Manga Bookshelf

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Michelle Smith

Bookshelf Briefs, 10/31/11

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With several important limbs of the battle robot immobilized by snow, David and Michelle bravely forge on with a look at recent releases with a Halloween or costume party sort of vibe!

Animal Land, Vol. 1 | By Makoto Raiku | Kodansha Comics – The most striking thing about Animal Land is that it actually manages to convey the physical sensation of shrillness without actually creating any sounds. I swear my ears were ringing by the time I was done with this comic, and if it had been an animated cartoon, I would have clicked away from its high-pitched shrieking within seconds. It’s too bad, because Raiku has created a clever plot featuring a human baby winding up in a functioning society of tanuki. The baby, who can understand and communicate with all species, shakes up the inter-animal dynamic by helping them understand what everyone else is saying. That’s a really interesting starting point, but the hyperactive characters always seem to have their volume set at shônen 10, which is about 4 levels higher than I can tolerate. Some of Raiku’s anthropomorphic character designs for the tanuki end up being unintentionally creepy rather than cute, too. – David Welsh

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 4 | By Kazue Kato | Viz – There’s a pretty big reveal in this volume and, as is sometimes the case in stories by relatively inexperienced creators from weeklies, it seems a bit rushed. Kato does a great job in a lot of departments. Her art is attractive and stylized, but it keeps the action clear. The character types are certainly familiar, but they’re likeable and distinct in spite of the recognizable functions they fulfill. (I find myself surprisingly fond of hard-ass mentor Shura in spite of her fan-service-friendly wardrobe.) And Kato thinks about the small things in terms of the ways her characters interact and react to events, which is always welcome. As far as the long-term storytelling goes, though, Blue Exorcist seems a little lumpy. While Kato gets good follow-up mileage out of big events, the overall structure doesn’t seem as tight as it could or should be. There’s tons to like here, but it lacks the seamlessness of something like Fullmetal Alchemist. – David Welsh

Gate 7, Vol. 1 | By CLAMP | Dark Horse – Gate 7 is so extraordinarily pretty. From the handsomely detailed settings to the finely carved faces and gorgeous costumes, it’s a feast for the eyes. The glamour of it all almost – almost – excuses the fact that it has very little else working in its favor at this point. The plot reads like a CLAMP Mad Lib. A dorky but good-natured guy falls in with a pack of weird but incredibly attractive people with magical powers and lots of secrets, and he learns that he has some semblance of supernatural ability. In spite of the reams of exposition CLAMP has provided, I still feel like I know very little about most of the cast or what their function is in the grand scheme of things. But I really, really like looking at them, and I think I will be content to do so for at least a few more volumes. – David Welsh

Raiders, Vol. 7 | By JinJun Park | Yen Press – Raiders is such an odd series. It’s somewhat incoherent—the super-swift cuts between scenes don’t help one make sense of what is going on—but there’s enough intriguing about it that I keep reading. And now that I’ve read seven of the nine volumes, might as well keep going to the end! This volume features a pair of guys breaking into Area 51 in order to obtain data on the military’s research into weaponizing the undead. I’ve no idea how they learned about this, or who one of these guys even is, but with Raiders I’ve learned to set aside such concerns and just focus on the action, which is usually pretty cool. Also, the fanservice is not gratuitous—okay, yes, there’s one inexplicably nude moment for Lamia (the sexy zombie!) and copious bra flashes in a fight between two blade-wielding women, but these moments never subtract from the characters’ overall badassery, which I appreciate. – Michelle Smith

Vampire Knight, Vol. 13 | By Matsuri Hino | VIZ Media –So much of Vampire Knight is comprised of angst-ridden scenes and moody grey screentones that important revelations kind of sneak up on the reader. You’re reading along, lulled by the pretty art as you watch Zero mope about his plight as a vampire again (“Inside me… is there anything human left?”) and Kaname wrestle with conflicting impulses concerning Yuki, and then suddenly Kaname’s revealing the truth about his origins to Yuki, which explains how he could be both the progenitor of the Kuran clan and her sibling and also tangentially covers the formation of the vampire hunter society. I wouldn’t say it’s riveting stuff—it’s all a bit too languid to qualify—but it ought to have some interesting consequences. One thing I will say for Vampire Knight—it’s compulsively readable, and even though I’m not a fervent fan, I see myself sticking around for the long haul to see how things turn out. – Michelle Smith

The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes

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From the back cover:
Banished!

Old Witch likes nothing better than to fly about on her broomstick crying “Heh-heh!” and casting abracadabras, but now she has been sent away… by two young girls.

Amy and Clarissa love to tell stories about Old Witch… until one day they decide she is just too mean and wicked. Drawing a rickety old house upon a barren glass hill, the girls exile Old Witch there with the warning that she’d better be good—or else no Halloween! For company they draw her a Little Witch Girl and a Weeny Witch Baby.

Old Witch tries to be good, but anyone would get up to no good in a place as lonely as the glass hill… as Amy and Clarissa find out when Old Witch magics them into her world, a world of make-believe made real.

Review:
If you’ve got a clever and charming child and are looking for a clever and charming Halloween book that they might enjoy, The Witch Family just might fit the bill.

Amy and her best friend Clarissa, both “ordinary real girls,” are almost seven. Amy’s vivid imagination has been captured by the tales her mother tells about the wicked Old Witch, and she enlists Clarissa—who, with her faulty memory but pleasant disposition, is content with the sidekick role—in drawing a series of pictures that continue Old Witch’s adventures.

The story is presented in a really neat way. For example, it’s immediately clear through vocabulary that Amy is concocting Old Witch’s story herself. (She’s fond of big words, but doesn’t always know how to spell or pronounce them, so when she sentences Old Witch to live alone on a glass hill as punishment for her evil ways, she declares, “I banquished her!”) But a lot of the book is told from Old Witch’s point of view, so kids would probably enjoy the “is she really real?” mystery.

It’s certainly a fun Halloween tale, but I think Amy is the most fascinating character of all. What a bright little girl! Seriously, I found myself wishing for an epilogue that read, “And then Amy became a super-famous novelist” or something. There’s a real whimsy in the language used, and I love that she does typical little girl things like write the bumblebee who’d been in her yard into the story and give him a noble and heroic part to play. She’s also inserting herself into the story in a way, by giving Old Witch a little witch girl named Hannah to keep her company who looks so much like Amy that no one can tell them apart when Hannah comes to visit Amy on Halloween and goes trick-or-treating with her friends.

I find I haven’t a lot more to say about the book than this. It’s very cute. There are kitties and weeny witch babies and things to make adults giggle and the most adorable bee on the planet. Thanks for the recommendation, K!

Haunted House

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By Mitsukazu Mihara | Published by TOKYOPOP

I blame my “meh” reaction to Mitsukazu Miharu’s Haunted House—which I honestly wanted to like!—on the back cover, which promises that readers will be “kept guessing—and giggling” by the behavior of Sabato Obiga’s flamboyantly goth parents. I might’ve smiled a time or two, but that’s about it.

The basic premise here is simple and reiterated several times throughout the volume: Sabato would like a steady girlfriend, but they inevitably ask to see his house, which means they will have to meet his bizarre, “death-flavored” family and be scared off by their creepy antics. Sabato’s mother strongly resembles Morticia Addams, his father (despite being a banker) often sports a sort of Victorian dandy look, and his twin sisters have a gothic lolita vibe and spend their free time making voodoo dolls. The Obiga family also likes to decorate their home with skeletons and shrines and threatens to serve the family cat for dinner. Sabato always obtains their promise to behave before inviting a girl over, but this is invariably broken.

Haunted House is pretty repetitive, but I think I wouldn’t have been dissastified with it if the powers that be at TOKYOPOP hadn’t strongly hinted that Sabato’s family has some reason for treating him like they do. Okay, yes, they abruptly promise to support him when it seems that he, after fancying a long string of random ladies, seems to have fallen in love at last, but it’s not like they actually follow through with this in any meaningful way.

Looking kooky is one thing, but they’re frequently just down-right mean. At one point, Sabato is hospitalized with a broken leg and his family comes to visit. Most of what they do is innocuous—bringing him only hospital-themed horror novels to read, for example—but his mother actually feeds him dog food. I just don’t get it. Is that supposed to be funny? Is that supposed to be someone who is merely tormenting their kid, as the back cover implies, in an effort to encourage him to grow up, become an independent person, and stop pursuing meaningless relationships with random girls?

I don’t know, but I am certain that I am thinking too hard about this. And I partly blame the back cover that encouraged me to expect more from a story that is really just a diverting bit of goofiness.

Off the Shelf: Generally Halloweenish

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MJ: Boo!

MICHELLE: Omigawd, you almost gave me a heart attack.

MJ: Yay?

MICHELLE: I suppose that is the spirit of the season.

MJ: So, speaking of the season, I expect you’ve been indulging in some spooky manga this week?

MICHELLE: Some spooky, others not-so-spooky, but generally Halloweenish, yes.

One thing I checked out was the debut of a new manhwa from Seven Seas (their first, I think) called My Boyfriend Is a Vampire. This series appears to be complete in fourteen volumes, and Seven Seas is releasing it in 2-in-1 omnibus editions.

I have to say, this does not get off to a very auspicious start. A girlish boy collapses on the street from a neck wound and the police are called when he is found to have no pulse. Just when the cops arrive, however, the guy sits up and takes off. When he gets home, the wound has already healed but he has inexplicably turned into a girl.

Cue flashback to a month ago, where the boy (Gene) is getting into lots of fights over the fact that he looks like a girl when he isn’t agreeing to masquerade as one. This is all fairly silly until he, in the middle of defending gang territory, ends up in the middle of a squabble between two vampire half-brothers, each with the potential to become their powerful father’s heir. Long story short, he saves one guy (Ryu) but ends up being made a vamp in the process (cue paragraph one) and of course there is some awesome legend or prophecy or something about a girl who survives being bitten and how she will be the 1337est vampire ever and also have the ability to change genders or something.

Honestly, a lot of this story is pretty ridiculous and the art is totally generic, but by the end I was looking forward to reading more. Strip away the supernatural trappings and what this reminds me of the most is Click, another manhwa which was published by NETCOMICS a few years ago. You’ve got the tough/bratty guy who becomes a girl, the best friend from childhood with whom there will now presumably be romantic tension, and the undesirable element to whom the protagonist finds him/herself drawn. The fact that vampires are involved really doesn’t matter very much at this point, since this seems poised to be a gender-bending comedy.

I believe you’ve read this one, too. What did you think of it?

MJ: Well, I’m absolutely with you on the general ridiculousness of this series so far, though I admit to enjoying it for its silliness more than I would have expected. While it lacks the cracktastic brilliance of something like Reiko Shimizu’s Moon Child or even slightly more down-to-earth treasures like SangEun Lee’s 13th Boy, it has enough of a spark to grab my interest, even in its lesser moments. I’m sad to note that there are many more of those “lesser moments” than I’d like, but I can’t help looking forward to the next volume.

MICHELLE: Same here, and though the second volume was much stronger than the first, which bodes well for things to come. It might not be a masterpiece, but it will likely be entertaining.

So, have you been reading spooky manga this week?

MJ: I have indeed, or at least partly so. My first read this week was volume seven of Yuki Midorikawa’s Natsume’s Book of Friends. Though this supernatural series tends more towards adjectives like “quiet” and “touching” than it does things like “scary,” this particular volume actually kinda hits the mark.

In this volume, Natusme finds himself relying on his uneasy friendship with flashy exorcist Natori in the face of someone much more terrifying, whose disregard for yokai puts Natsume and his friends in danger. And as it turns out, this is a really good thing. This is not a series that I generally consider suspenseful, but I was hovering on the edge of my seat for this entire volume, worried and anxious and generally creeped out.

Midorikawa’s artwork has always been a highlight of this series, creating wonderfully rich emotional moments with imagery alone. Even so, I was surprised here by how easily she was able to put me on edge with the tiniest visual details. The shade of an umbrella, a part of the hair, the shape of a lip—each of these tiny details is used in a way that stood my hair on end. It’s marvelous to behold.

Though this series was a fast favorite for me, early on, I’ll admit my interest waned during some of its middle volumes. Those days are clearly over now, and I simply can’t wait to see what comes next.

MICHELLE: I know I say this every time you mention Natsume’s Book of Friends, but I really am planning to get caught up on it soon. When you wrote about the worry and anxiety you experienced it reminded me of the similar atmosphere created by Ghost Hunt when that series was firing on all cylinders. Which, in turn, made me sad that we’ll probably never see its twelfth and final volume in English. Unless Sailor Moon makes Kodansha so much money they can afford to take on charity cases.

It seems like Midorikawa also gets that the secret to engaging your reader like this is not concocting frightening situations but creating characters that people will genuinely be concerned about. Sometimes that’s lacking in straight-up horror manga.

MJ: That’s a great point, Michelle, and definitely appropriate to this series! Yes, we’re anxious here not because Natsume has met a really creepy guy (though he has) but because of the vulnerable position Natsume and the yokai are in. It’s really quite harrowing!

So what’s your other maybe-spooky-maybe-not selection for the evening?

MICHELLE: The first volume of the Yen Press adaptation of James Patterson’s Witch & Wizard, drawn by Svetlana Chmakova, who has become somewhat of a Halloween fixture for me thanks to her Nightschool series.

Alas, I don’t like this one as much as Nightschool. At least, not yet. I can’t tell if the problem is Patterson’s original novel (which I haven’t read) or this adaptation, but I am leaning towards the latter. It’s not that it’s outright bad, but it’s extremely rushed and the juxtaposition of comedy (I use the term loosely) and drama (ditto) is jarring.

An oppressive organization known as N.O. (New Order) has taken over government and is rounding up anyone who does not conform to their ideals of law, logic, order and science. To this end, soldiers break into the home of the Allgood family and take children Whit (nearly 18) and Wisty (15) into custody. For some reason, N.O.’s representative during this encounter is some snot-nosed teen whom the Allgood siblings make fun of. Anyway, through various miscarriages of justice they end up incarcerated and facing imminent execution, until they are brought into the “Shadowland” by Celia, Whit’s deceased girlfriend.

I mean, there truly is potential here, but everything just happens so fast that many things ring false. For example, Whit pines a lot for Celia, his “soulmate” who has gone missing. When his powers have developed enough that he is able to slip through a wall and arrive in the Shadowland, she tells him that she’s been murdered. Only it’s like she’s fine one panel then in the next tears are suddenly streaming down her face as she infodumps the details of her demise. Nine pages later, Whit is making stupid quips again. That just seems so wrong to me. Where is the impact here?

MJ: Like you, I’ve never read the novel, so I can’t really make a clear call here, but what you describe seems to me to match the most common problem I’ve seen in comic adaptations of novels overall. Maybe some of it can be chalked up to some things transferring better from prose than others, but really most of the time it just seems to come down to… well, time. It takes time to tell a story well, regardless of the medium, and for some reason that’s where comic adaptations really seem to skimp.

MICHELLE: Yeah. I’ll probably give it another volume to see how it develops, at least. Maybe now that the exposition’s out of the way the story will be able to breathe a little.

So, what else have you got for us this evening?

MJ: Well, you know, “horror” can have various meanings, and in my ongoing experiment to see just how much “horror” I can take, I decided to delve into volume eleven of Kanoko Sakurakouji’s demon-centric romance, Black Bird.

It’s possible that the most horrifying aspect of the latest volume of Black Bird is that, relatively speaking, it’s really not all that bad. Sure, Misao walks around with a permanent flush on her face and Kyo is possessive and controlling, but somewhere along the way in this volume it seems like… I can’t believe I’m going to say this… it seems like maybe he kind of learns something.

*blink*

Assuming you haven’t died of shock, I’ll continue.

Furthermore, this volume is actually kind of scary in the more traditional sense. Kyo’s brother, Sho, has returned with an ugly agenda, and for once there seems to be some real danger here. And though there is a seriously overplayed “scorned woman” in the mix (groan, why do authors do this to women?), I have to admit that the volume wraps up with some genuine suspense, and I almost-sorta-kinda want to know what happens next.

Now, before you lose all faith in reality as you know it, I’m not exactly giving a positive review of a volume of Black Bird. But finding myself in a position where I’m not inclined to give a scathing one certainly seems like a step up.

Have you died? I hope you haven’t died.

MICHELLE: I haven’t died, but I did have to fetch my smelling salts.

I’ll be interested to see whether Black Bird will ever be able to redeem itself in your eyes. I keep thinking I should read it—and, indeed, I have quite a stockpile of volumes—but I only have so much time and I always prioritize something else. So, in a way, you’re doing this for all of us who want to see what happens without investing our own time and eyeballs.

MJ: Well, time will tell whether my eyeballs are truly up to the task. But thankfully, this particular volume offered up a not-too-horrible Halloween-appropriate read.

MICHELLE: I think it’s fitting that we end our Halloween column on the topic of eyeballs.

MJ: Agreed. Happy Halloween everyone, from Off the Shelf!

Halloween Week 3.0!

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It’s that time again! The third annual Soliloquy in Blue Halloween Week begins today, October 25, and continues through October 31. As before, I’ll be posting daily reviews of novels and comics with a supernatural bent. Some may be cute and fluffy, some may be genuinely creepy, but all will fit the general theme.

Each year I solicit ideas for future Halloween reading, so if you’ve got a favorite book or comic that you’d recommend, please leave a comment below! Last year I was able to tackle two reader-suggested works—The Mystery of Udolpho and Gyo—and this year I shall have two more in The Witch Family and Uzumaki.

Here’s this week’s menu. I’ll update with links as they become available.

Uzumaki, Vols. 1-3 by Junji Ito
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Haunted House by Mitsukazu Mihara
The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes
Yurara, Vols. 1-5 by Chika Shiomi
The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury (OMG, I really tried but Bradbury takes the lyrical language to such an extreme that I veered between feeling very sleepy and feeling very annoyed. It’s exceedingly rare that I do not finish a book, but I was practically physically incapable of doing so in this case.)

The Let’s Get Visual column planned for this week was unfortunately delayed due to weather-induced power outage and will appear at a later date.

My contributions to this week’s Off the Shelf will fit the theme, as well, and the whole Manga Bookshelf gang will get in the spirit for a horror-centric installment of The Favorites Alphabet and a special Halloween edition of Bookshelf Briefs.

I hope y’all will enjoy all this as much as I do!

Uzumaki, Vols. 1-3

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By Junji Ito | Published by VIZ Media

As with Ito’s two-volume work, Gyo, the best word to describe Uzumaki—despite a back cover blurb promising “terror in the tradition of The Ring”—is “weird.”

High school student Kirie Goshima lives in Kurôzu-Cho, a small coastal town nestled between the sea and a line of hills. She narrates each chapter in an effort to share the strange things that happened there. It all begins when, on the way to meet her boyfriend Shuichi Saito at the train station, she spots his father crouching in an alley, staring intently at a snail. Shuichi confirms that his dad has indeed been acting odd lately, and suggests that the entire town is “contaminated with spirals.”

Mr. Saito’s fixation with spirals grows to the point where he dies in an attempt to achieve a spiral shape, which drives his wife insane with spiral phobia. She too eventually passes away, leaving Shuichi alone to become a recluse who is able to resist the spiral menace while being more perceptive to it than most. Other episodic incidents fill out the first two volumes, including unfortunate events involving Kirie’s classmates (boys who turn into snails, a bizarre rivalry over spiralling hair, etc.), her father’s decision to use clay from the local pond in his ceramics, a mosquito epidemic that leads to icky goings-on at a hospital, and an abandoned lighthouse that suddenly begins producing a mesmerizing glow. Things come to a head in volume three when six successive hurricanes are drawn to Kurôzu-Cho, leaving it in ruins. Rescue workers and volunteers flock to the area, but find themselves unable to leave. Dun dun dun!

Creepy occurrences mandate creepy visuals, but I wouldn’t say that anything depicted herein is actually scary. Oh, there are loads of indelible images that made me go “ew” or “gross,” but was I frightened by them? No. The real horrors of Uzumaki are more subtle: the suggestions that there are ancient and mysterious forces against which humans are utterly powerless and that the spiral’s victims will live in eternal torment. Many tales of horror involve bloodthirsty monsters, but a menace that forces you to live and endure something horrific is much more capable of giving me the jibblies. It’s the ideas behind Uzumaki, therefore, and not the surfeit of disturbing images, that evoke dread.

Uzumaki has a much larger cast than Gyo, which prompted me to notice that Ito actually draws some really cute and realistic-looking female characters. Kirie is a prime example, but her classmates and TV reporter Chie Maruyama also fit the bill. I was pretty distracted by Ito’s rendering of a girl named Azami, though, because she reminded me so much of Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White in Clue. Observe:

Flames... FLAMES on the side of my face!

Uzumaki definitely delivers an unforgettable story with memorable art, but I would’ve liked to get to know the characters more. Kirie is a reasonably accessible lead and is smart, strong, and kind, but I felt at times that she was too strong. If anything gross is going on in town, Kirie is the one who’s going to discover it, and though she reacts in the moment, there wasn’t much emphasis on the cumulative effect of having witnessed all this madness. She keeps going and being shocked by things right until the very end, but a more normal person would’ve broken down long before. And why weren’t more people fleeing, I wonder? True, once the storms hit, nobody could leave, but for a while there plenty of crazy stuff is happening and folks are just sticking around.

I also would’ve liked to spend more time with Shuichi. He’s a pretty interesting guy, who wants to get out of town from the very start but remains because of Kirie. He seems to have inherited equal parts fascination with and fear of the spiral from his parents, which keeps him alive if not entirely sane, and is able to function at times when others are mesmerized, allowing him to come to Kirie’s aid on several occasions. Through these actions we see how much he cares for her, but I actually had no idea they were supposed to be a couple until he was specifically referred to as her boyfriend a couple of chapters in. Okay, yes, this isn’t a romance manga and I shouldn’t expect a lot of focus on their relationship, but even just a little bit of physical affection would’ve gone a long way.

Uzumaki is grim, gruesome, and a whole host of synonyms besides. This isn’t jump-out-of-your-skin horror, but a psychological tale with a decidedly grisly bent. I’m not sure I’d universally recommend it—I think I know several people who definitely shouldn’t read it, actually—but if it sounds intriguing to you, give it a whirl.

Uzumaki was published in English by VIZ Media. It is complete in three volumes.

For more entries in this month’s horror-themed MMF, check out the archive at Manga Xanadu.

Pick of the Week: Sayonara, Mardock, Dorothy

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Dark Horse and Kodansha Comics dominate this week at Midtown Comics. Check out the Battle Robot’s picks below!

SEAN: It’s a fairly small week this time round, and so I’m glad to devote my pick of the week to the 11th volume of Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. There are lots of comedic manga out there that use gags to drive their humor, but they always seem troubled by silly things like plot and character development. Zetsubou has none of that, and so is free to do anything anytime it wants – the main character has been murdered several times by now. And, like the best negative continuity series, it doesn’t cause you to stop caring – Chiri is still fun to watch even if she’s an insane shovel-killer, just as it never gets old seeing Itoshiki moan on about his latest modern issue. And even if it’s packed with obscure Japanese pop-culture references every week, it’s still funny without knowing what they are. Glad it’s hit double-digits.

MJ: It is a small week indeed, and though there are a few things on the list I plan to buy (including Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei), I’ll give my pick this week to the second volume of the manga adaptation of Mardock Scramble. Here’s what I said about the first volume: “Novel adaptations are hit-and-miss with me.Too often, I think they try to rush the story, or try too hard to be visually thrilling (especially in terms of fanservice) when really they just need to practice good storytelling. But I’m on the edge of my seat with this one. There’s still a lot to be revealed, and mangaka Yoshitoki Oima has left us with quite a bit of mystery (and a pretty big cliffhanger) at the end of the series’ first volume, but I’ve been given enough to be pretty well hooked.” I’m pretty anxious to pick this up.

KATE: Since I’m not following any of the titles on the list, I’m going to recommend the second issue of Skottie Young and Eric Shanower’s Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (Marvel). Young and Shanower’s Oz comics have been a revelation: they follow the plot and spirit of the original Oz novels, but the playful artwork, vivid color palette, and brisk pacing really bring these books to life — in fact, I’d much rather read these Marvel adaptations than the source material that inspired them! If the title of Young and Shanower’s latest collaboration doesn’t ring a bell, you might find this Wikipedia entry helpful; it was the fourth book in Baum’s series, and certain plot details were inspired by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It isn’t the best or most interesting of the Oz books, but the comic-book adaptation is delightful nonetheless.

MICHELLE: And I’ll bring us back ’round full circle by seconding Sean’s pick of Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei‘s eleventh volume. I just completed a lengthy catch-up effort with this quirky comedy and am looking forward to remaining current henceforth. As Sean notes, Itoshiki’s various rants are still amusing even when one doesn’t catch many of the esoteric references, but I like the series best when it’s at its most universal. Recent volumes have supplied ample chapters that anyone can relate to, and I hope the trend continues in future. Koji Kumeta’s clean and stylish art is also a treat, as are most of the recurring gags. I still feel really sorry for that poor dog, though.

Readers, what looks good to you?

Bookshelf Briefs 10/24/11

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This week, David, Kate, MJ, Michelle, & Sean take a look at recent releases from NBM/Comics Lit, Viz Media, Kodansha Comics, and Vertical, Inc.

Black Jack, Vol. 16 | By Osamu Tezuka | Vertical, Inc. – One of the many great things about Black Jack is that it keeps giving me new reasons to praise it, even in its penultimate volume. The quality that really asserts itself in this volume is the tremendous variety of story types Tezuka provides. There’s sentimental romance, creepy revenge drama, potentially lethal hubris, fraternal turmoil, and, in a dazzling, extra-long piece, a blend of baffling medical mystery, religious argument, and geopolitical drama all in one. It’s hard to think of a series that provides better volume-to-volume value than Black Jack, especially when you consider Tezuka’s bodacious skills as an entertainer and his seemingly limitless ambition as an artist. Yes, his long-form pieces are breathtaking, but you get a fuller sense of his genius when you see what he can do with 20-odd pulp-infused pages. And you get a great deal of entertainment along the way. What more could you ask? – David Welsh

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 4 | By Kazue Kato | VIZ Media – Unusually for a Jump manga, the fighting is not really drawing me into Blue Exorcist – it’s straight out of the Boy’s Book of Shonen. What is interesting here is Rin’s continual struggle against revealing his powers, and the reaction of everyone else once they do get revealed. It’s clearly a long-term plot – to our surprise, his friends do not immediately say “Oh, it’s OK, you’re just Rin to us”, but seem genuinely unnerved that Rin is the son of Satan. It’s a reminder that this is not something to be taken lightly in this series, and that Satan is not just a wacky final end boss. Meanwhile, Mephisto continues to show why he’s one of the better ‘playing all sides against one another’ long planners, and Shura and Yukio have a nicely developing relationship. As always, it’s the characters that make a series likeable. – Sean Gaffney

House of Five Leaves, Vol. 4 | By Natsume Ono | VIZ Media – With a delicate web of relationships already in place, it doesn’t immediately strike me as profitable for Ono to introduce a significant newcomer to her beguilingly battered gang of kidnappers. Given the new character’s puckish youth, it’s not unreasonable to detect a bit of Cousin Oliver Syndrome in play. But while the arrival of Ginta, a self-declared negotiator, seems a bit improvisational, it ends up moving the narrative forward in some satisfying and unexpected ways. Ginta is bright and observant, but he’s also got a reservoir of bitterness and distrust, so he fits right in with the damaged goods of the Five Leaves. He also disrupts their very controlled methodology and adds to the mounting worries of their leader, Yaichi. My conclusion is that, while Ono may not have every beat and twist of this story mapped out in advance, she’s got a very sure hand on the tone that story evokes. Highly recommended. – David Welsh

Mameshiba ♥ Winter | By Traci N. Todd and Thomas Flintham | VIZ Media – Based on the original characters by Sukwon Kim, Mameshiba ♥ Winter follows the adventures of a collection of adorable creatures (some kind of cross between beans and dogs) as they attempt to build the perfect snow castle. This is a children’s picture book, short on plot (well, short in general) and geared towards activity more than reading overall. Only twelve pages long, the real focus of the book is a pop-up snow castle at the end and a selection of pop-out Mameshiba, complete with ornamental stickers. None of the Mameshiba are well-introduced here, so previous familiarity with the franchise is recommended, especially for kids on the older end of its target audience, who might otherwise wondering who all these characters are. Though the story seems unsubstantial, even for a picture book, it’s pretty difficult not to be charmed by the super-cute Mameshiba. Lighthearted activity for a snowy afternoon. – MJ

Psyren, Vol. 1 | By Toshiaki Iwashiro | VIZ Media – Gantz with training wheels — that’s how I’d describe this mediocre addition to the Shonen Jump line. Like Gantz, Psyren deposits a large and varied cast of characters in an alternate reality, forcing them to participate in a contest reminiscent of a video game. The winners live to play another day; the losers die in gruesome fashion, often after disregarding advice from the story’s youthful hero. Though Psyren isn’t nearly as slick or violent as Gantz, it does have one big advantage over its seinen big brother: Amamiya, who turns out to be one of the toughest, smartest participants in the game, showing her male peers that true grit isn’t necessarily about physical strength or speed (though she’s pretty handy with a sword). The art is serviceable, but not particularly memorable, an observation that could be extended to the script and characters as well. – Katherine Dacey

Skip Beat!, Vol. 25 | By Yoshiki Nakamura | VIZ Media – First off, thanks to Viz for not licensing Tokyo Crazy Paradise, so I can make that “from the creator of” joke for at least another few months. Now for the main event. Clearly Kyoko and Ren will be the final couple whenever Skip Beat! decides to end, but I have to admit I still find Sho the more fascinating of the two lead males. I don’t *like* him more than Ren, but there’s a fantastic cunning to him, and he’s never more at his best than when he’s burning with jealous hatred. His move here to get Kyoko to think of only him is brilliant in its godawful dickishness, and Ren’s response, whiole very sweet, doesn’t quite pack the same emotional punch. I actually preferred Ren threatening Kyoko – a nice reminder of his true feelings. All this plus some cute Moko scenes. Now that Valentine’s is over, what’s next? – Sean Gaffney

Stargazing Dog | By Takashi Murakami | NBM Comics Lit – I may be a cat person, but I am certainly not immune to the touching tale of a good-hearted and grateful dog who is faithful to his master until the very end. Christened “Happie” by the little girl who plucked him out of a cardboard box, the cheerful dog chronicles the gradual changes in his owners’ lives, culminating in a divorce and a seaward journey with “Daddy,” who gradually loses what little possessions he has left. The outcome of the story is made clear from the beginning, but that doesn’t make what transpires any less poignant. My one complaint—setting aside the various typos plaguing the volume—is that NBM chose to flip the art. Backwards signage and sound effects are distracting enough on their own, but when dialogue expressly states that they’re keeping the sea on their left and when it is subsequenly shown to be on their right, it’s downright annoying. – Michelle Smith

The Wallflower, Vol. 26 | By Tomoko Hayakawa | Kodansha Comics – In case anyone is still reading this in order to get some romantic resolution, please. Stop. You’re only hurting yourself. There is no development here, the author has admitted she has no idea how to romantically resolve anything, and all we have is comedy hijinks we’ve seen before. That said, it’s pleasant enough – there’s nothing egregiously bad about this volume, and once you place your desires in park, it can be quite fun. The best chapter is probably the final one, where some boys from class use Sunako’s creepiness as part of a plan to excuse their bad grades – it’s a nice parody of the power of parent organizations. The worst chapter is the one with Sunako’s aunt, which contains not one thing we haven’t seen before. If you buy things out of pure inertia, you’ll still enjoy this. If you don’t, you likely dropped it long ago. – Sean Gaffney

Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking, Vols. 1-10

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By Koji Kumeta | Volumes 1-8 published by Del Rey, Volumes 9-10 published by Kodansha Comics

When I first set out to read Koji Kumeta’s Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei, my goal was to finish the first eight volumes in time for Kodansha’s June 2011 release of volume nine.

You can see how well that worked out.

The problem was that this series simply doesn’t benefit from a marathon read. After four volumes, I burnt out and switched to reading it a chapter at a time as the mood struck me. Obviously, it took a lot longer this way, but turned out to be the ideal manga to read on breaks at work or while sitting around in the lobby of the doctor’s office. Interestingly, I found the most recent volumes to be so good that devouring them in their entirety was no problem at all!

There’s not a whole lot of plot to Zetsubou-sensei. Nozomu Itoshiki, the fourth son of a wealthy family, is a high school teacher with a penchant for nineteenth century garb. The title of the manga refers to the fact that when the characters of his name are written too closely together, they can be read as “zetsubou,” or “despair.” Which is convenient, since despairing over various things (and occasionally trying to kill himself) is Itoshiki’s specialty. His class is full of a variety of quirky students, whom we meet gradually, including a girl who sees everything positively, a methodical and precise (and possibly homicidal) girl, a girl who speaks only in text messages, a stalker, a fujoshi, an impoverished housewife, etc. We also meet a few members of his family, including his brother Mikoto, a doctor whose name can be read as “zetsumei,” or “certain death.”

Each chapter follows more or less the same pattern: the first couple of pages establish where the characters are, then something sets Itoshiki off on a rant. (For example, a hinamatsuri display inspires a diatribe about heirarchical societies.) Eventually he spews out a list of items that correspond to the topic of the day. Then the positive girl (Kafuka) will put forth a different opinion and, a couple of pages later, the chapter ends. As I’ve described it, this sounds tedious, but it’s often quite clever and absurd.

Some chapters are more Japanese-centric than others, with copious references to entertainers and public figures or topics specific to Japan, like tanabata or fukubukuro. These can be somewhat less fun to read, especially in earlier volumes when the (admittedly thorough) end notes provide so much information that one ends up reading the book with a finger permanently lodged in the back to reference the explanation as needed. With a change in translator for volume five, most of these notes disappeared.

At first, I was bothered by knowing there were all sorts of references I was missing, but in the end I think I prefer to just cope with ignorance; it helps that more recent volumes have dealt with some universal topics like dream endings, assumptions, jokes you’ve heard a million times, how we perceive the passage of time, modern conveniences leading to inconvenience (“Thanks to Amazon,com, we’ve got piles of books that we haven’t had time to read”), skewed priorities, gifts you feel obliged to accept, and getting sucked into other people’s drama. Somewhat to my surprise, it feels like we’re beginning to learn a little bit more about the characters, as well.

In addition to following the established formula in terms of chapter progression, there are also several recurring gags in Zetusbou-sensei. I’m not very fond of the poor dog with a stick in its butt who appears on occasion, but the creative ways Kumeta finds to insert a panty shot from a particular character are kind of fun, and I’m quite fond of Itoshiki’s stalker, Matoi, who suddenly pops up in the middle of scenes, surprising the characters. “You were here?” And the way in which the characters continue to fail eleventh grade and must repeat it pokes fun at those series—Ouran High School Host Club is the most notorious example to come to mind—where seasons pass but the characters inexplicably fail to graduate.

Artistically, Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei has a very unique look. Kumeta uses very little screen tone, and all of his characters (except one) have pitch-black hair and eyes. There are many girls in the cast, but they all have distinctive hairstyles. Even if I can’t remember someone’s name, her hairstyle will clue me in. “Oh, that’s the delusional self-blaming girl!” Kumeta’s got a recurring trick for page layout too: frequently, a character will be drawn full-length to one side of the page and depicted with extremely skinny ankles and extremely large feet. In more recent volumes it seems that facial closeups are happening more often, or that characters are being viewed from some new angles, which is a welcome development.

On the whole, I enjoyed Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei a great deal. I felt that it improved as it went along, and I look forward to remaining current with the series henceforth. It may not have made me laugh aloud continuously, but it was always amusing enough to make me smile, and it’s to its credit that it was still capable of making me giggle in its 100th chapter.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking was originally published in English by Del Rey, who put out the first eight volumes, but is now being published by Kodansha Comics. The series is ongoing in Japan; volume 27 came out there earlier this week.

Review copies for volumes five, seven, eight, and ten provided by the publisher.

Pick of the Week: Post-NYCC

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In the aftermath of New York Comic Con, we have no Bookshelf Briefs to offer this week, but we did manage to pull together a quick Pick of the Week! Check out our picks from this week’s haul at Midtown Comics below.

MICHELLE: Faced with yet another tough choice this week, I ultimately decided to award my pick to the seventh volume of Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts. Volume one introduced so many story elements at once that it left me baffled, but I’m glad I gave the story another chance because it has coalesced into an affecting tale with genuinely intriguing characters. True, volume six, wherein the gang heads off to visit the little sister of protagonist Oz—who, thanks to her brother’s stint in another dimension, is now older than him—at school and meets some new characters was not my favorite, but I have faith that it will lead somewhere interesting. That’s why I will most assuredly be picking up volume seven!

SEAN: I’m at NYCC, so this will be short. New Higurashi. Start of the Rena arc. Good stuff, go get it.

DAVID: There’s so much great stuff this week, with lots of new releases from Yen Press, a few choice items from Viz’s Signature line, and an always-welcome new volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack from Vertical, but I have to go with the book that it feels like I’ve been waiting for the longest, and that would be the second volume of Kaoru Mori’s Bride’s Story from Yen. I thought the first volume was faultlessly beautiful, and I’m eager to learn more about its can-do heroine, Amir. As was the case with Mori’s Emma, the plot here is less interesting than the meticulously rendered trappings and the small but very lovely moments that reveal character. With Mori, it’s always more about the harmonic elements than a traditional, central melodic line, but the ultimate effect is always fascinating to me. I really enjoy spending time in the worlds she creates.

KATE: A Bride’s Story is at the top of my must-buy list, too, but since David has so eloquently described the series’ charms, I’ll recommend the first volume of CLAMP’s Gate 7 instead. This long-delayed project was first announced at San Diego Comic-Con in 2007, and has undergone several transformations along the way. (Remember when it was going to be simultaneously released in Japan, Korea, and North America in “mangette” form?) The story is pure CLAMP: a shy teen is transported from modern-day Tokyo to a fantasy realm that’s under siege from ferocious monsters. Naturally, he discovers that he has skillz he didn’t know he had — would it be a manga if he didn’t have a few hidden talents? — and must decide whether to save the Earth or go home for dinner. If the cover art is any indication, Gate 7 will be a feast for the eyes, even if the plot mechanics are a little creaky. Kathryn Hemann, who blogs at Contemporary Japanese Literature, has a thoughtful early review that’s worth reading if you’re on the fence about buying it.

MJ: I’m a bit of a post-con zombie this morning, but since I see that my cohorts have already covered several of my top choices (Pandora Hearts, A Bride’s Story, and Gate 7), I’ll take a moment to put the spotlight on the penultimate volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack. This series is always a winner with me, but I’m especially interested in this volume’s final chapter, which reportedly comes in at something like 70 pages. Though short, episodic storytelling served this series well, I admit I’m thrilled at the prospect of digging in to something so substantial. Definitely a must-buy!

Readers, what looks good to you?

Off the Shelf: Love Hina

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MICHELLE: We have gathered here today with special guest Kate Dacey to talk about Ken Akamatsu’s shounen romantic comedy Love Hina. In the spirit of the occasion, I feel like I should start things off by falling down a flight of stairs and ending up accidentally clutching you both upon the bosom.

MJ: Also, we should probably all be in the bath.

MICHELLE: And my pants should have fallen down somewhere along the line.

MJ: I can shriek in horror, and Kate can make pithy comments while smoking a cigarette.

KATE: That’s the perfect role for me; I’ve sounded like Bea Arthur since I was ten years old.

So what did you guys think of the book?

MICHELLE: Would you like to go first, MJ, or shall I?

MJ: Well, do you want the short version or the long one? The short version pretty much boils down to, “I guess it could have been worse,” though I’m not sure how much of a recommendation that is.

MICHELLE: How about the long version, slightly abridged?

MJ: Okay, okay. So. For those who might be unfamiliar, Love Hina tells the story of a tragically awkward and academically unremarkable young man named Keitaro who has already spent too much of his adult life trying and failing to get into the University of Tokyo (Todai) in order to fulfill a childhood promise made to a girl. Having been kicked out of his parents’ home, he heads for the safety of his grandmother’s Inn, which has (conveniently) been converted into an all-female dormitory, complete with an open bath and a cast of lively young women, each clumsier than the last. Through a series of wacky circumstances, Keitaro becomes the manager of the dormitory, allowing him the opportunity to spend yet another year studying for college entrance exams while also grasping as many bosoms as possible.

I have to admit that I nearly decided to abandon this book, when not even half a chapter in, our hero was already getting felt up in the bath by an unsuspecting girl. I looked at the three-volume omnibus in my hands and thought, “I’ll never make it through this. Never.” And I suppose it says something that I actually did.

Interestingly, I discovered what it is that I dislike about this kind of series, and it surprised me a little. While I don’t necessarily love the constant parade of nude young girls, it’s not the nudity or the sexual innuendo that really bothers me. It’s the falling. At a certain point, I just thought I would scream if I had to watch someone else fall down. Sexual situations are fine, but after a while, I could no longer tolerate their pervasively accidental nature. Really, it eventually made me angry. And I suspect that without all the falling, these three volumes could have been reduced to just one.

On the upside, the series’ primary romance has its genuinely sweet moments. They aren’t really interesting enough to make up for the book’s truly maddening qualities, but it did make it readable.

How’s that?

MICHELLE: Excellent! And interesting, because though I didn’t single out falling as the single most annoying attribute, I did get extremely annoyed at all the accidents. Any accident that can happen, will happen. Like when Keitaro attempts to fix the hole in his ceiling that communicates with Naru’s room above—and which provides much opportunity for panty-glimpsing—and an extremely unlikely series of accidents occurs that result in him glimpsing the phrase “fifteen years ago” in her diary, which makes him wonder if she could be the first love with whom he promised to make it into Tokyo University (though he fails to realize she would have been two at the time!).

MJ: For the record, I still think it will turn out to be her, through some kind of wacky circumstances. And falling.

What about you Kate?

KATE: The thing I found most grating was how inconsistent the characters were. Take Motoko: she’s fierce and principled, the sort of girl who has a very limited tolerance for foolish behavior. That she would suddenly turn into a puddle simply because she falls on top of Keitaro strained credulity, not least because Keitaro is so utterly incompetent. That the other female characters have similar moments is even more frustrating, as there’s nothing about Keitaro that ought to endear him to the Hinata dormitory residents.

I also took a pretty dim view of all the jokes about the underage girls — frankly, I found them pretty gross. There’s nothing quite like the sight of a twenty-year-old male loser ogling a young teen to really raise my feminist ire.

MICHELLE: And yet… I think I was helped by Jason’s introductory post and Sean’s review to see past all of the ridiculous fanservice and unfunny hijinks and really appreciate the sweeter moments of the series. Sure, it’s creepy that Keitaro gets turned on by a seventh grader’s undies and I can’t say that I actually like him most of the time, but get him together with Naru and let things actually go right just for a minute, and I can see the potential for them as a couple.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I sigh as I read Love Hina (and not in a dreamy way), but I don’t despise it. In fact, I find it much more readable than Mao-chan. I couldn’t even get through the first volume of that one.

MJ: I admit I was a bit stunned by the story’s abundance of underage girls, and perhaps more so that we apparently aren’t supposed to think anything of them being constantly exposed in front of Keitaro. On one hand, it seems very natural that young girls might have a crush on an older guy (maybe not this older guy, but that’s what we’ve got) but it all comes out feeling creepy when it’s being relayed by way of the male gaze.

KATE: You’re a more patient woman than I am, Michelle! The prevailing tone reminded me too much of a Benny Hill episode for me to give a fig about Keitaro; I wanted nothing more than a big foot to descend from the sky and flatten him, Monty Python style.

MICHELLE: He’s definitely extremely pathetic and I don’t feel any sympathy for him for the ludicrous and/or perverted situations he ends up in, but I guess the calm scenes won me over at least a little, though now that I stop and think about it I wonder what exactly Naru is supposed to be gaining from associating with such a loser.

KATE: I’m so glad you mentioned Naru, Michelle! She may be the only character I actually like in Love Hina (aside from Keitaro’s sardonic, chain-smoking auntie). It’s maddening to think that Ken Akamatsu will find a way for Keitaro and Naru to be together, not least because the relationship is totally unequal: Naru is brilliant and attractive, while Keitaro can barely tie his shoes, let alone solve a quadratic equation. I don’t mean to suggest that book smarts are the only measure of a man’s worth, but when the male lead is so dumb and clueless, it’s insulting to female readers to see the series’ strongest, most appealing female character positioned to become his girlfriend.

MJ: I can relate to both of you, actually. While, like Michelle, I was able to enjoy the romantic plot with Keitaro and Naru, I found it really difficult to stomach Keitaro most of the time. I really do see him as a loser, and not because he’s having trouble getting into a super-competative university, or because he’s inexperienced with girls. I see him as a loser because he is a slave to his own desperation, and it ends up making him disgusting. I think if he had some kind of personality other than just “desperate” I could like him, but he’s really given nothing, so all we’re left with is a clumsy, groping, panty-sniffing loser.

MICHELLE: Yeah, I’m trying to think of a positive quality he possesses, but I’m coming up blank. I mean, he does try hard at certain things, it’s just that this never really works out well. He’s earnest about redeeming himself in Shinobu’s eyes for letting her believe he had already gotten into university, but then he turns around and gets all excited when he believes she’s invited him to bathe with her. One step forward, two steps back.

MJ: I think it’s probably fair to point out that we’re clearly not the audience for this manga. I’ll fully admit to an intolerance for the kind of sexually-charged antics that are the life’s blood of Love Hina. I’ve had the same issue with quite a number of BL manga with this type of sensibility, so it isn’t entirely an issue with the male gaze, either. It just really isn’t my thing. I suspect it all began with a childhood hatred of Three’s Company. Yes, Jack Tripper scarred me for life.

One of the things I particularly enjoy about the Manga Moveable Feast is the opportunity to read things I might otherwise have ignored, and in that spirit, I’m happy to have tried Love Hina. But I’m afraid it falls pretty flat with me.

MICHELLE: Oh, totally. And I hope it comes through that we all tried to like it, but that it just didn’t resound with us for various reasons.

I confess that I am a little curious to see how it ends. I guess I like it enough to care about how it wraps up. But I don’t think I like it enough to read all the volumes in between, which will undoubtedly be full of boobies and pratfalls with a small sprinkling of encouragement delivered by Naru. And there is so much other brilliant manga out there that I already don’t have time to read, I feel like I shouldn’t squander any more precious moments on Love Hina.

MJ: Well said, Michelle. I feel much the same way.

Many thanks to Kate for joining us in this special edition of Off the Shelf! Be sure to check in at PLAYBACK:stl for the complete Love Hina MMF archive!

Pick of the Week: Cross Game & More

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This week, Midtown Comics plays catch-up with several months’ worth of Kodansha Comics releases, giving the Battle Robot plenty to choose from. Check out our picks below!

KATE: Though I’m not sure why Kodansha felt it was necessary to release a third edition of Gon, I never miss an opportunity to recommend this beautifully illustrated series to new readers. Billed as “the tiny terror from the Jurassic era,” Gon is a little orange t-rex who has a talent for getting into trouble. He tangles with other predators; he eats psychedelic mushrooms; he swims with sharks; he builds a beaver dam. What makes Gon work are the illustrations: Masasahi Tanaka resists the urge to put words into his characters’ mouths, instead relying on his cartooning chops to convey what the participants are feeling and thinking. As a result, this animal-centric series is never too cute or saccharine, capturing the natural world in all its raw (and sometimes comic) glory.

MICHELLE: This week’s chart at Midtown Comics looks pretty bizarre, since they are finally getting in all those Kodansha releases they were missing before. I advocate strongly for quite a few of them—Sailor Moon, Arisa, Shugo Chara!…—but I am going to have to award my pick to the fifth volume of Cross Game, which comes out this week along with several other of VIZ’s Shonen Sunday titles. I enthused about this particular volume in a recent Off the Shelf column, where I concluded my remarks by saying, “If you like sports manga, you will like Cross Game. And if you don’t like sports manga, you will still like Cross Game.” And lo, MJsubsequently read the first volume and proved me right!

SEAN: I hate to duplicate, but I’m going with Cross Game as well. This volume introduces a new plot twist that at first seems like the most cliched thing a reader has ever seen, but Adachi is an expert, and the way things play out is fascinating. The reactions of all the characters are one of the best reasons to get it, as Adachi milks so much from his minimalistic faces. Best of all, there’s a promise of more baseball. After finishing off Eyeshield this week, I’m in the moon for some more sports, and Adachi’s baseball games are thrilling stuff.

MJ: Honestly, I’m really tempted to third Cross Game, but I guess in the interest of spreading the love, I’ll go with volume three of Kim Hyung-Min and Yang Kyung-Il’s March Story. This dark, whimsical series got off to a shaky start, but its third volume is really solid, making the most of Kim Hyung-Min’s episodic storytelling and Yang Kyung-Il’s intricate artwork. There is perhaps a little less through-story than usually suits my taste, but though this volume focuses less heavily on March and her history than either of the earlier volumes, there are enough little nuggets of new information to get me by. And the stories we do get here really work, with a level of consistency absent from the first two volumes. In the beginning, I stuck with this series for the beautiful artwork. Now I’m in for good.

DAVID: I’m going to surprise myself by not third-ing Cross Game (SECRET CODE: I’m totally actually third-ing Cross Game by claiming that I’m not) by giving a little leg-up to a new shônen series from Kodansha by Ryou Ryumon and Kouji Megumi, Bloody Monday. Now, I wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about this book in last week’s Bookshelf Briefs, but I have to say that there’s always room for another stylish mystery featuring super-smart teens, which Viz seems to realize, given the fact that they keep re-releasing Death Note over and over again. The creators do a nice job setting up their complicated story and making a persuasive case that the stakes are high, something not everyone manages in a first volume. I wasn’t precisely blown away by the series debut, but I like mysteries, and I like comics about smart kids who have unique skills, and Bloody Monday fits both bills.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 10/10/11

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This week, Kate, MJ, David, Sean, & Michelle take a look at recent releases from Digital Manga Publishing, Kodansha Comics, and Viz Media.

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 3 | By Kazue Kato | Viz Media – In the third volume of Blue Exorcist, Kazue Kato proves beyond a doubt that she’s in control of the material. She uses these chapters to properly introduce two worthy antagonists for Rin: Mephisto’s younger brother Amaimon (a dead ringer for Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong) and Father Fujimoto’s former protege Shura Kirigakure. But Kato also takes the time to flesh out her established cast. Rin has an opportunity to solve a crisis with reason instead of magic, while flashbacks allow us greater insight into Father Fujimoto’s relationship with Rin. Smart-looking character designs, brisk pacing, and crisp dialogue keep the story afloat, even when Kato is going through the standard shonen motions (e.g. busty big-sis types, school field trips involving camping and group chores). A worthy addition to the Shonen Jump catalog. -Katherine Dacey

Entangled Circumstances | By Kikuko Kikuya | Digital Manga Publishing – Everyone’s heard the adage “never judge a book by its cover,” but more often than not, doing so has led me to something interesting, especially where BL is concerned. Not so with Entangled Circumstances, alas. Oh, it’s okay, being the story of a handsome, popular guy (now the project manager for a magazine) and the stubborn, uptight guy (now in the magazine’s sales department) he’s been chasing for six years, but it’s not as quirky as its eye-catching cover—quite different from common BL motifs—would suggest. Pretty much the entire plot is “uptight guy refuses to admit that he loves the other guy until suddenly he does acknowledge his feelings and then they have lots of sex although he worries the popular guy will tire of him now that he’s caught him.” Yawn. Nothing new to see here. – Michelle Smith

Eyeshield 21, Vol. 37 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata | Viz Media – We are finally at the end of Eyeshield 21, which is second only to Prince of Tennis for longest sports manga out in North America, I believe. And if, as I believe, it should have ended at the Christmas Bowl 3 volumes ago, I can’t really begrudge it this victory lap. We finish up the game against America, and as expected the Japanese team slowly begins to inch its way back. The highlights of the volume are probably a) the revelation of the bandaged player, who isn’t the person everyone thought; and b) seeing Agon finally give in and play like a real teammate. Much as I hate to see anything good happen to him after being a jerk for *so* long, it wouldn’t be very Shonen Jump-ey, and this is nice to see. As the series ends and we see the cast split into various colleges all playing against each other, we get a satisfying sense of closure (unless you were one of the few readers wanting romance – no hope there) and a sense that the future is bright for all of them.-Sean Gaffney

March Story, Vol. 3 | By Kim Hyung-Min and Yang Kyung-Il | Viz Media – From the beginning, March Story has had a compelling protagonist, a dark, intriguing tone, and beautiful, beautiful artwork, while other aspects of the series have waxed and waned. Things even out in volume three, as author Kim Hyung-Min finally hits his stride and then some. Though this volume conforms to the series’ episodic format almost to a fault, this seems to be a good thing, even in the eyes of an epic-loving critic like me. March’s surreally-designed mother figure, Jake, is featured in this volume, which is much more of a treat than I might have imagined. Other highlights include a story about an Ill trying to protect her human son, and an Ill who spends years devoted to a human woman. There isn’t a lot of Ill-hunting going on in these stories, but you won’t hear me complaining. This series is at its best when bittersweet. It’s nice to be able to finally recommend March Story without reservation. Hopefully this is a permanent trend. – MJ

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 1 | By Naoko Takeuchi | Kodansha Comics –I end up enjoying a lot of teen-demographic manga in spite of the fact that I don’t really care for the protagonist. If the supporting cast is large and interesting enough, I can ignore the lead’s shortcomings. Sailor Moon is shaping up in that direction, as I find our titular heroine to be too much of a drippy dingbat to actively like. While her solar-system sister is having a ball over in Codename: Sailor V, Usagi is behaving in some of the most predictable ways imaginable: lazy, shallow, and easily distracted. Fortunately, she’s surrounded by people with enough verve to drag her along, and Takeuchi has barely begun assembling her array of allies. I’m particularly taken with tough, elegant, slightly spooky Sailor Mars and dreamy, sarcastic Tuxedo mask, in spite of his contractual obligation to express fascination with our heroine. And whose life wouldn’t improve under the mentorship of a talking cat? – David Welsh

Tonight’s Take-Out Night | By Akira Minazuki | Digital Manga Publishing – The title story in this collection depicts a whirlwind romance between the manager of a burger joint and a guy from the corporate office. There’s not much emotional resonance to this tale, but that’s made up for by the next set of stories about an icy inhuman being (Kirin) whose killing streak comes to an end when he meets a kind physician (Shinnosuke). Their story brings all the drama one could ever want, including Kirin becoming human through his love for Shinnosuke (and angsting that he’s just a replacement for Shinnosuke’s late wife) and Shinnosuke eventually having second thoughts about this because Kirin will now eventually die. The last pair of stories are devoted to Makimura and Fujimori, an art student and his younger mentor who feel each other up first for sculpture-making purposes and then just for fun. All in all, it’s a diverse and enjoyable collection. – Michelle Smith

X 3-in-1, Vol. 1 | By CLAMP | Viz Media – Psychic powers! Family secrets! Mysterious destinies that threaten the entire world! Good-looking boys, and girls with yards of hair! X is pretty much dead center in the Venn diagram of “things I expect from a comic by CLAMP,” which is problematic only in that I like their work best when it surprises me. Siblings Kotori and Fuma find their high-school world turned upside-down by the return of their childhood friend, Kamui. He’s changed from the gentle, outgoing boy they knew, but you would too if you were constantly being attacked by nattily dressed, willowy psychics. On one hand, the whole “earth-threatening destiny” thing is as muddy and hard to navigate as a swamp; on the other, there’s an unapologetic level of violence here that compensates for the nonsensical quality of the plot it serves. The characters may be a little drab, and the story is a head-scratcher, but the fact that there’s this much bone-crushing, body-count action in a shôjo series is undeniably awesome. – David Welsh

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

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From the back cover:
There’s only one vampire Sookie Stackhouse is involved with (at least voluntarily) and that’s Bill. But recently he’s been a little distant—in another state, distant. His sinister and sexy boss Eric has an idea where to find him. Next thing Sookie knows, she is off to Jackson, Mississippi to mingle with the under-underworld at Club Dead. It’s a dangerous little haunt where the elitist vampire society can go to chill out and suck down some type O. But when Sookie finally finds Bill—caught in an act of serious betrayal—she’s not sure whether to save him… or sharpen some stakes.

Review:
It’s been more than a year since I promised “Club Dead, coming soon!” at the end of my review of Living Dead in Dallas. I didn’t forget the pledge; it just took me that long to be in the mood for another round of salacious vampire shenanigans. But what better time to revisit the series than Halloween Week? This one was such an improvement over the last, however, that I’m going to make a sincere effort to get caught up on the series.

Part of what makes Club Dead interesting is that there is so little Bill and when there is Bill, he’s wronging Sookie in ways that culminate with her disinviting him from her home. As the book begins, he is working on a top-secret assignment for “the queen of Louisiana” (there’s a lot of detail about the vampire hierarchy in this book) and tells Sookie he’s heading to Seattle to work on it. This turns out to be a lie, as she learns later that Bill is being held captive in Jackson and that he was preparing to pension her off and return to his vampire love, Lorena.

Despite the betrayal, Sookie agrees to help Eric (Bill’s superior, in a manner of speaking) find Bill and is matched up with a brawny werewolf named Alcide Herveaux, who can introduce her to the supernatural element in Jackson. Alcide’s got baggage of his own, so in addition to treading lightly around “the king of Mississippi” and the werewolves the king has hired to search for Bill’s girlfriend (thankfully, he never got her name), they’ve also got to avoid Alcide’s crazy ex, Debbie Pelt.

All of this is fairly entertaining—even if a large amount of the plot is contingent upon guys finding Sookie extremely hawt and wanting to boff her—but it did seem randomly strung-together at times. For example, after Bill is rescued the gang must next prevent the crucifixion of “Bubba” (Elvis in vamp form) and foil a convenience store robbery. I really liked the ending, though, and once again find myself hoping that Sookie will not forgive Bill’s transgressions, now weightier than ever before. Sure, it’s a little ridiculous how many guys are hot for her, but her steamy encounters with both Alcide and Eric are more fun to read than detailed sex scenes starring Bill. (The fact that Eric gets fleshed out a great deal is one of the best aspects of the book, actually.) Plus, Sookie’s reaction to these tempting guys is pretty amusing. “I was not pleased with my moral fiber!”

I find that I haven’t much to say about the book beyond this. It’s diverting and amusing and has even rekindled my curiosity about True Blood. It’s not fair to compare something like this against oh, say, Price and Prejudice, but for this particular genre, it exceeds expectations.

Off the Shelf: Bakuman, Seiho, Geek

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MJ: *Brrrrr* It’s cold up here!

MICHELLE: It is extremely nice down here! Long-sleeve-shirt weather at the most.

MJ: *whimper*

MICHELLE: Don’t feel too bad; at least you’ve got takoyaki. Fat chance of ever finding that down here!

MJ: I will cling to fried octopus as the one virtue of my region. So, read any manga this week? With or without takoyaki?

MICHELLE: I read a fair bit, but it was takoyaki-free. This included volumes six and seven of Bakuman。, a series about two boys’ quest to achieve manga stardom that I seem to enjoy more and more with each installment.

In volume six, Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi are working hard on their manga series when Mashiro suddenly collapses. His ailment is treatable but requires three months in the hospital, during which time their series goes on hiatus. Pretty much this entire volume is people arguing whether Mashiro should be allowed to draw while in the hospital, then whether the terms for the series coming off hiatus are fair. Mashiro eventually regains his health, but in the beginning of volume seven, they receive the bad news that the hiatus has dealt a blow to the popularity of their series and it has been canceled. Dubious about the advice they’re getting from their editor, the boys dive into the process of getting a second series serialized. This volume is mostly full of arguments about which one they want to do, what their editor wants them to do, etc.

And you know what? It’s all awesome. I love that Bakuman。 is able to achieve such dramatic tension over concepts like “What if the series that gets the go-ahead is not the one they really want to do?” or “Is Mashiro actually right to insist on a serious story? Is their editor right? Or is he incompetent?” I suppose these might not sound like riveting plots to some, but they kept me turning pages like a mad fiend and when I finished I wished there were more, which brings Bakuman。 into the elite company of series like Slam Dunk, which leave me actively pining for another volume.

The characters have also matured a great deal, both intellectually and physically, which is something this series has in common with another title with art by Takeshi Obata, the much-loved Hikaru no Go. Their attitudes toward women are much different now, for example, and I especially like how Takagi is now so candid about how much he values his girlfriend Miyoshi’s advice and includes her in everything that’s going on. Mashiro, meanwhile, is getting somewhat feistier, and if I had a nickel for every time the antics of kooky rival/friend Eiji Nizuma made me smile fondly, I could at least afford a taco.

MJ: I really enjoyed this volume as well. I wasn’t as keen on the subplot with Aoki and possible girl complications for Takagi, but in a way this is a positive sign. It’s taken me a while to care a lot about Takagi and Mashiro’s fates as artists (instead of gravitating towards supporting characters), but that’s what I was focused on here. I love the conflict with their editor, and I can’t wait to see how their final decision pans out.

MICHELLE: Y’know, one of the critiques Eiji tosses off about their work is that the characters they create lack heart, and I think that in some respects Mashiro and Takagi did, too, at first. Now I’m beginning to see them more as fully realized characters and that makes all the difference.

MJ: Well, I started off my week with the final volume of Kaneyoshi Izumi’s Seiho Boys’ High School! This was, in fact, my pick of the week, and there are a number of reasons why.

The focus of this volume is Maki’s relationship with Erika, which is on the rocks, particularly as Maki begins to suspect that she’s seeing Kamiki on the side. This kind of thing is nothing new in shoujo (or anywhere else), but what’s really refreshing is the way it all plays out. Nothing is as simple as it seems, and love can’t possibly conquer all, especially for two kids just barely figuring out who they are. Most high school romance tends to pretend like young love is forever, and those that don’t usually lean towards either intense cynicism or melodramatic angst.

Seiho goes in none of these directions. It acknowledges the inherent transience of most teen romances while really giving the characters their due. Maki and Erika are both hurting and both wrong, but they’ve got real futures in front of them, with or without each other.

This series really has been a surprise from start to finish. Originally, it was fresh, funny, and surprisingly candid about the true personalities of teen boys. It’s still those things, but also it’s become really poignant, in the manner of some of the best recent shoujo, like Sand Chronicles and We Were There. I wish it was a bit longer, so we could see what happens when Maki gets out of school, but ending here does make this a nice, relatively short series.

The extra story included at the end of the book is less my cup of tea, so I was pretty sad to realize that it would take up a full quarter of the volume. But it’s not like I would have gotten more Seiho without it, so I can handle the disappointment.

MICHELLE: I have been terribly remiss regarding Seiho, but there just came a point where six of the eight volumes were already out and I figured, “Might as well wait.” Seeing it compared to such standouts as Sand Chronicles and We Were There makes me even more eager to experience it. I really adore strong, subtle shoujo like this that manages to transcend all those shoujo clichés without ever once sacrificing its essential shoujoness.

MJ: I do too, and I didn’t really expect that in Seiho. The series was really a surprise.

So, we’ve both read the next selection, and given your opinion of the first three volumes, which I think was a bit different than mine, I’m pretty interested to see what you think of volume four of My Girlfriend’s a Geek. Wanna hit us with a quick summary?

MICHELLE: I’ll do my best!

So, college student Taiga has been dating his fujoshi girlfriend Yuiko for a while now and has gotten to know her well enough to realize that she will immerse herself in scandalous BL fantasies if he tells her he’s begun to tutor a middle-school boy who embodies the very definition of an uke. So, he keeps this quiet, and the evasions plus his distance while he works to get into his desired program at school finally prompts some genuine response from Yuiko’s part. They have a long-overdue conversation in which Taiga is able to get some things off his chest, and finally it seems like there may be some genuine hope for their relationship.

What I most wanted from the first three volumes was to see Yuiko and Taiga really engage each other, for Yuiko to seem fully present in the real world, and we finally get that here. Her attempts to get Taiga’s attention, when all she’s doing is irritating him by distracting him from her studies, were extremely sympathetic, and I felt I was finally getting a glimpse at her perspective of their relationship. I had previously read it like she was going overboard with her fujoshi tendencies, but now I realize that she’s just been teasing him half the time, hoping to get an amusing rise out of him. Okay, this still isn’t much fun for Taiga, but it helps me to understand her.

MJ: I think I enjoyed the first three volumes more than you did, or maybe just as someone who has been heavily involved in a similar type of fandom as Yuiko, I could relate to it all on some level. What was missing for me, though, was some sense of what they really meant to each other—that they were really boyfriend and girlfriend—and I finally feel like I got that here. With both of them feeling insecure in the relationship but also anxious to save it, I finally feel like I really know where they stand with each other.

I think where we may not quite see eye-to-eye here, though, is on what Taiga gets from the relationship. I appreciated that he actually *said* in this volume that he found indulging her whims “kind of fun” because, honestly, it’s felt like that to me from the start. Sure, he complains about it all, but he gets genuinely caught up in it sometimes, and I can’t help but feel that he wouldn’t keep up with it all if he didn’t enjoy being pushed into her fantasies a bit. And I’m glad to see that in him, because it’s a lot more interesting than a story about a guy who just has what we might expect to be typical straight boy reactions to everything she does. It makes the relationship feel more real to me, too.

MICHELLE: I see that in Taiga now, but I interpreted his behavior in earlier volumes as sort of… mollifying Yuiko because he wanted to have a hot older girlfriend. He wasn’t repulsed, but he was puzzled and overwhelmed by her fervor. Now, though, it seems more like he really gets Yuiko as a person. I love the scene near the end where he’s studying and she compliments him—possibly for the first time without a personal agenda—and he reveals he’s working on the BL novel for her again. How her face lights up! It’s not as if I would ever expect her to not be herself, but it seems like she’s going to take her friend’s example to heart and really appreciate having found a guy who’s willing to actively indulge her.

What it boils down to is that they just make a lot more sense to me now as a couple. I look forward to the final volume!

MJ: I agree, I’m really looking forward to the final volume, and I may even wish there were more! I’m interested in digging into the novels as well. My original expectations for this series were very low, and it has easily exceeded them.

MICHELLE: I was originally more interested in the novels, but having seen the excerpt at the end of the first manga volume, now I’m not so sure. The Taiga equivalent seems awfully spazzy.

I should note here, too, that mangaka Rize Shinba’s BL manga is also enjoyable. You and I have reviewed Intriguing Secrets and My Bad for BL Bookrack with favorable results.

MJ: Well, you know me, I’ve never had a problem with “spazzy.” And yes, I do recall that we’ve enjoyed Shinba’s BL. I guess she’s probably got some personal insight to offer to these adaptations.

MICHELLE: Seems like!