House of Five Leaves 4
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: House of Five Leaves Leave a comment »Natsume Ono – Viz – 2011 – 8 volumes
Somehow, the beginning of volume four had me a little lost, and I was hoping that reading it so soon after volume three would help me get into the story a little more. The problem is that it starts in the middle of a kidnapping negotiation, with a disguised Yaichi and Masanosuke talking with a character we haven’t met yet. Since I didn’t recognize any of the characters, I thought it was somehow supposed to relate to Yaichi’s past, then I was disoriented when characters that looked like Yaichi and Masa appeared… I don’t know if that’s my fault or the story’s fault, though.
This volume is all about a negotiator named Ginta. Ginta begins to hire himself out as a kidnapping negotiator, mostly dealing with the high-profile kidnappings of the other organization that tends to slay its victims. But the Five Leaves crosses paths with Ginta, and through a set of coincidences, Ginta winds up learning their identities, about their organization, and where their hideout is. So then he has to become one of them, except nobody accepts or trusts him.
The story takes its time about introducing him. It’s not clear whether he’s going to turn on Five Leaves, and this ambiguity makes learning about him a little daunting, since you’re not sure whether you should sympathize with him, or if he’s lying to gain the trust of Five Leaves. Masa does his usual act, where he’s nosy and makes Ginta spill all his secrets. Unusuallly, Ginta turns the table, and we finally find out all the details of Masa’s trip to the capital, too. I wasn’t expecting any more details about that, so I enjoyed that little bit of story.
We are also still dancing around some of the uglier issues surrounding Yaichi. Ginta walks in on a brutal scene between Yaichi and someone from his past, and Yaichi seems to have given up on Masa and the Five Leaves by the end of the book as his past catches up to him.
As interesting as the story was here, I’m still having problems with flashbacks and distinguishing the characters from one another. I was a little less enamored this time around. Maybe reading the volumes back to back was too much of a good thing, then? I’m curious to see how the next volume will go for me.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Haruhi Suzumiya 06: The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Leave a comment »Nagaru Tanigawa – Yen Press – 2011 – 11+ volumes
this is a novel
I am still ridiculously addicted to this series, and that’s after two volumes of short stories. I thought I might hold onto this for a rainy day, but I recently saw the movie adaptation of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and it was so good that I sat down and read this in one afternoon.
I dreaded this volume, and I dreaded reading The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00. I hated that movie-making plotline so much, and that the story seems to keep returning to it is aggravating. Not only do we get the short story version of the terrible movie they made here, we also get to hear more about it in one of the other stories, Live Alive, when the movie is finally screened at the cultural festival.
But The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00 wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. That’s even considering I knew what the plot was going to be beforehand. A lot of the enjoyment has to do with Kyon’s cranky narration, where he points out just how bad this story/movie really is. Kyon is the one that walks us through the entire movie, since there’s not a lot of dialogue to do that for us. Interesting that the thing I hated most about the original novel is what made the short story version bearable.
Live Alive is the first story in this volume, and it covers the cultural festival. Kyon talks briefly about the movie being shown, but mostly he walks around the school grounds, eats at Mikuru’s noodle stand… and sees Haruhi filling in as an impromptu vocalist for a band. This is a nice story, and while I didn’t love it, it’s simple charm is probably part of why I’m such a huge fan of this series. Rather than being a story about supernatural occurrences or something insane happening, everyone gets to be normal students at a school festival, and all their personality traits and quirks get to shine as a result.
Where Did the Cat Go? is the story of what happened for the SOS Brigade’s real winter vacation, the planned “murder mystery” from Koizumi and his associates. This wasn’t nearly as fun as the “trapped in a snowbound mansion” story, or the “real” murder mystery from the summer vacation story, so it was hard for me to get into this one. There are no supernatural occurrences once again, so it’s more of the characters being themselves, but I thought Live Alive was slightly more charming in that way. Though it’s hard to begrudge this story its game time.
Love at First Sight is a really bizarre story about one of Kyon’s friends from junior high falling desperately in love with Yuki Nagato. They get to watch an American Football game, which was about the best part of it for me. This one does have something to do with the supernatural, though it wasn’t really anything exciting in the end.
The Melancholy of Mikuru Asahina is the last story in the volume, and it was one I was very fond of. Kyon and Mikuru go on an awkward date that shares a lot in common with the walk they took in an earlier novel, the one where Mikuru told Kyon she was a time traveler. This date is hilariously awkward, and I knew the other time travel shoe would drop if I was patient enough. It did, though not until the very end. It was mostly unrelated to the series, but at the same time, it was a very classic time travel problem, and one that even Kyon had to question in the end. And, of course, Haruhi found out about the date in the end.
There’s not a whole lot of spectacular or stand-out stories in this volume, and the two I liked best, the first and last, were good because they highlighted what I liked best about the series. The good time travel plot in one, and the way the characters were used in the other. The volumes of short stories are definitely not my favorite part of the series though, and I’m itching for another novel. A novel is next, it appears, but I’m going to have to wait six months to read it.
Ai Ore 3
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: Ai Ore! Leave a comment »Mayu Shinjo – Viz – 2011 – 10 volumes
On one hand, I still read every volume of this wishing it were Sensual Phrase. On the other hand, I’m still reading every volume of this, and probably will for some time.
It’s cheap thrills, to be sure, and not even the funny and insanely amusing kind that you’d find in Sensual Phrase. Mostly it’s just Akira trying to get into Mizuki’s pants. Akira isn’t really all that sympathetic or even charming, so there’s no way to overlook his completely jerk-y behavior. Because he’s a terrible person, this series is less fun for me to read. But it’s still a horrible, smutty shoujo manga, and it’s hard for me to say no to those.
This volume is a lot of one-shot-style chapters. Akira and Mizuki at a Christmas party, Akira and Mizuki do New Year’s, Akira goes out on a date with a guy who’s trying to stop Blaue Rosen from performing in a club… stuff like that. Shoujo sitcom stuff, with no real plot or character development. It’s fun to read, and Shinjo knows what she has to put in stories like this to make them entertaining, but it’s definitely not among the best chapters of shoujo manga I’ve ever read.
More serious plots include a story about another guy who looks like a girl that seems to be a romantic rival for Mizuki (eventually, Akira and the new guy have a princess contest at their all-boys school), and a story that elaborates on some of the character motivations behind Akira (they are about what you’d expect, and they don’t make it any easier to like him).
The better plots occur towards the end of the volume. In a two-part story about how Mizuki can’t admit to loving Akira out loud, the two break up and Mizuki attends a marriage meeting… with a boy that turns out to be one of Akira’s friends. This story leads into another one where Akira divulges his identity to Blaue Rosen fans after being fed up about the secrecy surrounding their relationship. This didn’t quite make sense to me since Mizuki is famous for making manly passes at the girls in her all-girls school, and Akira and Mizuki could’ve just gone out as a lesbian couple if keeping Akira’s gender secret was that important. But maybe that’s not “okay” for some reason.
I read this knowing what I’m going to get. It’s smutty shoujo, and terrifyingly addictive. On the other hand, there are much trashier series that are much more addictive than this, and most people looking for a bad shoujo manga, or even a trashy one, will probably want to look elsewhere. Still, Mayu Shinjo is famous for a reason, and while this isn’t one of her best… if you’re the type of person that ignores the warnings and knows exactly what they want in a story like this, you probably won’t be disappointed.
About Love
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: About Love | Tags: BL Leave a comment »Tomo Ootake / Narise Konohara – June – 2011 – 1 volume
Uh, wow. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a BL book like this that wasn’t really a BL book. It kind of transcends the genre constraints of BL and makes itself into a regular, very fantastic romance story.
Asaka is a wedding planner, and completely devoted to his work. He feels like he constantly has to prove himself, since he is one of the few men in his profession and very serious about helping his clients have the perfect wedding. One day, he runs into his first solo client, Sasagawa, and the two begin meeting on a fairly regular basis. Asaka is in awe of Sasagawa. Sasagawa forgave Asaka a horrible faux pas on the day of his wedding, and Asaka also sees Sasagawa and his wife as the perfect couple and very inspirational, since they are precisely the type of couple he loves helping with their wedding.
Sasagawa meets with Asaka fairly regularly, and Asaka slowly realizes he mostly talks about his job endlessly, without Sasagawa contributing to the conversation. He often asks about and praises Sasagawa’s wife, but Sasagawa isn’t all that interested in opening up, and claims he doesn’t mind listening to Asaka. Soon, Asaka finds out why Sasagawa seems to be on his guard all the time: Sasagawa’s marriage was a sham, but he loves his wife enough to let her get away with the sham and live with her lover. He misses her every day, and waits impatiently for her calls and any attention she wants to give him.
This is horribly, horribly sad, and the first half of the volume is about developing this, Asaka helping Sasagawa get over it, and the two of them slowly, very slowly, falling in love. They do little more than exchange an experimental and very chaste kiss by the end of the first “story.” It’s about their relationship and the two of them falling in love, but it’s also about their lives, and how each fits into the life of the other. It’s a great story because of that, and I loved how very real the characters were. They weren’t terrible stereotypes, and they were supportive friends before they became lovers, and not in the usual “okay, when is the sex coming” way.
The second half of the book introduces some relationship troubles for them, and I liked it a little less than the first half since much of the plot hinged on the fact that a conversation would have cleared up months of misunderstandings. But the misunderstandings stem from both of them being unsure how to proceed in a homosexual relationship, and then they both try different tactics to forget the other when things start to fall apart. Even though the whole this is simple miscommunication, watching their relationship fall apart is a slow and very painful story, and I liked the nuts and bolts of it just as much as I liked the first half.
There are very few BL books like this one. It’s not as good as Future Lovers (it’s slightly more mundane, even with the wedding planner stuff), but it’s close, and among some of the best of the serious BL books I’ve read. Pick it up if you’re at all interested in BL with older couples, it’s a wonderful book.
Mars 4
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: Mars Leave a comment »Fuyumi Soryo – Tokyopop – 2002 – 15 volumes
Mars only gets better and better with every volume. More dramatic, more sad, and more of everything I love in a really good shoujo romance. There’s a good reason why this is a classic, and I’m so glad I’m reading it.
This volume goes more in depth to Rei’s past, and we gain another perspective on the Sei incident, as well as two people who knew both Rei and Sei that enter the story here. We learn a lot more about Sei, too, and a little bit about the relationship between Rei and Sei.
Shiori is one of the new characters that shows up shows up. She immediately gets on the reader’s bad side when she begins to work hard at stealing Rei away from Kira. Rei doesn’t fall for it, but he’s obligated to go out on a date with her and give her a present meant for Kira. Shiori makes her feelings towards Rei known, and also talks down to Kira. Rei basically ignores her, but she does get a small reward in that her showing up suddenly from Rei’s past makes Kira uneasy.
Actually, Shiori turns into all kinds of crazy, the perfect shoujo villainess in terms of melodrama. After Rei rejects her, she begins performing a series of self-destructive behaviors that will get her noticed and will also force Rei to intervene in her life in order to save her. But he rejects her, time and time again.
The Sei parts were a little sketchier. We get some different impressions of Sei, and different interpretations of his death as well. Was Sei’s death a “momentary adolescent impulse?” Was it not a suicide at all, and Rei pushed him? Was it something that Rei said that drove him to suicide? Was it something that Shiori said that drove him to suicide?
There are also still plenty of choice Rei and Kira moments scattered throughout the melodrama, and that’s one of the good points of Mars. There’s not a whole lot of happy times in this book, but despite that, Kira and Rei still find time to dote on each other between all the Very Serious Conversations they have. The doting isn’t quite as elaborate as some of the best scenes from the past, but all of it only serves to strengthen their relationship more and more. I also like that, by this volume, they are a firmly established couple. Shiori’s interference would normally spell disaster in a story like this, but in Mars, it merely opens the door to the past.
Wonderful, wonderful stuff. I speak of all the melodrama here lightly, but that it manages to be so dramatic and still weave such a beautiful story is what makes Mars worth reading. Really. Every volume is just amazing.
Eroicaverse 3: Seven Seas, Seven Skies
Posted: November 25, 2011 Filed under: Eroicaverse 2 Comments »This is the third in a series of articles discussing From Eroica With Love and its spinoffs. For the index, go here.
You know, there aren’t enough pirate manga out there. There’s One Piece, of course, and one might argue that it’s so good that we don’t need other pirate manga. But when you combine pirates with From Eroica With Love, how can the results be anything less than fabulous?
The link to From Eroica With Love is once again very concrete, though I suspect that’s only because Aoike was cross-promoting the series and gave the Eroica characters a reason to discuss Seven Seas, Seven Skies. The main characters are the “ancestors” of Dorian and Klaus, and are drawn to look exactly like them (moreso than usual). “The Man in Purple,” a contentious painting in From Eroica With Love, is a portrait of Tyrian Persimmon, the character in this series. The characters seem to share some traits in common with Dorian and Klaus, too, and the series shares a kind of romantic heroism that From Eroica With Love possesses. But it’s not really a prequel, simply related.
Bleach 36
Posted: November 24, 2011 Filed under: Bleach 2 Comments »Tite Kubo – Viz – 2011 – 52+ volumes
So, I’ve said before I’m giving up on this after I finish with the volumes I’ve preordered. Bleach may have officially kicked me out of the club this volume, because in the character popularity poll in the back, Hitsugaya finished first. Not just that, Rukia finished second. Ichigo was third in his own series. Rukia… I can kind of see. She is, in theory, the main female character, and she only beat Ichigo by a little over 50 votes. Then again, she hasn’t really been in it much for the last 30 volumes. But… Hitsugaya won by a large margin. He’s a side character. I don’t understand.
Anyway. Setting that aside, predictably, Bleach caught my interest again in this volume, as it always does when I think of quitting. Nothing short of a volume with both Mayuri and Urahara in it would do the trick for me, and that’s incredibly unlikely. Mayuri’s only been in the story twice, and we haven’t seen Urahara for ten volumes. Lo and behold, flashback! They were in the same company! They’re friends! I love it. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot between them here, so it’s not much of a victory.
The entire volume is a flashback, telling of Urahara’s time as a captain of one of the Companies, and what happened between himself, Aizen, and the other captains 100 years ago. It’s a great little bit of story, and I enjoyed it immensely. But again, Bleach’s reliance on about 200 characters cripples my enjoyment. Instead of focusing on Urahara, Aizen, Shinji, Yoruichi, any of the other major players, or the situation at hand, much time is spent inserting as many cameos as possible so that you can see the younger version of your favorite character. The story is secondary to this, and it makes me angry since it’s still a good story. There’s a lot to tell. We start to get some details about why it’s so unusual that Urahara and Yoruichi live how they currently do, we get a glimpse at the beginning of Aizen’s plans, and any insight into Urahara’s character and what drives him to act as he does in the present is much appreciated. But instead, we shift around and see where everyone is and what their rank is, and a fight breaks out at the end.
Bleach, why?
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Wandering Son 1
Posted: November 24, 2011 Filed under: Wandering Son Leave a comment »Shimura Takako – Fantagraphics – 2011 – 4+ volumes
Sometimes, when I read a really good volume of manga, I’ll have to sit on it a while before I write it up here, just to make sure I do it justice. That only makes writing about it harder, and it means I can’t talk about it when it comes out to try and promote it. Wandering Son is quite good, and I’m sorry I haven’t written it up before now. It deserves all the nice things anyone could say about it.
It’s an interesting story. The main characters are all 10-year-old children in fifth grade. The main character, Shuichi, thinks he should have been born a girl. He’s very effeminate, and enjoys feminine hobbies and clothing. He transfers into a new school at the beginning of the volume where he meets Yoshino, a tomboy who later reveals to him that she hates girly clothes and prefers to be mistaken as a boy. The story follows mostly Shuichi as he begins to explore his feelings about his appearance and how he fits in, but Yoshino is also a big part of the story.
First and foremost, this is an actual, honest-to-God gender identity story. It’s not a comedy, it’s not a romance with cross-dressing, it’s a story about these two young students just beginning to deal with a vague discomfort about who they are, and exploring ways to make themselves happier. It’s sensitive, it’s taking a slow pace, and it’s just about everything good you can think of for this type of story. The only other manga series I’ve read that dealt with gender identity on a serious level like this was IS, by Chiyo Rokuhana, which is more about gender identity and the societal implications of those born intersexed. IS is good, but Wandering Son is better all around about handling its topics and characters. IS sometimes reads a little like a PSA (with the characters publically announcing to everyone that they’re intersexed, when seriously, why is it the business of random strangers?), whereas Wandering Son is very focused so far on internal struggles.
What’s really great about Wandering Son is the amount of subtlety this subject matter is given. Shuichi and Yoshino don’t know about gender identity, and they don’t know what it means to be uncomfortable with who they are. They’re ten years old. They only know what they do and do not like, and how the people around them respond to it. They don’t reflect on their “sins” or ponder how terrible it is they think this way, nor is there any drama about gender identity. In this first volume, the reader merely follows along as the story gently probes the characters. There are no internal monologues or reflective soliloquies to help us along. We find out all we know about the characters through their conversations with others and their quiet actions in private.
In this volume, I thought Shuichi was the more interesting character, but only because he was clearly struggling with his “tastes.” Yoshino was much more comfortable with who she was, and tomboyish girls are much more acceptable in society in general (at least here they are, maybe that’s less true in Japan), so Shuichi has the more interesting story to tell at this point. What’s most interesting about Shuichi’s character at this point is that those around him seem to be encouraging his feminine behaviors, and even his dress, complimenting him the few times he tries on dresses. He’s young, so obviously gender identity isn’t going to be a problem for those around him at this point. So Shuichi is receiving some fairly positive reinforcement for his forays into acting more feminine. Yet he’s clearly still struggling. It’s not an overt struggle just yet, but Shuichi clearly knows something is wrong, and that he shouldn’t be feeling this way, that what he does is dangerous. I’m not sure if he’s aware of why at this point, but his silent struggle is the main draw for me right now.
Another interesting element is Shuichi and Yoshino’s classmate Saori. Saori is a devout Christian, which, if this were set in the US, would be a big problem for both Shuichi and Yoshino. But Saori is one of the biggest early supporters for Shuichi, encouraging him strongly to simply wear women’s clothes and buying him outfits she thinks would look good on him. Shuichi is uncomfortable with how forward she is, and it’s not clear what her role in the story will be after volume one. But I’m very, very interested in her.
Volume two will be out in another month or so, and I am ridiculously excited about reading more of this. It’s just so wonderful. It deals with a difficult topic with a lot of sensitivity, and makes the character struggles genuinely interesting based on who they are rather than the potentially controversial subject matter. It’s well-written, it has wonderfully spare art that communicates a lot simply with facial expressions and even silence, and I loved every page of it. It’s unusual and completely fantastic, and I am thrilled to be reading it in English.
Cipher 8
Posted: November 24, 2011 Filed under: Cipher Leave a comment »Minako Narita – CMX – 2007 – 11 volumes
There’s not really any good manga to review on Thanksgiving, for good reason. But Cipher is the only manga I’ve ever read where the characters celebrated the holiday, and I haven’t read it in awhile, so here we are.
It really is great. I’m reading Mars right now as well, and the two are very similar in that they both put a lot of work into character development. Both build their characters through conversations with others rather than events and monologues, which is a refreshing change of pace, and both feature some fairly complicated and worthwhile relationships.
There’s a strangely ambiguous one in this series between Jake and his roommate, Levi. With a lot of quiet, awkward moments and all-but-moving in together, combined with ambiguous ass-grabbing and Levi’s feminine looks, all the signs are there for the two as a couple. Except I don’t think that’s the case. Commentary from other characters suggests that Jake is simply being himself with Levi, and acting the same with him as he would with Roy. I think it is a friendship, plain and simple, but it’s a strangely… “sensitive” one.
Both Roy and Jake are doing well apart in this volume, but Anise is the one who’s most affected by the split in this volume. She still lives in New York and is close with Jake, but being close isn’t good for either Jake or Anise, since it only reminds them that Roy is gone. She can’t make her peace with Levi, the new friend in Jake’s life, and she can’t stop thinking about Roy.
Roy, on the other hand, is doing quite well. As is Jake, for that matter. The two extremely shy and introverted celebrities are learning to make friends, and the nuances of their mood and interaction with others is what makes this a great volume, and a great series in general. Seeing Jake and Roy apart is heartbreaking, but both are learning new skills, and about being apart, and it’s better for them.
I’m not really doing the series justice. At this point, it’s not really a romance comic, but seeing the angsty Jake and Roy learn and grow as people throughout the course of the series is wonderful, and Narita really knows how to write characters. She does a really good job with the setting, too. Manga set in the US is usually at least a little distracting with small inaccuracies, and the older the series is, the more hilariously wrong such things are. But Narita makes the characters interact with New York City quite well, and even in this volume, the city is used towards the end when the characters relive a tour from earlier in the series, then search for a lost person. Narita also pays close attention to US holidays. I mentioned Thanksgiving earlier, but Anise also discusses St. Patrick’s Day offhandedly here, as well.
Then again, there’s a really hilarious scene where people go skiing in t-shirts and bathing suits and things. Narita’s usually pretty good, though. And since I’ve never been skiing in California, maybe people actually do dress like that. Roy lives in Los Angeles, and maybe there’s some confusion there about what to wear when it’s cold. I’m told that winter wear in LA includes wearing a scarf over your tank top.
Also, Narita’s author notes continue to be a high point for me. She really loves the Thompson Twins.
In the Walnut 1
Posted: November 24, 2011 Filed under: In the Walnut | Tags: BL Leave a comment »Toko Kawai – June – 2010 – 2+ volumes
After reading Bonds and Just Around the Corner by Toko Kawai, I became completely obsessed and ordered all her books. Happily, they all are available in English, save one that appears to be forthcoming from suBLime next year. I’ve since read all of them save Our Everlasting, but I haven’t gotten around to discussing them yet. In the Walnut was my favorite of this second wave, so I’m going to cover it first.
This is a BL story that takes place in an art gallery. It’s a BL story with an established couple, and it’s told in an episodic format where the main plot points deal a lot with art history. It’s also fairly well-written.
I LOVE IT.
The couple goes together well. One of them is a messy, shaggy, unshaven, and very lazy gallery owner who seems to need coerced through life by his cheery partner, who works in video production. Tanizaki is the gallery owner, and Nakai is the video production worker. Both seem to be openly scornful about the interests of the other, with Nakai openly bored with visits to the art museums and Tanizaki showing no interest in helping Nakai make his videos. It’s not really a romance, and a lot of the interaction between the two involves Nakai brow-beating Tanizaki to take baths and change his clothes and things.
But the meat of the story is about the goings-on in the gallery Tanizaki owns, In the Walnut. Sometimes his business dealings are shady, and Tanizaki is one of the best art verification specialists in Japan, and often uses this knowledge about legitimate paintings to do very good forgeries. But Tanizaki is a good guy, so his forgeries usually help people or punish the bad guys. For example, one of the stories is about a small boy who is trying to obtain an original Paul Klee sketch for his sister, who is on the brink of losing her eyesight and is a big Klee fan. The little boy asks Tanizaki for help, and offers to buy one for $60, and Tanizaki has to explain to him that Klee’s sketches are in museums and aren’t for sale. Later, Tanizaki asks the boy to pray to God for one of the Klee angel sketches, and while the boy is praying, Tanizaki draws a very good forgery. It is ADORABLE.
Conversely, in a two-part story, we learn a little bit about the history of the gallery, and about how Tanizaki conducts business. He’s bullied into paying big bucks for a painting he knows is a forgery, and has to think of a way out of the situation without disgracing the name of his gallery. Naturally, the solution is highly illegal, complicated, and just about the sweetest revenge you can think of.
Tanizaki is the main character, but Nakai is there by his side for all the stories. And yeah, it’s not really a romance, but the requisite “how did Tanizaki and Naki meet and fall in love” chapters are crammed into the back of the volume. And you know what? They’re short, and Kawai clearly didn’t enjoy writing them as much as she did the main stories, but they’re still really, really good.
And ahh, the art history. I love it. I’ll talk more about that in the next volume, though. I did like that there was a full list of all the featured artwork, including stuff glimpsed in the splash pages, on the publication information page in the front of the volume.
