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Katherine Dacey

The Betrayal Knows My Name, Vol. 1

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For years, Tokyopop specialized in a particular genre — call it “forbidden bromance,” for want of a better term — in which two handsome, impeccably groomed young men teetered on the brink of a relationship. That relationship usually faced a serious obstacle: one might be a demon and the other a human, for example, or one may have killed the other in a previous life. Most of the story was devoted to uncovering the reason that fate united them, providing the heroes ample time for impassioned conversations and meaningful looks.

At their best, titles like Tokyo Bablyon, Silver Diamond, and X-Kai were silly but engrossing, with plot twists as gloriously melodramatic as an episode of Passions; at their worst, they read like bad slash fic, with purple dialogue and an abundance of poorly explained plot details. Yen Press’ latest offering, The Betrayal Knows My Name, has all the requisite elements to be a gas — pretty-boy leads, past-life tragedy, perfectly moussed locks — but never quite rises to the level of a great guilty pleasure.

Not that volume one wants for activity; every chapter is packed with action sequences, murderous demons, dramatic confrontations, and shocking revelations. What Betrayal lacks is the kind of tightly constructed narrative that made the best bromances such a treat to read. The characters barely rise above type, while script flirts with incoherence at every turn, introducing new characters and subplots at such a furious pace that the central love story is often in danger of being overshadowed. Even the dialogue sags; when the characters aren’t explaining things to one another, they’re so wrapped up in their own thoughts that their monologues become tedious. (Sample: “We can’t survive on principles alone. And everyone would like to live without getting tainted at all. But that’s not how things are.”)

That’s a pity, because The Betrayal Knows My Name looks a lot like my favorite bromances. The character designs owe an obvious debt to CLAMP’s high Baroque period, when characters wore trench coats and dog collars and always had windswept hair. And Hotaru Odagiri certainly knows how to draw brooding men; her heroes, Yuki and Zess, spend a great deal of time staring into space while wearing soulful expressions. (They also know how to pop a pose for readers, allowing us to savor the sheer ridiculousness of their outfits, and the artful way in which they leave their shirts unbuttoned to the waist.)

Yet the prettiness of the character designs can’t camouflage the fact that Betrayal is straining too hard for effect; what should be a great, emo-porn pleasure is something of a chore to read, thanks to its relentless pace, clumsy dialogue, and chemistry-free leads. Readers who can’t get enough of the forbidden bromance genre may find Betrayal an adequate fix; others are encouraged to hold out for Tokyo Babylon‘s return this fall.

Review copy provided by Yen Press.

THE BETRAYAL KNOWS MY NAME, VOL. 1 • BY HOTARO ODAGIRI • YEN PRESS • 368 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

The Betrayal Knows My Name, Vol. 1

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For years, Tokyopop specialized in a particular genre — call it “forbidden bromance,” for want of a better term — in which two handsome, impeccably groomed young men teetered on the brink of a relationship. That relationship usually faced a serious obstacle: one might be a demon and the other a human, for example, or one may have killed the other in a previous life. Most of the story was devoted to uncovering the reason that fate united them, providing the heroes ample time for impassioned conversations and meaningful looks.

At their best, titles like Tokyo Bablyon, Silver Diamond, and X-Kai were silly but engrossing, with plot twists as gloriously melodramatic as an episode of Passions; at their worst, they read like bad slash fic, with purple dialogue and an abundance of poorly explained plot details. Yen Press’ latest offering, The Betrayal Knows My Name, has all the requisite elements to be a gas — pretty-boy leads, past-life tragedy, perfectly moussed locks — but never quite rises to the level of a great guilty pleasure.

Not that volume one wants for activity; every chapter is packed with action sequences, murderous demons, dramatic confrontations, and shocking revelations. What Betrayal lacks is the kind of tightly constructed narrative that made the best bromances such a treat to read. The characters barely rise above type, while script flirts with incoherence at every turn, introducing new characters and subplots at such a furious pace that the central love story is often in danger of being overshadowed. Even the dialogue sags; when the characters aren’t explaining things to one another, they’re so wrapped up in their own thoughts that their monologues become tedious. (Sample: “We can’t survive on principles alone. And everyone would like to live without getting tainted at all. But that’s not how things are.”)

That’s a pity, because The Betrayal Knows My Name looks a lot like my favorite bromances. The character designs owe an obvious debt to CLAMP’s high Baroque period, when characters wore trench coats and dog collars and always had windswept hair. And Hotaru Odagiri certainly knows how to draw brooding men; her heroes, Yuki and Zess, spend a great deal of time staring into space while wearing soulful expressions. (They also know how to pop a pose for readers, allowing us to savor the sheer ridiculousness of their outfits, and the artful way in which they leave their shirts unbuttoned to the waist.)

Yet the prettiness of the character designs can’t camouflage the fact that Betrayal is straining too hard for effect; what should be a great, emo-porn pleasure is something of a chore to read, thanks to its relentless pace, clumsy dialogue, and chemistry-free leads. Readers who can’t get enough of the forbidden bromance genre may find Betrayal an adequate fix; others are encouraged to hold out for Tokyo Babylon‘s return this fall.

Review copy provided by Yen Press.

THE BETRAYAL KNOWS MY NAME, VOL. 1 • BY HOTARO ODAGIRI • YEN PRESS • 368 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Pick of the Week: Women’s Manga

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MJ: Something that’s been on my mind, lately, thanks to a yet-to-be-released podcast David and I recently participated in as well as the relative shortage of adventurous new readers for this month’s Manga Moveable Feast, is how difficult it can be to successfully sell manga intended for female readers, especially adult women. So, given the somewhat lackluster selection this week at Midtown Comics, I asked my fellow critics of the battle robot to join me in recommending a few series for women that tend to get overlooked.

I’ll begin with a recommendation for one of my favorite romantic comedies, Tomoko Ninomiya’s Nodame Cantabile, originally published in Kodansha’s Kiss magazine, and partially released in English by Del Rey Manga. Though the series was very popular in Japan, it never really took off here, leaving its run perilously stalled at 16 volumes (out of a possible 25). The story follows a group of music students through graduate school and into the beginnings of their careers, particularly eccentric pianist Megumi “Nodame” Noda and aspiring conductor Shinichi Chiaki. Though complaints can (and have) been made about the conservative nature of the students’ musical repertoire, the series’ music school setting rings stunningly true to my own experience, and its exploration of ability vs. ambition is pretty hard to beat. More than that, though, it’s terrific romantic comedy that just gets better and better as the series goes on. Though there’s been no inkling at all that Kodansha Comics might pick up here where Del Rey left off, I’d personally walk around in a Nodame sandwich board if I thought that would help make it happen. Give us more Nodame Cantabile! Please?

DAVID: Okay, Hinako Ashihara’s Sand Chronicles (Viz) is technically shôjo, having run in Shogakukan’s Betsucomi, but I believe the estimable Ed Chavez of Vertical once described it as something along the lines of “stealth josei,” so I feel recommending it in this context. I also feel comfortable doing so because it’s flat-out excellent, following its heroine from early adolescence to womanhood, dividing its time pretty much equally among high school, college, and working life, which makes it something quite unique in serial comics, at least in my experience. The scope of the story gives Ashihara so many opportunities to really dig into Ann’s psyche, her milestones, and her choices, good and bad, and Ashihara makes the most of those opportunities. Does Sand Chronicles occasionally indulge in melodrama? Yes, it certainly does, but that melodrama is characterized by sincerity and urgency rather than cheapness and manipulation. The eight-volume core story is supplemented by two additional collections of shorts that give insights into supporting characters and really enhance the whole tapestry.

KATE: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my recommendation is Mari Okazaki’s Suppli, one of many casualties of Tokyopop’s demise. I’d call it “working girl manga,” but that has an unsavory connotation, so instead I’ll call it “career woman manga.” The story focuses on a twenty-something college grad whose dedication to her job tanks a long-standing relationship. Not surprisingly, Minami turns to work to fill the void left by her boyfriend, pulling all-nighters, pitching her own ideas, and becoming more involved with her co-workers’ personal lives. She soon discovers that the office is teeming with romantic prospects, and plunges into a steamy affair with a co-worker while carrying on an aggressive flirtation with another. Though the sudsy story is a big draw, the art is the real star of Suppli: it’s crazy-gorgeous, filled with some of the most sensual imagery I’ve seen in a licensed manga. (No one does floral imagery quite like Okazaki.) Don’t let Suppli‘s unfinished state deter you from trying it; it’s smart and sexy, and makes an awesome bathtub read.

MICHELLE: I don’t think Fumi Yoshinaga is in danger of being overlooked, but when it comes to manga for adult women, one simply can’t say enough about All My Darling Daughters. The short stories in this collection revolve around Yukiko Kisaragi, a woman whose still-beautiful mother embraces life after a cancer scare and impulsively marries a much younger man. As Yukiko struggles to accept that the relationship is genuine, the other stories flesh out the lives of her friends, acquaintances, and relatives, showing how words and actions can have unintended consequences and that sometimes dreams just don’t come true. That makes it sound like a downer, but really the message is an uplifting one, as Yukiko comes to realize not only that her mother’s new husband is good for her, but that her own life is pretty damned good, as well. Sniffles will ensue, but they’ll be the good kind.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. Readers, what titles would you like to add?

Bookshelf Briefs 6/27/11

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This week, Michelle, MJ, Kate, & David take a look at new releases from Viz Media, Yen Press, and Archie Comics.

Bleach, Vol. 35 | By Tite Kubo | Viz Media – The battle to rescue Orihime and foil Aizen’s plans to destroy Karakura Town continues! Too bad that it mostly does so in the form of an interminable match-up between Kenpachi Zaraki, badass Soul Reaper captain, and Nnoitora, the irksome Arrancar. You just know that when an opponent in shounen manga brags incessantly about how it’s impossible to cut him, he is gonna wind up getting cut. And so it goes, though the fight itself is a confusing mess of blows, explosions, and sound effects like “wooo” and “klang.” There’s finally a bit of progress in Aizen’s plans, and if I cared enough I’d ferret out what seems to be either sloppy plotting or a retcon, but the truth is that it’s really best not to think too much about such things when reading Bleach, which in this volume embodies mindless entertainment at its best. – Michelle Smith

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 2 | By Kazue Kato | Viz Media – Exorcist-in-training Rin has been slacking in class, but when a tough-looking classmate proves to be surprisingly smart, it acts as some motivation to get his act together. Then he and the other students are thrust together for the Esquire Examination, with the pleasing result that we get to know quite a few other kids in a short period of time. There’s a real Hogwarts vibe happening too, with the varieties of courses and specialties available for exorcists. One aspect of the story leaves me cold, though, and that’s Rin’s ultimate goal. Now that I have insight into the Shonen Jump editorial process courtesy of Bakuman。, I can’t help but think that “I’ll become an exorcist so I can defeat Satan!” is someone’s calculated attempt to meet the requirements of a popular battle manga. – Michelle Smith

Highschool of the Dead, Vol. 3 | Story by Saisuke Sato, Art by Shouji Sato | Yen Press – After escaping school grounds, resisting the authority of a charismatic but dangerous teacher, and rescuing a small girl from an undead mob, our heroes stumble across a band of paranoid survivors who believe that the zombies are, in fact, an elaborate government hoax. Though this twist provides welcome relief from the endless parade of panty shots and girl-on-girl teases, Highschool of the Dead is still a chore to read; the dialogue is so stiff and unnatural that it’s hard to suppress a giggle, even when the authors are dead serious. Sloppily staged fight scenes and poorly drawn figures do little to make the very thin story more palatable to discerning zombie fans. – Katherine Dacey

Kimi ni Todoke, Vol. 9 | By Karuho Shiina | Viz Media – As sweet as Kimi ni Todoke is, its one potentially frustrating element is its heroine Sawako’s inability to see herself as equal to her would-be suitor, Kazehaya. Fortunately, her friends (and even one of her foes) finally give her what for in in volume nine, the results of which leave us waiting breathlessly for volume ten. As usual, Karuho Shiina plays things out in perfect high school shoujo romance fashion, while also refreshing the genre as she goes. Shiina pushes Sawako’s stubborn self-deprecation to the point of parody early in the volume, without damaging the series’ sincere tone in the slightest. Meta has never tasted so sweet. Always recommended. – MJ

One Piece, Vol. 57 | By Eiichiro Oda | Viz Media – I never thought I’d type these words about this series, but I’m ready for the current story arc to be over. Luffy, our pirate hero, is struggling mightily to save his brother Ace from a terrible fate. He’s inadvertently assembled an army of new friends and old foes along the way and is waging a pitched battle against the forces of the Navy. This is all executed well, and there are some particular highlights. (Any story arc that heavily features a super-powerful, anarchist drag queen can’t be all bad.) But I can’t get past how much I miss the participation of Luffy’s regular crew, the Straw Hats, and I’m not able to see the virtue in sidelining them during such an important milestone in their captain’s life. Eye-popping mayhem is all well and good, but it’s better when there are old friends in the thick of it.– David Welsh

Time and Again, Vol. 6 | By JiUn Yun | Yen Press – In the final volume of Time and Again, author JiUn Kim explores the family curse that ultimately set Baek-On on the path to becoming an exorcist. A deft mixture of folklore, horror, and intergenerational conflict, Baek-On’s back story would be a stand-out in any ghost-of-the-week drama; here, however, it provides a fitting capstone to an ambitious, if sometimes uneven, collection of stories about a young man struggling to carve out his own path, even though his divination skills all but ensured that he would assume his father’s profession. Kim’s artwork is elegant yet restrained, striking the right balance between sumptuous period detail and spare staging of events. N.B. Die-hard fans of Time and Again will enjoy the afterword to volume six, in which Kim cheerfully discusses the historical and continuity errors she made in the course of writing the series. – Katherine Dacey

Veronica Presents: Kevin Keller #1 |By Dan Parent, Rich Koslowski and Jack Morelli |Archie Comics – It’s awfully cool of Archie Comics to introduce a gay character and commit to him as an ongoing citizen of fictional Riverdale. Even nicer is the fact that, aside from a few troll-ish comments from people who’ve probably never read an Archie comic in the first place, response to the addition has been overwhelmingly positive. The net result, at least based on the evidence of this particular comic, is that Riverdale has another uncomplicated, good-natured teen resident, sort of a gay male Betty. Kevin is out to his family and friends, and readers get to see flashbacks to that process. The underlying plot is more about Kevin’s hopes to serve in the military someday, following in his supportive father’s footsteps. Basically, though, it’s an Archie comic about nice kids being nice. Seriously, did anyone honestly think there’d be any other outcome? That the White Party would swing through Riverdale? – David Welsh

Pick of the Week: Diversity

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Another week, another batch of new (and not so new) releases at Midtown Comics. Check out our picks below!

KATE: This week’s new arrival list looks a little wonky. It includes a large batch of Vertical titles that have already been released (e.g. both volumes of Apollo’s Song) as well as a smattering of Tokyopop manga that most of us never expected to see the light of day (e.g. the final volume of Hanako and the Terror of Allegory). Buried among the reprints and orphans, I spotted the third volume of Afterschool Charisma, one of my new guilty pleasure titles. The story focuses on an academy for gifted teens. But the students at St. Kleio’s are no ordinary high schoolers; each has been cloned from a famous historical figure (e.g. Marie Curie, Joan of Arc, Napoleon) and is being groomed for a life of public service. Though the first two volumes were a bit of a mess, see-sawing between suspense and wacky hijinks, the story finds its legs in volume three, offering a nifty, third-act plot twist that casts the entire cloning project in a new and sinister light. And really, what’s not to like about a manga that depicts Sigmund Freud as a petulant bishonen who likes to tease his classmates about their daddy issues?

MICHELLE: I’ve already spoken of my love for the seventh volume of 13th Boy in a recent Off the Shelf column, so while I definitely still recommend checking out that series, the item that most intrigues me this week is the first volume of another Yen Press series, The Betrayal Knows My Name. I don’t know much about it, other than it ran in Asuka and seems to be a supernatural story with BL flavor. Although this is the first shoujo release for Hotaru Odagiri in English, she has had some BL titles released here, like Time Lag and Invisible Boy. As an added bonus, Yen is releasing the series in 2-in-1 omnibus editions!

MJ: I too must praise 13th Boy, but of the items on this week’s list that are actually new, my attention is most drawn by the second volume of Jason Thompson and Victor Hao’s King of RPGs. It’s been a year and a half since Del Rey released the first volume of this OEL series and I’d actually begun to fear that it was all we’d ever see, so I was pretty thrilled to spot it on the list. I reviewed the first volume as a guest at About.com, and while I have to acknowledge its nerd-specific appeal, as the spouse of a serious gamer, it could not have delighted me more. To quote my bottom line, “With its endless stream of geeky jokes and wildly exaggerated gaming scenes that easily rival the most outrageous shounen sports manga, King of RPGs barely comes up for air as it races to the end of its intense first volume. Crafted with deep and obvious affection, this comic is a love letter to gamers and manga fans everywhere.” Volume two, bring it on!

DAVID: I feel ambivalent about my pick, but I feel ambivalent about all things Tokyopop. It’s wistful and strange to see their last few new arrivals. And it’s downright unnerving to realize I didn’t dodge the bullet fired by readers of my blog in a previous dubious manga poll. So my pick is Nanki Satou’s Maid Shokun which is about maids and is not Emma,, so I think my anxiety can be forgiven. On the other hand, Lillian Diaz-Przybyl did compare it favorably to Honey and Clover, so maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. By the one volume of the series that may ever be published in English. Ambivalence! Like, cubed!

So, readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 6/20/11

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This week, David, Kate, & Michelle take a look at a handful of titles from Vertical, Viz Media, and Digital Manga Publishing.

 

 

Black Jack, Vol. 14 | By Osamu Tezuka | Vertical — This volume of Tezuka’s medical melodrama classic run right down the middle in term of quality. It’s solidly entertaining throughout, and there are very few clunky moments, but there aren’t as many knock-it-out-of-the-park episodes as you might find in the best installments of the series. Since there’s no real cause for complaint overall, I’ll focus on my favorite piece, “A Rapid Current.” For my money, the best Black Jack stories throw our antihero out of his comfort zone and force him to set aside his hard-case persona. In “Current,” the good-bad doctor is stuck on a rapids-battered raft with an unflappable lady in an advanced state of pregnancy. The story is surprising, suspenseful, funny, and mournful, and it’s a perfect reminder of why it’s always worthwhile to pay a visit to this corner of Tezuka’s universe. –David Welsh

Grand Guignol Orchestra, Vol. 3 | By Kaori Yuki | Viz Media — With each new volume, this series comes closer to becoming the kind of glittering, gruesome guilty pleasure I hoped it would be. Yuki’s tale of traveling musicians who fight zombies is far from perfect, and Yuki is prone to some serious narrative gobbledygook, but the fun, creepy bits are gaining ground. This installment features vicious nuns, decadent nobles, shocking betrayal, cross-dressing espionage, and just enough grotesque perversion to keep things lively. I’ve always found Yuki’s manga visually beautiful, but I’ve also often found it incomprehensible. Moment-to-moment plotting still isn’t her strongest suit, but this is easily her best effort that I’ve sampled. I may even come to care about the characters beyond gawping at their violent high jinks. Even the sidebar notes – particularly the one where Yuki wishes good riddance on a villainous character she hated drawing – are entertaining. –David Welsh

Higurashi When They Cry: Demon Exposing Arc | By Ryukishi07 and En Kito | Yen Press – So far, the only portions of the Higurashi manga I’ve read have been peripheral to the main storyline, but each has convinced me that I will have to remedy that soon. This two-in-one omnibus collects the entirety of the Demon Exposing Arc, which depicts the insanity that befalls former Hinamizawa residents after said village is destroyed by a gas explosion. Normal teen Natsumi witnesses the madness firsthand and lives a bizarre double life wherein the boy she likes is confessing his feelings to her one moment, and her Hinamizawa-born grandma is drowning puppies in the bathtub the next. Soon her mother is exhibiting symptoms, leaving Natsumi with nowhere to turn. If the appeal of Higurashi is innocent-looking girls spattered with blood, then this creepy side story definitely lives up to the original. -Michelle Smith

La Quinta Camera | By Natsume Ono | VIZ Media – This collection of short, interconnected vignettes was Natsume Ono’s professional debut. Like Gente and Ristorante Paradiso, La Quinta Camera is set in Italy, and explores the lives of five people who share a common space — in this case, a five-room apartment inhabited by a handful of eccentric bachelors and a young Danish exchange student named Charlotte. As in Ono’s other Italian works, not much happens; characters plan parties, discuss the merits of living abroad, and occasionally share painful memories. The biggest difference between Camera and Ristorante Paradiso is craft: not only do the characters look flatter and squatter than the elegant gents of Casetta dell’Orso, but the writing is also not as polished, relying heavily on coincidence and sudden, emotional outbursts to advance the narrative. Despite its limitations, Camera still charms, offering a pleasant, if aimless, look at life in urban Italy. -Katherine Dacey

Moon and Blood, Vol. 1 | By Nao Yazawa | Digital Manga Publishing – There’s hardly anything to this short little volume from Nao Yazawa, better known here as the creator of the magical girl series Wedding Peach. It’s almost as if Yazawa is writing with a shoujo manga checklist in hand and marking off the clichés as she goes. Dense heroine, check. Mysterious boy, check. Jealous and excitable childhood friend, check. Situation in which boy—who is brilliant, athletic, and a great cook—is the son of a family friend and will now be living with the heroine and attending her school, check. There’s a small amount of supernatural intrigue—apparently the boy is a vampire and his cat-like sire is feeding off the heroine’s family—but it’s not enough to spark any genuine interest in this decidedly lackluster title. -Michelle Smith

Bookshelf Briefs, 6/13/11

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This week, MJ, Kate, & Michelle take a look at a handful of titles from Viz Media and Digital Manga Publishing.

Border, Vol. 1 | By Kazuma Kodaka | Digital Manga Publishing – If you’re still mourning the cancellation of Crown, you could do a lot worse than Border, a globe-trotting adventure about an ex-commando who runs a detective agency. The story focuses on a quartet of handsome men: Yamato, a former Special Forces officer; Sogo, the team’s go-to guy for explosives and gizmos; Tamaki, a hairdresser who moonlights as a detective; and Kippei, their plucky Guy Friday. Volume one begins with two stories showing the team solving cases, then jumps back in time to explore Yamato’s military past. Aside from a few unfortunate “I’m not gay, you’re special!” conversations between Yamato and his lover, the flashback works surprisingly well, explaining both Yamato’s skills (he can repel down skyscraper walls and overpower men twice his size) and his conflicted attitudes about sex. Sexy character designs, decent action sequences, and an engaging plot complete the attractive package. -Katherine Dacey

Claymore, Vol. 18 | By Norihiro Yagi | Viz Media – I’m a big fan of Claymore, there’s no doubt, but I’ll admit the last two volumes have wearied me some. Aside from a few fascinating revelations at the beginning of volume 16, it’s been all battles, all the time in the Claymore universe lately. But though volume 18 deviates very little from that trend, it also offers at long last the confrontation we’ve been moving toward for nearly the entire series as Clare meets Priscilla on the battlefield once more. While it’s true that battles are hardly my favorite thing, even in battle manga, this kind of emotionally fraught skirmish shows off mangaka Norihiro Yagi at his best. It’s nice to finally find myself at the edge of my seat again. Bring it on, Yagi, bring it on. -MJ

The Desert Prince | By Shushushu Sakurai | Digital Manga Publishing – Superficially, the five stories that comprise The Desert Prince are very different: one focuses on the relationship between a handsome sheik and a Japanese tourist, for example, while another explores the attraction between a yakuza enforcer and his protege. Plot-wise, however, all five stories follow the same trajectory, with characters fussin’ and fightin’ until one breaks down and confesses his true feelings for the other, leading to a brief but steamy sex scene. Shushushu Sakurai’s character designs are generally appealing, though she struggles a bit to make her older men look their age; the hero of the final story, “Mister Y’s Love,” looks more like a shar-pei puppy than a retiree. What prevents The Desert Prince from being a guilty pleasure is the thinness of the writing; there are simply too many plot holes, coincidences, and abrupt reversals for any of the stories to make much of an impression, in or out of the bedroom. -Katherine Dacey

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 25 | By Hiromu Arakawa | Viz Media – Oh, Fullmetal Alchemist, you never cease to thrill me. Just two volumes away from the conclusion to Arakawa’s epic fantasy-adventure, what strikes me most is just how tightly plotted this series has been since the beginning. With everything coming together as the story approaches climax, it’s clear now that there has been nothing in this entire series—not a single side character, perhaps not even a single joke—that wasn’t carefully crafted to serve that climax in one way or another. Also, between volumes 24 and 25, it’s been made clear to me that a feature on “The Women of Fullmetal Alchemist” is not only imminent, but essential. Arakawa’s women simply kick ass. Highly recommended. -MJ

Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 16 | By Bisco Hatori | Viz Media – The perpetual brakes on the passage of time in Ouran have finally been released and Haruhi becomes a second-year student at long last. Other changes are afoot, too, as Tamaki’s domineering grandmother finally allows him to live in the main house, though this means adhering to her strict rules. Tamaki commits to the challenge admirably—even though it means giving up the host club and possibly Haruhi as well—while everyone else worries about him. Even though this storyline shows most of the characters to their advantage, I would so much rather see Tamaki and Haruhi make real romantic progress that the bulk of this volume is downright dull. I hope we can put Tamaki’s family issues behind us soon and get to the good stuff! -Michelle Smith

Grand Guignol Orchestra, Vol. 3

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In his review of TRON: Legacy, critic Andrew O’Hehir made a distinction between movies that are boring because they make the viewer keenly aware of time’s passage — what he calls “intentional and challenging boredom” — and movies that are boring because they overstimulate the viewer — what he calls the boredom of “endless distraction and wall-to-wall entertainment.” Kaori Yuki’s latest effort, Grand Guignol Orchestra, is a prime example of the latter, a relentlessly melodramatic horror story that never pauses to catch its breath. And while that kind of manga can be engrossing, Yuki’s unwillingness to vary the tone or pace robs Grand Guignol Orchestra of its power to shock, amuse, or arouse anything resembling a real human emotion.

In other words, it’s boring.

The third volume isn’t boring for lack of effort. There’s a lengthy set-piece in which Eles, Gwindel, and Lucille engage in hand-to-hand combat with an evil, cross-dressing nun who is, in fact, a castrato; there are several flashbacks to Lucille and Gwindel’s tortured pasts; and there’s a third-act auction in which noblemen bid for the privilege of watching a young woman be transformed into a zombie. And if those plot twists weren’t enough to hold the reader’s attention, Yuki throws in a few more for good measure: characters double- and triple-cross each other, former enemies unite against a common foe, and zombies swarm a castle, chomping on everyone in sight.

For all the sound and fury, volume three is dramatically inert. Every conversation is overwrought to the point of cartoonishness, draining the truly horrific and sad moments of their visceral power. Worse still, Yuki feels the need to include closed captions for the emotionally impaired, a function she’s assigned to the hapless Eles; when Eles isn’t playing the piano or being held hostage by one of Lucille’s enemies, her primary job is to think about the other characters: “Oh, so that’s why so-and-so has been depressed!” or “They don’t hate each other; they just can’t be together!” And so on.

The artwork, like the script, seems calculated to overwhelm rather than seduce. Yuki is a big proponent of the costume-as-character school of manga writing, substituting epaulets, eye patches, and lace for actual personality traits. As a result, every character, no matter how inconsequential to the story, wears a wackadoo outfit of one sort or another: a habit with a plunging neckline, a clown mask and a cock-eyed top hat. Yuki’s artwork is certainly arresting; her linework is very sensual, and her flair for drawing costumes undeniable, but her desire to populate every scene with elaborately dressed nuns, zombies, and masqueraders comes across as numbing excess in a story that lacks any form of narrative restraint.

I realize that many people will read this review and think I’m a killjoy, that I’ve lost my ability to enjoy a manga for what it is and not what I want it to be. And, to some extent, those readers are right; after five years of grinding out manga reviews, I’m no longer enthusiastic about stories that rely on spectacle to command my attention. But what I find more frustrating about Grand Guignol Orchestra is that there’s nothing real or interesting lurking beneath its busy surface; it’s hysteria masquerading as drama, and the constant stimulation of all-caps dialogue, sudden plot reversals, and Baroque murders becomes its own form of tedium to be endured, rather than something to be savored and enjoyed.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

GRAND GUIGNOL ORCHESTRA, VOL. 3 • BY KAORI YUKI • VIZ MEDIA • 196 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Grand Guignol Orchestra, Vol. 3

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In his review of TRON: Legacy, critic Andrew O’Hehir made a distinction between movies that are boring because they make the viewer keenly aware of time’s passage — what he calls “intentional and challenging boredom” — and movies that are boring because they overstimulate the viewer — what he calls the boredom of “endless distraction and wall-to-wall entertainment.” Kaori Yuki’s latest effort, Grand Guignol Orchestra, is a prime example of the latter, a relentlessly melodramatic horror story that never pauses to catch its breath. And while that kind of manga can be engrossing, Yuki’s unwillingness to vary the tone or pace robs Grand Guignol Orchestra of its power to shock, amuse, or arouse anything resembling a real human emotion.

In other words, it’s boring.

The third volume isn’t boring for lack of effort. There’s a lengthy set-piece in which Eles, Gwindel, and Lucille engage in hand-to-hand combat with an evil, cross-dressing nun who is, in fact, a castrato; there are several flashbacks to Lucille and Gwindel’s tortured pasts; and there’s a third-act auction in which noblemen bid for the privilege of watching a young woman be transformed into a zombie. And if those plot twists weren’t enough to hold the reader’s attention, Yuki throws in a few more for good measure: characters double- and triple-cross each other, former enemies unite against a common foe, and zombies swarm a castle, chomping on everyone in sight.

For all the sound and fury, volume three is dramatically inert. Every conversation is overwrought to the point of cartoonishness, draining the truly horrific and sad moments of their visceral power. Worse still, Yuki feels the need to include closed captions for the emotionally impaired, a function she’s assigned to the hapless Eles; when Eles isn’t playing the piano or being held hostage by one of Lucille’s enemies, her primary job is to think about the other characters: “Oh, so that’s why so-and-so has been depressed!” or “They don’t hate each other; they just can’t be together!” And so on.

The artwork, like the script, seems calculated to overwhelm rather than seduce. Yuki is a big proponent of the costume-as-character school of manga writing, substituting epaulets, eye patches, and lace for actual personality traits. As a result, every character, no matter how inconsequential to the story, wears a wackadoo outfit of one sort or another: a habit with a plunging neckline, a clown mask and a cock-eyed top hat. Yuki’s artwork is certainly arresting; her linework is very sensual, and her flair for drawing costumes undeniable, but her desire to populate every scene with elaborately dressed nuns, zombies, and masqueraders comes across as numbing excess in a story that lacks any form of narrative restraint.

I realize that many people will read this review and think I’m a killjoy, that I’ve lost my ability to enjoy a manga for what it is and not what I want it to be. And, to some extent, those readers are right; after five years of grinding out manga reviews, I’m no longer enthusiastic about stories that rely on spectacle to command my attention. But what I find more frustrating about Grand Guignol Orchestra is that there’s nothing real or interesting lurking beneath its busy surface; it’s hysteria masquerading as drama, and the constant stimulation of all-caps dialogue, sudden plot reversals, and Baroque murders becomes its own form of tedium to be endured, rather than something to be savored and enjoyed.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

GRAND GUIGNOL ORCHESTRA, VOL. 3 • BY KAORI YUKI • VIZ MEDIA • 196 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 1

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Question: what do you get when you cross Sunshine Sketch with X-Men? Answer: A Certain Scientific Railgun, a story about a quartet of schoolgirl psychics who fight crime, go shopping, and eat parfaits. If that combination sounds like the manga equivalent of a peanut butter and tunafish sandwich, it is; the story see-saws between sci-fi pomposity and 4-koma cuteness, never combining these two very different flavors into an appetizing dish.

The story takes place in Academy City, a metropolis whose entire population consists of psychics and psychics-in-training. After a series of bank robberies and bombings, members of Justification, Academy City’s teen police force, make a disturbing discovery: some psychics — or “espers,” in the series’ parlance — are using an illicit drug called Level Upper to enhance their natural ability. (Level Upper is, in essence, steroids for teleporters and mind-readers.) Though the drug grants them tremendous power, that power comes with a terrible price, causing the user to slip into an irreversible coma. The girls must then track the drug to its source before it can spread through Academy City.

As promising as the plot sounds, it often feels like an afterthought, something that happens in between the principal characters’ trips to the mall, the cafe, and the gym. (There’s an entire scene devoted to one character’s efforts to find the perfect pair of pajamas. No, I’m not kidding.) The lead character, Mikoto, is the strongest and best-defined of the bunch; she’s described as a “level-five esper” capable of channeling up to one billion volts of electricity, a skill she gleefully unleashes on robbers, perverts, and her arch-nemesis, a male psychic named Toma Kamijo. Though Mikoto is an unappealing heroine, she’s the only female character who has a real personality; Mikoto is angry, unpredictable, and stubborn, but she’s also very disciplined, cultivating her skills with practice and study. Kuroko, Ruiko, and Kazari, the remaining members of the quartet, are less developed: each girl has one psychic ability that she uses in combat and one adorable tic that she exhibits while hanging out with friends. (Actually, “adorable” is up for debate; grabbing another girl’s breasts seems more predatory than cute.)

Thin as the characterizations may be, A Certain Scientific Railgun faces an even bigger problem: many important plot elements are poorly explained. Not that the series wants for exposition-dense conversation; the opening ten pages are filled with characters narrating Mikoto’s rise from level-zero nobody to level-five bad-ass. But many other details remain unexplored: who is Toma and why does Mikoto detest him? why do so many characters have supernatural abilities? why has the government created an entire city just for young psychics? Perhaps the most egregious example is Mikoto herself; though we learn a lot about her education, the fact that she’s been cloned is glossed over, as if having six genetic doppelgangers was entirely unremarkable.

Given Railgun‘s origins — it’s a side story within A Certain Magical Index, a long-running light novel series — it’s not surprising that so many of these crucial details remain unexamined; the author might reasonably expect Japanese fans to know the Magical Index universe well enough to jump into Railgun with a minimum of exposition. For a newcomer, however, the experience is frustrating; uninteresting plot points are explored in excruciating detail, while many of the things that seem more fundamental to the story (e.g. the characters’ psychic abilities) are barely addressed at all.

The final chapter suggests that future installments may feature more scenes of crime-solving and fewer scenes of tweenage girls showering, eating desserts, and horsing around. An honest-to-goodness mystery would go a long way towards giving the story some dramatic shape; right now, A Certain Scientific Railgun feels as aimless and airy as a volume of Sunshine Sketch, even if Mikoto and friends have cooler talents than the Sunshine girls.

Review copy provided by Seven Seas. Volume one will be released on June 30, 2011.

A CERTAIN SCIENTIFIC RAILGUN, VOL. 1 • STORY BY KAZUMA KAMACHI, ART BY MOTIO FUYUKAWA • SEVEN SEAS • 192 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 1

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Question: what do you get when you cross Sunshine Sketch with X-Men? Answer: A Certain Scientific Railgun, a story about a quartet of schoolgirl psychics who fight crime, go shopping, and eat parfaits. If that combination sounds like the manga equivalent of a peanut butter and tunafish sandwich, it is; the story see-saws between sci-fi pomposity and 4-koma cuteness, never combining these two very different flavors into an appetizing dish.

The story takes place in Academy City, a metropolis whose entire population consists of psychics and psychics-in-training. After a series of bank robberies and bombings, members of Justification, Academy City’s teen police force, make a disturbing discovery: some psychics — or “espers,” in the series’ parlance — are using an illicit drug called Level Upper to enhance their natural ability. (Level Upper is, in essence, steroids for teleporters and mind-readers.) Though the drug grants them tremendous power, that power comes with a terrible price, causing the user to slip into an irreversible coma. The girls must then track the drug to its source before it can spread through Academy City.

As promising as the plot sounds, it often feels like an afterthought, something that happens in between the principal characters’ trips to the mall, the cafe, and the gym. (There’s an entire scene devoted to one character’s efforts to find the perfect pair of pajamas. No, I’m not kidding.) The lead character, Mikoto, is the strongest and best-defined of the bunch; she’s described as a “level-five esper” capable of channeling up to one billion volts of electricity, a skill she gleefully unleashes on robbers, perverts, and her arch-nemesis, a male psychic named Toma Kamijo. Though Mikoto is an unappealing heroine, she’s the only female character who has a real personality; Mikoto is angry, unpredictable, and stubborn, but she’s also very disciplined, cultivating her skills with practice and study. Kuroko, Ruiko, and Kazari, the remaining members of the quartet, are less developed: each girl has one psychic ability that she uses in combat and one adorable tic that she exhibits while hanging out with friends. (Actually, “adorable” is up for debate; grabbing another girl’s breasts seems more predatory than cute.)

Thin as the characterizations may be, A Certain Scientific Railgun faces an even bigger problem: many important plot elements are poorly explained. Not that the series wants for exposition-dense conversation; the opening ten pages are filled with characters narrating Mikoto’s rise from level-zero nobody to level-five bad-ass. But many other details remain unexplored: who is Toma and why does Mikoto detest him? why do so many characters have supernatural abilities? why has the government created an entire city just for young psychics? Perhaps the most egregious example is Mikoto herself; though we learn a lot about her education, the fact that she’s been cloned is glossed over, as if having six genetic doppelgangers was entirely unremarkable.

Given Railgun‘s origins — it’s a side story within A Certain Magical Index, a long-running light novel series — it’s not surprising that so many of these crucial details remain unexamined; the author might reasonably expect Japanese fans to know the Magical Index universe well enough to jump into Railgun with a minimum of exposition. For a newcomer, however, the experience is frustrating; uninteresting plot points are explored in excruciating detail, while many of the things that seem more fundamental to the story (e.g. the characters’ psychic abilities) are barely addressed at all.

The final chapter suggests that future installments may feature more scenes of crime-solving and fewer scenes of tweenage girls showering, eating desserts, and horsing around. An honest-to-goodness mystery would go a long way towards giving the story some dramatic shape; right now, A Certain Scientific Railgun feels as aimless and airy as a volume of Sunshine Sketch, even if Mikoto and friends have cooler talents than the Sunshine girls.

Review copy provided by Seven Seas. Volume one will be released on June 30, 2011.

A CERTAIN SCIENTIFIC RAILGUN, VOL. 1 • STORY BY KAZUMA KAMACHI, ART BY MOTIO FUYUKAWA • SEVEN SEAS • 192 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Pick of the Week: Spring Bounty

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The arrivals list at Midtown Comics overflows with manga, making this week’s Pick a tough one for all. Take a look below to see what made the cut!

MICHELLE: It’s a bountiful week at Midtown Comics, with many Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat offerings from VIZ making their way onto the shelves. There’s an awful lot on this list that I am personally planning to buy, and singling out just one is pretty tough. New volumes of One Piece and Slam Dunk are serious contenders, but in the end, the fifth volume of Bakuman。 walks away with the honors. I’ve been catching up on the series this weekend, and it’s just utterly charming. The behind-the-scenes glimpses into manga production at Shueisha are fascinating, Mashiro and Takagi are finally achieving some success, and an interesting crop of friendly rivals has developed, including the endearingly weird Eiji Nizuma, who has been waiting for Mashiro and Takagi to come challenge him. Now, gee, what other Shonen Jump manga illustrated by Takeshi Obata does that remind me of?

MJ: We’re offered a wealth of choices this week, indeed. New volumes of Black Jack, Claymore, and Rasetsu call out to me in particular, but if I could only buy one volume of manga from this list, I’d have to choose the 25th installment of Fullmetal Alchemist. I doubt anybody needs me to go on and on again about why I love this series, but just in case you’ve missed it somehow, feel free to browse this tag. And for those who’ve never gotten around to starting this admittedly long series, now is the perfect time to start, with the first of Viz’s new 3-in-1 editions arriving in stores this week as well. If you’ve only watched the anime series, you don’t know what you’re missing. Time to pick up a volume and find out!

DAVID: Viz really could learn to pace itself. I’m quite eager to read the third volume of Kamisama Kiss and curious to see which way the pendulum will swing on Grand Guignol Orchestra, not to mention the previously mentioned books, but I’m going to have to cast my vote for the 14th volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack from Vertical. Much as I love Tezuka’s crazed gekiga stories, I have such a weakness for this series and its totally reliable, often absurd servings of genre fiction. I have high hopes that this volume will offer a nice side dish of creepy, creepy Pinoko.

KATE: Tempted as I am by the second volume of Blue Exorcist, I’m also going old-school with my pick and choosing the fourteenth volume of Black Jack as this week’s must-buy manga. I’d be the first to admit that the series can be repetitive, especially when read in large chunks. But if you ration yourself to just one or two stories at a time, it’s easier to appreciate Tezuka’s storytelling gift; he manages to fit a whole volume’s worth of drama into twenty pages without sacrificing clarity or emotional intensity. The hero’s dark, brooding personality is another plus; Black Jack may share Dr. Gregory House’s ability to diagnose a rare illness from looking at a character’s fingernails or smelling his breath, but Jack isn’t nearly as smug and insufferable as his TV counterpart. I’m not sure how Tezuka will ever top the story in which Black Jack operates on himself in the Australian outback while fending off wild dingoes, but I’m happy to keep reading until Tezuka does.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 6/6/11

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This week, MJ, Kate, David, & Michelle take a look at a variety of manga from Viz Media, Vertical Inc., Digital Manga Publishing, and Yen Press.

 

 

Bakuman, Vol. 5 | By Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata | Viz Media – The theme for this volume may as well be “Everyone makes progress toward making their dreams come true!” Not that everything is smooth sailing. Mashiro and Takagi finally have a series in Shonen Jump, but along with that comes new editor, Miura, who is rather inexperienced. It takes him some time to gain the confidence to steer the boys in a direction that will keep their series popular with readers. Meanwhile, other friends and rivals aim for the same goal and even Miho experiences a rejuvenation in her dedication to become a voice actress. It’s a thoroughly shounen setup, which is only fitting for a story about making shounen manga. I wish we actually got to see some of this manga they’re creating, though! Maybe in due time… -Michelle Smith

Black Bird, Vol. 8 | By Kanoko Sakurakoji | Viz Media – If there’s one thing that can be said for Kanoko Sakurakoji’s Black Bird, it’s that it stays unflinchingly on message, volume after volume. “Girls, always obey what the menfolk tell you,” it says over and over, in a thousand different ways. “They’re smarter and stronger than you are, so they always know what’s best.” That’s the overwhelming message of this series, though there’s an equally consistent side note attached, “Be grateful and understanding when your man punishes you for your mistakes. After all, it’s for your own good.” Volume eight personifies these messages without fail, as always, with the added bonus of the much-anticipated consummation of Misao and Kyo’s sexual relationship, which is of course preceded by extra gratitude, humility, and expressions of flushed desperation from our heroine. Yay? -MJ

Bleach, Vol. 35 | By Tite Kubo | Viz Media – Despite its status as a hit battle manga, for a reader like me, the best of Bleach exists between battles, when Tite Kubo is able to utilize his (not insignificant) talent for writing quirky, compelling characters. Unfortunately Kubo tends to excess in this area, creating a never-ending stream of brand new characters, leaving less room and page time for those we already love. With that in mind, volume 35 reveals both the best and worst of Kubo’s habits, providing some genuinely satisfying moments with some of our favorite characters while leading us into another series of battles with an array of new foes. If I could deliver one message to Kubo, it would be that when it comes to supporting characters, sometimes less is more. 35 stacks up in the “win” column, but the future looks far less bright. – MJ

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 2 | By Kazue Kato | Viz Media – In discussion of this series’ first volume, I said, ” I’d like to see more … with Rin actually learning the craft under Yukio’s tutelage, because watching the two of them together is the most compelling aspect of the story so far.” The good news here is that we do see more of this, and it indeed remains the series’ greatest strength. The less good news is that the bulk of this volume is spent introducing the class’ other students, including hotheaded Suguro and by-the-book tsundere Izumo. Though there’s obviously a self-formed family of young exorcists being nurtured here, it’s a shame to have so much of the volume’s focus stolen away by it, when we’ve only just begun with the series’ two main characters. Still, this remains the most compelling new shounen series to travel westward this year. I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. – MJ

A Bride’s Story, Vol. 1 | By Kaoru Mori | Yen Press – This is one of those books where I’m convinced I could pass off random page scans as a review, possibly followed up with, “See? See?!” I can’t quite decide if it’s more gorgeous than Mori’s Emma (CMX), but I can say without question that it’s one of the loveliest manga you’re likely to find in current release. It’s also as quietly moving and packed with absorbing details as Emma was, so you really can’t lose. In this tale set in central Asia in the 19th century, a 20-year-old woman enters into an arranged marriage with a 12-year-old boy. We see quietly forceful Amir adapt from her nomadic lifestyle to the more settled state of affairs with her young bridegroom. There’s the whispered promise of an actual plot, but I could read dozens of volumes of nothing but Mori’s meticulously researched, breathtakingly drawn slice of life. Really, what more do you need? -David Welsh

Chi’s Sweet Home, Vol. 6 | By Konami Kanata | Vertical, Inc. – After five volumes of cute kitten antics — including Chi’s first visit to the vet, Chi’s first bath, and Chi’s first excursion beyond the safe confines of home — I thought Kanata Konami would have run out of material. I’m pleased to report that volume six of Chi’s Sweet Home is just as appealing and fresh as the previous installments, offering plenty of awwww-inducing moments as well as some genuinely funny scenes. (Don’t miss the chapter in which Chi stalks a parakeet; Chi’s reaction to the parakeet is priceless.) Konami continues to expand the scope of the story to include more animals, more people, and more settings, neatly mimicking Chi’s growing awareness of her surroundings while preventing the story from becoming too cutely claustrophobic. As in previous volumes, the illustrations are simple but effective, capturing Chi’s surprise and delight in discovering new things: vacuum cleaners, Kleenex, birthday cake. Recommended. -Katherine Dacey

Chi’s Sweet Home, Vol. 6 | By Konami Kanata | Vertical, Inc. – Whenever a new volume of Chi’s Sweet Home comes into my possession it automatically vaults to the top of the to-read pile. The first five volumes all offered colorful, cute, and (mostly) cheerful stores about Chi, an adorable tabby kitten, and the sixth is no exception. Kanata has a knack for depicting scenarios familiar to any cat owner, like massacred houseplants and the species-wide fascination with climbing into boxes, while imagining what the world must look like to a cat. Chi’s nocturnal journey to the local park is a particular standout. My one complaint is that Chi’s owners, the Yamadas, continually do frustrating things like leave cakes unattended and store breakable objects at the top of a flight of stairs, then proceed to freak out when Chi messes with them. You’ve got a cat now, folks. You either put things away or get used to the gnaw marks. -Michelle Smith

Itsuwaribito, Vol. 2 | By Yuuki Iinuma | Viz Media – In this volume, Utsuho proves himself trustworthy to the implausibly youthful Dr. Yakuma by rescuing him from the clutches of a bizarre fellow whom I shall christen “Freaky Dude.” Not only that, he correctly deduces the cause of Freaky Dude’s killing spree and helps him to see the error of his ways. The display convinces Yakuma to invite Utsuho on a journey to Nadeshiko Island, where he suspects a treasure of life-extending medicine awaits. It also happens to be the location of many exiled criminals. I’m still not enraptured by Itsuwaribito, but I found this volume a lot more entertaining than the first. For reasons I cannot quite pinpoint, it reminds me of Black Cat, in a simple shounen adventure kind of way. Plus, there’s an adorable twitchy-eared talking tanuki! I’ll definitely be checking out volume three. -Michelle Smith

Twin Spica, Vol. 7 | By Kou Yaginuma | Vertical, Inc. – In the seventh volume of Twin Spica, Kou Yaginuma explores Marika’s childhood, as well as Marika’s struggle to create her own destiny, rather than the one for which she was created. Though Marika’s story is emotionally compelling, Yaginuma strains too hard to show us that Marika, Asumi, and Fuchuya have a shared history; there’s a tidiness to the connection that feels a little false, as if the characters’ shared memory of the Lion disaster wasn’t grounds enough for bonding. The volume’s final chapters are more dramatically persuasive, giving the three female leads a chance to demonstrate just how smart, resourceful, and tough they can be under duress. N.B. Beginning with volume seven, Vertical will be releasing Twin Spica in a longer omnibus format of 300-400 pages (roughly 1.5 volumes). -Katherine Dacey

Your Story I’ve Known | By Tsuta Suzuki | Juné Manga – It’s rare that I find the sex scenes in a boys’-love title to be the most interesting, but that’s definitely the case in the title story of this book. Suzuki laces the physically intimate moments with intriguing, revealing observations. Unfortunately, those kinds of notes are largely absent in the rest of this tale of a gangster who takes up with the son of one of his ex-girlfriends. It’s drawn well, but the characters and their dynamic aren’t very engaging. The back-up stories compensate for the centerpiece, though. One’s about a young man dealing with his lover’s irritating reticence. Another is a love story between a kid and a goofy, centuries-old ghost. The last describes the awkward early courtship between two salarymen. Each has a distinct, quirky charm, making the book a worthwhile investment overall. -David Welsh

Tenjo Tenge: Full Contact Edition, Vol. 1

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When I tell people that I review manga, they often ask me, “Isn’t it all porn and ninjas?” No, I assure them, there are manga about cooking, gambling, dating, teaching, crime solving, alien fighting, computer programming, ghost busting, mind reading, wine tasting, dog training, and just about any other topic you can imagine; if there’s an audience to be served, Japanese publishers will find a way to reach them through comics.

“But it seems like every manga I’ve seen has a girl in a short skirt waving a sword,” they reply. I usually offer a counter-example — say, Ouran High School Host Club or What’s Michael? — but I know the kind of manga they have in mind. It’s filled with female characters who have women’s bodies and girls’ faces; schoolgirls who wear their uniforms twenty-four hours a day; fighters who use swords, even though the story is set in the present; and supporting characters who dress like Edo-era refugees, even though their cohorts are wearing sneakers and hoodies. In short, what they’re seeing in their mind’s eye looks a lot like Tenjo Tenge.

Plot-wise, Tenjo Tenge isn’t much more complicated than “girls in skirts waving katanas.” The story takes place at Todo Academy, one of those only-in-manga institutions where students study martial arts technique to the exclusion of anything else. (If anyone attends a math class in Tenjo Tenge, I missed it.) First-year students Soichiro Nagi and Bob Makihara fully expect to rule the roost with their awesome fighting skills, but are quickly disabused of the notion when they run afoul of Todo’s Executive Council. Mindful of their greenhorn status, the boys join the Juken Club, an organization lead by Maya Natsume, a third-year student who’s handy with a sword. In so doing, however, Soichiro and Bob become targets for the Executive Council, which carries on an energetic, bloody feud with Maya and her younger sister.

Flipping through the first volume of VIZ’s “Full Contact” edition, it’s easy to see why DC Comics censored the original English print run. The story abounds in the kind of gratuitous nudity and sexual encounters that make an unadulterated version a tough sell at big chain stores like Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble. DC Comics’ solution was an inelegant one: they re-wrote the script, drew bras and panties on naked girls, and cut some of the most offensive passages. As an advocate of free speech, I can’t condone the bowdlerization of any text, especially in the interest of a more commercially viable age-rating , but as a woman, it’s hard to celebrate the restoration of a graphic rape scene or images of naked girls throwing themselves at the heroes.

Whether those scenes are really necessary to advancing the plot is another issue. The rape, in particular, is an ugly exercise in exploitation, pitting a grown man against a teenager who has a twelve-year-old’s face and a porn star’s body. Though Oh!Great shows us the victim’s terrified expression in several panels, he lavishes far more attention on her anatomy, twisting her body into the kind of grotesque, provocative poses that were a stock-in-trade of Hustler. What makes this passage especially nasty is its underlying intent; we’re not being asked to identify with the victim, or burn with outrage over her violation, but to be aroused by her naked body. In a word: yuck.

From time to time, Oh!Great gives the Natsume sisters a chance to strut their martial arts stuff, suggesting that both girls are as tough and cunning as their male counterparts, but he can’t resist tearing off their clothes, or showing us their panties, especially when they’re in the middle of intense, hand-to-hand combat. And if the characters’ complete objectification wasn’t bad enough, Oh!Great draws such grossly misshapen bodies that it’s hard to imagine who would find them sexy; say what you will about Ryoichi Ikeda and Kazuo Koike’s Wounded Man — and yes, there’s plenty to say about the exploitation of its female characters — but Ikeda knew how to draw beautiful women. Oh!Great’s female characters, on the other hand, look like blow-up dolls, incapable of standing on their own two feet, let alone brandishing a sword or high-kicking an opponent.

Tenjo Tenge fans who were angered by the first English-language edition will be pleased with VIZ’s new translation. Many of the elements that had been eliminated or camouflaged in the first version have been restored; characters drop f-bombs and drop trou without editorial intervention. As an added enticement, VIZ has formatted the story as a series of two-in-one omnibuses, complete with glossy color plates and oversized trim. Given the care with which the new Tenjo Tenge was prepared, I wish I could say that the uncensored version convinced me that I’d unfairly dismissed the genius of Oh!Great the first time around. Alas, the answer is no; the story comes is too perilously close to the porn-and-ninjas stereotype for my taste.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one of Tenjo Tenge will be released on June 7, 2011.

TENJO TENGE: FULL CONTACT EDITION, VOL. 1 • BY OH!GREAT • VIZ MEDIA • 386 pp. • RATING: MATURE (18+)

Tenjo Tenge: Full Contact Edition, Vol. 1

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When I tell people that I review manga, they often ask me, “Isn’t it all porn and ninjas?” No, I assure them, there are manga about cooking, gambling, dating, teaching, crime solving, alien fighting, computer programming, ghost busting, mind reading, wine tasting, dog training, and just about any other topic you can imagine; if there’s an audience to be served, Japanese publishers will find a way to reach them through comics. “But it seems like every manga I’ve seen has a girl in a short skirt waving a sword,” they reply. I usually offer a counter-example — say, Ouran High School Host Club or What’s Michael? — but I know the kind of manga they have in mind. It’s filled with female characters who have women’s bodies and girls’ faces; schoolgirls who wear their uniforms twenty-four hours a day; fighters who use swords, even though the story is set in the present; and supporting characters who dress like Edo-era refugees, even though their cohorts are wearing sneakers and hoodies. In short, what they’re seeing in their mind’s eye looks a lot like Tenjo Tenge.

Plot-wise, Tenjo Tenge isn’t much more complicated than “girls in skirts waving katanas.” The story takes place at Todo Academy, one of those only-in-manga institutions where students study martial arts technique to the exclusion of anything else. (If anyone attends a math class in Tenjo Tenge, I missed it.) First-year students Soichiro Nagi and Bob Makihara fully expect to rule the roost with their awesome fighting skills, but are quickly disabused of the notion when they run afoul of Todo’s Executive Council. Mindful of their greenhorn status, the boys join the Juken Club, an organization lead by Maya Natsume, a third-year student who’s handy with a sword. In so doing, however, Soichiro and Bob become targets for the Executive Council, which carries on an energetic, bloody feud with Maya and her younger sister.

Flipping through the first volume of VIZ’s “Full Contact” edition, it’s easy to see why DC Comics censored the original English print run. The story abounds in the kind of gratuitous nudity and sexual encounters that make an unadulterated version a tough sell at big chain stores like Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble. DC Comics’ solution was an inelegant one: they re-wrote the script, drew bras and panties on naked girls, and cut some of the most offensive passages. As an advocate of free speech, I can’t condone the bowdlerization of any text, especially in the interest of a more commercially viable age-rating , but as a woman, it’s hard to celebrate the restoration of a graphic rape scene or images of naked girls throwing themselves at the heroes.

Whether those scenes are really necessary to advancing the plot is another issue. The rape, in particular, is an ugly exercise in exploitation, pitting a grown man against a teenager who has a twelve-year-old’s face and a porn star’s body. Though Oh!Great shows us the victim’s terrified expression in several panels, he lavishes far more attention on her anatomy, twisting her body into the kind of grotesque, provocative poses that were a stock-in-trade of Hustler. What makes this passage especially nasty is its underlying intent; we’re not being asked to identify with the victim, or burn with outrage over her violation, but to be aroused by her naked body. In a word: yuck.

From time to time, Oh!Great gives the Natsume sisters a chance to strut their martial arts stuff, suggesting that both girls are as tough and cunning as their male counterparts, but he can’t resist tearing off their clothes, or showing us their panties, especially when they’re in the middle of intense, hand-to-hand combat. And if the characters’ complete objectification wasn’t bad enough, Oh!Great draws such grossly misshapen bodies that it’s hard to imagine who would find them sexy; say what you will about Ryoichi Ikeda and Kazuo Koike’s Wounded Man — and yes, there’s plenty to say about the exploitation of its female characters — but Ikeda knew how to draw beautiful women. Oh!Great’s female characters, on the other hand, look like blow-up dolls, incapable of standing on their own two feet, let alone brandishing a sword or high-kicking an opponent.

Tenjo Tenge fans who were angered by the first English-language edition will be pleased with VIZ’s new translation. Many of the elements that had been eliminated or camouflaged in the first version have been restored; characters drop f-bombs and drop trou without editorial intervention. As an added enticement, VIZ has formatted the story as a series of two-in-one omnibuses, complete with glossy color plates and oversized trim. Given the care with which the new Tenjo Tenge was prepared, I wish I could say that the uncensored version convinced me that I’d unfairly dismissed the genius of Oh!Great the first time around. Alas, the answer is no; the story comes is too perilously close to the porn-and-ninjas stereotype for my taste.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one of Tenjo Tenge will be released on June 7, 2011.

TENJO TENGE: FULL CONTACT EDITION, VOL. 1 • BY OH!GREAT • VIZ MEDIA • 386 pp. • RATING: MATURE (18+)