Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Sean Gaffney

Bookshelf Briefs 8/8/11

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This week, MJ, Michelle, David, Kate, & Sean check out recent releases from Viz Media, Vertical, Kodansha Comics, Dark Horse, & Yen Press.

13th Boy, Vol. 8 | By SangEun Lee | Published by Yen Press – At my age, it isn’t often that a teen romance comic can really make me angst over which potential suitor its heroine should ultimately end up with. Most of the time, these conclusions are obvious, and even when they’re not, it’s difficult for a writer to make even one romantic prospect interesting enough for this jaded forty-something to genuinely root for, let alone two or three of them. Not so with manhwa-ga SangEun Lee, whose love interests each suit her quirky heroine uniquely, even if one of them is actually a sentient cactus. That said, here in volume eight, it’s hard not to root pretty exclusively for the cactus. Charming and idiosyncratic as always, 13th Boy remains one of the freshest, most imaginative girls’ comics currently in publication. Highly recommended. – MJ

13th Boy, Vol. 8 | By SangEun Lee | Published by Yen Press – I feel like I’ve talked a lot about the inventive whimsy of 13th Boy, and been derelict in extolling its dramatic virtues. This volume is more of a setup for future fallout, but readers can still anticipate the inevitable (and major) repercussions to come. Hee-So begins the volume so worried and depressed about her missing cactus, Beatrice, that she can’t even summon the energy to bathe. When Won-Jun visits, he gets the impression that Hee-So feels she can’t rely on him for help, and so turns toward the desperately dependent Sae-Bom, who is being sent to live with her father in America and asks him to come along. I love that, despite its fanciful elements, 13th Boy can serve up realistic drama like this wherein it’s the characters’ choices and personalities that have led to the deterioration of a relationship. I am seriously pining for volume nine already. – Michelle Smith

Black Jack, Vol. 15 | By Osamu Tezuka | Published by Vertical, Inc. –For my money, every volume of Black Jack has a “price of admission” story, and I always like to identify them. This time around, it’s “A Cholera Scare.” The title alone is endearing, and the story has plenty of other aspects working in its favor. First and foremost is the fact that it heavily features Black Jack’s creepy assistant and ward, Pinoko. While Black Jack worries that he’s contracted a potentially deadly contagion, Pinoko is left to deal with a walk-in patient at the clinic. The story is constructed and timed in some really imaginative way, and Tezuka packs an awful lot into a mere 20 pages. While individual Black Jack stories can vary in quality, there’s always at least one that justifies the purchase. – David Welsh

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 3 | By Kazue Kato | Published by Viz Media –Like so many of my favorite fictional institutions of learning, the True Cross Academy displays a reckless disinterest in the safety of its student body, especially the ones pursuing the exorcist track. In this volume, our principle characters deal with an aggressive new instructor and a potentially deadly field trip. Relationships are tested! Secrets are revealed! A kitty joins the supporting cast! In other words, Blue Exorcist continues to improve. Kato even works up the nerve to invoke the events of the first, terrible chapter of the series, and she gets away with it. The underlying plot of the series is probably its least successful element, but that hardly matters chapter by chapter. I like the characters and the scenarios Kato invents for them, and the art is always clean and interesting. – David Welsh

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 3 | By Kazue Kato | Published by Viz Media – Blue Exorcist is an interestingly mixed bag. Like Joss Whedon’s television epic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series uses an over-the-top supernatural premise as a metaphor for the real horrors of a troubled teen, struggling to overcome his personal demons so that he might finally have a taste of life’s most precious treasures—friends, family, and a sense of real belonging. Unlike Whedon, mangaka Kazue Kato fails to make her story’s supernatural plotline genuinely compelling, but the rest works so well, this hardly matters. This volume gets off to a particularly strong start, as brothers Rin and Yukio work together to quell the grief of Father Fujimoto’s abandoned familiar, and continues to gain momentum throughout. Extra points to Kato for clear, readable action scenes and saving the life of a cat. Recommended. – MJ

Fairy Tail, Vol. 14 | By Hiro Mashima | Published by Kodansha Comics –First off, I’m pleased that the ‘take out all the female members and turn them into hostages’ plot died fast. If only as it leads to a lot of great moments for the female characters in this volume. Erza, of course, gets to show her badassery and why you should never try to outbluff or outthreaten her. Lucy gets to show she’s more than simple fanservice with the help of Loke. Juvia shows she’s still worried about everyone trusting her now that she’s a new member, and gives a good reason why they should. And Levy gets to show that it’s not just hitting really hard that wins these fights.But really, the big climax here is seeing Mirajane lose it, and discovering both what she’s like at full power, and why she tries to avoid it. She’s quite terrifying. Fairy Tail still isn’t the very best shonen out there, but it’s comfortably in the bracket below it.– Sean Gaffney

Fairy Tail, Vol. 14 | By Hiro Mashima | Published by Kodansha Comics – Something I’ve long wished for from Fairy Tail is more information about the members of the guild who aren’t the main characters. Happily, Mashima has concocted an arc that seems specifically designed to provide just that. Laxus, one of the most powerful members of Fairy Tail, has launched a takeover attempt, which involves forcing the guild members to fight each other. It’s unfortunate that many of the female members are sidelined at first, having been turned to stone while competing in a beauty pageant (sigh), but when they are eventually freed, they proceed to kick ass, so that makes up for it a bit. Highlights include seeing Mirajane’s abilities at last and some noble self-sacrifice from Juvia, a reformed enemy who has recently joined the guild. I hope this increased level of involvement from the supporting cast continues in future volumes! – Michelle Smith

I Am Here!, Vol. 2 | By Ema Toyama | Published by Kodansha Comics – When it was announced that Kodansha Comics would be taking over the release of manga they’d licensed to Del Rey, I was really hoping we would get the second half of I Am Here!, an earnest shoujo romance that I found to be surprisingly enjoyable. Happily, it made the cut and now I know for sure that a) Ema Toyama can draw some seriously cute bunnies (seriously) and b) the plot does, in fact, eschew an obvious outcome. It’s too bad Toyama had to utilize a random mean girl as drama instigator at one point, but at least Hikage, the painfully shy heroine, was able to blossom at last and become strong enough to follow her heart. Getting the whole story in two omnibus editions is also pretty durn awesome. – Michelle Smith

Magic Knight Rayearth | By CLAMP | Published by Dark Horse –First of all, unlike the souped up, fancy Card Captor Sakura reprints, there’s no reason for fans who own Tokyopop’s 2nd release of Rayearth to get this one. It’s a very good, decent reproduction and translation – but it’s not the huge advance CCS is. As for the content, it’s still a lot of fun, especially if you aren’t already familiar with the ending. One of CLAMP’s first titles to mix the shoujo and shonen genres, this story of three high-school girls who find themselves called on to save a fantasy world takes itself seriously when it wants to, and makes fun of itself the other times. There’s no amazing characterization here, though I am quite fond of Caldina and her “I’m doing this for the money” attitude. (Note her lack of obsession lets her survive.) But really, it’s the ending that made everyone remember Rayearth, and led to its sequel – it’s a gut punch if you don’t know it’s coming.– Sean Gaffney

Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, Vol. 4 | By Yuuki Fujinari | Yen Press – Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution may be the most tepid reverse-harem manga ever written. The series drifts aimlessly from one uneventful scene to the next, as the characters perfect their swimming technique and attend tag sales. Not only does the story lack dramatic shape, it also lacks memorable characters; each of the boys in Hitomi’s circle is so faultlessly polite and supportive of her weight-loss goals that he comes across as a paid consultant, not a friend. There’s nothing wrong with a manga about nice guys, of course, but authors like edgy characters for a reason: bad boys make more compelling subjects than goody-goodies. Even Hitomi remains a cipher; she’s kind and determined to lose weight, but those two characteristics alone aren’t enough to make her seem like a real girl struggling with a real problem, a shortcoming made all the more obvious by the abrupt, wish-fulfillment ending. – Katherine Dacey

Monthly Comic Alive

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I’ve spent the past few days down with a nasty cold, one of the worst I’ve had in years. Nausea, coughing, slight fever, weakness, the works. As a result, reviews have been thin on the ground. So I figured that, since I’m *already* ill, what better time to take a look at the August issue of Monthly Comic Alive, from the folks at Media Factory?

Usually whenever I go into NYC I try to get a different manga magazine to try out. Lately I’ve been limited as they’ve stopped carrying some of the really obscure ones, and the choices seem to be limited to the old classics – all the big 3 shonen, Morning/Afternoon/Evening, Big Comic/Original/Superior/Spirits, and Young ______. The remainder, down on the bottom shelf of Kinokuniya’s seinen section, tend to be what I call ‘media tie-in boobie magazines’, where the manga caters to people who like franchises and fanservice. Here you’ll find Kadokawa’s Shonen and Young Ace, for example, or Shonen Gahosha’s Young King Ours. And Champion Red goes here, despite its lack of tie-ins, by its sheer skeeziness.

Media Factory is in general known as an anime company first and foremost. In 1999 they started to put out a manga magazine Comic Flapper, which is still running, and was the home of Dark Horse’s incomplete series Translucent. In 2006 they noted the growing otaku market and started Comic Alive, which oozes otaku from its every pore. I picked up the August issue with trepidation. I mean, look at this cover.

So, knowing I was in for a rough ride, I started to glance through the contents. Let’s see…

It needs to be said, if you want to know what the current otaku kinks are, Comic Alive is a great place to go. Catgirls are in here, of course. As are maids. A lot of maids. Panties, of course. Gotta have lots of underwear. And of course lots of nudity as well. There’s also witches, mainly as half the magazine seems to be fantasy of some sort. Fans of current anime series will find a lot of this familiar, as many of these are current animes, past animes, or future animes. Sacred Blacksmith. Zero no Tsukaima. Sasameki Koto. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai. MM! Maria Holic. Stein’s Gate. In addition, a good number of those I just mentioned are based off of light novels or games, making it even more franchise bait. And a few of them have ‘side stories’ running in other magazines from other companies.

As I wrote short notes about each chapter I read, one thing kept coming up over and over. ‘Ecchi fantasy’. Not porn, of course, as that would require anyone actually getting lucky, which isn’t going to happen here. But… well, I could probably write a synopsis that would fit 75% of Comic Alive’s stories.

“Kenji, a nondescript ordinary guy, is going to school at Elite Academy, where he finds he is one of only 10 boys in a school almost entirely populated by girls. One day, he discovers that he is the bearer of an awesome power (magic/swordsmanship/being really nice, delete where appropriate), but one that can only be used if he gains power by earning the love and/or affection (really, rubbing against him will do) of at least five different 13-16 year old girls of varying personalities and body types, as long as you have one girl who’s flat-chested and angry and one who is buxom and seductive. Of course, Kenji is a nice guy, so these girls have nothing to fear. As the series goes on, he will come up against bigger villains and more girls, all of whom fall for him and most of whom he meets when he walks in on them changing, or in the shower, or hell, when they wake up naked in his bed. What’s Kenji going to do? How can he possibly decide which girl is his true love and which he just needs to use their affection to power himself up? Especially as he represents so many readers, none of whom will agree. (He’ll probably end up with the angry girl, but let’s hedge our bets and do a side-story in Shonen Ace where he doesn’t.) Soon to be a new anime in the Fall of 2012!”

There are a few bright spots. Sasameki Koto may be a bit more serious than it once was, but its relatively realistic look at a budding yuri couple is a breath of fresh air amidst all the panty shots elsewhere in the magazine. Likewise Himawari-san, another low-key series with a dash of yuri. I was also quite pleased with Suugaku Girl, which is apparently in its third incarnation, and is designed to teach difficult math concepts through the power of moe cat-eared girls. It has some service, but not a lot, and seems to be pretty dedicated to teaching its math (at least from the one chapter I read).

But really, the thing that struck me most about Comic Alive, a magazine devoted to being the go-to point for otaku who like to read more of the same, it’s that there were 4 different series that had 4-koma comedy spinoffs later in the magazine. Zero no Tsukaima, Mayo Chiki, Infinite Stratos, an Aria the Scarlet Ammo *all* have cutesy superdeformed 4-koma series to keep milking the same thing. Presumably as if they had to rely on series that weren’t part of a light novel/manga/anime/game franchise, it would be a very short magazine indeed.

Manga the week of 8/10

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You know, for a 2nd week of the month, it’s pretty packed with stuff. There’s a lot here for almost any type of fan. Let’s get started.

First off, non-manga releases that interest me. There’s a new Complete Peanuts coming out from Fantagraphics. It may have hit the 1980s, but the quality still seems to be quite high. Can’t wait. Also, IDW is releasing a new Archie hardcover. Unlike their previous ‘Best of ‘ collections, this one focuses on a single weird Archie title from the 1960s: Archie’s Mad House. As you might guess, this comic started out with the Archie gang, focusing on really bizarre adventures. After about 20 issues or so, it dropped them and began running its own stories, including the debut of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I’m quite interested to see what IDW does with this.

Now back to manga. Dark Horse may be delaying every other manga title in its catalogue from now till doomsday, but its bestsellers keep coming out like clockwork. This week we have Vol. 18 of Gantz, from our friends at Shueisha’s Young Jump. For a more media-oriented title, there’s The Shinji Ikari Raising Project, now up to Vol. 9. It runs in Shonen Ace and will be sure to please Evangelion fans. Well, most. Well, some. A few? All right, it will inspire arguments. But it’s popular!

Bandai has a debut this week with Tales of the Abyss: Asch the Bloody. It’s based on a video game, and is one of about 10,000 manga spinoffs of said game. Given all that, can you guess where it originally ran? If you said Comp Ace, you’re a true Manga Geek! I suspect it will be tie-in-tastic.

Kodansha is, as ever, absent from Midtown’s list. Again. However, my local shop indicates two titles coming in next week. The debut of Deltora Quest, a fantasy manga that ran in the late Comic BonBon, a magazine geared towards elementary school boys. You know, like Shonen Magazine should be but isn’t. and the 2nd and final omnibus volume of I Am Here!, which saw Vol. 1 from Del Rey and is thankfully getting a conclusion. Like all Kodansha shoujo these days, it ran in Nakayoshi.

Udon has the 2nd volume of Megaman Gigamix, which is based on a video game as well. Though, despite its name, it’s not from Konami.

Viz has the 3rd volume of Blue Exorcist, which I think most of us got this week from Diamond. There’s a new Inu Yasha omnibus, the 27th volume of the energetic and likeable Kekkaishi, and the 6th Maoh: Juvenile Remix, which this time I believe is remixed by Saint Etienne. Blue Exorcist is from Jump, the other three from Sunday. And there’s the 7th volume of Ikigami, for fans of Bokurano who want to see more series where people die nobly over and over again.

And there’s a huge pile from Yen. The biggie for me this week is the 3rd Book Girl novel, Book Girl and the Captive Fool. I’ve been thrilled with the first two in the series, a dark high school thriller with an intriguing backstory, and definitely want more. Aside from that, there’s the conclusion of the Eye-Opening Arc in Higurashi (Gangan Wing), which will no doubt be filled with gore. But don’t worry, kids, a new arc starts in October! And I have it on good authority that the Eye-Opening arc is the low ebb. It’s all uphill from here! … mostly. There’s new K-On! (Manga Time Kirara Carat), Haruhi Suzumiya (Shonen Ace), AND Haruhi Suzumiya-chan (ditto) for all your moe needs. Oh yes, and Omamori Himari 4 (Dragon Age), which I don’t read, but certainly looks moe as well. There’s the 9th volume of Sumomomo Momomo, which lost me after the first volume but I understand gets better. And there’s the 4th and last volume of Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, the reverse harem manga from Enterbrain’s B’s Log. I found its comedic antics more annoying than heartwarming, but admit I was not remotely its target audience. Also (last time this week, I promise) based on a game!

See what I mean? That’s a lot. What are you getting?

PotW: Kaze Hikaru, Gintama, Saiunkoku, Cardcaptor

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It’s another strong week at Midtown Comics! Check out the Manga Bookshelf bloggers’ picks below!

KATE: After last week’s meager offerings, this week’s new arrival list has something for everyone: robots, magical girls, hoop fanatics, mad surgeons, cross-dressing samurai. Though I’m looking forward to reading Tank Tankuro: The Pre-War Years, 1934-1935, my heart belongs to Kaze Hikaru, which returns to the VIZ publishing schedule after a one-year hiatus. Volume nineteen unfolds against the backdrop of Commodore Perry’s arrival in Tokyo Bay. Taeko Watanabe milks this political crisis for all its dramatic potential, but never loses sight of her story’s core: the relationship between Sei and Soji. Crisp artwork, memorable characters, and a sophisticated treatment of Edo-era history are the frosting on this delicious cake.

MICHELLE: There’s much on this week’s Midtown list that I will personally be buying—especially Cardcaptor Sakura and Slam Dunk—but nothing that I want more or care about more than volume nineteen of Kaze Hikaru, so I’m going to have to piggyback on Kate’s pick this week. The fact that the heroine is cross-dressing throughout may give one the impression that the series is a comedy, and certainly there are humorous elements, but mostly it’s an emotional story of one girl’s attempts to understand the other samurai and their notions about honor. It’s been a full year since the release of volume eighteen, which leaves me pretty worried for the fate of the series. This is not a case where releases have slowed down because we’ve caught up to Japan—volume 30 just came out there—but simply due to low sales. So, please check out Kaze Hikaru! Even if you think you don’t like shoujo.

SEAN: This saddens me, but I too must pick a doomed series as my Pick of the Week. The final volume of Gintama from Viz is not, of course, the final volume in Japan. There, the series is quite popular, and in no danger of ending soon. Sadly, that may be *why* Viz is ending it – mediocre sales don’t justify its constant release. A shame, as it’s not only one of Jump‘s funniest series, but also highly dramatic and battle-heavy at times, with great female characters to boot.

MJ: This really is a tough week, isn’t it? With new volumes of Black Jack and Cardcaptor Sakura shipping this week, not to mention a whole host of terrific options from Viz’s Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat lines, it’s incredibly difficult to choose just one. In the end, I think I’ll cast my vote for volume four of The Story of Saiunkoku, one of my favorite new shoujo titles from the past year. Quite a number of us have written glowingly about this series, and particularly about its smart, spunky, civic-minded heroine, but I think one of my favorite observations about her comes from Cathy Yan’s recent installment of Don’t Fear the Adaptation, ” Shoujo heroines often pay lip service to a life framed around something other than romance, but Shurei actually lives that life.” Yes, that. Definitely a must-buy.


DAVID: Good grief, it is an embarrassment of riches this week. I could easily pick Tezuka’s Black Jack or Saiunkoku, or I could branch out for Gajo Sakamoto’s Tank Tankuro. All of the reasonable arguments for these books are deafened by how much I loved Dark Horse’s first omnibus of CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura. Adorable, sly, funny, exciting, and beautifully produced, I’ve been counting the days to this release since about the minute I finished reading the first volume.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Vol. 30

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By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan as “Mahou Sensei Negima!” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Everyone has heard of the phrase “it’s always darkest before the dawn”, and that proves to be true of Negima as well. Sadly, the dawn is not in this volume, which mostly brings our cast closer and closer to ‘the darkest’. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold…

When we left our heroes, we were in the middle of a big flashback telling the rest of the story of Negi’s mother and father. Having saved as many people as possible from a crushing death at the hands of the faceless bad guys, Arika is rewarded by being turned into a scapegoat and accused of the murder of her father and others in the name of ambition. It’s up to the others to rescue her… that is if she wants to be rescued. It has to be said that her rescue, and Nagi and Arika’s subsequent confessions, are one of the most heartwarming bits of the series, something which Akamatsu is clearly milking for all it’s worth, as he has several characters, including our current villain, tear up at it.

As a villain, Goedel’s not up to much. Sure, he can hold back Negi for a bit, but his crypticness just serves to annoy, and he reckons without the powers of Negi’s friends. Indeed, Chisame, Asakura and Nodoka all get great spotlights here, as we see that intelligent use of powers can get you far even if you aren’t a fighter. And, of course, we get the fighters as well, as Ku Fei shows up with her Monkey King Staff of Awesome.

And then the villains decide to attack… all of them. This means we have the palace guards coming to arrest Negi’s girls as conspirators (they don’t last long, especially once they start threatening Konoka in front of her protector…), as well as what appears to be Cthulhu. No, really, even Paru notes it. This proves much harder to battle as it starts ripping the palace into bits. So the new strategy is to get to the bottom of the palace and meet up there… but the goal is to avoid getting to the bottom the hard way.

Luckily, we have a few old friends showing up to help, who we knew were around but hadn’t actually seen for about 10 volumes. Takamichi manages to finish off the beatdown of Goedel, and notes that while he finds Negi’s desire to continue his father’s work dangerous, it also makes him quite happy. And then there’s Mana, who manages to be almost ludicrously good as she battles the random faceless Lovecraft monsters. Of course, that’s because fake!Asuna offers to pay her to do it… she had no interest in the innocents being killed otherwise (or so she says). Once again, Mana’s mercenary aspect is both amusing and disturbing. And Misora’s right, how DID she pull that bazooka from out of her cleavage? ^_-

Meanwhile, Negi Party are split further when a building cracks in half. Asakura almost falls to her death, but is saved by a surprisingly strong Nodoka… who’s then saved by her dungeon-crawling friends Craig and Aisha, who were worried about her and came back to help. (Asakura is quick to poke at Nodoka for attracting suitors, and also notes her new toughness.) So they’re safe! … for about 6 pages. Then The Lifemaker shows up. As with the rest of Fate’s team, he’s perfectly happy to fight any number of physically powerful types like Kaede or Setsuna, but wants Nodoka and her mind-reading removed from the board. So he attacks her, and Craig tries to defend… and gets vaporized into a spray of white feathers.

Now, given that he’s mysteriously vaporized into white feathers rather than, say, crushed into a pulpy mess, I suspect this is one of those many handy reversible deaths you seen in shonen all the time. Still, it’s plenty shocking given we haven’t really had ANY deaths in present-time Negima, and the last shot of the volume is Nodoka’s stunned face. After the relaxing kiss kiss carnival and political shenanigans of Volume 29, this one’s an action packed brawl, and it’s only going to get worse in Volume 31.

And there’s not even any fanservice this time! Well, not much…

Manga the week of 8/3

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Sorry for the list being a day late, Midtown didn’t update their Viz info right away and I wanted to ensure that I had the right titles there. (And no, still no Kodansha at Midtown.)

It’s a first week of the month, always the biggest. What have we got? Well, we’ve got the 2nd Card Captor Sakura omnibus from Dark Horse, finally staggering in after the usual eight or nine publishing delays. If it’s anything like Volume 1 was, it will be worth the wait – the series is fantastic, and DH’s reprint was flawless and worth a buy.

Presspop has an interesting release: the 1934 robot manga Tank Tankuro, a pioneering entry in almost everything. It’s an expensive hardcover with a slipcase, but with that sort of pedigree I imagine you want to pimp it a bit.

Vertical is cruising along in their release of Black Jack, with Volume 15 getting released next week. It originally ran in Weekly Shonen Champion, back when the magazine was not a haven for the lowest that manga has to offer. Of course, Black Jack is not afraid to get into some deep waters itself…

As always, the bulk of the week of Viz. We have a huge PILE of stuff. Most important to me is the 23rd volume of Gintama, which is the last currently scheduled in the States. It’s a low seller, and unlike other Viz low sellers, it’s shown no signs of ending in Japan anytime soon. So Viz is calling this the ‘Final Volume!’. Which it isn’t. Perhaps JManga might try continuing it there? Heh… In any case, Gintama, you were fantastically underrated, and I shall miss you.

There is, of course, a lot of new Jump manga that isn’t ending. Yu-Gi-Oh GX. Tegami Bachi. Slam Dunk. Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. Bakuman. And Bleach, getting another 3-in-1 omnibus. Speaking of those, Fullmetal Alchemist gets another one as well, despite being the redheaded stepchild of this pack, being a Shonen Gangan title.

The shoujo end of the spectrum holds even more gems. New Ai Ore!, for Mayu Shinjo fans and apparently no one else. Haruka Beyond the Stream of Time 13, for readers who have difficulty getting to sleep at night. New Kaze Hikaru, for whose who wondered if Viz was trying to quietly bury it behind the forge. And new Otomen, where I’ll bet you two to one we’ll have no idea what Ryo is thinking.

In non-sarcastic manga out this week, we have new volumes of Kamisama Kiss, Natsume’s Book of Friends (which should be catching up with Japan soon at this rate…), Sakura Hime, the Story of Saiunkoku, and the penultimate volume of Seiho Boys’ High School.

And, in non-manga news, Archie Comics releases its big 400-page Best Of Archie Comics digest. I raise an eyebrow, as I’ve seen Archie’s idea of best-ofs before, but will let you know how it is.

Busy week! What are you getting?

MMF Guest Post: Fruits Basket – Hiro and Rin

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Sean here, readers. Another MMF brings us another guest post! Ysabet MacFarlane is not only a good friend but also a huge Fruits Basket fan, and I knew she would not want to be left out of this month’s discussion. She was even able to adapt the two Fruits Basket fanbooks for Tokyopop! Here she is, discussing the relationship between two of the more prickly members of the Zodiac.

Hi, Sean’s readers! Despite my good intentions in previous months, this is my first-ever MMF post. Sean has had several years to notice that Fruits Basket is quite possibly my favorite thing in the world to discuss, and he kindly invited me to come hang out in his space and chat about it.

Disclaimer: Let’s play it safe and assume that this post contains for spoilers for all 23 volumes of the manga.

As a reader, what I look for in a series is great characters, and Fruits Basket has them in spades. I’m generally happy to talk about any of them, including the few I dislike, but when I’m starting a conversation it almost always starts or ends with Rin, and usually has a lot to do with her relationship with one of the other characters.

Sean already blogged about Hiro this week, but I’m here today to talk specifically about Hiro’s relationship with Rin. Like a lot of people, I discovered Fruits Basket through the anime, and when I switched to the manga I found that my feelings about a few characters changed. The main (although not the only) reason for that the manga offers a lot more development for most of them, often even in the chapters that made it into the anime adaptation. Sometimes it still took me a while to adjust, but Hiro found a shortcut: I fell for Rin pretty much on sight; Hiro was intensely worried about her; and poof!, he entered my good graces. And from my new softened-up position, it was much easier to see the many ways in which he’s a great kid who’s well on the way to growing into a truly awesome adult.

Even though Hiro and Rin’s personalities are very (very!) different, they’ve got some surface similarities: they’re both prickly as all hell, they’re each driven up the wall by some of the same things, and they’re both in the habit of calculated verbal attacks–albeit for entirely different reasons. Hiro’s smart-mouthed tendencies have to do with being young and smart and excruciatingly aware of his own limitations, while Rin’s have more to do with being constantly on both the offensive and defensive and having no energy or inclination to be pleasant about it. (Consider this: she’s a terrible liar, and she spends her first ten volumes living and breathing a lie. That alone would wear on a girl.)

What Takaya shows us with these two is almost an incomplete relationship. Time after time, we see Hiro worrying about Rin and actively checking up on her, and she in turn usually ignores him or tries to drive him off, as she does with pretty much everybody. But there are plenty of things we’re not shown. We don’t have any idea how close they might have been, if they were at all, before Hiro saw Akito attack Rin. (The closest thing we have to a clue is that we see Hiro’s mom wishing Rin were around so she could meet Hinata, which at least suggests that Hiro’s not the only member of his family who’s fond of her.) We also don’t know how seeing Rin attacked might have affected Hiro differently if he weren’t already tormented by knowing that Akito hurt Kisa because of him, and if he weren’t keeping that knowledge secret from Kisa.

Hiro is fundamentally a good kid, as I said, so I’m not at all suggesting that he wouldn’t have cared (or been traumatized) by seeing what happened to Rin, no matter what his circumstances were. But as it is, he already felt powerless and as if he wasn’t there for Kisa when she needed him, and dammit, he’s going to be there for Rin, even if that means she bites his head off just about every time he comes near her.

I think “be there” is really the critical thing here: Hiro knows he can’t actually help her, but only he can fill this particular role for her. Tohru is more than willing to befriend and support her, but Rin never actually confides in her about a lot of things (a trend that continues through the entire series, even after they’re obviously real friends), and Shigure knows what happened to her but can’t exactly be said to be on her side.

And then there’s Hiro, who doesn’t just know what he saw; he knows why she got hurt, and he knows what she’s trying to do–break the curse–and what she’s doing to herself in the process, which is literally sacrificing her life to try to save Haru while pretending she couldn’t care less about him. How much of this Hiro knows because of what Akito told him isn’t clear–he says in volume 18 that Akito and Rin both swore him to secrecy about Rin’s “accident”–but the only way he can know some of it is that somewhere along the line, Rin told him. He probably still doesn’t know everything (her red-herring conversation with Shigure in volumes 9 and 14 comes to mind as a likely omission even if she confided in him again later, but that incident would be a whole ‘nother post), but somewhere off-screen, she trusted him with the truth about what she’s trying to do and then trusted him to keep it secret. Given Rin’s rampant trust issues, that speaks highly of how she feels about him.

What this adds up to, IMO, is an unbalanced but important relationship. Hiro is a child and fully aware of how that limits him–as Tohru says, living with that awareness takes real courage–and he’s Rin’s witness. With the exception of his slip-up in volume 15, when he unthinkingly starts to criticize Haru for how his behavior may have made Rin feel (and oh, that’s such a great scene–poor Hiro! But his internal monologue is so revealing), he keeps her secrets as long as he can.

When Hiro finally does break and tell Haru the truth in volume 18, it seems to be due to a combination of factors. Haru opens the door by referring back to Hiro’s brief outburst in volume 15, and Hiro, who’s been guilt-ridden about Kisa (and he seems to be on the verge of talking to her about it before they bump into Haru and it all comes out), who’s seeing everything in a new light after the birth of his little sister, and who’s so very aware of his own inability to do anything to help Rin, betrays her trust and defies Akito because he believes Haru can help her.

I think it’s also very telling of Rin’s character and Hiro’s understanding of her that what he says isn’t “help her”. It’s “tell her she can stop now”.

“Tell her she can stop now.”

Because Hiro may not know where she is or how bad things have gotten, but he’s been watching her long enough to know that what she needs is to be stopped before she completely destroys herself. Of course, at this point she has stopped, but only because Akito has blackmailed her with a “choice” that leaves her entirely powerless, and the effects of that particular abuse and of losing her momentum stay with her for the rest of the series.

We never see Rin and Hiro together again after this point, so how much Hiro ever finds out about what actually happened to her remains a mystery. We don’t know for sure that Rin tells anyone about it herself; she’s not even in the room when Haru discusses the situation with Yuki and Kazuma, and Shigure knew about it before (probably long before) he comes to talk to her in chapter 107.

I don’t want to wrap this up by extrapolating, but as the series closes Rin is moving in the direction of very, very slowly being less guarded, and Hiro seems to be placing more value on his relationships all the time, with the weight of secrecy lifted and a baby sister in his life. If there’s one thing Fruits Basket is clear about at the end, it’s that everyone is moving forward at their own pace, and that there’s more holding this group of characters together than the supernatural bond that’s been broken.

MMF: Fruits Basket – Hiro

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I knew I was going to write about Shigure for the Manga Moveable Feast, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to write another article. There’s no end of things to talk about in Fruits Basket, but a limited number of hours in the day. But I also keep coming back to Hiro, and I suspected that, as in fandom itself, he wouldn’t get that much love unless I took the time to write about him.

A lot of characters get introductions in Fruits Basket that don’t show off their best side – Kyo, Kagura, Rin – but Hiro’s entire introductory chapter seems to be designed to get the audience to really take a dislike to him. Which is fine, only Takaya did not reckon on the power of Western fans to grab that first impression and encase it in amber, FOREVER. Hiro’s past, in comparison to the other Zodiac, is not as traumatic, he’s a male tsundere (which usually gets you a severe backlash in North America), and worst of all, he’s too young to be a sexy bishonen, and thus have all his sins forgiven because OH SO HOT. Therefore Hiro tends to get some flack.

What Hiro is, of course, is an extraordinarily intelligent and precocious 12-year-old who lacks the emotional maturity to be able to handle it. And you know? I may not be able to identify with the torture, parental neglect, or horrific emotional trauma of the other Zodiac, but I can TOTALLY get where Hiro is coming from. No curse needed. I don’t get angry much, but the combination of pride, arrogance, worry and powerlessness that Hiro has speaks to many of us.

Hiro is also very much hemmed in by his huge crush on Kisa. He’ll do anything she wants as long as it makes her happy, but much like Rin (and it’s telling that the two of them are close – indeed, with Kagura they form a sort of ‘angry trio’ bond in the story), he gets to decide what her definition of happy is. Balancing between childhood and adulthood is next to impossible, which is why the teenage years are so tumultuous. And Akito beating Kisa up and telling Hiro it was his fault… man, why would anyone do that to a kid?

Much of Hiro’s arc is defined by the inability to speak out. Which is hilarious, given that he’s a blunt prodigy who will happily speak his mind to Tohru to the point where Kyo whacks him in the head. But he can’t tell Kisa why she was injured, so he avoids her. Then he realizes that was the wrong thing to do… but how is he supposed to simply go back to normal now? How do you erase a stupid action? Then even worse, he sees Akito pushing Rin out the window and hospitalizing her. The Sohma love and fear of Akito is the curse as much as the animals, and having him belatedly confess to Hatsuharu, as well as to Kisa about what he did is his emotional catharsis.

Hiro also dislikes Tohru. Now admittedly much of this is due to jealousy over Kisa giving Tohru all the attention, but I think even after he gets over this he’s still uncomfortable around her. He’s the one who notes her devotion to her mother is more like an obsession, and it’s almost as much for the reader’s sake – it’s the turning point at which we begin to understand Tohru is NOT the magical healer of all, but is in many ways just as broken as the Sohmas. And in the end, when they’re getting ready to send Tohru off, he tells Kisa it’s OK to cry because of the bond between them, but I think still is distant from Tohru. Which is good – it’s more realistic than Tohru simply being able to cure everyone’s problems.

Now, much of Hiro’s growth toward adulthood comes from his ability to let go of his fear and pride and admit mistakes. The other part comes from his wanting to grow stronger so he can protect his loved ones. He’s not alone here – see Hatsuharu for another good example – but Hiro is in a unique position with the birth of his sister. Hiro’s loving family is almost unique in the Zodiac – we hear Kisa’s family supports her, but never see them, and don’t get me started on how everyone handles her being bullied – in that his mother adores him, and has no issues with the curse at all. When he finds out she’s pregnant, he immediately starts to think ahead, both to what happens before birth (his mother seems to be a bit of a dojikko), and how he can be a good big brother. My favorite Hiro moment in the series may be when he discusses his sister with Kisa, and notes her complete innocence to the world. He knows what life with the Sohmas is like, and what everyone has suffered, and is determined to be a good big brother to her. It’s here that you can see why Kisa has fallen for him as well.

Shortly after this, his curse breaks. It’s only the second to break, and Kureno’s was years earlier, so it’s quite a shock. [EDIT: Yes, sorry, the third to break. I apologize to Momiji fans. Several volumes were unavailable so I was doing this partly on memory.] But really, after his confession, and with a new path he wanted to walk on, there was nothing tying him to Akito. In fact, as Akito is doing their ‘exit interviews’ after the curse breaks for everyone, she notes that Hiro’s stubborn tenacity was something she admired in him.

Hiro can be a spoiled brat at times, but he grows just as much as everyone else in the series. Interestingly, almost all of his growth has little to do with the animal curses, which don’t seem to trouble him much. If you took his character arc and Kisa and plunked them in some other manga without any supernatural elements, it would be much the same. Hiro’s not a manipulator or an innocent victim. He’s just this kid who knows far too much about what’s going on and needs to mature in order to deal with it. He’s just like us. And that may be why it makes some fans uncomfortable with him, but it’s also why I come back to him again and again.

MMF: Fruits Basket – Shigure

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“I want to spoil her rotten. I want to trample her to a pulp.”

When it came time for the Manga Moveable Feast to do Fruits Basket, I pretty much knew I would be writing about Shigure Sohma. He’s the character I keep coming back to even now, the little thorn in the side of the entire storyline, trying to free people from the bonds they have with their God by cutting into their flesh until they squirm free in their agony. He’s a manipulator, and you’d swear he finds people’s emotional pain amusing. The anime, sadly, never got to the point in the story where this really comes out, so we mostly just see him there as the goofy ‘yay, high school girls!’ guy who occasionally gives Tohru sage advice. No one who finishes the manga is left with that impression.

Hatori, who is one of the people who probably understand Shigure best, and he once noted that Shigure needed to be careful in all his manipulations that he didn’t break anyone. Which, in many ways, is what Shigure *is* trying to do. He’s trying to break the curse, even if it’s not directly – trying to get it to snap and crumble away from Akito. And well, if that means breaking other people, then so be it – at least they’ll have someone around to pick up the pieces. Right, Rin? (Chapter 107, which implies Shigure was aware of what Akito did to Rin and let it happen in order to prove a rather sadistic point, is probably his worst moment.)

Speaking of that chapter, Shigure and Rin discuss the curse, and note that it should break within their lifetimes. But that’s not good enough for Tohru, who is painfully aware of what Kyo’s fate is to be – and how easily he seems to accept it. After briefly running off, Shigure goes to get her – and delivers another stunning speech, clearly intended to push all of Tohru’s buttons and weak spots. It’s quite an interesting contrast to earlier volumes, where Shigure can be seen cheering Tohru up or giving her a gentle push in the right direction with a few kind words.

But if Tohru wants to save Kyo, time *is* running out, and Shigure can’t simply sit by and watch her stress out over whether Kyo is pushing her mother’s memory out of her life. He’s mean – talking about how the curse *is* a curse, and not just some cute ‘we turn into animals!’ thing. All the Zodiac feel horrible about it, and Kyo is, as Shigure notes, a reminder that it could be worse – they could be him. Tohru, notably, stops Shigure’s monologue with a hand outraised and her head down – she can’t bear to hear his words anymore. I was reminded of the way she stopped Akito from abusing Yuki very early in the series, when she and Akito first met. It’s probably my favorite Shigure scene in the series.

Of course, it’s not just about Tohru. All of Shigure’s actions, everything we see him set up throughout the book, is designed to drive people away from their God and break the curse – so that he can have Akito all to himself. Shigure is a very possessive lover, and does not take kindly to having to share. It’s quite telling that the only time we really see him filled with hatred for anyone, it’s for Kureno – the man who is currently closest to Akito. And so he pushes at Akito – harder than he does anyone else, really – and watches as she does break. There’s only one moment where I think Shigure wonders if he went too far – he asks, after Tohru falls from the cliff, whether Akito pushed her – but it all works out well in the end.

This is the odd thing about the series. Everything seems to work out well in the end. Shigure never apologizes for anything he does, but I think in his mind he doesn’t *have* to – after all, everyone ended up happy. The curse is broken. Tohru wasn’t seriously crippled and is now with Kyo. Hatori has gotten over his first love and is opening up to Mayuko. Rin has chosen to embrace Haru and stop trying to ‘protect’ him by shoving him away. Same with Hiro and his relationship with Kisa.

In a way, I’m strangely reminded of Usagi from Sailor Moon. I once discussed the Outer Senshi Haruka and Michiru with my friend John, who has mixed feelings about the two of them. In the real world, the two outers would be right – Usagi’s idealism and super purity would be ripe for abuse, and it’s sensible to be pragmatic like the two of them. But they fail to realize that they aren’t in the real world, they’re in Usagi’s manga, and she’s the star. Therefore she is always right, and they are forever proven wrong. Likewise, Shigure’s actions don’t seem wrong to him at all. I’m sure if anyone tried to call him on it, he’d note how happy everyone is after the end of the series.

That said, we do occasionally see stabs of regret. Shigure notes early on that he is ‘the filthiest’ of the Zodiac, and I think knows that his relationship with Akito – even post-curse – is not a healthy one, but doesn’t particularly care enough. He once wondered what would have changed if he’d dreamed about Tohru. Leaving aside the horror that fills me if I imagine Shigure with Tohru, I think that it’s one of those hypothetical questions that will never get a true answer. So much of what Shigure is – everything that drives him – stems from that dream of Akito, and his love of Akito, and his need to possess Akito. Perhaps, now that he has everything he wants, he can find the time to get in touch with the nice young man who gave Tohru advice on how to deal with multiple problems.

Pick of the Week: Boys, Girls, & Ghosts

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It’s a slow but not quite dismal week at Midtown Comics. Check out the Manga Bookshelf bloggers’ picks below!

DAVID: It’s a narrow but interesting selection at Midtown Comics. In one of my experiments in crowd-sourcing, I ended up pre-ordering Kikuko Kihuya’s Entangled Circumstances, which will consequently earn my Pick of the Week status. I admit that I’m shallow enough that part of this was because I really found the cover design to be striking. It’s also about grown-ups with jobs, which makes my heart flutter, though the protagonists also share a past of some degree of awkwardness tracking back to their university days. I’m really just that easy to please, though: make it look nifty, and make your protagonists old enough to drink or sign a lease.

KATE: Them’s some slim pickings at Midtown Comics this week! But if I had to pick something from the list, I’d choose the sixth and final volume of Time and Again (Yen Press). I admit that I found the first few volumes a bumpy ride, as the script abounded in slangy phrases and anachronistic jokes that detracted from the spooky atmosphere. By volume three, however, author JiUn Yun had a better handle on the material, and the series began to evolve into something more interesting: a character study about a troubled young exorcist. The final volume explores the family curse that doomed Baek-On to a life of lonely wandering, allowing us to fully appreciate the origins of his prickly, detached personality. Oh, and that flashback? It’s a heck of a ghost story, too.

MICHELLE: You’re not kidding about the paucity of options on Midtown’s list! Still, like David, I find myself intrigued by the new batch of DMP releases. Entangled Circumstances has the prettiest cover, it’s true, but some of the others fare pretty well, too, like This Night’s Everything, which definitely doesn’t look like your typical BL. It also involves grown up with jobs—apparently a politician and his bodyguard who coldly handles dirty work—and sounds like it has potential to be an interesting story.

SEAN: I am going to rebel against the Midtown list, as they are apparently involved in some giant Kodansha boycott or something, and make my pick the thirtieth volume of Ken Akamatsu’s Negima!, which Diamond will be shipping to all non-Midtown stores this week. The manga has been in its ‘Magical World’ for about 10 volumes now, and things are finally getting to a big action-packed climax, which will take several volumes and is still ongoing as of this writing. This is the start of it, where Negi finds out the truth about his mother’s so-called treachery and the enemy makes their move against his students. Also, I believe this volume is low on fanservice, so it’s a great one to pick up if you dislike that aspect of it.

MJ: Since Kate’s already put the spotlight on what would have been my pick from Midtown, the final volume of JiUn Yun’s Time and Again, I’ll follow Sean’s lead and go rebel against the list by naming volume eleven of Peach Pit’s Shugo Chara! from Kodansha Comics, which by all appearances should be arriving this week, but isn’t. Shugo Chara! is a long-time favorite of mine, thanks to its feisty, deeply-conflicted heroine, her idiosyncratic team of friends, heart-pounding tween-fantasy romance, adorable artwork, and identity-searching themes that resonate more personally with this forty-something reader than they probably should. This is the final volume of the original series, with volume 12 picking up the published chapters of its sequel, Shugo Chara! Encore!, thankfully continued by Kodansha Comics after being pulled from Del Rey Manga. So if you’ve never tried this thoughtful magical-girl series, this is the time to start!

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 7/24/11

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This week, Michelle, MJ, Kate, & Sean check out recent releases from Kodansha Comics, Viz Media, Seven Seas, & Vertical, Inc.

Dengeki Daisy Vol. 5 | By Kyousuke Motomi | Published by Viz –I cannot help but compare the cover of this volume of Dengeki Daisy to those of Black Bird, which runs in the same magazine in Japan. Black Bird’s covers always reminded me of sexual assault, with inappropriately placed blood and a terrified heroine. Dengeki Daisy also features a somewhat bloody hero clutching his heroine, but the image here is meant to invoke protection, and she isn’t frightened of him at all. I find that much better. As for the story itself, the plot continues to get more and more dangerous, as Tasuku is even briefly hospitalized. The enemy is trying to confront Teru psychologically, and it’s to her credit that she’s keeping it together as much as she is. Meanwhile, she and Tasuku are still hiding things from each other about her knowledge of Daisy, and are finding it increasingly hard to deal with their burgeoning feelings. Tense, gripping stuff, this series is a real page-turner.– Sean Gaffney

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 7 | By Motoro Mase | Viz Media – Every volume of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit follows the same template: Motoro Mase introduces the victim, then shows us how he or she copes with the news of his impending death. Though a few victims have violently resisted their fates, almost all the stories have an uplifting ending in which the victim reaches out to an estranged relative, apologizes to a friend for callous behavior, or gives a final performance. I think these stories are meant to underscore how unjust the National Welfare Act really is, but the cumulative effect induces numbness, not outrage. Death messenger Fujimoto’s own journey to conscientious objection is unfolding at such a slow pace that it’s hard to know if he’ll ever have the courage to resist his charge. And with no one actively fighting the government, Ikigami is rapidly devolving into an unpleasant hybrid of Afterschool Special and snuff film. In a word: grim. -Katherine Dacey>

RIN-NE, Vol. 6 | By Rumiko Takahashi | Published by VIZ Media – Even though RIN-NE is now up to its sixth volume, nothing has really changed much. (Sort of) shinigami Rinne is still stingy and still besotted by perpetually calm classmate Sakura Mamiya, who assists him in aiding spirits to pass on. The addition of a female shinigami with the hots for Rinne (Ageha) and the continued presence of incompetent exorcist Jumonji (with the hots for Sakura) do little except fuel occasional episodic diversions, such as when Jumonji is tricked into cursing Rinne. Storylines are usually wrapped up within three or four chapters, with few lasting repercussions aside from a slowly growing cast of recurring characters. Speaking of which, I am seriously weary of Sabato, Rinne’s irresponsible dad, whose deceitful ways just bring more misfortune upon our hero. It’s probably expecting too much to hope for his comeuppance to happen any time soon, alas. – Michelle Smith

Shugo Chara!, Vol. 11 | By Peach-Pit | Published by Kodansha Comics – Three of Amu’s Guardian Characters have disappeared and, led by the fourth in an effort to find them, she embarks upon a journey along the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey (not to mention sparkly) “road of stars,” catching glimpses of various characters with whom she interacted over the course of the series—friend and foe alike—who are all now working hard and having fun. What would be a warm and fuzzy conclusion is marred slightly by the fact that the mystery of the Embryo is never explained and one of Amu’s friends never divulges an important secret, but maybe these things will be rectified in the final volume, which “explores the side stories of the other characters.” My advice is to try not to think too hard about the dangling plot threads and just enjoy the good-hearted vibe of this delightful magical girl series. – Michelle Smith

Toradora! Vol. 2 | By Yuyuko Takemiya and Zekkyo | Published by Seven Seas –Memo to the manga artist for Suzumiya Haruhi: take a few lessons from Toradora’s adaptation. The series finishes up Vol. 1 of the light novels here and starts Vol. 2, and manages to keep the romantic comedy aspects going without it ever becoming tiresome. Taiga can be incredibly overbearing, but we see a lot more of her softer side than most manga tsunderes, and her facial expressions make this worth the purchase price alone. The artist knows when to do exaggeration and when to keep it real, fortunately. As for the plot, well, after the worst love confession I’ve seen in a long time, Taiga and Ryuuji seem to be back to Square One. But they’re not giving up, not even as a new girl arrives on the scene to make everything much worse. A fun, breezy read for those who like comedic romance hijinks and don’t mind tsunderes.– Sean Gaffney

Twin Spica, Vol. 8 | Kou Yaginuma | Vertical, Inc. – I often worry that I don’t have enough new to say about continuing volumes of Twin Spica, not because there is little worth noting, but because it so faithfully maintains its high quality over the course of its run that it’s hard to keep topping my own praise. The truth is, no matter how much I’ve raved about any particular volume, each new installment renews those feelings ten-fold, as mangaka Kou Yaginuma continues to dig deeper into the minds and hearts of his young student astronauts. This volume is largely about partings (or the prospect thereof) and left me teary at several points, while also steadily building up my anticipation and imagination as I ponder what’s in store for its characters, personally and professionally. Yaginuma’s nostalgia-tinted artwork is especially effective in this volume, and I’m constantly surprised by how expressive it is, despite its simple aesthetic. Still recommended. – MJ

Naruto Volumes 4-6

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By Masashi Kishimoto. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

And this is why everyone should give Jump series about 5-6 volumes before they give up on them. This omnibus is definitely a big step up from the first, with the leads being slightly more likeable, lots of interesting new characters introduced, and a new arc that promises to be much more thrilling – and possibly more deadly.

First, however, we have to finish up the cliffhanger from last time, with Naruto and company defending the bridge and its creator from the evil ninja and the mob boss who hired him. Once again, we are reminded that small, petty villains are always MUCH WORSE than noble yet evil guys in the Shonen Jump world, and while Zabuza spends a lot of time showing us what a horrible person he is, he does manage to get some redemption, as does his gender-malleable assistant. I was rather startled at the death of Haku here – it’s quite gory, and from a blow by Kakashi, no less (if accidentally). Clearly ‘nobody dies in Naruto’ is not a meme that’s going to take hold. Well, not yet anyway.

Once that’s over with, we head back to the village and begin our next big arc – the exams are coming up for journeyman ninja, and despite only having worked together for a short time, Kakashi recommends that they all do it. This is a huge exam with over a hundred ninja apprentices from all walks of life, most of whom we meet in this book. I have no idea who will be important later or not – the only ones that really stuck with me are Hinata, who clearly has a crush on Naruto that’s a mile wide; Ino, who has some sort of rivalry/friendship with Sakura; and Gaara, who gives off the appearance of being one of the next big villains, so must not be one.

And then there’s Rock Lee, who really deserves a paragraph of his own. Even though I’d never read Naruto before this, I still knew of Rock Lee – how could I not? Amazingly, he’s exactly as I anticipated, being a larger than life Sylvester Stallone type bruiser in the midst of all these tricky ninjas. His master Guy looking pretty much like him only older also amuses me, and I was rather startled to note that Guy can apparently hold his own with Kakashi – even the comedy characters here are tough cookies.

As for the exam itself, it’s a ninja exam, so naturally there’s lots of secret cheating, given they all assume the point of the exam is to see how good they are at not getting caught. The final question is psychological, something that works on many of the exam takers but not on Naruto, who is far too stubborn for such tactics. (Note: not dense – Naruto seems to fully understand what he’s sacrificing. It’s the principle of the thing that bothers him.) And then we get Round 2, featuring a survival match through a deadly forest – one that has been infiltrated by one of the villains, Orochimaru.

This last third of the omnibus is far more serious than the volume before it, and once again shows that the author is not afraid to laughter its minor cast members in the way of drama. There’s lots of good stuff here – Sasuke shows that he’s not all smug jerk, though unfortunately seems to get infected (possessed?) by the enemy anyway. Even better is Sakura, who while she doesn’t accomplish much does show a plucky streak that’s very endearing, and is at least clever enough to not fall for the minor mook’s traps. The three leads are all coming along, and I’m interested in seeing how they get out of all this.

This still hasn’t reached the heights of One Piece for me – the battles still have trouble keeping my attention, for one, and introducing 25-30 new cast members in 2 volumes is over the top even if you *aren’t* meant to remember who they all are. But it’s definitely come along from the first omnibus, and this new Exam Arc is indeed as exciting as people said it would be. I’m looking forward to seeing how things go from here on.

SDCC Round-Up

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Yes, it may still have two days to go, but for most manga fans, the news is done now due to a heavily overbalanced schedule. And who better to give you a breakdown of all of it than me, a person who wasn’t there and mostly followed everything on Twitter! Onward!

First up we have Kodansha, who sadly did not have any new announcements. A bit worrying, given that they have really announced one new title since their debut – Code Name: Sailor V. Sailor Moon, Love Hina and Tokyo Mew Mew are all new editions of previously issued stuff, though I suspect Sailor Moon’s differences between Tokyopop and Kodansha will be large enough that it will seem new.

They did announce that the Negima omnibuses will continue “till they catch up with the new volumes”, which I presume means catching up to where the Nibleys began translating/adapting it. They also showed off the cover (as yet not online) for the first Love Hina omnibus, which will be 5 volumes, each containing 3 of the original (the last will have 2).

The other unsurprising but disappointing news is that they indicated that, due to poor sales and a poor economy, there are currently no plans to go back and grab other Del Rey series left hanging that aren’t already coming out. Yozakura Quartet and Pumpkin Scissors were mentioned specifically, but I expect this also includes titles such as Nodame Cantabile, Moyasimon, and School Rumble. They also indicated they have no digital plans at this time. Most likely as they’re still concentrating on getting back up to speed book-wise.

The big news of the weekend was the J-Manga panel, which debuts in North America in August. It’s a collective between 39 manga companies (basically everyone you can think of which the exceptions of Square Enix (who have their own initiative) and Mag Garden (no Aria for you!) to have their manga available here. To my surprise and happiness, this is *not* an Apple-only iPad app, but web-based. The price point will be determined by publisher, but they’re also trying to get a wider variety of content than just ‘Jump/Hana to Yume’ licenses that tend to come out over here. The readers can apparently message the authors, and there will be exclusive content, including videos. And yes, some brave soul did ask why we should care when we have scanlations. Brave soul. :) It’s web-only right now, but they’re working on mobile apps.

The site hasn’t debuted yet, but this was much more than I was expecting, so I am greatly pleased. There are still some unanswered questions (who’s doing the translation work? How are they being paid?), but I am now greatly looking forward to the opening of the site.

Speaking of online manga, Viz debuted their new web-based manga site Thursday evening. I have not yet had a chance to try it out, though I will do so this weekend, but all signs point to it being exactly what we asked them for – a non-iPad way to pay to read their manga online. The titles are mostly what you’d expect, being their best-sellers, along with a few Signature titles for ‘cool’ readers. I wonder in future if they might use it as a way to access volumes that are out of print and don’t sell well enough to justify a reprint (yes, I am thinking of Excel Saga). In any case, kudos to Viz!

Viz had two new manga licenses, both in the Shojo Beat line. The first I’m very excited about, and have been hoping Viz would pick it up. January sees the debut of Devil and Her Love Song, which is about a blunt, no-nonsense girl who was expelled from her classy all-girls’ academy and is now attending a public school. Her ‘devil’ personality causes her no end of problems, but does attract the attention of two guys – one cheery, one grumpy. No, it’s not the most original thing ever, but it’s great fun, and I can’t wait to see it in English.

The other one is Earl and Fairy, based on a very long (25 volumes and counting – don’t expect it to be licensed) light novel series about a woman who is attuned to fairies, and her interaction with a roguishly handsome young man seeking a legendary sword. It’s Victorian Fantasy, so no doubt will appeal to Black Butler fans, and its general feel should also draw in the Vampire Knight crowd.

And given the success of the shonen ‘omnibus’ formats (which, word of warning, will likely all end about 9-12 volumes in – these are teasers to make you buy, not full re-releases), Viz is now doing two popular shojo series in the 3-in-1 style: Hana-Kimi and Skip Beat! I never got a chance to take in Hana-Kimi back in the day, so will be looking forward to this.

The Shonen Jump panel following did announce a new chapter of a just-begun-in-Japan Jump title available in English – St&rs, which can be accessed from their website – but did not announce any new licenses. This is possibly as the one they announced last year, Psyren, still has yet to debut in graphic novel form. It’s also possibly due to the fact that the other ‘mid-range’ Jump titles running right now all have potential difficulties with NA sales. Sket Dance is a Gintama clone, and Viz just cancelled that. Beelzebub has a lot of Satanic backstory, and also has a naked baby and his naked penis in many, many chapters – Viz has already censored this sort of thing in titles like Dr. Slump. Kuroko no Basket is a basketball manga, at a time when they’re still putting out Slam Dunk. And Medaka Box… is Medaka Box. They may wait to see if the Gainax anime takes off to do something about that. :)

Onward to the Yen panel! They win the prize for total number of new licenses, piling up three. The first one was spoiled a bit ahead of time for some, but is not a surprise given the anime got a TV deal: Durarara!!, the manga adaptation of the light novel series about a group of Ikebukuro residents and their interactions and misadventures, centering around several rival gangs and a young woman searching for a missing past – and her missing head. It’s from Square Enix, and runs in their female-oriented shonen magazine GFantasy, home of Black Butler and Pandora Hearts. It just finished ‘Stage one’ in 4 volumes, but will be restarting a second arc soon.

Then there is Kore Wa Zombie Desu Ka?, a comedic title that just started last year in Kadokawa Shoten’s fanservicey shonen magazine Dragon Age. Also based on a light novel that won’t come out over here (DRRR!! is a far more likely pickup, though still very unlikely), it’s about a young man who gets killed, then resurrected as a zombie by a silent young necromancer woman. Then he runs into a magical girl with a chainsaw – and accidentally steals her powers. Now he has to deal with the trials of being a zombie cross-dressing magical girl. Didn’t I read this plot on Fanfiction.net with Naruto and Usagi?

Lastly, we have what appears to be another omnibus, but a bit more high-end than Dragon Girl and Sasameke were. Olimpos is from the author of Utahime, which DMP put out over here, and is apparently based around the mythical Greek Gods. It ran for 2 volumes in Ichijinsha’s josei magazine Comic Zero-Sum (and its sister publication Zero-Sum Ward), and I suspect will be the most ‘blogger-friendly’ of the titles announced at SDCC. Yen also mentioned a 4-volume color omnibus for High School of the Dead, and noted they were working on an Android app for their stuff.

The last thing I heard about was the Best and Worst manga of 2011, which I was delighted to hear spent so much time talking about the best that they barely managed to mention the worst. Always a good thing, IMO.

That’s it for now! Otakon will be a much easier write-up, as there’s only one manga industry panel there – Vertical. And as for New York Comic Con, I will actually be present at that one. :)

Looney Tunes Platinum Collection announced

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To go along with my post on the new Tom & Jerry Golden Collection collector’s set, Warners has announced their first Looney Tunes Blu-Ray release. Unlike Tom & Jerry, this one is Blu-Ray only. Most likely because, while the T&J set will have restorations not out on DVD yet, this first LT collection will feature a lot of cartoons previously restored on DVD. That said, Jerry Beck and company have indicated the picture quality is really incredible, as one would expect from the new medium, and this is really more ‘Warners dipping its toe into Blu-Ray’ than anything else.

The contents list reads very much like ‘what would a cartoon fan want in a ‘best ever’ Looney Tunes set, along with some lesser cartoons that star such fan favorites as the Tasmanian Devil and Marvin Martian, both of whom have popularity that far outweighs the few cartoons they were in. Some contents are apparently not announced yet, but here’s what we have. I’ll note which DVD collection the cartoon first appeared on if applicable (and when I say new to DVD, I mean new to Blu-Ray, of course, but also not on a DVD collection before):

DISC ONE
1) Hare Tonic (1945, Jones) (Golden Collection 3)
2) Baseball Bugs (1946, Freleng) (GC1)
3) Buccaneer Bunny (1948, Freleng) (GC5)
4) The Old Grey Hare (1944, Clampett) (GC5)
5) Rabbit Hood (1949, Jones) (GC4)
6) 8 Ball Bunny (1950, Jones) (GC4)
7) Rabbit of Seville (1950, Jones) (GC1)
8) What’s Opera, Doc? (1957, Jones) (GC2)
9) The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946, Clampett) (GC2)
10) A Pest in the House (1947, Jones) (GC5)
11) The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950, Jones) (GC1)
12) Duck Amuck (1953, Jones) (GC1)
13) Robin Hood Daffy (1958, Jones) (GC3)
14) Baby Bottleneck (1946, Clampett) (GC2)
15) Kitty Kornered (1946, Clampett) (GC2)
16) Scaredy Cat (1948, Jones) (GC1)
17) Porky Chops (1949, Davis) (GC1)
18) Old Glory (1939, Jones) (GC2)
19) A Tale of Two Kitties (1942, Clampett) (GC5)
20) Tweetie Pie (1947, Freleng) (GC2)
21) Fast and Furry-ous (1949, Jones) (GC1)
22) Beep Beep (1952, Jones) (GC2)
23) Lovelorn Leghorn (1951, McKimson) NEW TO DVD
24) For Scent-I-Mental Reasons (1949, Jones) (GC1)
25) Speedy Gonzalez (1955, Freleng) (GC1)

DISC TWO
1) One Froggy Evening (1955, Jones) (GC2)
2) Three Little Bops (1957, Freleng) (GC2)
3) I Love to Singa (1936, Avery) (GC2)
4) Katnip Kollege (1938, Hardaway/Dalton) (GC2)
5) The Dover Boys (1942, Jones) (GC2)
6) Chow Hound (Jones, 1951) (GC6)
7) Haredevil Hare (1948, Jones) (GC1)
8) Hasty Hare (1952, Jones) NEW TO DVD
9) Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century (1953, Jones) (GC1)
10) Hare-Way To The Stars (1958, Jones) NEW TO DVD
11) Mad As a Mars Hare (1963, Jones) (BB:HE)
12) Devil May Hare (1954, McKimson) (GC1)
13) Bedevilled Rabbit (1957, McKimson) (BB:HE)
14) Ducking the Devil (1957, McKimson) (DD:FF)
15) Bill of Hare (1962, McKimson) NEW TO DVD
16) Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare (1964, McKimson) (BB:HE)
17) Bewitched Bunny (1954, Jones) (GC5)
18) Broom-Stick Bunny (1956, Jones) (GC2)
19) A Witch’s Tangled Hare (1959, Levitow) NEW TO DVD
20) A-Haunting We Will Go (1966, McKimson) (GC4)
21) Feed the Kitty (1952, Jones) (GC1)
22) Kiss Me Cat (1953, Jones) (GC4)
23) Feline Frame-Up (1954, Jones) NEW TO DVD
24) Fram A to Z-Z-Z-Z (1954, Jones) (Academy Award Collection)
25) Boyhood Daze (1957, Jones) (GC6, special features)

As one can see, the cartoon set above has some fantastic cartoons, but it is also very conservative. Nothing in black-and-white, no cartoons with controversial ethnic gags (save Chow Hound), and a lot of Chuck Jones, whose films are here 3-1 over everyone else. The first set has the LT stars, with Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Roadrunner, Pepe, and Speedy cartoons. The second starts with famous one-shots, and then throws in a bunch of Marvin Martian, Tasmanian Devil, Witch Hazel, Pussyfoot and Ralph Phillips cartoons to appeal, my guess is, to the casual fan. Still. Dear WB, stop appealing to the casual fan. There’s only 3 cartoons here from the 1930s, as well. At the same time, it’s hard to begrudge the set, as it’s filled with the very best WB cartoons, as you would expect from a debut Blu-Ray set. Aside from Porky Chops (which Jerry has always loved, for some weird reason) and Katnip Kollege (ditto, though I love this one too), everything before the Marvin cartoons start is a bona fide Looney Tunes masterpiece.

Are there extras? Of course there are! Behind the Tunes mini-documentaries (most likely taken from the DVD sets), Chuck Jones documentaries (ditto), the 1944 FDR propaganda cartoon Hell-Bent for Reelection (by Chuck Jones, and I believe NEW TO DVD), the 1955 Army short A Hitch in Time (Jones again, also NEW TO DVD), the antiwar WB short The Door, from 1968, directed by Ken Mundie (also NEW TO DVD), and 2 new documentaries on Marvin and Taz. Plus no doubt a few more unannounced goodies.

It can be hard to take when technology moves so quickly. Especially in a crappy economy, where the WB Golden Collections were scrapped for poor sales. Having to not-only re-buy cartoons you have but also invest in a new player to view them (I don’t have Blu-Ray myself yet, though obviously will be getting a player soon) is asking a lot of the hardcore cartoon fan. Still, it’s not surprising to see this as the debut set, and more are promised. Hopefully the set will do well, and we’ll see cartoons like Porky in Wackyland and some more unreleased to DVD stuff in the future.

Kekkaishi Volumes 4-6

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By Yellow Tanabe. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

The second omnibus edition of Kekkaishi continues the demon hunting plotline of the first, and adds such popular shonen tropes as the elite older brother who the hero looks up to but is also jealous of, as well as the grumpy new guy who insists he can do everything himself. Both are in the ‘I will not be nice to you as you are TOO WEAK’ school of characters, so Yoshimori is having an especially difficult time.

Of course, Yoshimori is NOT actually too weak, he’s simply too inexperienced and too eager to use his power as a blunt object. Many times throughout the volume, characters are impressed with how long he can keep his kekkai going, and how powerful they are. Of course, Masamori, his elder brother, really is pretty awesome in his own right, and demonstrates several times in this omnibus his coolness under fire. Judging by how he deals with both his little brother and Yomi, the minor villain from an earlier arc, he seems to favor the carrot and stick approach to learning.

One thing that intrigued me greatly throughout these three volumes was Yoshimori’s decision to seal off the Karasumori site. Given it’s what’s attracting all the demons they have to keep fighting, it’s a good idea at its core, but the 87 billion things wrong with it also make themselves known. To his credit, Yoshimori knows this, and spends a lot of the next couple of volumes trying to figure out the secrets of the site and how he can possibly accomplish such a thing. Seeing him deep in thought is also quite amusing, as he tends to squat down with this constipated look on his face – it’s no wonder Tokine figures out he’s hiding something right off the bat.

And then there’s Gen, who would appear to be the new regular character. He has ties with Yoshimori’s brother, and would appear to be there to be the ‘darker’ version of the hero, especially as we see the classic ‘he’s a wastrel who’s absolutely nothing like me – oh wait, except that we’re a lot alike after all’. I liked what his fighting revealed about Yoshimori, and how he’s the sort who thunders ahead without thinking, but as the battle rages gets craftier and more tactical. As for Gen’s own issues, briefly seen here, clearly they’re going to become more important in future arcs.

There’s more to talk about, like all the politics and rivalries going on around the land, and Tokine, who is a presence throughout the book, even if I don’t have as much to say about her this time. But as with Volume 1, Kekkaishi is a good example of solid, well-written shonen manga. It’s not breaking any new ground, but it’s exciting and fun to read. It also features one of the creepiest ‘retired professor’ types I’ve ever seen. He’s probably evil. (Remember, kids, always judge by appearances!)