We Were There 13
Posted: November 12, 2011 Filed under: We Were There Leave a comment »Yuuki Obata – Viz – 2011 – 15+ volumes
I like this series, and I’m happy to see that it’s continued after its hiatus in Japan. But this volume… I was thinking that there wasn’t too much story left to tell, either Nanami would or wouldn’t find Yano. But this volume makes it seem like Nanami and Yano are going to go through all this emotional stuff all over again. We Were There is one of the best at emotional stuff, to be sure. No series captures drama with quite the same degree of melancholy, cutting accuracy. You really feel just how depressed all these characters are. The supporting characters’ concern oozes off the page. And you can taste Yano’s lies in your own mouth.
All the same, we’ve been over all this before. Has the story really circled back around to become about whether Yano loves Nanami enough to be with her? Are we really still dealing with Yamamoto? And I hate that Yano seems to deny himself because he’s surrounded by clingy women he can’t say no to. He’s basically just put his mother, Yamamoto, and her sister Nana all in the same camp, and denies himself because he can’t say no. They’re not strong enough to live without him. Really?
I’m not sure how I feel about the marriage proposal, and how much of the volume was devoted to Nanami. She made many good decisions along the way, and I like that there was no right answer to her problem. Yes, Takeuchi has been there for her all this time. Yes, she shouldn’t marry him if she can’t forget Yano. Yes, she should just forget Yano since he made such a point of dropping off the face of the Earth. She put serious thought into this problem, and whether or not she should let her chance to see Yano pass since he clearly doesn’t want to see her. But this was basically what went on through the entire book. I hated seeing it stretched out over so many pages and situations.
But I can’t overstate how well it’s written. It may be circling itself, and it may be dragging its feet and filling 200 pages with stuff that can be condensed in 50, but I can’t stop reading it. It still really knows how to tug your heartstrings, and that’s what I like best about reading shoujo manga. I can’t give up on Nanami and Yano until they get together as adults. And I still really like the fact this graduated from high school romance into adulthood. It may be circling, but now that Nanami and Yano have full control of their lives, once they’ve made up their minds there won’t be any outside forces to take them apart. I’m in it for the long haul, now.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Shadow Lady 1
Posted: November 12, 2011 Filed under: Shadow Lady Leave a comment »Masakazu Katsura – Dark Horse – 1999 – 3 volumes
Oh, Masakazu Katsura. I am inordinately fond of his work. He mostly writes in the shounen romantic comedy genre, and while I can’t stand anything mediocre, I like really good shounen romantic comedies. It’s hard to find better than Katsura’s I”s, which sets the standard for the genre, in my opinion. If only they all had teenage twister games in them.
Shadow Lady… is sort of a romantic comedy. It ran in Shounen Jump, apparently, but the main character is a girl, which is very unusual. Shy Aimi puts on makeup to transform, magical girl-like, into Shadow Lady. Outgoing, rambunctious, and the best thief in town, Shadow Lady is everything that Aimi is not. Soon, a new cop comes into town to bust Shadow Lady, the eccentric and mechanically-minded Bright. Aimi falls in love with Bright, but finds out that Bright is actually after Shadow Lady because he’s in love with her. Shy Aimi can hardly get two words out while around Bright, but also doesn’t want to pursue him as Shadow Lady, since that’s not really her. What to do?
This is a very strange series. The setting is somewhat ambiguous and fantasy-themed, a world where Brights strange robots and mechanical marvels can exist along with an outrageous and scantily-clad thief that baits and flirts with hundreds of police officers without getting caught. Aimi and Bright’s ages are left ambiguous, but it’s not really a factor. Their personalities are left relatively undeveloped in favor of the humor surrounding Aimi’s shyness, Bright’s mechanical screw-ups, and Shadow Lady’s… personality.
Yeah. The thing about Shadow Lady the character is that… well. Among the things that Katsura does well, he’s like the Rembrandt of panty shots, an old master when it comes to framing Shadow Lady’s butt just so, or having a peek of panties at just the right time. He’s both more subtle about it than most while simultaneously doing it way more than he should. The result is more funny than it is offensive, and some panels are worthy of double-takes. The cover, for instance. My roommate pointed out that Katsura’s skill was apparent right off, when he noticed there was juuuuust a bit of underwear peeking out from Shadow Lady’s skirt. Linking a scan of the cover won’t help, because it’s not apparent unless you look very closely.
But Shadow Lady herself is rather outrageous. Her initial transformation is a very tight miniskirt suit with a breast window that would make DC Comics proud, and a diagram tells us that most of the “features” of this outfit are to “cloud the minds of men” with her legs, breasts, butt, et cetera. Shadow Lady has additional transformations into various, more outrageous costumes, including bunny girl and cat girl. She goes from skirt to panties in those. They do offer additional practical powers, like making her faster or more agile. They have their use in the story, but… we know what the costumes are there for.
Her dialogue is also outrageous, helped out by the adaptation by Studio Proteus (I miss them terribly). Frequently, while confronting police, she will exclaim that something will “make her hot,” and she escapes in the most provocative ways possible. She doesn’t really steal anything of value, so most of the enjoyment comes from the comedy elements of her dodging police and working through her shyness as Aimi.
I kind of like it, despite myself. It’s definitely my least favorite of what I’ve read by him, but I really, really like I”s and Video Girl Ai. One of my favorite things actually happens within the first few pages, when the narration blows off any sort of explanation of why Aimi is Shadow Lady in favor of showing the reader what they came here for. I love that the story knows its audience. One of the other unusual things about it is that it has narration, a lot of it, which is passing strange in a manga.
I’ll keep reading. I don’t love it, but it’s definitely amusing. We’ll see where it goes in three volumes.
Black Knight 1
Posted: November 12, 2011 Filed under: Black Knight | Tags: BL 1 Comment »Kai Tsurugi – Blu – 2006 – 4 volumes
Someone recommended this to me ages ago, and I waited years for volume one to come back in stock before I realized that, yeah, that wasn’t happening. I finally got a beat-up used copy, and after reading it, I’m sorry I waited so long. That person was right. This is very much my kind of series.
It’s a BL story with a medieval setting. The romance isn’t in the foreground, and it reminds me a little bit of Apothecarius Argentum, which is a great start. This book starts with Chris, a prince, entering the royal training academy for knights. He’s entering as a commoner in order to gain skills he wouldn’t otherwise come across in his privileged life as a prince. He’s up for the experience, and his guide at the academy is senior student Zeke. As a BL manga, it’s not hard to figure out where things between Chris and Zeke go, but they go there in a very natural, non-forced way. The two fall in love very slowly, and once it happens, they’re together, no questions. Actually, they fall in love very quickly, but they spend the rest of the book learning about each other and growing closer, which is just as important.
Chris’s life at the academy is interrupted by an assassin, and he’s forced to leave with Zeke in tow. More assassins and attempts on the King’s life happen while Chris makes his way back, and the story starts to dip its toes gently in politics while Zeke continues to protect Chris and the two establish themselves at the castle.
Like Apothecarius Argentum, the romance and plot seem fairly well-balanced (or will be soon, the romance is winning, but not by a wide margin, in this volume). The setting is slowly opening up, and it grows on the reader just as much as the characters do. There’s nothing overtly amazing about it in volume one, but it is very well-written, and it grew on me more and more as I read. I’m very much looking forward to volume two, just to see how much more the plot and characters grow.
Artbook Spotlight: X Zero
Posted: November 11, 2011 Filed under: Artbooks 3 Comments »CLAMP – Kadokawa Shoten – 2000 – Japanese
I won’t lie, X is in my top five favorite series of all time, and I don’t really have an explanation for it. Cardcaptor Sakura is the better CLAMP series, and I’m not the biggest fan of series with huge casts or angsty apocalyptic fiction. I know I would have no patience for this today, and the only reason I am ridiculously devoted to X is that I had the time to parse its convoluted characters and plot when I was a teen.
But I’ll talk more about that when I review the new X omnibus. One of the things that X is the undisputed champion of is shoujo artwork. Mokona, the primary artist on X, is among the best shoujo artists of all time, and X is by far her best series art-wise. It’s a feast for the eyes, and the artbooks are 100% worth having.
X has two artbooks, X Zero and X Infinity. X Zero includes illustrations printed during the first ten volume run of the series, and X Infinity the latter 8.5. X Zero was issued as a large slipcased hardcover book in 2000, and later re-issued as a softcover in 2005 when X Infinity came out. The reissue has a cover illustration to match X Infinity, but I’m fairly certain the content is the same otherwise.
Grab your copy of the new X 3-in-1 from Viz, crank up Forever Love, and have a look.
Dengeki Daisy 7
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Dengeki Daisy 2 Comments »Kyousuke Motomi – Viz – 2011 – 9+ volumes
What an awful cliffhanger! Seriously. I loved that the author note on the last page apologized for… “super go-bald-Kurosaki” story twists, and said that it was just a dumb romance manga, and Kurosaki would go back to flirting before too long. I’m glad she left a reassuring note, because I was just thinking that this series was way too serious for how funny it can be. These serious parts about whether or not Kurosaki will tell Teru his identity… they were getting tedious. The cat is out of the bag, but matters are not settled, so this is going to take at least one more volume to resolve. Sigh. But that more laughs are promised is great news.
Secretly, I also liked the author note in the side bar that implies Kurosaki masturbates to thoughts of Teru. That ranks high on my list of things shoujo mangaka should never ever say, but I love that she crossed that line.
This volume is about as depressing as you would think, and Teru really does find out about Kurosaki’s identity and the things he did. I hate that the point of contention is a stupid blown-out-of-proportion misunderstanding, as is often the case in shoujo manga, but I hate even worse that Teru doesn’t really fall for it, but Kurosaki assumes she does. Shoujo manga! Why must you drive me crazy though I love you so?!
The latter part of the volume is a lot of drama that I’m not really going to talk about (you should read it yourself! It’s really good!), but it does involve Kurosaki’s identity being leaked, a cute amusement park date, and the re-emergence of some bad guys that have been loitering around lately. The first chapter is a cute one-shot story about Teru sticking up for Kurosaki to one of her snobby teachers, who thinks Kurosaki is a bad influence. Teru agrees that if she doesn’t score at the top of her class, Kurosaki will have to dye his hair black. This is too much of a temptation for many members of her class, who try to prevent her from studying.
In an another moment of just how awesome Motomi is, she draws Teru imagining what Kurosaki would look like with black hair, but has never once drawn him bald. I love that the latter is so horribly unimaginable.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Kizuna 4
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Kizuna | Tags: BL 2 Comments »Kazuma Kodaka – June – 2011 – 11 volumes
this is an omnibus containing vols. 7-8
I disliked this volume quite a bit. So much so that I went back to the beginning of the series to try and remember what I liked about it. I re-read all the current volumes, and realized I like the series a lot more than I thought I did, but that doesn’t change the fact that this volume was still a dud. I just don’t like Masa and Kai. It’s Ranmaru and Kei that are the draw for me.
This volume starts off promising, with Kei’s dad showing up at the hospital and offering to pay for a Kyoto vacation for Kei and Ranmaru so that Kei can visit his mother’s grave. Kei’s brother Kai blows up at his dad, who threw Kai out temporarily when he found out he was gay, for treating Kei and Ranmaru so well. One of my favorite scenes in this book is when Kai tries to convince his dad Ranmaru is gay. Since Kei and Ranmaru have recently exchanged personal vows, they decide to treat the vacation as a honeymoon.
Anyway, Kai winds up coming on the trip too, of course, and he drags Masa along in order to settle the awkward situation between them once and for all. Instead of being a honeymoon for Kei and Ranmaru, sex scenes are frequently and comically interrupted by staff members at the hotel and Kai, who frequently rushes in when his talks with Masa go badly. There are a couple sex scenes between Kei and Ranmaru, but I hated that they had been relegated to comic relief in their own series while Kai and Masa are working things out.
Masa is called away on business, and just when it looks like things will get romantic between Kei and Ranmaru, Ranmaru abruptly decides to take up kendo again, and he wants to start ASAP. The whole gang leaves Kyoto, and the last third of the volume is mostly about Ranmaru getting back into kendo (he used to be a national champion before he was hit by a car) and training for a match with Kai.
So most of the BL focus is on Masa and Kai. I hate couples that have a huge age gap. This isn’t an insurmountable hate, and it’s easy to forget when both characters are adults. Masa and Kai are both adults, and Kai is at least twenty (Masa’s… probably at least twice that). The problem is that Kai is drawn to look younger, and acts like a little bratty kid as well, so watching him flirt with and insist on the manly, beefy yakuza affections of Masa is… hard. Add to this the fact that many chapters feature flashbacks to an adult Masa taking care of a very, very young Kai (Kai is flirty even as a youngster), and you’ve got a combination that makes my flesh crawl. Plus, Kai’s got a rape trauma, so even when they are doing the deed, Kai flies to pieces, and watching what appears to be a young boy sob while having sex with the huge Masa makes me wanna hurl the book across the room.
But what makes the flashbacks even worse between Kai and Masa is that they work really well for Kei and Ranmaru. Since the story starts with them as an adult couple, I thought the story of how they first met (which was either in elementary school or the first year of junior high, 6th grade), was extremely cute. It wasn’t outright romantic, and was mostly Kei teasing pouty Ranmaru, but their first kiss, which Kodaka portrayed as an innocent experiment between two boys, wasn’t creepy at all despite their age.
And re-reading the earlier volumes make me wish for things that have been phased out. I love Kei. He adores the ground Ranmaru walks on, and being a flirty host suits him well. He’s extremely charming too, and seems to win over everyone he talks to, though the dark, earlier plots don’t really take advantage of this. He’s a good compliment to the pouty, reserved Ranmaru, who teases Kei mercilessly. I don’t know what else you can say about them, since they were more-or-less an established couple at the beginning of the series, they’ve both survived trauma, they’ve been married, on a honeymoon, moved in together, been through the whole “what happens if you want a woman” thing… maybe there’s just not a whole lot more story for them. But having to read Kizuna with them in the background, and a couple that I don’t like as the main story focus, is not what I want.
There’s one more omnibus coming, hopefully… though with so much more ground to cover between Kai and Masa, I suspect we won’t see a whole lot of Kei and Ranmaru in that one, either. There’s a volume 11, and maybe the series will end with one last story for them. I secretly hope that volume 11 will be in an omnibus with Sessa Takuma, a spin-off volume about Ranmaru’s sister Yuki that features Ranmaru, Kei, and other Kizuna characters. Weirdly, it ran in Shounen Champion (?!), but the plot sounds like a shoujo romance for Yuki and the guy she marries. Even stranger, Biblios, a BL publisher, published the graphic novel. So… I don’t know what’s up with that.
Itsuwaribito 4
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Itsuwaribito Leave a comment »Yuuki Inuma – Viz – 2011 – 9+ volumes
I’m still quite fond of this series, and I’m glad that this volume got back to what the story does best, Utsuho getting the better of random bad guys while on the road, instead of the plot about the Itsuwaribito island. In this volume, Utsuho goes up against a magician, so it’s a battle of illusions versus lies. The magician looks down on Utsuho, which, after four volumes, we know is never good for anybody.
Utsuho and company come across a cult, and the group is nearly killed when Utsuho calls the leader out on his obvious tricks that are being interpreted as “miracles.” The good guys think to just leave it alone, but when they find out that the cult is scamming people out of money, they decide to unmask the leader. Utsuho takes things one step further and tells the members of the cult to make their own “miracles:” find their own jobs, get their own wives, and make their own money. But the leader is the real problem. Is he just a man that wants to help people with the power of positive thinking, and is being manipulated by one of his top members, or is the top member being manipulated by the leader?
Either way, Utsuho has a battle of wits with the magician and professional fraudster behind the cult. The fights in this series are a touch cerebral, in that the characters have to talk their way in and around their tricks. I still love that Utsuho can build lies upon lies in order to mask his intents in a fight, and that his opponent is a magician makes things that much better in this volume.
One thing I’m a little unsure of is the budding romance element. Utsuho seems oblivious to the fact that Neya is falling in love with him. This isn’t a major plot point, and I hope it doesn’t develop further. Neya isn’t a very developed or fleshed-out character. In fact, that’s probably one of the series’ weaknesses. Utsuho is a show-stealer, so his traveling companions Neya and Yakuma only ever get to act as foils, the worst kind of shounen manga “friend” to have in your party. At least the party numbers aren’t increasing as of yet.
Again, I have to admit to a recent fondness for most of Shounen Sunday’s shounen action titles, and Itsuwaribito is one of the series that made me realize my love for them. It’s a solid read, with a crafty main character and interesting fights. The side characters are very weak, and I have to admit the plot isn’t really moving anywhere very fast, but it’s enough for me to watch Utsuho at work, and I think it’s a great series for any shounen manga fan.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
Recipe for Gertrude 3
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Recipe for Gertrude Leave a comment »Nari Kusakawa – CMX – 2007 – 5 volumes
While this is still pretty middle-of-the-road shoujo, I can’t help but like it. And that’s the charm of most CMX series. They completely win you over, even with some flaws. Kusakawa’s other series, Two Flowers for the Dragon, was the same way, except it had a slightly underwhelming premise that was so well-written it was impossible not to like. CMX series are mostly wonderful, but even the handful of series like this one, which are flawed, were still really fun reads.
I was a little torn about the direction the story takes in this volume, even though I loved it all the way through. The first half was an especially nice stretch of story, since it had a contest where Sahara duels with the demon Curtis for half her soul and protection from Claude and his magic. Gertrude is involved, and it’s a big cute emotional thing, since Gertrude substitutes her soul in place of Gertrude’s eye, which he was willing to give Curtis in exchange for protecting Sahara. Also, Sahara is worried about Claude. Claude is evil, but he is also her brother, and she can’t shake the good memories she’s had with him. Can he really be all bad, after they grew up together?
But the second half reveals the reason behind the recipe, why Claude made Gertrude, how he made him, and why he has a split personality. This explanation is coupled with another one of Gertrude’s transformations (which I had forgotten about, honestly), but… still doesn’t quite make sense to me. It’s also a little creepy, and the punchline is that he’s still going to have to sacrifice Sahara in order to see his plan come to fruition. It’s not that satisfying, but it’s definitely compelling, and it’s got me reaching for volume four despite myself. Then again, this sort of series is definitely my thing. I just can’t resist demons.
Please Save My Earth 18
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Please Save My Earth 2 Comments »Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2006 – 21 volumes
Okay, I’ll admit. I had been reading one volume of this a day, then writing it up here. I limited myself. I did this for about a week. I skipped a day, then read two the next day because I “had to make it up.” Then I read two more, thinking I’d just skip a day again. Then I read the last 14 volumes in a row on Saturday, because this series is that good. But my restriction was that I had to write the review here (but not post it) before I could read the next volume. Well, that broke down at the end of this volume. I read the last four volumes in what felt like fifteen minutes.
The ending to this volume… wow. I did not see that coming. That flipped things around. Quite a bit. I did wonder if there was more to the Big scene than meets the eye, because that would be very much like PSME. But I can’t believe Mokuren’s perspective flips things around that much. Or maybe it’s not her perspective, but the truth behind the feelings in the act. Or something.
Anyway. It made me realize that, frequently, we are left to interpret the characters’ thoughts ourselves based on the dialogue. I’m not sure why this took me 18 volumes to figure out. This is particularly difficult for Shion, since he’s constantly trying to hide his real feelings. We do get a lot of narration during his flashbacks, but during scenes with other characters, we are forced to interpret dialogue exchanges as we see fit. I have a hard time telling when both Shion and Ren are being sincere about something, since they can both lie pretty smoothly. This shouldn’t be difficult for manga characters, but the reader is usually in on it when it happens, and Shion’s lies are both in character and exactly what the reader wants/expects to hear. Or maybe they aren’t lies? I’m still not sure.
But yes. I literally threw this volume aside and grabbed the next one, at 2am, when I had to be up at 6am for work. I needed to know what all this meant that badly. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read a series this addictive, where I liked the characters and the story this much. Even Basara was something I could read in big chunks. I think the last series I read like this was Let Dai, and even then, I read it on a night when I didn’t have to go to work.
The password collection continues. I wondered how Hiiragi’s password was going to be obtained, since he was so dead set against giving them out, even in the present when it would’ve been worthless. It happens… well, the same way Rin gets everything he wants to happen. Actually, he uses one of this threats over again. But it’s effective.
There’s a confrontation between Mr. Tamura and his old Yakuza rival, engineered by Rin. I wondered if that went at all how Rin planned it, since Mr. Tamura’s psychic friend got involved and stopped anything from happening. I had thought the point here was to eliminate Mr. Tamura, but it’s interesting how the Yakuza rival is actually used. That comes later, though.
And the rest of it is the present, where Alice is puking her guts out and trying not to remember the Conflict between Mokuren and Shion. Actually, I’m going to cut this for spoilers. I want to talk my way through this, but I can’t do it without giving a bunch of the plot away.
Tegami Bachi 5
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Tegami Bachi Leave a comment »Hiroyuki Asada – Viz – 2011 – 13+ volumes
While I still love the art in this series, I find that I’m less enamored of the story with every volume. And that I wasn’t impressed this time around is a bad sign, because Gauche Suede reappears, something that we’ve been looking forward to since volume two.
It’s a little too sappy for my tastes. At the beginning of this volume, Lag is still helping the rogue town defeat their monster, but of course a monster defeat only means a sentimental flashback for at least one of the characters, in this case the side characters that had pretended to be “the man who could not become spirit.” After this, Lag runs into Gauche, but it does not go as he imagined, and he runs back to the Letter Bee home base, heartbroken. He cries for awhile, and this drives Niche and Steak away. Niche is upset that she let Lag get hurt in Honey Waters, and thinks she needs to leave him because she can’t cheer him up and there’s a better dingo out there for him. This leads us to a side story about a family that falls in love with Niche, and this story is full of all sorts of feel-good moments.
Lag is so sad, in fact, that they have to throw a party to cheer him up and remind him that he’s not the reason Gauche is the way he is. Gauche’s sister has to console him. This is not the kind of main character I can root for. Lag is too much of a crybaby. This series is trying so hard to pull my heartstrings, and it just isn’t working. It’s too obvious. You can’t be sad and weepy all the time. It worked at first, since Lag needed something sad to inspire him to become a Letter Bee, and yes, even Gauche disappearing is within the realms of believable sadness for me. But Gauche coming back like this? The fact that a sad story goes along with every letter? Every monster slaying? That this volume consisted of nothing but sad stories and consolation?
It breaks my heart that the story is so weak, because the premise is still wonderful, the setting is amazingly detailed, and the art is worth seeing. I’ve got… two more volumes of this series yet to read before I’m caught up to the current English releases. If it hasn’t turned around by then… I’m sorry, Lag Seeing. You’re just not enough of a manly man for my taste.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
