Yakitate!! Japan 22
Posted: February 26, 2010 Filed under: Yakitate!! Japan 1 Comment »Takashi Hashiguchi – Viz – 2010 – 26 volumes
In case I had forgotten, this volume opens with Kuroyanagi’s bad pun judging. Had I jumped into the series here, I would have been very puzzled as to why he was first a little chick, then a bird. Since I have read a few other volumes, I was merely pleased. I must say, though, I was pretty bummed by the tease of him turning into an… Inca or something. I was very curious about that.
Since I missed a couple volumes, I couldn’t tell you what happened immediately before this, but it looks like Pantasia had a couple losses. That’s a shame, and I’ll have to go back and read those volumes. I’m always borderline disturbed by the weirdness of this series, but I really do love it. It’s a unique kind of disturbed, I suppose, and it is pretty funny in addition to being educational, what with all the commentary about bread and baking. And it would be unfair to say that I couldn’t deal with the weirdness in this when I loved the absolute over-the-top absurdity of Iron Wok Jan. I probably will have to go back to the beginning and start this series for real. It’s something special.
I also still love the puns. I’m sad I missed out on whatever turned the lame kid into a knee, but I enjoyed Kuro-yan’s later reactions to the leg of the race held during this volume. They weren’t puns, as far as I could tell, they were just downright disturbing. I did think it was a shame what happened with the score, though. That was a pretty cruel way to extend the length of the manga. I assume this contest will run for the four volumes until the end.
The author actually mentions in the back that he’s had some thoughts about his next series, and this comment is followed with about four pages of really funny ideas for terrible manga, including a series for people who love rice and one about the most common name in Japan.
The contest itself in this volume was about the same as always, a tart contest with the head of St. Pierre herself. She is, of course, a master tart maker, and Azuma has to overcome the severe handicap of her “blizzard hands.” The ingredient of choice this time around is loquat, a fruit I haven’t tried or given much thought to before reading this volume.
On one hand, it is a bit disappointing that the bulk of such a great series is the same tournament. On the other hand, this series is so funny that I don’t really care that all they are doing is repeating the same process over and over again. Plus, the format for the tournament is such that they are making a completely different kind of dish every time, so it’s not really that boring. Honestly, there’s probably not that many forms a series about baking bread can take that shows off all the aspects of baking, so I can’t say I mind the tournament too much. I’m well and truly convinced of the awesomeness of this series now. There’s a Viz sale this week at the Right Stuf, so I think I’m going to pick up the volumes I missed along with a couple that move backwards from where I started. That’ll be nice.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Skip Beat 20
Posted: February 25, 2010 Filed under: Skip Beat 6 Comments »Yoshiki Nakamura – Viz – 2010 – 24+ volumes
I read this volume twice today, along with a ton of other comics, so I feel like I’ve numbed myself to it a bit and am not going to be able to do it justice. Take my word for it, though. This volume was just as heart-crushingly adorable as all the others that have come before it. Maybe more so, because we get to see Kyoko and Maria acting adorable together and they, along with Lory, throwing a big happy “thank you”/holiday/birthday party. Good stuff, and still chock full of the little hilarious asides that make the series amazing.
But yes, that’s basically what happens. After making Maria sad and putting her foot in her mouth about Maria’s birthday (the day her mother died), Kyoko suggests they throw a party to thank all the people in their lives for that year. Maria agrees, and the two of them go all-out preparing the party. Lory is forbidden from helping because he is a guest, so the two receive funding and help from a mysterious “Daddy Long-Legs.” Funny stuff.
The best parts are the… war that Moko wages with herself when trying to acquire the perfect gift for Kyoko. She doesn’t have any problem finding a gift, and in fact, doesn’t intend to give a gift until she spots the perfect item. It is perfectly suited to Kyoko’s tastes. Thus, Moko must embarass herself in order to buy it. This mental tug-of-war is rather expertly depicted. It comes across pretty clearly how Kyoko’s joy is what keeps the blinding rage at bay in Moko’s mind.
Also, there’s Ren. Of course, Ren is invited by both Kyoko and Maria, but he’s of course most excited about Kyoko. A childhood memory also means he gets to act all smooth and nice at the end of the party, a real prince. Ren always steals the show, though. I do hope this leads to something more concrete between them, although the significance of his gift is downplayed when Kyoko gets hit with a series of good things all in a row.
There’s also some interesting family dynamics shown in the Lory/Maria family. We get to meet an awesome uncle, and someone else, too. I was hoping for both to be a little more extreme, being related to Lory and all, but I did like Uncle Tora all the same. And it made for such a sugary sweet story that I can’t bring myself to really find faults with the gentlemen.
Skip Beat still has it. It’s one of my absolute favorite shoujo series of all time. I could literally read it forever and never get tired of it. Although… again, twenty volumes in, I don’t think it’s wrong of me to wish for a little bit more between Ren and Kyoko. I mean, she still has absolutely no idea he has a gigantic crush on her and is also her childhood fairy prince. I mean, he’d only have to tell her that to win her over forever. And man, is he ever cute and little boy-ish around her.
See, only Skip Beat can make me say embarrassing things like that.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Blade of the Immortal 3
Posted: February 25, 2010 Filed under: Blade of the Immortal 3 Comments »Hiroaki Samura – Dark Horse – 1999 – 25+ volumes
Hmm. This was kind of a strange story arc after what was in the first two. Strange, but still good. It focused a lot more on the incidental side character than it did on Manji and Rin, but she was an interesting side character. She was torn between being a swordsman and being a sex worker (I don’t remember the Japanese word they used for this), and was no good at either, by all accounts. She was sent after Manji by her lover, Anotsu, the man that Rin and Manji are looking for. Her sword skills are quite good, in fact, but she lacks the confidence to use them, and she also seems to lack the confidence to be Anotsu’s lover.
We see a lot of nuances to her story, and explanations for both her skills and a bit of Anotsu’s past in a lengthy flashback in the middle of the volume. The flashback was suitably extreme, but it was nothing compared to the real fight between the woman Makie and Manji. When she puts on her swordsman hat… damn. It is an insane fight that is difficult to keep up with. It’s got a pretty clear winner all the way through, though, something else that was quite interesting about it.
Basically: YES. Kind of a slow volume, but still interesting, and the flashback and final swordfight made everything worth it. Moving on to the next volume, then.
Hayate X Blade 4
Posted: February 25, 2010 Filed under: Hayate X Blade 2 Comments »Shizuru Hayashiya – Seven Seas – 11+ volumes
This series is totally not my style, and yet I like it anyway. Why is that? Maybe it’s Jun, who’s awesome and is an anomaly as a side character that wins popularity polls by landslides (but yes, she really is that awesome). Maybe it’s Wanko, or Ayana, or Hayate, or any number of the other insane characters. Well, yes, that’s what it is. There’s borderline too many of them right now, but they’re so easy to like, and… the stupid jokes are just so funny, that it’s easy to overlook a lot of things I normally dislike.
Mainly it’s the sense of humor. It’s pretty over-the-top and chock full of the kind of obvious jokes that I hate, but somehow the jokes go so far over-the-top that they reach back around to the bottom and are funny again. Everything from Jun’s lecherous comments to Hayate’s often dim-witted observations and Ayane’s surly moods is just great.
Again, the number of characters is beginning to become a little hard to follow, and I was completely lost after a few more side characters got wrapped up in the main story. I know that the side characters are repeating themselves, and I really should know characters like Hayate’s roommate by now (who is forgettable because she is probably the most normal), so it’s not as bad as I make it out to be. The most difficult part is tracking what appears to be the approaching ongoing plot of the series, involving a lot of the S-rank girls. Other than the school leader and her sister-in-arms, I can’t remember any of those girls, so their scheming and whatnot means very little to me despite the fact that it’s clearly important. I’m sure it’ll all come together later, though. The good thing is that the plot is never really over-complicated, so leaving the series for awhile doesn’t mean I’ll have problems picking it back up later.
This volume finishes up the story about Jun and her partner, and then moves on to a sub-story about Hayate trying to improve herself, and most of the rest of the volume is a story about Wanko and her sister-in-arms, Hayate’s roommate, working through some partner issues. A girl with supernatural powers wants to pair with Wanko and uses the fact that Wanko and her partner don’t know much about each other to split the pair up. As I said, Hayate’s roommate is the most normal and thus leaves the least impression, but Wanko more than makes up for that. I love the lengthy description of exactly how terrible Wanko’s powers were that came at the end of the volume (and that Wanko took as a compliment), and I also love the fact that Wanko still speaks in the special creepy font, even though her appearance is now much cuter. And there’s a bonus Jun side story at the end, but it was a little less silly than what I was hoping for.
I’ve got one more volume here with me, so I think I’ll go right into it, the better to follow all the characters and whatnot. I do hope that the issue of Hayate’s twin will be addressed soon, that’s really the thing I’m most interested in. Other than Jun. And Ayana and Hayate getting married, of course.
Children of the Sea 2
Posted: February 24, 2010 Filed under: Children of the Sea 3 Comments »Daisuke Igarashi – Viz – 2009 – 4+ volumes
Man, I can’t believe I put off reading this for so long. I have no idea why, I enjoyed the first volume quite a bit. The second continues the themes of a sort of bizarre ocean-themed fairy tale set in the modern day, except the story further unhinges itself from reality and goes in some interesting directions.
Umi and Sora are still separated, and Ruka does her best to help Umi find his lost brother. Umi is in a state of persistent mourning after being separated from Sora for the first time, and while Ruka at first helps him deal with his sorrow, the two later embark on a series of searches which have various bizarre outcomes, from lightening and manta rays leaping out of a typhoon-swept ocean, to salty rainwater, to more strange fish disappearances, to partially formed children with no record of existing washing up on shore. Actually, most of that is caused by a typhoon that sits over the story for a good chunk of the volume, but it’s unclear what Sora and Umi have a hand in, and Umi mentions the typhoon is their brother from the southern oceans.
In fact, the maddening definition of what Umi and Sora are, and the extent of what they can do and what things simply just happen around them, is still central to the plot of the story. It is explained in a rather unsatisfying way towards the end (somewhat, not really), but there are one or two alternative explanations that I would accept. Nothing really makes sense, mind, but one of the themes of the story is a commentary on the limited nature of science and what humans can see, so it’s not setting out to make sense, it’s trying to do something different.
As I said, it does read as kind of a fairy tale set in the modern day, but it also explores the ideas of fairy tales through the ages and how a seed of truth might be sowed into them. A new scientist that enters the picture towards the end of the volume, Anglade, tries to explain Umi and Sora’s situation by looking at aquatic-themed folklore from Southeast Asia, which is extremely interesting, though I wish it were pursued more or linked in a more concrete way to the story.
Anglade is, by the way, the very definition of androgynous. He is referred to as a “he” by other characters, but he really, really looks like a girl, and there is at least one panel where he has breasts. He also wears his shirts in a way that suggests breasts. Yeah, I’m not sure where that’s going.
Anyway, later on, there are some hints about Ruka’s role in Umi and Sora’s story, and how she may be more like them than she thought. She is trusted with an item that ensures her a more supernatural role in the coming series, which bodes well for future installments.
And the art continues to do a great job with the lavishily-illustrated seaside landscapes and underwater panoramas. It’s important for a series so linked to nature, and it’s amazing to look at. It’s probably worth mentioning that sometimes the sketchy detail makes the drawings of people suffer (there was a face on one of the first pages that made me cringe), but hey, it’s not all about the people here, and Umi, Sora, and Ruka always look pretty good.
I still feel like the story has only begun to explain the mysteries its spinning, and I have a feeling they won’t be explained all that adequately in the end, so it makes it a bit of a maddening reading experience. But it’s still an incredible read, a kind of ethereal story with amazing illustrations to go along with it. I’m very much looking forward to the strange paths the story will take in the future.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Four-Eyed Prince 2
Posted: February 24, 2010 Filed under: Four-Eyed Prince Leave a comment »Wataru Mizukami – Del Rey – 2009 -4+ volumes
I did a short review of this for the weekly Manga Minis column at the Manga Recon, so you can check out the review over there.
Really, it doesn’t deserve a longer review. It’s not very good. But it does cater to the glasses fetish crowd, which is kind of hilarious and a bit notable.
Night Head Genesis 1
Posted: February 24, 2010 Filed under: Night Head Genesis Leave a comment »George Iida / You Higuri – Del Rey – 2009 – 3 volumes
I reviewed this volume for the Manga Recon, so you can check out my review over there.
It wasn’t very good, which is a shame, because it’s got all the elements of a good story and mostly suffers from being abridged. It doesn’t do anything particularly bad, it’s just very rushed. I mention in my review over there that it’s an adaptation, and apparently one where Higuri had little control over the length, so it’s kind of a shame. I usually like You Higuri otherwise.
Jihai 2
Posted: February 23, 2010 Filed under: Jihai Leave a comment »Toshimi Nigoshi – CMX – 2009 – 3 volumes
Again, I’m writing a full series review for this at the Manga Recon, so these will just be some brief notes until I can elaborate further.
What appears to be the plot and central conflict in this series resolves itself early on in this volume, and something else takes its place. That alone was strange enough for me, but the new plot (a conspiracy to accumulate clones with special abilities for a possible military purpose) was even more uninteresting than Aoi’s quest for vengeance. It also doesn’t help that the whole government conspiracy/military thing isn’t fleshed out that well. It’s more of a vague threat than a solid plot, though the substory with Shirakusa was suitably exciting.
The characters were also still not growing on me at this point. Shirakusa was fun, and Tris is developed into something of a villan here with what seems like a Faustian bargain for Aoi, but nothing that seriously grabbed my interest. Most of the focus continued to be on Aoi and Dis, who continued to just be nice to each other. There’s some discussion on the brevity of Aoi’s life and what death means to those left behind, but… you know how that goes in a manga.
Despite there being almost nothing at all remarkable about it, however, I still found myself fairly interested. It does build up nicely, and it’s never outright boring, though it teeters on the brink an awful lot.
And… yeah. The rest will be in the form of the long review. I’ll link it here with the volume 3 review.
Wild Ones 9
Posted: February 23, 2010 Filed under: Wild Ones 3 Comments »Kiyo Fujiwara – Viz – 2010 – 10 volumes
EDIT: I wrote this review thinking this was the last volume. There is one more, but the story does come to a pretty solid conclusion in this volume, as far as I can tell. So even though I talk a lot about this being the end, there’s at least one more volume.
This was the last volume. I came in about halfway through and never really fell in love with it, but shoujo manga endings always make me happy, regardless of how much of the series I’ve read.
Most everything you’d expect happens here. Rakuto and Azuma’s rivalry climaxes, and the two bump heads in a tennis match over the methods each is using to win over Sachie. Sachie, meanwhile, remains completely oblivious until one takes definitive steps to win her favor, and she spends the rest of the volume wondering what exactly a special person is.
The subplot with Rakuto’s dad is also resolved, and it goes… well, again, exactly how you think it will. It’s left alone at first, but I knew it would come up again, and it came up exactly how I thought it would.
The last page is all hugs and pledged love and whatnot. Cute stuff. Exactly how a shoujo manga should end.
This was, in the end, a little too silly for my tastes, and I never really got into the characters. They are who they are, and I would say they don’t have much depth, but it’s a romantic comedy, so they aren’t really supposed to have a lot of depth. There’s not a lot of serious stuff to flesh them out, at least in the second half, and it suits the series quite well. Again, it wasn’t really my cup of tea, and it was pretty middle-of-the-road, but I’m sure it will find its share of fans among those who read it.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Jihai 1
Posted: February 22, 2010 Filed under: Jihai 1 Comment »Toshimi Nigoshi – CMX – 2009 – 3 volumes
I’m going to do a full series review for this over at Manga Recon. That should appear within the next couple days, and I’ll link it over here with the volume 3 review. Since I’m writing up the whole series, I’m just going to post brief thoughts on the first two volume here, then go into more depth in that article.
Basically, Aoi is a fast courier who gains clients by being the only one who can walk through a magnetic field generated by an artificial ring that was put up around the Earth. But as a kind of clone, he’s not allowed to walk around without an owner, and when he is nearly busted, Dis and Tris show up and save him, taking him to the one country that allows the artificially made humans to walk around free. Dis doesn’t want to stay, however, since he’s made it the mission of his extremely short life to find and kill an old war hero.
My initial impression was a little bland, which is unusual since I rarely dislike series published by CMX. But it’s got a bit of a drab futuristic setting and some well-worn situations, like Earth in the near-future and a kind of clone boy who doesn’t have long to live running into the arms of his saviors. There are four main characters: Aoi, the clone and former courier; Dis, a nice man who runs a restaurant; Tris, a priest who takes care of younger and abandoned clones; and Shirakusa, a cranky doctor. Of the four, Dis and Aoi are the two we see the most, and they are the most bland. Aoi is driven by revenge, and he and Dis are little more than nice to one another. Tris is slightly more interesting since it’s clear that more will be revealed about him later, and Shirakusa is funny, but not terribly interesting.
Things get more interesting by the end of the volume, and a simple twist leaves things on a pretty big cliffhanger for next time. Volume one never really coasted out of mediocre territory for me, though.
