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Two Flowers for the Dragon 1 by Nari Kusakawa: A-

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From the back cover:
Shakuya is the heir to the Dragon Clan and next in line to rule the land. Oh, and she also happens to have two fiancés! Lucien won Shakuya’s love and her hand in marriage, but he disappeared before the wedding day. So the princess did what any woman would do—replaced him. Kuwan stepped in as her new soon-to-be-husband, and everything was fine until fiancé number one came back to town—with everything but his memory. What is a girl to do?! Now, Shakuya must choose who she wants to marry, using her two magical tattoos that change to reflect her feelings for each of the suitors!

Review:
I find it simultaneously amusing and perplexing that the words “magical tattoos” are in a different color and font than the rest of the text, as if that is the most important aspect of the story. I make my own fun by imagining purchasing decisions being made solely on a basis of “Ooh, magical tattoos! That settles it, then.”

Back cover mockery aside, I really, really like this. It’s cute, it’s funny, and I like the characters. Shakuya is far more sensible and intelligent than most shoujo heroines, and is perfectly fine with the necessity of a political marriage, though she’d prefer it if she and her spouse could also be in love. Kuwan is serious and sometimes kind, though not very merciful, and while Lucien begins as cocky and teasing, he also has a more gentle and affectionate personality.

I like the way Kusakawa handles the story’s gimmicks, namely Shakuya’s ability to turn into a dragon when her “feelings needle swings into the red zone” and the magical tattos that serve as a gauge for her feelings for each fiancé. The positive and negative aspects of her transformation ability are both explored well. The growth of the tattoos is nicely integrated into the story and, as Shakuya’s feelings for Lucien bloom ever so slightly, I found my own opinion of him shifting as the story wore on and more of Kuwan’s flaws became apparent.

Too, I like how little things show how well the stories are thought out. Like, early on Shakuya mentions how she has difficulty braiding her own, very long hair. Later, when her handmaid has skipped out on her duties in order to attend a market day, Shakuya must dress herself and appears with her hair in mere pigtails. It’s a very minor thing, but somehow impressed me immensely. Also, the final chapter, with its plot about snake charmers who kidnap Shakuya, could’ve been ridiculously silly but was instead unique and quite exciting.

I’m sure some will not be fans of the art, but I like it a lot. Kusakawa has a distinctive style and I have no complaints about it. In fact, now I feel compelled to read everything by her that I own.

You Will Fall in Love by Hinako Takanaga: B+

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In high school, Haru Mochizuki was very good at archery and regularly made it to the finals of high-profile tournaments, though he never managed to win. In his senior year, unrequited love for his friend and rival Reiichiro put him so off balance that his archery skills began to decline and he quit before they could deteriorate any further. Now, four years later, he finds himself serving as a substitute teacher at a private high school with a strong archery program and is cajoled into serving as assistant advisor.

There he meets Tsukasa Shudo, younger brother of Reiichiro, who immediately declares that he has loved Haru for years. When Haru, who’s still in love with Reiichiro, attempts to convince the talented student that his archery will suffer if he dwells on a “wicked” love like this, Tsukasa claims that he doesn’t regard his love for Haru as either depraved or a weakness and that he will prove it by winning the inter-high tournament. When Reiichiro suddenly shows up at the tournament, Haru must re-examine his feelings for both brothers.

With the exception of Reiichiro, I found the characters to be pretty well developed for a single-volume work. I also really like that they act their ages. Haru, in his early twenties, comes across as more mature but still not quite sure of himself while 17-year-old Tsukasa’s immaturity constantly dictates his actions. I hesitate to use the term “immaturity,” actually, because that conjures up notions of brattiness. It’s more that he’s earnest, impulsive, and sometimes given to dramatic gestures. Unfortunately, this also results in a couple of occasions where he forces himself on Haru, though it’s only kisses that he’s after.

The tone of the story is serious throughout, full of finely tuned angst that never goes overboard. I particularly love Tsukasa’s reaction when he overhears Reiichiro confessing his love to Haru, since it rings true for a teenager with a perfect-seeming older brother to flee to his room and cry, bitterly complaining, “He has everything!” I’m also keen on boys’ love stories that don’t ignore the stigma of homosexuality, although it’s not a major plot point.

Takanaga employs an innovative page layout, full of overlapping panels of various sizes and shapes. On a few occasions I had trouble figuring out the order in which I was supposed to read something, but it wasn’t a major issue. There are quite a lot of pages, though, that are very, very grey because so much tone is used. I found myself yearning for some white space. The art itself is expressive and perfect for a tale where emotions are at the forefront. Too, I appreciate the discernible family resemblance between Tsukasa and Reiichiro.

There’s a lot to like in You Will Fall in Love. The characters are endearing and their genuine love for each other is so apparent that I actually found this to be quite romantic, which is a rare reaction for me. I’ll definitely be reading the sequel, You Will Drown in Love, when BLU releases it in April.

Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Red Blinds the Foolish

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By est em
Deux Press, 192 pp.
Rating: Mature (18+)

“Red Blinds the Foolish,” the title piece in est em’s latest collection of short manga published by Deux Press, follows the story of Rafita, an up-and-coming matador in Madrid, and Mauro, a man who works at the meatpacking house that butchers the bulls Rafita kills. Having spotted each other at the bullring, the two fall into a sexual relationship, kept casual at first by Rafita’s travel schedule and proclivity for one-night stands. As their relationship grows and Rafito finds himself missing Mauro more and more, he begins to have nightmares about killing Mauro instead of the bull, leading him to experience fear in the ring for the first time in his life. The story is rich with metaphor involving love and death, and its lazy, sensuous tone lends a dreamlike quality to the men’s time together while heightening the sense of danger both in and out of the ring.

Both characters are complex and emotionally guarded. Yet despite the incidental quality of their relationship, they somehow create a universe of two, existing for each other while remaining unaffected by their day-to-day surroundings and the people who inhabit them. Mauro attends to his work and Rafito to his lovers, all by rote. It is as though they are real only to each other.

There is some insight into this provided for Mauro, at least, in a short chapter following the main story called “Corpse of the Round Table.” In that story, Mauro is introduced as a young man who gives up law school to take the meatpacking job in order to pay off debts left to his family by his father. In the story, he describes playing at bullfighting with his grandfather and confides that he always played the part of the bull. “Playing dead is actually pretty fun,” he says. “Lying perfectly still and waiting for someone to say something to you.” The final panel suggests that it is Rafita he’s been waiting for, to finally wake him from the dead.

The only unfortunate thing about the title story is that it doesn’t last for the entire volume. The later stories are nice, certainly, but with the possible exception of the final short, “Lumiere” (about a young man taking dictation from a bedridden author), none of them offer quite the same depth or potential. After such a wonderfully strong and complex start, it is difficult not to be disappointed when the first story’s characters are abruptly abandoned in favor of new ones. That said, no matter the length of the story, est em is a true gem among yaoi authors, and it would be foolish to look a gift horse in the mouth.

One of the exceptional things about est em’s work is that it is not obviously written for women, which is to say that its storytelling, characterization, character design, and attitudes about homosexuality bear little resemblance to typical boys’ love manga. There are no pretty, androgynous schoolboys or meticulously groomed hosts in an est em manga. Nor will you find a lascivious seme or timid uke playing out heteronormative stereotypes to help young women feel more comfortable with sex.

As in her earlier short story collection, Seduce Me After the Show, the men in Red Blinds the Foolish are stunningly real and absolutely male. Est em portrays real-life adult men in various stages of their lives—working, living, lusting, loving, entering new relationships or discovering new things about existing ones. Unlike most yaoi manga, though relationships are the focus, these stories don’t read as romance for its own sake. These men may sleep together and sometimes even fall in love, but their relationships with each other both in and out of bed are, above all, revealing of who they are and who they will be. The sex is the means rather than the end, and that makes good storytelling.

This time around, Deux has done readers a favor by hiring Matt Thorn to translate and adapt the entire book from the beginning, avoiding the instances of overly sparse, confusing dialogue that plagued some of the stories in Seduce Me After the Show. The book retains est em’s restrained style and her inclination to let the art tell the story, but it is much more consistently coherent. As with Seduce Me After the Show, est em’s art, full of sketchy lines alongside striking black, is reproduced cleanly and with care.

Despite the relative weakness of the later stories in the volume, Red Blinds the Foolish is an extremely thoughtful and engaging read that should appeal easily both to seasoned yaoi fans and to mature readers who simply enjoy good story.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey: B

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From the back cover:
Leys Physical Training College was famous for its excellent discipline and Miss Lucy Pym was pleased and flattered to be invited to give a psychology lecture there. But she had to admit that the health and vibrant beauty of the students made her feel just a little inadequate. Then there was a nasty accident—and suddenly Miss Pym was forced to apply her agile intellect to the unpleasant fact that among all those impressively healthy bodies someone had a very sick mind…

Review:
Miss Lucy Pym, after receiving a legacy from a relative, has retired from her life of teaching and become somewhat of a lay expert on psychology. Having written a surprisingly successful book on the topic, she’s been regularly giving lectures. One of Lucy’s former schoolmates, now principal of Leys Physical Training College, invites Lucy to come and speak to her students. The first two-thirds of the book is Lucy getting to know the students and the staff, and sets up the “nasty accident” that is to come.

Like The Franchise Affair before it, Miss Pym Disposes begins quite charmingly but becomes rather improbable toward the end. The book is almost wholly populated by female characters, and to see a lot of girls bustling about, learning medical skills as well as honing their own physical prowess reminded me a bit of the Sue Barton series of books. Some mildly racist attitudes and comments mar this section, and Lucy’s waffling over what to do about a cheating student gets a bit annoying, but overall it’s pleasant fun.

After a certain point, the outcome becomes a bit predictable. The cheating student is undeservedly given a prime post at a distinguished girls’ school that everyone had assumed would go to another girl, and is eventually mortally injured by a bit of gymnastic equipment. I found it quite easy to peg the culprit, despite Tey’s attempts at subterfuge. The improbable elements begin with what Miss Pym, a “feeble waverer,” does with an important bit of evidence, and also the too-convenient testimony of a couple of nearby residents at the inquest.

Overall, I liked this less well than The Franchise Affair and found it to have some of the problems I noted in the first two Inspector Grant books (racism, convenient plot developments). It was, however, written earlier, so I remain optimistic. I’ve now read four of Tey’s eight mysteries, and still plan to complete the lot.

Enjoy Everything

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We’re snowed in again (sigh) but I was prepared at least, and brought work home with me yesterday. After a long morning of work, I thought I’d take a break. Probably I should have worked on the review I have due this week, but instead, I finally picked up volume 5 of Yotsuba&!, which I’d been holding off on since it’s the last one until forever (or something like that).

I swear, there is nothing that can make a person happier than a volume of Yotsuba&! There is truly nothing more delightful in this world.

And so I present a List of Awesomeness in Yotusba&! Volume 5: …

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Links: manga, music, and nostalgia

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Oh Monday. How I wish you were Friday. I have one review in today’s Manga Minis at Manga Recon, for volumes 2 & 3 of Go!Comi’s Ultimate Venus. It is a silly, silly series that I enjoyed quite a bit more than expected. This initially led to a rambling post musing on the futility of assigning grades in reviews, but it sort of pushed itself into a corner so I’ve given it up for now. Instead, here are a few random links to things I’ve enjoyed recently:

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Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler: A-

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From the back cover:
Lauren Olamina’s love is divided among her young daughter, her community, and the revelation that led Lauren to found a new faith that teaches “God is Change.” But in the wake of environmental and economic chaos, the U.S. government turns a blind eye to violent bigots who consider the mere existence of a black female leader a threat. And soon Lauren must either sacrifice her child and her followers—or forsake the religion that can transform human destiny.

Review:
Parable of the Talents picks up five years after the end of Parable of the Sower. Lauren has successfully established an Earthseed community named Acorn, home to about sixty people. They’re self-sufficient and doing well until a well-organized group of crusading Christians arrives to wipe out their heathen ways. Acorn gets turned into Camp Christian, its members enslaved, and its children (including Lauren’s newborn daughter) “rescued” and given to Christian families. The rest of the novel chronicles Lauren’s attempts to find her daughter while trying to ensure that Earthseed succeeds.

The story is told in excerpts from Lauren’s journals, as well from writings of her husband and brother. These selections were chosen by Lauren’s now-adult daughter, who introduces each segment while gradually providing more information about her own life. The daughter finds a lot of fault in Lauren’s actions, especially Lauren’s refusal to heed her husband’s request that they move and raise their child in a more established community. Feeling like she always came second to Earthseed, the daughter is resentful.

I love that we get not only Lauren’s first person explanation of her actions and motivations but also a dissenting voice, critical of the protagonist’s flaws and failings. There’s a great line where the daughter says that if her mother had created Acorn, peaceful haven for the homeless and desperate, but not Earthseed, she would’ve been able to find her a wholly admirable person. I’ve not seen this kind of framework before—protagonist’s story interspersed with unstinting criticism of protagonist. It’s interesting and I admire it a lot.

There are a few things that bug me a little, though. The cultish creepiness of Earthseed is more apparent, now, with established rituals, ceremonies, and hymns, but this is balanced by the daughter’s obvious disdain for the movement. Also, it seems that every Christian man (and practically every man, period) is a hypocrite, molester, or sadist. The ending is also rather rushed, but nonetheless ends on a very satisfying note.

Dark, grim, and fascinating, this duology has been a very good read. I recommend it.

Ultimate Venus, Vols. 2-3

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By Takako Shigematsu
Published by Go!Comi
Rating: OT (16+)

At the end of volume one, Yuzu was left wondering why she’d been saved by her chief rival for the Shirayuki fortune, Iyo Hayashibara. As volume two begins, she and her bodyguard, Hassaku, head to the Hayashibara estate to confront Iyo, and instead find out that he is actually the body double for the real Hayashibara heir who is none other than Yuzu’s close friend, Haruka. Iyo is beaten and tossed out for his betrayal, and is later hired by Hassaku to act as a second bodyguard for Yuzu. Meanwhile, Yuzu realizes that she is in love with Hassuku, though he is careful to keep her at a distance. Things are further complicated in volume three by the introduction of a young filmmaker, Masaya, to whom Yuzu discovers she has been promised in marriage.

Though little more than a silly soap opera on the surface, Ultimate Venus offers some surprisingly rich moments. Yuzu’s private display of grief after discovering that Haruka’s friendship with her was a sham is truthful and touching, as is her distress when she is fooled into believing that Iyo has taken a bullet for her. The story’s constructs are melodramatic and packed with cliché, but underneath it all is a real story of a real girl growing up and discovering what’s important to her. In volume three, once Yuzu decides to be honest about her feelings for Hassaku, she finally begins to show some real confidence in her own strength of heart. Another treat in these volumes is the further development of Iyo’s character, which reveals him to be an unusually perceptive and complex young man.

Volume three ends on a rather dramatic note, as Yuzu determines to stand up to her grandmother, Mitsuko, and refuse the arranged marriage, promising more drama as well as more “screen time” for the stylish, sagacious Mitsuko, whose appearances were notably few in these volumes. Fortunately, with Yuzu’s growing confidence and resolve, Mitsuko is no longer the only strong woman in the series, a trend that will hopefully continue! It is the strength of Shigematu’s characters that allows this series rise above its superficial premise to deliver some genuine insight along with the fun.

Review copies provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

The Blade of the Courtesans

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By Keiichiro Ryu
Vertical, 304 pp.

Matsunaga Seiichiro is a master swordsman, trained by the legendary Miyamoto Mushashi, who has spent his entire young life in the mountains of Higo province cut off from the rest of the world. At the age of 26, as directed by his now-deceased master, Seiichiro leaves the mountains with nothing but his sword and a letter of introduction and finds himself in Edo’s pleasure quarter, Yoshiwara. When he discovers that the man to whom the letter is addressed is no longer living, Seiichiro is momentarily lost, but he soon finds some purpose in defending those in the quarter against the Yagyu clan, a fearsome group of ninjas who are loyal to the shogun. Not everyone is as they seem and as the story goes on, much is revealed about both the society Seiichiro has wandered into as well as his own personal heritage.

Set at the beginning of the Edo period, The Blade of the Courtesans is painstakingly woven into the fabric of history. Keiichiro Ryu’s characters stand alongside well-known historical figures and the author obviously has an extensive knowledge and deep love of the period. Unfortunately, this attention to history is also responsible for one of the book’s greatest flaws. Ryu frequently pauses the story to explain terminology or expound on historical fact, which, while interesting, breaks the flow of the narrative to a nearly fatal point. These pauses increase as the book goes on, pulling the reader out of the story for pages at a time to offer detailed explanations of its historical context, most of which have only minimal impact on the plot. At times, Ryu instead uses his characters to deliver this information, which is just as clumsy and almost as distracting.

Also clumsy is the novel’s narrative mode, which spells out far too much of each character’s thoughts and feelings, saving the author from having to figure out how to reveal these things organically through action and dialogue. Some of this may be due to the difficulty in translation, but the result in English just reads as lazy writing. As with the huge chunks of historical background, what Ryu really reveals here is his lack of skill as a novelist.

The story itself is a strange, meandering thing, sometimes appearing to have gotten a bit lost, much like its protagonist. It is strongest in the beginning, before becoming too deeply mired in the long historical passages. Though it does gain some momentum just before the end, the conclusion feels quite rushed, as major characters are shunted quickly to the side with very little explanation.

For all its awkwardness, however, The Blade of the Courtesans has some truly stirring moments. Early on, one character delivers a sudden, fiery speech to Seiichiro as they lay on a rooftop, proclaiming, “Living ought to be something more magnificent. It’s so fantastic that just thinking about it makes you sigh, makes your blood rush. But if it’s like this… if that’s all it is, then I’ll cast it all aside. Any time, I’m ready to die!” It is in moments like this that Ryu is at his strongest, letting his passion run out over the page. He lends his passion to several of the supporting characters and even occasionally to the dully-virtuous Seiichiro, particularly in his encounters with elite courtesan, Takao, and in his art with the sword.

Unfortunately, some of that passion is marred by philosophies and biases that, while doubtlessly appropriate to the time period, are difficult not to find offensive today. Much of the novel’s philosophical emphasis is placed on the lifestyle and beliefs of the Kugutsu clan, a nomadic group of wandering puppeteers, who call themselves “companions of the way.” The Kugutsu pride themselves on their lack of worldly entanglements, and particularly on the strength and autonomy of their women, from whom many of the Yoshiwara courtesans were descended. It is difficult, however, to swallow a vision of female empowerment in which a woman’s liberty is measured only by the number of men she will share her bed with. The story constantly describes the power of women in the Yoshiwara society, yet in the midst of an impassioned explanation of how the women are able to come to Yoshiwara to “rinse away their origins” and escape from the persecution of their clans, it is revealed that they are indentured to the various houses in the pleasure quarter (all owned by men) until their 28th birthday, at which time they may choose to get married or to remain courtesans for the rest of their lives. That these women, shackled to a system that values them only for their skills in lovemaking, are held up as the pinnacle of female beauty and sovereignty is inexpressibly sad.

Though The Blade of the Courtesans offers a level of historical detail that anyone with an interest in Japanese culture would find genuinely fascinating, its difficulties as a fictional narrative are many, rendering it an ultimately unsatisfying read.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

A few links on a sick day

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I’m battling illness and stabbing blindly at a difficult review, so just a little link-blogging from me today!

First of all, I keep re-reading Ed Sizemore’s review of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys and find myself desperately wanting to read the manga. This has shot straight to the top of my to-buy list. Ed’s reviews are always very much from the heart, and it’s obvious how much he enjoyed this manga. Example number 100,000,347 of How Reviews Sell Manga.

Speaking of reviews selling manga, check out Michelle’s recent review of classic shojo manga A,A’. Made me want to buy that too!

At Manga Recon’s recent roundtable, the bunch of us talked about our hopes and fears for film adaptations of manga. I piped up in favor of adapting shorter, less-popular series that could grab someone other than the usual action flick crowd. Not that I expect that will ever, ever happen.

So, has everyone been following the conversation about manga at Hooded Utilitarian? I’ve avoided dwelling on it too much, because I keep getting angry, but one point rings true. I haven’t ever been able to get deep into western comics, and one of the reasons, I think, is that I find them visually overwhelming. So aside from the inaccurate (and insulting) aspect of the argument that simple = simplistic, I think there is something to the fact that I am a manga reader at least in part because the art is easier for me to follow. That is not the only reason by far, nor is it the biggest reason (which is actually that I find the stories being told in manga much more to my taste), but it is definitely a factor.

ETA: Of course I realize now that most of what I just said there has already been said much more eloquently and with less vitriol by Brigid Alverson.

Okay, gotta go. Be sure to check out Deanna’s post from earlier today!