Manga Bookshelf

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Archives for February 2009

The Name of the Flower 1 by Ken Saito: A-

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When Chouko Mizushima was in her first year of high school, she lost both parents in a traffic accident. The shock and grief left her unable to speak and she was shuffled around amongst various relatives before finally ending up with her father’s cousin, the reclusive and cold-seeming author, Kei. Kei sets some conditions for living with him that include tending to his decrepit garden. As Chouko cares for the plants and flowers, her heart slowly begins to mend. She credits Kei with spurring her to shake off the darkness of her grief with her own two hands, not realizing just how much her presence has affected him in return.

The first adjective that comes to mind to describe The Name of the Flower is “quiet.” Although it has its funny moments, the overall feel is serene, focusing on small moments of interaction between the lead characters rather than intense drama. One way in which it accomplishes this is through the story structure. I had been expecting that the story would begin with Chouko moving in with Kei, but actually, it begins after she’s been living with him for two years. Gradually, over a series of flashbacks from both Chouko and Kei, we see not only how they were then but also how they have changed because of each other. I found this to be a very eloquent way of getting the point across.

Kei’s garden also plays a big part in the series. Not only is Chouko’s transformation of the neglected garden into a thing of beauty indicative of her own painful journey, but it also symbolizes the gradual thawing of Kei’s heart. He had been known for very dark literary works before taking Chouko in, but his latest novel is actually a love story based on his life with her.

After reading the novel, Chouko asks Kei about it, but he cowardly claims it isn’t based on reality. Therefore, she doesn’t know that he has romantic feelings for her and he can’t believe that her love for him is real, thinking instead that it’s “more like a newborn chick following its mother.” I thought this was an interesting way to deal with the age difference (twelve years) between them. Although Chouko is technically an adult now, Kei feels she hasn’t experienced enough to know what real love is, and thinks it’d be unfair to saddle her with his unworthy self when she might be able to find someone else who could make her really happy. This makes me like him for not only his maturity but also the angsty possibilities of a hero with an inferiority complex.

Saito’s art works well with the story, though the character designs are rather familiar. Kei is the bespectacled kimono-wearing author, Akiyama (Kei’s editor) is so bland-looking I can’t even describe him, and Chouko occasionally bears a distracting resemblance to Asami from High School Debut. I really like the chibi art, though; it’s very cute.

If a calm love story sounds intriguing, or you’re a fan of CMX’s other shojo offerings, then you might want to check out this series. It’s also short, at four volumes total, if that’s any incentive.

The Name of the Flower was serialized in LaLa DX and is four volumes long. Volume one is available now and volume two will be released on May 19, 2009.

Review originally published at Manga Recon.

More on digital comics and related items

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So, just a week after I made a post about this subject, Sam started a roundtable discussion for Manga Recon about digital comics. And here it is: Manga Recon Roundtable: Digital Comics. Everyone has very good points to make, and it’s a much better (less whiny) read than my entry, so go see!

On a related subject, is there anyone who hasn’t been following the stuff about the text-to-speech capabilities of the Kindle, and how some folks are up in arms about it violating the copyright of audiobooks? Neil Gaiman has made some awesome posts about this, and in his most recent one, he links to Wil Wheaton’s post too, which includes a side-by-side comparison of a human voice (his) reading a passage from a book (also his) and a computer voice reading it. I think his point is well made.

North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter

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Just a quick note to let you know that a review of mine went up this evening at Manga Recon’s Otaku Bookshelf. The review is of Vertical’s release of Sakie Yokota’s heartbreaking memoir, North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter, and I hope you’ll take a moment to stop by and read it. This is not a perfect book by far, but I would recommend it to anyone. It’s a story that very much deserves to be read.

In other news, I finally finished reading Tokyo Babylon, and now I’m kind of traumatized.

Ode to Google

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I realize this is hideously mainstream of me, but… wow, I love Google. I’m not talking about the search engine (though I love that too). Lately I’ve become so dependent on a few of their web applications, I am not sure how I got by without them all this time.

1. Google Reader: I have talked about this before, but seriously, Google Reader is solely responsible for my ability to keep up with what the rest of you are talking about every day. In the beginning, I actually used to just click things one by one from my blogroll, and when that eventually proved to be too cumbersome, I switched to using Safari to collect RSS feeds. But Google Reader… oh, Google Reader… it allows me to keep track of exactly what I’ve read and what is new from any of the three computers I use regularly, eliminating the need to add feeds to three different browsers or to waste time with things I’ve already seen. I’m also able to organize my subscribed feeds into different categories, such as “manga/comics” and “friends” to facilitate more focused reading. Google Reader, I love you.

2. Google Docs: It’s gotten to the point where I write basically everything in Google Docs, because it allows me to (again) access whatever I’m working on from multiple locations. It auto-saves every few minutes, which is awesome, and also allows me to share documents with others, for instance if I want someone to look something over for me, or if I want to collaborate on a document with another person (or multiple people). Yes, I still save copies of really important items to my hard drive (actually to more than one), but the fact that I no longer have to remember to carry a USB key with me everywhere I go is seriously awesome.

3. Google Calendar: This is a new addition for me, but boy has it become quickly indispensable! I use Google Calendar to keep track of important manga release dates, as well as all of my (largely self-imposed) review deadlines, for Manga Recon, Comics Should Be Good, and even here! I’m a person who works best if I have a firm deadline, so I tend to set them and stick to them almost 100% of the time. Also, I’m a fast reader but a very slow writer, so laying out my deadlines in a visual form helps me better understand and manage my time. Google Calendar lets me have a different color-coded calendar for each of these categories, which I can view all at once to see everything that I have coming up at a glance. Again, I can access this from any computer, and share each calendar with other users as desired.

Thus concludes my ode to Google applications. The day Google starts charging money for these things is the day I become a weeping puddle of goo. Let’s hope that day does not arrive soon.

North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter

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By Sakie Yokota
Vertical, 192 pp.

In 1977, middle school student Megumi Yokota disappeared on her way home from school in the coastal city of Niigata, Japan. Despite massive efforts on the part of the community and the local police, Megumi’s disappearance was never solved. It was years later that Megumi’s parents finally received information leading them to believe that she, like several other Japanese citizens known of at the time, had been abducted by North Korean agents. It was not until 2002 that North Korea officially admitted to the abductions, but question remains over whether or not Megumi is still alive, leaving her family without resolution or relief.

Written by Megumi’s mother, Sakie Yokota, North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is by no means a highly polished work of nonfiction. As a writer, Yokota tends to dwell too much on details while letting some of the larger questions out of her grasp, and the last few chapters start to feel repetitive as she reaches for an ending that does not exist. What this book definitely is, however, is a stunningly moving story of loss and a life lived in perpetual uncertainty.

The book begins with the Yokota family’s move from Hiroshima to Niigata, chronicling Megumi’s disappearance and its aftermath, and ending with a heartwrenching appeal to the Japanese government for help. Interestingly, what is most touching about this story is not how Megumi’s fate was tragically altered at the hands of North Korean agents, but rather how her disappearance affected her mother’s life and the life of her family. Stories of missing children are shockingly common in the news today, and of course they capture the hearts of all who hear about them. What it is easy to forget, however, when the trails of evidence have gone cold and the stories have faded from the headlines, is how every day forward is forever changed for those left behind. That Megumi’s life was ruthlessly hijacked is undeniable, but so, too, was her mother’s, whose years since the abduction have been under the control of the North Korean government just as surely as Megumi’s.

Yokota’s memories of her daughter contain the kind of intense detail that can only exist when something has been thought through and examined thousands of times over, and it is easy to imagine her determination to hang on to each tiny bit of memory, knowing that there may be no more. Yokota’s carefully kind tone toward anyone who has ever been involved in Megumi’s case is both moving and somehow painful, as is her painstaking effort to thank every person who has ever helped her or sent her hopeful wishes for Megumi’s return. Her campaign to retrieve her daughter, unwavering even in the face of government resistance, is truly inspirational. Still, what inspires the deepest heartache and outrage in the reader is the loss of Yokota’s own life to a potentially hopeless search. That neither the Japanese government nor anyone else has been able to bring about the return of Megumi or at least determine some clear resolution regarding her fate is maddening, as is Yokota’s powerlessness in the situation.

If there is one unfortunate thing about this memoir, it is that it was originally published in 1999, before North Korea’s admission to the kidnapping, which means much of the information now known about Megumi’s case was not addressed in her mother’s writings. To help bring things up-to-date, Vertical has added a brief note and a multi-page timeline at the end of the book, which includes things like the discovery of Megumi’s marriage in North Korea, and the North Korean government’s claim regarding her supposed death, but the timeline is awkward to follow, and without Yokota’s voice, the information feels empty.

Regardless of its few shortcomings as a written work, North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is an extremely moving and heartbreaking story that deserves great attention from readers.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Free time? What?

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With my review schedule finally under control, I actually have some time to read some things to talk about here, but I’m having a hard time deciding what to start with. I have volume 1 of Two Flowers for the Dragon sitting here looking at me, as well as a number of other things. It’s been so long since I had time to read something just for pleasure, I hardly know what to do! :)

In the meantime, I’ve been looking around online, and I have a couple of links to share. First of all, Ed Sizemore posted a review today of the most recent Mechadamia journal, and I though it sounded really interesting. His review is good reading on its own, so I recommend checking it out.

Also, Gia reported at Anime Vice about Crunchyroll’s participation in the upcoming Global Shinkai Day, including the fact that they’ll be streaming (among several of his films) 5 Centimeters Per Second which is a film I love very, very much. It is the kind of fiction that makes me long to create something that could affect other people the way it affects me. If you’ve never had a chance to see it, do yourself a favor and go watch for free at Crunchyroll on February 28th!

Lastly, I think I mentioned somewhere around the New Year that I decided to let my Shonen Jump subscription expire and pick up Shojo Beat instead. I got my first issue a little while back and… I’m so glad! Not only am I enjoying more of the comics, but I also really appreciated some of the other features in the magazine. So, Bakuman aside, it seems my early shonen manga obsession really is over! I guess I really am a girl after all! ;D

Watch for a review from me in the upcoming Otaku Bookshelf column at Manga Recon. Until then, goodnight!

Mushishi, Vol. 6

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I have a cool announcement! About a month ago, Brian Cronin at Comics Should Be Good (home of Danielle Leigh and sometimes host to Michelle Smith) asked me if I’d like to be an occasional contributor to the site, like Michelle. I jumped up and down in an undignified manner and said I would like to very much. Today my first contribution has been posted! Behold my review for Mushishi, volume 6 (reprinted here after the demise of CSBG) which will be a part of my new, occasional series, “Tokidoki Daylight” (meaning “sporadic daylight,” TokiDay for short). Many thanks to Michelle and Grace for helping me decide on the name. I’m pretty thrilled to have been offered this opportunity, as I’m sure you can imagine. So go on over and see! :D

Mushishi, Vol. 6 By Yuki Urushibara

Published by Del Rey Manga

Called “verdancy” or “the green things” by some, mushi are primordial beings close to the original forms of life. They live in every corner of the world, in many different forms, though few humans are ever able to perceive them. Some who can see mushi learn to make a living by it. These people are called “mushishi.”

Mushishi chronicles the experiences of a traveling mushishi named Ginko, who has wandered alone for most of his life, studying and working with different kinds of mushi. Because mushi are so far removed from human life, both mushi and humans frequently affect each other in unintended (often devastating) ways. Mushishi seek out places in which coexistence has turned to conflict, and use their study of mushi to restore balance to the human world. What is unique about Ginko is that unlike most mushishi, he attempts to do so without killing mushi.

Volume six begins with one of the most poignant stories of the series so far. “Heaven’s Thread” tells the tale of a young woman named Fuki, who disappears after grabbing onto a string she finds hanging from the sky. Ginko discovers her lost in the mountains and returns Fuki to her village, where she is greeted with hostility by everyone except Seijiro, who wishes to make Fuki his wife. Because of Fuki’s experience, she has taken on mushi attributes herself, which could cause her to float away again at any time. Ginko is able to treat her with medicine, but most importantly, she must want to be human again, a task entrusted to Seijiro.

What’s extraordinary about Mushishi is the way in which mangaka Yuki Urushibara uses stories of non-human entities to more deeply explore the complexity and inconsistency of humanity. Though Fuki’s condition is caused by interaction with mushi, she is dependent on Seijiro’s human feelings and actions for her existence. This juxtaposition of simple, survival-driven mushi alongside complicated, egotistical humanity makes it clear just how unreliable humans can be.

Other stories in this volume include those of a mushi whose faint cry foretells natural disaster, a man whose infection by mushi gives him the ability to control other animals, a boy who lives in an eternal snow shower, and a man whose family’s famous sake is astonishingly similar to Kôki, the essence of life. Yet, despite the stories’ supernatural premise, with Ginko at the center, humanity is always at the fore.

As a person who naturally attracts mushi, Ginko’s can’t live with other humans without eventually causing them harm, so he must remain on the move, never allowing himself to get attached to other people or to truly become one of them. This is Ginko’s great tragedy, for despite the fact that he shares at least as much in common with mushi as he does with other humans, he is deeply bound to his own humanity. It is his humanity, with all its inherent chaos and contradiction, that guides him on his journey and makes his story interesting. Perpetually faced with the question of whether/how to sacrifice mushi for the sake of humans, Ginko struggles constantly with his choices, never knowing for sure if he is doing the right thing.

In volume six, Ginko’s frustration with the choices made by people who are able to have what he can’t is palpable. Seijiro’s inability to accept Fuki in her half-mushi state, a man’s reluctance to give up a destructive power, another man’s inability to forgive even for the sake of his own daughter–all these people alienating themselves and others by choice is understandably maddening to someone who must remain alone against his will. It is in these moments, however, when Ginko’s own feelings emerge unbidden, that he is most effective in his calling.

Mushishi‘s setting in rural Japan, somewhere between the Edo and Meiji eras, gives the series a simple, naturalistic feel, with the otherworldly quality of the mushi laid over it like a sheer film. Urushibara’s artwork reflects this sensibility perfectly, with its sketchy landscapes and simply dressed characters. Ginko, like the mushi, exists as a specter in the human landscape, in his modern, western clothing that somehow attracts no notice from anyone around him.

Though Del Rey’s production of Mushishi is top-notch overall, the greatest service they have done to this series is their choice of William Flanagan as translator. This means that not only is the story’s English dialogue exceptionally coherent, expressive and rife with subtlety, but that each volume contains Flanagan’s extensive notes in the back, giving the reader further insight into both the intricacies of the Japanese language and the author’s choices.

With its episodic nature, it is possible to pick up any volume of Mushishi as an introduction to the series, and volume six offers several very strong stories that could be easily enjoyed even without a deeper understanding of the universe as a whole. For those seeking a richer experience, each of the first six volumes is highly recommendable. In either case, Urushibara’s world is a unique and fascinating place which provides an immensely satisfying read.

Tricky Prince

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By Yukari Hashida
Digital Manga Publishing, 200 pp.
Rating: M (18+)

Eugene Ratcliff is a smart, introverted university student, diligently working to maintain his scholarship status. After falling victim to a prank in which he is dolled-up as a girl, he unexpectedly catches the eye of a much sought-after fellow student–the dashing and impulsive Prince Willis. Unfortunately for Eugene, the discovery of his true gender only excites deeper interest from the prince, pulling him into an endless game of cat and mouse from which he is powerless to extricate himself. Willis pursues Eugene relentlessly, following him home for summer vacation, rescuing him from a lecherous professor, even arranging to have his dorm room burglarized. Yet despite the near-constant humiliation Willis’ attentions cause for him, Eugene eventually begins to return his feelings.

Tricky Prince strives to poke fun at the traditional seme/uke dynamic, but it isn’t nearly smart enough to pull it off. Instead, the story becomes just another example of what it attempts to mock. Though it does manage a few genuine laughs (thanks mainly to Eugene’s hostile wit), most of its other humor falls flat as well, mired in cliché it isn’t clever enough to transcend.

Unfortunately, the story’s tender moments are no stronger. Since neither of the two main characters are developed fully enough to truly be interesting, it is difficult to invest in their relationship with each other, a matter made worse by Hashida’s emotionally empty artwork. Though generally attractive, most of the story’s characters remain uniformly expressionless regardless of what’s going on, and Eugene’s apparently intentional resemblance to boy wizard Harry Potter is actually mildly disturbing.

Though Tricky Prince clearly aims to be a sly, sexy, hilarious romp, it unfortunately falls short on all counts, providing neither substance nor fun.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Item: One Moon

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“You mean it wasn’t real? The bandit? The moonlight?”

Earlier today, an old friend commented on my Facebook status, jokingly begging me to blog about something other than manga. I had to laugh a bit, especially since this person has known me a very long time, because I would have thought most people in my life have realized by now that, well, I don’t really do hobbies. I do passions. I grab on to the things that are meaningful to me, and let them carry me to my next destination. I’ve always felt very strongly that these things lead me to where I most need to be, and so far that philosophy has served me very well in life.

So, if you’re among those who mourn the fact that this has become primarily a manga blog, just try to think back to all the things that brought me this far–all those stops along the way where I found each of you–and remember that even when I’m unsure about where I’m going, I’m always fully committed to the journey. This is the one truth about my life I know for sure I can believe in. For now, the journey has brought me to manga, and I’m extremely excited to find out where I’m headed from here.

Now… will somebody please license Bakuman?

Fairy Tail 5 by Hiro Mashima: B

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From the back cover:
Gray’s old training companion Reitei Lyon is trying to revive a calamity demon, but doing so will make their former master’s sacrifice meaningless! What’s the secret of Gray’s past, and why does he keep taking off his clothing? Gray is revealed (metaphorically speaking) in this pivotal volume!

Review:
You know, there are things one sees in Fairy Tail that one is simply not going to see in any other manga. I’m talking about stuff like a gigantic flying rat carrying a bucket of poisonous jelly and a cow-man squaring off against a malicious tree. Sometimes, things are so cracktastic that one just has to admire them.

I actually liked this volume more than the last one, perhaps because I’ve moved past the foolishness of their embarking upon a quest that could get them expelled from the guild and become invested instead in their successful completion of the task at hand. The variety of magical abilities continues to be one of the most enjoyable parts for me, and I’m particularly glad to see Lucy’s skills increase in this volume. She’s by no means a match for Natsu or Gray magically, but both of them would have their butts handed to them by Erza, so there isn’t any annoying gender inequality going on.

Well, not in the realm of combat, anyway. There’s certainly a lot of fanservice in this volume, mostly on the chapter splash pages. In one of them, Lucy is wearing a sleeveless t-shirt that is held up by ginormous boobs and a prayer. The most egregious example, however, is an image of Erza wielding a sword while dressed in a négligée. Lucy’s garb is at least in character. Erza’s definitely is not.

We also learn more about Gray’s backstory, and I’m impressed with how deftly the flashbacks are woven in with the fighting in the present moment. It manages to be seamless but yet not confusing. I think partly this was achieved through pacing, as a little bit of information would be revealed at a time and when it seemed like the right time to switch back to the present, it would. The backstory itself isn’t much to get excited over, but the mechanics of it are really well done.

Idle thoughts in no particular order

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I’m enjoying a much-needed idle evening here at home. I have reviews I probably should be working on, and maybe I will as the evening goes on, but for now I’m feeling the need for random surfing and maybe a blog commenting spree.

Speaking of blog commenting, I drove by Danielle Leigh’s reading diary today, but didn’t actually read it, because she has a review there for the first volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking just released by Del Ray, and though I’m eagerly anticipating reading it myself, I already know I’ll be reviewing it for Manga Recon, so for now, other reviews are off-limits. I have found that I am easily intimidated by someone else’s fantastic review, so after one such experience, I decided to force myself to keep away until I’ve completed my own review. Now I’m wondering, you who review manga (or anything else for that matter), do you do the same?

In other news, I really enjoyed Brigid Alverson’s interview with Matt Thorn, whose translation of est em’s Red Blinds the Foolish (reviewed by me here) I found pretty spectacular. After I read the interview, I did some searching around, and discovered this essay on shojo manga that Matt Thorn published back in 2001. It was a pretty great read, so I thought I’d share that here.

Lastly, Lianne Sentar asked me for further elaboration on my accusations of misogyny in Let Dai, and I’m embarrassed to be unable to respond with any kind of credibility, because I don’t have print copies of the series. Can anyone help me out? I think some specific examples of the language used by Dai would help me, but unfortunately, I’m not good at remembering exact words, especially when I’ve consumed a series as rapidly as I did Let Dai. If you’ve got some handy, let me know! ETA: I think these are no longer necessary! Conversation progressing without them. :)

For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George: B

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From the back cover:
Elena, a young, flamboyant Cambridge student, the daughter of a professor nominated for a prestigious post, is found brutally murdered on an isolated jogging path. Frustrated by a rarefied world in which academic gowns hide murderous intentions, New Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Sergeant Barbara Havers sift contradictory clues to Elena’s elusive character.

For both officers, not until they come to terms with the woman Elena was—Jezebel, victim, iconoclast—will they have a chance of stopping her killer.

Review:
It was such a relief to read about a case in the present day and a novel in which the detectives’ personal angst didn’t overshadow the investigation and actually was rather tied into it in a way. Havers was back, too, and her companionable relationship with Lynley was quite enjoyable to witness.

The case itself was interesting if not thrilling, and I thought George did an admirable job of portraying the victim as a multi-layered person. So many negative things were learned about her through the course of the investigation, but I never could forget our first image of her—being kind to her pet mouse before going out on what would be the last morning run of her life.

Unfortunately, many of the other characters involved were thoroughly unpleasant, mostly in the things they’d say to or demand of other people in their lives. On several occasions I had to take a break for a bit because a scene or conversation had surpassed my limits for such things. It’s interesting that I can blithely accept an account of a girl’s murder without so much as flinching, but let the narrative dwell too long on recriminations exchanged between members of the dead girl’s family and I must look away, in a figurative as well as literal sense.

Some of the unpleasantness did serve a purpose, however, as the preoccupation of the murdered girl’s father with appearances helped Havers to realize that there was no shame in finding a place for her senile mother to live where she’d be better cared for. Too, the demands and desires of some of the men in the case helped Lynley see that he’d been focusing on the things he wanted his would-be wife, Helen, to do and be for him, rather than considering what he could do and be for her.

Ultimately, this was a good entry into the Lynley series. I see that the next features Deborah St. James prominently, however, and I fear for a return of her baby angst.

Let Dai, Vols. 1-15

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Leaving a quick link here to my review of the full series of Let Dai over at Manga Recon. I have mixed feelings about this series (hence the fairly lengthy review), but as an epic boys’ love story, it shines like a jewel in a sea of one-shots and short series that never get the chance to be fully developed.

People have called Let Dai “the Korean Banana Fish” which I take some issue with, mainly due to the fact that Let Dai (unlike Banana Fish) asks me to love a sociopath, which isn’t something I can do so easily. That said, it is absolutely, utterly impossible to stop reading Let Dai, at least in my experience, and that’s some powerful storytelling.

The Magic Touch, Vol. 1

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magictouch1By Izumi Tsubaki
Viz, 208 pp.
Rating: T+ (Older Teen)

Chiaki Togu is a shy, quiet high school girl and an enthusiastic member of her school’s massage club, the Massage Research Society. Recently, she has become infatuated by the back of a male student she sees on the bus every morning whose tsubo (acupuncture points) cry out to her for massage. Unfortunately, the back belongs to Yosuke Moriizumi, the most popular boy in school. Though initially refusing Chiaki’s request to massage him, Yosuke eventually agrees to allow it, but only if Chiaki is able to make him fall in love with her. What Chiaki doesn’t know is that Yosuke’s real plan is to make her fall in love with him so that he can dump her, thus avenging his younger brother whose heart he believes was broken by Chiaki. What Yosuke doesn’t know is that the girl who really broke her brother’s heart was Chiaki’s twin sister, Sayaka, who has a habit of taking boys for all they’re worth and leaving Chiaki as the scapegoat.

The story works well enough, and the focus on massage is definitely something new, but what’s odd about The Magic Touch is that it continuously presents plot points that seem intended to provide conflict or suspense which are then resolved with little or no difficulty at all. For instance, Yosuke’s status as the owner of the alluring back is set up as a big mystery, only to be revealed just several pages into the volume. The mistaken-identity issue driving Yosuke’s intentions toward Chiaki is resolved less than halfway through the volume, with Yosuke immediately seeing through Sayaka’s sleazy maneuvers. And the arrangement between Yosuke and Chiaki, which initially appears to be the main point of the entire series, is over very quickly as Yosuke sincerely declares his love just a few chapters in. On one hand, all this makes the story less predictable than might be expected, but on the other, it’s difficult to see where it has left to go with all its major conflicts resolved so early on.

One of the highlights of The Magic Touch is a mid-volume side story, “Teach Me, Prince,” in which an older member of the massage club, Takeshi (who is actually Chiaki’s brother), asks first-year Yuna to teach him how to court a girl. This story actually is pretty predictable, but it’s funny and fun, and possibly more romantic than the primary story in some ways. Takeshi and Yuna are also two of the most interesting characters in the book, overshadowing some of the leads. Yosuke is clever and good-looking, but doesn’t really start to show any character until late in the volume. Sayaka is ludicrously cruel, to the point of being unbelievable. Fortunately, the most interesting character is the heroine, Chiaki, whose obsession with massage is responsible for the best moment in the entire manga, in which she takes down a group of Sayaka’s thugs, declaring, “Tsubo points don’t always make people feel better.”

Izumi Tsubaki’s art is serviceable, but nothing special. None of her characters are visually distinctive (though they all look pleasant) and the panel layouts are occasionally awkward. Her best moments are humorous ones, which may explain why Yuna (who is mainly utilized in those moments) is drawn more expressively than most of the other characters. A note from the author reveals that this is her first manga, so perhaps the next volume will offer more both visually and otherwise.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, Vol. 7

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By Yuu Watase
Viz, 210 pp.
Rating: T+ (Older Teen)

Set as a prequel to Yuu Watase’s classic shojo series, Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden follows the story of the first priestess of the Fushigi Yûgi universe, Takiko Okuda. When Takiko’s long-absent father returns home too late to save her dying mother, Takiko is determined to tear her father away from the work that alienated him from his family—the translation of a Chinese text, “The Universe of the Four Gods.” As she attempts to destroy the book, she is instead sucked into its story, where she becomes the Priestess of Genbu, who must bring together the seven celestial warriors to save the new world she has become a part of. Feeling rejected by those she left behind, Takiko quickly embraces her new destiny, discovering both her own strengths and a place for herself in a world where she feels truly needed for the first time in her life.

In volume six, the fearsome Hagus was revealed to be one-half of the final celestial warrior, Urumiya. Hoping to save Uruki from being murdered by Hagus’ hand, Takiko vowed to rescue his twin brother, Teg (Urumiya’s other half), who has been kept captive his whole life by Uruki’s father, King Temdan. In this volume, Takiko and Uruki’s vassal, Soren, must escape Hagus and King Temdan’s troops, while the warriors face down fire, bandits, and the Qu-Dong army. Everyone seems doomed to be apart from those most important to them, including poor little stone warrior Namame whose head is still separated from his body. Takiko and her warriors are eventually reunited, but only after one of their group makes a horrifying sacrifice.

This is an intensely emotional volume that shows off all the best elements of this series. The chapters are action-packed, but none of it is remotely superfluous. Every moment is meaningful, and there is not a single unnecessary word or gesture in the entire volume. Up until now, the story had been a well-written adventure and a satisfying romance, but this volume really demonstrates the maturity of Watase’s writing at this point in her career. The intensity of the relationships feels natural and well earned, and even the less-developed characters are rich enough at this point to carry off some deeply emotional moments.

Visually, this volume is especially strong as well. The battle scenes achieve a clarity that was lacking in some of the earlier volumes, and the faces and body language of Watase’s characters are more expressive than ever. It is a testament to Watase’s strengths as a visual storyteller that even the expression on the face of a character who is literally made of stone is enough to bring tears to the eyes.

With its strong, compassionate heroine and eclectic cast of supporting characters, Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden brings the best elements of the world of Fushigi Yûgi to a new generation of manga fans.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.