Ballad of a Shinigami 3
Posted: May 10, 2010 Filed under: Ballad of a Shinigami Leave a comment »K-Ske Hasegawa / Asuka Isumi – CMX – 2010 – 3 volumes
I reviewed this for the weekly Manga Minis column over at Manga Recon, you can check it out over there.
The stories are cute and well-told, but the fact they all go the same place is a little unexciting. It did get me fired up enough to want to pick up another series by the same author/artist (that would be Asuka Isumi, who did the writing and the adaptation, Hasegawa only wrote the original novels). She’s got a series called the Lizard Prince from CMX, and cutey shoujo is more my thing.
With the Light… 5
Posted: May 6, 2010 Filed under: With the Light 1 Comment »Keiko Tobe – Yen Press – 2009 – 14 volumes
“With the Light” is published in omnibus form. Volume 5 covers volumes 9-10.
I am extremely emotionally involved with the characters in this series. There’s nothing that seems fictitious about the lives of Hikaru and his family, and the extremely realistic (and optimistic) way the series portrays the problems facing Hikaru and how he, his mother, and those around him is great. I especially enjoyed the look at children with other forms of learning disabilities this volume, and the problems facing educators who are given a general “Special Education” classroom full of children with different needs. Basically, this manga is far, far different than any other that I read, and I’ve been with it since the beginning, so I feel like I have an obligation to keep following along. Especially since I will inevitably learn much by the time I finish every fat volume.
I also like that the series runs in “real” time. Hikaru, his sister, and all his friends age, and the story progresses through each year of his schooling (in this volume’s case, his final year of elementary school). It does a good job of having characters come and go as they would in real life, and I love all the connections his mother and others make throughout the series.
Now, I always complain about repetition in this series. I realize the irony in this, since I’m sure it comes up in every review and anyone reading through these is going to be reading that over and over again. I feel that accurately recreates the experience of reading this series. It’s probably better in small chunks, but I always finish one of the omnibuses in one sitting, so I’m left with a bad taste of repetition in my mouth. There’s also the fact that, in this volume, Hikaru gets yet another new teacher, something that just happened a year ago in the story. We have to go through all the same adjustments yet again, and that was hard to sit through since, literally, Gunji-sensei had just been educated. Happily, after a chapter or two, all these problems inexplicably disappear and most of the school year is glossed over, with happy results at the end. Hm.
Instead of Hikaru’s life, we look at other children. Aside from Miyu (the younger autistic girl who has been Hikaru’s classmate for years), there are two new students in the special education class this year. One boy has ADHD, and another has dyslexia. The new teacher insists on teaching all these children at the same pace, so the boy with dyslexia is at a disadvantage in a class with Hikaru and Miyu, who are further behind in studies, and the boy with ADHD, who the teacher insists on disciplining rather than working to find a solution to his problems. The discipline winds up being a problem, since it upsets the ADHD boy, which in turn upsets Hikaru, who is sensitive to noise, which then upsets the other two students as well. How this is solved isn’t really examined in-depth aside from giving Hikaru his own space to calm down in, but the boy with dyslexia does get a chapter or two to himself as his mother tries to figure out why her son has a hard time reading and find a solution that will help him best. We also find out a little about the boy with ADHD, but more that his family situation is such that his mother has a hard time earning enough money to keep them with food and shelter and isn’t able to extensively look for help.
We also see a chapter about a girl we’ve met before who is having problems with her abusive, alcoholic father and her strict mother, who is upset she can’t get into a good junior high.
And there’s also lots and lots of time spent with Hikaru’s mother, who does extensive research to find the best junior high for Hikaru and has to appeal to the school board extensively in order to not have him placed at the poorly-run and overpopulated special education facility.
While it is incredibly interesting and informative, and I do have an emotional investment in the characters at this point, it can be tedious to read because of the repetition and just… well, having to go through all the possible solutions with the characters whenever there’s a problem. I actually thought the junior high problem was an interesting one, and the story glossed over all the appeals to the school board that were needed, but a bad taste has lingered from other volumes. There probably aren’t a whole lot of manga readers that are going to pick this up and read it regularly, but I think it’s an incredible resource on autism, especially as a learning aid for adults, teens, and maybe even a younger audience, too. I’m extremely happy this is being published, and I do hope it’s finding the right niche for itself, because it deserves to be used as a learning aid.
Sadly, Keiko Tobe passed away in late January. The series remains unfinished, which means we won’t ever get to see Hikaru become a happy member of society. That’s the other hard thing about reading it, that I know there isn’t a resolution at the end. But I suppose that’s appropriate, since there’s never really any resolution to real life, either.
Eyeshield 21 31
Posted: May 5, 2010 Filed under: Eyeshield 21 1 Comment »Riichiro Inagaki / Yusuke Murata – Viz – 2010 – 37 volumes
While this is still very, very epic, for some reason I didn’t get caught up in it the same way I did in the ends of some of the other longer games. Surprising, since this is the very game that will admit Deimon into the Christmas Bowl. Hiruma is the one that makes the final touchdown, and I was expecting a moment from him identical to the one we got from Sena a few volumes back. Apparently Hiruma isn’t so sentimental, and little was made of the fact that he was the one that finished it off.
There were some amazing, hard-to-believe plays at the very end. It comes down to a two-point conversion, and incredibly, Hiruma and Sena are able to communicate with each other and figure out that the play they need to perform isn’t going to work, so things change in a split second and it comes down to Kurita having to take down Gao once and for all. We knew that was coming, and I was expecting it a little sooner.
I am still very, very amused by all of Hiruma’s tricks. I absolutely love that their entire strategy is based on the number of things Hiruma may or may not do to fool the opponent. He tricks so hard that there’s a question about whether he will do a trick or won’t, because you wouldn’t expect the latter, and then what kind of trick he will pull also comes into play. It’s better when the other team has a character like Marco, a strategist who can go toe-to-toe with Hiruma and thwart him in at least some of his schemes.
I also like the ends of these games because the series does an excellent job of emphasizing that, with every one of Deimon’s victories, the other team is defeated and sits out the rest of the season, and they wanted to go to the Christmas Bowl just as much as Deimon. A lot of these students are seniors with only one shot left, too, and while it’s not quite the same as the main characters losing, we do get a lot of backstory for all the opponents, and it can still be heartbreaking.
Sigh. We get to hear yet another team talked up. One of the things that Eyeshield 21 is bad at is constantly coming up with a “new strongest.” Each opponent is the strongest possible team they can face. Ojo has a huge system in place and is the absolute elite. The Nagas are scary good. The Poseidons are great, too. Now the Alexanders have a system in place in their high school that puts even the Big 10 to shame. I’m… not as excited about the Christmas Bowl, but I’m sure reading it will convince me otherwise. I suspect more story takes place after that, too, which is a shame because I really hope that Eyeshield 21 doesn’t die a slow Shounen Jump death.
But for now, this is still some fantastic manga. Play on, Deimon.
Breath 2
Posted: May 5, 2010 Filed under: Breath | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Chifumi Ochi – Yaoi Generation – 2009 – 5 volumes
While I thought the first volume was only okay, the second volume really hooked me. The biggest problem I had with the first was the strange and slow-moving story, but that begins to work well here as the characters slowly and awkwardly begin to get a feel for one another, and their relationship stops being so creepy and starts turning itself around.
Not much is said about the change, or really between the two characters at all, but the meetings stop being so forced and slightly more passion creeps into their encounters. Neither one understands the change at this point, but the mushy stuff will probably be in another volume or two. Probably after the coming storm, meaning that Arata’s twin brother Ten has found out about his recent extracurricular activities and is going to do something sinister to get his favorite “pet” back. “Pet” in this context meaning that Ten is the only one that likes to be close to Arata… not that there’s anything sexual going on. Thank God.
There’s not too much else to say about it. Lots of character development this time around, and it made for some great reading. Looks like there’ll probably be more plot as things are shaken up next time, and I’m really looking forward to it.
One Piece 48
Posted: May 5, 2010 Filed under: One Piece 4 Comments »Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 57+ volumes
This is the last volume until the next set of five. It kills me a little bit to have to wait until the end of Thriller Bark, but on the other hand, if I had all of that story at once, would I even need any more volumes after that?
It really is that good. After the battles of pure strength that were fought against CP9, Thriller Bark turns to more character-oriented battles, and they are really, really entertaining. Aside from Brook, my favorite part of the entire Thriller Bark story is Usopp’s battle with Perona in this volume. Usopp will never, ever have a better battle than this. It is, for sure, his finest moment. That this trumps even his scene on Enies Lobby where he was the only one that could help save Robin says something about this fight. It really is spectacular.
So, Perona’s power is that she can generate ghosts that can suck all the positive feelings from a person and make them lose their will to fight. And live, for that matter. It’s a crippling handicap, because all she needs to do is hit each member of the Straw Hat crew with one of these ghosts, and a weak zombie can carry off even the strongest member of the crew.
But Usopp is more than a match for her. Usopp… Usopp has no positive feelings. The ghosts don’t affect his will to fight, because he’s already such a negative person. Thus, Usopp is the only one that can keep Perona and her ghosts at bay so that the others can fight the more terrifying inhabitants of Thriller Bark. I love the two-page spread when this is unveiled, because not only is he 100% confident in his negativity, Perona gets to make a really weird face, and the zombies feel so bad that they try and cheer him up. And this is just the beginning of the fight! Usopp gets to use all the tricks in his arsenal to go up against Perona. This fight uses absolutely everything good about Usopp. It really is awesome. Better, even, than the swordfight Zoro has with Samurai Ryuma later, which is so unremarkable that it only lasts for about a chapter.
Another good fight is with Sanji and Absalom. Sanji is angry because Absalom is trying to marry Nami, but he also has a personal grudge. Absalom and Sanji are made from the same mold. Not only are both comically obsessed with Nami, but both covet the power of Absalom’s clear-clear fruit, and both would (or do) use it for the same purpose. The two do fight in the sense that they exchange blows, but it’s really all about those zombies that are watching and boggling over what hardcore perverts both of the men are. The fight is periodically interrupted by the same gaping zombie face commenting on this. It’s great.
What else… hm, I think Oars is running around the island? Oars is Luffy’s zombie, and he’s enormous and very powerful. He has little interest in becoming anything but the King of Pirates, though. With Oars not an immediate threat, Luffy confronts Gecko Moria, who has no interest in fighting. Their conversation is more interesting than their fight, and I like the fact that Luffy can walk up and talk to anyone he pleases and have an actual conversation, including one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
There’s also a fight with Hogback and Chopper. Chopper talks a lot about what makes a good doctor and why Hogback has failed, and I think this would be a pretty fantastic fight in any other context since Chopper rarely gets to act so cool, but it doesn’t quite compare to the Sanji and Usopp battles.
I am a little disappointed that only long-established members of the crew get special battles to highlight their characters. Franky gets to hold Brook’s head as the two of them watch Zoro fight, and Robin only gets to help Chopper. To be fair, Nami doesn’t get one either, but she is the subject of one of the fights, too. Both Franky and Robin are doing pretty spectacular things to help the crew whenever possible, but even so, it would have been a good opportunity. Some other time.
Seimaden 3
Posted: May 5, 2010 Filed under: Seimaden 1 Comment »You Higuri – CMX – 2006 – 10 volumes
You know, this series is very slow, but I do enjoy the old-school flavor. It’s got a certain mid-90s melodrama to it, the sense of self-sacrifice, the wide bishounen shoulders, the cackling bad guys, the spirited damsels in distress. I’m not hanging on the character’s every word, but I do enjoy this type of story.
Not much happened that we weren’t already told of last time. Roddrick finds out that his small companion is the daughter of the divine spirit of the Azelle. I thought he might be more happy about this, since that meant his mission has a divine cast to it, but there’s the problem of her killing the soul of the little boy she possessed and trying to kill Roddrick’s lady love. Roddrick doesn’t like her much, and neither does Roddrick’s companion.
Meanwhile, Zadei and the Count go through with their plan to capture Laures, and they do it by capturing Hilda. Lots of hand-wringing during the second half of the volume as Laures is tortured at the hands of the Count and Hilda is kept captive in order to keep Laures under control. There is a little bit of a twist towards the end in regards to the Count, and I’m curious to see how that works itself out. Added drama points for the fact that Hilda’s sick friend shows up at the demon-infested castle. She finds Teitus, who seems nice enough for a demon, and befriends him quickly. He’s the biggest hand-wringer of all, as he seems willing to help this friend, assists Zadei in everything that he does, and seems completely devoted to Laures.
Yeah, I’ll keep reading. It’s dated, but interesting, and I think I’ll probably get caught up in all the fantasy-esque drama if I give it a couple more volumes.
Berserk 33
Posted: May 5, 2010 Filed under: Berserk 6 Comments »Kentaro Miura – Dark Horse – 2010 – 33+ volumes
Aaand… here we are, caught up with Japan. I think there’s approximately one volume of this series a year, so now we wait for the ending to roll around.
This volume’s all about setting up another prophecy for Griffith. While we do get to see the primary cast on board their ship, fighting pirates, the majority of the focus is on Midland and getting the citizens out from under the Kushan invaders before something really bad happens. King Ganishka is mad about his defeat at the hands of the Band of the Hawk, and he decides to gather more power than what he has as an apostle and go full demon. While his transformation is happening, the people of Midland take the opportunity to flee the city while he’s not looking, and they’re intercepted by the Band of the Hawk just as Ganishka’s transformation is unveiled.
On one hand, this is a very slow volume, and it’s a shame we seem to be getting less and less time for Guts’ mission to kill Griffith. On the other hand, it’s pretty incredible that Berserk is continuously developing its world like this, and even situations not involving the main characters are still as good a read as this. It’s slow, but I still tore through it pretty fast. The pirates provide a little action, but my ache for twisted demon transformations was satisfied by the horrible new form that Ganishka has taken (which isn’t as spectacular as some other demons, just incredibly massive).
Guts is in pretty bad shape, too, so he’ll need time to recover while the ship leisurely sails on towards Elfhelm. Hopefully… hopefully that’ll only be one more volume. While we’re waiting for that, apparently Griffith is going to remake the entire world, so there’s also that to look forward to in the meantime. Always something in Berserk.
Eyeshield 21 30
Posted: May 5, 2010 Filed under: Eyeshield 21 3 Comments »Riichiro Inagaki / Yusuke Murata – Viz – 2010 – 37 volumes
Aside from the big guns like One Piece, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Death Note, and Dragon Ball, were you to ask me for the best of what Shonen Jump has to offer, I would point you in the direction of Hikaru no Go and Eyeshield 21. Both are series that take a topic with limited interest (more in the case of HnG, but I’ll stick by the stereotype and say that a lot of manga readers probably aren’t big football fans) and use the absolute best characters to make a series that are infectiously upbeat and impossible to put down. Of the four I mentioned as exceptions, Jojo and Death Note are strange kiws in the Jump apple tree, and One Piece and Dragon Ball… they’re also different, but more because… well, in One Piece’s case, it is more heavily plot-driven than any other Jump series I’ve seen. Dragon Ball is too, for the first 18 or so volumes. There are a lot of good Shonen Jump series, but generally we see the very best they have to offer in 7-10 volumes, and then they get more serious and very repetitive.
But I can’t get enough of either Hikaru no Go or Eyeshield 21. They keep their sense of humor, explain the subject matter to you bit by bit, and make you hang on every glorious victory and painful defeat the characters experience. And the characters are very, very good.
We are getting closer and closer to the Christmas Bowl, but before that, Hiruma’s arm is broken and the characters don’t know what to do without a quarterback or Hiruma’s devious tricks against Gao and the rest of the Dinosaurs. Sena does a good job filling in for Hiruma initially, but after the quarterback for the Dinosaurs figures out Sena’s strategy, the Devil Bats are dead in the water. So… then there’s Hiruma.
The highlight of this volume is that, despite his exploitative and demonic nature, Hiruma is willing to back up getting what he wants with huge amounts of personal sacrifice. He doesn’t let on that he’s doing it, of course, but he is anyway. Even in his state, he’s such a wildcard that neither the reader nor the Dinosaurs quite knows what to make of him, and much is made of his presence on the field being like that of a gargoyle (or something), just there to bring bad luck and doubt.
Hiruma is, by far, the gift that Eyeshield 21 will give us long after we’ve read the last volume.
I also would like to mention the catcher’s duel between Monta and that strange, effeminate boy. I love that so much was made of that boy’s ability, then so little came of it when their duel actually took place. Good for Deimon.
I’m tempted to hoard the last volumes and read them all at once, but I’ve got 31 sitting here and little to stop me from starting it right now.
Yellow 2 1
Posted: May 5, 2010 Filed under: Yellow | Tags: BL Leave a comment »Makoto Tateno – June/DMP – 2009 – 2+ volumes
I reviewed this for the weekly Manga Minis column at the Manga Recon, so you can check it out over there.
Good stuff. On that note, I’m dying for the second Yellow omnibus. I really need to read more Makoto Tateno.
Love Full of Scars
Posted: May 1, 2010 Filed under: Love Full of Scars | Tags: BL 4 Comments »Psyche Delico – Netcomics – 2009 – 1 volume
This is utter madness. I love it. I love BL series that don’t take themselves seriously. It reminds me a lot of Delivery Cupid, except Delivery Cupid is a whole lot more filthy and disturbing than this is. There’s also All Nippon Air Lines, and to a lesser extent, Selfish Mr. Mermaid, which only had an insane concept and the youngest looking salaryman I’ve ever seen.
This is a collection of short stories. The first half of the volume has random stories, but the second half all focuses on the same couple, Kanda and Uesaka. Kanda is one of the funniest BL protagonists I’ve ever seen, with an inner commentary and rich fantasy life where he and his crush Uesaka are the cutest couple in the world, but the things that come out of his mouth are abusive and completely punk-ish. They regularly beat each other up until Kanda decided to confess. Or, rather, until Uesaka read between the lines and realized his increasingly weird taunts were pick-up lines. I love everything about Kanda. He’s also an unapologetic pervert, and the first two stories have a lot of commentary from him about masturbation. It’s funny stuff. The last story in this set focuses on Kanda’s older brother, and is actually the only story in the volume that isn’t humorous. Both the brother and his partner work at… I don’t know, an okama bar or something, but that’s not commented on. Not even in the first set of stories, when the elder Kanda runs his brother down in full drag.
The other stories in the volume are all varying degrees of insane and romantic. Mostly just because the characters are so ridiculous. The second story in the volume was my favorite of these, and featured two businessmen who were bonding over Muscleman memories. After a night where they drunkenly wrestle one another, one man misinterprets the conditions when he wakes up to mean that they had copulated. The double entendres that work for both sex and sweaty drunken wrestling are amazing. Also, the bonding first started when one man realized the other was the “creator” of one of his favorite Muscleman characters. I love that older men can bond over memories like this, and I also love that some of those same men created Muscleman characters, then grew up to become popular shounen jump artists.
There’s also a really disturbing/hilarious story about a brother who comes back to Japan after two years abroad to find that his adorable younger brother has grown into a gigantic hairy man. The thing I love most about this story is that it doesn’t actually slash the two brothers (one of my least favorite plot devices), but instead just makes the older one have constant, bizarre flashbacks to how adorable his younger brother was. It’s so bizarre I have no words to describe it.
There’s not actually that much sex here. Mostly, it’s comedy, but I think you’d have to have read a fair number of BL books to enjoy it. With a name like “Love Full of Scars,” I was expecting some drama-tastic high school romance. I couldn’t have been more pleased with what I got. Of course, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, so I can see how it might not be everyone’s cup of tea… but for those looking, it’s good stuff.
