including one that was the pilot for the Nora series. I liked the short story quite a bit, since it lacked the plot about the resistance and was mostly about Nora and Kazuma making each other angry and being themselves, which is what I love so much about this series. Usually I dislike pilot chapters like that, since it’s clear that the ideas evolve quite a bit by the time they get turned into a series, but this time, all the good ideas were right there to begin with, which is pretty cool.
The second short story was unrelated to Nora. It was called “The Severer,” and was hilariously terrible. The dialogue was so bad that I suspect the person doing the adaptation had a lot of fun punching it up with lame-but-still-awesome English phrases.
The conclusion to Nora absolutely crushed me. I like this series quite a bit, and I was hoping that with an extra-long ending we’d get to see a lot of wrapup with Kazuma and Nora, but there’s one last conflict, and the story ends abruptly on what seems like a cliffhanger. Literally, the final chapter just cuts off in the middle of an action scene, with no resolution. It’s totally unfair. There’s a sequel series called SUREBREC: Nora the 2nd, but it hasn’t been licensed in English yet. Tragic. I hope this was popular enough to warrant releasing the sequel.
As I’ve said before, I have a ridiculous fondness for this series, which has a lot to do with Kazuma and Nora being great characters that work together quite humorously. The plot was only average, but that was easy for me to overlook since I tend to like demon-oriented series. Nora and Kazuma more than made up for any weaknesses in the plot, though. There were some really cool plot twists along the way, to be fair, and I was more-or-less highly entertained until I got to the end. This was probably one of my favorite shounen series from last year, and while it seems like a mediocre offering, it’s definitely worth reading from the beginning.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Enchanter 10
Posted: December 21, 2009 Filed under: Enchanter 4 Comments »Izumi Kawachi – Digital Manga Publishing – 2009 – 19+ volumes
Hmm. There haven’t been any new volumes of this since February. We can probably assume that it doesn’t bode well for the future of this series in America. Can’t say I’m all that surprised, given the fact I hardly ever see the series discussed and don’t think it did too well, but I have a soft spot for it.
I’m kind of torn about what’s going on here, because what I liked initially about this series (the magical systems and the enchanter/demon system used to make magical implements) has fallen by the wayside in favor of character development. While the series does have a tendency to introduce a lot of random characters and not come back to them, they always wind up interacting with Eukanaria and Haruhiko, so those two always wind up getting developed at least a little while the side stories focus on the other characters. In this volume, we get introduced to yet another new character and his sister. The new boy interacts with Eukanaria quite a bit while he searches for Mercurio, and by the end, he’s decided to take the offer of another demon to become her Enchanter. But while all this is going on, we see more of the childlike joy Eukanaria seems to take in everything, and we see Haruhiko interact with her, and Yuka, and start to try and figure out why it is he does what he does. Interesting stuff.
Admittedly, there are far better series for character development, and this still has quite a bit of t&a in it. It’s pretty manic, and keeping up with the manic energy of all the characters, as well as keeping track of all the side characters, tires me out. There is an overarching plot, but the stories rarely return to it. And the storytelling is a little disorganized in general. But there’s something kinda fun about it, too, and I think it’s just that I’ve grown attached to Haruhiko and Eukanaria after all this time and would love to see how they end up.
I.N.V.U. 5
Posted: December 18, 2009 Filed under: I.N.V.U. 4 Comments »Kim Kang Won – Tokyopop – 2009 – 5+ volumes
You know, I like this series. It may have the record for most infrequent volumes in the history of English manga/manhwa releases, but the volumes do keep coming out, and I like Tokyopop a lot for that, especially since it would have been so easy to forget the series after so many years had passed without a new volume. Has it really been two years since volume 4? Holy crap, I thought that came out last year. I am growing too old for my own good.
There’s also the fact that this is awesome, which makes the infrequent volumes… mmm, not worth the wait, but certainly worth reading when they do come out.
The only character that I didn’t immediately recognize was Hajun’s fiancee. I had completely forgotten he was engaged, actually, though that’s not a fact that will likely escape my notice in the future since much drama happens around his fiancee. She seems intent on ruining Hali’s life if she continues to be close to Hajun, but, you know… true love and all that. Hajun and Hali’s relationship gets closer and closer in this volume, and I kind of wonder where it will go from here since this series seems to take their age difference and the fact he’s her teacher pretty seriously.
Hali’s life is already pretty messed up, though. She has more problems with her mother in this volume, and finally has to move out of the house when her father insists that she quit her new acting job in order to save her mother’s sanity. Seeing Hali act like herself, and seeing her in ads, seems to destroy her mother’s sanity, and she gets violent in this volume. Rather than getting the mother professional help, her father seems to think quitting her job is the solution to their problems. Yeah.
Unfortunately, Sey and Siho weren’t in this volume so much. Nor were Jae Eun or Simon. Those four are my favorites, so I was sad to see that at least another year will go by before their stories advance. Jae Eun does get a hilarious surprise on her last page of the volume, though.
Who else… Rea and Hajin’s brother. They’ve got a little something going on, maybe, and Rea develops a career contrary to the one she thought she might have. This seems to be a more positive direction for her, and I’d love to see it go further in the next volume or so.
I.N.V.U. is still great and ridiculously addictive, and I’m thinking about re-reading the earlier volumes when I go back home next week, just so that I can remember. It’s just the right mix of shoujo drama between a group of friends with different, but interesting, paths in life. Now how long will it be before we see the continuation? The conclusion? Well, I’ll still be here.
Totally Captivated 3
Posted: December 18, 2009 Filed under: Totally Captivated | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Hajin Yoo – Netcomics – 2008 – 6 volumes
Yeah, I flew through all these. All of it was good stuff. This volume starts off with lots of drama between Jiho, Mookyul, and Ewon. I wasn’t sure if Ewon was on to the fact that Jiho was using Mookyul (I was pretty certain this was happening from the start, since Jiho still acted pretty jealous), since he has a thought to this effect while Mookyul and he are talking, but then he acts surprised when Jiho comes out with it in front of Mookyul. As harsh a guy as Mookyul is, he obviously doesn’t take this very well, though he makes it more than clear that he has no feelings for Jiho.
We also find out that Ewon is a little more distant than he seems. I like that he’s free to admit to himself why things aren’t working out between he and Jiho, despite the fact that Ewon still clearly loves him. Despite that distance, he’s still a pretty open guy, and I like that even his tragic downside doesn’t make him any less of an upbeat character. In fact, Mookyul’s entourage go on quite extensively about how much they like him, his cooking, and how they’d snatch him up if he was a girl. Everyone likes Ewon since he’s such a great guy, and he’s a big part of what makes the series fun to read.
I wasn’t clear on the relationship between he and Mookyul at this point, though. Mookyul made his lust fairly well-known at this point, but even through the end of this volume, there wasn’t much chemistry between the two, and it seemed like Ewon might be more physically attracted to Mookyul than… well, actually liking him as a person, since he seems both terrified and appalled by a lot of what he does. Some of Mookyul’s forcefulness made me wince, but again, there’s no rape in this series (though Mookyul does come damn close sometimes), and I like it a lot for that.
Ewon keeping his distance from Mookyul emotionally is sort of the point of the series, though, and even though I was never quite sure if Ewon was falling in love or not, Mookyul’s emotions are never in doubt when he gets serious, and the romantic parts are… er, very, very romantic. That’s the most important part.
Re-reading through some parts, I also like how, despite all his toughness, Mookyul really does act like a little kid when it comes to Ewon. He lets little things bug him, and his petty fights with Ewon, combined with all his groping and fondness when he’s around, make this series the awesome read it is. Well, yes, the romance, the sense of humor, the way the characters are ridiculously open about everything they do… When Ewon continuously denies Mookyul sex, Mookyul blatantly asks his men how long it took them to have sex with their girlfriends the first time, his intentions clear as day. Later, after the deed has been done, everyone and their mother knows that Ewon has done it, because he makes his pain more than obvious. Funny stuff.
Yeah. All that stuff is what makes this series magical.
Baby & Me 2
Posted: December 18, 2009 Filed under: Baby & Me 1 Comment »Marimo Ragawa – Viz – 2006 – 18 volumes
I really liked the themes of growing up in this volume. I noticed that Minoru’s age is left ambiguous, which leaves room for things like seeing him growing more independent of Takuya by doing things like dressing himself and speaking a little more. There’s also cute coming-of-age-type stories for both boys, though Minoru’s story of a love triangle in preschool between two younger sisters of Takuya’s friends is a little more silly than Takuya’s story about going through the first stages of maturity and feeling alienated from Minoru as he grows older.
There are also cute family chapters. I’m a little surprised that the father isn’t featured more prominently, but I suppose that’s to give the impression that the boys really do take care of themselves frequently. There were still one or two really adorable family stories in this volume, something else I love reading here since the familial relationships are so genuinely sweet and aren’t over-dramatic or ruined with bad humor, something you frequently see.
I also liked that this volume was a little less dark and depressing. I wouldn’t mind seeing chapters like that come up again, since it’s true that Takuya does have a lot to deal with since the death of his mother, but the two or so chapters of it in the last volume was probably too large a dose.
With the heavy maturity focus, I would love to see the characters age and progress as the series progresses. I’m not sure that happens (I seem to remember Minoru still being a baby in volume 13), but even if it’s just small things like in this volume, I don’t mind a little progress.
Good stuff. Good characters, mostly, which makes the slice-of-life stories a pleasure to read. Very touching.
All My Darling Daughters
Posted: December 16, 2009 Filed under: All My Darling Daughters 2 Comments »Fumi Yoshinaga – Viz – 2010 – 1 volume
To date, this is the only manga that has ever made me want to call my mom at two in the morning and bawl my eyes out. But then again, it’s Fumi Yoshinaga, and she’s got a power that no one else possesses.
This is a collection of five short stories told in six chapters. It’s in the Viz Signature line, so expect a similar treatment to Ooku, with pretty color pages and trim size and nice cover and whatnot. I didn’t realize that every single one was related until I got to the last story, and then I realized it’s true genius. There is some obvious carry-over between a couple of the stories, but if Fumi Yoshinaga has a flaw, it’s that her character designs look pretty similar. Yukiko, the daughter in the first story, is a character in all the stories, but I thought she was a stock wavy-haired friend until I got to that last chapter and recognized her mother. And even then, I didn’t recognize her mother, I recognized an insult unique to that character.
The first chapter is about Yukiko coming to terms with her mother’s sudden marriage to a man three years younger than Yukiko. He’s a handsome actor and an ex-host, and Yukiko hates everything about their relationship, but can’t find any fault with the husband himself, try as she might. This was the story that got to me most. This first and last chapter were the only stories that stuck to the theme of mother-daughter relationships that I imagined in this book, but all the stories were good, in their way.
The second story features a friend of the aforementioned husband, in a bizarre relationship with one of his college students that just won’t leave him alone. I wasn’t sure what to make of this story, and it’s the most out-of-place one in this volume, but it still put a smile on my face. The theme was a little more obscure than the other stories too, which was unusual given its silly and slightly graphic nature, but I liked that the most outrageous story also had the most subtle theme.
The third story was about a friend of Yukiko’s, a kind, good-looking girl that had finally decided to seek an arranged marriage to move herself out of her parent’s house. There are themes of equality and tolerance to the story, and the main character takes them to an almost absurd length. I wasn’t all that happy with the way the end of the story turned out, but it was still nice to see how happy the final decision made the main character. This character was also the most frustrating to follow, because I understood she was a good person, but I couldn’t figure out why she was rejecting all the men until the very end. It just seemed like I was completely missing something about her character, but in the end, I wasn’t, and the most obvious explanation was the correct one. I liked her a little less for it, but it’s hard to dislike a character so saintly, in the end.
The fourth story was about Yukiko’s friends in junior high. The three had set modest goals for themselves while still friends (one wanted to work in publishing, one wanted to work at a government job, and one just wanted to work as a female employee in the private sector), and the story was about how well the three of them did reaching those goals. It was most heartbreaking, especially when the disturbing extent of the least successful character’s life was revealed. Actually, yeah, it was depressing all the way through. All the characters were happy, but that last page just took all that away when it reminded you of the beginning of the chapter. Still, it was my favorite after the two that dealt with Yukiko directly.
The last chapter focused on Yukiko’s mother again, and about how she disliked Yukiko’s grandmother for the way she constantly insulted her looks and character while she was growing up. We get a flashback that goes into detail and explains why Yukiko’s mother complimented Yukiko to a fault, and then another that explains why the grandmother was so insulting to the mother. It’s a viscious cycle, but that grandmother does come down hard on the people she loves.
It’s a real woman manga, if such a thing exists (parallel, one can assume, to woman fiction, which is what I call stuff like Jodi Picoult and Penny Vincenzi). Very female stuff, but that doesn’t make it any less of an excellent read. I wouldn’t say it ranks up with my favorite of Yoshinaga’s works (I’m a fan of her more outrageous and comedic stuff), but it’s still an excellent read, and I have yet to truly dislike or even feel ambivalent about anything by Yoshinaga. She’s an amazing lady.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
