Maoh: Juvenile Remix 1
Posted: October 15, 2010 Filed under: Maoh: Juvenile Remix Leave a comment »Kotaro Isaka / Megumi Osuga – Viz – 2010 – 10 volumes
I think the record will show that I am a big fan of demons. When it’s right there in the title, especially in a general-interest Shounen Sunday series, it’s hard for me to pass up. Granted, the premise sounded like it could go either way (leader of a group of vigilantes has unclear motives, main character can make others vocalize his thoughts), but demons always swing my opinion in favor of a series.
So far, this is… strange. A bit noir-ish, and very mysterious. The main character, Ando, has been able to do the ventriloquist thing with people since he was young. He was bullied a lot for claiming he could, and also for being a bit of a weirdo (he tends to slip into “thinking” moods, where he ponders strange subjects very intently). This turned him a bit shy around people, so he tends to hold back whenever he sees bullying situations or other crimes being committed, knowing in his heart that the nail that sticks out gets hammered back down due to all his past teasing.
He then starts to see a man named Inukai around. Inukai does stand up to bullying, and seems to have the nerve to stare said bullies down. Impressed by Inukai, but unsure of his own ability to stand up, Ando follows Inukai to an imminent revenge beating one day and finds out that the hero has just as much violence in him as the worst 40 bullies put together. Then he’s not so much a hero anymore. Ando still has to face his own cowardice, however, when he keeps getting confronted with situations where he should stand up and doesn’t, or where his opinion that things should stop is irrelevant and not very helpful. His ventriloquism ability only goes so far in the savage situations he is continually confronted with, and it sounds like he doubts the good intentions of Inukai of keeping the city safe. By the end of the volume, Ando is fairly certain that Inukai’s intentions are far more evil than they seem.
It is WEIRD. There is just no other way around that. Bullying is looked at in a slightly less sugar-coated way than you typically find. Inukai’s philosophies about standing up for one’s self and following one’s beliefs are the usual fare, but when the victims are students and the bullies are vicious, we see that no amount of going to parents or teachers, or even standing up to the bullies, will really help things. Even when Ando tries to break away from his role as a bystander, trying to encourage those that are being bullied, he is usually called out on the fact that he isn’t going to help the situation any. The victims seem to find their way to Inukai, who brutally takes revenge. And then said vicious bullies wind up as members of his vigilante group, which is why Ando wonders about the methods.
Bullies aren’t the only victims. A man who has plans to industrialize the town has words with Inukai in a public forum, and the next day allegedly commits suicide.
Aside from sizing up the general creepy vibe in the town, nothing directly happens to Ando or anyone around him, Ando merely acts as our window into the strange goings-on of Inukai’s Grasshopper group. The dark, long stares of a mysterious bystander on the last page of the volume suggests he is about to get directly involved, but it’s still unclear, really, what Grasshopper is trying to achieve. I mean, all their actions do suggest it’s merely a safe neighborhood.
Weird stuff, and a lot more interesting than the plot summary made it sound. I’m also very happy to see that demons are not yet playing a direct part. Actually, the vibes I get from this series are a little Dragon Head-ish, except way less intense to start with. I’m curious to see where this strange mix of elements is going to go from here, and what will happen when the action starts.
Bakuman 2
Posted: October 11, 2010 Filed under: Bakuman 10 Comments »Tsugumi Ohba / Takeshi Obata – Viz – 2010 – 10+ volumes
Is it okay to review a series that is itself a critique of Shounen Jump manga? What do I say about it? It doesn’t have a Shounen Jump main character? That it’s not very mainstream? It’s already said all those things for me.
I somehow managed to avoid all the hype for Bakuman. Aside from being vaguely aware that people were excited about it, and reading some time ago that it was the newest series by the Death Note team and may be about manga creation, I pretty much screened everything else out. That worked well for Death Note, which I inhaled in a gigantic 6-volume dose in a very short time. Odds are, if you’re reading this, you know more about this series than I did when I picked this book up.
I still loved it. I had a vague idea that it was kind of like a modern Shounen Jump version of A Drifting Life, and a kind of roman à clef for the writer/artist pair within the first few pages. The latter sticks around in my mind, though it is likely untrue, but it’s not really easy to compare it to A Drifting Life. Basically, we meet up with writer Takagi and artist Mashiro as they are taking their work into Shueisha to be evaluated by a Jump editor. From there, we learn all about what it takes to make a Jump manga. Presumably all of it is true, since Bakuman is running in said magazine. We learn about what the editor is looking for, the process for submitting your story, what kind of contests you go through and where your work winds up from there, what kind of ideas make it and how they are interpreted, the competitive element, the editorial hierarchy and what it takes to finally have a series in Jump.
It’s utterly fascinating, and I learned so much from just this volume. This was an excellent place to enter the story too. It looks like the first volume may have mostly been “inspiration.” I will go back and read it, but all the good stuff seems to be here.
I love both the characters, too. They get along really well, I like the fact they are in high school, and I absolutely love Takagi’s stuck-up personality. I do like that Mashiro is the more realistic of the two, but he’s harder to like. He’s motivated to success by a promise to make his dream real before he’s allowed to date and marry the girl he has a crush on. He starts losing his patience at the end of the volume, and begins to get impatient about serialization and rebelling against an editor who’s been very good to them. Rushing forward doesn’t seem like a good idea, and I feel his heart is in the wrong place when it comes to his work… it’s the only thing I don’t like about it right now. I can see it becoming a source of conflict later on, though, so I can see why his personality had to be at least a little volatile.
Well, the other thing I don’t like about it is that I desperately wish it was about Weekly Shounen Champion and Akita Shoten. After seeing the editorial standards, the screening process, and the competitive element for Shounen Jump, I want to know what determines the rather distinctive, powerful flavor of Champion. It would be a lot funnier, I think. That’s not really a criticism, though, that’s just a wish.
I do love that the series seems to be about Death Note, almost. It can’t be, because Obata was drawing for years before Death Note, but there are so many similarities. A writer/artist team, the fact that they write a more mature story completely unlike anything else in Jump, and the dark and creepy tone of their story. Of course, I also cracked up at the Shounen Jump editor lecturing the boys on creating a more Shounen Jump hero, boys who are themselves Jump heroes that are unlike Jump heroes. It was killing me, but I’m also a huge geek. The Shounen Jump stuff might be less interesting to a casual reader. Then again, is there a casual reader that would pick up a series about making a Shounen Jump manga? Maybe if it was by the guys who did Death Note.
Obata’s artwork is definitely much different in this series than it was in Hikaru no Go, which I read the other day. There were a few gag panels that were difficult for me to believe were drawn by him. His character designs and style are just a bit different too, maybe a little simpler. It suits this series, though, and he still has very distinctive character designs that I enjoy immensely. Also, it’s creeping me out a little bit that the editor looks a little like Ryuk.
Overall, I got a big kick out of this, and it was really fun to read. It’s exciting to read the character’s ups and downs while trying to get their own series, and even more interesting to see how they juggle the workload of manga creation with junior high/high school. I love the dynamic between the two main characters, and I love all the information it provided about Shounen Jump. It’s a little geeky, and I’m sure there will be some who are disappointed it’s not at all like Death Note, but for a big comic nerd like me, there’s no better story.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Hikaru no Go 21
Posted: October 7, 2010 Filed under: Hikaru no Go 2 Comments »Yumi Hotta / Takeshi Obata – Viz – 2010 – 23 volumes
I got this and Bakuman in the same box, and had a brief argument with my roommate, who did not believe the same person drew both. I love Takeshi Obata’s artwork, in all the series that I’ve seen drawn by him, and I’ve really loved watching his style evolve over the years. The difference between Hikaru no Go and Bakuman is pretty significant, but both are equally good.
The beginning of this volume was great. The match results were quite a surprise, and I loved that Ochi acted the way he did. Ochi isn’t a very likable character, but he is fairly realistic and true to himself. A narcissist and completely confident of his abilities to the point of rubbing it in, I was happy to see that he was willing to put his money where his mouth was. He was right, though. Nobody would have been satisfied unless he did that.
The rest of the volume, plot-wise, was mostly a waiting game to the start of the Hokuto Cup. But unlike the filler in other series, this stuff was pretty good. I loved seeing Akira and Hikaru squabbling over a board in the Go parlor, and I liked the practice rounds at Akira’s house even more than that. There is a cute chapter image of all three of the boys on Team Japan sleeping that just made me grin from ear to ear. Again, it’s really the characters that make this series great, and seeing the three members of Team Japan squabble and compete against each other while they train is a big part of why this series is so amazing.
Admittedly, it’s lost some of its edge with this tournament. It jumped the shark. I think that’s an okay thing to say. It’s still good, and there are still crazy intense matches, but all the characters in the Japanese Go world, with all their individual hopes and dreams and plans for the future, playing their earnest game of go, is what gives the earlier parts of the series the advantage over the Hokuto Cup. Moving out from a loved cast of characters to battles with a bunch of guys we don’t really care about? Meh. In the context of what’s going on (an international tournament), this sounds vaguely racist (“I only care about Japanese characters!”), but it’s true. There’s just not much here for me to look forward to. A faceless opponent, even one that we’ve seen before, turns this into a regular boring game of Go. Well, faceless opponents and the fact that none of the characters are really pursuing a personal goal. There is the ambiguous “Divine Move,” but quite honestly, Hikaru and Akira seem to have settled down pretty well in professional go life. There’s not a whole lot of potential for character development here.
It still keeps the personal, humanizing touch that makes it special, even among all the new people. One of the new characters comments on how lucky Hikaru is that his mom supports his career, and throughout the book, there are reminders of how hard the teen’s life is while having to fight his parents for all the time he needs as a professional Go player, and Hikaru even takes a minute to invite his mother and Grandfather to the tournament. I like his mom a lot. She supports him, even without knowing anything about Go. She’s a great mom.
So yes, the Hokuto Cup is not nearly as good as the other tournaments in the series, but even then, there is still plenty to like in this volume. The characters have matured and are noticeably older, and are ready to compete on an international level. Two volumes left!
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Evil’s Return 1
Posted: October 6, 2010 Filed under: Evil's Return Leave a comment »Hwan Shin / Jong-Kyu Lee – Tokyopop – 2004 – 4 volumes
So, Tokyopop has a handful of bad series that are more exercises in bad taste than they are genuinely unreadable. The narrative suffers in all cases, certainly, but there are far worse reads out there, and the badness is accompanied by an “ick” factor that I find extremely enjoyable. Warriors of Tao and Arm of Kannon were two series that were bad in almost every sense of the word, but also radical. Evil’s Return is another.
Evil’s Return may be in far worse taste thematically than the other two. How bad is bad taste? Let’s read the back cover:
When the floodgates of Yumi’s womanhood burst open, demons rush in, clamoring to make the high school senior the mother of evil itself. It will take everything the forces of good have to protect her from this wicked fate… and everything good has is manifest in a mystical warrior Hyun… but he’s going to need the help of a hot-shot freshman who talks tough, carries a big stick and has fallen in love with the prophesied Mother of Hell.
I don’t think I’ve ever copied a book’s plot summary before, but that’s far more eloquent than I can manage.
There are several things to point out in that plot summary, but I will leave you to ponder those things.
The thing about actually reading the volume is that you desperately need that plot summary, because none of that is explained. You kind of get the idea that Hyun is protecting Yumi, but you don’t realize what all the bad vibes are until much later. You don’t even really understand the demons are after Yumi until a near-rape scene at the end of the volume. There are occasional demons, but mostly there’s that freshman beating everyone up like Nagi from Tenjho Tenge, students badmouthing “weird” Yumi for no real reason, and lots and lots of T&A and moving around with no explanation and very little dialogue.
Despite all these many shortcomings, it opens with a really graphic, horrible scene of Yumi violently getting her period. After that, it was hard for me not to like it. I mean, I knew what was going on because I read the back, right?
I’m sure this will not be good. It will be terrible in every way a series can be (well, the art’s all right, except for the bushy eyebrows), but I will still enjoy it immensely, and then it will go on the shelf with the other books that are in questionable taste.
NG Life 1
Posted: October 3, 2010 Filed under: NG Life 3 Comments »Mizuho Kusanagi – Tokyopop – 2009 – 9 volumes
So. This author. I loved, then hated Game x Rush, and really liked Mugen Spiral. I was a little hesitant in picking this up, since both past lives and genderbending can go south quickly. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have if I had realized it was 9 volumes long. As of volume one… it’s all right. The biggest strike against it is that it continuously repeats the past lives story, but that was due to its serialization schedule. As of the last couple chapters, it looks like it was serialized regularly in… Hana to Yume (surprise, surprise), so we no longer get the whole story of Keidai’s past life and everyone’s identities with every chapter.
It’s more interesting than the typical past life story since the past is in Pompeii, right before Vesuvius erupted. Keidai is a gladiator with a best friend and a wife. In the present, his best friend was reincarnated as a girl named Serizawa, and his little sister and rival in romance were reincarnated as his mother and father, respectively. He’s been waiting for his wife Serena to show up, and she finally does… in the form of a young, foul-mouthed effeminate next-door neighbor named Yuuma who hates being mistaken for a girl. Keidai is the only one who can remember his past life, and as a result, we see a romantic triangle in Yuuma’s crush on Serizawa, Serizawa’s crush on Keidai, and Keidai’s crush on the soul of Serena (this is avoiding BL territory as hard as it possibly can, which is fine by me, so I can’t ever see Keidai actually falling in love with Yuuma, or vice-versa).
Aside from the Pompeii setting for the past lives, the other great part of this series is Keidai. He is completely wrapped up in thoughts of his past life, to the point of almost ignoring everything around him in the present. He only shares this with Serizawa, so to everyone else, he’s a bit of an absentminded loser. Except he’s exceptional at everything, including academics, sports, and looks. He really doesn’t care, since all he wants is his beloved Serena, but it makes his frequent and very public outbursts about his past and current life that much more funny, since he’s completely acing whatever it is he happens to be doing. People root for him to make it through his weirdness to succeed, which I hope plays more of a role later on. I also like that he seems to completely loathe his parents and/or father, since to him, it looks like his romantic rival went behind his back and married his sister. They aren’t in it that frequently, and when they are, Keidai just snaps at them and disregards their advice. It’s played for laughs, and I think looking at it more deeply would probably spoil the weirdness, but it’s just one more point for Keidai right now.
Everything else is pretty lukewarm right now. Serizawa is a really good character that could be developed further (very supportive, indulgent of all the past life stuff even though she’s not convinced, keeps her crush to herself), and Yuuma is a little annoying, though seems to be making friends with the other two pretty fast. The chapters are mostly one-shot stories… one is about a trip to an amusement park, one is about Keidai accidentally getting a girlfriend, and one is about a play Serizawa writes based on Keidai’s past memories. None of it is really blazing any trails as of yet. Toward the end of the volume, we get hints that Keidai might begin to see Serizawa in a more romantic light in the future and forget his past ties, which I’m guessing is the direction the plot will eventually take.
There are better shoujo stories about past lives (Oyayubihime Infinity is really great, actually), and there are better romantic comedies and gender confusion stories. It had its cute moments, but for the most part, the first volume was fairly middle-of-the-road. There were enough good elements mixed in that I will probably wind up sticking with it to the end, but people who aren’t shoujo nuts will probably have a hard time making it through the first volume. The author herself says it’s a light read, and that’s pretty much what it is.
Laon 2
Posted: October 2, 2010 Filed under: Laon 2 Comments »YoungBin Kim / Hyun You – Yen Press – 2010 – 6+ volumes
Hm. The second volume was more or less the same as the first. Lots of great ideas, and some pretty fantastic and dynamic art, but there’s just something lacking about the story. I don’t know. Maybe I’m expecting a little too much from it, because I think back, and I realize this volume was all about one of Laon’s tails possessing a woman who goes on a killing spree, tries to turn her former human daughter into a vessel for a nine-tailed fox demon, and is eventually nearly killed by the ghost of the woman she inhabits. How is that not cool? It plays out over the course of a serial murder spree involving members of the reporter community, with each death predicted in a premature obituary.
Putting it like that, there is nothing wrong with it. The book is pretty good. But somehow, I was… a little bored by all the stylish action. It moves around pretty quickly, with the only explanation that somehow, evil magic is afoot. I have little idea what’s going on in Laon’s world, which is frustrating. I don’t know the limits or powers or anything of the magical creatures afoot here.
But my thought that it is lacking a little something to support all its good ideas may just be because I read it on a bad day, or in the wrong frame of mind or something. It’s a decent series so far, and I am looking forward to what happens when Laon gets her tails back. Does she get slowly older? Do her powers increase? When will she get her “ears” back? does getting even a little power back help her find her tails? It does leave a lot of fun and interesting possibilities open, and I will definitely continue reading.
Blade of the Immortal 6
Posted: October 2, 2010 Filed under: Blade of the Immortal 2 Comments »Hiroaki Samura – Dark Horse – 2000 – 26+ volumes
I probably mentioned this before, but as cool a name as “Blade of the Immortal” is, the Japanese name “The Inhabitant of Infinity” somehow trumps it in every way. I can see how it’s a little too… ambiguous, given the time period this was initially released in the US. But still. Awesome.
This was… a strange place to jump back into the series. The first half of this volume isn’t about Manji and Rin, but rather opens the story up on Anotsu’s side. There’s some politics and revenge plots involved, but in particular we see a lot of Magatsu, and see things from his perspective. The rogue Itto-ryu school is about to become an official sword school under the shogunate, and there is at least one group who is more or less out to kill them all. A group that has a whole lot more drive and skill than Rin. We see two or three of the devious traps they set for members of the Itto-Ryu here, but the Magatsu segment is the most heartbreaking.
I do love it when villains are properly humanized and given perspective, and I like the apparent shift in tone here, where things are becoming less black and white and we’ve got more than two sides at play now. Of course, the whole point of Blade of the Immortal is that things are never black and white, that’s been the theme all along. While Rin kills the henchmen that killed her parents, she’s also killing people with lives and families of their own.
There is a Rin segment at the end, when a rowdy-type guy tries to recruit Manji to team Kill Itto-Ryu. Manji passes the ball to Rin, who is the one that wants the revenge, and the tough guy and Rin wind up having a very, very interesting conversation.
While I do like Rin for the perspective she brings, she can be a little frustrating in a story like this. She wants revenge, but is wishy-washy and physically not up to the task. That’s the point, of course, but when scenes like the one in this book happen, the beef scene, it makes me like her a little less. Perhaps that’s only because I wouldn’t have puked or been horrified, but maybe I’m more callous.
I do love the way things are beginning to open up, though. I like all the new characters, but I also hope that Manji continues to play a big part. But where is the immortal’s place in all this, really?
Pet Shop of Horrors 5
Posted: October 2, 2010 Filed under: Pet Shop of Horrors Leave a comment »Matsuri Akino – Tokyopop – 2004 – 10 volumes
I love this series a little more with every volume. It’s not an overwhelming kind of appreciation, but everything about the short stories is really enjoyable and just spot-on with its set of characters. I’m waiting for a big dose of story about D, but I think its strength is that it never delivers. Just little tidbits, enough to keep me interested and coming back wanting more. The cast of characters expands by one in this volume, to include Chris, Leon’s kid brother and a new frequent visitor to D’s shop. Chris can see the animals for who they are, but also doesn’t speak a word aloud to any human. The interaction between him and the crazy population of the shop is very amusing.
The Chris chapters are bookended by typical Pet Shop of Horrors fare, where the customers get what they wish for, Monkey’s Paw style. One is about a politician who plans on running for President of the United States seeking out the mythical Kirin at D’s shop. The other is about a pleasant enough dancer who takes losing her place well enough, but finds her way to D’s shop where it’s revealed her bitter jealousy is twisting her from the inside, and we see a caged fight that is a very subtle suggestion of a cockfight. The latter story was my favorite in the volume. The theme that the woman was ugly inside was a bit puzzling given the fact that it wasn’t a face she showed to the world (with all the terrible things happening, she actually treated everyone well), and I wasn’t entirely sure if D’s point was that the ugliness was part of nature or something you shouldn’t bottle up… or what. It was interesting, though, and I loved how the ugliness theme played out in the end.
Plus, it was a ballet story. Bonus!
I’m looking forward to more Chris stories. He gets along well with the animals, and I think it’ll be fun to see a perspective that is not D’s. D obviously dotes on the animals, and his thoughts concerning them are mostly made known only in what he chooses to share. But Chris, a child, can have all the fun he wants exploring the animals/people. D hints that his gift of seeing them for what they are won’t last forever, that the innocence of youth is what allows him to speak to the animals, but I doubt the story will ever get to the point where Chris is grown up. Maybe in Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo.
Lovely stuff, though. Still looking forward to more, even though I tend to like plotted stories more than episodic ones like this.
Bleach 31
Posted: October 2, 2010 Filed under: Bleach 1 Comment »Tite Kubo – Viz – 2010 – 46+ volumes
So. I haven’t read Bleach in a long time. I wasn’t worried, though, since I knew they’d just be fighting in this volume. And I was right. The plot didn’t really move forward save for a few cryptic movements on Orihime and Grimmjow’s part. Mostly it was just fighting. Ichigo versus Ulquiorra, and Renji and Uryu versus Szayelaporro. The fact that the Arrancar’s seem to be mopping the floor with the Shinigami was a little surprising since they usually put up more of a fight. Uryu seems to be doing the best, or the combination of Uryu and Renji, but even they fail miserably in the face of an enemy who cannibalizes its minions. To be fair, most people would fail.
Ichigo is doing very poorly indeed. He moves from Ulquiorra to Grimmjow late in the volume, so next time we can look forward to… Ichigo vs. Grimmjow, and more Szayelaporro vs. Renji and Uryu. Because it will be very different from what happened here. Well, not really, but maybe they’ll be slightly more successful in their fights and we can at least move on to a different set of Arrancars, if not further forward in the plot.
As completely underwhelming as this volume was for me, I did dig a scene that flashed back and forth between Ulquiorra and Grimmjow in different places with parallel dialogue. That’s the coolest thing Bleach has done in a long, long time. Well, that and the cannibal thing. That was a little unexpected, too.
I know it is in the nature of shounen series to have fight after fight like this, but in Bleach’s case, I really don’t care about any of these characters anymore. The Arrancars aren’t that interesting, and the rescue of Orihime isn’t that gratifying because… well, she isn’t in any immediate danger, really. They aren’t penetrating an awesome city full of guards with dozens of people like they were when they rescued Rukia from her execution. They are just in this vaguely-defined Hollow world, ruled in an ill-defined way by Aizen. There are strong people in the way, and the group has to fight them. That’s it. It’s really boiled down to the nuts and bolts here, and it’s just not that interesting anymore.
As awesome as the plot was at the beginning of this story arc, I’m sad to see it degenerate to this. I’ll keep reading, hoping that the plot will get good after all the fighting is over. Wake me up then.
