Archives for April 2010

Crown of Love, Vol. 2

April 28, 2010 by MJ 2 Comments

Crown of Love, Vol. 2
By Yun Kouga
Published by Viz Media
Rated T+ (Older Teen)

With Hisayoshi’s help, Rima crams for the Hakuo High entrance exam. Terrified of losing the opportunity to spend time with her, Hisayoshi attempts to suppress his true intentions but is thrown off-guard by unwelcome attention from another idol with whom he’s been cast in a commercial. With the spotlight narrowing decidedly on Hisayoshi, can Rima ever see him as anything but a hated rival?

This series’ hero, Hisayoshi, continues to be both intensely creepy and surprisingly relatable. It’s a combination guaranteed to make most readers uncomfortable, but it’s also one of the series’ greatest strengths. Watching Hisayoshi perilously straddle the line between crushing teenager and bona fide stalker quickly becomes a rather terrifying series of “There, but for the grace of God,” moments for anyone who has experienced unrequited love (in other words, roughly everyone). His inner thoughts echo the kind of late-night self-confessions that rarely see the light of day, tucked firmly away in those dark, hidden corners where shame and denial conveniently coexist.

Meanwhile, Rima remains full of contradiction. Certain at every moment that the entertainment world is poised to chew her up and spit her out, she feels threatened by everyone. She is also desperate for approval, even from those she fears most. Her own obsessive crush reads closer to poignant than creepy, but even there she’s filled with resentment more than anything else.

Kouga’s art really shines in this series, putting her knack for pretty faces to great use, while maintaining a subversive undertone. With the unevenness of the series’ first volume behind her, Kouga continues on with a lot of clean paneling, breaking into more free-form shojo-stylings only in the story’s most dramatic moments.

It’s truly a pleasure to see a new shojo series making good on the promises of its first volume. For teenage romance with a dark, cynical bite, check out Crown of Love.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Kobato, Vol. 1

April 26, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

Kobato Hanato has a job to do: if she can fill a magic bottle with the pain and suffering of people whose lives she’s improved, she’ll have her dearest wish come true. There’s just one problem: Kobato is completely mystified by urban life, and has no idea how to identify folks in need of her help. Lucky for her, Ioryogi, a blue dog with a foul mouth and fierce temper, has been appointed her sensei and guardian angel, tasked with helping Kobato develop the the street smarts necessary for completing her mission.

It’s perfectly possible to read Kobato as a story about a sweet, clueless girl who teams up with a gruff but lovable animal to collect wounded hearts. That book is beautifully drawn, but isn’t terribly interesting; most of the stories follow the same template so, well, doggedly, that even the most committed fan of cute would find Kobato too repetitive to be much fun. A more productive way to understand Kobato is as a moe parody, a gleeful skewering of an entire genre in which the cute, underage heroine’s primary role is to endear herself to readers with her mixture of enthusiasm, naivete, and sensitivity.

Exhibit A in the case for moe parody: CLAMP has provided Kobato with a name and a mission, but no history that would explain her bizarre behavior. (Is she an amnesiac? An alien? A simpleton?) Nor does CLAMP reveal Kobato’s deeper motivation for collecting wounded souls. “There’s a place I want to go!” she cheerfully tells Ioryogi without elaborating on the why and where. Exhibit B: Kobato’s behavior seldom endears her to anyone. When Ioryogi instructs her to “do the things that are appropriate for Christmas,” for example, Kobato casually asks a stranger to spend the night with her in a hotel, to the consternation of his girlfriend, while an old man interprets her request to “heal his heart” as a solicitation for sex. Exhibit C: Ioryogi has a sadistic streak that far outstrips the basic demands of the plot. Though his comments are shockingly abrasive at first, it doesn’t take long for the reader to realize that Ioryogi’s assessment of Kobato is spot-on; in effect, he gives the audience permission to dislike Kobato, despite her sweet face and Holly Hobbie outfit.

CLAMP has performed this sleight of hand before with Chobits, another series that can be read as a straightforward genre exercise or a parody. In the case of Chobits, CLAMP starts from the basic nebbishy-guy-meets-magical-girl premise, adding some perverse ruffles and flourishes that call attention to the genre’s more unsavory aspects. (Chi, the magical girl/robot/love interest, behaves like a horny frat guy’s idea of the perfect girlfriend, eschewing underwear, hanging on her owner’s every word, and buying him porn magazines as a gift.) The complexity of the story and the size of the cast eventually overwhelm the satire, however, making it hard for the reader to know how, exactly, she’s supposed to react to Chi and Hideki’s relationship. In Kobato, on the other hand, CLAMP strips things down to the bare essentials, putting the focus squarely on the darkly comic hijinks.

Lest I make Kobato sound unbearably mean-spirited, the manga equivalent of kicking a puppy, let me assure you that it’s actually good fun. Ioryogi, the unquestionable star of the series, is a hoot; CLAMP wrings considerable laughs from the cognitive dissonance between his cute, doll-like appearance and his destructive rages, martial arts moves, and unsavory habits. (Like Mokona Modoki, Ioryogi is always jonesing after beer or sake.) Long-time CLAMP fans will enjoy the cameos sprinkled throughout the book, as characters from Chobits, Suki, and xxxHolic cross paths with Kobato in subtle, unexpected ways — think Where’s Waldo for the Card Captor Sakura crowd. (Bonus points if you can identify the characters without consulting the translation notes.) As one might expect, the artwork is clean and elegant, filled with beautiful costumes, lovely title pages, and crisply executed action sequences in the manner of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles.

A quick glance at the Wikipedia entry suggests that future volumes of Kobato may cant more towards romance than satire. So long as Ioryogi is along for the ride, however, I’m confident that Kobato will remain edgy enough for readers, like me, who have a limited tolerance for insipid heroines. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volumes one and two of Kobato will be released simultaneously on May 18, 2010.

KOBATO, VOL. 1 • CLAMP • YEN PRESS • 160 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Kobato, Vol. 1

April 26, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

kobato1 Kobato Hanato has a job to do: if she can fill a magic bottle with the pain and suffering of people whose lives she’s improved, she’ll have her dearest wish come true. There’s just one problem: Kobato is completely mystified by urban life, and has no idea how to identify folks in need of her help. Lucky for her, Ioryogi, a blue dog with a foul mouth and fierce temper, has been appointed her sensei and guardian angel, tasked with helping Kobato develop the the street smarts necessary for completing her mission.

…

Manhwa Monday: March in October

April 26, 2010 by MJ 3 Comments

Welcome to another Manhwa Monday!

The big news this week comes by way of ANN, who reported on Tuesday that Simon & Schuster lists an October release date for March Story, a series created by Korean manhwa-ga Kyung-Il Yang and Hyung-min Kim for the Japanese magazine Monthly Sunday GX, to be published here by Viz Media.

This news is unconfirmed at the time of this writing, but the prospect of seeing some Korean creators published by Viz is admittedly pretty exciting, even if they are coming to us via Japan. Check out the article from ANN for details about the series and its creators.

With a view towards lightening your pocketbook, RightStuf is having a Bargain Bin Blowout sale, featuring manga and anime up to 95% off. …

Twin Spica, Vol. 1

April 26, 2010 by MJ 7 Comments

Twin Spica, Vol. 1
By Kou Yaginuma
Published by Vertical, Inc.
Rated 13+

Buy at RightStuf | Buy at Amazon

Fourteen years after a catastrophic space shuttle accident that was responsible for numerous civilian casualties, Japan’s space program is finally getting back on its feet, beginning with the establishment of Tokyo Space School’s Astronaut Training Course. There, fourteen-year-old Asumi competes with other prospective students, hoping to be accepted into the program and perhaps one day join Japan’s first successful manned excursion into space.

Though this series finished its run in seinen magazine Comic Flapper just last year, its simple artwork and wistful tone make its first volume read like an instant classic. Even the volume’s cover art, with its innocent imagery and sepia-like warmth, evokes feelings of nostalgia. Also, though the story’s foundation is set firmly in hard sci-fi, it is its heroine’s poignant and occasionally whimsical inner life that really defines its voice. Asumi provides the heart of this story, and it is a strange and wonderful heart indeed.

With her mother gone and her father often working, Asumi’s only confidante is a self-proclaimed ghost with a lion mask covering his head, whom she refers to as “Lion-san.” Even as Asumi begins her teen years, Lion-san remains a constant in her life, serving as a source of insight into a world she’s never truly felt a part of. He also provides a walking, talking symbol of the disaster that took her mother from her–a memory that she has safely locked away in the depths of her subconscious. That the volume opens with a spirited conversation between Asumi and her ghostly friend establishes the series’ supernatural/psychological focus from the start.

Asumi is both idiosyncratic and relatable. As a child, she is quiet and baffling to others–leaning into her mother’s corpse to find out how it smells and later stealing the ashes in order to give her mother a better view of the sea she so loved. As a teen, her concerns are more typical, focusing on dreams for her future and her ability to make friends, but the lonely little girl is still there, seeking comfort and advice from her supernatural friend.

All that said, Twin Spica is hardly a one-woman show. Supporting characters shine in this volume, from Asumi’s lonely teacher (whose first love was also killed fourteen years ago) to the girls with whom Asumi completes her astronaut exam. Even Asumi’s mother, seen mainly in a coma, bandaged from head to toe, is a compelling figure. One particularly complicated character is Asumi’s father. Though he obviously loves his daughter and supports her dreams, he is somewhat lost as a single parent and too often expresses himself through violence.

Yagimuna’s artwork is utterly charming. Simple, clean, and full of heartfelt emotion, it flows easily from panel to panel. Again here, there is a persistent air of nostalgia to the series, enhanced even by Vertical’s choice of font.

This volume feels short–just 124 pages of main story, followed by two short comics that provide a good chunk of backstory (written by Yagimuna before the series proper)–though that perception could just as easily be attributed to its overall delightfulness. Though the series was published as seinen in Japan, it provides substantial appeal for teen girls as well, especially those with their own dreams of space travel.

Hopeful, charming, and tinged with sadness, Twin Spica leaves us wanting more. Highly recommended.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Mushishi Moveable Feast This Week!

April 25, 2010 by MJ 4 Comments

Manga Bookshelf has been on hiatus this week, thanks to an unexpected hospital stay for a key member of the household. We’ll be back on track starting tomorrow, but in the meantime, check out Ed Sizemore’s introductory post for this month’s Manga Moveable Feast, featuring one of my favorite series, Mushishi.

I have a lot to say about this series, and I admit I’ve already said quite a bit of it. I’ve reviewed two volumes of this series so far, volume six at Comics Should Be Good, and volume seven here at Manga Bookshelf. With my household’s recent turmoil, this may well be my entire contribution to the Feast, but be sure to keep an eye out for what I expect to be an exciting batch of discussion and reviews from around the manga blogosphere this week.

Enjoy!

Your & My Secret, Vols. 1-5

April 25, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

If you ever wondered what Freaky Friday might have been like if Jodie Foster had switched bodies with Leif Garrett instead of Barbara Harris, well, Ai Morinaga’s Your & My Secret provides a pretty good idea of the gender-bending weirdness that would have ensued. The story focuses on Nanako, a swaggering tomboy who lives with her mad scientist grandfather, and Akira, an effeminate boy who adores her. Though Akira’s classmates find him “cute and delicate,” they declare him a timid bore — “a waste of a man,” one girl snipes — while Nanako’s peers call her “the beast” for her aggressive personality and uncouth behavior, even as the boys concede that Nanako is “hotter than anyone.” Akira becomes the unwitting test subject for the grandfather’s latest invention, a gizmo designed to transfer personalities from one body to another. With the flick of a switch, Akira finds himself trapped in Nanako’s body (and vice versa).

The joke, of course, is that Nanako and Akira have found the ideal vessels for their gender-atypical personalities. Nanako revels in her new-found freedom as a boy, enjoying sudden popularity among classmates, earning the respect of Akira’s contemptuous little sister, and discovering the physical strength to dunk a basketball. Akira, on the other hand, finds his situation a mixed bag: for the first time in his life, his sensitive personality endears him to both male and female peers, but many of the things his maleness had previously exempted him from — housework and cooking, menstrual cycles, unwanted advances from boys — turn out to be much worse than he’d imagined. He struggles to feel comfortable in Nanako’s skin, insulted by the grandfather’s refusal to do chores and bewildered by his old buddy Senbongi’s growing attraction to him.

Much of the humor in Your & My Secret stems from the war between head and hormones. Akira still identifies as a boy, lusting after Nanako’s sweetly feminine friend Shiina and suffering volcanic nosebleeds in the girls’ locker room, yet his body is drawn to Senbongi; after Senbongi makes a pass at him, the flustered Akira wonders how Senbongi “got to be such a good kisser.” Nanako, who is quick to embrace her new male identity, struggles as well; though she asks Shiina out, she’s reluctant to consummate their relationship, and shows an all-too-prurient interest in Senbongi’s, um, equipment. Making things even more complicated for Akira is that he’s trapped in the body of the girl he adores. He’s both disgusted and aroused by the sight of himself, and filled with conflicting emotions about the growing relationship between Nanako and Shiina.

Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in Your & My Secret is that Nanako’s experiences transform her into a sexist pig. She rebuffs Akira’s pleas to reverse the experiment, belittling his gentle, conciliatory personality and asserting her right to have fun in his body. At the same time, she insists that Akira refrain from dating, having sex, or exploring her body; she repeatedly describes her body as a sacred temple that must remain “unpolluted” before her wedding day, and threatens Akira with humiliation if he acts on his conflicted feelings for Senbongi — or Shiina. (Apparently, Nanako is a bit of a homophobe, too.)

While the gender-swapping hijinks provide most of the comedic fodder for Your & My Secret, Morinaga also has a ball poking fun at manga tropes from incestuous infatuation to cultural festivals. The best of these gags revolves around the school’s manga club: in a sly nod to Tezuka, the group is helmed by a beret-wearing artist who transforms Akira and Senbongi’s friendship into a steamy boys’ love comic in which Akira is the seme and Senbongi is the uke. (“It’s not that I like guys,” Akira’s avatar tells Senbongi’s. “The person I fell in love with just happened to be a guy.”) Morinaga also wrings laughs from her characters’ desperate behavior; the grandfather, for example, thinks nothing of blackmailing Akira to get closer to Shiina (he dreams of having a pretty teenage girl sit in his lap and clean his ears), while Senbongi hatches up a love-hotel scheme to drive a wedge between Akira and Nanako.

Yet for all the black comedy, Morinaga still allows her characters moments of vulnerability and decency, preventing the humor from curdling into pure meanness. She wisely avoids the trap of making her characters too dumb to notice the transformations in Akira and Nanako, allowing her to sustain the body-swapping premise without straining credulity or testing the reader’s patience. Morinaga avoids another trap as well: that of making her leads so repellent the reader wishes for their comeuppance. (Even Nanako — she of the karate chops and withering put-downs — demonstrates a capacity for kindness and selflessness when wooing Shiina.) The artwork supports Morinaga’s characterizations, showing us both their nastier and nicer sides. When Akira assumes ownership of Nanako’s body, for example, there’s a visible softening of Nanako’s features, her lips becoming moistly inviting, her chin turning ever-so-slightly upward, and her eyes shining like a proper shojo heroine’s. If provoked, however, Akira’s body language and gestures revert back to Nanako’s coarse, tomboy persona, right down to the maniacal gleam in his eye; the gap between the two personalities proves smaller than either would like the admit.

No, it isn’t Taming of the Shrew, but Your & My Secret manages to make some worthwhile points about gender roles (and gender norms) while serving up plenty of dopey slapstick and risque jokes. Frankly, I’d take a big helping of Morinaga’s un-PC humor over an earnest, socially responsible “girls’ comic” any day of the week. Highly recommended.

This is an expanded version of a review that originally appeared at PopCultureShock on 3/12/08. The original review can be read by clicking here.

Your & My Secret, Vols. 1-5

April 25, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

secret5 If you ever wondered what Freaky Friday might have been like if Jodie Foster had switched bodies with Leif Garrett instead of Barbara Harris, well, Ai Morinaga’s Your & My Secret provides a pretty good idea of the gender-bending weirdness that would have ensued. The story focuses on Nanako, a swaggering tomboy who lives with her mad scientist grandfather, and Akira, an effeminate boy who adores her. Though Akira’s classmates find him “cute and delicate,” they declare him a timid bore — “a waste of a man,” one girl snipes — while Nanako’s peers call her “the beast” for her aggressive personality and uncouth behavior, even as the boys concede that Nanako is “hotter than anyone.” Akira becomes the unwitting test subject for the grandfather’s latest invention, a gizmo designed to transfer personalities from one body to another. With the flick of a switch, Akira finds himself trapped in Nanako’s body (and vice versa).

…

There’s Something About Sunyool 1 by Youngran Lee: B

April 21, 2010 by Michelle Smith

Sunyool Lee first met her father, a powerful politician, six months after her mother’s death. He’d been unable to have children with his wife, and so acknowledged Sunyool as his daughter. The arrangement gave Sunyool access to the finer things in life, but also required a number of sacrifices, including giving up the freedom to choose her own spouse. For her part, though, Sunyool is practical about the necessities of an arranged marriage, and is more than willing to check out the candidates her father has chosen. In the end, she chooses a gentlemanly young man named Sihyun Park and the two are married.

At first, one is led to believe that There’s Something About Sunyool will be a romantic comedy in which the two leads marry as strangers but learn to love each other—akin to something like Goong: The Royal Palace—but in actuality, they quickly discover that they are highly compatible, and that a happy future is not only possible but likely. Of course, such perfect bliss cannot last for long and—through no fault or desire of the newlyweds—the marriage is ultimately short-lived. The story picks up four years later with Sunyool living in another town and poised to embark on entirely new adventures.

It’s not until one reaches the final chapter that one realizes that this change of direction is coming and that the first volume is really serving as a prologue to a story that has hardly begun. These events establish Sunyool’s character and will presumably set up an overarching plot for the series, but the story cuts off at such a random point in her new life that it’s difficult to see how the events have changed her, if at all, and without any substantive hints about the story’s direction from here, it’s a pretty abrupt and lackluster conclusion.

Gripes about plot structure aside, though, this is still an engaging read, largely because of the strong and quirky protagonist. Sunyool faces life honestly and without pretension, which enables her to accept the idea of an arranged marriage without difficulty, saying, “Well, it’s not like I have some lofty dreams for the future… It might be nice to marry whoever (sic) Assemblyman Lee says to and live a life of comfort. I’ve been at the bottom and it was not pretty.” Too, her father gives her some advice—“Be brave and confident in any circumstance”—that she takes to heart and uses to get her through the tough times resulting in the dissolution of her marriage. While some guys are intimidated (or simply turned off) by her lack of feminine mystique, her fearlessness is largely responsible for Sihyun growing to love her so swiftly, and suggests she’ll land on her feet no matter what happens.

Lee’s art is attractive, featuring the pointed chins and pouty lips that would enable those familiar with manhwa to recognize its origins pretty immediately. Her style here is a little more cute than in Click, an earlier series from this creator also published by NETCOMICS, but not as frantically sparkly as it could’ve been. Unfortunately, there are a couple of errors in the script—mostly in the form of the wrong word being chosen rather than typos or general awkwardness—that I hope will be corrected for the print edition. There aren’t so many as to ruin the reading experience, but they’re distracting nonetheless.

Ultimately, I am very intrigued by There’s Something About Sunyool and eager to see where the story goes from this point. Happily, the series updates regularly at the NETCOMICS site, with several chapters of volume two already available.

There’s Something About Sunyool is being simultaneously released in the US and Korea, with new chapters appearing regularly at the NETCOMICS site. Amazon also lists a print edition of the first volume, due in June.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Kingyo Used Books, Vol. 1

April 19, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

Kingyo Used Books starts from a simple premise: an eccentric group of people run a second-hand bookstore in an out-of-the-way location. Various customers stumble upon the shop — usually by accident — and, in the process of browsing, find a manga that helps them reconnect with a part of themselves that’s been suppressed, whether it be a youthful capacity for romantic infatuation or a desire to paint expressively.

Is there such thing as agit-manga? Because Kingyo Used Books seems like the brainchild of an editor who’s desperately trying to convince adults that one never outgrows manga. In the first story, for example, a salaryman tries to unload his collection at the store, telling the owner, “I’m not a kid anymore. Besides, it’s kind of pathetic to keep reading manga forever.” He gets a gentle comeuppance at a class reunion, where his friends’ fond memories of Dr. Slump remind him what an important role manga played in their young lives. The story is pleasant and enjoyable, but suffers from a bad case of predictability; as soon as the salaryman sees his friends engaged in tearful, rhapsodic discussions of their childhood reading habits, he’s overcome with emotion and — natch — a strong desire to keep the manga he’d previously hoped to sell.

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Other stories in volume one follow the same basic template. In “Far Away,” for example, an archery champion discovers that laughter and downtime are as essential to winning as practice, thanks to a pair of Kingyo employees whose snot-rolling-down-the-face, tears-in-eyes response to Moretsu Ataru inspires the archer to pick up a manga instead of his bow and quiver. “Fujiomi-kun,” another chapter that adheres to this formula, focuses on a frustrated housewife who makes some small but important changes in her life after rediscovering Chizumi and Fujiomi-kun, a romance about a handsome athlete who falls in love with a clumsy but kind-hearted girl.

The series’ episodic structure cuts both ways, see-sawing between a fun exercise in formula — which manga will feature prominently in this story? who will be drawn into the store? — and a frustratingly obvious collection of beats culminating in a character’s decision to make a change in her life. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the appeal of a series that highlights some famous (and, sadly, untranslated) manga, or that validates my own experiences as an adult manga reader; like many of the characters in Kingyo Used Books, I, too, have found titles as different as Suppli, Phoenix, and Night of the Beasts an outlet for emotions that don’t always find expression in my daily life. In settling for such a tidy approach to dramatizing manga’s transformative power, however, author Seimu Yoshizaki misses an opportunity to really move readers, instead treating us to sentimental, sometimes mawkish, scenes in which adults recover childhood memories of favorite books. Yoshizaki never acknowledges the messiness or risk that her characters take when acting on their epiphanies or experiencing personal growth, choosing instead to end every story on a positive note.

The artwork is clean, conveying the characters’ interior lives with directness and simplicity. Though her style isn’t particularly distinctive, Yoshizaki does a fine job evoking other artists’ styles, recreating images from famous series and altering one of her own characters to look like the hero of his favorite manga. The most striking image in the book is just such a recreation: it’s Hokusai’s iconic wave print, drawn in the sand by two students who then watch the incoming tide erase it. In the story’s final panels, the two reflect on their emotions as they watch their work vanish. One is pensive and wishes the work was permanent; the other responds by noting that permanence can be its own trap. “I’ve seen the pictures Hokusai drew when he was our age,” he says. “They really sucked.” Here’s hoping that volume two has more of these frank, funny, and true-to-life moments and fewer scenes of tearful housewives and salarymen reliving their childhoods through manga.

KINGYO USED BOOKS, VOL. 1 • BY SEIMU YOSHIZAKI • VIZ • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+) • 208 pp.

Kingyo Used Books, Vol. 1

April 19, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

Is there such thing as agit-manga? I ask this because Kingyo Used Books seems like the brainchild of an editor who’s desperately trying to convince adults that one never outgrows manga. In the first story, for example, a salaryman tries to unload his collection at the store, telling the owner, “I’m not a kid anymore. Besides, it’s kind of pathetic to keep reading manga forever.” He gets a gentle comeuppance at a class reunion, where his friends’ fond memories of Dr. Slump remind him what an important role manga played in their young lives. The story is pleasant and enjoyable, but suffers from a bad case of predictability; as soon as the salaryman sees his friends engaged in tearful, rhapsodic discussions of their childhood reading habits, he’s overcome with emotion and — natch — a strong desire to keep the manga he’d previously hoped to sell.

…

Manhwa Monday: Spring Slump

April 19, 2010 by MJ Leave a Comment

Welcome to another Manhwa Monday! It’s been a quiet week for manhwa, with just a couple of series stealing most of the focus from reviewers.

I’ll lead off with a review of my own, featuring YoungHee Lee’s You’re So Cool, complete in six volumes from Yen Press. This review is also my first guest spot at Brigid Alverson’s MangaBlog, which is quite an honor for me.

You’re So Cool is a series that benefits greatly from being read straight-through, particularly in its first half. Though its heroine is spunky and adorable from the start, the romantic premise is so problematic, it would be easy to abandon just two volumes in. “Fortunately, midway through the series’ third volume, Lee forgets that she’s writing a hopelessly clichéd, emotionally-backwards romance and gets caught up in the real heart of the story: how people (especially families) shape each other, for better or worse.” …

Wild Ones, Vol. 9

April 18, 2010 by MJ Leave a Comment

By Kiyo Fujiwara
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen

Having finally agreed to speak to the father who abandoned him so many years ago, Rakuto is confronted with the possibility that he may eventually have to leave Sachie’s side in order to make peace with his own past. Meanwhile, Azuma is determined to let Sachie know how he feels, whether Rakuto is ready to play his part or not. Who does Sachie truly love? Has this ever been in question? If so, this volume provides an answer at long last!

Finally the series’ romantic tension is resolved, exactly as it was certain to be from the beginning. Some formulaic romances are enjoyable to read simply because they are so predictable. With these stories, the charm is in the writing, and watching their familiar scenarios play out is, frankly, comforting and downright delightful. Unfortunately, this is not one of those series. Though the couple in question are undeniably sweet, their relationship is so labored and so painfully drawn out, one finds oneself wishing something truly shocking would happen (a deadly plague? an alien invasion? ) just to break up the monotony. With its unbelievable premise and its terminally clueless lovers, this series seems determined to remain lifeless until the end.

Well, almost, anyway. To be fair, this volume’s final pages are honestly sweet, and may even evoke tears from desperate readers grateful for a bit of romantic satisfaction. It may not be an alien invasion, but long-time readers are at least assured some payoff.

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

Honey Hunt 4 by Miki Aihara: B

April 18, 2010 by Michelle Smith

Despite having no prior interest in acting, Yura Onozuka, the relatively normal daughter of celebrity parents, discovers a talent for it when she resolves to surpass her mother in the dramatic sphere. She has achieved some moderate success pretty quickly, including a spot in a commercial and a supporting role on a new TV drama.

Yura’s career is less the focus in this volume than are her romantic prospects, however. While volume three ended with one pop star (Haruka) confessing his feelings, here Yura is swept away by his twin brother (Q-ta, also a pop star), to the point where she’s distracted during an audition and later ditches a dinner planned by her housemates—to celebrate her drama’s debut—in favor of spending a night on the town with Q-ta.

Although one might wish for a heroine more doggedly dedicated to her career, it’s not hard to sympathize with Yura as she faces the choice between two dreams—the nurturing family-type environment offered by her housemates and the love of a prince-like suitor. Even though she makes some mistakes, she’s still likeable. Q-ta, however, comes off as quite the brat here, and one can’t help but wonder whether his protestations that he likes Yura for herself rather than for her famous father are truly genuine. If not, I suppose it’ll make for good drama.

In the end, while Honey Hunt doesn’t leave a particularly strong impression with the reader, it’s still something I enjoy reading.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Bakuman finally makes US debut!

April 16, 2010 by MJ Leave a Comment

Everybody knows what a big Takeshi Obata fangirl I am (or at least they should), and it’s no secret that I’ve been anxious for the US debut of Bakuman, his latest collaboration with Tsugumi Ohba, author of Death Note.

Finally that day has come! Not the first volume (we’ve got a ways to go for that), but in the May issue of Shonen Jump, available now at an otaku-friendly newsstand near you. Check out the press release from Viz:

San Francisco, CA, April 14, 2010 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the upcoming release of the manga series BAKUMAN。. The series, rated ‘T’ for Teens, will be released on August 3rd under VIZ Media’s popular Shonen Jump imprint and will carry a MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN. …