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Archives for July 2009

The Manga Guide to Physics

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The Manga Guide to Physics
By Hideo Nitta & Keita Takatsu
Published by No Starch Press

mg_physics_big
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Megumi is a fine high school athlete, but her failure in physics is distracting her on the tennis court. After losing a match to arch-rival Sayaka, Megumi gloomily hangs around the court retrieving stray tennis balls, until she is accidently struck in the head with a ball thrown by Ryota Nonmura, the school’s physics star, as he clumsily attempts to help her clean up. After ranting about her loss in the game, Megumi is struck with inspiration and asks Ryota to tutor her in physics. Thanks to his guilt over hitting her in the head, Ryota reluctantly agrees and the physics lessons begin. Revolving around Newton’s three laws of motion, Ryoto’s lessons are able to not only help Megumi with her study of physics, but also with her tennis game!

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Be Buried in the Rain by Barbara Michaels: B-

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From the back cover:
There are secrets buried at Maidenwood—dark secrets that span generations. Medical student Julie Newcomb, who once spent four miserable childhood years at this rundown Virginia plantation, would rather not resurrect ancient memories, or face her own fears.

Yet Julie cannot refuse her relatives’ plea that she spend her summer caring for the bedridden—but still malevolent—family matriarch. Reluctantly, Julie agrees, praying that life at Maidenwood will not be as bleak as before. From the first, though, Julie finds Maidenwood a haunted place, not merely echoing with grim reminders, but filled with dark secrets that will become part of her life even today.

Review:
Med student Julie isn’t thrilled when she’s asked to spend her summer caring for the cruel grandmother with whom she spent four dismal years—years that are strangely blank in her memory. She complies to spare her mother the thankless task, and ends up in the middle of a local mystery. Shortly before her arrival, the skeletons of a woman and infant were found on a road cutting through the family property, known as Maidenwood, and Julie and her family are besieged by reporters, archaeologists, and psychic anthropologists who are interested in the story.

Although I enjoyed reading Be Buried in the Rain, there are several things about the way that it’s written that puzzle me. For example, nothing really happens for about 80% of the book. It registers about a two on the suspense-o-meter. Oh, little things occur that do turn out to be important later, but mostly it’s Julie coping with her hateful grandmother, complaining (rather bitchily) about a co-helper’s cooking, caring for a stray dog, and bantering with and/or eventually rekindling a romance with her ex-boyfriend, an archaeologist who’s been given permission to dig at Maidenwood in an attempt to locate the burial site from which the skeletons were presumably exhumed. Things finally start to move near the end after Julie begins work on reconstructing the face of the adult skeleton based on the skull—apparently someone doesn’t want an identification to be made.

The ending leaves rather a lot to be desired, though. One question is not answered particularly well—how the kooky psychic manages to unearth a genuine archaeological find—and a couple of others not at all, including how the skeletons wound up in the middle of the road. Although the book is grounded in reality throughout, at the very end, Michaels throws in a random dollop of supernatural hijinks, with Julie believing she’s been in communion with the dead woman’s spirit and putting forth the theory that each year, the skeletons pop up again and have to be reburied by the party responsible for their deaths. I’d more easily buy this explanation if there were any notion of supernatural doings anywhere other than the final ten pages or so of the novel.

Still, though I have my complaints I still found Be Buried in the Rain to be reasonably entertaining and expect that I shall read more by Barbara Michaels in future.

Her Majesty’s Dog, Volume 2

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Her Majesty’s Dog, Vol. 2
By Mick Takeuchi
Published by Go!Comi

hmd21
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This volume begins by revealing that Takako’s memory wipe (intended to make her forget Amane and Hyoue’s true identities) really did not take, leaving Amane in the position of having to decide whether to try again, something she really does not want to do. The decision made here reflects their growing friendship and starts the volume off in a very touching manner that persists for much of the volume. The main story here revolves around another Koma-oni, Zakuro, who once served the same master as Hyoue. Driven by hurt and jealousy, Zakuro tries to steal Amane away for himself, but again the conclusion to this story is surprisingly moving and reinforces the relationships between the series’ primary characters.

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On Bended Knee

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On Bended Knee
By Ruri Fujikawa
Published by 801 Media
Rated 18+

onbended
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Hibiki and Wu Xiong are childhood friends, now grown up and settled into the roles planned for them by their parents: Wu Xiong as the next heir to his family’s corporate empire and Hibiki as his bodyguard. Each has harbored secret love for the other over their many years together–something that neither is willing to own up to until a brush with death forces them both to face the truth. “On Bended Knee” is the first of several short stories in this collection by Ruri Fujikawa, establishing the volume’s dominant theme, “learning to accept one’s true feelings.” The other stories feature two doctors who secretly love each other (“Slight Fever”), a university student and teacher who secretly love each other (“I Won’t Lose to the Sun!”), a model and his manager who secretly love each other (“Cinderella’s Lure”), and so on.

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Moon Child, Volume 2

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Moon Child, Vol. 2
By Reiko Shimizu
Published by CMX

moonchild2
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This volume starts out somewhat joyously for Jimmy. Though his powers freak him out and he keeps running into monsters that Art can’t see, somehow all the weirdness is making things go his way. A traffic jam caused by a giant apparition causes Art to arrive too late to an audition but the situation (aided by invisible fish only Jimmy can see) ends up bringing him directly into the path of a producer who is dying to audition him for a new Broadway show. Thrilled by the news, Art and Jimmy rush off to celebrate, only to be intercepted by Art’s ex-girlfriend, Holly, who unsubtly tells Jimmy that he is in Art’s way. (“Don’t you see?” she says, bowing her head in false concern. “You’re just holding him back.”) After this, things turn ugly for Jimmy. Left alone for the night, he falls asleep in the moonlight which causes him to transform into Benjamin, the beautiful half-human, half-mermaid daughter of Siera, the original “Little Mermaid.”

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Swallowing the Earth

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Nineteen sixty-eight was a critical year in Osamu Tezuka’s artistic development. Best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor Leo, and Princess Knight, the public viewed Tezuka primarily as a children’s author. That assessment of Tezuka wasn’t entirely warranted; he had, in fact, made several forays into serious literature with adaptations of Manon Lescaut (1947), Faust (1950), and Crime and Punishment (1953). None of these works had made a lasting impression, however, so in 1968, as gekiga was gaining more traction with adult readers, Tezuka adopted a different tact, writing a dark, erotic story for Big Comic magazine: Swallowing the Earth.

Like MW (1976-78), which was also serialized in Big Comic, Swallowing the Earth is an overripe, overstuffed period piece that’s both entertaining and frustrating for modern readers. The basic plot is simple: seven beautiful young women seek to avenge the untimely death of their mother by wrecking havoc on the political, social, and economic systems that robbed Zephryus of her money and her home. The only thing standing in their way is Gohonmatsu, a perpetually drunken longshoreman who’s immune to their charms.

Tezuka’s presentation of the story, however, is anything but straightforward, as he employs flashbacks, subplots, and red herrings galore to sustain the reader’s interest. Some of these gambits are so ridiculous and nervy they work. Zephyrus’ daughters, for example, team up with a female scientist to produce Dermoid Z, a synthetic skin that can completely transform a person’s appearance. From a manga-ka’s standpoint, Dermoid Z is a brilliant device, as it allows him to plausibly conceal his characters’ identities from the reader and the other actors in the drama, giving him latitude to do just about anything.

Other gambits flat fall, as they rely on outdated notions of gender and race for their dramatic impact. When Dermoid Z arrives in the United States, for example, African-Americans begin buying white “skins” in vast quantities, donning them to commit crimes, enjoy privileges that had been denied them, and exact retribution on their oppressors. White retaliation is swift and brutal, plunging American cities into a race war that destroys the very fabric of society. Lacking a deep understanding of American history, or the underlying causes of the 1968 riots that erupted after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Tezuka’s subplot feels like a crude attempt to be topical. He’s grasped the basic injustice of segregation, yet he never humanizes his black characters; they remain a violent, faceless mob throughout this unfortunate episode.

Tezuka’s treatment of women is likewise muddled. He clearly recognizes that men have treated women as property throughout human history, a point he illustrates both through Zephryus’ story (which unfolds in Nazi-occupied France) and through an interlude in the South Seas, where a tribal chief barters with Gohonmatsu for a downed airplane, offering his two daughters in exchange for the machine. Yet Tezuka’s own notions of female sexuality frequently undermine his critique of male privilege. He depicts Gohonmatsu’s South Seas brides as sexual grotesques, with bodies as roundly deformed as the Venus of Willendorf’s and libidos that verge on nymphomania. Women from the developed world don’t fare much better, as Tezuka neatly divides them into two camps: man-hating hysterics (e.g. Zephyrus’ daughters) and tormented victims (e.g. a beautiful aphasiac who lost her ability to speak after she was raped).

However dated Swallowing the Earth‘s racial and sexual politics may be, it’s hard to deny the sheer exuberance of Tezuka’s artwork. His imagination yields some stunning — and stunningly weird — images. Zephyrus’ palace, in particular, is a marvelous creation, an Art Deco ziggeraut filled with enormous cat statues that look like they were swiped from Cleopatra’s tomb. Tezuka frequently experiments with the layout, varying the shape of the panels to suit the pace and intensity of the action, or to suggest the simultaneity of two events. One of the best examples occurs early in the story, when Gohonmatsu duels a handsome Spanish count on the deck of a tugboat:

fightscene

Tezuka uses diagonal panels to mimic the rocking motion of a ship anchored in choppy water. The shape of the panels also demonstrate just how difficult it is for both characters to find their footing on the slippery deck — a small but tricky detail that isn’t easy to capture in a static image.

In an excellent companion essay to the English-language edition, manga scholar Frederick Schodt acknowledges Swallowing the Earth‘s myriad flaws — its surfeit of plotlines, its racial caricatures — while celebrating the almost anarchic way in which the story unfolds. He encourages readers to enjoy Earth as a “wild ride” and a window into a critical period in Tezuka’s development, showing us “how he began to make the transition from a children’s artist to someone who could push the manga medium in every genre, even for adult readers.” It’s in this spirit that I recommend Swallowing the Earth, as testament to Tezuka’s fertile imagination, and his ability to grow as an artist and a storyteller.

SWALLOWING THE EARTH • BY OSAMU TEZUKA • DMP • 516 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Swallowing the Earth

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swallowingearthcoverNineteen sixty-eight was a critical year in Osamu Tezuka’s artistic development. Best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor Leo, and Princess Knight, the public viewed Tezuka primarily as a children’s author. That assessment of Tezuka wasn’t entirely warranted; he had, in fact, made several forays into serious literature with adaptations of Manon Lescaut (1947), Faust (1950), and Crime and Punishment (1953). None of these works had made a lasting impression, however, so in 1968, as gekiga was gaining more traction with adult readers, Tezuka adopted a different tact, writing a dark, erotic story for Big Comic magazine: Swallowing the Earth.

Like MW (1976-78), which was also serialized in Big Comic, Swallowing the Earth is an overripe, overstuffed period piece that’s both entertaining and frustrating for modern readers. The basic plot is simple: seven beautiful young women seek to avenge the untimely death of their mother by wrecking havoc on the political, social, and economic systems that robbed Zephryus of her money and her home. The only thing standing in their way is Gohonmatsu, a perpetually drunken longshoreman who’s immune to their charms.

Tezuka’s presentation of the story, however, is anything but straightforward, as he employs flashbacks, subplots, and red herrings galore to sustain the reader’s interest. Some of these gambits are so ridiculous and nervy they work. Zephyrus’ daughters, for example, team up with a female scientist to produce Dermoid Z, a synthetic skin that can completely transform a person’s appearance. From a manga-ka’s standpoint, Dermoid Z is a brilliant device, as it allows him to plausibly conceal his characters’ identities from the reader and the other actors in the drama, giving him latitude to do just about anything.

Other gambits flat fall, as they rely on outdated notions of gender and race for their dramatic impact. When Dermoid Z arrives in the United States, for example, African-Americans begin buying white “skins” in vast quantities, donning them to commit crimes, enjoy privileges that had been denied them, and exact retribution on their oppressors. White retaliation is swift and brutal, plunging American cities into a race war that destroys the very fabric of society. Lacking a deep understanding of American history, or the underlying causes of the 1968 riots that erupted after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Tezuka’s subplot feels like a crude attempt to be topical. He’s grasped the basic injustice of segregation, yet he never humanizes his black characters; they remain a violent, faceless mob throughout this unfortunate episode.

Tezuka’s treatment of women is likewise muddled. He clearly recognizes that men have treated women as property throughout human history, a point he illustrates both through Zephryus’ story (which unfolds in Nazi-occupied France) and through an interlude in the South Seas, where a tribal chief barters with Gohonmatsu for a downed airplane, offering his two daughters in exchange for the machine. Yet Tezuka’s own notions of female sexuality frequently undermine his critique of male privilege. He depicts Gohonmatsu’s South Seas brides as sexual grotesques, with bodies as roundly deformed as the Venus of Willendorf’s and libidos that verge on nymphomania. Women from the developed world don’t fare much better, as Tezuka neatly divides them into two camps: man-hating hysterics (e.g. Zephyrus’ daughters) and tormented victims (e.g. a beautiful aphasiac who lost her ability to speak after she was raped).

However dated Swallowing the Earth‘s racial and sexual politics may be, it’s hard to deny the sheer exuberance of Tezuka’s artwork. His imagination yields some stunning — and stunningly weird — images. Zephyrus’ palace, in particular, is a marvelous creation, an Art Deco ziggeraut filled with enormous cat statues that look like they were swiped from Cleopatra’s tomb. Tezuka frequently experiments with the layout, varying the shape of the panels to suit the pace and intensity of the action, or to suggest the simultaneity of two events. One of the best examples occurs early in the story, when Gohonmatsu duels a handsome Spanish count on the deck of a tugboat:

fightscene

Tezuka uses diagonal panels to mimic the rocking motion of a ship anchored in choppy water. The shape of the panels also demonstrate just how difficult it is for both characters to find their footing on the slippery deck — a small but tricky detail that isn’t easy to capture in a static image.

In an excellent companion essay to the English-language edition, manga scholar Frederick Schodt acknowledges Swallowing the Earth‘s myriad flaws — its surfeit of plotlines, its racial caricatures — while celebrating the almost anarchic way in which the story unfolds. He encourages readers to enjoy Earth as a “wild ride” and a window into a critical period in Tezuka’s development, showing us “how he began to make the transition from a children’s artist to someone who could push the manga medium in every genre, even for adult readers.” It’s in this spirit that I recommend Swallowing the Earth, as testament to Tezuka’s fertile imagination, and his ability to grow as an artist and a storyteller.

SWALLOWING THE EARTH • BY OSAMU TEZUKA • DMP • 516 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, Volume 1

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Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, Vol. 1
By Karuho Shiina
Published by Viz Media

kiminitodoke
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Sawako Kuronuma is a quiet, socially awkward girl with an unfortunate physical resemblance to “Sadako” from Ringu–enough so that her classmates call her by that name, either out of cruelty or (in many cases), ignorance. Though rumors persist that she sees ghosts, summons spirits, and places curses on those who are foolish enough to look her in the eye for more than three seconds, Sawako is actually an earnest, exceptionally kind girl who always volunteers to do the work nobody else wants to do and whose most heartfelt dreams involve helping her classmates understand their schoolwork. The only student in school who shows Sawako kindness is, inexplicably (to her), a popular boy named Kazehaya. He smiles at her and calls her by her real name–treating her no differently than anyone else, something for which Sawako is consistently grateful. What Sawako doesn’t realize is that to Kazehaya she is much different from everyone else, in a way she is honestly unable to fathom.

…

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Boys Over Flowers 26 by Yoko Kamio: B+

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boysoverflowers26From the back cover:
Tsukushi struggles to understand her feelings for Tsukasa, her on-and-off boyfriend, and he struggles to not destroy Tokyo. Will the man who came between them step aside? The meddlesome F4 try their hand at forcing Tsukushi and Tsukasa together. All the while Tsukasa’s mother’s spies are hot on their trail!

Review:
If I were to give a one-word reaction to the events of this volume, that word would be “hooray!” Tsukasa intercepts Tsukushi at a bus stop with Amon and makes another attempt at convincing her to be with him, saying, “I don’t want anyone but you. It has to be you.” While moved by his plea, Tsukushi remembers what will happen to her friends’ families if Tsukasa’s mother finds out they’re dating, and so she gets on the bus. Moments later, there’s a terrific scene where she comes running back and, honestly, I have goosebumps just typing about it!

While the fangirl in me would’ve loved a big epic declaration of mutual feeling, that would be completely out of character for these two headstrong people. Instead, awkward tension ensues. Tsukushi is unable to express herself adequately and Tsukasa worries that he has misunderstood yet again. What’s different now is that Tsukushi realizes they’re on the verge of falling into their same old pattern and actually comes out and tells Tsukasa that she wants to be with him. The catch is that she wants their relationship to remain a secret. Amon has bought them some time by telling Kaede’s minions that he and Tsukushi are dating, but the problem of her threats has yet to be resolved.

It’s truly great seeing these two together, and even small things like hugs are so hard-won that they are elevated into monumental moments. Even though they still have to face Kaede—a looming obstacle that has Tsukushi thinking that their happiness is “like standing over water, on a layer of thin ice”—at least they’ll (presumably) be doing so together and seem to understand each other at last.

This volume also picks up the friendship between Sojiro and Yuki, spawned a few volumes back when he helped her get revenge on the boyfriend that betrayed her. I really like how Kamio is handling this subplot. I’ve read a few other series where the heroine’s friends get some attention (Kare Kano and Love*Com come to mind) but only in Boys Over Flowers does it feel like a well-integrated part of the main storyline. In fact, I am downright happy to let Tsukasa and Tsukushi remain united for a while and shift the focus to fleshing out some of the supporting characters. I’d also like to see some kind of resolution to Rui’s relationship with Shizuka, who at least gets a mention here after being off the radar for quite some time.

Lastly, I must spare a paragraph to compliment the cover to this volume. While Tsukushi’s face looks a little frenzied, I love Tsukasa’s expression and the colors are gorgeous.

Boys Over Flowers 25 by Yoko Kamio: B

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boysoverflowers25From the back cover:
Tsukushi has an on-and-off romantic entanglement with a hothead named Tsukasa. Tsukasa has a sketchy relationship with his even more hotheaded mother, named Kaede. Kaede has hired a near sociopath to woo Tsukushi and destroy her son’s relationship with Tsukushi once and for all. Will Tsukushi fall for this?!

Review:
The fake “cousin” hired by Kaede, whose real name is Amon, is not my favorite character, but calling him a sociopath is pretty extreme. It turns out that, one his guise is dropped, he’s actually not a bad guy. Although he has a cynical outlook on love, and advises Tsukushi on several times not to go through suffering on Tsukasa’s account because their love can only last a maximum of a few years, he is still better able to understand her than most others and offers her a different kind of relationship, free from drama but also free from love.

While this whole idea of Tsukushi dating Amon seems mostly an attempt to postpone the inevitable moment when she and Tsukasa finally, irrevocably get together, it does still offer some worthwhile moments. Tsukasa has grown to see Shigeru as a friend, and has a couple of nice conversations with her, including one in which they finally seem to realize that their hyper-wealthy lives are not normal. Also, though he initially feels like there’s nothing he can do about Tsukushi dating Amon, he somehow (exactly how isn’t clear) resolves that he’s going to make Tsukushi his.

And, okay, yes, this is kind of an antiquated idea, but somehow I love Tsukasa for this unwavering devotion. If both of the lead characters were floundering and uncertain, this series would be a mess. With the looming threat to her friends’ families if she gets near Tsukasa, Tsukushi certainly isn’t going to make the first move, so it’s up to him to help this story go somewhere satisfying. Even though I’m well aware that he’s a fictional character, I still want to cheer him on.

News: CSBG NANA Project Debuts!

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First, a quick link to a review of mine in yesterday’s Manga Minis, for volume six of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom from Viz Media.

Today’s real news, however, is the debut of the Comics Should Be Good NANA Project! Inspired by an unexpectedly passionate exchange in the comments of one of Danielle’s recent reviews, CSBG’s Danielle Leigh, Michelle Smith, and I have started a monthly roundtable in which we will discuss the manga in-depth. We’ll tackle two volumes a month with Danielle at the helm (no spoilers for future volumes!) and if this first installment is anything to go by, it is guaranteed to be fantastic fun, at least for us. :) Please come on over and join us in comments!

If you are not yet one of the converted, check out my post, Why You Should Read NANA for additional information on the series.

Bamboo Blade, Vol. 1

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Dangerous Minds, Dead Poets Society, Stand and Deliver, and To Sir, With Love all depict teachers who are heroic in their self-sacrifice, renouncing money, family ties, and even their reputations in order to inspire students. Kojiro Ishido, the anti-hero of Bamboo Blade, won’t be mistaken for any of these noble educators. He’s bankrupt, morally and financially, and so eager to dig himself out of debt that he’d exploit his students in a heartbeat.

Kojiro’s troubles begin when he enters a bet with his old friend and sparring partner Toryah, an accomplished martial artist. If Kojiro can lead his school’s kendo club to victory over Toryah’s, Toryah will provide him with a year’s worth of free sushi from a top-notch restaurant. If Kojiro fails, he must surrender a personal treasure: the trophy he won for defeating Toryah at the 26th annual Shoryuki High School Kendo Meet. Making Kojiro’s job more challenging is the fact that Toryah coaches an all-girls’ squad; Kojiro’s co-ed team has but one female member, so he must recruit at least four more girls in order to scrimmage with Toryah’s crew. The few students who aren’t scared off by Kojiro’s acute desperation include Kirino, the club’s captain; Eiga, a plump boy who’d rather play ping pong; Nakata, Eiga’s best friend; Miya-Miya, a beautiful ditz; and Tamaki, an experienced swordswoman who initially rebuffs Kojiro’s entreaties to join the club.

Whether or not they’ll come together to form a proper team remains to be seen, but readers will be forgiven for bailing out before that point in the story, as Bamboo Blade quickly sinks under the weight of stale jokes and one-note characters. Kojiro, in particular, is a repellent creation: he’s mean, loud, and dumb, utterly lacking in the self-awareness or humility that would make him a sympathetic figure. A skillful writer might have found a way to make Kojiro’s nastiness funny — say, by making him more sardonic, or by drawing a sharper contrast between his pessimism and Kirino’s relentless optimism. Instead, Kojiro comes across as a crashing bore, a bully who’s incapable of speaking at conversational decibel levels or thinking of anything but his growling stomach. (He subsists on instant noodles and student handouts.)

The swordplay isn’t much better. Artist Aguri Igarashi’s fight scenes are impressionistic at best, employing speedlines to such a degree that it’s almost impossible to tell what’s happening in many panels; if anything, these scenes look like a forgotten Giacomo Balla painting: Kendo Fighters No. 1. I wished Igarashi had been more meticulous in showing how, exactly, a fight unfolds, from where the opponents strike one another to how they move across the floor, as there’s very little information about kendo anywhere in the story or the translation notes.

Given how exciting it is to watch a real kendo match, I’m convinced there’s a great story lurking deep within Bamboo Blade; I’m just not sure that Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi are the right folks for the job. Sports junkies and fans of the Bamboo Blade anime may find something to like here, but rookies should avoid this team of losers.

BAMBOO BLADE, VOL. 1 • STORY BY MASAHIRO TOTSUKA, ART BY AGURI IGARASHI • YEN PRESS • 228 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Bamboo Blade, Vol. 1

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bamboo_coverDangerous Minds, Dead Poets Society, Stand and Deliver, and To Sir, With Love all depict teachers who are heroic in their self-sacrifice, renouncing money, family ties, and even their reputations in order to inspire students. Kojiro Ishido, the anti-hero of Bamboo Blade, won’t be mistaken for any of these noble educators. He’s bankrupt, morally and financially, and so eager to dig himself out of debt that he’d exploit his students in a heartbeat.

Kojiro’s troubles begin when he enters a bet with his old friend and sparring partner Toryah, an accomplished martial artist. If Kojiro can lead his school’s kendo club to victory over Toryah’s, Toryah will provide him with a year’s worth of free sushi from a top-notch restaurant. If Kojiro fails, he must surrender a personal treasure: the trophy he won for defeating Toryah at the 26th annual Shoryuki High School Kendo Meet. Making Kojiro’s job more challenging is the fact that Toryah coaches an all-girls’ squad; Kojiro’s co-ed team has but one female member, so he must recruit at least four more girls in order to scrimmage with Toryah’s crew. The few students who aren’t scared off by Kojiro’s acute desperation include Kirino, the club’s captain; Eiga, a plump boy who’d rather play ping pong; Nakata, Eiga’s best friend; Miya-Miya, a beautiful ditz; and Tamaki, an experienced swordswoman who initially rebuffs Kojiro’s entreaties to join the club.

…

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The Sharing Knife: Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold: B+

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From the front flap:
Young Fawn Bluefield and soldier-sorcerer Dag Redwing Hickory have survived magical dangers and found, in each other, love and loyalty. But even their strength and passion cannot overcome the bigotry of their own kin, and so, leaving behind all they have known, the couple sets off to find fresh solutions to the perilous split between their peoples.

But they will not journey alone, as they acquire comrades along the way. As the ill-assorted crew is tested and tempered on its journey to where great rivers join, Fawn and Dag will discover surprising new abilities both Lakewalker and farmer, a growing understanding of the bonds between themselves and their kinfolk, and a new world of hazards both human and uncanny.

Review:
After one book taking place primarily in the farmer world and another that focuses on Lakewalker life, Passage, the third book in The Sharing Knife series, finds Dag and Fawn working to bring those two worlds closer together. Having witnessed the loss of life caused by farmers’ ignorance of the warning signs of a forming Malice, and not willing to stay at a camp at which the validity of his marriage is questioned, Dag gives up his patroller life and decides to become an ambassador of sorts, explaining some of the most fundamental Lakewalker secrets to what farmers as will listen.

After a brief stay with Fawn’s family, Dag and Fawn (along with her brother, Whit) hit the road, visiting a few towns and eventually booking passage on the Fetch, a flatboat headed downriver to the sea. From there, they encounter a variety of (mostly) likable characters, like Berry (boss of the Fetch), Remo and Barr (a pair of disgraced young patrollers), and a bevy of other boatmen. Dag performs several impressive feats of healing, works out some finer details of groundwork, ponders some troubling questions, and makes a lot of rather repetitive speeches. The action picks up a little when Berry’s search for her missing father, brother, and fiancé yields some unexpected results, and Dag is ultimately forced to question whether farmers and Lakewalkers aren’t better off living separate lives after all.

Although parts of Passage are quite slow—like the speeches and the many discussions on the ethics of Dag’s developing abilities—it’s still my favorite of the series thus far, a factor I attribute mostly to the influx of new people. Suddenly, a series that has been almost exclusively about two characters has developed an ensemble cast, and I find it to be a big improvement. My favorite of the new characters is actually not so new—Fawn’s brother Whit has been around before, but really becomes a new person due to the things he sees and experiences on this journey.

Whit’s growth also serves a handy example for one of my favorite things about the series: women’s roles. Bujold manages to show women in positions of power—boat captains, patrol leaders—about as often as women living more domestic lives without making a judgment about which has more value. Whit, having grown up on a farm, is used to men being in charge, and early on accuses Fawn of being “just a girl.” Dag expertly turns this around to talk about all of the brave and valiant things his first wife, Kauneo, accomplished when she was “just a girl.” After witnessing Fawn’s practical cleverness on several occasions, and having his notions of gender roles challenged by Berry, with whom he falls in love, Whit comes to value Fawn’s input in a way that the rest of her family does not.

Despite enjoying Passage quite a bit, I find I have some trepidations about Horizon, the fourth and final volume in the series. I do like Dag and Fawn, but they weren’t the main attraction for me this time. I hope Berry, Whit, Remo, and Barr have significant roles in Horizon else I shall be disappointed.

Additional reviews of The Sharing Knife: Passage can be found at Triple Take.

Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom, Vol. 6

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By Kazunari Kakei
Viz, 195 pp
Rating: T + (Older Teens)

This volume takes a dramatic turn as Nora and Kazuma are given a window into the past where they learn the truth about themselves, their destined roles, and the history of Fall, leader of the Resistance. Not that either of them are given much time to process this new information as immediately upon their return to the present, Resistance forces invade headquarters, covering the entire area in a force field and trapping the Dark Liege inside to face Fall alone. As the Dark Liege’s army fights their way through the barrier in order to save her (and maintain balance in the demon and human worlds), Nora also learns an important lesson about the value of friendship, though it comes at a terrible cost.

With Nora’s discovery of his true purpose and the real nature of his bond with Kazuma, this series takes a much-needed foray into darkness, providing exactly the kind of compelling, painful drama it has lacked up to this point. Though the series’ art is still unremarkable, the characterization has grown immensely in just a single volume. Though the primary villain, Fall, remains flat and uninspiring, both Nora and Kazuma have benefited measurably thanks to their greatly heightened stakes. Whether this new depth can be maintained remains to be seen, but it is a big step in the right direction.

Packed with new revelations and emotional drama, this volume may finally earn Nora its place in Viz’s Shonen Jump Advanced line.

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