Honey and Clover 9
Posted: July 21, 2010 Filed under: Honey and Clover 1 Comment »Chica Umino – Viz – 2010 – 10 volumes
I saved this up so that I could read the last two volumes together, but then I was debating over whether I should take a break or not to write up 9 before I read 10. That just… wasn’t an option. I tore straight through both of them tonight. It’s just… so good.
I was beginning to grow curious as this volume went on. It seemed like nobody was getting what they wanted, relationship-wise. Mayama was still only sort-of in the fringes of Harada’s life, Yamada was still completely stuck on him and not gravitating to eager and good-for-her Nomiya at all, and there was still a relationship triangle between Morita, Takemoto, and Hagu. Then everybody began deciding what they wanted to do with their lives, and things got… weird. I mean, what about all this other stuff?
One of the interesting things was that we finally found out what Shinobu and Kaoru were up to. It’s an interesting story, about how people stand in the shadow of the creative ones close to them. Papa Morita was a lot like Shinobu, and he had a friend that simply… went with him every step of the way, thinking himself unremarkable. Kaoru is the say way with Shinobu, and the exploitation all means something in the end. Kaoru is the one that takes the climax the hardest, but Shinobu has something else he takes away from it. Mainly that he hates being seen only for his talent, and it’s something he recognizes in Hagu as well.
So that things don’t wind down too quietly, there is a terrible accident that brings many of the characters back together and begins making them question the direction of their lives (once again) and what they mean to each other. This story made me cry a great deal, but it was also interesting for all the different and very human ways the group reacted to it.
The crying was mostly as a result of the love. All of it in this series seems so fruitless. Not in the overly dramatic way of other shoujo manga, but in a quiet way that seems more real, a way that you know never really gets resolved. While all the sadness and angst can be easy to relate to in something like We Were There, Honey and Clover is more real because it’s more about fleeting crushes (although that’s light and a little insulting) and the love between friends. There’s really nothing like it.
Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga
Posted: July 21, 2010 Filed under: Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga Leave a comment »Koji Aihara / Kentaro Takekuma – Viz – 2002 – 2 volumes
the Viz edition stops at volume one, the 2-volume edition is a recent Japanese omnibus that doesn’t line up with the Viz edition… not that that matters
Jason Thompson recently wrote this book up over at House of 1000 Manga. I’d been looking to pick it up for years, but the prices were always insane. They were way down on Thursday night (after I read the article), so I bought a copy. It was here Monday morning. I’m writing it up here Tuesday night. God bless the internet.
For the uninitiated, this is a book that discusses manga on a topic-by-topic basis. It has chapters for shoujo, shounen, seinen, and ladies’ comics, different chapters on how to draw, a chapter on “art,” chapters on mahjong manga, salaryman manga, gag manga, merchandising manga, subliminal messages… the “preview” for the next volume is a discussion of the 4 (or maybe 3+1) major shounen magazines and how the same story would be told differently in each one. It is legitimately educational, and yet each chapter describes the topic to you in the most jaded, crude, and vulgar way possible. Using this method, it is far better than any other “how to” manga book will ever be. There are diagrams and charts describing why the lame friend character is necessary in shounen manga, why ladies’ comics… er, have to be the way they are, and even the evolution of panties. Each lesson uses styles that are equivalent (or at least 80s equivalents) of art from real manga for whatever it is they’re talking about. Frequently their points are emphasized using naked photos or naked drawings of themselves for reasons I don’t want to think about.
It’s impossible to talk about this book without posting pictures, because I think everyone (myself included) reads it in slack-jawed amazement. You just have to see this thing. Everything it says is true. This is incredible because… the book itself is 20 years old, and the English translation of it is nearly 10. There are a few points that could be updated, but almost everything else stands as an eerie pillar of truth, supported on either side by one of the naked authors. The other incredible thing is that it’s not a parody. Not really. I mean, I think it’s meant to be, except it’s all correct information. Even when it’s making jokes, it’s actually taking things from real manga that sound like a joke, but aren’t. Sometimes it even offers decent advice. It could be argued that it offers decent advice on every page.
The ugly art you often see are the “characters” in the manga, the two who are pulling the manzai routine and have to say everything with their veiny eyes bugging out. But each chapter is introduced by the “real” Aihara and Takekuma, and those pages are drawn in a very simple style, with the two bespectacled, dark-haired authors addressing the reader in an educational, calm manner. It took me three chapters before I realized why I found this so unsettling.
Flower in a Storm 2
Posted: July 19, 2010 Filed under: Flower in a Storm Leave a comment »Shigeyoshi Takagi – Viz – 2010 – 2 volumes
I know I’m not the best person to turn to for recommendations when it comes to mediocre shoujo, because I wind up liking quite a bit of it. Again, this is one of those titles that unapologetically uses shoujo cliches like candy, mostly when it comes to the heroine. And the heroine isn’t that likable. But it was a really cute love story, and I couldn’t help but get caught up in this volume as Riko began returning Ran’s feelings.
The short story chapter format continues, with Riko and ran having holiday retreats in Europe, going on cruises, and in the finale, getting kidnapped by terrorists. There’s also a chapter in the beginning that briefly introduces a rival for Ran’s affections, though she’s so clearly not a threat that I had a hard time enjoying that story. What’s going on plot-wise is incidental, though, since the real draw in this series is Ran’s carefree attitude. It’s a bit better here, too, since Riko begins reciprocating his feelings. Before, Ran’s over-the-top courtship seemed slightly crueler than it ought to have since Riko was not enjoying it. Sadly, the reciprocation comes at the cost of Ran getting drawn more and more into his work, but everything still works out in the end. It’s a two-volume shoujo romance. How could it not?
One thing that surprised me was how the final chapter finished up. In the author’s notes, she mentions that her editor complained about her giving the story a sad ending, but that she thought it was happy. She goes on to talk about how she added a few pages to the graphic novel. If she’s talking about the pages I think she is, that ending would have been both the absolute worst romance ending ever and incredibly bold. The last chapter is a lot darker than you’d think, but even so. It’s Ran. It’s hard to get him sad when Riko is involved.
There’s a short story after “Flower in a Storm” finishes up (a very short story, the volume probably would have been long enough without it). It’s about a boy who doesn’t like to be touched by anybody but his science teacher. Normally I hate teacher/student relationship stories, and this is a particularly creepy one, but I did like how twisted it wound up being in the end. The intent wasn’t clear. It wasn’t a terrific story, but it was better than those filler stories usually are. It was also Takagi’s debut work, and pretty good for a first story.
I really liked this series, in the end. Yes, it’s not really breaking new ground, and it’s silly that Riko has super-strength, and she’s really hard to get behind as the heroine, but the romance is fun, and Ran’s fun attitude and complete devotion make up for all the other shortcomings. At two volumes, it’s not much of an investment money- or time-wise, and if you’re looking for a fun shoujo story, you could definitely do worse.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Black-Winged Love
Posted: July 19, 2010 Filed under: Black-Winged Love | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Tomoko Yamashita – Netcomics – 2009 – 1 volume
I bought this on the strength of the other BL volumes that Netcomics released at the same time (Love Full of Scars, Age Called Blue, Merry Family Plan), plus Dining Bar Akira by the same author had come highly recommended. I gave this one a try before DBA. My feelings were mixed, but I’m still looking forward to the other.
It was definitely the weakest of all the BL short story collections by Netcomics, but in terms of BL short story volumes, it was still quite good. I get tired of reading stories about boys in school who suddenly and forcefully come onto one another (or in some cases, come on strongly on one side), so sensitive stories like this, many covering slightly different topics and featuring older couples and different situations, is always recommended. Perhaps I was in the wrong frame of mind when I read the first half too, but the stories were a touch too melodramatic for my taste, and were mostly really angsty with happy endings. The last few stories were no less so, but I enjoyed them much more. And in retrospect, they weren’t that different from the first stories.
The topics ranged from a lifetime of unrequited love (A Villain’s Teeth) to a stressed-out older brother (It’s My Chocolate!), to an almost-gag story about an overly-enthusiastic escort (Photogenic), to a pair of middle-aged men who finally get together (Fool 4 U). The relationship and conflicts are all different, and the plots range to the older brother afraid to come out to his family to a mafia underling admitting his long-standing feelings for the boss to the boss’s daughter on his deathbed. Most of the stories are about gay men, as opposed to young boys experimenting, which I also appreciate, though frequently the partner is straight, or is suddenly revealed to be gay, a plot device I’m not particularly fond of when overused. And while the angst can be very thick, another thing I appreciated about the stories was the way their sense of humor occasionally showed through. It was just right in most situations.
Occasionally, I missed the point of the stories, I think: in Black-Winged Love, I did like it for the fact that the main character got a great deal of sexual pleasure from being verbally abused by his foul-mouthed coworker, but then the characters got into the philosophical ramifications of sexual deviance and whether they were for or against it. I did like the story, but it lost its point and dragged on in parts. Similarly, A Villain’s Teeth uses extended ping-pong symbolism that seem rather unnecessary. The most angsty and melodramatic was the first story, about a much older sister taking care of her younger brother who appears to be getting emotionally abused by a boy he likes in school. I don’t know if anything at all good came out of that story, but the bond between the siblings was very sweet. Another story was about high school boys fooling around while discussing Yukio Mishima, which seemed overly pretentious, but if high school kids can’t be pretentious, who can?
A great feature in this book that I haven’t seen anywhere else was the “short cuts” chapter, which featured an omitted page from several of the stories along with a reason it was omitted. Reasons ranged from “mood killer” to “too many erotic pages in this story.” They were all pretty funny.
My favorite story of the volume was “Fool 4 U,” which did have a brutal ending (the main character was assaulted by his lover after some hurtful actions on his part), but was the story of two men who had known each other for 20 years. The main character harbors a crush on the other, who is a complete scatterbrained airhead that routinely shows up at the other’s apartment after losing his keys and wrecking his car, saying hurtful things like “I’d marry you if you were a girl” and completely unaware of the other’s feelings. Given the angsty nature of the book, it’s not clear what the final outcome will be, so that was another point in its favor.
Basically, this is probably one of the better, more mature BL short story books out there. There’s lots to like about it, and it does plenty of different things to keep it interesting, you just have to forgive it a little angst and meandering. And really, if the BL audience isn’t willing to forgive these things, who is?
Flower in a Storm 1
Posted: July 17, 2010 Filed under: Flower in a Storm 2 Comments »Shigeyoshi Takagi – Viz – 2010 – 2 volumes
I was a little shy about this one at first. It sounds cute, but it also sounds like the type of series that has many, many opportunities to go bad. Unfortunately the format works against it, since it was clearly serialized in an irregular publication, and a lot of the amped-up silliness doesn’t go together well when the stories are read all together like this.
It also has horrible cliches working against it. Riko is trying to be as normal as possible to hide the fact she has “super powers” or abnormal physical ability, and she is chased enthusiastically by Ran, the richest person in the country. He meets her one day in a car accident, finds out everything about her, and then decides he would like to marry her. Wacky shoujo hijinx ensue. He does so much that is over-the-top and attention-grabbing that Riko can’t help but run away. Plus there’s the fact that he proposes to her out of thin air, won’t take no for an answer, and then just starts hanging around and pestering her good-naturedly from then on.
I can’t find it in my heart to condemn it, though, since I like the moral so much. Riko tries hard to be normal because she was rejected by a boy she likes due to being freakishly strong. She doesn’t want to stand out in any way, and when Ran flies in in a helicopter, it kind of shatters her peace. But explaining this to Ran only confuses him, since he can’t figure out why she’d want to change herself, saying you should always like who you are.
Usually, the shoe’s on the other foot, and the heroine is trying to excel at something to catch the boy’s eye, so I also like the reversal here. It’s still pure silliness, but I think the boy’s attitude helps a lot, too. Ran is a lot of fun, and one of the few rich kids who’s not a complete jerk. He also genuinely likes Riko for who she is, and it’s hard to begrudge him that.
It’s one of those series that’s not great (no ongoing plot, too many jokes, too many common plot devices), but I had an awful lot of fun reading it, anyway. I was a little angry with the first chapter, but by the end of the book I was caught up in the cute romance. At two volumes, it’s also hard to begrudge Ran and Riko their fun. I do hope there’s a nice resolution in the next volume, though.
Lone Wolf and Cub 1
Posted: July 16, 2010 Filed under: Lone Wolf and Cub 4 Comments »Kazuo Koike / Goseki Kojima – Dark Horse – 2000 – 28 volumes
I wish someone had told me this was like Golgo 13, except he baits his targets with a baby. I would have read it years ago.
Without knowing that, I nearly gave up on the first page. “Sugito Kenmotsu, the Kuni-Karo elder of our Mibu Han, is guarded by eight masters of the Nen-Ryu Sword School, the Guardian Eight of Mibu.” I am reminded of an article I read today, Words of Truth and Wisdom, except this sentence isn’t a joke, and unfortunately almost all of those are proper nouns so there’s nothing to do adaptation-wise to fix it. Flipping through the first chapter wasn’t very encouraging either, since it was originally in color and had that 90s translated manga look where there’s too much ink on the page and it makes reading the illustrations really difficult.
There is a glossary of terms in the back, but I was familiar with a lot of the terms back there already, it was the proper nouns that gave me problems. I had to screen them out to enjoy the story.
Itto Ogami, the main character, is a dead ringer for a feudal Duke Togo. He is a man of few words, absurd action, and always accomplishes his hits in ridiculous and over-the-top methods. The problem is that, in Golgo 13, the stories focused on those around the assassin, developing the story before Golgo 13 swept in for the kill. A story from Golgo 13′s perspective would be incredibly boring. Primarily because Golgo 13 shows no emotion, but also because the plot relies on other characters to build suspense and develop the story. Stories told from Golgo 13′s point of view would be a lot like this. Except Itto Ogami is at the distinct disadvantage of living during the Tokugawa Shogunate in the land of Confusing Proper Nouns, things which immediately turn me off.
But the short stories that form the chapters aren’t the point here. It’s all about the visuals, which are very dynamic and incredibly cinematic. Plenty of the chapters end with a one-on-one between Ogami and his target, or a secondary victim, or with a fight in a big group of guys. The art is unlike almost any other manga I’ve seen, very inky with heavy outlines and a lot of detail. The figures and facial expressions are stiff, but the flow comes from the linework, similar to traditional ukiyo-e or sumi-e. The age helps set it apart (I’ve seen very few manga series from the 60s and early 70s, which makes this look very distinct to my eye), but I wonder if this was how samurai comics were drawn back then, too. Of course, it could be entirely distinct to this series, too, which would help explain its lasting popularity.
I can’t find it in my heart to condemn a series with an assassin as clever as Ogami. He frequently uses his son and other confusing tactics (like giving himself away) to set his opponent off guard, making it possible to gain the upper hand and take the lives of a large group of men. As of this volume, he has yet to fail any assassin mission he’s hired out to do, and no opponent has harmed or even touched him.
The baby is an interesting character. Far from being a handicap, he is a useful tool in battle, precisely because others assume he is a handicap. He is three, and is variously pushed in a cart, carried on Ogami’s back, sleeping, or toddling off for cover. He also knows how to do very useful things, such as create a distraction and mislead. Interestingly, he never speaks or does much more than pantomime at this stage. He is also adorable, which is important for a girly reader like me.
I’ve got another volume of this. It’s worth reading… but it is very slow, and not really my thing. Also, still good, and for sure a classic, but the least entertaining of the three swordsman series I’ve started (the other two being Vagabond and Blade of the Immortal). I’m probably going to keep collecting it, but at 28 volumes, it’s going to be years before I finish.
One Piece 50
Posted: July 16, 2010 Filed under: One Piece 2 Comments »Eiichiro Oda – Viz – 2010 – 58+ volumes
It upset me when I realized that the Straw Hat Pirates had only hit the halfway point, the Red Line, in volume 50. I think I had assumed the milestone had gone uncelebrated, or perhaps unnoticed up in the sky. Sigh. Not that I couldn’t go for 50 more volumes of One Piece. That’s just… a long time to wait to see how things turn out.
This is my favorite volume of the series. Period. There are some that come close, and some that are better, but the second half of this volume puts it over the top as far as I’m concerned.
The first half is a little… well, the battle with Gecko Moria is drug out longer than is strictly necessary, and the accidental ending is anti-climactic, but it’s saved by the fact that the characters without shadows very nearly burn away in the rays of the sun before everything is said and done. Those scenes were downright scary, even knowing that none of them were very likely to die in such an underwhelming way.
But once Gecko Moria is dispatched, Bartholomew Kuma shows up and wants a fight. Now, he’s one of the Seven Warlords, and it’s interesting that he’s there, and his powers are pretty extreme… but I did not want to sit through another long fight at this point in the story. Zoro takes over, and this last for a handful of chapters. This is a good time for Zoro, though, since we find out just how selfless he really is. His devotion is quite touching, and it’s a soft spot for an otherwise very tough character.
Then the celebration really begins. There’s lots of food and dancing and whatnot, but with Brook, there is also music.
And Brook’s backstory, which is why this is my favorite.
The content of Brook’s backstory is irrelevant. What makes it better than everyone else’s sad pasts is that Brook has lived his lifetime and died. He was 38 when he passed away, and that was 50 years ago. His death did not occur under happy circumstances, and in the 50 years that followed, he drifted around by himself in the Florian Triangle in a ship full of nothing but corpses (himself included. Yo ho ho ho). The sad part of the story was the whole Laboon thing, but to me, that seemed secondary to the fact that Brook actually died. The scene at the very end broke my heart, which was a song called “Bink’s Brew,” which was sung while cutting between three time periods: Brook singing his last song while alive with his crewmates, Brook singing it by himself while drifting around in his ghost ship, and everyone at the celebration party singing it along with Brook.
My favorite moment in the series so far, perhaps, lies elsewhere. But this is my favorite volume. And it’s volume 50. It’s just… so hard for me to believe that this series is so consistently good after running for so long.
Fake 5
Posted: July 16, 2010 Filed under: Fake | Tags: BL 3 Comments »Sanami Matoh – Tokyopop – 2004 – 7 volumes
You know, I was hooked on this series enough to power through the last three volumes without stopping, so that says something about… well, I don’t know. It’s addictive for sure, but I’m still a little embarrassed I fell for it so hard. It’s cheese in its purest form.
This volume mostly involves digging up Ryo’s past and investigating a case that shares many similarities with the death of Ryo’s parents. The story is several chapters long and takes a relatively serious path with all the usual twists: Ryo starts investigating on his own, he and Dee are taken off the case, Ryo refuses to share his feelings on things with Dee, and Ryo then ends up in a face-off with the man who killed his parents and left them with the reputation of being drug smugglers. It’s a solid story and a fun read, and Fake offers the additional twist of the torrid love affair between Ryo and Dee to keep it interesting for the ladies. There is an unexpected twist as far as that goes here, but Dee, being the gentleman that he is, refuses to step things up until Ryo is really ready. Until then, Bikky will keep showing up at inopportune times.
Another story is surprisingly JJ-centric, with JJ meeting up with one of his old partners and finding out that the man isn’t nearly as good a guy as JJ thought. This cop’s name: Max Fork.
It’s interesting that Ryo and Dee are both armed, and there’s evidence that they’ve both used their guns, but firing them is often skipped in the images themselves. That’s probably a Japanese censorship thing, but I didn’t really notice or think about it until I was reading this volume. Odd.
There’s also the usual Bikky & Carol chapter, set slightly ahead of the normal series’ storyline. Their friends Lai and Lass are also in this story. Bikky and Lai get kidnapped due to Lai’s family connections, so Lass and Carol have to find him before the kidnappers kill them in front of Lai’s older brother. It’s revealed that Lai and Lass have psychic powers, which is horribly out of character for this series (and apparently it was revealed in one of the other stories, too? I didn’t notice). But their story carries over into Ra-I, also published by Tokyopop. I don’t think I’m going to be reading it.
Anyway. The action is good, the romance is good, the jokes are now tolerable and expected. I never thought in a hundred years I would grow so addicted to this series, but here we are.
Crown of Love 3
Posted: July 15, 2010 Filed under: Crown of Love 2 Comments »Yun Koga – Viz – 2010 – 4 volumes
Reading this and Gestalt together is really strange, because the two couldn’t be more different. Gestalt has very bold characters, touches of comedy, is a fantasy series, and can be very unsubtle about some things. Crown of Love is a romance with a totally subtle, subdued flavor I have yet to run across in any other shoujo manga.
I think the thing I love most about it is that it is full-bore romance without being either too comedic or too melodramatic. It simply is. The characters deal with the situations in a very straightforward way, and it’s also the only romance manga where rejection is so eloquent. Rima’s persistence in completely shooting Hisayoshi down and stepping all over his feelings in the plainest, most non-melodramatic way possible is compelling.
It is a little long-winded. This volume involves a lot of characters simply talking about the nature of love and relationships. Hisayoshi’s relationship with his parents deteriorates further at the beginning of this volume, and the characters discuss the nature of the parent-child relationship as we see not only Hisayoshi make up with his father, but Rima make up with her mother as well.
Rima is a very lonely girl, something else that’s emphasized here, and her rejection of Hisayoshi’s affections becomes increasingly ridiculous as it becomes clear that she’s extremely lonely and has no friends. That’s not to say she should jump on whoever offers to be her boyfriend first, but at this point Hisayoshi seems to have more than proven himself. Of course, there are the stalker issues, since he also follows her around a lot, but he is the most non-creepy stalker I’ve ever seen.
The reflections on love do begin to get ridiculous, and it’s silly when a high school student launches into yet another long-winded explanation on their feelings, but on the other hand, everything they say rings true, and it brings depth to what would otherwise be a very vanilla story. I like the vanilla flavor in this case, though, and I think it’s… well beautiful, both in story and execution. There’s nothing I can pinpoint that it excels at other than mood, but it does that very, very well. And it’s so much less creepy than Loveless.
I just can’t believe Loveless, Gestalt, and Crown of Love were all drawn by the same person. Part of me wants to pick up Earthian just to see how weird and divergent that is from the others.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Mugen Spiral Omnibus
Posted: July 12, 2010 Filed under: Mugen Spiral Leave a comment »Mizuho Kusanagi – Tokyopop – 2010 – 1 volume
the original series is two volumes, both are compiled together for the omnibus
I’m more than pleased to announce that I am now writing reviews over at the Manga Village. For my first review, I check out this light fantasy series from the author of Cross x Break, a series I had a serious love/hate relationship with. Please check out my review over there.
