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Strobe Edge

Strobe Edge, Vols 5 and 6

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One of the reasons why I keep reading manga is that it still has the capacity to surprise me. I found the fifth volume of Strobe Edge exciting to read, because it went in a totally different direction from what I was expecting. I’d always expected that the love triangle between Ren, Mayuka, and Ninako would have to be resolved somehow, but I wasn’t expecting a big change to come from Mayuka this early in the series. Ren is deliberately holding himself back from developing feelings for Ninako due to his sense of duty towards Mayuka. She’s emotional fragile and stressed out with the demands of her modeling career, school, and her parents’ divorce. Ren has a finely honed sense of integrity and wouldn’t do anything to hurt another person, with the expense of actually subverting his own feelings in the process.

I always expect anyone in a shoujo manga with a modeling career to be evil, but Mayuka shows that she’s been slowly picking up on Ren’s distance, coming to terms with her own goals for how she wants to live her life, and she realizes that she’s the one who is going to have to take a big step forward on her own. The change in Ren and Mayuka’s relationship isn’t without pain on both sides, but everything is handled with a degree of emotional maturity and sensitivity that is notable. It is fun to read a shoujo series that explores the shifting relationships between characters with such nuance.

In the meantime Ninako and Ando are in the grips of adorable teenage awkwardness, as she attempts to bury her own feelings for Ren and Ando tries to show her that he’s the better choice for her. Ando’s shifted from the cheerful flirtations personality that he displayed in the first few volumes to showing Ninako just how much he cares about her. There was a fun bonus story in this volume that delved into the past friendship between Ren and Ando, and just where it went wrong. This is the type of bonus story that I really enjoy, as it gives the reader a glimpse of the characters in a slightly different context, and provides more background as the manga moves forward.

There’s emotional turmoil ahead in the sixth volume of Strobe Edge, as Ando’s antagonism towards Ren resurfaces and Ren is dealing with the aftermath of his breakup with Mayuka. The burden of popularity and extreme handsomeness weighs heavily on Ren, as he is girlfriendless for barely a day before the girls at school start circling him. Ninako assumes that Ren is sad, and doesn’t want to do anything to add to his stress. Even with Valentine’s day coming up, she doesn’t want to add to the mountain of chocolate he’s going to be receiving from all the other girls.

There are some fun action scenes as Ren and Ando (mostly Ando) work through some aggression on the basketball court. The antagonistic relationship between them takes a turn towards the hilarious as Ando gets injured and when he wakes up and spots Ren he yells “You’re what I have to wake up to?” If Strobe Edge was only focused on the relationship between Ninako and Ren, it has the potential to get boring fairly fast. But seeing Ren and Ando start to work through their issues feels like an important emotional breakthrough. Ando instructs Ren not to smile, and Ren assumes that it is because his smile is somehow hideous, but really Ando doesn’t like the inadvertent effect a smiling Ren has on all the people in his vicinity. The end of volume six offers the promise of a new beginning at the start of a new school year, with Ren and Ninako being assigned to the same class.

Strobe Edge is a good example of why sometimes it is good to give a manga series a few volumes to develop before giving up on it. I was a bit on the fence about this series after reading only the first volume even though I generally enjoyed it. I wouldn’t have thought from just the first volume that Sakisaka would have built up the interesting relationships between the characters and handled some emotional journeys without relying on some of the standard shoujo plot elements. In some ways Strobe Edge is a less angsty successor to We Were There, as both series explore similar nuanced psychological territory.

Review copy of vol 6 provided by the publisher.

Strobe Edge, Vol. 4

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Strobe Edge, Vol. 4 by Io Sakisaka

One nice thing about new series with several volumes waiting in the wings to be translated is being able to read the English volumes with only a few months between releases. It is easier to appreciate the changes in plotting and art that appear over time as the creator gets more and more comfortable with a series. I wouldn’t have predicted after I put down the first volume of Strobe Edge that I would be enjoying it as much as I am now. There’s much more subtly shown in the relationships between the characters and even when stereotypical shoujo plot devices pop up, I find myself not minding them at all just because of the great work Sakisaka has done with her character development.

Heroine Ninako was bordering on being annoyingly naive in the first volume, and while she’s still relentlessly innocent she is in tune with her own emotions and is able to sense when a situation might be wrong for her. When reformed womanizer Ando starts pressuring her to date him, saying she can use him to forget her feelings for Ren, Ninako replies “Your idea of love and my idea of love aren’t the same at all. And I could never use you to forget him! You know how much it hurts to love someone…who loves someone else.” Ando tells Ninako that she doesn’t have to answer right away and goes back to his usual light-hearted personality but she can tell that he’s putting on an act to make her feel at ease.

Ninako and Ren keep getting pushed together in various situations, and while he tends to keep a tight reign on his expressions it is easy for the reader to tell that he’s filled with turmoil. Ren’s determination to be a “nice guy” is resulting in his continuing a relationship with his high-strung girlfriend, even though he and Ninako seem to share a unique bond of understanding. Ninako and Ren’s non-relationship is contrasted with the more established supporting couple of Daiki and Sayuri, who deal with their problems and end up becoming stronger together. There’s a slowly building tension in this series, as Ren keeps struggling to do what he thinks of as the right thing even while it becomes more and more intolerable.

Sakisaka does a good job showing her characters’ reactions to the emotional scenes, as she contrasts facial expressions or shows Ren turning away in order not to display his emotions. I’m looking forward to the next few volumes, as I can sense some dramatic crying scenes and confrontations coming up when Mayuka starts to realize that Ren is only showing her one carefully crafted side of his personality.

Bookshelf Briefs 5/5/13

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This week, MJ, Sean, Michelle, and Anna look at recent releases from Yen Press, Viz Media, and Kodansha Comics.

fantaticrabbit2Alice in the Country of Hearts: My Fanatic Rabbit, Vol. 2 | By QuinRose, Delico Psyche, and Owl Shinotsuki | Yen Press – As I suspected, this volume was a lot more focused on romance and not so much on the psychology and psychotics. That said, there are points of interest here. It’s odd that Elliot, who was once imprisoned for destroying the clock of his best friend, is cavalier about killing Alice’s sister. And it’s good to give him a reason to be angry at Alice being close to Julius that isn’t jealousy. That said, in the end it mostly does turn out to be jealousy, and when the book details romance it gets far more generic. There’s also some nasty dream manipulation to stop Alice from returning home – which one can argue, given what we’ve inferred about her real life, is justified, but still comes across as harsh. An ambiguously good volume, but hey, the series is short.-Sean Gaffney

devil8A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 8 | By Miyoshi Tomori | Viz Media – At no point has A Devil and Her Love Song actually been bad, but the “Anna arc” of recent volumes—in which Maria attempts to achieve some level of understanding with her former best friend—just retread the same ground over and over and felt like it would never end. And so I am profoundly relieved that we’re moving on to something different, even if it’s taking the form of Shintaro Kurosu, a brash new first-year who’s interested in Maria and takes every opportunity to get close to her. We’ve seen this sort of character in shoujo manga many times before, but any catalyst that causes Shin to confront his feelings for Maria is fine by me, and because Shintaro shares some qualities with our insightful heroine, he’s quite adept at getting under others’ skin. I still recommend this series, but if we never see Anna again it’ll be too soon for me. – Michelle Smith

fairytail25Fairy Tail, Vol. 25 | By Hiro Mashima | Kodansha Comics – Fairy Tail will probably never get away from One Piece comparisons, but one big difference it has is that Mashima does tease romance between his characters quite a bit. In this volume we not only get Elfman and Evergreen getting past Mirajane with a shocking revelation – theoretically false, but I sense a setup – but we also have Levy’s giant crush on Gajeel, which is quite cute provided you forget him crucifying her a while back. Literally. Meanwhile, the S-class exams are interrupted not only by the arrival of a dark guild, led by Ultear, but also a young sobbing man who would seem to be Zeref, the evil wizard who has been mentioned before, and definitely doesn’t seem to be possessing anyone this time. It would seem that the exam arc is going to get a lot longer and more serious before anyone wins their S-class.-Sean Gaffney

corda17La Corda d’Oro, Vol. 17 | By Yuki Kure | Viz Media – This final volume reads like a series of closing doors—at least for Kahoko’s suitors, who take turns examining their feelings, though it’s clear most don’t have a shot. Ryotaro’s epiphany is most significant, and his heartfelt confession throws oblivious Kahoko for a loop. Everyone knows that Kahoko will end up with Len, but when it gets right down to it, their final scene is oddly anticlimactic. Kahoko is predictably breathless and embarrassed, and Len is awkward and brusque, but as a romantic climax it’s surprisingly non-committal. We don’t even get a good kiss out of it. As a jaded fan of romance, I should be grateful for anything unexpected, but in a story that’s always been so conventional, it’s honestly a letdown. Though perhaps the most disheartening truth is that they’re still hung up on “Ave Maria.” What can you do? Farewell, La Corda d’Oro, I’ll miss you. – MJ

kenshirestoration1Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration, Vol. 1 | By Nobuhiro Watsuki | Viz Media – Watsuki says in the afterward that the genesis for this reworking of Rurouni Kenshin was the production of the recent live action movie. This shows in the first story of the volume which puts familiar characters into a battle arena situation with no real plot or character development. There’s a back-up prequel story that has more interest as Kenshin encounters a unique western doctor struggling to provide care for low-income patients. While it was nice to revisit the characters for a little bit, this parallel story reminded me of how much more I liked the original series. This is only for die-hard Kenshin fans, most people will be better served reading the very good first series. – Anna N.

strobe4Strobe Edge, Vol. 4 | By Io Sakisaka | Viz Media – What’s interesting about Strobe Edge, is the way that Io Sakisaka has managed to take the most trite characteristic of her series early on—namely, her heroine’s unbelievable innocence—and turned it into a real asset. That Ninako wouldn’t realize that there are unavoidably negative consequences to unrequited love seems ridiculously naive, but it also allows Sakisaka to explore those consequences more honestly than is typical, even for romance manga. The way both Ninako and Ren begin to recognize and forced to deal with the ramifications of their ongoing friendship in the face of Ninako’s (and now, Ren’s) feelings is surprisingly fresh. I’m reminded immediately of the personal agony I suffered while watching Shoji developing feelings for someone other than his girlfriend, Nana Komatsu (NANA), but this time I’m experiencing it with “other woman” Sachiko as my heroine. It’s an emotional punch in the gut, and very well-executed. Recommended. – MJ

wewerethere16We Were There, Vol. 16 | By Yuuki Obata | Viz Media – This is the second concluding Shojo Beat series for me this week, but what a contrast! Though this series’ romantic conclusion was no less predictable than La Corda d’Oro‘s, the execution could not be more different—much like the two series themselves. There was a time when I’d given up on Nanami and Yano’s torturous romance as simply too destructive to bear, so it’s a real testament to Obata-sensei’s gifts as a writer that she’s managed to bring me back around to loving them together once more. Everyone’s story ends with dignity, even that of long-suffering Takeuchi (my personal hero of the story) but the real centerpiece is our primary couple, with whom Obata completely sweeps me off my feet. Their ending is so poignant and so well-earned, it’s a genuine pleasure to read. Thanks for everything, We Were There. You’ve been quite a ride. Highly recommended. – MJ

Pick of the Week: Dancing to the Shojo Beat

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potw5-6-13MJ: This week’s pick is an extremely tough one for me, particularly when faced with choosing between beloved series like Wandering Son, Strobe Edge, and even Bakuman,which is heading into its last couple of volumes. But in the end, I’m going to go with an end—that of Yuuki Obata’s melancholy romance, We Were There, which has charmed me all the way from its very first volume, through its soul-crushing volume four, and so on and so forth, to the last, sweet moments here in its final volume. This series has been an especially emotional ride for me—I’d recommend it to anyone—and its ending is extremely well-earned. It’s an obvious pick for me, I suppose, but for very good reasons.

MICHELLE: And it’s my pick, as well. “Well-earned” is right, and I could go into detail about why it’s more satisfying than your average shoujo conclusion, but that would probably be rather spoilery. Instead, you should see for yourself!

SEAN: I’ll go with the new volume of Dengeki Daisy, a shoujo manga with the plot of an action movie. It’s rather impressive how even the people normally creeped out by older guy/high school girl romance don’t seem to mind it in Dengeki Daisy – both in the story itself and in the readers. Perhaps because of the comedy that comes with it, or the way that Teru isn’t being tricked, seduced, or blackmailed into it. But probably mostly due to the writing – a lot can be forgiven in a romance if both leads are simply great people you want to see get together. Well, right after they solve this kidnapping. Yes, another one.

ANNA: Since other people have picked We Were There and Dengeki Daisy, I’ll go with Strobe Edge. The fourth volume has come a long way in terms of plot development and art. Even though some of the plot elements are a bit stereotypical, there’s plenty of emotional resonance in the developing love triangle.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Strobe Edge, Vol. 3

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Strobe Edge is the manga equivalent of comfort food and I find myself liking it more and more with each volume. The third volume explores the emerging love triangle between Ninako, reformed womanizer Ando, and unavailable but perfect Ren. Ninako is struggling a bit with wanting to be friends with Ren after being rejected previously, and things become even more emotionally traumatic when it seems like Ren is deliberately acting cold to her. Ren actually being a good guy, he is attempting to protect Ninako from the attentions of the Rejected by Ren Girl Squad, who have targeted Ninako with their bullying ways. This gets cleared up relatively quickly, but more complications are on the way as Ando’s feelings towards Ninako grow and deepen. The two guys in love with a slightly oblivious girl is a well-word shoujo plot device, but Ninako is oblivious and friendly that it is difficult to get annoyed with her. Sakisaka does a good job portraying the subtle ways that Ren and Ninako continue to be drawn towards each other. They have a random conversation about sweets and Ren reveals that he doesn’t think that his girlfriend even knows that fact about himself because he pretends to dislike them around her because she’s always watching her figure. Ren’s general protectiveness towards Ninako is unusual given is general indifference towards other girls. Ren’s actions like helping Ninako out at a school festival and providing extra math tutoring seem to go a bit beyond the limits of normal guy niceness.

Ando has plenty of feelings for Ninako but seems to be holding back both due to his awareness of her feelings for Ren and his realization that she probably couldn’t handle it. He hints around about his feelings and even confronts Ninako about her feelings for Ren, saying “You can’t love someone forever…without getting something back from them.” Ando’s brash personality is a big contrast to Ren’s more quiet thoughtfulness, but it is clear that he does actually care about Ninako and isn’t trifling with the idea of having a relationship with her.

I feel like Sakisaka’s art has grown a bit after three volumes. While the first volume focused a bit too much on Ninako’s blushing naivete, there are more comedic moments in this volume, mostly at Ando’s expense as he gets crushed in a subway car while Ren protects Ninako. When Ninako, Ren, and Ando all start a part-time job in a cafe, Ren and Ando are portrayed as the ultimate desirable waiters, smoothly taking care of everything, while Ninako’s enthusiasm almost makes up for her clumsiness. It is easy to see how well Strobe Edge fits into the Shojo Beat line and with so many series ending or about to end, I’m glad to have a newer series to follow.

Strobe Edge, Vol. 2

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Strobe Edge, Vol 2 by Io Sakisaka

I liked the first volume of Strobe Edge well enough, but I was hoping that the second volume would be a tiny bit more interesting, in order to justify my wanting to keep following the series. I wasn’t disappointed, as the second volume dropped the emphasis on the heroine Ninako’s naivety in favor of some standard shojo plot elements with an emphasis on the characters’ emotions and just enough of a twist to produce some unexpected moments.

Ninako is back at school after summer vacation, wondering how to deal with the fact that she confessed her feelings to laconic yet secretly super-nice heartthrob Ren on the last day of school. Ren turned her down nicely, mentioning his girlfriend. Ninako practices how to say hello to him and reflects that their first encounter will likely be as difficult for the rejector in addition to the rejectee. Unfortunately word of Ninako’s daring has spread and she is known throughout the school as “girl who confessed to Ren on the train platform.” Her friends try to comfort her, but Ninako finds a slightly unwelcome distraction in the person of Ando, a flighty womanizer who seems fascinated by her indifference to him and her continued love for Ren even after being rejected. The unlikely trio gets thrown together in doing some committee work for school, and while Ando might have a habit of trying to collect as many girls’ cell phone numbers as possible, he does exhibit some genuine friendship and sensitivity to Ninako when she’s placed in an awkward situation.

Strobe Edge isn’t the type of shojo manga that challenges conventions, but it is extremely well-executed. I couldn’t find anything to quibble with the artwork, and the pained expressions Ninako sometimes makes as she navigates the storm of teenage romance offsets some of the expected shojo prettiness. There were plenty of humorous elements too, as Ninako is initially embraced by a secret society at school that is comprised solely of girls that Ren has rejected. I continue to enjoy the fact that most of the characters are genuinely nice and sympathetic. A bonus story in this volume focuses on the way Ren and his girlfriend Mayuka began their relationship, and it was fun to see a different aspect of those characters told from Mayuka’s side. I wish more manga had side stories that served as a supplement to the main plot, as opposed to publishing unrelated short stories by the same author in the back of a volume just to fill it out. Strobe Edge is perfect comfort reading for anyone who wants to read a well-done shojo manga that keeps things on the light and fluffy side.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

My Week in Manga, Episode 5

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Welcome back to our new video feature, My Week in Manga! This week’s episode includes a short review of volume two of Io Sakisaka’s Strobe Edge.

Manga this week:
Chocolate (Yen Press)
Strobe Edge, Vol. 2 (VIZ Media)
A Bride’s Story, Vol. 4 (Yen Press)
His Favorite, Vol. 1 (SuBLime Manga)
Planet Ladder, Vol. 1 (Digital Manga Publishing)

Links:

Off the Shelf (Strobe Edge, Vol. 1)
MJ’s Best Manga of 2012, Part 2
Off the Shelf: Chocolat

Edited by MJ
Music (“Stickybee,” “20/20,” “Stars Collide,” & “Swansong”) by Josh Woodward

Off the Shelf: Strobe Edge, Umineko, Apple Blossoms

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MJ: Well, hello, Michelle! Happy Thanksgiving! And other expressions of holiday cheer!

MICHELLE: And the same to you! At this present moment, I am looking forward to a turkey sandwich in my future!

MJ: That sounds delicious! Have any manga to talk about while you munch away?

MICHELLE: Mochiron desu! I’ll start with the debut of Umineko: When They Cry, the latest license from Ryukishi07, who also created Higurashi: When They Cry.

Although I have read a couple of Higurashi side arcs, I still have yet to read the main series. When initial reviews for the first volume were positive, I actually checked it out in the store, but was turned off by the “byoing” sound effects accompanying a female character’s bosoms and returned the book to the shelf. After enjoying the side arcs, I did go back and collect a few volumes but I missed my chance to follow it from the beginning, which was why I wanted to give Umineko a chance. I almost didn’t make it, because the title is front-loaded with even more boob-centric shenanigans.

The story begins in October 1986. Members of the Ushiromiya family are gathering at Rokkenjima island for their annual reunion. Our protagonist is 18-year-old Battler, who has been estranged from the family for six years, so he’s seeing some of his cousins for the first time in while. In short order, he proposes performing an exam on a cousin his own age to see how much she’s grown, coerces a nine-year-old cousin to promise that she’ll grow up to “be a graceful lady and let me touch your boobs whenever I want,” and very nearly goes through with groping a ridiculously well-endowed servant who’s in no position to fend him off. He claims that he is joking around and just trying to provoke a reaction, but not surprisingly, none of the girls is amused.

Though Battler’s boob fixation pops up a few more times, the story thankfully begins to focus on the weird behavior of the family patriarch and the legend of a witch who is reportedly the source of the family fortune. While Battler’s parents squabble over their inheritance, his grandfather concludes his contract with the witch, freeing her to select members of the family as sacrifices, which she does in grisly fashion. Meanwhile, an epitaph accompanying a portrait of the witch provides instructions by which the deaths may be reserved. By the end of the volume, a nicely creepy atmosphere has been achieved.

All in all, though, the mystery is just intriguing enough to bring me back a second time. I don’t like the art. I don’t like Battler. I don’t like the nine-year-old cousin, Maria, who has a verbal tic that causes her to say “uuu” all the time. (Seriously, there’s one panel where her dialogue reads, “Uuu, uuu, uuu!! Uuu, uuu!! Uuu, uuu!! Uuu, uuu, uuu!!”) I don’t mean to insult readers who enjoy moe and fanservice, but it’s personally really difficult for me to endure them.

MJ: Wow… you know, I just don’t know if I have it in me to put up with the fanservice and the moe “uuu”-ing, even for a good mystery. Have I just become old and jaded?

MICHELLE: I don’t think so. It’s probably more a matter of “Life’s too short to read things I don’t like!” And honestly, I’m not sure this is even going to be a good mystery. I just kind of want to see what happens next. It’s entirely possible I’ll give up on it before the end.

Anyway, what have you been reading this week?

MJ: Well, after all the fantastic comments and feedback we received on last week’s BL Bookrack: Best of 2012, I found myself with a growing list of titles I felt I should try—particularly from SuBLime, which has been a tough imprint for me so far in terms of finding books I like. I decided to check out the first of these, Toko Kawai’s The Scent of Apple Blossoms, and this turned out to be a very good choice for me. As soon as I finished the first volume, I purchased the other two and gobbled them up whole.

You covered the series’ premise nicely in your review earlier this year, so I won’t go over it too thoroughly here. In short, Japanese-American Haruna works for a liquor seller in Japan. Part of his job includes trying to persuade local brewers to sell their products to his company to be sold in their shops and restaurants. While visiting an especially cranky brewer, he falls in love at first site with the master brewer’s grandson, Nakagawa. The first volume mainly consists of Haruna trying to wear down the master brewer while also pursuing his seemingly unrequited feelings for Nakagawa, but this is BL, so you know he’s going to succeed in his romantic adventures by the end.

The plot here is hardly the point, however. This story is incredibly, incredibly sweet, yet somehow never fluffy, and the relationships—even the protagonist’s generally unbelievable seduction of a straight man—feel natural and never rushed. Haruna’s American forthrightness is genuinely charming, and it’s easy to see why reserved Nakagawa would be both confounded and fascinated by it. Situations that might normally read as relentless non-con are magically saved by a combination of Nakagawa’s badass demeanor and Haruna’s straightforwardness and unwillingness to make a move without permission. And even the loathed (by me anyway) seme/uke thing is written in a way that feels weirdly natural.

The first volume brings the couple together just as expected, and at this point many writers would have to fabricate unbelievable conflicts just to keep the story going. But Haruna and Nakagawa’s vastly different personalities lend themselves to frequent bumps in the road that actually read as genuine. A favorite section of mine involves an ex-boyfriend of Haruna’s coming to town. This causes some of the conflict you might imagine—serious Nakagawa isn’t happy about the way easygoing Haruna keeps in touch with his exes, which leaves Haruna to figure out how to handle it all without lying to anyone—but Kawai refuses to make these characters into rigid stereotypes, so everything plays out with the kind of real emotional give-and-take you would expect to see in actual life. As a result, what could easily have read as pure melodrama is instead a thoughtful take on the nuances of friendships and romantic relationships, and learning to communicate honestly with one’s partner—only a lot more charming and fun than that sounds!

As a bonus, I also learned a lot about sake, and it really made me want to buy some. Is that a good thing? I’m going to decide that it is.

MICHELLE: I’m so glad that you liked this! I actually haven’t read the other two volumes yet, so you’ve inspired me to check them out.

If you’re interested in more Toko Kawai, I really liked CUT, Café Latte Rhapsody, and In the Walnut. I’m also really intrigued by Just Around the Corner, but I haven’t managed to read it yet.

I guess this amount of gushing means I’m a Toko Kawai fangirl!

MJ: I suspect I will be soon as well!

So, our mutual read comes from VIZ this week. Want to do the introductory honors?

MICHELLE: Sure!

Strobe Edge is a shoujo series from Shueisha—ten volumes total, originally serialized in Betsuma—that covers the well-trod terrain of a high school girl experiencing first love. Ninako Kinoshita is earnest and innocent, and though she joins her friends in admiring school heartthrob Ren Ichinose, she mostly thinks of it as a way to pass the time. When she actually has a chance to talk to Ren, however, and realizes how sweet and awkward he is in his effort to replace a cell phone charm he accidentally stepped on, she begins to feel closer to him. Up to this point, Ninako’s been content to accept the opinions of others as true—a shopkeeper says an apple is delicious, so it must be; my friends tell me what I feel for my friend Daiki is love, so it must be—but now she’s beginning to think for herself. What is it that she’s feeling for Ren?

It would be easy to label this as generic shoujo, and I really can’t claim that it’s forging new territory, but I found the characters to be likable and sympathetic. It’s total comfort-read material, more in the vein of a Kimi ni Todoke than a Black Bird (for which I am profoundly grateful!).

MJ: My experience with this book was fairly mixed, I’ll admit. About twenty pages in or so, I remember thinking (and actually saying out loud to the others in the room), “I’m so bored.” That was my initial reaction to Strobe Edge. “I’m so bored.” Yet, weirdly, even though that impression did not honestly change much over the course of the volume, by the time I reached its romantic cliffhanger ending, I felt extremely anxious to know what happens next.

And I think this may all come down to the likeableness of the story’s characters, as you mention. Despite the fact that I had difficulty getting invested in yet another high school crush, there were some characters I really felt for, and eventually this even included the story’s heroine, Ninako, though I’d had trouble connecting with her in the beginning. In particular, though, I felt immense sympathy for Daiki, who doesn’t have any confusion over what he feels for Ninako, yet is the one most being left out in the cold. And while I generally found Ninako’s endless waffling and naiveté over what “love” is—not that this isn’t a question all humans wrestle with, but man, how does a girl get to be in high school without having been saturated in the concept through books, TV, even advertisements, for heaven’s sake—she at least knows enough to stop stringing Daiki along after figuring it out.

MICHELLE: Yes, I really liked that about her, too. I guess it’s more of the “making up her own mind” progress, wherein she just instinctively knows that going out with Daiki while continuing to like Ren would be completely unfair. Speaking of unfair, I think Ren’s somewhat in the wrong for showing excessive kindness to Ninako while he already had a girlfriend, but he probably liked having the chance to connect with someone instead of remaining merely an object of distant adoration, so it’s hard to fault him, either.

Suffice it to say, I join you in your anxiety to know what happens next. There are a few wrinkles by the end that at least suggest the series will not tread the predictable path, but even if it does do that, I’d probably still enjoy it.

MJ: I suppose I probably will, too! Despite my early ambivalence, I clearly care at this point. Such is the nature of shoujo addiction.

Strobe Edge Volume 1 by Io Sakisaka

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Strobe Edge Volume 1 by Io Sakisaka

I’m always curious when Shojo Beat announces a new title, and from the brief description I’d read of it Strobe Edge sounded appealing. While some of Shojo Beat’s recent offerings (Jiu Jiu and Devil and Her Love Song) have a bit of an edgy take on the genre, Strobe Edge is more of a straightforward high school love story.

Ninako is the heroine of Strobe Edge, and she is almost painfully naive. She blindly believes whatever salespeople tell her, and when she consults with her friends at school she allows their opinions to override her own feelings. She has a perpetually surprised look in the first chapter of the manga. As Ninako deals with her first romance, she begins to grow in awareness. All of Ninako’s friends expect that she’ll be going out with her childhood friend Daiki any day now. Daiki seems like a nice, boy-next door type who constantly finds excuses to check up on Ninako at school, unaware of the torrent of feminine gossip that he’ll unleash as soon as he disappears. Ninako cares for Daiki deeply, but she doesn’t even contemplate having any romantic feelings for Daiki until her friends tell her that she likes him. Ninako’s credulity is a bit hard to take, but Sakisaka manages to portray her personality as so fresh and innocent, I was willing to give it a pass in this first volume.

Ninako’s friend-determined destiny with Daiki is derailed when she keeps noticing the main crush object for all the girls, Ren Ichinose. Ren is cool and detached, so of course he’s the most popular boy in school. Ninako manages to have a conversation with Ren when he accidentally breaks her cellphone charm and then brings her a girly butterfly one as a replacement. She treasures it even though she’s not usually into super-feminine things. Daiki notices Ninako’s heightened interest in Ren and asks her if she’s a big fan of his, and she explains it by saying that she views him as if he was a model in a magazine, not someone she likes. But as Ninako keeps encountering Ren randomly on the subway back from school, she begins to see that he’s actually a very kind person instead of the aloof idol she envisioned. When she has a sprained ankle, he pretends to be asleep and deliberately misses his stop so he can walk her home. This is shoujo manga though, so of course there are plenty of additional complications for Ninako to deal with as she discovers her first love.

Sakisaka’s art is expressive and assured, and while I sometimes got a little tired of Ninako’s surprised face, she does certainly look like a sympathetic shoujo heroine. The character designes for the main and supporting cast are varied, making it easy to distinguish between all the characters. Sakisaka wrote at the begining of the volume that her goal in this manga was to capture “the sensation you feel in the window of time between one event and another,” and I think that Strobe Edge pulls it off. Ninako’s inner thoughts gradually become more self aware, and Sakisaka is very good at portraying the excitement and agony of accidentally sitting close to one’s crush object. One thing that I appreciated in Strobe Edge was that it was relatively angst free in terms of having evil protagonists. Daiki starts acting a bit erratic, but both he and Ren seem like basically good people. Even though Ninako’s friends have been pushing their own ideas of what her first relationship should be, when she makes a decision they are generally supportive. Reading a manga with basically nice characters just seems relaxing and refreshing at this point. Of course this is a 10 volume series, so I’m expecting an evil male model or an evil secret fiance to show up at some point. For now though, I’m going to be checking out this series with the hope that Ninako’s journey to self-awareness continues.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Strobe Edge, Vol. 1

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One of the most maddening aspects of shojo manga is that it can take 100 or 200 pages for a character to realize what she’s feeling, and another 200 or 300 before she actually tells someone; only the British period drama wrings more tension from its characters’ inability to say what they’re thinking. Strobe Edge, the newest addition to VIZ’s Shojo Beat imprint, isn’t quite as drawn out as Parade’s End or The Remains of the Day, but there are enough meaningful glances, lip quivers, and moist eyes for an entire BBC mini-series.

Strobe Edge focuses on Ninako, a classic shojo everygirl: she’s cute but not gorgeous, bright but not brilliant, liked but not popular. Through a twist of fate, Ninako meets and befriends Ren, her school’s Designated Dreamboat. Ninako is initially happy to be Ren’s pal, but soon finds herself consumed with thoughts about  him: should she tell him how she feels and risk alienating him, or silently resign herself to being his friend?

Author Io Sakisaka certainly evokes the mixture of excitement and fear that grips anyone in the throes of a crush, but she’s less successful at expressing those ideas in a distinctive voice; Ninako is so utterly lacking in personality that everything she thinks and says sounds like a lyric from a Selena Gomez song. (“For some reason, my chest kinda aches,” she muses after one encounter with Ren.) That same blandly polished quality extends to the artwork. Though Sakisaka exercises restraint in her layouts, giving Ninako room to breathe and reflect, her character designs are too ordinary to make much of an impression; I swear I’ve seen this cover before.

Perhaps that’s the point — Sakisaka has created a story and heroine so generic that almost any young teenager could see parallels between her own life and Ninako’s. While that kind of reading experience can be enormously comforting at twelve or thirteen, it’s awfully dull for older readers who need a little more than thousand-mile stares and cryptic conversations to hold our attention; a little subtext or, frankly, context, would make all that angstful withholding more dramatically compelling.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media. Volume one will arrive in stores on November 6, 2012.

STROBE EDGE, VOL. 1 • BY IO SAKISAKA • VIZ MEDIA • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Strobe Edge, Vol. 1

by

One of the most maddening aspects of shojo manga is that it can take 100 or 200 pages for a character to realize what she’s feeling, and another 200 or 300 before she actually tells someone; only the British period drama wrings more tension from its characters’ inability to say what they’re thinking. Strobe Edge, the newest addition to VIZ’s Shojo Beat imprint, isn’t quite as drawn out as Parade’s End or The Remains of the Day, but there are enough meaningful glances, lip quivers, and moist eyes for an entire BBC mini-series.

Strobe Edge focuses on Ninako, a classic shojo everygirl: she’s cute but not gorgeous, bright but not brilliant, liked but not popular. Through a twist of fate, Ninako meets and befriends Ren, her school’s Designated Dreamboat. Ninako is initially happy to be Ren’s pal, but soon finds herself consumed with thoughts about  him: should she tell him how she feels and risk alienating him, or silently resign herself to being his friend?

Author Io Sakisaka certainly evokes the mixture of excitement and fear that grips anyone in the throes of a crush, but she’s less successful at expressing those ideas in a distinctive voice; Ninako is so utterly lacking in personality that everything she thinks and says sounds like a lyric from a Selena Gomez song. (“For some reason, my chest kinda aches,” she muses after one encounter with Ren.) That same blandly polished quality extends to the artwork. Though Sakisaka exercises restraint in her layouts, giving Ninako room to breathe and reflect, her character designs are too ordinary to make much of an impression; I swear I’ve seen this cover before.

Perhaps that’s the point — Sakisaka has created a story and heroine so generic that almost any young teenager could see parallels between her own life and Ninako’s. While that kind of reading experience can be enormously comforting at twelve or thirteen, it’s awfully dull for older readers who need a little more than thousand-mile stares and cryptic conversations to hold our attention; a little subtext or, frankly, context, would make all that angstful withholding more dramatically compelling.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media. Volume one will arrive in stores on November 6, 2012.

STROBE EDGE, VOL. 1 • BY IO SAKISAKA • VIZ MEDIA • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)