Slightly Biased Manga

I’m not sure why I feel compelled to comment on the cover every time, but CMX chose my favorite image for this cover.  It replaced this really terrible one from the original volume 13.  We came out way better in that deal.

This story sort of started last volume, but it took me a bit to remember the last one ended with the Major snoozing on his roof.  Things get underway here, and the Major winds up in Liechtenstein trying to locate a KGB cover company to access a Swiss bank account, while Dorian is there to steal the principality’s royal art collection.  Things get off to a good start with Dorian in a suit attending a social function in London with a Lawrence look-alike trying to gain his favor since he’s apparently some sort of celebrity, being an Earl and all.  Dorian doesn’t like it, and he also doesn’t like the fact that faux Lawrence got invited to the party in Liechtenstein that he was going to crash.  Bonham points out, rightly so, that the Queen in his own country has never even invited him to anything, so why should he be invited out to another country?  He also warns about not becoming too popular, which seems important.

Also important is the fact that Dorian crashes the Liechtenstein party dressed as a woman for no real good reason.  He was the belle of the ball.

Klaus finds him.

Much of the second half of the volume is pretty serious and basically just deals with Klaus and his men tailing the KGB.  Their mission morphs into one where they have to rescue a computer technician (one from an agency which I suspect is IBM) who is being kidnapped along with stolen technology to fix sabotaged Soviet computers.  Mischa’s back, and both Klaus and Dorian have run-ins with him.  The reactions for the various German agents being back at work are also pretty humorous.  There are various jokes mixed into the espionage bits, but the plot without Dorian is quite good, and Dorian’s promise of revenge was enough to tide me over for the next volume.

Well, that and the fact that the volume’s cliffhanger, which involves Klaus needing to disrobe while passed out with certain key characters present.

God I love this series.  I love it hard.

So I started buying some of the artbooks associated with this series, because it is my undisputed queen of girl comics. There are no less than 4 different artbooks in print at the moment along with a few older things which are harder to find, but only one is an actual “artbook.” The others can be disappointing, but make it up to you with the insanity of the illustrations they contain. Consider this, which I’m pretty sure is a parody of Mars Chastising Cupid (I mean, it’s not quite the same, but they are dressed as the characters, and the… uh, action is the same in both). I had a moment of Zen on the bus ride home while I was flipping through that book, since that’s one of my favorite paintings, and I thought it was fairly obscure… plus, it’s just… what the hell. I can’t read the text on it or on the page next to it, so it’s without context, which makes it even better. My school owns that particular painting, and if their interpretation is to be believed, Cupid is enjoying it just as much as Dorian is.

Anyway, I wanted to share that. I put off the review because I was trying to get my scanner to work. Putting it off meant I got to read the book again a couple days ago, which… again, is just something I do not do since I have about 100 other things I haven’t read yet sitting within arm’s reach. I like this series that much.

This volume is the end of the “Laughing Cardinals” arc along with a few one-shot short stories. The main story sort of ends abruptly, but not before cramming in a few jokes about the Major’s butt in for the road. As part of a clever ploy to get Klaus a gun in front of a KGB agent, Bonham sort of… I don’t know, fondles him to get his attention and to remind him that he had a gun hidden away. For his efforts, Bonham is booted rather hard in the shin, and the Major states that “Usage of my rear for other than its intended purpose is strictly verboten” while Dorian yelled “Spoilsport! It won’t break!” from a chandelier. It was beautiful.

After all the dust settles, since it turns out that every single one of the Major’s men was captured and the lines they were feeding the KGB turned out to be the true location of the information they were looking for, Klaus fires every single one of them on the spot and sends them to Alaska, all except for Z. Amidst all their own suffering, the men find time to offer Z their condolences since they figure he’s gotten the worse end of the deal, staying all by himself with the Major.

There are two one-shots that deal with the only thing that could make the Major more angry in his situation (chained to his desk doing paperwork meant for 25 people, no missions in sight), which is Lawrence showing up from England to help him out. On one hand, I kind of hate Lawrence because I can’t figure out if he’s actually a decent agent or just an idiot through and through. These two chapters have definitely lowered my opinion of him considerably. On the other hand, everyone hates him with such a passion that it’s hilarious to see the reactions to him. The Director shows Klaus a kindness when he gives him a simple surveillance mission, but the trick is that Lawrence has to come with him so that he doesn’t hang around NATO headquarters. While on this mission, Lawrence decides that the Major got his “Iron Klaus” nickname by being tireless with the ladies, and the two are also forced to share a bed when the hotel has only one honeymoon suite left to rent.

After their intended target flees from the Major in terror, Klaus decides to send Lawrence to Lucerne with the restored Laughing Cardinals fresco as an “escort” so that he can pester Dorian. Lawrence does his job well, bonding with James to create double the irritation, but the Major’s plan backfires when Lawrence actually returns with Dorian in tow, because Dorian just can’t believe that Lawrence and Klaus have shared a bed.

I just… am consistently blown away with how funny each volume is. I go into them thinking that the newest one can’t be better than the ones I’ve already read, but I’m always pleasantly surprised. There’s a ton of jokes and plot I’ve left out… for instance, Lawrence strolling into the Monastery in Lucerne and laughing to himself for about half a page before he notices Dorian and blows a gasket, or the whole encounter with Dorian, Lawrence, and Klaus in the NATO office. That part is priceless. Klaus questions Dorian’s gaydar, and tells him he should be kicked out of the club. I was dying. Plus the adaptation is always really top notch. A lot of German words and British slang terms are inserted into the character’s dialogue, which makes the European setting much easier to keep in mind.

I love it. There’s nothing more I can say about it. Once again, if you’re not reading this and you love shoujo manga, you’re some sort of criminal. This series is fantastic.

This time, the English cover favors a portrait of Dorian over Led Zeppelin (or at least most of them, maybe John Paul’s on the back). I prefer the portrait of Dorian myself, but that was probably Bonham’s only chance at making the cover.

This series still just kills me with every volume. It consists entirely of stupid jokes, but it knows what stupid joke to make to be the most effective in any situation. There’s a scene where Klaus promises to give Dorian special NATO epoxy that will fix artwork, and when he gives up the goods, it is revealed that it is a box of nothing more than “James” Bond, an epoxy available so cheaply that James himself often buys it. It’s really funny in context, I promise.

There’s also some aftermath for the party thrown last volume. When the agents spot James in Zurich, they pelt him with food (egged on by G over the phone), which James happily gathers and consumes. There’s a scene where the Major just can’t bring himself to give Dorian CPR, and there’s a fight between he and Bonham over who will do it, Bonham’s argument being that Dorian would enjoy it more from Klaus. Later, while the characters are scaling a mountain, Dorian regrets that it is not light enough out to enjoy the view, then a page full of nothing but panels of Klaus’s butt follows, and Dorian comments that at least there are some sights he can enjoy. Later, an argument breaks out about the vitality of the Major’s butt. Obviously there are a lot of jokes about Dorian and Klaus in this volume, and I loved every goddamn second of it.

There are also some gags which you can very clearly visualize in your head in a movie. At one point, when Dorian isn’t getting into an assignment, James and Bonham decide that they will play their trump card. There is a panel at the bottom of a page that zooms in on Dorian’s face, while Bonham, way off in the background, Bonham tells him the Major will be at a party he needs to go to. The top of the next page features the Earl in the back of a car, smoking a cigarette, decked out in full evening regalia and laughing merrily. You can just see the jump cut on the page. It’s a stupid gag, but it’s just the best when this series does it. There’s another couple moments that are fun to picture, two of them quiet moments between the Earl and the Major, one the moment where the Major decides he absolutely cannot perform CPR, and one where Dorian describes the CPR Bonham would have administered: “From Bonham with Love, it would be slow and hot.” Quite frankly, that was the best line in the series yet. It was entirely worth my ten dollars for this volume.

So yes. So far, the series is showing no signs of slowing down or stopping as far as being the best shoujo series I’ve ever read goes.

CMX usually keeps the cover illustrations from the Japanese original (tragically, not the awesome bunko covers which makes the series look like a James Bond spy adventure starring Klaus), but I notice sometimes the illustrations get swapped out if Dorian is being too much a lady.

Anyway, a new volume of this series means another chance for me to express my love for it in great detail. I caught myself singing “Unchained Melody” while ordering this online, which made me feel stupid. When it came, I sat it next to my computer and waited for a bad day to roll around before I read it, because reading this would automatically make it the best day of the month.

This one ends the Seven Days in September storyline that’s been running the past few volumes. It ends, much to my satisfaction, with an awesome swordfight between Dorian and Salim with assists by Klaus. If that wasn’t enough for you, there’s feats involving a large fire at the end as well. Klaus doesn’t look as mad as usual when going about his business here, which seems a little odd, but far be it for me to stop him from being happy around Dorian.

There’s a side story involving the NATO Director’s birthday and all the alphabets throwing a party for him since the Major is away on a mission with Z. The party is Lawrence’s idea, who happens to be in town. Of course, Dorian et al happen to be in town as well (trying to spy on Klaus), and when Dorian finds out the Major isn’t around, he suggests having the party at the Major’s house. James helps the alphabets organize things within a budget in an awesome scene where everyone keeps calling James to see if they got a good deal or not. There’s some weirdness between Lawrence, the Director, and Dorian, and I believe Dorian wins a bet about whether or not the Director really likes him or not. I… wasn’t sure what was going on with that weirdness… but yes.

Of course, the Major comes back early, and he walks in with Z instead of the Director. The result is a perfect joke and one of the most amazingly immature scenes I’ve ever seen in a manga. This entire chapter was a work of genius, and there were a ton of really stupidly funny jokes that had me cracking up the whole time. Not good jokes, though, and nothing sophisticated. These were things like a character strolling into the airport and commenting on agents “E, F, and Gay,” or the Director spotting the Major while enroute to the party and just turning around, not wanting anything to do with the scene that was sure to unfold.

Once again: Marry me, Yasuko Aoike.

The next story, “Laughing Cardinal,” is also several volumes long, and starts off with the aftermath of that party, including an amazingly calm Klaus and his jumpy coworkers. I think one of my favorite things about this manga is that its characterizations are perfect. Not so much that the characters are well-developed, but that they interact well and make for funny jokes and situations. A bunch of things come to mind at the NATO headquarters at the beginning of this chapter, but it would be too much for me to name them all, and really, you have to read to appreciate.

The plot of “Laughing Cardinal” so far is that Klaus almost literally has only that phrase to go on to find out why a NATO agent died. Dorian… hm, wants to save some art that’s being demolished somewhere? I think?

I just… I love this manga so much. It is absolutely what I would like to be reading right now.

Unlike Guru Guru Pon-chan, I DID save this one.  I have to savor this series like a fine wine.  I was going to save this until September, when the final volume in the “Seven Days in September” storyline comes out, but silly me, I put it right next to my bed, where I have to look at it every night.  The Earl, his call was too great.  I don’t feel too bad now that I know CMX is running this slightly more frequently than twice a year.  Three times a year still isn’t too fast, but for a series which I am sure is not selling, it’s fine by me as long as they can keep cranking it out.

I read this before going on a long road trip, so I don’t think I was in the right frame of mind.  I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I usually do, but that certainly wasn’t the volume’s fault.  Within the first few pages, the Major and Mischa get drunk and beat each other up in a really incredible bar fight, complete with childish name-calling (”boild octopus” and, with my hat off to the editor, “Taterbach”).  It takes all of the Major’s men to get him out of his soiled barfight clothes.  The Major is duly embarassed.  Of course, when the Earl hears that the Major can be undressed when he gets a few drinks in him, he tries that… except it backfires, and it turns out that the Earl undresses himself when he gets a few drinks in him.

That’s right, Dorian does a STRIPTEASE.  A drunken striptease.  Marry me, Yasuko Aoike.

These things are not even part of the plot!  The plot is okay, and doesn’t move very far in this volume (NATO and the KGB team up to boss Eroica around, basically he’s got to steal the report from the oil baron he ripped the paintings off from in the story before this one), but it’s dressed up in so much man/man flirtation, with some desperate stabs at heterosexuality made by some characters, it’s easy to forget why you’re reading.  Well, no, those things actually don’t take over the plot.  It does those things while coasting through it’s globetrotting madcap adventures, perfectly balancing the flirtation and the action between the dashing Earl and the grumpy Major.  It’s just SO GOOD.

It also gets away with a surprisingly base level of juvenile humor.  The “Taterbach” nickname is a good example, another is a really funny scene where it seems the Alphabets are making fun of the size of James’ manstuff off camera.  James in general is a good example, because he hasn’t really been referred to by name by anyone in a long time… just “it.”

PLEASE READ THIS SERIES.  I may say this a lot, but I mean it this time.  In fact, this is the only time I mean it.  For God’s sake, READ THIS SERIES.

Boo hoo… this is all I get for awhile now.

The opening to this volume is priceless.  The Director opens with a joke about how Klaus has 26 children anxiously awaiting his return to Germany, and Klaus is shocked since he thinks that perhaps the Director is speaking of… other children he might have been unaware of.

Seven Days in September is quite good.  Dorian and Klaus get more face time than they did in the past storyline, which is always much appreciated.  I prefer it when they’re forced into teamwork in various situations, because somehow the situations always turn out to be homoerotic.  Klaus seems to be rejecting Dorian more than usual, and I was sad that the opportunity for the pair to travel together was lost when Dorian had to look after the painting in the plane.  The entire plane scene was awesome, and the fact that Klaus tricked the Russians the way he did, and the fact that Dorian tricked everyone the way he did was quite good.

Also, both had to break character slightly for modes of transportation, though Klaus dashing away on a horse was a bit more heroic than the bike that the Earl was riding.

Bad marks for DORIAN CUTTING HIS HAIR.  It no longer flows like it should.  I’m so sad.

So here we get the end of the “Glass Target” story and a side story about what Dorian does when James is away.  The stories kind of run seamlessly into one another, “Midnight Collector” picks up directly after the events of Glass Target, and I was completely unaware that there was a new story in volume 8, though I did think that side story ran a little long.

“Glass Target” ends fairly well.  I knew I wasn’t going to get the happy Dorian wins outcome I wanted, but I was hoping for it anyway.  I did love the ending though, where Klaus got to make an appearance in front of the entire fair.  I also liked that Klaus got to beat James up, though I’m sad there’s not as much Klaus beating people up shown as I’d like.  There was less dressing like Klaus this time around, but we still do get some dress-up, including a big manly female Dorian, who apparently fools everybody with stench and repulsion.  I don’t really like the new character that was introduced in this story last volume, the British SIS agent Lawrence.  He does mention that the Klaus wig is dapper though, which I agree with.  James even got to play dressup, though I still don’t quite understand why the Russians thought he was a huge woman, I thought he was supposed to be kind of a small guy.

The side story is wonderful, because not only do we get a bunch of backstory with cute young Dorian, we also get to see a lot of merry celebration on behalf of the Eroica team since James is out this time around, and we get to see James bribed with a bruised banana, just the way he likes it.  Team Eroica also finally pulls off a successful heist where they cheat a rather good-looking oil billionaire who drives around on a huge motorcycle.

My favorite part was probably where after the Oil Tycoon and Dorian fool the auction and Dorian walks away with nothing, he breaks out crying in front of a huge crowd of people saying he’s failed England and that the country had been ransacked.  The same crowd that had just been praising the Oil Tycoon call him a sad relic, a true blue-blood, and one man wishes he could be his lover.

This is mostly just commentary on the funnier parts of the volume.  Rest assured I enjoyed every goddamn page of this thing.  I truly wish this series RUNS FOREVER, which it already has been, and that we get to see all of it over here.

Also, the lesser henchman I mentioned last time was brought up several times during this story, he was the one tapping the phones.  His name is indeed John Paul Jones.

Finally, my copy of volume 8 came. I was hesitant to start, because I realized that somehow Eroica had been knocked back to 2 volumes a year and I’d have to wait another year and a half, if I could, for another 3-volume bounty like this. This was a big event for me. I got myself warmed up with Lupin III, but now I’m rocking out to Led Zeppelin and am ready to talk about all the Eroica I crammed into this week.

If you couldn’t tell, I love this series SO MUCH. I know I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but forget One Piece or Guru Guru or anything else I said was my absolute favorite, the Earl stole my love and wears it like a sparkly crown atop his head. He is on top. He is number one. No question about it.

This volume starts off with a side story featuring no Dorian. It’s an all-Klaus vacation special where the director sends the Major off on a mandatory vacation in hopes that he’ll relax and meet a nice girl. We find that the Major has a soft spot for old nuns and french fries, but was a bully in school. He’s forcefully sent to a class reunion as well, much to the chagrin of his fearful classmates. It makes for a very funny, awkward scene which Klaus does nothing to alleviate. He panics towards the end and beats up a Dorian look-alike, which was really the highlight of the story for me.

The next case stretches across the rest of this volume and the first half of the next, and involves a kind of European World’s Fair where the English Crown will be on display. The Major winds up being on assignment to guard the special German plexiglass that the crown is encased in, and Dorian shows up to steal the crown. Well, not quite.

Klaus engineers a scheme which sends the Earl and company on an empty errand to the war-stricken country of Iraq. They get stuck digging in the middle of the Desert for several days, then get stuck in the middle of a bombing raid. The Earl is NOT amused, and dresses up as Klaus for the duration of the volume and pulls of many stunts, such as flirting with young men for the camera, that make the Major look bad in revenge. Such photos make the Major’s superiors ask how drunk he was when the photos were taken.

Dorian has a lot of fun dressing and acting as the Major. The perfect cantankerous imitation had me laughing, as well as the fact that Dorian left James tied up at one point because he managed to fool James into selling the Earl’s location to the Major for 50 marks and change.

Led Zeppelin seemed like a fitting thing to follow up this volume with seeing as how Yasuko Aoike crammed ALL FOUR MEMBERS into this manga. The Eroica teams contains “James” Page, Dorian as Robert Plant, an obscure member named John-Paul for John Paul Jones (who I think gets mentioned in the first volume and then gets a vague mention in volume 7) and yes… even our mustachioed friend Bonham as… John Bonham. If you love this manga as much as I do, Stairway to Heaven is like the after-sex cigarette.

So, I put this off a bit because I was sure the Alaska storyline couldn’t top the NATO-hires-Eroica storyline. Well, I don’t know that it did, but this series is so damn good it’s hard for me to tell. I just like it all.

Again, the Dorian/Klaus pairing is what does it for me, because the mangaka throws so many agonizing scraps our way in that regard. There weren’t the choicest of moments this time around in that last volume Klaus got pulled into the bath with Dorian, but what we do get is still pretty good. They get imprisoned together at one point, have to work together quite often, and of course the Major’s reaction whenever he sees Dorian is always a treat. This time it was cute, as well.

I had forgotten the trick Eroica’s gang pulled on the Russians. I laughed out loud when I finally remembered since it came up again.

Klaus got a bit more of the spotlight for sheer outlandishness this time than Dorian. Of course there was the Pope incident last volume for Dorian, but Klaus makes an international faux pas here that’s so true to character it’s just perfect.

I really, really, really like this series. It’s honestly up there with Land of Silver Rain, Museum of Terror, and Holic as one of the favorite current ones. Sheerly for the fact that I ADORE Dorian/Klaus, but it has some damn good story and comedy going for it, too. I hardly ever mention James, but he’s always hilarious and always adds a little something extra to the story.

I wanna forget this series exists for awhile so that I can suddenly remember and then just go out and buy like five volumes and read them at once. I’m suddenly so happy this hasn’t ended in Japan. Now all we need is a bimonthly release schedule, and I’m set.

This volume starts off with a bath scene where the Major walks in on the Earl and somehow he winds up in the bath with a lot of his clothes removed. A beautiful way to start the volume.

The first case in this volume may just be the apex of manga creation. Well, not really, but goddamn is it good. So the two wind up bickering and getting into really funny botches and situations until they wind up in the vault of the Vatican. Eroica, not being able to help himself, steals something other than the secrets. And it is literally one of the funniest things I have ever read in a manga. Other series have made me laugh more than from Eroica with Love, but this one feat has pulled it to the top of the charts for me.

Pfft. And it says it’s a “drama” comic on the back.

The aftermath of said caper is also good because there’s plenty more Dorian/Klaus moments to ponder. No bath scenes, but some really good stuff nonetheless.

After the first case, the second pales in comparison unfortunately. The setup is at least a little more plausible though, since James really needs his last hundred mark note from the last story. I stopped with this volume for the time being since that first case is so good and I’m almost certain the next volume can’t top it. But I know I’ll break down eventually since if this series does one thing, it’s top itself again and again.