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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Sean Gaffney

Love Hina Omnibus, Vol. 1

October 10, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Everyone has those titles. You know, the ones you were obsessed with 10-15 years ago. The ones you still enjoy, even though in the back of your mind you know you can never revisit it ever, because if you do you will be mature enough to see all the flaws you missed in the first rush of fandom. The mid-late 90s are a particularly strong time for me in that regard. Ranma, Oh My Goddess, Tenchi Muyo, and (a bit later) Love Hina. Four titles that in your early 20s are AMAZINGLY AWESOME, especially if you then get involved in fanfics, mailing lists, etc. And then you read them and you realize what you glossed over earlier annoys you now, and the plot you enjoyed has now been used by 80 other series to the point that you grow weary of it. Would Love Hina, now being re-released nine years after Tokyopop put it out, suffer the same fate?

There are a few things you will have to come to terms with as a reader if you are going to enjoy Love Hina. It is a harem manga. Worse, it is a harem manga where the outcome is never in doubt – thus if you like a girl who isn’t Naru, you know you’re doomed and spend 13 more volumes getting progressively more annoyed. It is filled with blatant and obvious fanservice, mostly involving girls under the age of 18. This never goes away. It is filled with what has been commonly dubbed ‘comedic sociopathy’ – which is to say characters are angry and hit each other all the time because the author thinks it’s funnier that way. In the 550 pages of this omnibus, I believe Naru punches Keitaro almost 50 times, and I may be underestimating that. And this doesn’t even count Su kicking him, or Motoko trying to slice him in two with her katana. It’s a comedy. Keitaro recovers 2 panels later. Learn to roll with it.

If you can get past all that… this is a fun, heartwarming title. Admittedly, it takes a while to get going. As with Negima, Volume 1 of Love Hina is pretty obviously the nadir. Keitaro was a highly influential harem lead, but for all the *wrong* reasons. Ataru was after the girls himself, Tenchi had actual superpowers to bust out, and Ranma was a martial arts master. Keiichi Morisato comes closest, and is certainly unlucky, but lacks the patheticness Keitaro Urashima has at the start. We see him as a 2nd year ronin, having failed to get into the prestigious Todai university. Again. He also notes that he’s not handsome, and has no real friends, and has never had a girlfriend. What does he have? Well, he has the bad luck to always walk in on women naked, and tends to fall over clutching their breasts. Oh yes, and he’s NICE. Keitaro was first, so I won’t get on his case as much, but he was the prototype for many harem leads who literally have no redeeming qualities except their ability to be extra super nice. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Added to this, we have a cross-section of girls that end up living in the inn his grandmother leaves to him in the introductory chapter. Tsundere Naru, aka the second most polarizing female in all of anime (Akane Tendo being first) tends to lash out with her fists when angry, embarrassed, or scared, which, around Keitaro, is all the time. Luckily, like most tsundere characters, this is only half of her persona, and we do over the course of these three volumes see Naru’s softer, more caring side. She also starts to see that Keitaro means well, and begins to realize that she might even be falling for him. Which… makes her angry, embarrassed, and scared. Cue fists, repeat as needed. If you leave out all the scenes when she’s hitting him, what you’re left with is quite a sweet relationship between two people who are a lot more alike than Naru would like to admit.

As for the others, like most ‘date sim’ or harem mangas they’re designed to provide a selection of different female leads to appeal to the reader. Cute and shy Shinobu, who’s 7 years younger than Keitaro – and can cook to boot! Hyperactive Su, who is foreign but not from India, and runs through each scene she’s in on pure energy. Stoic Motoko, the young kendo swordswoman who worries she may be dealing with those pesky feelings of love. Trickster Mitsune, who enjoys alcohol and teasing Keitaro and Naru, probably not in that order. Motoko and Shinobu will get far more focus in future volumes (indeed, Motoko seems rather out of character here, and won’t come into her own till she gets just as flustered and blush-ridden as Naru currently gets), Su slightly less so. Mitsune gets virtually no page time of her own, it needs to be said, and the anime deepened her friendship with Naru quite a bit.

Then there’s Mutsumi, a.k.a. my favorite character. Again, this is for purely irrational reasons – she only appears sporadically through the series, and is never one of the main cast. Of all the cast, she probably comes closest to winning Keitaro’s heart – except she’s nowhere near it either, and knows it – the man only has eyes for Naru. Mostly I think I like her because of my penchant for, if you’ll pardon the expression, ‘dizzy dames’. Mutsumi is the type who will get a perfect score on a test and forget to write her name; or will end up on a desert island without realizing that if she walks back into it 50 yards she’ll find her house. She is, however, savvy enough to pick up on Keitaro and Naru’s relationship almost immediately – certainly before either of them do. (She also kisses Keitaro, and then to make up for it kisses Naru. When I first read the series, this was VERY IMPORTANT to my young self.) I am always happy when Mutsumi’s around in this series.

I should take some time to talk about the re-release. If you’re a fan of the old manga, and are wondering if the upgrade is worth it – yes, it is. The artwork is much clearer, the translation retains honorifics and last name usage (important in a series like this where so much could depend on Keitaro saying Naru rather than Narusegawa – he doesn’t, in the entire omnibus, call her by her first name). The lettering is professional and looks neat – a far cry from Tokyopop’s… um, enthusiastic lettering job of old. The old ‘bonus pages’ are retained, and we get the usual Kodansha endnotes, detailing things such as Naru namechecking Doraemon.

I will admit that when I heard this series was going to be part of the Manga Movable Feast, I raised an eyebrow. Love Hina is no deep, meaningful masterpiece, and merely flipping through it can tell you that. But if you want a romantic comedy with a hearty emphasis on the comedy, and don’t find it aggravating when slapstick violence happens every two pages, there’s much to enjoy here. The loud rampaging scenes make the occasional quiet, heartfelt ones sweeter, and it’s there, where Naru is quietly cheering Keitaro on to study harder, or confessing her own worries and fears to him, that we start to see what a good couple they will eventually make.

Eventually. Once we have 11 more volumes of slapstick violence.

This review was based on a review copy provided by the publisher.

Filed Under: REVIEWS

Pick of the Week: Cross Game & More

October 10, 2011 by Katherine Dacey, Michelle Smith, Sean Gaffney, M.J. Beasi and David Welsh 5 Comments

This week, Midtown Comics plays catch-up with several months’ worth of Kodansha Comics releases, giving the Battle Robot plenty to choose from. Check out our picks below!


KATE: Though I’m not sure why Kodansha felt it was necessary to release a third edition of Gon, I never miss an opportunity to recommend this beautifully illustrated series to new readers. Billed as “the tiny terror from the Jurassic era,” Gon is a little orange t-rex who has a talent for getting into trouble. He tangles with other predators; he eats psychedelic mushrooms; he swims with sharks; he builds a beaver dam. What makes Gon work are the illustrations: Masasahi Tanaka resists the urge to put words into his characters’ mouths, instead relying on his cartooning chops to convey what the participants are feeling and thinking. As a result, this animal-centric series is never too cute or saccharine, capturing the natural world in all its raw (and sometimes comic) glory.

MICHELLE: This week’s chart at Midtown Comics looks pretty bizarre, since they are finally getting in all those Kodansha releases they were missing before. I advocate strongly for quite a few of them—Sailor Moon, Arisa, Shugo Chara!…—but I am going to have to award my pick to the fifth volume of Cross Game, which comes out this week along with several other of VIZ’s Shonen Sunday titles. I enthused about this particular volume in a recent Off the Shelf column, where I concluded my remarks by saying, “If you like sports manga, you will like Cross Game. And if you don’t like sports manga, you will still like Cross Game.” And lo, Melinda subsequently read the first volume and proved me right!

SEAN: I hate to duplicate, but I’m going with Cross Game as well. This volume introduces a new plot twist that at first seems like the most cliched thing a reader has ever seen, but Adachi is an expert, and the way things play out is fascinating. The reactions of all the characters are one of the best reasons to get it, as Adachi milks so much from his minimalistic faces. Best of all, there’s a promise of more baseball. After finishing off Eyeshield this week, I’m in the moon for some more sports, and Adachi’s baseball games are thrilling stuff.

MELINDA: Honestly, I’m really tempted to third Cross Game, but I guess in the interest of spreading the love, I’ll go with volume three of Kim Hyung-Min and Yang Kyung-Il’s March Story. This dark, whimsical series got off to a shaky start, but its third volume is really solid, making the most of Kim Hyung-Min’s episodic storytelling and Yang Kyung-Il’s intricate artwork. There is perhaps a little less through-story than usually suits my taste, but though this volume focuses less heavily on March and her history than either of the earlier volumes, there are enough little nuggets of new information to get me by. And the stories we do get here really work, with a level of consistency absent from the first two volumes. In the beginning, I stuck with this series for the beautiful artwork. Now I’m in for good.

DAVID: I’m going to surprise myself by not third-ing Cross Game (SECRET CODE: I’m totally actually third-ing Cross Game by claiming that I’m not) by giving a little leg-up to a new shônen series from Kodansha by Ryou Ryumon and Kouji Megumi, Bloody Monday. Now, I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about this book in last week’s Bookshelf Briefs, but I have to say that there’s always room for another stylish mystery featuring super-smart teens, which Viz seems to realize, given the fact that they keep re-releasing Death Note over and over again. The creators do a nice job setting up their complicated story and making a persuasive case that the stakes are high, something not everyone manages in a first volume. I wasn’t precisely blown away by the series debut, but I like mysteries, and I like comics about smart kids who have unique skills, and Bloody Monday fits both bills.


Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK

Bookshelf Briefs 10/10/11

October 10, 2011 by Katherine Dacey, David Welsh, M.J. Beasi, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith 11 Comments

This week, Kate, Melinda, David, Sean, & Michelle take a look at recent releases from Digital Manga Publishing, Kodansha Comics, and Viz Media.


Blue Exorcist, Vol. 3 | By Kazue Kato | Viz Media – In the third volume of Blue Exorcist, Kazue Kato proves beyond a doubt that she’s in control of the material. She uses these chapters to properly introduce two worthy antagonists for Rin: Mephisto’s younger brother Amaimon (a dead ringer for Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong) and Father Fujimoto’s former protege Shura Kirigakure. But Kato also takes the time to flesh out her established cast. Rin has an opportunity to solve a crisis with reason instead of magic, while flashbacks allow us greater insight into Father Fujimoto’s relationship with Rin. Smart-looking character designs, brisk pacing, and crisp dialogue keep the story afloat, even when Kato is going through the standard shonen motions (e.g. busty big-sis types, school field trips involving camping and group chores). A worthy addition to the Shonen Jump catalog. -Katherine Dacey

Entangled Circumstances | By Kikuko Kikuya | Digital Manga Publishing – Everyone’s heard the adage “never judge a book by its cover,” but more often than not, doing so has led me to something interesting, especially where BL is concerned. Not so with Entangled Circumstances, alas. Oh, it’s okay, being the story of a handsome, popular guy (now the project manager for a magazine) and the stubborn, uptight guy (now in the magazine’s sales department) he’s been chasing for six years, but it’s not as quirky as its eye-catching cover—quite different from common BL motifs—would suggest. Pretty much the entire plot is “uptight guy refuses to admit that he loves the other guy until suddenly he does acknowledge his feelings and then they have lots of sex although he worries the popular guy will tire of him now that he’s caught him.” Yawn. Nothing new to see here. – Michelle Smith

Eyeshield 21, Vol. 37 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata | Viz Media – We are finally at the end of Eyeshield 21, which is second only to Prince of Tennis for longest sports manga out in North America, I believe. And if, as I believe, it should have ended at the Christmas Bowl 3 volumes ago, I can’t really begrudge it this victory lap. We finish up the game against America, and as expected the Japanese team slowly begins to inch its way back. The highlights of the volume are probably a) the revelation of the bandaged player, who isn’t the person everyone thought; and b) seeing Agon finally give in and play like a real teammate. Much as I hate to see anything good happen to him after being a jerk for *so* long, it wouldn’t be very Shonen Jump-ey, and this is nice to see. As the series ends and we see the cast split into various colleges all playing against each other, we get a satisfying sense of closure (unless you were one of the few readers wanting romance – no hope there) and a sense that the future is bright for all of them.-Sean Gaffney

March Story, Vol. 3 | By Kim Hyung-Min and Yang Kyung-Il | Viz Media – From the beginning, March Story has had a compelling protagonist, a dark, intriguing tone, and beautiful, beautiful artwork, while other aspects of the series have waxed and waned. Things even out in volume three, as author Kim Hyung-Min finally hits his stride and then some. Though this volume conforms to the series’ episodic format almost to a fault, this seems to be a good thing, even in the eyes of an epic-loving critic like me. March’s surreally-designed mother figure, Jake, is featured in this volume, which is much more of a treat than I might have imagined. Other highlights include a story about an Ill trying to protect her human son, and an Ill who spends years devoted to a human woman. There isn’t a lot of Ill-hunting going on in these stories, but you won’t hear me complaining. This series is at its best when bittersweet. It’s nice to be able to finally recommend March Story without reservation. Hopefully this is a permanent trend. – Melinda Beasi

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 1 | By Naoko Takeuchi | Kodansha Comics –I end up enjoying a lot of teen-demographic manga in spite of the fact that I don’t really care for the protagonist. If the supporting cast is large and interesting enough, I can ignore the lead’s shortcomings. Sailor Moon is shaping up in that direction, as I find our titular heroine to be too much of a drippy dingbat to actively like. While her solar-system sister is having a ball over in Codename: Sailor V, Usagi is behaving in some of the most predictable ways imaginable: lazy, shallow, and easily distracted. Fortunately, she’s surrounded by people with enough verve to drag her along, and Takeuchi has barely begun assembling her array of allies. I’m particularly taken with tough, elegant, slightly spooky Sailor Mars and dreamy, sarcastic Tuxedo mask, in spite of his contractual obligation to express fascination with our heroine. And whose life wouldn’t improve under the mentorship of a talking cat? – David Welsh

Tonight’s Take-Out Night | By Akira Minazuki | Digital Manga Publishing – The title story in this collection depicts a whirlwind romance between the manager of a burger joint and a guy from the corporate office. There’s not much emotional resonance to this tale, but that’s made up for by the next set of stories about an icy inhuman being (Kirin) whose killing streak comes to an end when he meets a kind physician (Shinnosuke). Their story brings all the drama one could ever want, including Kirin becoming human through his love for Shinnosuke (and angsting that he’s just a replacement for Shinnosuke’s late wife) and Shinnosuke eventually having second thoughts about this because Kirin will now eventually die. The last pair of stories are devoted to Makimura and Fujimori, an art student and his younger mentor who feel each other up first for sculpture-making purposes and then just for fun. All in all, it’s a diverse and enjoyable collection. – Michelle Smith

X 3-in-1, Vol. 1 | By CLAMP | Viz Media – Psychic powers! Family secrets! Mysterious destinies that threaten the entire world! Good-looking boys, and girls with yards of hair! X is pretty much dead center in the Venn diagram of “things I expect from a comic by CLAMP,” which is problematic only in that I like their work best when it surprises me. Siblings Kotori and Fuma find their high-school world turned upside-down by the return of their childhood friend, Kamui. He’s changed from the gentle, outgoing boy they knew, but you would too if you were constantly being attacked by nattily dressed, willowy psychics. On one hand, the whole “earth-threatening destiny” thing is as muddy and hard to navigate as a swamp; on the other, there’s an unapologetic level of violence here that compensates for the nonsensical quality of the plot it serves. The characters may be a little drab, and the story is a head-scratcher, but the fact that there’s this much bone-crushing, body-count action in a shôjo series is undeniably awesome. – David Welsh

Filed Under: Bookshelf Briefs

‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore

October 9, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By John Ford. First published in 1633 (approximately 7-8 years after its first performance) by Nicholas Oakes for Richard Collins. Current edition published by Arden Shakespeare in 2011.

Sometimes I think that the current generation on the internet likes to believe that they were the ones who made incest cool, what with all the squee and the Ouran and Harry Potter fanfics out there. But incest has been around since pretty much the dawn of mankind, and has been written about in the greatest works of literature just as much. Almost every high schooler has to read Oedipus Rex these days, though I suspect their local church likely skips over all the Old Testament fooling around.

Thus, in terms of being a play about incest, John Ford was not breaking exciting new ground. The new ground was in how he dealt with it. This is not the usual wacky comedy uncle lusting after his sweet young niece as we’ve seen in other Jacobean plays, nor are the siblings royalty (incest is always more acceptable when they’re kings, strangely enough). No, we have a merchant family here, and their son, Giovanni, is no slavering neanderthal. Not for him the baseless lust approach. He is madly in love with his sister and so he tries to rationalize it intellectually, coming up with all sorts of arguments he can present to his local friar. The friar’s position can basically be summed up by this ellipsis: “…” Luckily for Giovanni, his sister Annabella has fallen madly for him as well, and they declare, then consummate their love in Act II.

The next three acts are everything going to hell, as you can imagine. This is a tragedy, and there will not be door slamming and talk of sardines here. A lot of modern productions of this play apparently want to focus purely on the main couple, and cut out a lot of the other stuff going on, which mostly involves Annabella’s many suitors and a whole lot of plotting of revenge. Which is a shame, as it helps to show that, despite what many critics have said over the years (usually in the process of condemning the play), Ford is *not* sympathizing with the leads. He does not regard their love as Romeo and Juliet, and the way the production plays out shows this. He does not, however, portray either Giovanni or Annabella as monsters. This is the difference.

Annabella actually shows remorse for her mistakes of passion, right about when she realizes that her troublesome suitor, Soranzo, actually does love her. She is also not the instigator of the relationship (which makes it harder to blame the evil woman seducing the poor innocent man, a common enough reasoning in this time period), and ends up having her heart gouged out of her by a now insane Giovanni. Nevertheless, while the play was very popular at the time it was first written and performed, it was condemned by critics for years afterwards, with the compilers of Ford’s Complete Works choosing to omit the play entirely rather than sully the book with this heathenism. It also was thought unsuitable for the stage and unperformed for about 250 years, only being revived consistently after 1940 or so.

This is not exactly a fun play to read, but I think it’s very well-written. And, as with Shakespeare, I think it’s a lot more ambiguous than usually ends up being presented on the stage in modern productions. Ford is not saying the incestuous lovers are right, but he is saying that they are human, and that we can understand their all too human failings. Thus the title, which aptly sums up those two dichotomies: ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore.

Filed Under: REVIEWS

Hark! A Vagrant

October 8, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Kate Beaton. Released in North America by Drawn & Quarterly.

Kate Beaton is a very funny woman. This is the main reason to buy this collection. Her words are funny, her situations are funny, and her art is funny. That’s a triple-funny combo, folks, and it’s rare these days. People have been reading Hark! A Vagrant as an online webcomic for some time now, and I even have her original self-published book Never Learn Anything from History as well. This is the one to get, though, a handsome hardcover with a larger collection of stories, including all of her high points.

You should still go and check out the HAV archives at her website (here), as this is cherry picked to collect the best of her historical and literary humor, rather than the more random strip we see every week. We don’t get the strips about her own life, or a lot of the dashed-off sketches and earlier comics. There’s fun stuff there as well, including punchlines I don’t even have to look up to laugh about again. “It’s okay, you’re upset.” “Sometimes I pretend to be Neptune!” My own personal favorite, where Kate Beaton reads the letters of James Joyce, is also absent here.

But this strip is an excellent collection, and I have no issues with how it was cherry-picked. I mentioned remembering Kate’s punchlines, and that’s because she has an ear for dialogue that almost begs to be read aloud. It’s not necessarily accurate to its period – Dude Watching with the Brontes is funny *because* of the dissonance, and most of the historical sequences are done in modern tones – but its cadences are funny in and of themselves. They stick in your head, like the best kind of humor. “Jam!” is a classic example of a punchline that’s since become a meme.

Of course, this is helped along by the subject matter. Kate’s a smart cookie, and does not stop to explain the joke as she goes along. She trusts that you will know why Pearson vs. Diefenbaker is fun, and that you have already read The Great Gatsby in high school like the rest of us had to. I had worried all the Canadian strips would be gone, but there’s a large chunk of Canada here. Don’t get me wrong, the strips are funny even if you don’t know who Raskolnikov is, but if you *have* read Crime and Punishment it’s even funnier.

Lastly, Kate’s art is funny. This is sometimes forgotten in a medium where it’s frequently OK to just have funny words and have bland talking heads impart them. The art is caricature, but expressions are conveyed easily and succinctly. Anger and rage are particularly fun, as she draws an open mouthed angry moan that just elicits a giggle. Faces are clearly the emphasis here – Kate’s arms sometimes owe their influence to Mickey Mouse cartoons from the early 1930s – and the cartoons wouldn’t work without the words, but the art helps to accentuate each comic and bring out its best.

Drawn and Quarterly has done an excellent job here as well, with a nice handsome hardcover with a fantastic index at the back for the true history nerd in all of us who wants to skip straight to the strip about The Perfect Joy of St. Francis. It even has a sketch of a portly Napoleon on the cover, his attempt to look menacing somewhat undercut by also looking like he will squeak when he hits the ground like a child’s toy. If you haven’t experienced the fun of Hark! A Vagrant, this is the starting point. Go get it.

Filed Under: REVIEWS

Edo Nekoe Jubei Otogizoshi, Vol. 1

October 7, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Maru Nagao. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialized in the magazine Nekopanchi. Released in the United States by Shonen Gahosha on the JManga website.

I’m not sure I’ve come across a title at JManga that so typifies what I wanted from the site – at least intellectually. This is a cat manga. From a magazine devoted entirely to cat mangas. About supernatural cat stories in the Edo period. And no, it’s not particularly adorable, though the cats can be cute. It’s not meant for a casual fan. It’s meant for hardcore manga readers who buy this magazine for cats and by god, they will have cats. (It also has one of the flaws of the site, which is the title is in Japanese with no English translation. I don’t mind the Japanese title, but at least tell me what it means. I think Jubei, Cat-Painter of Edo is close to an approximation.)

The plot is basically a series of supernatural mysteries, wrapped around our hero and his yokai cat-spirit. Jubei is a wandering painter, who specializes in painting cats – more specifically, a painting of a cat that will terrify the nice and other creatures from the Edo home. One reason his paintings are so good is they are semi-sentient, thanks to the magic of Nita, the aforementioned cat-spirit, who infuses the painting with some of his essence. We learn a little bit about Jubei as we go through this first volume, but for the most part the stories are about various cat owners, and the trials and tribulations they are going through with their pet. Jubei happens to be around at the time, and takes it upon himself to solve the mystery.

It was hard when I first read this not to think of Natsume’s Book of Friends. The art style is very similar, and a man and his wandering cat spirit solving mysteries, many of them featuring ghosts, also rings very close to home. But we aren’t really all that connected to Jubei the way we are to Natsume. Jubei seems to drift through the manga as he does through Edo. He has several admirers (a few women throughout are clearly attracted to him, but nothing comes of it), and is in fact the Edo Period’s version of a bishonen, complete with the hair, which the artist mentions is out of period but she didn’t want to cut it. I expect as we get more volumes we’ll learn about his backstory with Nita and see some depth, but the lead character is not the reason to read this manga.

On the other hand, the stories themselves are very well done. Sometimes a bit melodramatic, and designed to pull on the heartstrings of cat lovers, but that’s okay. You’re hear to read about cats being adorable, so some extent. Admittedly, there’s a lot more of cats being mysterious or aloof than there is adorable, but that’s okay. We see a cat who sacrifices his life to save his owner’s sight; a young man who realizes his cat may be MORE than just a cat; a pretty tea-shop worker with a tragic cat past; a stoic courtesan whose cat never leaves her side; and a samurai who is terrified of cats due to a haunting from when he was a child. Even the last story, which is mostly about a young man who’s about to be disinherited and is sent to Jubei’s master to try to find a profession, ends up being about how to paint cats, and how cat’s bodies move. You can’t say this doesn’t cater to its audience.

This is, I believe, the first Shonen Gahosha title we’ve ever seen over here that is not from their seinen otaku magazine Young King OURS. They really only have a few demographics as a publisher: Young King/Ours readers, porn readers (their Young Comic titles), and Nekopanchi, the magazine this title runs in. I’m happy to see something from the latter, which, as has been noted, is a classic example of something that would never otherwise have been licensed in Japan. Recommended, even if you’re not a cat lover.

Filed Under: REVIEWS

Manga the week of 10/12

October 5, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

Hallelujah, hallelujah. Midtown Comcis has finally taken the first step, admitted they had a Kodansha problem, and is getting in 3-4 months worth of titles next week. I won’t list them here as I’ve been listing them here in previous weeks while whining. No more whining! Hooray!

As for non-Kodansha things, there’s a new Vampire Hunter D novel out. It’s the 17th, showing that the difficulty selling Japanese novels here in North America does not particularly extend to novels with Vampire in their names.

And Viz has their typical 2nd week, aka ‘non-Jump or Beat stuff’. We get the 15th Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, which may be the final one depending how the author’s contract reads. He moved from Shueisha to Kodansha, acrimoniously, and is continuing the series there in the magazine Evening. What this means here… we don’t know yet.

Cross Game Vol. 5 gives us Vols. 10 & 11 of the original Japanese release, and introduces a character who’s guaranteed to shake things up… though this being Adachi, that generally means their eyes widen somewhat.

We also have the 40th (!) Volume of Case Closed, The 6th Hyde & Closer, the 28th Kekkaishi, and the 7th Maoh Juvenile Remix (this volume remixed by Frankie Knuckles) from our friends at Shonen Sunday, an imprint which NEEDS MORE LOVE AND SALES. But is, admittedly, probably not getting either anytime soon. Sigh. I don’t get North American readers.

Lastly, we have the new March Story, a manga by a Korean artist that runs in Sunday Gene-X; the 17th volume of Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys (hasn’t Bolan had his car crash by now?), and Yen is putting out the 2nd Twilight graphic novel, hopefully to get more money from readers so they can license other things.

What are you buying so you can read it on your way to Comic-Con next week?

Filed Under: FEATURES

Shocking Pink

October 4, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Yasuiriosuke. Released in Japan as “Pink Shock!” by Max Corporation Tokyo, serialized in the magazine Comic Potpourri Club. Released in North America by Project-H Books.

(This review is of an explicit title, be warned.)

You’ll note there’s no picture of the cover in this review, and with good reason – it’s covered in nude women. Shocking Pink is the first in Digital Manga Publishing’s Project H line, a chance to see if folks will actually pay for pornography for guys the way they shell out if it’s BL for girls. They announced 3 titles to start with, and this is the first, a harem version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, finished in one volume.

The plot is actually quite busy for porn. Takaaki is a grumpy 20-something, working 3 different jobs to try and escape the debt his parents got into after their business failed. Then one day a busty pink-haired girl named Ryuubi shows up at his door, pays off all his debt, and announces that she’s the reincarnation of Gentoku Ryuubi from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. She’s here to take over the world, and wants Takaaki – who is apparently the reincarnation of Koumei Shokatsu – to be her chief strategist.

Of course, not much battling goes on. Our hero is reluctant to believe the words of a clearly insane women. However, once she strips and starts to seduce him, he ends up going along fairly quickly (if grumpily). We quickly meet her two compatriots, Kan’u and Chouhi, both of whom are different personality types and also quite willing to sex him up at the drop of a hat. And then we discover he also has a large-breasted childhood friend, Moutoku, who’s been tsundere for him for years but has never done anything about it. Is she going to just accept all these new women in his life?

The characters are right out of a typical hentai dating sim, though there are a few interesting variations. The adorable shy girl has a split personality that turns her into an evil sadist, a nice way to fit two types into one girl. And Moutoku’s sister not only doesn’t have sex with the lead male (she’s happily married, and does have sex with her husband, fear not), but also has an eyepatch and a backstory more interesting than most of the other girls. Eventually we do have a battle of sorts, as our heroine and her new harem face off against Moutoku and her family to see who gets to keep screwing Takaaki.

The sex is, with one exception, fairly tame, and also fairly consensual. The girls are all sex-starved, and Takaaki is the sort of guy who is reluctant to do anything until people are naked in front of him, then just goes along. The exception is during the competition, where Moutoku’s twin cousins kidnap Chouhi and plan to blackmail her into giving up. Of course, they had to pick the girl who has an evil split personality. She quickly turns the tables, ties the siblings up, and then forces them to have sex with each other. It’s the only non-consensual scene in the book, and also involved incest and urination, as well as the implication of mind-control (the two love what Chouhi does to them so much they become her slaves). I note they’re also supposed to be in “prep school”, and are clearly the youngest of the entire cast. However, for the sake of legality, they are of course over the age of 18.

In the end, this is what it is. 200-odd pages of nonstop sex with a thin plot wrapped around it. That said, it could have been much worse. This lacks the faceless gangrapes seen so often in many Japanese hentai manga and doujinshi, and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms plot, though never actually used well, at least attempts to make things interesting. In fact, the main argument against it is the heroine, a shallow Haruhi Suzumiya-alike who never gets to be remotely likeable, unlike almost every other woman in the book. Nevertheless, I have to say this book delivers what Project-H promised to give us.

Filed Under: REVIEWS

Pick of the Week: Festival of Viz

October 3, 2011 by David Welsh, Katherine Dacey, Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith and M.J. Beasi 9 Comments

There’s a flood of Viz titles coming in to Midtown Comics this week. Check out the Battle Robot’s picks of the bunch below!


DAVID: It’s the first week of the month, so Viz follows its customary practice of flooding the shelves with new volumes of shônen and shôjo series. While they could certainly learn to pace themselves, I won’t complain if it means I can get my hands on the fifth volume of Julietta Suzuki’s Kamisama Kiss. This series is turning into a fine example of Suzuki’s ability to balance antic comedy and nuanced emotion, which is always a good recipe for satisfying shôjo. One of the things I particularly like about Suzuki’s work is that she respects her readers’ intelligence and doesn’t need to underline every romantic beat, choosing instead to highlight unexpected moments rather than dwell on the ones we can all recite by heart. The result is a series that fluxes confidently between sweet, silly, urgent, sad, and suspenseful. I’m always happy to spend more time with these characters.

KATE: My vote goes to the fourth volume of Blue Exorcist. I’d be the first to admit that the series covers well-trod territory: it’s got combatants of the cloth, a magical academy where exorcists learn their trade, and a tortured hero who straddles the demon and human worlds. But Kazuo Kaito’s elegant art and quick wit bring this very tired premise to life, making it easy to forgive the frequent capitulations to shonen cliche: characters declaring they’ll “do their best,” sloppy but talented fighters winning the grudging respect of their more disciplined peers. I’m not convinced I want forty more volumes of Blue Exorcist, but what I’ve read so far is good, solid fun.

MICHELLE: There’s a lot on this week’s list—which includes the final volumes of both Eyeshield 21 and Seiho Boys’ High School—that I personally plan on purchasing, but the one I look forward to with the most glee is volume 25 of Yoshiki Nakamura’s Skip Beat!. Although our heroine Kyoko Mogami is still fueled largely by the desire for revenge, she gets more serious about the craft of acting every day while remaining believably oblivious to the romantic feelings of her biggest mentor, renowned actor Ren Tsuruga. Somehow, Nakamura is able to make all of this feel fresh and new, and in volume 24 revisited the well-trod shoujo territory of Valentine’s Day with truly amusing results. I look forward to seeing what happens next!

SEAN: As always with Viz blitz weeks, there’s any number of titles I could talk about, including the aforementioned final volume of Seiho (I love Eyeshield, but it should have ended 3 volumes before it did). And I really want to pick Hark! A Vagrant as well, but it manages to not be manga. So my pick this week goes to a new Weekly Shonen Jump series, the first from Viz in quite some time. PSYЯEN sounds like a standard battle manga, with the only difference being the tournament arc starts right away as opposed to 9-10 volumes in. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by many of the more recent Jump efforts (Nura, Blue Exorcist), and the art looks good. I’m hoping for another fun, exciting series that manages to have fights without letting the manga get overwhelmed by them. And Volume 1s are the best place for that!

MELINDA: Well, it’s been mentioned a few times, but I’ll be the one to come down firmly on the side of volume eight of Seiho Boys’ High School. This is the final volume of the series, which has managed to remain as brash and funny as ever, while also presenting one of the most moving, realistic portrayals of teen romance I’ve seen in a while. I’ll be discussing this more in this week’s off the shelf, but it’s not that often that shoujo manga successfully balances both the all-consuming heart-burst of young love right alongside its inevitable transience, without degenerating into serious melodrama. This fun, light-hearted series has turned out to be much more poignant than I ever expected, and at just eight volumes, it’s a nice, easy-to-collect length, too. Definitely recommended.


Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK Tagged With: blue exorcist, kamisama kiss, psyren, seiho boys high school, Skip Beat!

Bookshelf Briefs, 10/3/11

October 3, 2011 by Katherine Dacey, David Welsh, M.J. Beasi, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith 10 Comments

This week, Kate, Melinda, David, Sean, & Michelle take a look at recent releases from Digital Manga Publishing, Yen Press, Kodansha Comics, Viz Media, and Vertical, Inc.


Acting on Impulse | By Natsue Ogoshi, Original Text by Vicki Lewis | Digital Manga Publishing – Opposites attract in this silly but charming romance about a farm girl from Virtue, KS who falls for a reformed playboy from Manhattan’s Upper West Side. When Trudy takes a job in New York City, her friends Meg and Peter appoint Linc to be her “bodyguard” and romance coach. Trudy wants to become a Sex-in-the-City sophisticate, having wild flings and meeting exotic men, while Linc wants to settle down. Their initial compromise — friends with benefits — proves more difficult than either anticipated, as each begins developing strong feelings for the other. (Didn’t they see When Harry Met Sally?!) I’m not giving away much by revealing that Acting on Impulse ends at the altar, but the story earns points for snappy dialogue and a heroine who’s hell-bent on preserving her independence, even if it means turning down a marriage proposal. -Katherine Dacey

Bakuman, Vol. 7 | By Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata | Viz Media – Things continue to go wrong for our heroes in this volume as their first series is canceled, and this may be the best thing that’s ever happened to Bakuman. Most of this volume focuses on the team’s power struggle with their editor, whose opinion about what direction the boys should pursue with their next series differs drastically from their own. This is one of the most interesting looks into the editorial process we’ve been shown thus far, ultimately coming to a conclusion I did not anticipate. Less interesting are Takagi’s potential girl issues, as he begins a professional but intense telephone relationship with female writer Aoki, but even this has its moments. The undeniable truth about Bakuman, is that it continues to be fascinating regardless of its shortcomings. Honestly, I can’t put it down. Still recommended.– Melinda Beasi

Bamboo Blade, Vol. 10 | By Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi | Yen Press – In the last volume, we spent most of the time on the awesome kendo battles, showing how much our team of determined girls has grown over the course of the series. Now we have to set up the next plot arc, featuring Tama matching up against her new rival. That is, if the opposing side can get the new rival onto the show. This volume may be low on kendo action (though there are some nice bouts in flashback), but it reminds you how funny this series can be when it’s on a roll. Chapter 82 and 85 are simply amazing, with Osaka-style overreaction to everything and a manga-within-a-manga parody that hits all the cliched genre conventions. We’re now about 3/4 through the series, and it’s good to see it can still make me laugh like this.-Sean Gaffney

Bloody Monday, Vol. 1 | By Ryou Ryumon and Kouji Megumi | Kodansha Comics – As a story, there’s nothing really novel about Bloody Monday, but the execution is so solid that I’m not bothered. A high-school computer hacker, Fujimaru Takagi, divides his time between the newspaper club and helping is secret-agent father decode sensitive computer files. Takagi, the senior, ends up on the wrong side of a conspiracy, leaving Fujimaru to try and clear his dad’s name, protect his sickly sister, and defend Japan against a mysterious disaster involving a virus of the organic kind. Ryumon piles on the plot twists but manages to keep things both orderly and suspenseful. Megumi’s art is very much in the crisp, Takeshi Obata vein, which always suits material of this nature. The visual fan service is certainly in evidence, but it’s pretty benign and hardly surprising considering that this is a story created for high-school boys that stars high-school boys. Overall, Bloody Monday is more than solid enough on all fronts to make me want to know what happens next. – David Welsh

Codename: Sailor V, Vol. 1 | By Naoko Takeuchi | Kodansha Comics –The thing I like best about this precursor to Sailor Moon is the fun its heroine has being a “champion of justice.” Lots of contemporary super-girls tend to mope over the necessity for secrecy and the burdensome nature of heroic duty, but Minako Aino seems to be having a ball. And why shouldn’t she? She gets to be glamorous, powerful, and popular, all while saving the day. Takeuchi also manages to tweak a lot of fan-culture mainstays along the way, from teen idols to spin-off merchandise to hunky juvenile delinquents. On the down side, the stories here tend to get a little repetitive, and it would be nice if Takeuchi relied a little less on the fact that Minako is kind of a dingbat to generate comedy. It’s fun to watch Sailor V kick ass and look fabulous doing it, but it would be more satisfying if she seemed to take more genuine pride in her work. – David Welsh

Kekkaishi, Vols. 7-9 (omnibus edition) | By Yellow Tanabe | Viz Media – There’s more classic shonen situations in these three volumes of Kekkaishi. We see the tragic backstory of Gen, whose life before joining the Shadow Organization is shown to be pretty much awful. A nasty villain is shown treating his fellow villainous colleagues as pawns, and sacrificing them just because he’s in a bad mood. A new teacher arrives to beat some sense into our heroes, and she turns out to be a hot dark-skinned girl (shades of Bleach). But it’s a sign of Yellow Tanabe’s craft that these cliches don’t feel worn, and I’m still enjoying the byplay between everyone as more of the plot is uncovered. Yoshimori gets less to do here, but this is made up for with a great sequence involving Tokine, who shows why she iss ruthless and not to be underestimated. A very good series, which I will now sadly have to get single volumes of.-Sean Gaffney

A Liar in Love | By Kiyo Ueda | Published by Digital Manga Publishing – On the surface, A Liar in Love looks like generic BL, featuring as it does a handsome playboy named Hiroki who makes a game out of seducing his brother’s timid and kind coworker, Yasuyuki. Actually, though, it’s pretty great, as Hiroki quickly finds himself out of his depth in this new relationship. It’s often difficult to sympathize with him, as he tends to treat Yasuyuki shabbily when confronted with his own shortcomings, but his journey from an inveterate player clinging to the notion that it’s all just a game to a person who can actually be genuine about his feelings is believable and compelling. Yasuyuki’s no slouch, either, especially when he’s able to stand his ground against Hiroki when the latter is at his most callous. With true-to-life characters in a realistic and difficult situation and lovely, expressive art, A Liar in Love is a gem. Highly recommended. – Michelle Smith

Psyren, Vol. 1 | By Toshiaki Iwashiro | Viz Media – Psyren is pretty much equal parts Gantz, The Drifting Classroom, and The Hunger Games, though it lacks the specific urgency of any of those entertainments. A dumb-but-decent, fight-happy boy named Ageha winds up sucked into a game-conspiracy where survival means victory and failure equals death in a dessicated, dystopian landscape. Ageha has a slight edge over his fellow competitors in the form of his desire to protect a classmate, Sakurako, who seems to have been suffering under the game’s random rules for some time. Sakurako, with her combination of ferocity and fragility, is the most interesting thing Psyren has to offer, and the prospect of getting to know her better is the most compelling reason to keep up with the series. Other than that, it’s competent enough as mayhem-survival drama goes. With so much really good survival-mayhem drama at your disposal, Psyren ends up feeling kind of inessential. Recommended for readers who like their body counts high and can withstand a lot of déjà vu. – David Welsh

Twin Spica, Vol. 9 | By Kou Yaginuma | Vertical – This volume of Twin Spica is not necessarily filled with warmth and good cheer, and certainly has many sad and wistful moments, but did not seem quite as melancholy as Volume 8 was. Our cast is now in its third year, and things get tougher as you would expect, but the praise is also coming more easily, even from their hardest instructors. Moreover, even as he’s seen less and less, Mr. Lion’s storyline continues to fascinate me. As Asumi grows older and more confident, and the actual reasons behind the fatal crash begin to slowly be revealed, we see him start to wonder if it’s finally time for him to move on. The fact that this is done with minimal dialogue is another tribute to the craft we see exhibited here. There may be trouble on the horizon for Marika, though, which is a shame as we also see her open up a bit more here. A nice peaceful ride, with lots of scenery. -Sean Gaffney

Filed Under: Bookshelf Briefs

Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Vol. 31

October 3, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan as “Mahou Sensei Negima!” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

When I reviewed the previous volume of Negima, I noted that our heroes would start kicking ass in this next one. Which is true, but we do have about 50 pages before that happens. And in that 50 pages, a whole lot more sympathetic characters get killed off by our suddenly body-count happy author.

Of course, this is a shonen romantic comedy manga, despite occasional drama, and the people killed off are being turned into magical feathers and dissipated, not having huge bloody chunks cut out of them. Thus, it is not particularly a surprise when, just a few chapters later, it’s revealed we may be able to get all of them back. Still, for the chapters where it’s happening, it’s horrible to see. Yue’s rival Emily, Jerk with a Heart of Gold Tosaka, and even the giant Teddy Bear woman all get taken out. Least surprising but most devastating of all, Fate takes out Jack Rakan, who manages to briefly resurrect himself from the dead (because he’s just that awesome – no, really, that’s the canon explanation) and give our heroes a brief pep talk. Even Chisame ends up in tears.

Of course, not everyone takes this lying down. Yue’s reaction to Emily’s death is to turn into MAGICAL PSYCHO BERSERKER, and it works for about 10 seconds till Mana talks her down. Then there’s Nodoka. Remember a few months ago, when I posted my top 10 Negima moments, and hinted more would be in future books? This is the one I was thinking of. Nodoka, having seen two of her companions killed in front of her, snaps out of her funk and proceeds to kick the bad guy’s ass with her pactio powers, cleverness, and a few magical dodging skills she picked up in case stuff like this happened. Afterwards, the entire cast’s jaw drops when they hear about it. Normally when an author has the characters lampshade how awesome something was, it seems self-serving, but here, it’s more acknowledgement.

And so, after Chachamaru takes care of the giant Chtulhu monster with her new pactio weapon, we pause to briefly run away and regroup. Which is good, as Rakan noted something else that our heroes are finally clued in on (even if the reader has known for some time): the Asuna they’re with is a fake, and the reason the villains are able to do all this damage is they’re using the real Asuna’s power. So it’s time to interrogate the false Asuna… which is a bit of a problem, as the fake doesn’t know she’s a fake. Luckily, Negi has his secret weapon. (cough) Hey, when all you have is a hammer…

As the volume ends, Luna is no longer Asuna, and tells them what she knows (which isn’t a lot), without even needing enhanced interrogation (kudos to the Nibleys for that phrase, by the way). So Negi needs to power up again, and must call on imaginary Evangeline once more to draw out his inner beast… which may not be able to be put down after all this is over. This is the trouble with siding with dark magic.

Much as I enjoyed the volume as a story, I would be remiss if I did not point out that it was even more riddled with typos than usual. In previous Kodansha/Del Rey reviews, I asked who was editing the books and if they knew what continuity was; in this one, I wonder if they even use editors at all anymore, or just have the translators edit their own work. “Nodoka56…” was particularly egregious. It also seems to be missing the character commentary on Asuna. I realize that there was a rush to get out Negima every 2 months to catch up after the hiatus, but come on, shoddy product does not help you at all, Kodansha.

That said, another great volume of Negima, and I do look forward to seeing how this battle continues to play out. Surely Akamatsu can’t introduce anything more surprising than what we’ve already had…

Filed Under: REVIEWS

New Vertical License

October 1, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

Vertical had a panel at Anime Weekend Atlanta, and Ed Chavez was quick to note that he was saving most of the new license announcements for NYCC/NYAF, but he did have one new book they’ll be releasing in the Spring of 2012.

Aku no Hana, which will be released over here as Flowers of Evil, is a Kodansha shonen title, currently being released in the monthly Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, and was one of the series that debuted with the magazine itself in 2009. The author, Oshimi Shuzou, isn’t very well known over here, but does have another series that has begun to appear in English: his seinen adventure Hyouryuu Net Cafe has the first volume up at JManga. Aku no Hana will be at least 5 volumes, and is still running in the magazine today.

As for the plot, it apparently involves the girl on the cover blackmailing the somewhat weak male lead. Not an entirely uncommon plot in Japanese manga, and I imagine it will live and die on how weak the male lead actually is. The cover design looks very striking as well – though, as with many or most Vertical releases, we may get entirely new covers for the North American market.

This is another ‘mainstream’ release after they announced GTO Shonan 14 Days earlier in the year. Although it does seem somewhat eccentric for a shonen title, and I suspect may be more along the lines of what Genkaku Picasso was for Jump Square. Let’s see what it does to try and grab us!

Filed Under: UNSHELVED

Kitty Hawker

September 30, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Takao Saito. Released in Japan by LEED Publishing, serialized via Shogakukan in the magazine Big Comic Special. Released in the United States by LEED Publishing on the JManga website.

(Note: Despite saying Vol. 1 on the JManga site, I believe the series is complete in one volume.)

The main player involved so far in JManga’s site has been Futabasha, but there are several other companies who also have made previously unseen content available. LEED Publishing was created by Takao Saito in the early 1970s to market his manga empire, which was already monumentally successful due to his action thriller Golgo 13. I’m not certain how many of his titles are done by Saito himself and how many are his huge team of artists – he’s sort of the Jim Davis of Japan, if Garfield was a stone-faced assassin, of course. (Yes, I’ve read that fanfic.)

This particular title, Kitty Hawker, dates from the mid-1990s. It ran sporadically from 1995-1998 in the magazine Big Comic Special, and is the story of Oki, a Japanese hotshot pilot who gets stranded in the United States after he accidentally breaks an incredibly expensive flight simulator due to his hotshot antics. Forced to take on jobs so he can pay off his debt and return home to his wife and child, he signs on with a tiny airport in Texas, and takes on dangerous political jobs that no sane pilot would ever take on. All the while, of course, while enduring the casual racism and looks of hatred from his immediate superiors (though he does also gain some friends as well).

Oki looks a lot like Golgo 13 (not a huge surprise – Saito’s heroes tend to have similar features), but certainly doesn’t act like him, and it took me a while to get used to him actually talking and having conversations, not to mention showing emotion. Oki is likeable enough to be a hero, but lacks Golgo 13’s super-perfection – Oki’s cockiness and tendency to mouth off to people get him in trouble quite a bit. As for the other characters, everyone in the manga is painted with rather broad strokes – there’s enough depth to keep you reading, but this is in no way a manga that lives and dies by its characters.

What it is is another action thriller, with added political content. Oki gets a job that needs to be done hush-hush, has massive political implications, and will require superhuman flying skills. And he manages to pull it off, usually with the help of his copilot and mechanic Bud. Again, we get stock characters from Action Thriller 101 here: the sexy and mysterious government agent, the nervous CIA guy who hinders more than he helps, and of course the sexy Latin American native who has an affair with the aforementioned Bud. (Oki is married, and though occasionally remarking on the attractiveness of his clients, does not stray.)

So, what you see is what you get here: a political thriller with lots of wordy dialogue followed by lots of awesome scenes of planes doing difficult to impossible stuff, all to save the world. By the end of this volume, Oki has come to terms with his exile, and tells his wife that he’ll be staying a little longer. Kitty Hawker may appeal to those who like old Westerns – it has much the same feel. Very little pretension or attempts to be anything more than a good yarn.

Filed Under: REVIEWS

Bloody Monday, Vol. 1

September 29, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Ryou Ryumon and Kouji Megumi. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Take a typical John le Carré novel, only have it star a bunch of Japanese high school students, and you might come close to what’s going on in Bloody Monday. This sort of story demands a certain suspension of disbelief (indeed, this particular story might need an entire suspension bridge for your disbelief), but once you get past that and accept the premise, there’s a lot of fun stuff to be found here.

The basic premise has our hero Takagi, who is an ordinary high school student – except he has absolute world-class hacking abilities, and his father appears to be a super-spy. But other than that? He goes to class, he worries about his sister, who apparently is hospitalized often, and he spends his spare time decrypting mysterious files that are vital to national security. His friends (who, at the start of this, are mostly unaware of his talents) are a typical shonen bunch: handsome laid-back best friend, tsundere childhood female friend, shy girl who probably has a crush on him, and geeky guy.

Unfortunately, his worlds are about to intersect. There’s a virus going around that makes folks cough up blood, collapse and die, and it would seem to be engineered by a nasty enemy agent (that’s her on the cover in her lingerie)… who now shows up at Takagi’s school as the new teacher, and gives off a lovely aura of ‘I am not an enemy spy honest’ for the rest of the book. What’s more, his father has disappeared after calling to tell him “Bloody Monday” (how cryptic… if it weren’t the title), and he’s getting special deliveries of boxed agents sent to defend him from mysterious foes.

Much of this volume is simply setting up the premise of the series, so things move pretty slowly at first. Takagi and his friend Otoya are the only ones who we really get to know, though we also get a nice impression of Takagi’s father before he is forced to leave the manga for reasons of plot. Takagi seems a bit too perfect, so I actually liked them undercutting this by having him reveal everything he knows to his friends… and the new teacher who mysteriously arrived there recently. Hey, she’s an authority figure! And stacked! I imagine as the series goes on this lack of precaution will become less common.

I was reminded of last year’s aborted Del Rey series Code: Breaker a bit with the style of this manga, which is very much in the thriller style. It may seem startling that it runs in Shonen Magazine, given the children coughing up blood and dying, as well as the enemy agent in her underwear, but honestly the magazine has always been like that – it’s the most fanservicey of the three, and also sometimes hardest to pin down in terms of genre.

In the meantime, we have a series that I suspect we won’t really know how good it is until three or four volumes in. Not that there’s anything really wrong with this first volume, but it’s much like reading Chapter 1 of a le Carré novel, then having to wait two months to read Volume 2. This may be a series to collect in batches.

Filed Under: REVIEWS

Manga the Week of 10/5

September 28, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

First week of the month, and you know that means it’s time to be punched in the face with the enormity of Viz’s releases. But first, more ‘Midtown doesn’t list Kodansha anymore’ stuff. This means I have to guesstimate when stuff hits comic shops based on my own store’s list. And so sometimes I miss things. Like xxxHOLIC! Did you know it shipped this week? Surprise!

Kodansha should see the rest of September’s releases hit comic shops the first week of October. This includes Vol. 15 of Fairy Tail (just in time for Hiro Mashima at NYCC!), Vol. 26 of The Wallflower, Vol. 7 of Ninja Girls, and the 2nd Negima omnibus, containing Vols. 4-6. This will cover the ‘Kyoto’ arc, which is where most hardcore Negima fans say the story starts to improve.

The Penguin Group is also listing Gandhi: A Manga Biography. The artist is indeed Japanese, but I have to say the advance reviews have not exactly had me panting to pick up a copy.

And thus we come to Viz. The big debut this week is Psyren, the new Shonen Jump series that only SEEMS like it was licensed 8 years ago. It should be a lot of fun. There’s also new Bakuman! New Bleach omnibus of Vols. 7-9! The final Eyeshield 21, which had quite a long run for a sports manga in North America! New Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan! New Slam Dunk! (Well, it’s about 20 years old, but new to us!). And for you Jump Square fans, there are the wildly popular Blue Exorcist and Rosario + Vampire II!

In less exclamatory terms, there’s plenty of shoujo as well. Kamisama Kiss 5 comes out at the same time as Natsume’s Book of Friends 9 and Nura 5 just to overdose EVERYONE with yokai. (And yet, still no Gegege no Kitaro license. Le sigh…) New Sakura Hime from the ever popular Arina Tanemura. The final volume of highly underrated Betsucomi series Seiho Boys High School. Skip Beat has hit 25 volumes! And Vampire Knight 13, with all your broody vampire needs.

Lastly, in non-manga news, Hark! A Vagrant! hits comic shops next week as well, and you should all get copies. And there’s also 2 new Archie HCs (no, no, it only SEEMS like they’re out every week now), with Archie Americana: the 50s, and Best of Harry Lucey.

Anything excite you?

Filed Under: FEATURES

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