Katherine Dacey

The Cat in the Coffin

June 22, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

catcoffincover The year is 1955. Twenty-year-old Masayo, an aspiring painter from Hakodate, apprentices herself to Goro Kawabuko, a handsome widower who teaches at a Tokyo art college. In exchange for a weekly lesson, Masayo agrees to keep house for Goro and tutor his daughter Momoko, a strange, withdrawn child whose only companion is a regal white cat named Lala.

Masayo, who comes from a humble background, finds the Kawabuko household enchanting. Or, more accurately, she finds Goro enchanting. Goro epitomizes urban chic, hosting lavish parties, listening to jazz, and wearing the latest Western fashions. Realizing that Goro is beyond her reach, Masayo instead focuses on Momoko; if she can gain the girl’s confidance, perhaps she’ll have a claim on Goro’s heart as well. Masayo must first demonstrate her affinity for Lala, however, as the cat exerts an almost maternal power over Momoko, responding to her mistress’ quicksilver moods with an emotional intelligence that borders on human.

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The Cat in the Coffin

June 22, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

The year is 1955. Twenty-year-old Masayo, an aspiring painter from Hakodate, apprentices herself to Goro Kawabuko, a handsome widower who teaches at a Tokyo art college. In exchange for a weekly lesson, Masayo agrees to keep house for Goro and tutor his daughter Momoko, a strange, withdrawn child whose only companion is a regal white cat named Lala.

Masayo’s tenure is threatened by the arrival of Chinatsu, a beautiful sophisticate who seems intent on marrying Goro. Chinatsu competes with Masayo for Momoko’s affections, touching off a battle royal between the two women. Watching their struggle unfold, we begin to see through Masayo’s guileless pose: she’s as masterful a manipulator as Chinatsu, using her relationship with Momoko to drive a wedge between Goro and his fiancee:

For a wicked moment, I savored the momentary discomfiture that flickered across the faces of Goro and Chinatsu. Momoko had shown precious little interest in Chintasu; indeed, she had all but ignored her. And then she came running to me. It occurred to me then that aside from Goro, nobody was closer to Momoko than I was. That thought made me feel even more elated.

Like Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw,” The Cat in the Coffin draws its power from “the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy,” presenting itself as a domestic drama about a naive young woman who falls for her worldly employer. Yet the book has an oppressive, eerie quality that lends itself to several tantalizing readings: that Lala may be possessed by Momoko’s dead mother, that Momoko herself is a bad seed. By the novel’s end, the reader may believe Masayo’s account of events — and even feel great compassion for her — while questioning her involvement in them.

It’s this level of narrative complexity that elevates The Cat in the Coffin from romantic pot boiler to literature: we’re seduced by Masayo’s modest, self-effacing comments before we recognize that she’s an unreliable witness. One can certainly read The Cat in the Coffin as an atmospheric mystery, but it works on many other levels as well: as a meditation on jealousy, as a young woman’s sexual awakening, as a portrait of life in occupied Japan, as a parody of the Victorian governess novel. I’d love to see Vertical translate more work by Mariko Koike, as she brings an uncommon level of wisdom and literary sophistication to a pulpy genre.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.

THE CAT IN THE COFFIN • BY MARIKO KOIKE, TRANSLATED BY DEBORAH BOLIVER BOEHM • VERTICAL, INC. • 190 pp.

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need

June 16, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Given the current economic climate, any book with the subtitle The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need sounds like a worthwhile investment. Job seekers should be warned, however, that The Adventures of Johnny Bunko isn’t about crafting the perfect resume, networking, or nailing the interview, but finding a career path that suits your strengths and personal values. Readers should also note that Johnny Bunko’s format defies easy categorization, straddling the fence between graphic novel and self-help book. Some readers may find Johnny Bunko’s mixture of slapstick humor and advice charming, while others may find the presentation too gimmicky for their tastes.

The story follows Johnny, a recent college graduate toiling in anonymity at a large company. Thanks to a set of magical chopsticks, he acquires an unorthodox career counselor who talks like a drill sargeant but dresses like a genie. Johnny hopes that Diana will give him insider tips for getting ahead, but instead she offers six, Yoda-esque rules that run the gamut from “There is no plan” (meaning that it’s impossible to map out your entire career) to “Persistence trumps talent” (meaning that a strong work ethic is a better predictor of success than intelligence or talent). Each chapter addresses one of these six rules, showing us how Johnny’s mistakes prevent him from being successful in the workplace by playing it safe, working a job that taxes his weaker skills, and bypassing his supervisor to pitch an idea to the head honcho.

Daniel Pink’s advice may seem glib to recent college graduates without jobs. After all, Johnny is employed; he just doesn’t like what he’s doing. Folks in their mid-to-late twenties are a better audience for Johnny Bunko, as they’re more likely to be questioning their career path—should I go back to school for a graduate degree? why didn’t I get the promotion I deserve?—than those struggling to find an entry-level position.

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Whether twenty-something readers will warm to the presentation, however, is another question. Artist Robert Ten Pas, winner of Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga contest, employs a style that blends Eastern and Western influences. This synthetic approach doesn’t quite work, producing a jumbled, dark layout that’s overly toned, a flaw compounded by the thin, greyish paperstock. Pas’ character designs are also problematic: though he draws realistic, animated faces, his characters’ bodies often look stiff, like dolls whose limbs have been bent into slightly unnatural positions.

If The Adventures of Johnny Bunko carried a lower price tag—say, $7.99—I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it, as Daniel Pink offers the kind of sensible advice that most of us never got from parents, college career counselors, or co-workers. At $15.00, however, Johnny Bunko seems overpriced, both for the paucity of content and the poor production values. Self-help books don’t need to be long to be useful, of course, but when the book’s main talking points could be reduced to a good blog post, budget-conscious readers may prefer to obtain their copy through a used bookstore or library, as I did.

THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY BUNKO: THE LAST CAREER GUIDE YOU’LL EVER NEED • BY DANIEL PINK, ART BY ROB TEN PAS • RIVERHEAD BOOKS • 160 pp. • NO RATING

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need

June 16, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

johnny-bunko-cover Given the current economic climate, any book with the subtitle The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need sounds like a worthwhile investment. Job seekers should be warned, however, that The Adventures of Johnny Bunko isn’t about crafting the perfect resume, networking, or nailing the interview, but finding a career path that suits your strengths and personal values. Readers should also note that Johnny Bunko’s format defies easy categorization, straddling the fence between graphic novel and self-help book. Some readers may find Johnny Bunko’s mixture of slapstick humor and advice charming, while others may find the presentation too gimmicky for their tastes.

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Night of the Beasts, Vols. 1-6

June 8, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Night of the Beasts may not be Chika Shiomi’s best work, but it’s certainly her most ambitious, a sweeping horror-fantasy with detailed artwork and nakedly emotional dialogue reminiscent of CLAMP’s Tokyo Babylon and X/1999 .

When we first meet Aria, Night’s tough-talking, high-kicking heroine, she’s engaged in her favorite activity: beating up boys. Nasty boys, to be precise—Aria has a reputation for defending other girls from perverts, bullies, and overzealous flirts, both at school and on the streets of Tokyo. A self-professed man-hater, Aria blames her mother’s untimely death on her ne’er-do-well father—who abandoned the family shortly after Aria’s birth—and on her mother’s lecherous co-workers—who hassled the poor woman into an early grave. (What, exactly, Aria’s mom did for a living is never spelled out, and by volume two, Shiomi seems to have forgotten about the character altogether.)

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Canon, Vols. 1-4

June 5, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

The eponymous heroine of Canon is a smart, tough-talking vigilante who’s saving the world, one vampire at a time. For most of her life, Canon was a sickly but otherwise unremarkable human — that is, until a nosferatu decided to make Lunchables™ of her high school class. Canon, the sole survivor of the attack, was transformed into a vampire whose blood has an amazing property: it can restore other victims to their former human selves. She’s determined to rescue as many human-vampire converts as she can, prowling the streets of Tokyo in search of others like her. She’s also resolved to find and kill Rod, the handsome blonde vampire whom she believes murdered her friends. Joining her are two vampires with agendas of their own: Fuui, a talking crow who’s always scavenging for blood, and Sakaki, a half-vamp who harbors an even deeper grudge against Rod for killing his family.

By the middle of volume two, however, nothing is quite how it initially seemed. Canon finds herself embroiled in an all-out war between full-blooded vampires and half-breeds like Sakaki (he had a human mother and vampire father), as well as an internal power struggle among the undead’s elite. Though she’s drawn to Sakaki — he’s handsome in a broad-shouldered, Seishiro Sakurazawa kind of way — she questions his truthfulness: was Rod really responsible for slaughtering her friends, or does Sakaki know more than he’s telling?

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Queen of Ragtonia, Vol. 1

June 4, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

ragtonia_cover Though some authors get it right on their very first try – say, Ralph Ellison or Harper Lee – most take a few books to develop their voice and storytelling chops. Chika Shiomi is no exception to this rule, as Queen of Ragtonia, an early series, demonstrates.

The plot is standard-issue fantasy. Falna, a feisty young princess, is on a quest to save her kingdom from the Necromancer, an evil sorcerer who assassinated her family and unleashed a demon horde into the Pharsian countryside. She has her work cut out for her, however, as the Necromancer stole her left eye and her legs. With the help of a muscle-bound warrior named Cadmus and a magical sword called The Igliese, Falna sets out to reclaim her missing body parts and her once-beautiful homeland.

Though the art is polished, the creaky plot mechanics and tone-deaf script are hallmarks of an amateur work. There’s almost no tension in the story, as every potentially difficult situation is neatly resolved by the sudden arrival of a new character or convenient discovery of a new weapon. Nothing is revealed in an organic fashion; characters frequently resort to explaining terms and phenomena to one another as if they were studying for a history exam, not holding a casual conversation. Worse still, many of these explanations don’t make much sense and do little to advance the story.

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Rasetsu, Vol. 1

June 3, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Rasetsu is a popcorn movie in manga form, a tasty mix of suspense, humor, and sexual tension with a sprinkling of supernatural elements. Though billed as a sequel to Yurara, Chika Shiomi’s five-volume series about a trio of high school students who see dead people, Rasetsu works equally well on its own terms, providing just enough background to bring newcomers up to speed without testing the patience of folks already familiar with the series’ protagonist, Yako Hoshino.

The new series catches up with Yako about eight years after the events in Yurara. Now a graduate of a prestigious university, Yako works in a library that has an unusual problem: one of its books is haunted by the spirit of its original owner, and is siphoning demonic energy from the other titles in the library’s collection. Though Yako possesses some ghost-busting powers of his own, he can’t quite exorcise the demon, so his boss dispatches him to the Hiichiro Amakwa Agency to enlist professional help. There, Yako finds a comely, if eccentric, crew of mediums: Kuryu, the kotodama specialist and resident clothes horse; Amakwa, the agency’s owner and psychic-in-chief; and Rasetsu, a smart-mouthed eighteen-year-old who bears a striking resemblance to Yako’s old flame Yurara. Through a plot contrivance that’s both amusing and ridiculous, Yako loses his gig at the library and joins the Amakawa Agency.

Enlivening the series’ demon-of-the-week plotting is the budding relationship between Yako and Rasetsu. Rasetsu, we learn, was attacked by a malicious spirit when she was fifteen. That spirit left a rose-shaped mark on her chest and vowed to return on her twentieth birthday to make her “his,” a reclamation with deadly consequences for Rasetsu. There’s an out, however: Rasetsu need only find true love before she turns twenty, a solution that’s heretofore proven elusive thanks to her abrasive personality and uncouth eating habits. It’s too early to tell if Yako will save Rasetsu from her fate, though it certainly wouldn’t be unexpected, given the strong undercurrent of sexual attraction that informs their bickering.

Of all Shiomi’s licensed works, Rasetsu boasts the best art and most accomplished storytelling. That’s hardly a surprise, given the story’s vintage; Rasetsu began serialization in Bessatsu Hana to Yume in 2006, whereas Shiomi’s other licensed titles — Canon, Night of the Beasts, Queen of Ragtonia — represent an earlier stage in her development. Though I’m partial to her High Baroque style, characterized by big shoulder pads, big hair, and unnecessarily elaborate outfits, Rasetsu has a cleaner, more contemporary feel than Canon or Night of the Beasts. The character designs are more refined, and the costumes, though stylish, no longer dominate the composition.

Shiomi’s narrative command is similarly improved. Gone are the creaky, expository passages found in Canon and Night of the Beasts, in which characters explain key plot points in excruciating detail. Instead, Shiomi shows rather than tells, using body language and wordless panels to fill us in on Rasetsu’s backstory.

Though Rasetsu covers some well-worn ground, Shiomi’s polished art and expert pacing make this series perfect summer reading, blending the unabashed romanticism of The Ghost Whisperer with the supernatural silliness of Ghostbusters to good effect. Highy recommended.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

RASETSU, VOL. 1 • BY CHIKA SHIOMI • VIZ MEDIA • 192 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Yurara, Vols. 1-5

June 1, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

yurara1 Common to all of Chika Shiomi’s supernatural thrillers are her butt-kicking heroines. Whether taming demons or hunting vampires, these unapologetically tough cookies always bag a fetching fellow, personality flaws and conflicting allegiances be damned.

In Yurara, Shiomi adds a wrinkle to her usual grrrrl power fantasy: her heroine is a butt-kicking, spirit-wasting avenger only when she’s in grievous danger; the rest of the time, Yurara is a wimpy, weepy mess who’s tormented by the sight of ghosts and tormented by her classmates, who are puzzled by her sudden emotional outbursts and erratic behavior. (How do you explain that you can’t take your seat because there’s an angry ghost already parked at that desk?) Thankfully, Yurara’s class just so happens to have two other mediums, Mei Tendo and Yako Hoshino, both of whom can see and exorcise ghosts.

Meeting Mei and Yako proves especially fortuitous, bolstering Yurara’s popularity (Mei and Yako are the class hotties) and unleashing her guardian spirit, a gorgeous, tough-talking teen who possesses Yurara’s body whenever malicious ghosts are present. Not surprisingly, Mei and Yako are intrigued by this development, with Mei, the shameless flirt, preferring Yurara in her quieter, self-doubting mode, and Yako, the brooding pretty boy, finding Yurara more attractive in assertive babe form. Yurara is flustered by their sudden interest in her, struggling to figure out which boy she actually wants to date — a problem compounded by her tendency to transform whenever she’s kissed. (If she’s in her more empowered state, she reverts to moe mode, and vice versa.)

yurara2 While Yurara’s premise isn’t particularly novel, I found it a nice bit of wish fulfillment: who wouldn’t want the power to transform into a more competent, attractive version of themselves when the occasion warranted? Shiomi has the good sense to exploit her set-up for laughs as well as chills, milking her awkward love triangle for all its comic potential and populating her story with some goofy ghosts. In volume three, for example, Shiomi introduces us to the spirit of Yurara’s grandfather. Thrilled to be among the living again, he dudes himself out as a seventies hipster — about the decade he would have been in his masculine prime — and swaggers through the streets of Tokyo, oblivious to the fact that only Mei, Yako, and Yurara can actually see his youthful new appearance.

Shiomi also has the good sense to make both of her male leads compelling, creating one of genre’s few isosceles love triangles. The seemingly aloof Yako demonstrates genuine vulnerability, while Mei’s aggressive flirting and himbo antics camouflage a vengeful anger, making him a more interesting character than the usual player-with-a-hidden-heart-of-gold type. Yurara, on the other hand, is far less interesting than Mei or Yako. Most of the time she’s a classic good girl: timid, polite, mildly fearful of boys (especially of the species pulchrum puer scelestus). It’s only when she channels her guardian spirit that she becomes a truly interesting character. I’d like to think Chika Shiomi is spoofing the kind of inept heroines found in magical girl manga like Fushigi Yuugi, but the series’ finale left me wondering if I was suffering from my own case of magical thinking.

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Shiomi’s art is competent, if not distinguished. Like Fumi Yoshinaga, Shiomi has a limited repertoire of character designs — tall boy with short hair, tall boy with messy hair, wide-eyed heroine with bangs — that she uses in all of her stories. Yurara’s guardian spirit, for example, looks like a leaner, meaner cousin of the Queen of Ragtonia’s heroine, while Mei bears a strong resemblance to Sakaki, the vampire anti-hero of Canon. That said, Shiomi’s characters are stylishly drawn, with sharp, chiseled features, expressive faces, and smart outfits — no one ever has a bad hair or clothing day in one of her stories.

At five volumes, Yurara sometimes feels a little rushed; I wish that Shiomi had explored both sides of the heroine’s personality in greater depth. The final volume, in particular, has a hasty feel, as Shiomi labors mightily to tie up loose threads with a conclusion designed to satisfy Mei and Yako partisans alike. That she succeeds without resorting to an unabashedly happy ending is testament both to her skill as a storyteller and her deep respect for teenage girls’ intelligence.

Review copies provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

This review is a synthesis of three earlier reviews posted at PopCultureShock. My original review of volume one can be found here; my original review of volume three can be found here; and my original review of volume five can be found here.

YURARA, VOLS. 1 – 5 • BY CHIKA SHIOMI • VIZ MEDIA • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Detroit Metal City, Vol. 1

May 28, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Detroit Metal City is a rude, raunchy comedy that’s both a satire of death metal culture and a loving portrait of the folks who labor in its trenches.

When we first meet the series’ hero, twenty-three-year-old Soichi Negishi, he’s wearing a fright wig, kabuki makeup, fangs, and a pair of knee-high platform boots that look like they were swiped from Paul Stanley’s closet. Soichi is the lead singer and guitarist for Detroit Metal City (DMC), an “evil core death metal band with a huge following.” Onstage, Soichi adopts the persona of Krauser II, Lord of Hell, spitting lyrics about rape, torture, and mutilation; offstage, however, Soichi is a sweetly metrosexual young man who loves Swedish pop music, Audrey Tatou movies, and shopping for stylish clothing in the Daikanyama district. How, exactly, Soichi ended up singing in DMC is something of a mystery; by his own admission, he left his parents’ farm hoping to start a “hip indie pop band.” Five years later, however, Soichi is living in Tokyo and performing in DMC while doing his utmost to conceal that fact. Try as he might, however, he can’t quite limit his loud, violent persona to the stage, as Krauser has an unfortunate tendency to manifest himself whenever Soichi is depressed, angry, intoxicated, or feeling rejected by Yuri, a pretty young magazine editor who shares Soichi’s passion for perky tunes.

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Detroit Metal City, Vol. 1

May 28, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Detroit Metal City is a rude, raunchy comedy that’s both a satire of death metal culture and a loving portrait of the folks who labor in its trenches. When we first meet the series’ hero, twenty-three-year-old Soichi Negishi, he’s wearing a fright wig, kabuki makeup, fangs, and a pair of knee-high platform boots that look like they were swiped from Paul Stanley’s closet. Soichi is the lead singer and guitarist for Detroit Metal City (DMC), an “evil core death metal band with a huge following.” Onstage, Soichi adopts the persona of Krauser II, Lord of Hell, spitting lyrics about rape, torture, and mutilation; offstage, however, Soichi is a sweetly metrosexual young man who loves Swedish pop music, Audrey Tatou movies, and shopping for stylish clothing in the Daikanyama district. How, exactly, Soichi ended up singing in DMC is something of a mystery; by his own admission, he left his parents’ farm hoping to start a “hip indie pop band.” Five years later, however, Soichi is living in Tokyo and performing in DMC while doing his utmost to conceal that fact. Try as he might, however, he can’t quite limit his loud, violent persona to the stage, as Krauser has an unfortunate tendency to manifest himself whenever Soichi is depressed, angry, intoxicated, or feeling rejected by Yuri, a pretty young magazine editor who shares Soichi’s passion for perky tunes.

The tension between Soichi’s two musical personae turns out to be a brilliant framing device for the story, allowing manga-ka Kiminori Wakasugi to have his cake and eat it, too. As Krauser II, Soichi can sing the kind of crudely misogynistic lyrics that might otherwise offend because we, the readers, know that DMC epitomizes everything Soichi disdains in real life — in effect, Soichi is our surrogate, expressing indignation for us so that we might laugh freely at the risque jokes. At the same time, however, DMC gives Soichi an outlet for expressing the darker side of his personality—for de-wussifying him, if you will—and acknowledging his deep disappointment that no one appreciates his gentle, sensitive side.

Nowhere is the tension between the Swedish pop star and the Japanese metal god more evident than in chapter twelve. While hanging out in a trendy boutique with Yuri, Soichi lands an opportunity to play a small, intimate gig in the store. Soichi jumps at the chance, performing a saccharine tune called “Sweet Lover”:

When I wake up in the morning
You’re there making cheese tarts.
Sweet baby, that’s what you are.
My sweet, sweet lover
Let’s go
Let’s dress up and go to town.
With cheese tarts in one hand,
You’re romping around.
Cut through the crowds
Let’s go to that store we love.
To buy those matching rings
I promised you.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet lover…

The song’s god-awful lyrics, however, meet with indifference, prompting the boutique owner to eject Soichi from the store. Dazed and wounded, Soichi goes on a drinking binge, his embarrassment slowly curdling into rage. He then dons his DMC outfit and performs “Bad, Bad Lover,” a darkly humorous re-working of his much-reviled love song:

When I wake up in the morning
You’re there frying your parents up!
Let’s go
Kill everyone dressed up in town.
With chainsaw in one hand
You’re slashing around.
Slaughter the crowds
Let’s go to that store we love.
To get those matching weapons
I promised you.

As one might imagine, there are only so many scenarios in which Soichi can transform into Krauser (and vice versa). Mid-way through volume one, I worried that the joke was beginning to wear thin, as Soichi once again found himself trying to explain to Yuri why, exactly, he’d suddenly started acting like a loud, foul-mouthed boor. Thankfully, Wakasugi finds some odd and marvelous ways to spin the story—none of which I’ll spoil for you—including a contest between DMC and an Ozzy Osbourne-esque rocker, and a visit to Soichi’s hometown, where his cheerful, clueless parents grow mushrooms and raise livestock.

All of these scenes are rendered in a crude yet energetic style; if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Wakusagi didn’t do very well in life drawing, as his bow-legged figures sit awkwardly in the picture plane. Yet the very clumsiness of the art works perfectly with the story’s over-the-top premise, capturing both the intensity of DMC’s performances and the sheer stupidity of their on-stage antics. Were the art any slicker, many of Detroit Metal City’s most outrageous moments just wouldn’t work, as their verisimilitude would elicit a “That couldn’t happen in real life!” response from the reader.

Fans worried that Viz would sanitize Detroit Metal City for English-speaking audiences can breathe a sigh of relief. The script abounds in f-bombs, anatomical slang, and crude sexual humor, suggesting that Viz made every effort to preserve the tone and content of the original script. Translator Anne Ichii deserves special mention, as she did a terrific job of making the song lyrics funny in English, a task akin to translating “Big Bottom” or “Stonehenge” into, say, Czech or Chinese. (Just how does one say “mud flaps” in Czech?) The production team merits praise as well, both for their snazzy cover design and for their inclusion of 2009’s coolest extra: temporary DMC tattoos.

If you find South Park offensive, it’s a safe bet that Detroit Metal City won’t be your cup of tea. But if you can look past the swear words and lewd behavior, you’ll find a surprisingly funny, touching story about a musician on a quest to discover his true voice — crank up Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to eleven, and you have a pretty good idea how this crude, goofy story reads. Highly recommended.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

DETROIT METAL CITY, VOL. 1 • BY KIMINORI WAKASUGI • VIZ • 200 pp. RATING: MATURE (18+)

Blood+ Adagio, Vol. 1

May 23, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

adagio1 Forget what you know about the Russian Revolution. The real cause of the Romanov’s demise wasn’t growing unrest among the proletariat, the intelligentsia, or the military; nor the high cost of World War I; nor the famines of 1906 and 1911, but something far more sinister: vampires. At least, that’s the central thesis of Blood+ Adagio, a prequel to the popular anime/manga series about an immortal, vampire-slaying schoolgirl and her handsome, enigmatic handler. The first volume of Adagio transplants Saya and Hagi from the steamy jungles of present-day Okinawa and Vietnam — where they’ve battled US military forces and the myserious Cinq Flèches Group — to the chilly halls of Nicholas II’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg — where they discover a nest of Chiropterans (a.k.a vampires who are more beast than bishie) as well as a host of schemers, sycophants, and crazy folk in the tsar’s orbit. Let the slayage begin!

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Blood+ Adagio, Vol. 1

May 23, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Forget what you know about the Russian Revolution. The real cause of the Romanov’s demise wasn’t growing unrest among the proletariat, or the high cost of World War I, or the famines of 1906 and 1911, but something far more sinister: vampires. At least, that’s the central thesis of Blood+ Adagio, a prequel to the popular anime/manga series about an immortal, vampire-slaying schoolgirl and her handsome, enigmatic handler. The first volume of Adagio transplants Saya and Hagi from the steamy jungles of present-day Okinawa and Vietnam — where they’ve battled US military forces and the myserious Cinq Flèches Group — to the chilly halls of Nicholas II’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg — where they discover a nest of Chiropterans as well as a host of schemers, sycophants, and crazy folk in the tsar’s orbit.

Russophiles will balk at the liberties that artist/author Kumiko Suekane has taken with historical fact, such as transforming Rasputin from a bearded monstrosity into a clean-shaven hottie and introducing Sergei Shupukin, a fictional general who supposedly rose from peasant stock to become Nicholas II’s most trusted military advisor. As preposterous as some of these decisions may seem, however, they work surprisingly well, creating a delirious atmosphere that captures the Romanov’s desperate, semi-debauched state in 1916. One could almost — almost — believe that vampires prowled the halls of the Winter Palace under Rasputin’s protection.

What doesn’t work so well is the actual story. Few characters receive a proper introduction; we’re simply thrown into the action and left to our own devices to decide which ones are central to the drama and which ones are peripheral, a process unnecessarily complicated by some unfunny comic business in the opening pages. More frustrating is how poorly the historical elements are incorporated into the storyline, as two rooted-in-fact subplots — the tsarevich’s hemophilia and Rasputin’s cult following — receive only cursory treatment, never rising beyond the level of period window dressing.

Frustrating as the story may be, Kumiko Suekane’s artwork is clean and stylish, capturing the opulence of the Romanov lifestyle through elaborate costumes, hairstyles, and personal affects. Her character designs closely resemble Chizu Hashii’s originals, though they’re a little softer and more sensuous than the angular figures from the Blood+ anime — a good thing, in my opinion, as the characters’ faces are less mask-like and more expressive. Suekane stages the fight scenes competently, if not imaginatively, relying heavily on speedlines and close-ups of contorted faces to convey the intensity of the violence, sometimes obscuring where, exactly, her characters are standing in relation to one another.

Readers unfamiliar with the Blood+ series may find Adagio a confusing place to begin their journey, as the author presumes her audience is well-versed in the characters’ elaborate histories. Long-time fans, however, will find this an entertaining, if unevenly executed, story that should satisfy their urge to see Saya and Hagi’s slow-simmering romance continued.

BLOOD+ ADAGIO, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY KUMIKO SUEKANE • DARK HORSE • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN

Otomen, Vols. 1-2

May 19, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

To a casual observer, Asuka Masamune epitomizes masculinity. Not only is he the captain of the kendo team and a star student, he’s also tall, handsome, and quick to defend weaker students from bullies — the kind of stoic, principled guy that boys and girls admire. That macho exterior belies Asuka’s true nature as a sensitive young man with girly hobbies such as making elaborate bento boxes, sewing stuffed animals (the cuter, the better), and reading Love Chick, a shojo manga serialized in his favorite magazine, Hana to Mame (literally, “Flowers and Beans,” a pun on Hana to Yume, or “Flowers and Dreams”).

Asuka’s charade is threated by classmate Juta Tachibana, a tousle-haired player who discovers Asuka’s big secret: an unrequited crush on transfer student Ryo Miyakozuka. Ryo is yin to Asuka’s yang, a pretty young woman who can deliver a mean karate chop but can’t bake a cake or sew a button onto a blouse. They may seem like a match made in shojo heaven, but there’s a catch: Ryo disdains “girly” guys. Her initial impression of Asuka is favorable, but that encounter unleashes a torrent of emotion inside Asuka that makes it increasingly difficult for him to play the cool, macho customer. Juta pledges to help Asuka win Ryo — a gesture that initially seems out of character for such a transparent opportunist and womanizer. As we begin to learn more about Juta, however, we discover that he is, in fact, the manga-ka behind Love Chick (he uses the pseudonym “Jewel Tachibana”) and that Asuka is the inspiration for the series’ graceful heroine. Whether Juta empathizes with his subject, or is hoping to manipulate Asuka’s life for literary fodder, isn’t yet clear, though Juta embraces his matchmaking role with gusto.

The set-up is ripe with possibility, but I wasn’t entirely sold on Otomen after reading the first volume. Aya Kanno earned points for her sensitive portrayal of Asuka and gentle digs at shojo cliche, yet the story lacked the necessary edge to be a true satire. Her characters expressed disdain for various shojo conventions while engaged in stereotypical shojo behaviors — meeting on rooftops, exchanging bento boxes, visiting amusement parks. Kanno enlivened these stock scenarios with a generous helping of slapstick, but they never quite rose to the delirious, gender-bending heights of Your and My Secret or My Heavenly Hockey Club.

Volume two suffers from the same have-cake-and-eat-it-too problem, as Kanno trots out more subplots from the shojo playbook: a Christmas date, a surprise fiancee. As with the amusement park trip in volume one, Kanno pokes fun at these familiar scenarios by piling on the misunderstandings and the fist-fights. When Asuka meets his fiancee, for example, he’s initially enchanted by her girly clothing and Disney-fied living quarters. He sticks to his guns, however, and declares his love for Ryo, setting off a chain of events that culminates in a daring rescue by Ryo and Asuka. Yet aside from inverting the usual rescuer/rescuee roles, this scene feels like it could have been lifted from almost any wacky shojo romance; Kanno can’t quite bring herself to skewer this very creaky plot device even as she paints a ridiculous scene.

Otomen is at its best when tackling gender identity head-on. In volume two, for example, Kanno introduces a character named Yamato Ariake, an underclassman who suffers from the opposite problem as Asuka: his petite, pretty appearance leads many folks to assume he’s a girl, even though Yamato has conventionally masculine tastes. He “apprentices” himself to Asuka to learn how to be more manly, gushing about Asuka’s height, gait, and reserved demeanor with infatuated abandon. Yet Yamato expresses disgust when he discovers Asuka’s affinity for cute bento boxes and “girly” activities: how could someone as cool as Asuka be so feminine? On one level, the Yamato-Asuka relationship is a send-up of the “sempai” crush so prevalent in shojo manga; as Yamato catalogues Asuka’s best features, for example, Yamato’s saucer eyes sparkle with the intensity of a Moto Hagio character’s. On another level, however, Yamato’s plight helps underscore just how difficult it is to find a niche when your appearance or personality deviate from established gender norms.

Kanno drives the point home by showing us the degree to which Asuka’s thoughts and feelings reflect his feminine avocations. Using shojo manga tropes — flowery backgrounds, sparkling screentones, close-ups — she demonstrates that Love Chick has profoundly influenced the way in which Asuka fantasizes about Ryo, as he imagines an ideal Christmas Eve date that involves a tender exchange of words and a chaste kiss — hardly the stuff of harem comedies. She also uses these time-honored techniques to help us understand Asuka’s ambivalent feelings about his father, who abandoned the family to have a sex change operation. As we learn in volume one, his dad harbored a similar interest in girly things; his departure inspired Asuka’s mother to purge the cute and sparkly from Asuka’s life, lest he also turn out to be a woman in a man’s body. Though the flashbacks to Asuka’s childhood border on melodrama, the way in which they’re drawn gives them a poignancy and immediacy that mitigates against camp.

I’m not sure on which side of the drama/satire divide Otomen will settle, but I certainly plan to continue reading this odd, funny, and sometimes moving tribute to a character who’s man enough to excel at kendo and like shojo and stuffed animals.

Review copies provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

OTOMEN, VOLS. 1-2 • BY AYA KANNO • VIZ • RATING: TEEN

Otomen, Vols. 1-2

May 19, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

otomen1 To a casual observer, Asuka Masamune epitomizes masculinity. Not only is he the captain of the kendo team and a star student, he’s also tall, handsome, and quick to defend weaker students from bullies — the kind of stoic, principled guy that boys and girls admire. That macho exterior belies Asuka’s true nature as a sensitive young man with girly hobbies such as making elaborate bento boxes, sewing stuffed animals (the cuter, the better), and reading Love Chick, a shojo manga serialized in his favorite magazine, Hana to Mame (literally, “Flowers and Beans,” a pun on Hana to Yume, or “Flowers and Dreams”).

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