Anna N

Some series I find immediately appealing and others grow on me over time. In the case of Kaze Hikaru, I liked it well enough when I read the first volume but it wasn’t until I was able to check out a bunch of volumes from the library at once that I was completely won over and decided to slowly collect the entire series. I worry a bit about this series, because I get the impression that it isn’t a very strong seller and it is 29+ volumes in Japan. Kaze Hikaru is a meticulously researched romantic adventure about a girl named Tominaga Sei who decides to disguise herself as a boy with the alias Kamiya Seizaburo and enter the ranks of the Shinsengumi (shogunate special police) to avenge the deaths of her family. She quickly falls in love with her mentor Okita Soji who knows her true identity but remains willfully oblivious to his own feelings for her.

In the 15th volume Kamiya struggles with the idea of undergoing the male coming of age ceremony called Genpuku. She’d have to shave off her bangs, and then she’d lose the ability to occasionally dress as a woman by rearranging her hair. Everything gets thrown into even more confusion when a visiting doctor shows up who used to train with Kamiya’s father. Soji and Kamiya struggle to protect her identity, sending her into town when the doctor announces that he’s going to give everybody at the compound a physical in order to improve the health of all the men. Kamiya accidentally blurts out “Uncle Droopy Eyes” when she sees the doctor, and wonders if he’s recognized her from when he saw her before as a little girl.

Doctor Matsumoto ends up finding out Kamiya’s secret through some trickery by suggesting to Soji that she’s sick. Soji runs off to find her and rushes her to the doctor, not realizing that his extreme anxiety is due to the fact that he loves her. The doctor promptly starts trying to arrange her marriage to Soji. She says that she’s content to stay by his side to support him as a colleague. Matsumoto quickly diagnoses with the terrible disease of “feminitus,” which causes regular men to grow feminine characteristics, and her colleagues are instructed to support her manly efforts and avoid mentioning her girlish looks. This has the fortunate effect of throwing off the suspicions of some of Kamiya’s colleagues, at least for a little while.

Matsumoto appears again in the next volume, this time to give Kamiya perspective on her lost family. When she was a little girl she almost never saw her father because he spent so much time away pursuing his medical training. Kamiya still feels betrayed and resentful, and her closeness to her older brother was largely due to her father’s absense. Matsumoto points out that Kamiya’s father and Soji share similar characteristics. Both have entirely dedicated themselves to their studies, leaving little time for personal attachments even though they both feel deeply. Other romantic entanglements are highlighted, as Sanosuke wishes to make a merchant’s daughter his bride and a woman is coming to Soji with a marriage proposal. Kamiya is filled with anxiety. Soji’s attitude towards meeting a woman is that he’ll do it if it is a direct order from his superiors. In keeping with his continued obliviousness, he speculates to Kamiya that it might be better for him to marry a woman that he doesn’t love, because it won’t get in the way of his duties.

It was nice seeing Kamiya’s relationship with Matsumoto continue. She doesn’t really have any confidants so it was good to see that she finally had someone she could go to to talk with, even though his general reaction to her situation and decisions is disbelief that such a stubborn girl could exist.

The next two volumes move away from romantic angst towards political issues with the Shinsengumi. In Kyoto a troop captain is managing to alienate the locals with his policies, and his extremely suspicious nature is damaging towards morale. When Kamiya goes to visit him along with Soji and Kondo, Sanjuro promptly fixates on Kamiya as a possible spy since she seems so friendly to men in different troops. Sanjuro tasks his younger brother to spy on her, and Kamiya yet again faces her secret being revealed. Soji comes to the rescue, but Kamiya decides she has to figure out what on earth is wrong with Sanjuro to cause him to act in such an extreme way.

It seems like factions among the Shinsengumi are being set up as an even bigger problem, as the sneaky Ito has decided to set himself up to subvert the leadership of the troop by recruiting the men to his side. We see Kamiya training on firing a gun, and the philosophical differences between those who prefer the way of the sword to gunpowder and bullets are explored. Soji tries to help the woman he has a long-term relationship with. Kohana served as a cover for his vow of celibacy, he visited her and used his time to take naps. He explores the possibility of setting her up in a house with her daughter, but she’s come to have feelings for him and refuses. Kohana doesn’t want to be with Soji due to his sense of duty, if he doesn’t actually see her as a woman. Kamiya finds out what’s going on, but as usual the unarticulated feelings between her and Soji mean that their relationship will continue to function mainly as mentor and mentee. While Soji is trying to look out for Kohana, he also commissions a special lightweight sword for Kamiya. The next problem everybody will face is the love of the Captain for a mysterious woman. Kamiya is tasked by the Vice Captain with finding out about her true nature, as the Captain suffers in silence.

I think Kaze Hikaru is best read in multiple volumes like this. The story unfolds at a measured pace, and even though plenty of things happen, it doesn’t usually have any real end of volume cliffhangers to incite anxiety in the reader. I always enjoy Watanabe’s notes at the end, where she’ll clarify some of the historical information and point out where she took artistic license with known people and historic practices. Except for a few stray volumes, I’m all caught up with the English release for this series! Kaze Hikaru might not be the flashiest series out there, but the rich historical detail and slow building romance reward the patient reader.

Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura Volume 2

I found it very amusing that in one of the author notes for this volume, Tanemura wrote that she’d been holding herself back from using very much screentone in this volume and thus was worried that it looked unfinished. To my eyes it doesn’t look like Tanemura’s trademark excess of screentone has been curbed very much, but I should probably dig up some of her other series and compare. This volume continues with the antagonistic relationship between Sakura and Aoba, her fiance who sometimes likes her and sometimes wants to kill her. Now there are a couple of additional men vying for Sakura’s attention, as Aoba’s older brother Fujimurasaki seems more than willing to step in to help her out. There’s also the handsome Lord Enju who seems determined to send assassins to kill Aoba because he doesn’t want Sakura to be touched by “dirty humans”. Sakura decides to save Aoba despite his professed hatred of her in a gesture of senseless self-sacrifice that is fairly typical of Tanemura’s heroines, and the reader sees that Aoba’s feelings are wavering. The plotting is a tad incoherent, and I’m having trouble keeping some of the supporting cast straight. I still enjoy Tanemura’s illustrations and I’m looking forward to seeing Sakura grow stronger and confront her fate.

Sand Chronicles Volume 10

Sand Chronicles is one of my favorite dramatic shoujo series, and this volume provides a nice coda for the series. I really wish the concluding volumes had contained more Fuji. There’s just a couple glimpses of him here, and I would have liked a chapter or two just devoted to him. This volume is extremely Daigo-centric, as it shows him all grown up, married to Ann, and fully engaged in teaching Elementary school. Daigo’s relationship with an influential teacher from his past is explored, as his class gathers together to dig up a time capsule they buried 20 years ago. Ann and Daigo face a difficult issue with strength, and it is nice to see their marriage functioning so well as a support system for them both. Daigo is wrestling with becoming the type of teacher he wants for his students, and the idea that he may have an indelible effect on such young minds. He deals with the personalities in his class with compassion, spending extra time with the students of his that need more attention. After spending so much of the series seeing things from Ann’s point of view, it was nice to read a volume focused on Daigo. I felt like at last the characters were all going to be ok, and after so many turbulent twists and turns earlier on it was nice to see them fully engaged in daily life without much drama.

Review copy of Sakura Hime provided by the publisher.

I was so happy that Cross Game was selected to be featured in the May Moveable Feast. It is very rare to come across anything that is so well executed that it immediately wins me over, but that was my reaction to the first and second omnibus volumes. In broad strokes, a battle for the soul of baseball has been set up over the first few volumes, and the third volume (which contains the Japanese volumes 6 and 7) shows the ultimate confrontation between the corrupt new coach’s handpicked team of elites vs Ko’s natural talent and the enthusiasm of the second tier Portable team. I love the cover for this volume, which shoes Ko and Aoba standing shoulder to shoulder and snarling at each other. It serves as an excellent illustration for the way their relationship is simultaneously close and antagonistic.

The portable team’s game against the main team also becomes a battle for the main coaching position. The Seishu coach Daimon continues to be blind in his pursuit of success. He and the interim principal don’t realize that the scruffy old man hanging out at the baseball field is actually the chairman of the board. Daimon assumes that the portable team’s losing streak means that they’ll be easy to beat. Seishu team start Azuma has been observing his teammates leave and Daimon’s complete unconcern for the health of his players. He announces that he isn’t going to be playing in the game, slamming his hand into the wall and saying that he’s too injured to play. Azuma only wants to play baseball with the best team, and if the Seishu team can only win with him, he knows where he really be should be.

Aoba is recruited to play with Ko’s team and objects to being assigned to play center because she wants to pitch. Akaishi comments that she hasn’t faced off against Ko in a long time. Ko pitches to her, and Akaishi confirms that center is now ok with her. The match starts, and the score remains tied at 0-0 for a long time. Azuma keeps making pointed comments at Daimon, wondering if he even knows the names of the teams the portable team lost to. It turns out that they were practicing against elite teams, and Ko was deliberately allowing hits for most of the game in order to give everybody fielding practice. The game progresses and the look of dawning horror on Daimon’s face is quite enjoyable.

One thing I liked about this volume is it gave increased insights into Azuma’s personality and motivations. He’s always seemed a bit like a grim warrior of baseball, but now I can finally understand why he’s so driven. Azuma’s older brother Junpei appears and starts trying to chat up the oldest Wakaba sister, Ichiyo. On the surface Junpei seems goofy and laid back, but when he comes across his brother training Junpei picks up a baseball with a practiced grip. Azuma tells his brother that he promises that he’ll get to Koshien. Junpei just replies that Azuma should have more fun with baseball and walks away, leaving the ball on a chair. Junpei was an athletic star, but his dream was derailed when he was injured.

After the long buildup to the confrontation between the coaches and baseball teams, it was a relief to see that the rest of the volume was focused on shorter slice of life stories. It felt to me like the characters finally had a bit of breathing room. Azuma moves in with Ko’s family when the dorms are shut down. Aoba is getting hit on all the time. Memories of Wakaba continue to cascade through Aoba and Ko’s lives. This volume felt like the conclusion of the first major story arc of the series. I’m still loving the combination of action, romance, humor, and drama. It is rare to find a series that functions well on so many levels. I’m eager to see the next chapters that show Ko working to get to the ultimate baseball tournament at Koshien.

I think it is nice that Kaoru Mori’s manga inspires special treatment. The editions of Emma from CMX featured matte paper stock that gave the volumes an old timey feel. A Bride’s Story gets the deluxe treatment from Yen Press, with the first volume arriving as an over sized hardback with a lovely wraparound illustration on the dust jacket. The painstaking research, sympathetic characters, and lovely detailed illustrations that readers enjoyed in Emma are in full effect in A Bride’s Story, with the bonus of a heroine who enjoys hunting rabbits from horseback with a bow.

The story takes place along the Silk Road in the 19th century. Amir is twenty years old, and she’s sent to marry a twelve year old boy named Karluk. Amir comes from a more nomadic tribe than Karluk’s family, with the result that she brings with her some skills that her new family hasn’t possessed in awhile. Amir seems anxious to fit into her new place, trying to be helpful whenever possible and she seems to be waiting for her new husband to grow up. Evidently twenty years is an unforgivably old age for a bride, and the backstory behind the marriage isn’t shown. Karluk is an uncommonly calm twelve year old, who seems to take his responsibilities very seriously. He jumps at the chance to try to locate his uncle’s clan of shepherds, wanting to be reintroduced to his relatives as a married man.

I’d always thought that Mori’s slice of life stories are particularly good at portraying children and how they negotiate the world. Rostam, the youngest member of the household, becomes fascinated with the local woodcarver and he neglects his chores to observe him. This gives Mori the excuse to showcase some dazzling panels of woodcarving patters, as well as showing the reactions of Rostam’s family. His mother sends him to bed without dinner, then tasks Amir with sneaking him food later. When it is clear that this is a general pattern of Rostam getting punishments that his mother immediately regrets, Amir declines to participate. She’s nervous and wants to please her new family, but when they start discussing rabbit stew she seizes the opportunity to grab her bow (part of her dowry) and race off on her horse to hunt.

A Bride’s Story would be plenty entertaining if it just showcased Mori’s research and charming illustrations, but she decides to introduce a note of suspense when it seems like Amir’s family has started to regret sending her off to marry Karluck. Amir gets an unexpected ally when the matriarch of the family (an enjoyable example of the kick-ass grandma character that often appears in manga) decides to defend the new bride. Karluck’s grandmother received a bow with her dowry too! With publishers going out of business and series going out of print or left unfinished, I’ve been feeling a little less enthused about manga lately. Reading A Bride’s Story has reminded me about the possibilities for storytelling unique to manga, and I’m happy to find a great new series to read.

Genkaku Picasso Volumes 1-3 by Usamaru Furuya

Genkaku Picasso is an interesting series, because the author Usumaru Furuya came out of the alternative manga scene in Japan with his earlier work featured in Garo. Genkaku Picasso is a series about a misanthropic young artist who gains the power to change the people around him when he is possessed by the artistic inspiration to draw their inner souls. This series had incredibly interesting and surreal art, but it felt to me like it wasn’t ambitious enough. I’m probably being overly critical because Furuya is so clearly talented, but I thought the story aspects of Genkaku Picasso let down the art a little bit. The series is still very much worth reading for the visual elements alone.

The first volume shows the lonely life of Hikari Hamura, nicknamed “Picasso” by his classmates at school due to his relentless drawing habit. He doesn’t really have any friends, but a girl in his class named Chiaki who finds him interesting and makes an effort to hang out with him. As they sit by a riverbank while Hikari is sketching, a horrible helicopter crash takes place. Chiaki is killed, but Hikari survives. Chiaki is transformed into a mini-angel who lives in Hikari’s pocket and his talent at sketching takes on a mystical turn. Chiaki informs him that his arm is starting to rot and the only way that he can save himself is to start helping other people. Hikari can now sense when a classmate is troubled. A dark aura manifests itself around Hikari’s next subject and he becomes possessed by a strange muse, compulsively drawing a depiction of his classmate’s inner heart. Hikari then can leap into his own drawing and experience the surreal scene he created, and his actions inside the drawing can cause the tormented soul to change for the better.

Hikari’s first subject is Sugiura, whose inner landscape is dominated by a crumbling cliff, amusement park, and an angry giant clutching a bag of money. While Sugiura is outwardly popular, his family life is less than ideal. As Hikari learns more about his classmate, the surreal pictures shift and change until Hikari is able to arrive at the truth of what is tormenting Sugiura. One of the things I liked very much about this manga was the way the illustration style would change depending on the world Hikari inhabits. The real world has all the polish and screentone of a standard manga, but when Hikari is transported into one of his illustrations it becomes more unfinished, with crosshatching used for shading and a slightly grainy quality that evokes the idea of a pencil or charcoal sketch.

Hikari continues to help his classmates, but his erratic behavior (he looks like he’s talking to himself when he’s talking to Chiaki) and his habit of abruptly passing out (which happens when he disappears into a drawing) still causes most of his classmates to shun him. He does manage to inspire feelings of affection in the people he helps, and he’s soon surrounded by a circle of acquaintances who are now taking more of an active interest in him.

One of the things that bothered me about this manga throughout the first couple volumes was the fact that Chiaki doesn’t seem to mind at all her transformation into Hikari’s nagging Tinkerbell. Even though while she was alive she inexplicably supported Hikari, I thought it was odd that she didn’t have more of a reaction to her fate. Genkaku Picasso is fairly episodic, but I did like some of the stories where there would be a shift towards Hikari exploring the inner life of a character that appeared briefly before. Hikari helps a boy in his class named Mamba finally work through his feelings towards a girl named Ogura. Mamba’s images evoke a sinister tree binding the girl he likes. Later Hikari visits Ogura’s subconsciousness and sees that her inner life is filled with mecha and yaoi imagery.

Some of Hikari’s solutions sometimes seem a bit simplistic, and this was particularly the case when Hikari helped one of his classmates who happened to have gender identity issues. The story ends very happily, which is nicely affirming if unfortunately not very realistic. One of the rewarding things about Genkaku Picasso is seeing the differences in the inner lives of Hikari’s targets. Joan of Arc, a Disney take-off, pop idols, childhood toys, and surreal gardens form the mind landscapes of Hikari’s classmates.

The third volume moves away from the more episodic storytelling of the first two volumes, finally providing some answers to questions readers may be forming about Hikari’s strange behavior, and if he’s ever going to turn his powers of artistic observation on himself. In his final journey, Hikari delves into his own psyche but he finds himself absolutely alone, without Chiaki. Hikari’s classmates begin to get worried about where he might be and they decide to go on their own rescue mission. We finally see some of the back story of the accident where Chiaki was killed, and there are some incredibly arresting images of Hikari trying to peer out of his own eyeball as though he were separating out the slats of a window shade that are going to stay in my memory for a long time.

The ending is heartwarming, with a dash of fake-out. While the story was concluded in an emotionally affecting manner, it seemed a bit too easy for me somehow. This goes along with my earlier reaction of the basic premise of the book. I think that there are some problems that just can’t be solved nicely with some surreal sketching and psychological intervention from a socially maladjusted teenager. I’m glad I read Genkaku Picasso, because it is so visually innovative and serves as a great contrast to the usual type of shonen series that get translated here. My frustration with the series remains because I think Furuya’s artistic talent is so great that he’s clearly capable of producing a classic work, but Genkaku Picasso isn’t it. Maybe I’d be better off reading some of his manga where he’s adapting another writer’s work. I still enjoyed Genkaku Picasso and would recommend it to anyone wanting to read visually striking manga.

Review copies of volumes 2 and 3 provided by the publisher.

I’ve continued on with watching Hanasakeru Seishonen, and as one would expect from an anime adaptation of a Natsumi Itsuki series, it grows more more complex as the series progresses. The first four episodes seemed like an engaging and slightly quirky reverse harem scenario, with all the wealthy industrialists and leopard reincarnation talk going on, but after watching a good chunk of the series I can now see why someone would describe Hanasakeru Seishonen as being mostly about politics.

The political aspects of the series are introduced along with Prince Rumaty, who is second in line to the throne for Raginei, a vaguely Asian/Middle Eastern country with a penchant for sun worship. Rumaty is as arrogant as you might expect a prince to be, but he soon finds himself charmed by Kajika despite himself. Their friendship is cemented when they have to go on the run together after a failed assassination attempt on the prince’s life. They end up spending some quality time playing cards with the local mafia before returning to the Burnsworth compound. It soon becomes clear that Kajika’s family has ties to the country of Raginei that go beyond her father’s business interests. There’s an extended flashback that details the adventures of Rumaty’s grandfather on his first visit to America, where he meets Kajika’s grandparents. Just when the series might be getting a little bogged down by all of the cross general angst and political machinations, there’s a break when Kajika returns to Japan and visits her friend Yui. Everyone that Kajika knows abruptly converges on Yui’s house, and the family’s reaction to Eugene and Li-Ren adds a welcome element of humor.

While Hanasakeru Seishonen might not have the almost operatic levels of craziness of the manga series by Itsuki that I’ve sampled, there’s still something enjoyable about the way the story slowly unfolds, with the different characters, flashbacks, and world building all combining to create a series that’s much more intelligent than you’d expect from a reverse harem series. Itsuki always seems to make some of the cliches and story conventions of manga much more interesting than they have a right to be and it is nice to see that this pattern continues in the Hanasakeru Seishonen anime.

One of the fun things about romance novels in general is the way they are often arranged in linked series, where the relationships of different couples are introduced but you still get a chance to peek in on the previous couples when they show up as supporting characters in subsequent books. Often these series will be linked by siblings, so there just happen to be three unmarried sisters or brothers who all find connubial bliss by the time the trilogy is over. The Stanbury Crown series focuses on an imaginary country called Edenbourg, and here’s a look at the first two volumes in this four volume series.

The Expectant Princess by Rin Ogata and Stella Bagwell

Princess Dominique has a hopeless crush on the lawyer for her family, Marcus Kent. She confessed her love for him and was rejected so she decided to throw herself into her studies by moving abroad. Dominique hides her identity while she’s in America. She returns to her family for a royal gathering. There’s plenty of drama in the first few pages of this manga. Dominique’s father the King goes missing under suspicious circumstances. His car crashes but his body isn’t found. Dominique is confused and anxious because she had an affair with a married man while she was in school, and she’s pregnant. Marcus is newly divorced. When Dominique and Marcus come together to investigate her father’s death, he makes it clear that he still sees Dominique as a child and any relationship between them would be in appropriate. Dominique tells Marcus about her condition and he promptly proposes in order to protect the royal family. Dominique rejects him because she doesn’t want a loveless marriage but Marcus begins to realize that he’s been lying to himself about his true feelings. The art and adaptation for this volume were fine, nothing spectacular but perfectly fine for a Harlequin manga.

The Blacksheep Prince’s Bride by Miho Tomoi and Martha Shields

The mystery of the King’s disappearance continues on in the next volume as Rowena goes undercover as a nanny in the royal household. Jake is forth in line for the throne and in need of domestic help because he’s divorced with a toddler son. Jake is the son of the King’s estranged and possibly evil brother, and thus a prime suspect for the kidnapping of the king. While Rowena struggles with an unearned reputation as a fast woman and Jake is trying to clear his name they grow closer. There were a few awkward poses and a little stiffness in the art, but this was offset by some cute character interactions. When Jake finds out that Rowena is a spy he’s annoyed not because she lied to him, but because he’s worried about how she views her own safety – what if he’d turned out to be an evil kidnapper and she went into his house unprotected? Everyone comments that while Jake may be a suspect he couldn’t possibly be guilty because he likes children and puppies. So, if you might find yourself suspected of kidnapping obscure European royalty, be sure to accessorize yourself with an adorable moppet and some wee doggies. Overall, I thought this volume was pretty much right in the average in terms of Harlequin manga quality. I’m still amused by the idea of finishing up this series by different authors and illustrators and I have to admit that my hopes are higher for the next book in the series, Codename: Prince because that title just seems intrinsically entertaining.

Access to electronic copies provided by the publisher.

Gente Volume Three by Natsume Ono

More than anyone else, Natsume Ono’s manga excel in creating an atmosphere and sense of place. While I love reading manga set in many different places, there are few that I’d actually want to visit in real life. If it was possible to visit Natusme Ono’s Italy, I’d love to go there. With Gente‘s emphasis on good food, friendship, complicated relationships, and quirky bespectacled gentlemen, it easily inspires the reader to start packing for an imaginary vacation. The final volume of Gente continues in the slice of life trajectory established in the previous volumes. There aren’t any resounding conclusions, just the chance to visit the people of Casetta dell’Orso once again and see that their lives continue as always.

The first story in the volume focuses on a politician and restaurant customer who has an unusual way of ordering his day. He listens to fortunes told by his little granddaughter because they always seem to come true. He comes to a crossroads in his life and makes a decision, helped along by a prediction and a good meal. A darker side of love is explored in “Singore Rizzo’s Fancy,” where the womanizing half of an estranged couple finds himself hopelessly attracted to a woman who is uninterested in him. Rizzo decides to try to arrange for the happiness of the woman who has inspired his affection, even as he continues his relationship with his wife where passionate love has changed into a combination of hostility and familial feelings. The closing image is of Rizzo and his wife sitting in different chairs, smoking and looking off in different directions. Nicoletta observes all these relationships play out at the restaurant while still nursing her love for the waiter Claudio. In some ways, this volume does feel like a closing volume for Nicoletta’s story that began in Ristorante Paradisio. She talks with her stepfather Lorenzo about the ways he serves as a father for her and for the family of workers at the restaurant. He’s starting to grow older, and might be turning into a bespectacled older gentleman himself. The mysterious Gigi supports Nicoletta and then goes off to make an unexpected acquaintance. While the ending might not be a Hollywood style conclusion where Nicoletta takes her relationship with Claudio to the next level, it is nice to see her in such an emotionally supportive environment (perhaps because her mother is absent). The bonus story at the end shows the staff getting together to celebrate young Franc’s birthday, which provides a nice festive way to conclude the series.

As always, I enjoyed Ono’s loose and unfinished drawing style. Just as the subject matter of her manga provides place where I’d want to visit to relax, her illustrations manage to be both lively and restful, with just the essential details portrayed.

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Review copy provided by the publisher

I wasn’t going to write about Ai Ore again so soon after posting my initial review, but I got into a conversation on twitter the other night that is causing me to rethink my initial reaction.

Jason Thomson posted: Dear Internet: Ai Ore is a comedy. I think it’s meant to be more like DMC than an actual romance. You can still find it offensive of course.

I was a little disappointed that Ai Ore didn’t completely follow through with the promise of its gender switching premise. I didn’t really react to the threat of rape at the end of the volume, other than to note that it was a disappointing way for the manga to end. I honestly am not surprised to see rape threats or coercive sex in a Mayu Shinjo series, I was actually a little bummed out that there was no bondage, amnesia, or evil hypnosis on display the way it was in Sensual Phrase. Other manga bloggers reacted more strongly to the rape scenes and cliched plot elements, and I can certainly understand why. When Jason compared Ai Ore to DMC I started thinking about this manga some more to see if I could find more evidence of parody. All the rape references in DMC are much funnier and easier to take, because they tend to involve inanimate objects like the Tokyo Tower or extremely improbable targets like sweet elderly grandparents. Nancy Thistlethwaite, who edits Ai Ore, said “…if Shinjo is subverting anything, it is how women are portrayed in ero manga. & she’s having fun with it.”

Is Shinjo ever really trying to be taken seriously? I don’t have most of my issues of Sensual Phrase, but I did pick up volume 3 where rock star hero Sakuya has been shot up with drugs and chained to a wall while his brother tells the heroine Aine that she has to have sex with him or Sakuya will be killed. Later Sakuya shows up after surviving withdrawl through sheer willpower. He splits up his band in order to become an incredibly successful businessman in three months so he can bargain for Aine. He gets her and his band back, and then tells her that he’s going to withhold sex from her because she’s so happy she isn’t writing good song lyrics anymore. Does someone who writes a manga where events like that take place in the first 3 chapters turn around and write another manga without their tongue firmly in cheek?

But If Ai Ore is satirical, it doesn’t do a fabulous job of signaling this in the first volume. Perhaps it would have been easier to take if the masculine female lead Mizuki was a national landmark like Tokyo Tower or Nagoya Castle. If Ai Ore is more like DMC than a more straightforward gender switching shojo manga like Hana Kimi, how can we look at the characters and situations it portrays?

Is it commenting on stereotypical characters portrayed in Yaoi and ero manga? I’ve never been entirely comfortable with some of the rigid roles and forced sex in yaoi manga. The roles of seme and uke are taken on by Mizuki and Akira, with their appearances and gender serving as a start contrast to their roles. Mizuki’s masculine swagger is a mask for an insecure girl, and Akira’s feminine exterior is at odds with his alpha male/stalker/macho personality. The way the characters are drawn, it was impossible for me to read any scenes of Akira physically dominating Mizuki without thinking that something was seriously off. It might be a reflection of her confidence in her physical prowess, but I thought it was more than a little odd that a girl with Mizuki’s build was constantly getting into situations where she didn’t seem to be capable of using her advantages of strength and height to escape. But if Mizuki is a stand in for a uke who happens to be trapped in the body that resembles a male supermodel when she’s dressed up, maybe Shinjo is setting up these situations to make the reader uncomfortable deliberately. If some readers may accept these roles without question in other genres, perhaps the squicky elements that are introduced in Ai Ore when Shinjo plays out her gender-flipped scenario are a deliberate statement. If these roles are acceptable to some readers when presented in a yaoi context and unacceptable when presented in a heterosexual relationship, maybe Shinjo is being deliberately satirical. Ai Ore does seem like it could be read multiple ways. I’ve seen comments from readers that refer to it as being enjoyably trashy, a deliberate parody, and deeply offensive to feminists. Maybe it is all three things. In any case, I’m willing to sick around for the next few volumes of the series to try and figure it out.

Black Bird Volume 8

I read the first couple volumes of Black Bird and decided that the romance between a young girl and a dominating demon just wasn’t for me. I wasn’t all that thrilled with all the wound licking going on, and for whatever reason in my tawdry manga I prefer the flat out trashiness of something like Ai Ore to the more romanticized Black Bird although both titles display the same type of troubling and stereotypical gender roles in their main couples. At least Ai Ore is more open in its commitment to crazy plot elements, with all the rape threats, etc. right there on the page. In contrast, Black Bird tends to coyly hide elements of sexual coercion with all the accidental wounds and subsequent licking going on, along with a heroine who would happily sacrifice her existence for her demon boyfriend. This volume of Black Bird marks a bit of a turning point, as Misao and Kyo may finally have to get it on. Not because they mutually decide to take their relationship to the next level as an expression of their love, but because Kyo is afflicted by a horrible curse (which manifests in the form of exhaustion and tribal tattoos) and only Misao’s becoming his demonic bride can heal his affliction. I enjoyed this volume more than I expected but for a large section of the book I was really hoping that bad guy Raiko would prevail with his demon hunting mission and actually kill Kyo. I have a feeling I’m not supposed to be rooting for the death of the romantic lead in this manga.

Stepping on Roses Volume 5

I originally felt a little resentful towards this title because I thought it was more superficial than Ueda’s other series Tail of the Moon, which is one of my favorite historical shoujo manga. After reading a couple volumes I think the Perils of Pauline troubles that beset Sumi are starting to be more amusing than annoying, just because Ueda manages to pack so many problems into a single volume of manga. In the fifth volume Sumi is still in her marriage of convenience with wealthy businessman Soichiro. The evil Natsuki has succeeded in driving away Soichiro’s faithful butler and inserting a spying maid into Sumi’s household. Soichiro’s best friend Nozomu is still in love with Sumi but that didn’t stop him from marrying a random rich girl, who is not pleased that her husband is in love with someone else. So! Sumi and Soichiro are growing closer, but when he asks her if she loves him she replies no. He conveniently has forgotten that when they married he instructed her not to fall in love with him and he walks out in the rain. Sumi goes after him and gets soaked. Nozomo has moved out of his house, leaving his wife alone after she caused a scene at a party by attacking Sumi with a bouquet of flowers. Nozomo spends his time alone creepily working on an epic naked painting of Sumi, and when he finds her outside his house he decides to finagle her into posing for him. In the meantime Sumi’s hapless brother with a gambling addiction is trying to go straight by working at Soichiro’s company, and Soichiro’s long lost butler has moved in with Sumi’s poverty stricken family. Whew! I do wish that Sumi had a bit more of a personality, as her main function seems to be making futile attempts to ward off the attentions of almost every man who stumbles across her.

Seiho Boys High School! Volume 5

This volume was my favorite in this mini-batch of manga. I enjoy the self-contained short stories in each volume, but since the series uses the same rotating cast of characters, the reader still gets plenty of character development. Having the stories written more from a male point of view also provides a nice contrast to more conventional shoujo titles. The first couple stories explore Maki’s situation as he remembers his dead girlfriend and struggles on a first date with his new girlfriend. A ghostly image starts appearing to many of the guys at the dorm, and Maki wonders if his girlfriend Erika is trying to signal something to him. The ghost ends up being a hermit-like male student, but Maki has an unexpectedly touching dream triggered by the episode that may be a signal that he’s truly ready to let go and move on with his life. Unfortunately moving on can be difficult, as he attempts to go on a date with his current love interest and starts tensing up and making the situation even more awkward. Stories about relationships are balanced out by more comedic episodes, as Hanai accidentally finds his photographic ambitions recognized when he starts getting besieged by girls from other schools who want pictures of his classmates. The ongoing storyline about ordinary girl Miyaji and extraordinary male specimen Kamiki gets a little bit of progression as well. This manga strikes me as a good series to have around to reread. The episodic nature of Seiho Boys High School makes it easy to pick up a random volume to read, and the short stories provide plenty of humor and emotion.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Rumiko Takahashi is one of those manga artists whose influence it is impossible to overstate, but the prolific nature of her manga series might make her works seem a bit daunting to the average reader who might not feel like picking up 56 volumes of Inuyasha or 36 volumes of Ranma 1/2. Many manga bloggers are choosing to focus on shorter series and her short stories this week, and I’m no exception as I decided to finally read a couple volumes of the Rumic World Trilogy that I’ve been hoarding for just such an occasion. Somewhere in a closet I have stashed a few single issues of Uresei Yatsura and one of my favorite Takahashi stories, Firetripper, which appears in collected format in the Rumic World Trilogy Volume 1. Firetripper is probably a contributing factor to why I like Shinobi Life so much, as it features a time traveling romance about a girl from modern times who ends up meeting a warrior from the past.

The second volume of the Rumic World Trilogy is almost a self-contained volume, as it features five stories with the same characters bookended by two short stories, “The Golden Gods of Poverty” about an unfortunate boy who is used by his rapacious parents to summon the lucky gods who don’t seem to be very lucky anymore, and “The Entrepreneurial Spirit” about fundraising seances in high school.

“Wasted Minds” are the five linked stories in this volume, which are a comedic adventure story about two spies with special powers. Yura Enjoji functions as the team’s strongman, and she is fiercely protective of her long hair. Tamuro Gomi’s last name (trash in Japanese) is a reflection of his skills because he is a teleporter who can only teleport from trash heap to trash heap. They start investigating a rival spy agency along with their hapless handler. They run into pigs that transform machines into trash, sea monsters, and a school for teen juvenile delinquents. As they flit from garbage dump to trashcan, there’s plenty of adventures and a little bit of romance. Whenever I pick up a Takahashi title, I’m struck by the simplicity of her illustrations and clear action sequences of her art. It seems like many manga titles today rely on an abundance of screen tone and occasionally confusing panel composition, so it is a relief to my eyes to pick up a title like this that is so easy to read.

The third volume of this series features a nice selection of short stories. I enjoyed the first one, “Wedded Bliss” about a new couple who happily fights all the time to the detriment of their neighbors. “War Council” was an amusing take on the “evil student council” type story that so often pops up in manga, as an ordinary boy who agrees to serve as student council president because he has a crush on the vice president is caught between the warring factions of the jock student organization and the nerd student organization. “When my Eyes Got Wings” shows more of a horror influence as a sick boy with a scary pet bird develops a crush on a high school girl, and strange things begin happening around her boyfriend. “Sleep and Forget” is a dramatic romance that resembled “Firetripper” in plot and tone. A girl and boy with a connection to dogs relive and reenact events from their past lives, as they struggle with the vicious spirits of a dog and the old woman that was its master. “The Face Pack” is a goofy story about a group of students dedicated to the art of disguise. Also included is an autobiographical sketch of what happened to Takahashi when she suddenly found herself cat-sitting. Out of all of the stories in this volume, I found “Sleep and Forget” the most memorable, just because tend to enjoy Takahashi when she turns her hand to more serious stories that blend action and romance.

If you’re a little intimidated by the thought of tackling Takahashi, I think that these Rumic World Trilogy volumes are a worthwhile investment. While they might be out of print, they are still easy to acquire. Sometimes when reading anthology manga volumes, I put them down thinking that most of the stories were auditions for longer series that didn’t quite make the grade. I didn’t get that feeling when reading the Rumic World stories, as everything seemed nicely resolved and self-contained.

Check out the Manga Moveable Feast for more bloggers talking about Rumiko Takahashi.

Ai Ore Volume 1 by Mayu Shinjo

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged much about Mayu Shinjo’s series Sensual Phrase, mostly because I wrote about it for Library Journal’s Xpress Reviews online a long long time ago. If you scroll down this page you can see my review of the final volume. Sensual Phrase was pure trashy soapy fun, as you might expect from a series about a virginal (but not for long) girl who inexplicably becomes recruited to be the lyricist of a popular rock band. Shinju’s series fill a niche that isn’t often explored here for translated manga – more mature shoujo. We’ve got some other examples like Butterflies, Flowers (which I consider to be josei masquerading as shoujo) but not much else.

Ai Ore deals with superficially swapping traditional gender roles and romance in a teen rock band saga format. An androgynous band named Blaue Rosen is faced with the loss of their lead singer. All the pretty boys in the band are actually girls who attend the same all female high school. A cute girl named Akira asks to audition for the part, but the stoic lead guitarist Mizuki doesn’t want anyone else singing her songs. Of course Akira turns out to be a boy, and a romance between the tall and rangy Mizuki and the short and cute Akira begins. Mizuki’s handsomeness cause her to be treated as a major crush object by all the girls at her school, and Akira’s feminine charms have given him the title of his school’s “princess”. When Mizuki and Akira are together, misunderstandings abound as Mizuki’s classmates don’t understand why she is favoring a single girl with her attention and the boys at Akira’s school are disappointed that a handsome boy is monopolizing the attention of their princess. Shenanigans!

Unfortunately the switch in outward appearances doesn’t mean that Shinjo’s characters personalities are switched as well. For all his girlish features, Akira is a fairly typical alpha male, relentlessly pursuing his goal of dating Mizuki and joining her band despite her not very convincing protestations. While Mizuki professes to hate men, and is committed to maintaining her princely outward appearance, her inexplicable feelings for Akira turn her timorous. She doesn’t project the self-confidence and cool that she’s able to maintain as part of her stage performance. Shinjo’s romantic plot devices have a striking similarity to many of the tropes that pop up in old school romance novels. Threats of rape and sexual assault are common, and I was a little bummed out yet unsurprised that the end of this volume focused on several scenarios of this type. I am generally a big fan of cross dressing manga but Ai Ore didn’t totally win me over, despite plenty of over the top pronouncements like Akira saying “Instead of singing about love, drown yourself in me!” It was a little hard for me to believe that Akira is more physically dominating than Mizuki when he’s drawn to be around a foot shorter than her.

Existing Mayu Shinjo fans will find a lot to like about Ai Ore. It is an oversized edition of 300 pages, with color pages in the front and a character gallery in the back. Even though I’m not finding this manga as immediately addicting as Sensual Phrase, I’ll want to check out the second volume.

Review copy provided by the publisher

According to random.org, the winner of the Tokyopop Trio Giveaway is comment #9 from Alex Hoffman of Manga Widget. He wrote that he would miss the josei series Suppli the most, which is also one of the series that I’m going to miss.

Other unfinished series that are causing manga fans to mourn are listed below. I am starting to feel a little depressed again, but am taking comfort in the fact I am sharing the manga love by sending a package to Alex!

Maid Sama
Shinobi Life (me too!)
Your and My Secret (me too!)
Pet Shop of Horrors
Genju no Seiza
tactics (I have a few stray volumes of this, haven’t read it yet)
Aria (I think this is a candidate for a license rescue, as it does seem to have a devoted fanbase)
Demon Sacred (me too)
Trinity Blood
Wild Adapter
Saiyuki
Vassalord
Togainu no Chi
Zone-00
Dot Hacks
Gundam
Fake
Cyborg 009

Kingyo Used Books Volume 3

Reading this series can sometimes be a little bit painful. All the loving descriptions of classic manga that will never be released in English make me pine for what I’m unable to read. This volume might be a little more fun for American manga fans because much of the manga profiled in this volume will be familiar. The third volume starts off when a scardey cat meets a beautiful woman who is obsessed with Umezu horror manga. He tries to read the manga as a superficial way of connecting with his pick-up target, and ends up appreciating the horror genre much more than he thought he would because “Every one of his characters goes full-throttle at everything.” In “Makeup” a woman struggling with her career finds the strength to continue when she revisits her childhood love of Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon serves as a cultural touchstone for all the women she randomly encounters during her day. They share memories, with one of them asking “Don’t you think dressing up feels like going into battle mode?”

The other stories in Kingyo Used Books feature stories about cooking manga, romance between employees, and the lengths someone will go to in order to track down an unreturned book. The notes in the back provide some interesting historical context about the status of manga lending libraries in Japan. It occurs to me that between Kingyo Used Books, with its overview of classic series and focus on the connections that readers make with manga and Bakuman’s feverish statistic-laced overview of the act of manga creation, it is possible to build up a good if idiosyncratic portrait of the manga industry in Japan.

Afterschool Charisma Volume 2

I’m not always great about remembering to go over to check the Sigikki site for online chapters (although I am very thankful the site exists), so I’m making a mental note to go over there this week and get caught up on Afterschool Charisma. I was familiar with most of the chapters in this volume due to one of my infrequent Sigikki binges, but it was nice to sit down with the print edition and revisit this series about a normal high school boy trapped in a school filled with the clones of famous historic figures. The clones are getting ready for their annual talent day. Glimmerings of a new religion begin to manifest when small groups of clones start carrying around tiny sheep and referring to the “Almighty Dolly”. Shiro has to deal with a couple stressful situations – he’s tasked with babysitting a suicidal Mozart, and the school’s feckless director swoops in along with an ominously familiar looking little girl named Pandora. The school director latches on to Shiro and forces him to play tennis and other sports while all the clones are studying. Shiro starts getting caught up in the clones new religion, along with his new companion Hitler. I continue to be an unabashed Freud fangirl, because it is just hilarious seeing teenage Freud skulk around with his pageboy haircut uncovering evil secret organizations, and then acting incredibly neurotic the minute anyone asks him what he’s doing. This volume ends with a big surprise, so I’ve got to get over to the online chapters and find out what is going to happen!

House of Five Leaves Volume 3

Every time I pick up a volume of this manga, I’m struck by the unique atmosphere that Ono creates. The blend of Edo period slice of life pacing and the underworld setting creates an undercurrent of tension. I’m always on edge thinking that the moment is going to come when hapless ronin Masa is going to get caught up in violence but he always manages to drift along on the edges of life, surviving despite himself. In this volume the spy/thief of the House of Five Leaves gets caught stealing, and Masa takes advantage of his new charismatic acquaintance Yagi to gain a side job at the house where his companion is being held captive. Yaichi is suspicious of Masa’s new friendship with Yagi, but is he anxious not to see someone else take on his pet ronin or is something else going on? Masa’s sister abruptly visits Masa in order to get some help extracting herself from a marriage offer, and it is funny seeing how the gang of hardened criminals acts around her. Everybody remarks that she eats just like Masa, and seeing Masa take on the role of scolding older brother shows a different aspect of his personality. For all of Masa’s supposed ineffectiveness, he does manage to aid his comrades but in doing so he gives the outsider Yagi more information than what might be prudent. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next between the odd triangle of Masa, Yaichi, and Yagi.

Review copies of Kingyo Used books and House of Five leaves provided by the publisher.

One of the unfinished series from Tokyopop that I’ll miss the most is Demon Sacred. It had a total commitment to shoujo insanity, and I’m sad that I won’t be able to see the end of this story about trans-dimensional unicorns, teen idol doppelganger demons, and reverse aging teens. Michelle pointed out to me that Crunchyroll is streaming Hanasakeru Seishonen, an anime based on another Natsumi Itsuki manga. After watching the first few episodes, it seems like Hanasakeru Seishonen isn’t quite as crazy as Demon Sacred (I’m not sure what could be) but the reverse harem scenario and off the wall plot elements will serve as compensation for the lack of new Itsuki manga in my life.

I’ve only watched the first four episodes of this thirty-nine episode series, so I’m sure there are some long-running plot elements that haven’t been introduced yet. But I thought I’d give a brief overview of the series for other manga fans that might be experiencing Demon Sacred withdrawal. Kajika is a mysterious girl who has spent most of her childhood on an isolated tropical island. The first episode of Hanasakeru Seishonen shows her enrolling in a normal Japanese high school and starting to blend in with her classmates. The focus on Japanese high school life is quickly diverted as Kajika’s incredibly rich father orders her to return to him in order to play a “marriage game” where she has to somehow identify, woo, and decide who she wants to marry among the three potential son-in-laws he has picked out. Along for the journey are Kajika’s baby-faced bodyguard Toranosuke and her companion Lee-Leng, who just happens to be the heir of a rich Chinese family. While the set-up appears to be a straightforward game of mystery date, Itsuki has a way of making things more interesting than you might expect from what initially seems to be a simple reverse harem scenario.

The first candidate for Kajika’s affections is Eugene Volkan, a man with unique coloring that reminds Kajika of her long-lost leopard companion Mustafa. Kajika decides that Eugene is carrying Mustafa’s spirit and immediately is drawn to him. Little does she know that the Volkan family has a complicated history involving insanity, artificial insemination, and suicide. Eugene himself is a stone cold womanizer who seems to set up a parade of woman who fall in love with him and then decide to kill themselves when he doesn’t return their affections. Kajika immediately latches onto Eugene and starts telling him stories about his previous life as a leopard. Lee-Leng is supposed to be overseeing Kajika’s progress in the “marriage game” and he views Eugene as an entirely unsuitable candidate, I suspect because he secretly wants to marry her himself.

There was plenty of drama in the first four episodes of Hanasakeru Seishonen. While it didn’t feature the endless parade of delightfully improbable plot elements that I found fascinating in the Demon Sacred manga, I’m expecting that the story will grow more and more complex, as Itsuki tends to touch on different areas when building her characters’ worlds. I’ll be watching the next few episodes, because I figure in a series as long as this it will grow more complex and interesting as it progresses.