ARTBOOK SPOTLIGHT: Peach
Posted: September 30, 2011 Filed under: Artbooks 1 Comment »Miwa Ueda – Tokyopop – 2003 – 110 pages – ISBN 1591820421
Next month I’ll switch back to imports, but here’s one more domestic artbook for now. Again, I hadn’t flipped through this one in years, and when I saw it on the shelf I couldn’t resist.
Tokyopop only published a handful of artbooks. Aside from one or two based on their own properties (There’s definitely a Bizenghast artbook floating around, and there might be one for Princess Ai as well), there’s a Priest artbook, seven from CLAMP (not counting CLAMP no Kiseki), and this one for Peach Girl. The fact Peach Girl was popular enough to warrant an artbook release tells me that this was probably one of Tokyopop’s best-selling titles at the time. For a comparison, no domestic Sailor Moon artbooks exist, but this was starting just around the time Sailor Moon was ending, too. Manga was becoming more popular, more widely available, et cetera.
I don’t see much discussion of Peach Girl at all these days, but at the time it was one of my absolute favorites. I’m happy I can share the artbook and hopefully convince a few shoujo junkies to seek this series out.
Unfortunately, I talk more about the series than the book itself once again. If you just wanna read about the book, skip down to the last few paragraphs.
My Girlfriend’s a Geek 4
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: My Girlfriend's a Geek 1 Comment »Pentabu / Rize Shinba – Yen Press – 2011 – 5 volumes
I’ll be honest, I tend to write off manga adaptations of novels. They’re rarely good, but there are exceptions (Toradora and Saiunkoku being my favorite recent discoveries). I approached this volume with a lot of skepticism, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it in the end.
Part of that, I think, was Rize Shinba, the person who is doing the manga adaptation. Her style matches the story perfectly, and I knew I had seen her work and enjoyed it before. I looked it up just before writing this review, and was completely shocked to find that she was a BL artist. One that I really liked (she wrote Mister Mistress). I wept bitter fujoshi-in-denial tears at that.
I was also surprised to see that the characters in the story were a little older than I was expecting. They look young, but the boyfriend (who is the main character, at least in this volume) is at least a couple years into a college degree, and the girlfriend is an office lady. That doesn’t have much of an impact on the story, since most of what’s going on, except for the relationships, still seems fairly… teenager-y. But it’s a nice touch, all the same.
The meat of the story in this volume is about Yuiko, the girlfriend, coming down with a cold after a convention in the first half, then some suspicions about cheating in the second half. The cold story was fairly simple stuff, mostly just a chapter with Yuiko begging Taiga for doujinshi from her convention that were shipped to his house. Her persistence was amusing, but most of the jokes fell flat for me.
The cheating story that came next felt more in the spirit of the thing, to me. The first part was about Taiga hiding his current job from Yuiko and avoiding her, and the second was about Yuiko confronting him with her suspicions about cheating. I was not sure what Taiga’s current job was, nor why he would hide it from Yuiko, but there was a lot of fun to be had during their simultaneous blow-ups at each other. Yuiko makes no secrets of her interest in BL to Taiga, and her attempts to connect with him by sharing her interests backfire after he blows up at her for interrupting his exam studies. Then she blows up at him for hiding something and cheating on her.
His secret? He is tutoring a high school boy. One that he describes, in one word, as an “uke.”
Yuiko still thinks he’s making it up, and even goes there (the reason Taiga was hiding the job from her), but he goes to great lengths to win her over. Yuiko’s friend, a BL author, doesn’t have good luck. Her classy businessman boyfriend finds a super-raunchy BL book under her couch and blows up at her for reading gay smut. She seems surprisingly… low-key about the incident, but a text message on the last page of the volume indicates that the incident is not over.
I did like this series. I was a little afraid that it would be full of otaku in-jokes, which I hate. It is, but much of the humor really is more about Yuiko being an overbearing fan-girlfriend, and not about how funny xxx BL joke is. I like it a lot for that, and it probably has a lot to do with the original source material. It’s probably a difficult read for anyone who isn’t at least a little into BL, but it still stands well on the shoujo side of the equation. I do wonder what the rest of the series is like.
It also hits uncomfortably close to home, in some sense. I wouldn’t consider myself a fujoshi, or even an otaku, really. But I do geek out to my roommate about comics on a fairly regular basis (not necessarily about BL, but if I’m really enjoying, say, Let Dai or The Tyrant Falls in Love…), and… yes, sometimes I’m sure I can talk his ear off. Some topics, like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, are forbidden. I tend to get worked up about getting called out over my interests in person, so stuff like this is terribly embarrassing. But I still enjoy it.
I liked this volume a whole lot more than I thought I would. I’ve got a lot on my to-read plate right now, but I’m definitely interested in picking up more of this in the future. Seems like a decent shoujo read.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
Black Bird 10
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Black Bird Leave a comment »Kanoko Sakurakoji – Viz – 2011 – 14+ volumes
As much as I’ve liked this series all along, this volume made me realize I’m starting to grow a little tired of it.
The story is still… okay. Misao and Kyo are still in peril. Sho, Kyo’s evil brother, is back. He does something that… I can’t tell if it’s to gain support of the Tengu clan, or if he did it because he’s a psychopath. There’s also a subplot about the Tengu clan going to war.
The main event in this volume is the flashback we see about Kyo’s past, though. Kyo’s father, Yoh, reappears. There’s a strain in Kyo and Yoh’s relationship, and Misao sticks her nose in until Yoh tells all. There’s a sad story about the past, one of those stories where you’re lead to believe the character is a criminal, but they didn’t actually do anything and their “criminal” activity is the result of their conscious. I tend to hate stories like this for having cop-out endings. As you can imagine, the story between Kyo’s parents is both romantic and as drama-tastic as possible. And afterwards, back in the present, there’s lots of semi-terrible scenes where Misao tries to get Kyo to admit he loves his dad.
Maybe it’s because the main relationship is resolved now, but I feel like the veil has been lifted and the drama-tastic lens that the series uses to view everything is becoming increasingly apparent. Everything happens for maximum tragedy, and it’s just not working for me anymore. Or maybe I’m just seeing the rest of the series for itself, since there’s not a whole lot of Kyo/Misao scenes in this volume.
Either way. I’ll continue to buy new volumes, but this volume has made me slightly wearier of things to come.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Please Save My Earth 5
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Please Save My Earth 2 Comments »Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes
I liked that this volume puts increased emphasis on the characters stating that they will not let their past lives ruin the present, even while they apparently begin to fall into old patterns. Or, at least, that seems to be the case for all the main characters save Alice. One of the interesting things about this series is that these characters are their past selves. Knowing each other in the past, with the shared memories, seems to mean that they are all comfortable picking up where they left off. That strikes me as strange and unlikely, but it also makes for good drama. And why would I complain about that?
Several major things happen here. “Shion” meets the others for the first time, but things go badly, since Sakura and Issei have met him before, after he “accidentally” jumped into a river. This wrecks Rin’s plans, and the meeting goes badly. He tries to salvage his machinations by reinforcing his goals to Haru and forcing him to meet Alice, who hangs on every word he says. Rin is uncomfortable at this meeting, though it’s unclear why. Visions of the past are interspersed throughout, just to reinforce what a jerk Rin is, past and present.
Mr. Tamura perseveres in his quest to understand Haru. Despite Haru’s genuinely desperate attempts, Mr. Tamura learns everything about Haru’s past life. What he’s going to do with this information remains to be seen.
Rin… Rin is my favorite character, I think. I do love that he is very clearly an older person trapped in a young body, something he laments constantly. I also like that, currently, as creepy and genuinely terrible as he seems to be, his intentions are ambiguous. Is he really trying to save the Earth? It would seem so, and he’s compelled to do so only because of a promise.
I am completely hooked, though. I cannot wait to read more.
Kizuna 3
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Kizuna | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Kazuma Kodaka – June – 2011 – 11 volumes
this contains vols. 5-6 of the original series
The drug dealer impersonating Kai storyline continues here, and it goes far longer than I thought it would. Kei gets dragged in. Ranmaru is involved. Masa is involved. Assassins enter the picture. There is a seemingly interminable scene where everyone begs Ranmaru not to kill with a sword.
Kodaka breaks things up a little bit. The storyline continues through volume five and into volume six, but at the beginning of six is a silly short story about two angels who confuse Kei and Ranmaru with their lovers. I hated myself a little for liking such a dumb story so much. I couldn’t help it.
After that, though, the conclusion to the drug dealer storyline happens. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this story, and I’m still not, but I was drawn into the action pretty neatly. It’s paced very well, and other than that overblown Ranmaru scene, I can’t fault it for everything. It had dramatic kidnappings. A little torture. Lots of dangerous gunplay. An awesome reunion between Kei and Ranmaru. At the end, the two assassins hook up. This is the type of thing that would only ever happen in a BL manga. It was stupid, but again, I loved every page of it, even while simultaneously hating myself immensely.
The epilogue pretty much made up for whatever ambivalent feelings I had for the Kai-centric story. There was… a hospital scene. It was both a dramatic break-up and dramatic make-up scene. There was action. There was a decent interruption scene. All of it was beautiful. It’s stuff like this chapter that make Kizuna worth reading 15 years after it was released.
The rest of the book includes… let’s see, a decent story about the two assassins that hook up. It was about their past, though it took me a minute to figure this out. I wanted more Kei and Ranmaru stories, but this was also good stuff. Amazingly, this took up the last “half” of volume six. It’s the type of “falling from grace” story I can’t help but like. J.B. doesn’t want to corrupt Roy with his murdering ways, or his love, but you know how that can go in a BL book.
I feel a little bad only offering marginal commentary for a huge omnibus like this, especially after I so thoroughly enjoyed it. This, along with many others, are starting to make me a fan of action-oriented BL stories, a genre I tend to hate. Unfortunately, I read this awhile ago and put off writing it up, so I have less to say than normal. But for fans of BL, especially classic material, Kizuna is pretty much a staple. Definitely worth picking up.
Slam Dunk 15
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Slam Dunk Leave a comment »Takehiko Inoue – Viz – 2011 – 31 volumes
Only in a shounen manga can one minute and thirty seconds of game time take 120 pages to play out. That’s almost one page for every second. This series is so good that I didn’t even notice the ridiculous stretch.
You know why?
SLAM DUNK.
It was magical.
It took 15 volumes to happen. When it did, it was special. I loved that Haruko consoled him with it later, too. That made for an adorable scene.
And for as long as it took to happen, I love that that wasn’t even the most exciting thing about that game. It certainly got a double-page spread devoted to it, but the story didn’t even linger on it for one page more.
So, the game ends, and I was a little sad. I couldn’t remember what they did in this series before they played basketball. After all, this game alone has lasted over five volumes, right?
Well, I guess they practice for their next game. I suspect there won’t be a lot of downtime between events. I do hope we’re not going to have to sit through the Kainan/Ryonan game, though.
I was also a big fan of the reactions to Hanamichi’s haircut. Now he’s even scarier than he was before! Fantastic.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot to offer in the way of commentary here. They do just play basketball. But they do so in the most exciting, edge-of-your-seat way imaginable. I hate basketball, but I love reading this series. I was very amused by the author commentary in the front of the volume where Inoue responds to criticisms about how he’s taking too much dramatic license with the basketball games in this series. He says that real basketball games are way more exciting than he could ever make it, and you should watch one so you can see for yourself.
I don’t know about that.
Knights of the Zodiac 27
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Knights of the Zodiac Leave a comment »Masami Kurumada – Viz – 2009 – 28 volumes
What can I say? All those cameos in Please Save My Earth reminded me I only had two volumes to go to finish this series. It sorely deserves it. It’s brought me a lot of pleasure over the years.
Alas, there wasn’t very many instances of the over-the-top, insane magic that makes this fun to read. There is a really funny story about Pandora that turns her into a good guy while simultaneously referencing mythology (it was the myth reference that made me laugh), and some strange business about her mother birthing a “soul,” but somehow not birthing a body with it. Whatever.
Elsewhere, Seiya fights Thanatos, who is a surprisingly unexciting villain for being the God of Death revealed at the end of the series. He’s a pretty standard shounen bad guy, powerful and full of trash talk, and he and Seiya trade blows in a fairly uninteresting way. I suppose it is amusing that he can kill people with his thoughts, no matter the distance. He uses this in an extraordinarily unlikely fight that involves all the Knights watching in Greece.
It is notable that Shun lands a punch. I don’t think he’s done that in about 15 volumes.
At the very end, all of our favorite Bronze Knights join up in Elysium for one final fight. That final fight… will take place in GOLD CLOTHS. It will happen in the next, and final, volume.
I can’t be the only one who’s excited that Shun got the Virgo cloth.
Claymore 18
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Claymore Leave a comment »Norihiro Yagi – Viz – 2011 – 21+ volumes
Unfortunately, I skipped a volume. I didn’t realize this until after I had finished this one. This may account for my slight disorientation.
I’ve liked this series pretty well so far, despite jumping in about five volumes ago. This volume gave me a little trouble, though, but I think it’s only partially because I skipped the last one.
The action jumps between three different groups here. In one, a man named “Lord Dae,” who is probably a bad guy, is admiring a terrible creature (apparently “The Destroyer”) that seems to be annihilating all life in the vicinity. He’s very interested in getting a sample for himself. Nearby, Claire is with Helen and Deneve, fighting things coming from “The Destroyer.” During this fight, a character that appears to be rooted very firmly in Claire’s past shows up. In fact, this seems to be the character she’s been trying to fight all series, and the battle is pretty epic. Elsewhere, Cynthia and Uma are fooled by a monster, and are engaged in a battle where each tries to sacrifice themselves for the other. Both get holes blown in them, but keep fighting. Another battle somewhere else covers Riful and Dauf, a doomed couple that appear to be engaging yet another Claymore. Parallel to this is a battle where a dark-haired girl is fighting a monster rather successfully. These two battles merge, and the dark-haired girl fights two monsters while the victims from the Claymore fight only watch. Later, the dark-haired girl finds Clare.
To be fair, the Lord Dae scene is brief. But my main problem with this volume was that there was so much fighting going on, jumping from scene to scene, and little in the way of story. I had trouble telling the characters and fights apart, and the fights meant very little to me, save for the final one with Clare, which was explained. And yes, part of this is my ignorance of most of the series, but I also tend to hate these types of volumes in fighting manga, with lots of fights with many different characters that don’t really mean anything.
All the same, I suspect the Dauf/Riful fight was some sort of climax, and I did wind up enjoying the fight with Clare at the very end. I can’t really appreciate all the story behind it (there’s obviously at least two former storylines that have a direct bearing on this fight), but I loved Clare’s character transformation here, and the fight itself was very good.
Even with this volume not playing as well for me as the others, I still want to pick up past volumes of the series. I need to finish up at least a couple of my current series, but I do intend to go back for this. It seems very much worth it.
I’m not sure why, but I really love the cover to this volume, too.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Please Save My Earth 4
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Please Save My Earth Leave a comment »Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes
Okay, there are two notable things about this volume. One is that the situation between Gokuran and Enju comes to a head. I knew this would be coming sooner rather than later, and when Shusuran began needling Enju, I knew the big blow-up was chapters away. But the scene where the confrontation/confession happens is amazing. Hiwatari really knows how to sit on a moment and stretch it out. I love that so much is unsaid between the two before Enju has to clear the air. It’s not quite as good as the Shion/Shukaido scene last volume, but it’s still pretty great.
This goes along with the subplot that seems to be trying to bring Jinpachi and Alice together. Alice wants nothing to do with him, and for some reason wants to be faithful to Rin (I know it’s because she thinks she scarred him for life, but I wouldn’t think she’d pay more than lip service to their “agreement”). Jinpachi isn’t going to give up, though, and even though Alice has completely shut him out of her life, factors like Jinpachi’s desperation, Shion’s sudden appearance, and Alice’s brother try to push them back together. I suspect Alice won’t fall for it.
The other is mostly that Rin continues to be a crazy. He clearly has a soft spot for Alice, and I love that he’s worked out this huge con with Haru, who’s scared to death of him, in order to fool Alice and the others into believing his lies. And it’s weird that his affection for Alice and his menacing behavior towards Haru can come from the same person. I… kinda like him for it, but out of appreciation of the fact he’s an interesting character. Because otherwise, he really is a dangerous jerk.
Another interesting thing about this volume is that Tamura randomly decides Rin and Haru are psychics, then calls up a friend of his with a psychic brother. The friend calls his brother, who then teleports to Tokyo, and the three have a really hard-to-swallow conversation about psychic powers, as if this is the most normal thing in the world. I loved that this scene was done with a completely straight face, in as serious a context as possible. Wow.
Itsuwaribito 3
Posted: September 25, 2011 Filed under: Itsuwaribito Leave a comment »Yuuki Iinuma – Viz – 2011 – 9+ volumes
I do like slightly crazy Shounen Sunday series, and this is a good one. A little understated, it’s the kind of series that doesn’t do anything well enough to make disciples out of its readers, but it’s still a well-written story with fun characters, and I’ve enjoyed every volume of it so far. It reminds me a lot of Law of Ueki in that, but the difference is that I’m a huge fan of Law of Ueki, and you should be reading that right now instead of this sentence.
But anyway, back to Itsuwaribito. This volume starts off on the island of outcast Itsuwaribito criminals, who are being terrorized by a criminal. Utsuho and the criminal match wits, have a shounen manga moment where they see eye-to-eye and heroic things are done… it works because Utsuho’s such a fun and completely unpredictable character. I love the fact that you really can’t see what’s coming next, because Utsuho may be lying, he may commit a crime for the greater good, or he may just do the right thing. Who knows? He always seems to, but sometimes he takes a roundabout way of getting there.
I just couldn’t get into the itsuwaribito island story, though. There’s a second part to it after the criminal is defeated where Neya inevitably joins Utsuho’s traveling party, and I liked that better than the confrontation with the criminal, but rather than the involved plot here, I enjoyed the simple bad-guy confrontations that Utsuho was dealing with earlier. This series is best when it’s just Utsuho outsmarting bad guys in increasingly elaborate bluffs. It’s great at that, and that’s the reason it’s worth reading. It goes back to this formula in the second half of the book, and improves upon it, much to my pleasure.
First, Utsuho and company confront a man who has swindled an entire village out of their money and property. The downside to this story is that how this man did the swindling is never explained, and it’s a little hard to believe he took the entire village for a ride. Hmm. In any case, in true Utsuho style, he sides first with the man, then with the village, though in this story it’s not hard to see who Utsuho is trying to help. Seeing him do it is the fun part, though.
Later, he helps a young man win the lady of his dreams. You’d have to read this one. It’s another great con, though. So selfless, Utsuho! That his personality goes completely against his chivalrous nature is also wonderful.
It’s worth reading! Pick it up and give it a try if you’re a fan of shounen. So far, it’s got a fairly simple premise that isn’t bogged down in a lot of terminology, items, flashy gear, legends, and whatnot. It’s just a boy and his lies, and I like it quite a bit for that.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
