Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Michelle Smith

Bakuman。 2 by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata: B+

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From the back cover:
Average student Moritaka Mashiro enjoys drawing for fun. When his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. But what exactly does it take to make it in the manga-publishing world?

After Moritaka and Akito collaborate on a manga together, they venture to publishing house Shueisha in hopes of capturing an editor’s interest. As much potential as these two rookies have, will their story impress the pros and actually get printed?

Review:
The second volume of Bakuman。 picks up where the first left off, with artist Moritaka Mashiro and writer Akito Takagi taking the final draft of their one-shot manga to Jump headquarters for consideration. This kicks off a series of fascinating meetings (spanning from summer vacation to the start of the next school year the following spring) in which the boys receive feedback from their editor, Hattori, and try to create a story that will be popular enough to merit serialization.

I loved all the meetings with Hattori, especially how specific he was about story and art requirements for Jump and how, as the boys improved, he went over their storyboards panel-by-panel with useful suggestions. As befits shounen protagonists, Mashiro and Akito are both very talented, but they’re not instantly the best around and go through many ideas and an immense amount of work before they’re able to craft something that is worth publishing.

When they finally do manage to get a story published, it takes third place in the popularity poll for that issue. The winner is Eiji Nizuma, a fifteen-year-old mangaphile who has been drawing since the age of six and practically does nothing else. He’s an exceedingly weird kid, but he fulfills the Akira Toya role here of “genius rival of comparable age.” He’s the first obstacle our leads will have to overcome, and I think it’s pretty fun how this is shaping up to be a sort of tournament manga.

Unfortunately, I’m still bored and fairly annoyed by Mashiro’s relationship with classmate Miho Azuki. They’ve pledged to marry once their dreams come true, but in the meantime aren’t even going to date. To some extent I understand—it’s suggested that Miho’s in favor of this because she wants to be able to focus on her dream without being distracted by Mashiro—but they still hardly know each other. Thankfully, Miho’s friend, Miyoshi, finds this just as bizarre. Also, while the overt, spoken sexism is absent from this volume it’s not exactly absent from the characters’ behavior. At one point Mashiro informs Miho that they’re going to be together when he becomes a manga artist, whether she’s realized her dream (to be a voice actress) or not. Nice, kid.

Though Bakuman。 has some flaws, it’s still an utterly captivating look at the manga-creating experience. I can overlook a banal relationship plotline if it means getting a glimpse inside the editorial process at Jump!

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Wait for What Will Come by Barbara Michaels: B-

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Book description:
The last of an ancient Cornish clan, Carla Tregellas has inherited her historic ancestral home: a massive mansion looming high up on the jagged cliffs of Cornwall. From the moment Carla takes possession of the grand manor she feels right at home, warmly welcomed by everyone—except the strange and secretive housekeeper, Mrs. Pendennis, who warns the new owner of the tragic, inevitable fate that will surely befall her if she does not depart at once. But Carla cannot leave, for the unseen bonds of a dark family curse are beginning to tighten… and a demon lover waits.

Review:
I’m not sure what it is, but sometimes I just crave something by Barbara Michaels.

Like most of the books by Michaels that I have read, Wait for What Will Come features a plucky heroine and an old house. Carla Tregellas, a math teacher from Boston, is surprised to inherit a somewhat decrepit mansion from a distant relation in Cornwall. Her initial impulse is to sell the place, but once she sees a photo, she’s smitten and decides to at least pay a visit before putting it up on the market.

Upon practically the moment of her arrival, Carla is acquainted with the family legend, which says that every 200 years a young woman of the family is claimed by some sort of sea demon. The last occurrence was exactly 200 years ago and, wouldn’t you know it, Carla looks a great deal like her ancestor who went missing at that time. Carla’s an unimaginative and practical sort and discounts the myth, but strange things start happening—seaweed in her room, a distorted portrait—that soon have her on edge.

A bevy of attractive men happens to be handy, and most of them have the hots for Carla (the exception being the vicar, who probably has the vicarly equivalent). The fellows help her look into the origins of the legend and execute timely rescues, but most seem to want to get her out of town in a hurry. After the characters spend most of the book sightseeing, socializing, and/or engaging in lackadaisical research, all of a sudden they’re confessing to dastardly deeds and revealing unconvincing romantic inclinations, and it all seems to come out of nowhere.

In retrospect, the plot’s pretty thin, but I liked the setting and the characters enough that I enjoyed their interactions, until Michaels realized she’d better wrap things up and everything went a little crazy. Still, the final resolution is satisfying enough and I’m happy that a cat got to be a hero, in its way. This isn’t the best by Michaels that I’ve read, but it was sufficiently diverting.

Off the Shelf: Now With Reduced Woe!

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Welcome to another edition of Off the Shelf with MJ & Michelle! I’m joined, once again, by Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This week, we take a look at some recent volumes from Yen Press, Tokyopop, Viz Media, and Vertical, Inc.

MICHELLE: Wednesday’s child may be full of woe, but somehow I doubt the same can be said about what we’ve been reading this week. At least not my picks. How about you, MJ?

MJ: You’re absolutely right! I caught up with a couple of universes I’m particularly fond of this week. Shall I just jump right in?

MICHELLE: Jump away; the water’s lovely.

MJ: *Sploosh* Okay! Well, having complained just this week about the shortage of new manhwa licenses, I figured it was only fair of me to give some attention to one of my favorite currently-running series, SangEun Lee’s 13th Boy from Yen Press. This is a series that hooked me early on with its quirky mix of romantic comedy and supernatural oddities (TALKING CACTUS). Though it was a bit all over the place in its first volume, it found its feet pretty quickly and now, five volumes in, it feels wonderfully sure and comfortable in its strangeness.

This is a pretty eventful volume, filled with some serious revelations for several of its main characters, particularly heroine Hee-So and her friend/sort-of-rival, Sae-Bom. What really makes the romantic aspect of this series work is Hee-So’s unyielding personality. Anytime the series seems in danger of becoming sentimental or melodramatic, she brings it right back to earth like a giant bulldozer, ripping everything apart with a moment of brash honesty or blatant self-involvement. She’s a character who manages to be totally obnoxious and still incredibly likable. How can you dislike anyone who is so open and honest about her own worst thoughts and so transparent in her painful attempts at guile? Hee-So is like a cup of tepid water in the ceaseless desert of teen romance comics– flawed, but extremely welcome.

Also, a stuffed rabbit comes to life and chews out Whie-Young for giving him a crappy personality. That’s worth the price of the volume alone. …

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My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse: B-

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Book description:
My Man Jeeves, first published in 1919, introduced the world to affable, indolent Bertie Wooster and his precise, capable valet, Jeeves. Some of the finest examples of humorous writing found in English literature are woven around the relationship between these two men of very different classes and temperaments. Where Bertie is impetuous and feeble, Jeeves is cool-headed and poised. This collection, the first book of Jeeves and Wooster stories, includes “Leave it to Jeeves,” “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest,” “Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg,” “Absent Treatment,” “Helping Freddie,” “Rallying Round Old George,” “Doing Clarence a Bit of Good,” and “The Aunt and the Sluggard.”

Review:
It grieves me to award a relatively low grade to My Man Jeeves, because I truly did want to like it, but the trouble is, if I may be allowed to borrow Bertie’s manner of speech for a moment, that the stories it contains are “dashed repetitive, don’t you know?” In fact, you too can write a story just like the ones in this book! Make a selection at each parenthetical prompt and you’re halfway there!

A friend of (Reggie Pepper/Bertie Wooster) is having trouble with a (rich aunt or uncle/woman) and is despondent because said person has threatened to (cut off his allowance/break off their engagement). (Reggie/Jeeves) comes up with a kooky idea to achieve the friend’s desired result and hijinks ensue.

The outcomes of the stories are all different, of course, and usually at least somewhat amusing. The story that varies the most from the formula above is “Doing Clarence a Bit of Good,” in which Reggie is summoned to the home of his former sweetheart, who has manipulated him thither with tales of an excellent golf course nearby but who really wants him to steal an ugly painting by her husband’s father. I probably should’ve seen the end result coming, but didn’t.

The relationship between Jeeves and Wooster is also enjoyable, with Wooster being terribly impressed by the “devilish brainy” Jeeves and occasionally rewarding him for his achievements by casting off ties, hats, or mustaches that have offended Jeeves’s delicate sensibilities. I’m a little sad that Jeeves’s intellect is used primarily for schemes of deception, though, and hope that won’t always be the case. There are a couple of occasions where he quietly works a solution of his own while Bertie is away, and I found those better examples of his cleverness than simply advising someone to pretend to have written a book on birds in order to appeal to a rich uncle with an ornithological bent.

There’s actually one story featuring Bertie and Jeeves that is even older than those collected here. “Extricating Young Gussie,” first published in 1915 and included in The Man with Two Left Feet in 1917, finds Bertie tasked with preventing the marriage of his cousin to a chorus girl. I had thought it was safe to save this ’til later, since Jeeves’s part is extremely small, but Bertie mentioned it a couple of times here so I’ll probably go ahead and tackle that one next.

Breaking Down Banana Fish, Vols. 7-8

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Hello faithful shojo fans, and welcome again to our roundtable, Breaking Down Banana Fish!

This month we take on volumes seven and eight, in which Ash brings his war straight to Arthur’s doorstep and Papa Dino’s bank account, playing both cutthroat businessman and cold-blooded killer, while Eiji does his best just to keep Ash human. Blackmail, introspection, and an epic subway battle ensue.

I’m joined again in this round by Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue), Khursten Santos (Otaku Champloo), Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga), Eva Volin (Good Comics For Kids), and Robin Brenner (No Flying, No Tights).

Read our roundtable on volumes one and two here, volumes three and four here, and volumes five and six here. On to part four!
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Café Latte Rhapsody by Toko Kawai: A-

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I reviewed this cute yet complicated love story for this month’s BL Bookrack column at Manga Bookshelf. I really, really enjoyed the romance between a somewhat relationship-scarred bookstore employee and his huge younger lover, and it made me realize I haven’t read anything by Toko Kawai that I didn’t like!

You can find that review here.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

BL Bookrack: Four from DMP

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Welcome to the September installment of BL Bookrack, a new, monthly feature co-written with Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This month we take a look at four manga from Digital Manga Publishing, Cafe Latte Rhapsody, Garden Sky, and The Tyrant Falls in Love from their Juné imprint, and Double Cast from DokiDoki.

Cafe Latte Rhapsody | By Toko Kawai | Published by Juné | Rated 16+ – Freckled and good-natured Hajime Serizawa works at a book store. One day, while attempting to fill an order, he comes across a huge customer with a piercing glare. Serizawa’s scared of him at first, but when the customer kindly fetches a book that the diminutive Serizawa can’t reach, he wonders if his first impression was mistaken. Further observations reveal that the huge customer is the kind of guy who tidies up books misshelved by other customers and saves abandoned kittens in the rain. In other words, not scary at all!

Serizawa learns that the customer’s name is Keito, and they strike up a friendship initially based upon finding the kittens a home. Keito discovers that Serizawa is gay when the latter’s no-good former lover comes by to hit Serizawa up for money, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. Little by little, they fall in love and it’s just about the sweetest, cutest thing on the planet.

Rather than the story fizzling at this point, it actually gets even better. Serizawa, at 23, has been in relationships before but none ever worked out. Even now, when it seems he’s finally found a fairy-tale love, he’s thinking of the day when it’ll all have to end. As readers, we also get to know him better when it’s slowly revealed that he’s not actually as cheerful as he appears—he has some deep-seated insecurity, especially about his looks, which prevents him from expressing annoyance when the girls at work start to show an interest in Keito. He feels like he’s so unattractive, it wouldn’t be fair to ask Keito not to notice them, and instead he goes in the opposite direction and almost seems to encourage their hopes.

Sweet, cute, complicated in a very human way… these are the ingredients of some of the best BL! Toko Kawai also has a gift for staging some very natural-feeling conversations between her characters. They’re not always talking about their feelings—sometimes they talk about coffee or food they dislike, and even seem to be a pair of science nerds, though that’s not dwelt upon too much. The one complaint I could really make is that the art is a little rough, but it’s not in any way detrimental to a truly charming love story.

I’ve read a few things by Toko Kawai now and there was not a one among them that I didn’t like. In fact, I think Café Latte Rhapsody has solidified my status as an honest-to-goodness fan.

-Review by Michelle Smith

Double Cast | By Ellie Mamahara & Takana Mizuhashi | Published by DokiDoki | Rated 16+ – Yuki Yamamuro is a charismatic idol whose stage work in a modern adaptation of Goethe’s Faust is just a way of killing time while he waits for his stalled television career to revive. When he fears that the young actor double-cast in his role may be making moves on his producer (and occasional lover), Otaki, he tries to manipulate his rival into falling for him instead. Unfortunately for Yuki, the other actor, Sawaki spots his efforts a mile away, setting up a level of rivalry between them that Yuki is neither emotionally nor artistically prepared to face.

The promotional copy for this manga is filled with phrases like “seemingly innocent” and “game of love.” With words like these in mind, one imagines a cast of sexy idols sharing arch glances and little substance–at best a sly, humorous romp. What Double Cast actually offers, however, is a surprisingly insightful and even touching exploration of insecurity, confidence, ambition, and art.

Initially portrayed as an arrogant player (both for the story’s audience and in the character’s own mind), Yuki’s emotional deterioration is swift and true, betraying the inherent vulnerability of anyone whose self-worth and livelihood are both reliant on the approval of strangers. Both the challenges he receives from his better-trained rival and the truths revealed by his nurturing producer are perfectly calculated to either ruin him or save him, depending on your point of view. Meanwhile, Sawaki’s bitterness over the natural charisma of his less-educated (and arguably less-talented) co-star is palpable, manifesting itself as both resentment and desire, neither of which conforms to his high ideals or his careful career plans.

That the story’s theatrical setting is one of a handful in which a cast of characters made up almost entirely of gay men seems genuinely plausible surely adds to its realistic feel, but there is really very little fantasy involved here at all. Aside from whatever liberties may be taken with the workings of the Japanese entertainment business, the characters’ emotional journeys feel very authentic to their necessarily self-centered careers.

Mamahara’s artwork is attractive, if uneven. Though the visual storytelling flows well, her male characters in particular feel stiff and awkward, with expressionless faces outside of their occasionally haunted eyes. She has better luck with her few female characters. Yuki’s ambiguous girl friend, Kaho, is downright luminous (as is her adorable pet cat) offering a refreshing contrast to the stony-faced leads and perhaps deliberately creating sympathy for a girl who is ultimately destined for heartbreak.

And “refreshing” is really a key word here. Emotionally complex and surprisingly thoughtful, Double Cast falls into the all-too-rare category of single-volume yaoi I’ve truly enjoyed reading. Recommended.

-Review by MJ

Garden Sky | By Yuko Kuwabara | Published by Juné | Rated 13+ – Garden Sky is technically a short story collection, but the stories within focus on just two sets of characters. In the first, the child-like Kami-sama (God) is lonely. While watching the pond of human lives one day, he spots an idiotic fellow who has just been shot by a jealous lover and is about to die. Figuring that bringing a dead person back as a companion does not violate the laws barring him from interfering in the lives of humans, he rescues the man, dresses him in white clothing, and dubs him Shiro (white).

Shiro’s crazy for chicks and when there aren’t any in Heaven, he convinces Kami-sama to let him pick a woman friend and, together, the three of them will become a family. As luck would have it, the woman Shiro picks turns out to be a ninja with the magical ability to change genders and she is really he, whom Kami-sama dresses in black clothes and names Kuro (black). While spazzy Shiro initially pesters reserved Kuro to adopt his feminine form, he somehow realizes that Kuro still does it for him even though he’s a guy. They seem to be growing closer and then… the story’s over.

The next set of stories, “Go East,” is more of a typical fantasy. Raiho and Yukito are students at a training school for taimashi, or fighters who combat the bevy of monsters roaming the countryside. In looks and personality, they are nearly identical to the protagonists of the earlier stories, but while Raiho is exuberant and rather clueless and Yukito is more serious, both are driven to achieve their goal of being sent to vanquish a dangerous dragon god. A decade before, a group of taimashi were dispatched to the dragon god’s lair, including Yukito’s father, thus providing Yukito’s motivation. Raiho just likes fighting monsters. They complete the task assigned by their boss to test whether they’re worthy to undertake the journey and then… the story’s over.

See a pattern here? Both tales are very light on substance, feature the same types of characters, and go absolutely nowhere in the end. They’re pretty boring while they’re underway, for that matter. The one aspect I did like is the art—it’s not groundbreaking or anything, but it’s clean and easy to read and there’s just something about the way she draws profiles that I find appealing.

Garden Sky is a disappointment. Even if you’re in the mood for a bit of fluff, surely there exists some in which stories actually conclude in a satisfying manner!

-Review by Michelle Smith

The Tyrant Falls in Love, Vol. 1 | By Hinako Takanaga | Published by Juné | Rated 18+ – Tetsuhiro Morinaga is a university student with long-held feelings for his vocally homophobic sempai, Souichi Tatsumi. Though he’s grateful that Tatsumi is willing to remain friends with him even after discovering his feelings, their close relationship actually makes the situation more difficult for Morinaga, until finally he loses control and takes Tatsumi by force.

It’s no secret how little I enjoy rape as a catalyst in BL manga, and in most cases, a premise like this would turn me off of a series completely. The frequency with which rape is used as a precursor to romance in this genre is enough to make my head spin. What makes The Tyrant Falls in Love stand out in the din, however, is how expertly the relationship between its characters is developed from the beginning, and how that changes the tone of the whole story–even the dreaded rape. To be clear, this scenario is no less disturbing to me than in any other BL rape fantasy, but far more interesting in its development and execution.

Takanaga’s skill as a writer is evident from the beginning. With sure, broad strokes she paints her main characters, letting us know exactly who they are in the very first pages, and cementing their relationship with little more than body language and a few pieces of dialogue. Her drawing is expressive and the humor is spot on. The rape itself happens less than two chapters into the volume, but even by then, and even with the use of a device so ridiculous it basically boils down to a love potion, these characters have been so firmly established, it’s not at all difficult to believe the scene as played.

It’s all sickeningly believable–Morinaga’s careful manipulation of his own thoughts to justify actions he knows are deeply wrong, the sheer horror on Tatsumi’s face as he realizes that he’s not safe with the person he trusts most–every piece of this scene rings true. And even afterwards, as Morinaga withdraws from the school in shame, the relationship between the two of them has been so well-drawn, it’s not at all unbelievable that Tatsumi might feel devastated at the loss, to the point of offering forgiveness to the person who has betrayed him in the worst way he can imagine.

Unfortunately, it’s after this that Takanaga gives in to cheap fantasy, satisfying her readers’ immediate romantic desires but sacrificing her characters in the process. Given the deep relationship between her main characters, there may indeed be a way to believably move them towards actual romance, but pushing them into a never-ending predator/prey cycle as she does here (one that is played for humor, no less) is definitely not it.

Though Takanaga’s expressive artwork and deft characterization are a significant draw, this volume ultimately disappoints. For hard-core fans only.

-Review by MJ

Review copies provided by the publishers.

Eyeshield 21 1-3 by Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata: B

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Though I’ve long professed an ardent love for sports manga, I did secretly wonder if my enthusiasm would wane when the featured sport is one in which I have zero interest, like, say, football. Would the inherent charms of sports manga be able to compensate for my real-world disinterest? Eyeshield 21 has proven to me that the answer to this question is “yes.”

Sena Kobayakawa has justed started his first year at Deimon High School, where he’s looking forward to reinventing himself after years of serving as gopher for bullies (when not fleeing from them). Picked as an easy recruitment target by the demonic Himura, captain of football team, Sena finds himself volunteering to be the team’s manager. Once Himura witnesses Sena’s speed and natural running back moves, though, he is suited up and disguised (so that other teams won’t try to steal him) and given the moniker Eyeshield 21.

Although he’s initially not too thrilled about this, the passion and skill of Himura and the completely adorable (and completely enormous) lineman, Kurita, kindles his interest in the game. His running abilities lead the Deimon Devil Bats to their first victory ever. Their next opponents, the Ojo White Knights, prove much tougher, and it’s then Sena meets his rival—Shin, a player who’s nearly as fast as he is, but much, much stronger. Although there’s really no chance for the Devil Bats to prevail, they still manage to score two touchdowns against the superior team and Sena achieves a sense of personal victory when he’s finally able to evade one of Shin’s tackles.

As volume three comes to a close, the Devil Bats have been eliminated from the spring tournament but have turned their eyes and hopes towards fall, with the eventual goal of playing in the Christmas Bowl. Things are looking up a little—they’ve finally found their fourth member, a monkey-like boy named Raimon with some mad catching skills and the presence of Sena’s childhood friend, Mamori, as team manager seems destined to attract even more recruits. Aside from Himura and Kurita, no one knows that Sena is Eyeshield 21 (since his green eyeshield is magically sufficient to obscure his identity), and he can only watch in some consternation as the mysterious player’s legend begins to grow. When he happens to encounter Shin on the street, he realizes he can admit his real identity to him, but there’s no time to bond because the two of them have to unite to take down some thieves on a motorcycle. It’s actually kind of awesome.

So yes, Eyeshield 21 manages to entertain me even though it’s about football, a sport I find excruciatingly dull. There are loads of visual aids to help explain the game, the tone is optimistic and silly, and the characters are all memorable, too. Himura’s brand of crazy is responsible for most of the gags in the series: he looks like a demon, seems to have sufficient dirt to blackmail everyone into doing his bidding, keeps a ferocious dog chained up at school, and casually totes around all manner of weaponry. There’s a lot of attention devoted to Haruto, a teen idol whose fans persist in calling him the ace of the White Knights, even though he knows he isn’t. Shin’s a cool character, and Sena is okay, too, but really, my heart belongs to Ryokan Kurita.

Kurita is very big and round, very strong, very sweet, and prone to get weepy when he’s emotional. I think a visual aid is necessary here to truly convey his cuteness.

Aww!

Ultimately, Eyeshield 21 is lots of fun. I’m chuffed my library has recently acquired the full run of the series; expect to see more here in months to come!

Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde: A

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From the back cover:
A celebrated playwright and poet, Oscar Wilde also penned incomparable nonfiction and fiction—and lovely gem-like fairy tales. Filled with princes and nightingales, mermaids, giants, and kings, his tales carry the mark of his signature irony and subtle eroticism. This volume brings together all the stories found in Wilde’s two collections, The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates. Published here alongside their evocative original illustrations, these fairy tales, as Wilde himself explained, were written “partly for children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy.”

Review:
I was first made aware of the fairy tales of Oscar Wilde by Stephen Fry, whose recording of six of the stories is nothing short of delightful. This print edition has its charms, too, including three additional tales as well as illustrations and a great introduction that acquaints readers with not only the tragedies of Wilde’s life but with the fond recollections of his friends. I’d say it’s worthwhile to invest in both.

Wilde published two collections of children’s stories and both, obviously, are included here. On one level, the stories are amusing and imaginative, featuring a bevy of talking animals—whom Wilde often uses for satirical purposes, as with the mother duck in “The Devoted Friend” who frets that her children will never be in “the best society” unless they can stand on their heads—and even a sentient firework with delusions of grandeur. Often, though, a surprising degree of darkness is also present, as various characters die, realize the suffering they have caused others, commit valiant acts of self-sacrifice for ultimately no purpose whatsoever, and persist in their misguided ways despite the best attempts of others to show them the light.

In these stories, Wilde mingles the fantastic with the quotidian and the heartwarming with the bittersweet in a way that really appeals to me. Here are my three favorite examples (spoilers ahead):

In “The Nightingale and the Rose,” a nightingale overhears a student bewailing his plight: the woman he loves has agreed to dance with him at an upcoming event if he brings her a red rose. Alas, there are no red roses in his garden. The bird, believing him to be the very embodiment of true love, which she is always singing about, tries everything in her power to procure such a flower for him, ultimately deciding that it’s worth sacrificing her own life for the sake of love. And what is the recipient’s reaction to the rose when it is presented to her? “I’m afraid it will not go with my dress.” It ends up in the street and is promptly run over by a cart. The end.

A similarly awesome ending can be found in “The Star-Child.” One winter, a pair of poor woodcutters are returning to their homes when they see what appears to be a falling star land nearby. When they get there, they find a baby, and one of the men takes it home. The boy grows up fair and comely and becomes vain and cruel because he is convinced of his own lofty origins. One day, a beggar woman shows up to claim him as her son, but he rejects her. This action renders him ugly, and he spends the next three years in search of the woman to beg her forgiveness, learning mercy and pity along the way and sincerely repenting of his former actions. A happy ending seems imminent when he not only gets his looks back but is revealed to be a prince, but Wilde concludes the story (and A House of Pomegranates as a whole) with the following paragraph:

Yet ruled he not long, so great had been his suffering, and so bitter the fire of his testing, for after the space of three years he died. And he who came after him ruled evilly.

The end. Is that not amazing?

My very, very favorite story, though, is “The Happy Prince.” Once upon a time there was a prince, and he was happy while he lived in his isolated palace and remained ignorant of the world outside. After his death, the townspeople erected a beautiful, gilded statue in his honor and set it on a tall column, from where he can see (with his sapphire eyes) all the misery in the city that he could not see before. One day, a swallow—delayed in departing for warmer climes because of his devotion to a fickle reed (“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other swallows. “She has no money and far too many relations.”)—lands near his feet and becomes the messenger for the Happy Prince, plucking out his jewels and stripping off his gold and delivering them to the poor and needy.

The swallow eventually succumbs to the cold, but not before sharing a kiss with the statue he loves. The mayor, once he notices how shabby the statue has become, decides that one of himself would do much better and pulls it down. Here, instead of a wholly sad ending, Wilde offers up a sweeter alternative that sees both the statue and the bird rewarded for their benevolence. It’s an immensely satisfying tale that also portrays pure love between two males, though they be not human; I like it immensely.

The one author of whom I was reminded while reading these stories is Neil Gaiman. I’m now convinced he was at least partly inspired by Wilde, so, if you’re a fan of his short stories, you might like these as well!

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris: B-

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From the back cover:
Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is on a streak of bad luck. First, her coworker is murdered and no one seems to care. Then she’s face-to-face with a beastly creature that gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn’t enjoy it).

Point is, they saved her life. So when one of the blood-suckers asks for a favor, she complies. And soon, Sookie’s in Dallas using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She’s supposed to interview certain humans involved. There’s just one condition: the vampires must promise to behave—and let the humans go unharmed. Easier said than done. All it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly…

Review:
The narrative of Living Dead in Dallas is constructed in a plot-within-a-plot sort of way, but neither the murder of Sookie’s vibrantly gay coworker, Lafayette, nor the fight against an anti-vampire cult is actually the most interesting aspect of the book.

The story begins when Lafayette’s body is found dumped in the car of a local cop. Suspicion falls on the attendees of a mysterious sex party he’d been bragging about attending, but before anything much can happen with the case, Sookie and Bill head off to Dallas to do a job for Eric, the head vamp of their region, which involves Sookie using her telepathic abilities to question humans who might have knowledge about a missing vampire named Farrell. She’s not too thrilled about it, but she did agree to perform such jobs for Eric on the condition that the humans involved come to no harm, and so she complies, however sulkily.

Really, there is not much by way of investigation here. Instead, they realize pretty quickly that a cult called The Fellowship of the Sun has nabbed the vamp and then Sookie and another human go undercover to learn the cult plans to have him “meet the dawn” in a public execution. Of course, Sookie is spotted for a snoop immediately and is imprisoned and nearly raped before she, and later Farrell, gets rescued. For something so full of action, it’s actually pretty dull.

However, it does lead to one of the most awesome scenes in the series so far when Bill breaks a promise to Sookie and kills one of the cultists who shot up the vampires’ celebration party. Her immediate reaction is great and I loved that she returned home and didn’t talk to him for three weeks. Unfortunately, the potential of this insurmountable obstacle in their relationship—Bill sometimes can’t help eating people!—is squandered, with the two of them reconciling with a bout of raunchy sex and a few words about how it’s his nature and she’s going to try to get used to it. Sigh. Color me disappointed.

After the missing vamp stuff is resolved, the story returns to the case of Lafayette. I’m a little fuzzy as to what actually happened first here—did the town residents launch their own sex club, which then attracted the attention of Callisto, the frenzy-provoking maenad, or was it her proximity that inspired them in the first place?—but it all leads to the second-best revelation of the book, which is that some of Bill’s descendants are alive and well in Bon Temps and that he is actually grateful for the opportunity to be able to assist them in some way. He might be a creature of the night, but as she puts it, the good in him is real.

Club Dead, coming soon!

Off the Shelf: O the Yule Log, Fear its Might

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Welcome to another edition of Off the Shelf with MJ & Michelle! I’m joined, once again, by Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This week, we take a look at some recent titles from Tokyopop, Viz Media, and Yen Press.

MJ: There’s a chill in the air here in western Massachusetts–great weather for curling up with a blanket and a good book. I expect that’s not the case at all down your way, but I’m hoping you’ve read some anyway. You know. So the column won’t suck.

MICHELLE: Well, no one could call it chilly but our highs are now merely in the low 90s, so that’s a definite improvement! With the absolutely essential help of central air I have indeed managed a fair amount of reading this week!

MJ: Hallelujah, central air! So… anything noteworthy?

MICHELLE: Some! I thought I would take this week’s selections in ascending order of preference. And so, accordingly, I start with the first volume of The Witch of Artemis, a new series from TOKYOPOP.

In this shonen fantasy series, originally serialized in Comic Blade, orphaned Kazuhi is living a bland existence on Earth and spends a lot of time daydreaming about Artemis, a star that was the subject of many stories his late father told him. As the stories go, the people of Earth and the people of Artemis once lived together, but eventually those with special magical powers departed earth to settle on Artemis. Conveniently, Kazuhi overhears a news report about a girl in strange clothes—why the news would report this, I do not know—and dashes to the scene, whereupon he meets one witch, whom we later learn is named Viora, who inflicts a death curse upon him, and another, called Marie, who whisks him off to Artemis in order to cure him.

Marie is most textbook example of a tsundere character I have ever seen. After curing Kazuhi, she berates and insults him, trying to get him to leave her alone, but when he finds out she wants to do good deeds for people, he volunteers to help and, despite her crusty exterior, she still does things like follow him around when he goes off wandering to ensure he doesn’t come to harm. The second half of the volume depicts their first joint effort at helping someone, and includes an ominous hint from Viora that the world is on the verge of ending.

I might possibly have made this sound better than it is. So far, it’s rather bland. The art is pleasant, but not distinctive, and the characters and plot are the same. There’s always potential inherent in ominous hinting, and so I’m willing to read a second volume to see where the story goes—and, indeed, the series is only three volumes long, so if I’ve read two-thirds of it I might as well go all the way—but at this point I don’t have high hopes that it will ever be anything more than pleasant but not distinctive….

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Off the Shelf: Beyond the Cat Incident

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Welcome to another edition of Off the Shelf with MJ & Michelle! I’m joined, once again, by Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This week, we talk about four fairly disparate titles from Vertical, Inc, Viz Media, and Yen Press.

MICHELLE: Well, even though it feels like Tuesday, the calendar informs me that it’s Wednesday. Which can mean only one thing!

MJ: Dawn’s in trouble? No, wait… I have that wrong.

MICHELLE: Haha! You have beaten me to the Buffy reference! What is the world coming to?

MJ: No good, no good at all!

MICHELLE: Every single week, the same arrangement, we talk about a lot of books… o/~ (There. Now I have redeemed myself.)

What’s on your plate this time?

MJ: Sorry to have upset the equilibrium like that right from the start. I don’t know what I was thinking. :)

So, yes, books! Well, after last week’s focus on manga for kids, I guess I must have felt the need to remember my age (or at least feel it). It’s been all dark, broody shonen and dark, thinky josei for me this week. I’ll start with the one I feel guiltiest about, volume ten of Black Jack.

I’ve had this volume for several months (with two more in the stack still waiting–hence the guilt), but despite the fact that everybody told me it would be no big deal to just jump in anywhere, “it’s totally episodic, blah blah blah,” I was determined to work my way up from the beginning (thank you, local library system), and honestly I’m glad I did. While I can see that it would not be at all difficult to catch on to the premise from any given point, there’s really so much nuance to this series, and much of that I would have missed. Even some fairly major bits of characterization go all the way back to the first volume, like the origins of Pinoko (Black Jack’s childlike companion) for one. Something like that, though it’s not essential to the plot of this volume, is still a pretty significant factor when it comes to understanding Black Jack and his general worldview.

MICHELLE: Yeah, I like to start from the beginning whenever possible, even when it isn’t absolutely necessary. Case Closed, for example, is perfectly enjoyable if one hops right in to volume 25, like I first did, but once I realized I liked the series I went back to volume 1. (Again, thank you, local library system!) …

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Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham: A

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From the back cover:
Lionized by literary society, Edward Driffield is married to his second wife, a woman of iron will, indisputable rectitude and great charm. Her request to Alroy Kear, lightweight novelist, to write a biography of her husband seems both flattering and agreeable. But on delving into Driffield’s past Kear revives the spectre of his first wife, Rosie, delectable companion of less respectable days and the unlikely muse of his greatest work.

In this novel Maugham has created the unauthorized biography, the book that cannot be written for fear of offending Driffield’s unsuspecting public. And in Rosie he has given us his greatest heroine, luscious, inconstant and commonplace, yet lingering most persistently in the mind.

Review:
Prior to reading Cakes and Ale, my exposure to W. Somerset Maugham was sorely limited. I first heard of him during my teen years in the context of “the guy who wrote the book that became the movie that starred Bill Murray in his first serious role.” (I was a bit of an SNL fanatic in those days.) After reading Cakes and Ale, I wonder what took me so long.

Cakes and Ale will possibly sound disorganized when described, but flows logically when read. The narrator, William Ashenden, is a middle-aged author who’s approached by a more commercially successful peer, Alroy Kear, to help with a biography Kear is writing. The subject is Edward Driffield, a novelist with whom Ashenden was acquainted when he (Driffield) was married to a vibrant but unfaithful former barmaid named Rosie, but who spent his later years with a respectable second wife who struggled for years to make him fit the mold of a venerated elder statesman of literature.

Despite Kear’s assertions that he wants to know everything that Ashenden has to tell about Driffield’s former marriage, Ashenden realizes that, with the second Mrs. Driffield backing the biography project, there’s no way any of it would be usable anyhow. The fact is, Driffield wrote better books when he was married to Rosie and though she was wildly unfaithful, it wasn’t done from malice. Rather than tell Kear what he wants to know, Ashenden instead reminisces privately about his awkward first meeting with the Driffields as a boy of fifteen—during which period he obediently adopted the class prejudice of the aunt and uncle with whom he lived—and the later resumption of their friendship when he is a 20-year-old medical student living in London.

Maugham’s writing style is especially appealing to me, managing to be clever, witty, insightful, and concise all at the same time. There aren’t words enough to express how much I adore the passages about young Ashenden. He’s so self-conscious and awkward, and I love how Maugham depicts Ashenden’s struggle between the warnings he’s received about working-class people versus what he is actually seeing for himself. It’s a nostalgic sort of portrait, fond and sympathetic, of a boy who gradually sheds the things he’s been led to believe and learns to think for himself. This isn’t the only portrait to be found, of course. Both Rosie and Kear are quite extensively developed, and the reaction of other characters to them also allows for some wry commentary on communities both rural and literary. Oddly enough, the least developed character is probably Driffield himself, about whom the biography is being written!

The only complaint I have about Cakes and Ale is that it’s too short! That’s not to say that the story is incomplete, for it isn’t, but I enjoyed the book so much I could have gone on reading it for thrice as long! Happily, Maugham wrote quite a few other things, one of which is waiting for me at the library and another of which is on its way from Amazon at this very moment.

Bakuman。1 by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata: B+

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Moritaka Mashiro is bored. For his fourteen years of life he’s merely gone along with the flow, a path which is destined to end with him becoming a normal white-collar worker. He doesn’t want this, but sees no alternative until Akito Takagi, the top student in class, notices Moritaka’s artistic skills and proposes that the two team up to create a manga. Moritaka is resistant at first—he’d much rather loaf around and play video games—but when the object of his affections (and aspiring voice actress), Miho Azuki, agrees to marry him when his manga becomes an anime, he is suddenly unstoppable.

Moritaka expects resistance from his family—after all, his uncle essentially killed himself by trying to become a successful manga artist—but they’re surprisingly supportive and it turns out that his uncle’s studio has been preserved, untouched, since his death. I absolutely adore the chapter where Moritaka and Akito rush to the studio for the first time—it is seriously a manga-lover’s dream. Not only are there plenty of artistic supplies, but there are shelves upon shelves of manga (“for reference”) as well as neatly organized boxes of storyboards and final drafts. All of the scenes with the boys working on their story—they decide to submit a final draft for consideration by the end of summer break—are absolutely fascinating and bring home just how grueling creating comics can be.

There are a couple of problematic things about Bakuman, however. Moritaka and Azuki’s pledge to get married when they achieve their dreams—without dating in the meantime—is pretty silly, but not out-of-character for a couple of fourteen-year-olds. The fact that they’ll be encouraging each other via e-mail, just like Moritaka’s uncle was encouraged by letters from his classmate, who just so happens to be Azuki’s mother, is a coincidence I could’ve done without. In general, this whole subplot failed to interest me; I was much more interested in the boys’ efforts to get their manga off the ground, but I suppose listless Moritaka needed to find motivation somewhere.

More significantly, many reviewers have taken issue with the displays of sexism in Bakuman. Having now read it for myself, I get the impression that certain characters are sexist but I’d stop short of applying that label to the series as a whole. This makes me wonder, though… why, when characters in Bakuman say things like “She knows by instinct that the best thing for a girl is to get married and become somebody’s wife” or “Men have dreams that women will never be able to understand” does it not piss me off as righteously as when characters make very similar comments in The Color Trilogy by Kim Dong Hwa?

I think it depends, for me, on who’s saying it. If, as in the case of The Color Trilogy, a male author puts such words into the mouths of female characters, I can’t seem to help getting peeved about it. In Bakuman, the speaker of the first line above is Akito—in other words, just an overconfident teen who thinks he knows everything. He goes on to say he doesn’t like a particular girl in class because she’s proud of how well she does in school, but when Azuki’s mother later tells him she doesn’t like smart guys, he flails about and says, “But that’s just your taste.” Perhaps what he earlier presented as deep insight about Azuki was really his own taste coming through. The second line above, about men’s dreams, though technically spoken by Moritaka’s mother, is actually a quote from his off-camera father and was easy for me to dismiss as, “Oh, he’s just an older man with outdated opinions.”

I’m not trying to argue that these characters aren’t sexist, but they don’t succeed in getting my dander up and certainly will not deter me from reading more of the series.

Bakuman is published in English by VIZ. One volume’s been released here so far, while the ninth volume of this still-running series came out in Japan last month.

This review was originally published at Comics Should Be Good.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Off the Shelf: For Kids or Not For Kids?

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Welcome to another edition of Off the Shelf with MJ & Michelle! I’m joined, once again, by Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

With the latest Manga Moveable Feast well underway (hosted this month by the crew at the School Library Journal’s Good Comics for Kids), Michelle and I take a look at books from Yen Press, Viz Media, Del Rey Manga, and CMX. Enjoy!

MJ: So, it’s another Manga Moveable Feast week here at Off the Shelf! The object of the Feast is a bit different this time around. Though the primary title chosen for discussion is Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! (Yen Press), we’re also offered the opportunity to talk about some other titles that are being marketed for kids, either here or in Japan (and perhaps both).

What I’m most interested in is probably the question of why Yotsuba&! is recommended for kids here, though it’s published for adults in Japan, while some other titles are rated much higher here than they are over there. But I suspect you might have your own agenda too. Am I right?

MICHELLE: Well, no, actually. I’m still happy from my seven-volume binge and hung up on how awesome Yotsuba&! is. I haven’t really gotten beyond that yet. So, what I’m saying is I’ll happily be swept along by your agenda. :)

MJ: Well, okay! Let’s start with Yotsuba, then. For those who don’t know, Yotsuba&! is a slice-of-life series that chronicles the daily adventures of Yotsuba, a green-haired five-year-old who lives with Koiwai, her youngish adoptive dad, and who approaches everything in life with a sense of true wonder and (frequently) an earnest lack of understanding. Over the course of the series, she is introduced to everyday concepts like air-conditioning and cake, each more wonderful than the next….

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