Drifters 1
Posted: September 22, 2011 Filed under: Drifters 3 Comments »Kohta Hirano – Dark Horse – 2011 – 1+ volumes
Okay. I like Hellsing. I know it has its problems, but I liked it anyway, and ten volumes was the perfect length. This is just Hellsing with all the vampires and fun cast of characters and slightly sympathetic motivations stripped out. This is awful and almost incomprehensible. And Hellsing was about Nazi vampires that were trying to bring back the reich after developing super-monsters in Brazil for 50 years.
I don’t even know if I can summarize this. So, there’s a game going on, and it’s a war between “Drifters” and… The Black King. Except people who are not part of either team are fighting this fight using the Drifters and the Black King team as pawns. Both teams consist of historical figures from different time periods in Earth’s history. I would say that Drifters are all from Japanese history, except Hannibal and Scipio are also on the team, and both of them are Roman. The Black King’s team also has one of the Shinsengumi leaders on it, so both sides are a mix, I guess? Anastasia Romanova is also on the Black King’s team, and is clearly accompanied by Rasputin, and I’m sort of looking forward to more about those two.
All these people from our history are drawn in via a mysterious gate, and I assume all are presumed to have died under mysterious circumstances…? Anyway, the world they are drawn into is inhabited by fantasy creatures like elves that are enslaved by other humans. For some reason. In a really awesome scene, Toyohisa and Oda Nobunaga free the village by doing their own crazy thing (Toyohisa by just flying into battle as a kind of berserker, Nobunaga by burning the fields and cutting off an escape, and a third character named Yoichi sniping fleeing humans). Apparently freeing the elves is a bad thing, but we don’t know why yet.
Admittedly, part of the problem is that a lot of the characters that this volume focuses on are from Japanese history, and are sort of obscure at that (with the exception of Oda Nobunaga and maybe Toshizo). They talk a lot about the battles they were in during their time in Japan, and I have no idea what they’re talking about, nor is it important to what’s going on in Drifters. But I realize that reader recognition is important with those particular characters, and I’m failing that test. It’s my fault.
On the other hand, there’s too damn much going on in volume one, with too many characters and too many points of action and too many unanswered questions. After the action cuts away from Oda Nobunaga and the initial three drifters, it took me a long time to figure out that, somehow, the war had come to them and they were fighting again. The idea is a cool one, but we didn’t need to see the faces of the people pulling the strings, nor did we need to know everyone on the opposing team as of the first volume. It just feels like too much at once. I think the first few chapters, up to the liberation of the elves, could have been expanded into a full volume. I would know more about the characters, less about the story, and feel more prepared for what’s ahead. As of right now, though, I’m confused.
But Hirano’s art still looks very good. He’s still great at drawing completely insane characters, and he’s great at drawing action, too. There aren’t a whole lot of female characters yet, so there’s no Seras-esque fanservice, but at the same time, his strong female characters in Hellsing was one of the best things in that series, and I’m missing that a little here.
I’ll keep reading. Hirano isn’t a terribly fast worker, so I know we’ll only get about a volume of this series a year, and that won’t help me figure things out. But then again, it took me six volumes of Hellsing, then a re-read, before I could appreciate what was going on there, so maybe I only have to give Drifters time to build itself up before I can enjoy it. Until then… it’s awful. I’m sorry.
Artist Spotlight: You Higuri
Posted: September 16, 2011 Filed under: Artist Spotlight 5 Comments »Sometimes, I look back and am shocked by how much work certain authors have published in English. In some cases, it makes sense that we have a ton of work by, say, Rumiko Takahashi or CLAMP available. There are some artists, like Arina Tanemura or Kaori Yuki, who surprise me with their popularity since neither has had a super-popular anime in the US, but both are still fairly popular based solely on their manga.
And then there are mid-level authors like You Higuri. There’s nothing really wrong with You Higuri’s work. In fact, she’s a great artist who loves drawing detailed historical settings. Her series Gakuen Heaven and Gorgeous Carat are both fairly popular BL series. Both of those series were released by BLU in the US, but Higuri has a variety of series from many other publishers as well, none of which have been very popular. Yet here we are, with around 40 volumes of her manga from eight different series in English.
Here’s a look at her work available in English, starting from Cantarella in 2005 and working through the present.
Kamisama Kiss 5
Posted: September 12, 2011 Filed under: Kamisama Kiss Leave a comment »Julietta Suzuki – Viz – 2011 – 8+ volumes
So I just finished writing about Karakuri Odette, Suzuki’s other work published in English. I had nothing but nice things to say about it. This series is like Karakuri Odette x5, because it’s just as good, but uses some of my favorite themes. It’s actually a romance, and it has a plot involving folklore and folk creatures. I think the only way it could hit more of my shoujo manga weaknesses is if it had a demon in it.
This one snuck up on me a little bit, but I’m pretty thoroughly addicted at this point. I read this volume straight out of the box because I had to know, even though I knew very well nothing was really going to happen. It’s very episodic, with not a whole lot of momentum as far as developing Nanami’s kami powers or her relationship with Tomoe.
But the reason I love it are things like the last chapter in this volume. Nanami tries her best to hold a traditional Shinto festival to dispel rumors that her shrine is haunted, and after Tomoe rejects her attempts at several of the usual traditions, he decides to coach her on how to dance the traditional Kagura. There’s a couple chapters about how Nanami is desperately trying to learn the dance, and a lengthy scene at the end where she freezes up in front of her audience and isn’t sure she can remember it well enough to perform. And then… she does it. It’s beautiful, and just a little magical.
Not only was this scene fantastic, I also learned something about Kagura while I read it. It’s difficult to convey just how powerful this dance was after all the preparation leading up to it, but it was wonderful. It made me fall in love with this series all over again.
Getting people to worship at the shrine that Tomoe works so hard to maintain is a big part of the second half of the book, but there’s a wonderful story mixed in with a new mystery character that sheds light on both the best and worst qualities in Nanami and others. It’s touching and entertaining, and it’s interesting that Suzuki can so effectively analyze what makes her characters so… well, real, even though they are gods and spirits and whatnot. They’re easy to relate to, and not over-the-top stereotypes, which is a big part of what makes this series fun to read.
The first half of the book takes a look at a very interesting cliffhanger from last volume, namely, what Mizuki’s new status is. Nanami, Tomoe, Mizuki, and Nanami’s friends from school all go to a festival at a different shrine at the beginning of the book, which is part of what inspires Nanami later. It’s more of what you’d know of a summer festival if you’ve read a lot of manga, with food vendors and fireworks and yukata and whatnot. What starts out as the usual plot device in all shoujo manga turns out to act as an interesting contrast to the festival Nanami throws later, which goes back to the roots of such festivals and makes it more about the shrine and the act of worship than the social activity. The spirits and their memories also make this festival a lot more fun.
Again, I said this at the end of my Karakuri Odette review, but I have a hard time conveying just why it is that Suzuki’s series are so wonderful. They have great characters that are easy to relate to, sure, and the right mix of humor, romance, drama, sadness, and everything else that makes a shoujo manga great. They’re almost always very positive. But mostly, they’re just extremely well-written. There’s nothing fantastic that I can point to and say, “this is why you should definitely read it!” but… you should anyway. It’s wonderful, and I think any fan of shoujo manga would really enjoy it. This gets better with every volume, and now I’m beginning to think that it might have a plot that is picking up a little steam. I can’t wait to read more.
I love that, for all the series I have in my list over on the right hand side there, Julietta Suzuki’s two series, Kamisama Kiss and Karakuri Odette, fall right next to each other in alphabetical order. How unlikely.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Goong 12
Posted: September 12, 2011 Filed under: Goong 6 Comments »So Hee Park – Yen Press – 2011 – 26+ volumes
this is an omnibus containing vols. 15-16
Now that I’m caught up, I’m pretty thrilled that these volumes come out as omnibuses now. The story moves so slowly that… well, almost nothing happens in this volume. But it takes its time doing what it does. It’s slow about it. Deliberate. Agonizing. I loved every page.
I can’t say too much about this volume that isn’t a massive spoiler, unfortunately. But again, this series is some truly addictive, soapy romance. Exactly the type of thing I love reading.
It’s very by-the-book in terms of drama. They love each other! But they can’t be together! Promises all around! Another man gets involved! Tears! Secrets! You know the drill.
Still, I can’t help but love every page. I never thought I would come around on Prince Shin, who was a terrible person for the first ten volumes. He’s still got quite a ways to go to make up for all that, and there’s still at least one awful scene between him and Chae-Kyung in this volume. But now that the two are happy together, it’s a lot more fun to read. You don’t have to feel bad for Chae-Kyung for loving Shin, and that makes all the difference.
For any lover of dramatic romance, this series is perfect. I promise. Just ignore Shin for awhile, it gets better later.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
Until the Full Moon 1
Posted: September 12, 2011 Filed under: Until the Full Moon | Tags: BL Leave a comment »Sanami Matoh – Kodansha Comics – 2011 – 2 volumes
I passed over this when Broccoli released this years ago, but I’m not sure why. The premise is definitely my flavor, having both vampires and a gender identity thing going on with the romantic interest. I hadn’t read Fake when Broccoli released this, but now I have, and I know that Matoh is sneaky in a good way about developing relationships while doing her over-the-top comedy thing. I liked this so much that I considered just buying a used copy of the second volume from Broccoli so I didn’t have to wait for the Kodansha release. But don’t do that! There’s new content in this volume. I’ll explain in a bit.
The premise is that David, a vampire from an aristocratic vampire family is reunited with his childhood friend, Marlo, who is the child of a werewolf and a vampire. Actually, I know why I didn’t pick this up the first time… that sounds ridiculous. But bear with me. This is a romance comic, so of course Marlo and David are in love. In a strange twist to the usual BL story, rather than being a vampire who feeds on blood or a werewolf who turns into a beast at the full moon, Marlo inherited a different set of werewolf survival genes. Apparently his ancestors came from an all-male tribe, and in order to produce offspring, certain members of the tribe turned into women at the full moon. So does Marlo.
It… almost makes some worthwhile commentary about this. How David doesn’t care if Marlo is a man or a woman, he loves him anyway. Marlo seems mostly embarrassed. At its heart, though, Until the Full Moon is a romantic comedy, so it doesn’t really dwell on gender identity issues. BL comics with vampires and werewolves probably aren’t the place for that, anyway.
There’s lots of silliness. Marlo doesn’t really want to be a couple with David, but the two are forced to marry when their parents arrange a marriage between them (this happens during a strangely convoluted conversation where Marlo’s parents request a cure for his “curse,” and when they determine there isn’t one and that Marlo’s mom is too old to have more kids… well…). But David has been in love with Marlo since they were children, and Marlo reluctantly admits to having feelings for David, too, though he keeps him at arm’s length.
Most of the chapters are episodic stories. One is about Marlo’s ex-lover coming to visit and stay. Another is a rather jealous couple that gets David wrapped up in their affairs. Another is a story set in the past that might as well be about Marlo and David.
The art is still very 90s, with big hair, angular features, and lots of fancy screentone and Loveswept-looking conclusion panels in a lot of the chapters. The humor is also very 90s humor, meaning… a lot of the jokes are a little too old to be funny. But the art is a lot tighter and more dynamic than it was in Fake, and I do admire Matoh’s ability as a comedy artist, since a lot of mangaka aren’t very good at slapstick-style drawings.
But… I was reading this volume, and I could not figure out the cover. It looks like it was drawn by a different artist, and I didn’t recognize any of the characters on it.
Turns out Matoh’s style has changed DRASTICALLY over the years. She drew the cover, and the two main characters are there, front and center, not looking anything like themselves (but, to be fair, I don’t think any of those other characters appeared in this volume). There’s a bonus story in the back that was drawn recently, the second half of which will be in the second Kodansha volume, which is why this edition has an edge over the one Broccoli released years ago. Without that bonus story, I would have never figured out that cover. I think the story is probably meant to ease us into the sequel series, @Full Moon, which Kodansha is also releasing in English. I’m curious how it will be different from this series, other than the fact that… Matoh’s new style is more cartoony and VERY DIFFERENT. I don’t know how to stress this. It really, really looks like it was drawn by a different person. Nothing has made me want to read the entire body of work of an artist more than that chapter. I want to know how her artwork evolved so much over the years. It’s really crazy.
Anyway. There is some comedy, but not nearly as much as was in Fake. The story is still mostly a romance with some light touches, and all of the stories are about relationships in some way. Marlo and David aren’t quite developed enough as characters to get me really involved in the story, and the premise is also a little strange. But there’s something addictive about it anyway. I like these types of romance stories, though, so you might want to look elsewhere if you don’t have a high tolerance for silly stuff mixed in with your romance story.
Karakuri Odette 5
Posted: September 12, 2011 Filed under: Karakuri Odette Leave a comment »Julietta Suzuki – Tokyopop – 2011 – 6 volumes
Every chapter is still mostly adorable one-shots. Going through this volume, I became increasingly sad. There’s a plot that starts in this volume that makes it it obvious the series is drawing to a close, but rather than getting excited about the conclusion (one of the best things about manga, in my opinion, even if they’re often terrible), it just means I couldn’t read any more stories like the first one here.
The first story has all the things I like about the series in it. Someone says something offhandedly about Odette being a gorilla girl. When Odette realizes she’s being compared to something so not cute, she decides to stop using her strength. She’s accidentally locked in a shed with Asao, and when he begs her to break through the door, she refuses, saying that strength makes her not cute. In a semi-romantic moment, Asao convinces her that her strength makes her super-cool, and they escape. Meanwhile, Professor Yoshizawa is melting down like the doting father he is when Odette is late coming home.
It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s a little romantic, it develops the characters and brings to light their best qualities. There’s not a whole lot of drama, just happiness. It’s great.
Also in this volume, there’s a side story about one of the other assassin robots like Odette’s brother, another story where Odette meets another advanced android that doesn’t believe Odette is a robot (here’s where the plot leading to the finale starts), more about Chris and the terrorist robots with a lot of humor thrown in to balance out the seriousness. That story is very Professor Yoshizawa-centric, and any story with a lot of him in it is bound to be at least a little silly. Plus, he’s such a proud parent. And the last chapter is a two-part story where Odette begins to get fed up with Chris, who is unable to understand her more human-like thought processes. Travis, the more advanced android that Odette meets earlier in the book, is in a similar situation, and the two meet up, but at the same time, Odette sends Chris away and completely disregards his feelings. It’s one of the few times that Odette has truly been in the wrong about something, and it’s definitely a hard story to read.
And yes, in addition to the cute stories, all the characters are what make this series worth reading. It’s not outstanding, and I can’t quite put my finger on why I like it so much, but… Julietta Suzuki just gets everything right. It’s an excellent read, despite not excelling at anything in particular. It’s just good shoujo manga. Not romance, not drama, not comedy, just… girly stuff with the best of everything mixed in.
English, Please!: Zetsuai 1989 / Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989 / Bronze Final
Posted: September 9, 2011 Filed under: English, Please! 7 Comments »Minami Ozaki – 5/14/1 volumes – shoujo/BL – Margaret/Chorus – 1989-2011
It’s no secret I’m a terrible sucker for romance comics. Especially weepy, drama-filled romance comics. This series is the queen of weepy, drama-filled romance. Zetsuai/Bronze goes so over the top that car accidents become trivial because they happen so frequently. Not even I can take it seriously by the end, and I read Let Dai about seven times before I could finally admit to myself how bad the dialogue was. But I still love Let Dai to pieces, and I don’t love Zetsuai/Bronze any less for being… a smidge unlikely.
I’ll be honest with you, though. I was completely obsessed with this series about a year or so ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to re-read it before I wrote it up here. I was afraid that I would hate it if I read it again. That I would come to my senses and realize that I didn’t like either of the characters, or that it was just too ridiculous. But I loved it to pieces the first time through. I’d buy an English translation the second it came out, I would read every page, and I would probably try and get as many others to read it as possible. With the recent release of the gaiden/final volume of the series, along with Viz’s apparently imminent boys’ love line, I think the chances of this series getting translated are good.
It is one of the early cornerstones of the boys’ love genre. It’s among the first of these modern super-soapy BL stories, and it does love and drama with quite a bit of style. Over twenty years later, there’s still not much that can match the drama of Zetsuai 1989 and its sequels. And I love it unconditionally for that.
Ouran High School Host Club 16
Posted: September 7, 2011 Filed under: Ouran High School Host Club 1 Comment »Bisco Hatori – Viz – 2011 – 18 volumes
I enjoy this series quite a bit, and I adore Tamaki to the very core of my shoujo-loving being, but now that we’re closing in on the end of the series, we’re getting into dramatic finish territory, and it’s getting tough to read. I had to put this volume down for awhile because I couldn’t do the whole sad story in one sitting.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but it’s obvious that the Ouran storyline is beginning to wrap up here. Haruhi and Tamaki are dancing around their feelings, and all that it’s going to take is a real conversation between them to cement their relationship. Unfortunately, this coincides with Tamaki’s grandmother finally getting around to letting Tamaki into the fold. He’s got his hands full with learning all about the Suoh family business, and doesn’t have… free time anymore.
There’s all kinds of sinister in this volume. Both from Tamaki’s grandmother, who has been a villain all along, and Tamaki’s father, who fails to support or even stand up for his son. The Suoh lawyer is also sticking her nose in Haruhi’s affairs, and by the end of the volume, even Tamaki says things he’s going to regret later. In some cases, immediately, when he collapses in the hallway in a comedic puddle of tears.
I think the worst part of all this is that it’s so talky. This series is always so funny and happy, it’s extremely difficult for me to sit through a depressing volume where characters simply sit around and discuss what they can and can’t do for 200 pages.
Oh, I have full faith in a happy ending. There’s going to be some unpleasantness to get there, though.
So that the whole thing doesn’t end on a sour note, there’s a short story in the back of the volume about how Haruhi’s parents got together. It’s all kinds of awesome, with Ryoji still more or less himself even back then, and Haruhi’s mother… well, is more or less exactly like Haruhi, save for the fact she has a secret Takarazuka soft spot.
Following this, there’s another really funny story about Hikaru and Kaoru’s grandmother. She’s just the sort of eccentric old lady you’d expect to be head of the Hitachiin family.
Hatori’s strength as a writer really is in coming up with these strong, hilarious characters that play well together, and it’s good that both of these fall in this volume with a difficult part of the main story. They more than make up for the lack of silly Tamaki in this volume. I do hope he’ll get an opportunity to appear again next volume, though.
Bamboo Blade 10
Posted: September 7, 2011 Filed under: Bamboo Blade 4 Comments »Masahiro Totsuka / Aguri Igarashi – Yen Press – 2011 – 14+ volumes
I wasn’t sure that this would be my type of series. I was even less sure when I started this volume and realized it was a comedy. But I started to see the charm a few chapters in, and I always appreciate a book that’s easy to get into.
I do like that this is a series all about kendo, especially since there seems to be so many girls involved. Kendo is something you see come up so rarely in manga, and when it does, it’s merely something a cool character is doing. But this series is about the kendo team, and this volume starts a new storyline where the kendo team is preparing themselves to be featured on the popular variety show “Burning Dash.”
The first few chapters, where the characters explain what “Burning Dash” is and we see how excited they all are and learn about the program, were difficult for me to get through. They are very humor-oriented, and the humor depends on you knowing who the characters are. It’s obvious that the characters have slightly more personality in this series than, say, K-on, where I got the sense after reading one volume that it didn’t really matter that much. It’s obvious that character stereotypes are still at work here, but there are a lot more variations, too. The anime geek, for instance, isn’t made the butt of everyone’s joke for not knowing what “Burning Dash” is. She keeps that to herself, and worries about how out-of-touch she is. One of the girls appears to embody the beautiful popular girl stereotype, but it seems like she only gloats when she’s complimented directly by a teammate, and even then the other girls are in on the joke.
After all this, the coach decides that this show is the perfect opportunity to get an errant member back on the team (I later realized this was the plot of the series, and I can’t believe it took ten volumes to get to this point). The errant member is one of the most naturally gifted kendo players the coach has ever seen, and he never got a clear answer as to why she gave up kendo.
The answer comes in the second half of this book. Having never read this series before, and even after being mildly annoyed by the first half, I was still pleased/creeped out by this explanation. It was really funny, and the writer does a good job of making the characters react appropriately all the way around. I’m not going to spoil it for anyone who reads this series, but… yeah, it was pretty great. Perhaps I only liked it because it reminded me of people I knew in high school, though.
This is followed up by a pretty sweet chapter where all the teammates study together, then congregate in the club room. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.
Honestly, over-the-top group comedy like this isn’t really my thing, and I’m definitely not the audience for this book. I can appreciate that it’s one of the better series in its genre, though, and I got a big kick out of the second half of this book, so it’s doing at least some of the funny very well.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
