Sean Gaffney

By Takao Saito. Released in Japan by LEED Publishing, serialized via Shogakukan in the magazine Big Comic Special. Released in the United States by LEED Publishing on the JManga website.

(Note: Despite saying Vol. 1 on the JManga site, I believe the series is complete in one volume.)

The main player involved so far in JManga’s site has been Futabasha, but there are several other companies who also have made previously unseen content available. LEED Publishing was created by Takao Saito in the early 1970s to market his manga empire, which was already monumentally successful due to his action thriller Golgo 13. I’m not certain how many of his titles are done by Saito himself and how many are his huge team of artists – he’s sort of the Jim Davis of Japan, if Garfield was a stone-faced assassin, of course. (Yes, I’ve read that fanfic.)

This particular title, Kitty Hawker, dates from the mid-1990s. It ran sporadically from 1995-1998 in the magazine Big Comic Special, and is the story of Oki, a Japanese hotshot pilot who gets stranded in the United States after he accidentally breaks an incredibly expensive flight simulator due to his hotshot antics. Forced to take on jobs so he can pay off his debt and return home to his wife and child, he signs on with a tiny airport in Texas, and takes on dangerous political jobs that no sane pilot would ever take on. All the while, of course, while enduring the casual racism and looks of hatred from his immediate superiors (though he does also gain some friends as well).

Oki looks a lot like Golgo 13 (not a huge surprise – Saito’s heroes tend to have similar features), but certainly doesn’t act like him, and it took me a while to get used to him actually talking and having conversations, not to mention showing emotion. Oki is likeable enough to be a hero, but lacks Golgo 13’s super-perfection – Oki’s cockiness and tendency to mouth off to people get him in trouble quite a bit. As for the other characters, everyone in the manga is painted with rather broad strokes – there’s enough depth to keep you reading, but this is in no way a manga that lives and dies by its characters.

What it is is another action thriller, with added political content. Oki gets a job that needs to be done hush-hush, has massive political implications, and will require superhuman flying skills. And he manages to pull it off, usually with the help of his copilot and mechanic Bud. Again, we get stock characters from Action Thriller 101 here: the sexy and mysterious government agent, the nervous CIA guy who hinders more than he helps, and of course the sexy Latin American native who has an affair with the aforementioned Bud. (Oki is married, and though occasionally remarking on the attractiveness of his clients, does not stray.)

So, what you see is what you get here: a political thriller with lots of wordy dialogue followed by lots of awesome scenes of planes doing difficult to impossible stuff, all to save the world. By the end of this volume, Oki has come to terms with his exile, and tells his wife that he’ll be staying a little longer. Kitty Hawker may appeal to those who like old Westerns – it has much the same feel. Very little pretension or attempts to be anything more than a good yarn.

By Ryou Ryumon and Kouji Megumi. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Take a typical John le Carré novel, only have it star a bunch of Japanese high school students, and you might come close to what’s going on in Bloody Monday. This sort of story demands a certain suspension of disbelief (indeed, this particular story might need an entire suspension bridge for your disbelief), but once you get past that and accept the premise, there’s a lot of fun stuff to be found here.

The basic premise has our hero Takagi, who is an ordinary high school student – except he has absolute world-class hacking abilities, and his father appears to be a super-spy. But other than that? He goes to class, he worries about his sister, who apparently is hospitalized often, and he spends his spare time decrypting mysterious files that are vital to national security. His friends (who, at the start of this, are mostly unaware of his talents) are a typical shonen bunch: handsome laid-back best friend, tsundere childhood female friend, shy girl who probably has a crush on him, and geeky guy.

Unfortunately, his worlds are about to intersect. There’s a virus going around that makes folks cough up blood, collapse and die, and it would seem to be engineered by a nasty enemy agent (that’s her on the cover in her lingerie)… who now shows up at Takagi’s school as the new teacher, and gives off a lovely aura of ‘I am not an enemy spy honest’ for the rest of the book. What’s more, his father has disappeared after calling to tell him “Bloody Monday” (how cryptic… if it weren’t the title), and he’s getting special deliveries of boxed agents sent to defend him from mysterious foes.

Much of this volume is simply setting up the premise of the series, so things move pretty slowly at first. Takagi and his friend Otoya are the only ones who we really get to know, though we also get a nice impression of Takagi’s father before he is forced to leave the manga for reasons of plot. Takagi seems a bit too perfect, so I actually liked them undercutting this by having him reveal everything he knows to his friends… and the new teacher who mysteriously arrived there recently. Hey, she’s an authority figure! And stacked! I imagine as the series goes on this lack of precaution will become less common.

I was reminded of last year’s aborted Del Rey series Code: Breaker a bit with the style of this manga, which is very much in the thriller style. It may seem startling that it runs in Shonen Magazine, given the children coughing up blood and dying, as well as the enemy agent in her underwear, but honestly the magazine has always been like that – it’s the most fanservicey of the three, and also sometimes hardest to pin down in terms of genre.

In the meantime, we have a series that I suspect we won’t really know how good it is until three or four volumes in. Not that there’s anything really wrong with this first volume, but it’s much like reading Chapter 1 of a le Carré novel, then having to wait two months to read Volume 2. This may be a series to collect in batches.

By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan as “Usagi Drop” by Shodensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Another volume of Bunny Drop, and another volume where we see Daikichi struggle with the joys and stresses of being a single dad. What’s more, life doesn’t stop just because you’re having difficulty keeping up. Will he be able to cope on his own?

I thought the start of the book was easily the strongest, with two chapters dealing with Daikichi’s cousin Haruko leaving her home for a bit and taking her daughter over to live with him and Rin. Daikichi is not generally a talkative and inquisitive person, so while we see him thinking about the awkwardness this creates, or wondering about what Haruko is going through, there’s very little actually said. The author’s strengths are frequently in the unsaid and absent, and although Haruko does reunite with her husband here, we get the feeling that her struggles will continue.

Honestly, Daikichi seems to have it pretty easy by now, even if he may not be aware of it. Rin’s a good kid who generally does what she’s told (we once again see Kouki’s still unnamed mother stressing out about getting constant meetings with the teacher), and even a bad cold doesn’t really put her down that much. She does get a few faults, such as her lack of physical ability… but even that’s dealt with here with the jump rope training, and she manages to overcome it a bit in a nice, heartwarming moment.

I will admit that the heartwarming moments are nice, but I could do with some forward plot motion. Rin’s mother wasn’t in this volume at all, and I’ve come to suspect that any potential romance between Daikichi and Kouki’s mother will mostly be hypothetical. What this means is that we get a volume that is, after the first two chapters, more ‘adorable kid raised by goofy yet nice dad’ stories. It’s perfect for Feel Young, the josei magazine it runs in, and likely worked better in monthly installments, but I admit I am starting to get weary of it.

That said, once again I get the feeling that I am not the audience for this series, and that forward movement of the plot is not the point. ‘The day passes, something else happens’ is a very common genre in Japan, especially in manga with children, and even though Daikichi is our viewpoint character here, that’s exactly what we get. We sympathize with him, grow frustrated sometimes, but mostly we’re watching Rin grow up alongside him. And while Rin may not have quite enough faults, she’s certainly cute as a button. Let’s see if Volume 5 can bring something new to the table, though.

(No spoilers in the comments, by the way. They will be deleted.)

By Kenjiro Hata. Released in Japan as “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

We have arrived at the end of “The End Of The World” arc, and just as predicted, things quickly turn sour. This is not a fairy tale with a happy ending, but a story of two children getting broken, one by supernatural happenstance, the other by his own “loving” parents. Hata has said he had this arc planned nearly from the start, but it kept getting put off. My guess is Sunday’s editors wanted to wait till the series was popular enough that it could withstand 10 chapters that are nothing whatsoever like what has come before it.

These three final chapters to the arc are heartbreaking. I’ve gone on about Hayate’s parents before, so won’t do so now (they’re loathsome monsters, FYI). The rift between Hayate and Athena, though, is that of two six-year-olds who find that sometimes you say things you can’t take back. We don’t know exactly what happened to Athena’s parents, though certainly we can guess based on her reaction here. And so they fight (and Athena seems to be possessed by evil at some point), and she tells Hayate to leave. Which he does. And again, words you can’t take back. There’s a nice mirror of both children looking up desperately to hope the other has returned, only to find cold reality instead.

We have no idea how Athena left the castle, but we do get Hayate’s aftermath – and we also meet his brother! Yes, a family member of Hayate’s who is not hateful and deceptive. While you’re left wondering why his brother leaves Hayate with those parents, his advice is certainly good… though it comes a little too late. And so Hayate is resolved to become the best he can be, but also closes off his heart to a certain degree. He’s also resolved, if he ever meets Athena again, to tell her that she was right and he was wrong, at least in regards to his parents.

And hey, what a coincidence! Athena is now 10 years older, and in Athens! And dressed entirely in black – not suspicious at all! But I doubt we’ll see her again. After all, it’s not like the entire cast is going to wind up in Greece anytime soon…

So we have the rest of the volume, which is devoted to the entire cast, in various ways, ending up on a holiday in Greece. We’re not there yet, of course, so it’s also an excuse to catch up with characters shoved to the side by the enormous Hayate/Athena story. (Nagi and Maria lampshade this, in one of the funnier parts of the book.) Maria in particular gets a rare focus here, as she goes on a pretend date with Hayate, who is being stalked by a mysterious girl who is obsessed with him and wants him dead. (Well, no, not really.) They’re cute together, but you’re reminded that Maria still sometimes sees Hayate as a toy to dress up rather than as an actual male – she’s far less comfortable when reminded of that.

And then there’s Ayumu and Hinagiku, who continue to bond here – in fact, Hina makes a big sacrifice in order to advance her cause in a contest (the winner of which gets two tickets to Athena – subtlety went back out the window once Athena left the manga, in case you weren’t aware). And Nagi seems to be starting to learn the value of money – very slowly. And of course, there’s Fumi, who in a manga composed entirely of eccentrics manages to outdo them all – her answer for the ‘what is a fire station symbol’ question makes your jaw drop.

Casual readers will get nothing out of this, as it’s entirely dependent on knowing the characters. But longtime Hayate readers will enjoy it, and may be happy we’re back to the standard comedic antics after a long hiatus of drama. And Volume 19 is only 5 months away, rather than 6! Progress!

By Yasuto Yamamoto. Released in Japan by Futabasha, serialized in the magazine Manga Action. Released in the United States by Futabasha on the JManga website.

Just as we see here in the West, a lot of Japanese manga thrives on ‘fantasies’, and having the reader imagine a world in which they (or rather, the character they are meant to identify with) were really awesome. For boys this could be ‘what if I was a super ninja?’. For teenagers it could be ‘what if I was surrounded by various girls all trying to get into my pants?’. And for 35-year-old salarymen, married with kids but balding, bullied at work, and dealing with disrespectful in-laws, the question might be ‘what if I had been born a ninja?’.

This is the problem that our hero, Nobuo Matsuri, is dealing with. He was raised by his clan to be a ninja, an instrument of secret death. But then he met Aya and fell in love. Now he’s abandoned his ninja ways and is trying to make it in the world as a lowly salaryman. He’s not attractive, he tends to back down from any conflict at work, and he is generally seen as a goofy screw up. But all this is to conceal his old life from his wife and kids, and his old clan are still sending enemies out to kill him at every turn. Luckily, he still has his ninja skills.

At times, this manga almost reads like a parody. The situations can be ludicrous, though they’re always taken seriously. Nobuo not only has his gorgeous wife, who’s devoted to him and with whom he has amazing sex (which we see several times – this is a mature title), but a co-worker at work was rescued by his ninja self, and has unknowingly fallen for him. She’s cute too. The contrast between Nobuo wanting to have a simple, everyday life yet being constantly beset by insanity can be a bit head-spinning – at one point he’s trying to save his daughter from a sadistic teacher (who in turn it’s revealed was sexually abused by his own mother) who believes that all children are just dolls, and then he is at a party where rich guests decide to set a lion on him and see how much fun can be had watching him get eaten. As I said, you’re wondering if it’s meant to be this serious.

But yes, of course it is. The ninja scenes are played with the utmost seriousness, and Nobuo may be overweight and balding but that doesn’t mean he’s past it as a ninja. He tries to avoid killing his enemies, but will do so if pressed. And the ninja combat scenes do look pretty badass. As for his family, his daughter seems to have unknowingly inherited some of his ninja talents, as seen in the arc with the teacher, and his hateful mother-in-law, who belittles him every chance she gets, may have a dark secret of her own. As for his wife, well, she’s unaware he’s a ninja (so far – there’s a cliffhanger) and generally sees him as this lovable but great guy. Her character is therefore a bit flat. Her strongest scene comes when she’s rejecting the old high-school lothario who’s now trying to hit on her since he’s rich and successful and her husband is a loser. Needless to say, she stands by her man.

JManga’s translation is fine, but the lettering does pose a problem. A lot of the series takes place in the evening, and features Nobuo’s inner monologue as he thinks about true love prevailing and why must all this happen to him. Unfortunately, the text is also black, with a very fine white border. This makes it very hard to read, especially as it’s presented next to the unaltered Japanese text (just for the inner monologues, the dialogue uses standard word balloons) which has a much stronger white border and is much easier to read. I realize that there’s space issues involved here with the translation, but hopefully it’s something that can be fixed in future volumes.

Parody or no, Ninja Papa is not a manga to be taken seriously. However, if you like watching ninjas get waylaid at every corner, taken on many assassins at once, and then return to their hot wife and beautiful family, well, you are likely the audience Ninja Papa is going for. Fight on for love, Nobuo!

By Naoko Takeuchi. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Run Run. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

And here is where it all began – Takeuchi’s first big success (which was immediately subverted by its own publishers and then cannibalized into Sailor Moon) and the debut of Minako Aino, the only senshi besides Usagi not to give off that ‘I am ostracized from my peers and need a purpose in life’ vibe. Mainly as she and Usagi are the everyday heroines, and therefore get the everyday lives. Indeed, their families could be almost identical, minus Usagi’s younger brother. There are a few differences, though.

In fact, the cover pretty much gives the biggest one. Usagi is a sweet, but reluctant superhero who has to be dragged into her first few battles as villains are scary. Minako has no such issues. She is athletic, hyperactive, and ready and willing to leap into being a superhero, after a few initial shocks. She’s battling Dark Kingdom enemies as well – though these are far more of the monster-of-the-week variety – but she also uses Sailor V to catch bank robbers and generally ‘do good’. Not that she’s perfect – she also uses her magic tools to cheat at homework, and wonders at one point how to make money out of all this – but Minako’s proactiveness seeps through every panel here.

Usagi also had her main cast – she met Mamoru, Ami and Rei almost immediately. Minako pretty much just has Artemis there to poke her into doing the right thing and groan at her hijinks. Yes, she technically has a best friend (who, sadly, does not have a T-shirt reading ‘I am not Ami Mizuno’ like earlier scanlations gave her) and an annoying otaku classmate like Umino (the otaku actually gets more screentime than the best friend, oddly enough), but most of the time Minako sets out on these missions on her own, and you can tell that by the time they got to integrating her into Sailor Moon (especially the anime) they wanted to play up the Lone Wolf aspect of her.

The manga is very episodic in general – unlike Sailor Moon, which has a feel of an epic romance almost from the start, Sailor V looks like an action comedy, and doesn’t really gain depth until midway through it. The series ran very irregularly in Nakayoshi’s spin-off Run Run, and once Sailor Moon started, you’d see long breaks between chapters – sometimes yearly breaks. You can pretty much see the exact point the series goes from regular to irregular – it’s lampshaded by having Minako pass by Usagi in the final panel of the chapter.

Some other interesting things to note. Minako and Artemis here are communicating with a mysterious ‘boss’ who’s giving them orders – something which may puzzle those who know Sailor Moon. Is it Luna? No, can’t be, she won’t wake up Sailor Moon for about a year. (I did like Minako being 13 here, a year younger than Usagi in Sailor Moon, which means no timeline issues when the other senshi in Sailor Moon note Sailor V’s been fighting evil for over a year now). The identity of the power-that-be is an intriguing mystery.

Likewise, one of the highlights of each chapter is seeing Minako use her disguise pen to change into a different outfit, complete with pose – note how they’re timed to match the page turn, students of manga art! Usagi did this at the start of Sailor Moon as well, but it gets dropped once the manga gets more serious. My personal favorite when when she turned herself into a male teen idol – and seemed pretty much fine with it. (Bet she experimented when she got home too… *whack* Ow.)

The final chapter might give us a taste of what’s to come in the second and final volume of Sailor V. It’s more serious in general, and for the first time Minako’s disguise pen is used for serious purposes. There’s a more melancholy feeling to it, and it actually bookends nicely with the opening chapter. You sense that Minako is not going to be able to continue in the wacky adventures line for much longer. But for now she is, and thank goodness. Minako is my favorite of the ‘main five’ senshi, and I’d read the Japanese version of this (in 3 volumes) with a text translation years and years ago. It’s fantastic to see it here, and see Minako fight for (and sometimes run roughshod over) justice.