Toradora 2
Posted: July 16, 2011 Filed under: Toradora! Leave a comment »Yuyuko Takemiya / Zekkyo – Seven Seas Entertainment – 2011 – 4+ volumes
So, I honestly enjoyed the first volume of this, and the second was just as good. Far from being a typical formulaic shounen romantic comedy, this one has its characters pegged perfectly, and so far, I love it to pieces.
It’s fairly well-written, too. A climax that would’ve waited until the end of the series happens in this volume, and I was shocked when it… actually went through with everything. I’m a little torn about it, because afterwards it seems like it could keep going down that path, but I’d also like to see the plot move in a different direction and not loop endlessly over the romantic triangle between the two main characters and their love interests.
Basically, Taiga and Ryuji are forced into a corner by their respective love interests, who think the two of them are going out, and Taiga winds up confessing. Meanwhile, much is said between Taiga and Ryuji. It was… an interesting and very sweet few chapters, though I’d hate to say any more than that for fear of spoiling anything. It was an unexpected surprise to see a confrontation so early.
The plot did take a different direction after that, too. Ryuji’s friend and Taiga’s crush, Yusaku, introduces them to a childhood friend named Ami. Ami has an absolutely horrible personality, but hides it well in front of most people. She and Taiga get off on the wrong foot, but in front of everyone, including Yusaku, she plays the part of the slightly ditzy model. Yusaku asks for Ryuji’s help in getting Ami to “be herself,” and the volume ends before anything serious happens.
I liked the new storyline quite a bit, though at this point the focus is less on Taiga and Ryuji. Those two are the big draw for me, and not even entirely because of the romance. They’re both great characters, and this volume makes them that much better. They support each other, but they also bicker like an old couple and fit perfectly together in terms of strengths and weaknesses. There are dozens of great scenes between the two in this volume, both touching and funny. Usually, when I read shounen romances, the comedy is too over-the-top for my taste, the jokes fall flat, and the main characters are little more that character types, with no personality. This series doesn’t indulge in any of these pitfalls, and is more or less everything I want in a romantic comedy.
It’s a great little read, genuinely funny with great characters. I like it enough that I suspect it would appeal to even picky readers who enjoy shoujo and shounen romance, and I encourage you to give it a try if it sounds at all appealing. Hmm… it reminds me a lot of Your & My Secret, less laugh-out-loud funny but a little more touching in the right way. Sad about not getting to read the end of that series? Try this one instead.
This was a review copy provided by Seven Seas.
Sakura Hime 1
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Sakura Hime Leave a comment »Arina Tanemura – Viz – 2011 – 8+ volumes
Wow, I liked this an awful lot more than I thought I would! After reading Mistress Fortune, which I was not very fond of, I started to worry that I had lost my taste for Tanemura’s particular brand of whimsical fantasy-ish series. This has some of her sense of humor in it, but is set in ancient Japan and deals with the myth of Princess Kaguya.
Princess Sakura is engaged to be married to Prince Oura. She’s very much against being married off at the age of 14 to a prince she’s never met. An emissary for the prince named Aoba shows up. To nobody’s surprise, he’s really prince Oura, and Sakura says many terrible things to him both about Prince Oura, her feelings about the wedding, and to Aoba in particular since he seems fond of tormenting her.
So it has that going for it, and save for the setting, the characters and situations read a lot like Tanemura’s other work. But here’s where it gets interesting. Sakura is the direct descendant of Princess Kaguya, a princess from the Moon. When her household is attached by a rather savage yokai-like demon, it turns out that only she can wield Princess Kaguya’s sword, the only thing that can really kill the demons. She’s got a Sailor Moon-like transformation for this and everything, and she slowly learns to wield the sword and keep people safe from demons.
Except… with the ability to transform and kill the demons, which probably came from the moon anyway… and her bloodline is from the moon… so doesn’t that make her just as much a demon as them? The story takes a pretty terrible turn about 2/3rds of the way through the book. I was a little shocked at just how ugly things turned for Sakura.
She does have an adorable little mononoke maid named Asagiri (yet another notch on Tanemura’s belt for adorable mascot-like characters), and by the end of the volume, Sakura has also met the very likable kunoichi named Kohaku. For those two alone, I’d keep reading, but at this point I’m very interested in the mythology behind Sakura’s bloodline and how her being branded a demon will work, especially since that means life as she knows it is gone. I don’t think it will get too terribly interesting, or explore those themes too far in depth, but I know it will touch on them before all is said and done.
But yes, this is an awesome start! Tanemura is good at writing first volumes, and I was just as sucked into Full Moon and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne when I started them, too. I can’t wait to read more, and I’m very lucky I’ve got the second volume handy.
Story of Saiunkoku 3
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Story of Saiunkoku 2 Comments »Kairi Yura / Sai Yukino – Viz – 2011 – 7+ volumes
This is very good, too, but in a different way (I’m covering a lot of manga that I liked tonight). The first two volumes were about even-headed Shurei coaching the Emperor and helping him through some difficult personal and political issues. In volume three, Shurei’s time as the Emperor’s partner is up, and she has no desire to go back to him. The Emperor himself is smitten, but the fact that Shurei currently has no interest in romance gave me slight pause, since I don’t know what to do with a shoujo series when there’s no romance. I mean, it’s shoujo law.
What is this book about then, if not romance? Well, Shurei studies a lot, which is unusual for a woman. She’s also familiar with a lot of the palace officials after her stay as the Emperor’s partner, and during a heat wave that takes out a lot of civil service staff, one of the top palace officials offers her a job as a page for the treasury department. She is utterly thrilled at the opportunity, and dresses as a boy in order to get closer to the workings of the government. Turns out her dream is to be a civil servant, and most of the story is about how the government is in something of an upheval due to the fact women can’t take the civil service exam, and Shurei coming to terms with the fact that she can’t be one.
Of course, the head of the treasury department is an extremely strict person who wears an iron mask and is totally a woman. I’m not sure when the story is going to reveal this, so it’s not really a spoiler, but my best guess. I know what I’m talking about, though.
Character relations are deepening. There is the interaction between Shurei and Seiran, which isn’t quite romance, but watching the two of them together is very sweet, especially the way Seiran protects her. Ryuki, the Emperor, is still around, although he’s more of a side character and… almost comic relief through this volume. He and Shurei have no reason to interact, and the main love interest established in the first two volumes looks very unlikely… again, I’m not sure how I feel about that, especially since I’m very fond of Ryuki. But if it avoided that shoujo trap, I think I may like this series more in the end. There’s also Shurei’s father, and a new character that seems to have ties to Seiran. And let’s not forget the rather mysterious head of the treasury department, because I think all the interaction between that person and Shurei will be very important next time around.
This is based on a (rather long) light novel series, so I can almost see the 2-volumes-per-novel structure at work. I like it so far, and am really looking forward to the character-driven and somewhat slow paced story. I like it a lot. I always hope that it can be a replacement for my beloved Apothecarius Argentum, another light fantasy and very shoujo-y series. It’s not just yet, but it took me several volumes to get into Apothecarius Argentum too. I’m hoping I get just as thoroughly addicted to this.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Pure Trance
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Pure Trance Leave a comment »Junko Mizuno – Last Gasp – 2005 – 1 volume
I’m sorry to say, I’m not the biggest fan of Junko Mizuno. Don’t get me wrong, I adore her art, and I am in awe at just how many details were crammed into every panel of this series, both in terms of artwork and sheer inventiveness of the setting and world the story takes place in. She is unique, which is why I bought this to try it out.
It’s just… hm. I have the same problem with her that I have with Suehiro Maruo. Both are such good illustrators that the detail in their work takes away from the sequential experience. Any art that is so detailed that I have to stop the progress of the story to study each panel slows things down considerably, and takes me out of the story. It seems strange to complain that the art is too good, but in a sense, that reflects my experiences with both artists. I know this is mostly my taste, because my roommate is the type of person that does study each panel as he reads, and gets bored when there’s not enough to look at. Both types of readers exist, and part of me is a little sad that books like this just aren’t for me.
I’m also a little… intimidated by the story here. At first, I hated it. The world it’s set in is so crazy and bears so little relation to our world, with no explanation, that it is really hard to get into. The characters work at an overeating clinic? Except the only food available is in pill form? And all the patients are the same doll-type character designs as all the nurses, and don’t really look obese? This is explained by the fact that overeating causes “eating disorders” similar to bulemia, but it still took some getting used to. The director of this clinic wails on the nurses periodically for helping patients and foiling her plans that frequently accidentally kill people?
After awhile, you can wrap your brain around all this, and the story emerges. The director, while hung over, trips over life support machines and kills three women. They had been pregnant, and their children had been placed in artificial wombs while they were cured of their overeating disorders. Nurse Kaori cares for the children, but when she has to stop the director from killing them one day, the director chains her up and whips her until one of the robots at the center takes pity on them and frees the children and Kaori. The world of the story is underground, with the area above ground apparently spoiled during the last world war. Kaori and the children flee above ground, which is now a lush jungle with all manner of plant life, and they live lives as they wish, free of pill food and the bizarre cruelty of other people. But the Director wants to kill Kaori, and she sends agents above ground to find her and bring her back.
It’s actually a pretty great story once it gets going, and the amount of detail that Mizuno puts into the city, the hobbies and habits of the characters, and all the plant and animal life on the surface is really astounding. The format of the comic doesn’t quite fill the book, so running at the bottom of every page is either a little illustration or a “description” of some minor character or item of ephemera in the series that may or may not be related to what’s going on. Notices about how the pandas at the zoo aren’t as cute as they look on TV. That most of the scars on one of the main characters is self-inflicted. That one of the characters does a meat dance. Descriptions of both a Nurse Bar and a Female Wrestler Bar at appropriate points in the story. Anything you could possibly want to know about… well, anything, anything at all that Mizuno has drawn into any of the panels (and she’s drawn A LOT) is footnoted at the bottom of every page.
And what about the drawings? I left this part out, because I assume that most people who read this are going to be familiar with Mizuno’s unusual art. She draws in a very cutesy style, with all manner of little stuffed animals, and almost all the characters are beautiful, buxom, doll-like cartoon women. They are normally scantily clad, and engage in all manner of disturbing activities, such as s&m, going crazy at the sight of meat, frequently fight and wrestle each other, sometimes with chainsaws, and often murder each other or adorable animals. Absolutely everything about this series, from the gratuitous violence to the beds the women sleep in, the plantlife and all the animals, and even the buildings and things like telephones… all of it is adorable, and rendered in the same cute, overly-cartoony style. It’s what makes Junko Mizuno special. It’s not a look for everyone, and as I said, it’s a little busy for my taste, but that doesn’t take away from what the art does well at all.
The end to the book is nothing short of amazing, too. Remember how I said that the pace was too slow for me? Well, that completely changes at the end. It’s not clear until the end of the book where all this crazy stuff is going, and as all the storylines draw to a close, the panels are interspersed with one another, everything happens at once in an insane crescendo that ends with… well, the beginning and the end of life, I suppose. It’s amazing, and if nothing else, I admired it a great deal for executing a perfect ending.
There’s a lot to like here, and it’s certainly a wonderful book to have. Again, the style isn’t what I like in comic art, but I can admit that my taste should not reflect badly on this book. It’s got gorgeous art and an amazing amount of detail crammed into an almost psychedelic world with a crazy story that only gets more sane the more you read. It’s amazing. I didn’t think that even before I wrote this article, but I can say that now. It’s amazing. A very special book.
Kamisama Kiss 3
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Kamisama Kiss 2 Comments »Julietta Suzuki – Viz – 2011 – 8+ volumes
I absolutely adored the first two volumes of this series, but it was so quiet and understated. The love was mostly for the characters and how well it was put together. I was hoping I would forget how much I liked it, so that I could save up a couple volumes and read them back to back. Mission successful, since volume 4 just arrived, and I fell in love all over again with this volume.
Again, this series is full of simple pleasures, but that’s what I love so much about it. It seems to be really good at taking fairly mundane stories, mostly about how Nanami is hung up on Tomoe. The first story covers jealousy, and how plain, human Nanami can’t hope to possibly compete with beautiful supernatural beings in Tomoe’s eyes, but he seems to prefer her anyway. The second story is about a new character, a white snake demon, that tries to steal Nanami away and keep her at his shrine, and how hard Tomoe tries to get her back. A third story is a silly one about Tomoe going to school disguised as Nanami, and how his aloof attitude affects her relationships with others (bonus points: as a Japanese deity, Tomoe has never seen the Latin alphabet and completely bombs Nanami’s English class). The last story is a little peek into Tomoe’s past, though we aren’t entirely privy to the circumstances.
The plots are simple, but varied enough and original that they never get boring or repetitive, and with Nanami as the deity at a shrine, honestly, they’re staying well away from well-trodden shoujo territory. But on the other hand, they aren’t so outlandish that this doesn’t fit comfortably in the genre. And it takes pleasure in the little moments. A small joke at the expense of very serious Tomoe. Kind words at just the right time. There is romance between Nanami and Tomoe, but it isn’t really the theme of the series just yet, and it’s brought up at just the right times that it stays tender and sweet.
And the new character, the white snake demon named Mizuki. He’s easy to like, funny and a little sad, and it looks like he’ll be a recurring character. On the other hand, the recurring character Kurama wasn’t in this volume, so maybe we won’t see much more of him. I’m not sure if I like the side characters or prefer the emphasis on Nanami and Tomoe, so it’s hard to say if I’m sad I won’t see very much of them. I do like it the way it is, though.
It’s understated, and not fantastic in any quantifiable way. It’s just a nice read, well-written, fun, and super-sweet. It’s great shoujo, and anyone looking for a good girls’ comic to read won’t be disappointed.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Highschool of the Dead 3
Posted: July 14, 2011 Filed under: Highschool of the Dead Leave a comment »Daisuke Sato / Shouji Sato – Yen Press – 2011 – 7+ volumes
So, I was pretty excited about trying this. I love over-the-top zombie action series, and odds are, if the breasts are as big on the cover as they are in this series, there’s a good chance they don’t take things too seriously. I tend to adore that mix of gratuitous violence and fanservice, regardless of the actual quality of the series. I was thinking this was going to be a lot like Reiko the Zombie Shop, actually.
With this kind of series, I assumed that it wouldn’t matter too much if you didn’t start at volume one. After all, it’s all about the guns, violence, and breasts, right?
Hmm… not this one. For some reason, there are about half a dozen characters, and all of them have deep inner conflicts going on.
What.
So this is a lot more like Diary of the Dead than anything, and I hated that movie. It was about emo teenagers driving around and “documenting” the zombie takeover, all while mulling over the philosophical and practical implications of this new world, and what it means to them. Perhaps I’m just old-fashioned, but to me, zombies are so inherently ridiculous that it’s difficult for me to take any story with them in it seriously, unless it’s strictly action or survival-based.
So with the focus of the series being primarily character-based, I missed out on quite a bit in the first few volumes. What I saw here didn’t interest me to go back and read the first two, but perhaps I am missing out on a lot of the best parts of these characters by skipping the first two.
The cast is pretty large at this point, but the main character is named Takashi, and is the ringleader of a group of high school students. He doesn’t really know how to be tough or use a gun or anything, but is brave when the situation calls for it, and humble to boot. For some reason, he gets teased a lot for… I’m pretty sure it’s for being an immature high school student, but these parts didn’t make sense to me (the characters… appear to revel a lot in their youth, which young people don’t do, but maybe I’m missing some sort of inside joke). Takashi is accompanied by a harem of large-breasted women that all appear to have a crush on his wussy self, and various hang-ups. This volume focuses on Saya, who has to deal with the oppressive shadow of her amazing parents and their efforts to save as many people as possible. It looks like the group has been heading towards Saya’s mansion, and now that they’ve grouped with her parents (heads of a right-wing political organization), it appears that the action will carry on from there.
There’s also a scene with Hirano, a geeky boy they pick up that’s good with a gun. It’s the only thing he’s good at, apparently, and there’s a cathartic scene where he talks his way through this hang-up.
While this is all going on, all this serious stuff, there’s also some vaguely pornographic scenes slipped in there, which throws off the whole serious vibe. One of the characters with Takashi hurts her back, and a doctor traveling with them apparently has to rub her all over with oil in as uncomfortably sexual a way as possible. Later, there’s a busload of students that are chaperoned by someone I assume is the villain, who talks them into having sex with one another. Lots of boob-grabbing and whatnot, though I don’t think they actually have sex.
I don’t know the characters, and I have a feeling even if I did, the cast is slightly too large and the story slightly too serious for my liking. I love camp, but this misses my personal camp mark by quite a bit. It is more serious, for people who are looking for a little more substance to their stories though, and the characters might be more dimensional and make a whole lot more sense if you read from the beginning. But… yes. Definitely not for me, this volume left me with a rather bad impression.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
Laon 4
Posted: July 11, 2011 Filed under: Laon 2 Comments »YoungBin Kim / Hyun You – Yen Press – 2011 – 6 volumes
The final volume of this series just came out! It’s somewhat rare for a Korean boys’ comic to be translated into English, and I really like the art and the plot in this one. I’m curious as to how the story will resolve itself in three more volumes, though. There’s only one way to find out.
The first half of the volume is the continuation of the story about the gifted singer and Laon’s second tail. It’s a pretty straightforward story, save for the fact that the benefits aren’t quite what they seem. The female singer was an interesting character, and I also thought it was interesting when Tae-Ha nearly pushed Laon into losing the lead on her tail. As much as she seems to like him, she’s still pretty savage.
There are otherworldly hints sprinkled throughout, but nothing much has been revealed just yet. That a wider picture is opening up is a little worrying with only two volumes left, but again, I’m curious to see how this goes.
The next story is one about a regular demon, a hwan as opposed to one of Laon’s tails, and it looks like it might unlock parts of Tae-Ha’s past. The story itself is about a “haunted” mansion and various people caught up in the hwan’s power, but the hwan seems to be specifically targeting Laon.
I like this series a lot. It’s great at the horrifying moments, the art is pretty dark and slick, and wonderful during action scenes, and I definitely like the mythology it plays around in and the stories it uses to advance the main plot. It’s not rush-out-and-buy-it good, but it is a really solid story, and very enjoyable to action/horror fans. I feel like I should comment on this volume a bit more, but I plan on reading the next two this week to finish the story up, so I’ll hold off judgment on the main plot until I’m finished, or at least have a better sense of how it will be paced up until the end.
Pokemon Adventures 4
Posted: July 11, 2011 Filed under: Pokemon Adventures Leave a comment »Hidenori Kusaka / MATO – Viz – 2009 – 38+ volumes
This volume marks the start of a new character story, Amarillo de la Bosque Verde, or Yellow for short. The characters roughly follow the game versions, so this coincides with the release of Pokemon Yellow, which was based on the anime. This makes for one deep, bizarre adaptation black hole (a manga based on a game that spawned an anime that was then converted back into a game that was turned into a manga), but it’s still great since it’s only based on the rudiments of the plot of the game.
Trainer Red disappears, and Yellow shows up mysteriously to find him. There are hints that the Elite Four challenged him and made him disappear, and Yellow intends to help Red’s Pikachu find the trainer. Yellow has mysterious powers to communicate with pokemon and to battle without doing harm. He also doesn’t like talking about himself, and stirs up all kinds of trouble among Red’s friends when he refuses to explain why he’s doing what he is, or why he needs to keep Red’s Pikachu with him.
The Elite Four are the enemies in this volume. We catch a brief glimpse of Bruno, the trainer that may have fought Red, but Yellow has a lengthy battle with Lorelai, an ice pokemon trainer, and then with Agatha, an older woman who trains ghost pokemon.
I might have been reading this on the wrong day, but the battles in this volume were slightly less engaging due to their length. We still get to see quite a few pokemon in play, but the fight with Lorelai seemed endless. It does move faster after that, and after another relatively varied battle, the action switches over to Blue, and we see him face off against his own opponent. I liked that about it, too. As long as the fight with Lorelai was, this series is very good at mixing up opponents and the types of pokemon used. That’s one of the things that makes it so fun and a great read for kids, the variety. The cute art doesn’t hurt, either.
I’m less fond of new main character Yellow so far, but I like that the story still has ties to all the old characters. At this point, I think most young children probably don’t know that there’s a yellow cartridge version of pokemon, and that’s both sad (because I’m old) and interesting. It’s still pokemon though, and it’s still a lot of fun, and I think the simple and battle-heavy plot makes this a better read than some of the plot-heavy pokemon manga that gloss over a lot of detail in only a few pages.
Sensual Phrase 17
Posted: July 11, 2011 Filed under: Sensual Phrase Leave a comment »Mayu Shinjo – Viz – 2006 – 18 volumes
Ahh… the last volume. Volume 18 is just short stories. Actually, this volume has a little bit of a happy ending to the main story, then a bunch of short stories. The real meat was in volume 15-16. The conclusion here took up half a volume, but it was mostly one final all-out concert, Aine’s graduation, and then wrapping up some final loose ends, story-wise and also issues related to the Major Happenings from volume 15.
You know, I’ve always been a big fan of how devoted Sakuya and Aine were to each other. It made all the insanity acceptable and quite enjoyable, actually. But, you know… the sappy parts probably would have been way better if Sakuya had more than one facial expression. I was wondering why I just wasn’t feeling the ending. He’s good at looking cool, just not sincere, and sincerity was important through this volume.
The two short stories? It’s mostly more of the same, but I can’t say that I’m sorry to be reading just a little more of this series. One of the stories is another look at Atsuro and his sister, and how their relationship fares when another girl moves in on Atsuro.
What was much appreciated, however, was the story that covered Sakuya’s life. We’ve gotten mostly second-hand accounts, and we knew all that went on, but we didn’t really see it. I knew all about it, but it was still nice to get a good, long story before the end. And it went all the way to the first meeting with Aine, which was a wonderful way to end it.
I’ve got the last volume of short stories, of course, but I can’t help but be a little sad I finished the main story. I read more than half of it in one day, and I’m still devastated that there’s not more. I made fun of it the entire time, and it deserved it, but that’s why I loved it. It was just so utterly and perfectly unbelievable. All the stuff I’ve read before, but turned up to 11 and balanced with a really solid relationship. The perfect kind of story for shoujo manga.
Black Butler 6
Posted: July 9, 2011 Filed under: Black Butler Leave a comment »Yana Toboso – Yen Press – 2011 – 11+ volumes
As I said, I think I didn’t appreciate volume 5 as much as I should have because I read this one first. This one has Ciel and Sebastian investigating children disappearing in the wake of a traveling circus, akin to the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. To make the most of the investigation, Ciel and Sebastian go undercover as members of the circus. This had the fact that it was a story with just Ciel and Sebastian going for it, as well as the circus theme. I love stories about circuses.
The investigation is surprisingly fruitless for quite some time. Sebastian has no trouble being admitted as a circus performer, given the number of “talents” he has, and he also aids Ciel’s acceptance as well. But Ciel isn’t very good at circus performance, and he has a hard time adapting to the rough lifestyle. This is interesting to see, given how self-possessed he normally is, and it is also interesting to see Sebastian giving him a hard time about it.
And, while we have been let in on some facts of Ciel’s life and how he came to possess a demon butler, there are still some things that are left… a little mysterious. One of the circus performers stumbles onto one of these things. Odds are this isn’t going to be explained by the end of this particular story, but it’s interesting to see all the same.
Or maybe it has been explained, and I just forgot. I’m not good with details sometimes, although for series I like, they tend to stick around a little longer.
As a bonus, we get to see the manager Grim Reaper again. His presence isn’t adequately explained, and he has a way of speaking that leaves a lot of red tape laying around (something that I love, it matches his personality perfectly), but with him here, I’m sure the ending to this story will be spectacular.
The sense of humor that this series insists on fits a little better with the circus themes, too. The performers are varied, and I love the various jokes and happy-go-lucky natures that are wandering around. Normally I hate it when this series throws gags around its murder investigations, but it fits well in with this story. Hopefully that’s a sign that it will be slightly more tasteful in the future.
But yes, this volume is good stuff. I was won over after the second or third volume, but there are always a few things about the stories I don’t like. This volume does away with almost all of them, and does wonders with Ciel and Sebastian as characters. I’m dying to read more, and it’s going to be quite a long wait for volume 7.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
