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Bringing the Drama: Rooftop Prince

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Rooftop Prince is available for streaming on Hulu, Viki, and Dramafever.

ANNA: I just finished watching the first episode of Rooftop Prince and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. There were so many elements that were all over the place, it is difficult to summarize!

The Rooftop Prince, His Retainers, and Their Tracksuits

There are two parallel stories set hundreds of years apart, cast with the same actors. Is everybody time traveling, or are we looking at some odd cases of reincarnation?

In the present day, Se Na reacts badly when her mother remarries, providing her with a new sister, Park Ha. Se Na torments her little sister, and eventually causes her to become lost. Park Ha grows up in the United States with no memory of her previous family. She finds out that her father was looking for her and travels back to Korea in time to attend his funeral. She’s reunited with her stepmother and evil older stepsister.

The two sisters also exist in the past, with the older one about to be passed over as a candidate for crown princess in favor of the younger one. A horrible accident (or was it?) results in the younger sister being scarred. The older sister becomes crown princess. The crown prince Lee Gak is extremely charming and light-hearted, but when he wakes up to find that his princess has drowned in the middle of the night, he becomes overcome with grief. Determined to find out the truth behind his wife’s death, he puts together an investigative supergroup consisting of a scholar, warrior, and a fabulously fashionable eunuch.

In the present, a rich young man named Tae Yong who closely resembles the crown prince notices Park Ha, but he doesn’t ask her out. He’s betrayed by his cousin and drowns. Two years later, the crown prince and his retainers show up in Park Ha’s apartment. I think I’ve covered everything! What were your thoughts on the first episode?

EVA: You guys promised me a comedy! What the heck, man. The older sister isn’t funny, she’s evil! Awesomely evil, true, but still. Not a comedy!

In all seriousness, though, episode one is full of all the reasons why I usually give a series three chances before committing myself. It is clunky, disjointed, and not at all funny. Because the two storylines, one taking place in the Joseon era and the other in modern day, jump back and forth with no explanation, it’s hard to know if we’re dealing with a case of reincarnation or of doppelgangers. All I know for sure is, if it hadn’t been for the last scene where the prince and his retainers appear in the rooftop apartment after being sucked through a lunar eclipse after fleeing from Korean ninjas (that’s right, Korean ninjas), I’d have thought this show was going to be a straight up mystery.

The Rooftop Prince Scooby Gang

ANNA: I agree that the first episode was a bit confusing. I had no idea what to make of the doppelgangers, and the storylines seemed to tilt towards the tragic with all the bullying and death going on. The sudden switch of tone towards the end of the first episode where the prince forms his supergroup of retainers made me hope for much better things for the second episode, and I found myself liking it much better.

EMILY: Episode 1 was a lot more serious than the plot description I’d originally read of the series, but it is obvious that the whole episode is intended as set up for the hijinks to ensue later. The episode bounces back and forth between the story of a Joseon King, his beautiful Crown Princess, her scarred sister, and the story of modern reincarnations of the same people. Or are they reincarnations? There are a lot of questions and mysteries set up in the first episode. There are also two murder mysteries being set up. One in the past and one in the present. But they both have interesting twists. In the past, we aren’t entirely certain who the victim is, though it’s pretty much assumed to be the Crown Princess. Also, we don’t know who the killer is, though one piece of evidence points to an unlikely suspect. As for the accidental murder in the present, we know who the culprit is, but we aren’t entirely sure the victim is dead and not doing some sort of time-travel thing instead. You never know.

I enjoyed the first episode, and didn’t have any problems following the intertwined plots. I think Micky Yoochun is doing a great job in his role of the time-jumping King. His acting is a lot more animated than I’ve seen it in past dramas, and he sounds very funny with his historical accent (er, not that I’m one to judge Korean accents). I also must say, Micky looks fantastic in historical garb. He should stick to historical dramas forever and ever. Or at least, always wear that hat. I can see it now—Micky in some drama playing a lawyer, but wearing the historical hat. It would be awesome, I tell you.

Episode 1 ends right when things start to get funny, as our Joseon King and his sidekicks end up in a modern rooftop apartment. OF COURSE they land in a rooftop apartment. Given how often they appear in kdramas, the odds were fairly evenly split between them landing in a rooftop apartment, or a plush penthouse suite in a hotel. For comedic value, they obviously go for the rooftop.

Episode 2 promises to be very silly :)

Is it an elevator or a changing room? The modern world is so confusing!

ANNA: What did people think of episode 2? I liked the way it focused on the main thing I enjoyed in the first episode, the Joseon King and his merry band of sidekicks. Putting them in different colored tracksuits for modern dress was inspired, and there were so many funny moments when they were trying to learn how to survive in the modern world.

EVA: Well, I both enjoyed it and didn’t enjoy it. I loved the track suits and hated the slapstick. (I have a very low tolerance for slapstick.) I loved the hate/hate relationship that forms between Lee Gak and Park Ha, but hated how long it took Lee Gak to figure out that he has traveled through time. And, man, is Park Ha’s sister evil. Eeeeeeevil.

Here’s the thing: I know it sounds like I’m doing nothing but whine and complain about this show, but I’m actually enjoying it. I just wish I didn’t have to put my brain on hold to do so. Sure, this is a comedy and most situations are going to be played for laughs. But my ability to suspend disbelief is being sorely tested. As the series progresses through the first four episodes, Lee Gak is way too slow on the uptake. I’ll grant that it takes him a while to figure out the whole time travel/doppelganger thing, but don’t you think that once he understands that there is a guy in this world who looks just like him he’d be able to open his mind wide enough to embrace the possibility that there might also be a person in this world who looks just like the princess? Considering how quickly he grasped the concept of television, this shouldn’t have been such a stretch.

The other thing that’s bugging me are the merry henchmen. In episode one they were described to be intelligent, crafty free-thinkers. Sure, okay, they’re loyal to their king, but once they realized a) there isn’t a king in modern day Korea, b) their constant kowtowing draws a lot of unwanted attention, and c) that their best chance of returning to their time depends on the kindness of strangers, that they’d start trying to fit in? While I love the comedic aspects of the merry henchmen, I do wish they’d start living up to their potential.

A trunk full of adorable merry henchmen

ANNA: Overall, I’m enjoying this drama although it seems to reel me in gradually. I think that anyone considering watching it has to view at least the first two episodes because they are so different in tone. I didn’t feel truly hooked on this series until the very end of episode 4, where we see the dramatic tension of the show ratcheted way up as the whole reincarnation storyline that was introduced in the first series was finally addressed.

I liked the storyline with Park Ha’s business and the henchmen being willing to help out so much. I’m wondering what sort of outfits they will have to wear next, since they’ve already been in tracksuits and furry mascot costumes. After 4 episodes, Micky Yoochun’s performance is really starting to grow on me, and I can see why Emily is such a fan. The time-traveling prince is a tough role to pull off, and it looks like there will be plenty of challenging scenes ahead after the end of episode 4. While I’ve enjoyed this series, I think it took 4 episodes for me to become enthusiastic about it. I watched the first 4 episodes gradually over time, but with the twist scene at the end of 4 (even though it was a bit predictable), I can definitely see myself marathoning the next few episodes as soon as I get time to watch more.

EMILY: I’m having a hard time containing my thoughts to episodes 1-4 because I have gone ahead and watched all the episodes that are out now and am current :) I’m enjoying the show very much. It seems to have several mini story arcs. It begins serious, and then shifts to ridiculous for several episodes, as our spoiled prince and his color-coded Joseon Power Rangers adjust themselves to our times. This is played up for maximum silliness, as the writers find not just the major things (cars, elevators, etc) to baffle our time-travelers with, but also a lot of small details of modern life that we take for granted. From putting out a fire by spitting toilet water, to the deliciousness of omelet rice, to the fabulous black card that will let the prince buy anything (oh, the power of chaebol credit limits) there is a lot to get used to in our time. But once the hilarity ends, things start to take a more serious turn as the murder mystery heats up, the Prince finds his Princess, the villains step up their scheming, and romance begins to bloom. Through all of it, I like the chemistry between Park Ha and the Prince, the antics of the Power Rangers are endearing (poor lovelorn blue ranger), and I don’t even mind the obligatory kdrama Birth Secret that pops up. I will say that the villains in this series are in the running for worst villains ever. She, because of her skill at lying and ability to make me want to poke her eyes out, and him because of his total ineptitude. I don’t think he could manage to kill anyone even if he aimed and shot a gun directly at their heart.

I really look forward to how this drama will play out.

The Rooftop Prince wears a Texas Tuxedo

ANNA: I think you’re right about the series functioning in mini story arcs, as I can see a new arc developing at the end of episode 4 and start of episode 5. In some ways I like that structure because having the story presented in 3-4 episode bursts makes it easy to stop and start the series if you don’t have the time to watch the whole thing at once. I think I will be watching the entire series, even though I’m not going to be able to get through it as quickly as Emily.

EVA: I am glad you two have enjoyed what you’ve seen of the show so far, but the more I think about it, the more sure I become that I don’t need to see the rest of the episodes. Yeah, Mickey’s character begins to grow and the plot begins to thicken, but all the silliness has pulled me out of the story enough times that I don’t think I want to dive back in.

ANNA: So Rooftop Prince is a good show if you enjoy your kdramas with family angst mixed with slapstick, but not so great if you find yourself with a low tolerance for silly men dressed in tracksuits. Have you watched this show yet? What did you think?

Oishinbo A La Carte, Vol. 2 (Sake)

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By Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Big Comic Spirits. Released in North America by Viz.

It’s time for the Oishinbo Manga Moveable Feast, and though I had already reviewed the final volume a long time ago (see sidebar), I thought that I would take this time to revisit another volume, one which got a lot of buzz when it first came out over here. That would be the one devoted to sake, Japan’s national alcoholic beverage. And so we get several chapters, including one long multipart epic, devoted to what makes good sake – and why so much of it these days is bad.

Given that Oishinbo is about singing the praises of Japanese food, it’s not particularly surprising that much of it involves praise for Japan in general. One chapter here involves a businessman who has been ‘Westernized’ and has to be reminded of the joys of good old Japanese cooking and liquor. That said, it’s rather startling how much of this volume is just ripping into Japan’s sake trade over and over again. I’ve no idea if things are the same these days (these chapters were written 15-25 years ago), but much is made over the fact that popular sake in Japan tends to be watered down in order to increase profit, and have additives such as charcoal and MSG. It can get fairly depressing.

That said, of course, you knock them down in order to build them up. We also get much praise of the good old-fashioned small-time sake brewer, still using pure ingredients with no additives and storing it properly to bring out the best flavor. There’s actually a lot of comparison with French wine, in a way that reminded me of The Drops of God – it’s noted that France would never treat its wine the way Japan does its sake.

In these Viz compilations, characterization usually falls by the wayside – the danger of working with a 108+ volume series – but we still get a good sense of the main players, which is important for a series like this. You have to sympathize with Yamaoka and Yuka, and care about their lives, as otherwise you’re left with nothing but a manga that lectures you. (Which, admittedly, it can sometimes be anyway.) Yamaoka shows off his cleverness in the final chapter, which reminds us that sake is still an alcohol, and that there are some people who abuse that. And Yuka really shines in the multi-part story, managing to sweet-talk Yamaoka’s father, Yuzan (this is actually a running thing in the series, and Yuka is very, very good at it – note Yuzan’s retainers giggling). There’s no romance here, but if you want that go lean Japanese and then buy the original Vol. 47, which has the wedding.

At the end of the day, though, the way to judge Oishinbo is by its ability to make you want to search out more. After this volume, I wanted some sake – just as I wanted to visit an Izakaya after the final Viz volume. Oishinbo may be about a battle between father and son, or a growing romance between colleagues, but that’s just the spice. The real meat of the manga is its love of food and its burning passion for it being cooked and served properly. And it’s something yoou can’t really get in North American Comics, either, though I’d love Batman’s recipe for crumble apple pie.

Slow train blogging

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I’m posting a little late today because I’m traveling from San Francisco to Boston by train this week; I’m writing this in the Denver station, aboard the California Zephyr, and I’ll switch to the Lake Shore Limited tomorrow in Chicago. I’m live-Tweeting the trip, if you’re interested.

If not, well, here’s the latest news:

I forgot why I liked Cromartie High School so much, but Jason Thompson reminded me in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

This month’s Manga Moveable Feast is a feast indeed—it celebrates Oishinbo and other food manga. Khursten Santos is hosting it at Otaku Champloo, and she kicks things off with an introduction to food manga, some interesting links, a spotlight piece on Oishinbo, and the recipe for a dish featured in Oishinbo.

The Manga Bookshelf bloggers discuss their Pick of the Week.

Erica Friedman has the latest Yuri Network News at Okazu.

DMP has released the cover t-shirt and poster design for their new edition of Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara, which was funded on Kickstarter.

Yen Press will adapt the Gaia Online game Monster Galaxy into a graphic novel.

The JManga folks announced via Twitter that they are working on an app for Android and iOS that will allow readers to download manga and read them offline. (Hat tip: ANN.)

Reviews: Johanna Draper Carlson posts some short reviews of recent shoujo manga at Comics Worth Reading. Ash Brown reflects on a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga. It’s time for a new round of Bookshelf Briefs at Manga Bookshelf.

Anna on vol. 4 of Dawn of the Arcana (Manga Report)
Lori Henderson on vol. 3 of Drops of God (Manga Xanadu)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 56 of Naruto (The Comic Book Bin)
Greg McElhatton on Rohan at the Louvre (Read About Comics)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 4 of Sailor Moon (ANN)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Until Death Do Us Part (The Manga Critic)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 2 of X (3-in-1 edition) (I Reads You)
Dave Ferraro on Young Miss Holmes Casebook 1-2 (Comics-and-More)

Pick of the Week: Flowers of Evil & other stories

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KATE: If you buy only one manga this week, make it The Flowers of Evil. I was fully prepared to hate this series with every fiber of my feminist being, as the plot summary made it sound like Sundome: The Revenge. What I discovered, however, is that Shuzo Oshimi is a far more accomplished storyteller than Kazuto Okada. Oshimi paints a sympathetic portrait of his hero, oddball bookworm Takao Kusuga; Kusuga is the kind of earnest kid who feels uncomfortable with normal boy stuff, but isn’t confident enough to ignore his peers’ snickering. Kusuga unwittingly becomes the toy of Sawa Nakamura, an angry, confused girl who threatens to expose Kusuga as a “pervert” unless he acquiesces to her demands. The dynamic between Kusuga and Nakamura is expertly rendered; though Nakamura’s motives for blackmailing Kusuga aren’t directly explained, we can see how important it is for her to find someone—anyone—her shares her predilections. A queasy yet fascinating exploration of teenage sexuality.

SEAN: When Yen press announced Until Death Do Us Part at NYCC, I was quite excited. For one thing, it was 15 volumes and still going, and I wasn’t expecting any more licenses of long series that weren’t Naruto-esque. For another, it simply feels like it will do well here. It has swordfighting, it has future prediction, and it has lots and lots of excitement and action. It may not win any prizes for depth, but that’s never stopped me before. And it’s an omnibus, so you get two volumes in one.

MICHELLE: Having not yet read The Flowers of Evil, and having probably touted Pandora Hearts a time or two in the past, I’ll cast my vote for the fifth volume of Saturn Apartments, from VIZ’s SigIkki lineup. I’ve described the series as a low-key dystopia, as it somehow manages to charm whilst depicting a pretty bleak future for humanity. It doesn’t come out very frequently, but when it does, it’s something to be happy about.

MJ: This week, I’m with Kate. While I’m certainly enthusiastic about new volumes of Nabari no Ou and Pandora Hearts, and I’m looking forward to checking out Puella Magi Madoka Magica, this week’s must-buy is The Flowers of Evil. As I mentioned in last week’s Off the Shelf, I went into volume one of The Flowers of Evil with the expectation that it was most likely Not For Me, but it rather emphatically was for me. As Kate indicates, it succeeds on the strength of its characterization, and the fact that both of its leads are immediately sympathetic, or at least relatable. This kind of honest storytelling is absolutely the key to my heart. This series is not to be missed.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 5/21/12

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This week, Sean, Kate, MJ, and Michelle look at recent releases from Yen Press, VIZ Media, Digital Manga Publishing, and Kodansha Comics.

Ai Ore!, Vol. 5 | By Mayu Shinjo | VIZ Media – I have completely given up on these characters – especially Mizuki – growing or learning from any of their experiences. And honestly, doing that makes it much easier to get into the groove of this melodramatic, silly manga. From Akira’s desperately trying to be taken seriously as a guy while wearing a kitty hoodie, to Mizuki’s over-the-top “MY WORLD IS ENDING!” reaction to her first fight with Akira, the situations here are made for amusement. Sure, there’s some soap opera dramatics – the fight I mentioned earlier – but even the serious backstory for Akira, where he reveals that his tutor once brought in an older woman to “make a man of him” – is played with its tongue in cheek. The ending seems to hint we may be seeing the return of “Dark Akira”, though – let’s hope he’s merely firm and seductive, and not the callous ass he was at the start. Fun stuff. –Sean Gaffney

Arata: The Legend, Vol. 10 | By Yuu Watase | VIZ Media – The latest installment of Arata: The Legend features body-swapping hijinks. Usually these kind of comic interludes are a sign that the artist is marking time between big fight scenes, but Yuu Watase uses this time-honored trick to advance the plot in a meaningful fashion, allowing Hinohara to infiltrate Yataka’s stronghold. The body-swapping gimmick also provides the characters an opportunity to reflect on their feelings for one another, giving us greater insight into Hinohara and Mikusa’s personalities. The only drawback to the out-of-character behavior is that it grants Watase license for fan service — something that the series doesn’t need to be funny or sexy. That minor gripe aside, Arata remains engrossing, finding the perfect middle ground between shojo angst and shonen action. Recommended. -Katherine Dacey

Hana-Kimi, Vols. 4-6 Omnibus | By Hisaya Nakajo | VIZ Media – A lot of this second omnibus deals with the class culture festival, where most of Mizuki’s class is dressing up in drag. This gives her an excuse to wear a dress most of the time, even if it’s as Alice in Wonderland. After a strong start, the author seems to have realized that the series will be a long one, so the actual romance between Mizuki and Sano isn’t moved forward as much. Instead, Nakatsu gets the focus, as he struggles with his repressed feelings for a “guy”. He’s mostly comedic, but I liked how he handled telling the girl who likes him that he was breaking it off – he’s a sweetie pie that sadly is doomed in a series like this. The addition of a female friend – as well as a new rival – for Mizuki is also welcome, and I look forward to the third and presumably last teaser omnibus. –Sean Gaffney

Itazura Na Kiss, Vol. 8 | By Kaoru Tada | Published by Digital Manga Publishing – There are times when Itazura Na Kiss is so frustrating, one wants to hurl it against the wall. Usually this is because the protagonist, Kotoko, is almost aggressively incompetent. In this latest volume, she has decided that what she wants to do is become a nurse and help Naoki with his medical practice, so she enrolls in nursing school with practically no idea what this will entail. Naoki is cutting in his criticism, as usual, but what’s interesting is that one of Kotoko’s classmates objects to how Naoki treats his wife and eventually presents himself as an alternative. Naoki, faced with jealous feelings for the first time, is thrown for a loop and it’s what he does to win Kotoko back that makes up for every bit of irritation caused by other elements of the series. Still recommended, despite its flaws! – Michelle Smith

Pandora Hearts, Vol. 10 | By Jun Mochizuki | Yen Press – While the series’ last few volumes have posed many more questions than they have answered, things finally come to a head here in volume ten. This volume is chock full of revelations, particularly regarding Gil and Vincent Nightray, and the atmosphere is tense in exactly the way that shows off Jun Mochizuki’s fast-paced storytelling style to its best advantage. Though crystal-clear plotting has never been Mochizuki’s strong point, clarity in the moment is, which is what makes a volume like this work so well. Panel-to-panel, she maps out these characters’ emotional truths so clearly that the text becomes nearly irrelevant to our understanding of their plights. That said, some of Mochizuki’s dialogue is so delightful (Xerxes Break owns my soul), it would be a tragedy to do without it. Still recommended. – MJ

Psyren, Vol. 4 | By Toshiaki Iwashiro | VIZ Media – I’m starting to enjoy this the more I get into it. The lead is likeable and talented while retaining that ‘everyman’ spirit, the cast isn’t too overpowered yet, and of course hard work is emphasized, as in the best Jump works. The introduction of the Elmore Wood kids is well-handled – they act like typical kids, ranging from bratty to shy to stoic. They help Ageha to figure out how to control his powers (well, we presume – we haven’t seen it in action just yet) by virtue of a simpler mindset and learning at a younger age. And, as a cliffhanger shows, they may be mankind’s last, best hope. Of course, they may all be killed at the start of the next volume, too. The only downside here is Kabuto, who lacks enough likeable traits to make a good comic relief character – you want him to fail. Otherwise, very good stuff. –Sean Gaffney

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Vol. 12 | By Koji Kumeta | Kodansha Comics – “We’ll have to start a new campaign with easier content so that even first-timers can understand Zetsubou-Sensei,” declares suicidal teacher Itoshiki Nozumu in the first pages of volume 12. What follows is a sharp, funny deconstruction of a common manga practice: the catch-up chapter. I wish the rest of the jokes in volume 12 were as accessible to a Western reader as “The First-Timer Condition,” but the intricate wordplay and cultural allusions often sailed over my head. (Word to the translator: I know what Comiket is! More explanation of the yakuza jokes and economic references, please!) Zetsubou-Sensei ought to be in my wheelhouse — there was a Stendahl joke in chapter 112, for Pete’s sake! — but requires too much explanation to elicit more than an appreciative, “Oh, I get it. Very clever.” -Katherine Dacey

Until Death Do Us Part, Vol. 1

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Until Death Do Us Part is a slickly packaged compendium of action movie tropes that reads like a story. That’s not to say it’s bad — it isn’t — but to warn you that you may experience a powerful sense of deja-vu as you thumb through its numerous shoot-outs, explosions, and speeches about terrorism.

The opening pages plunge us directly into the action: a solemn pre-teen girl leaps from a speeding car, accosts a blind man, and begs him to help her, promising him jewels and money in return for his assistance. That man, Mamorou, proves surprisingly adept at dispatching bad guys; he’s a modern-day Zaitoichi, using a pair of special goggles and a fine-edged sword to disarm Haruka’s captors, a group of thugs in the employ of the Ex Solid Corporation. (Which begs the question: how does such an ill-named company stay in business? But I digress.) Haruka’s ability to pick Mamorou from a crowd of thousands is no accident; like the pre-cogs in Minority Report, she has an uncanny ability to predict the future. For several years, she used that power to enrich her family — mostly by playing scratch tickets — but now she finds herself running from several powerful organizations, each of whom sees her precognition as a tool for advancing their own interests.

Whether Until Death‘s similarities to The Professional, Mission: Impossible, Minority Report, and the entire oeuvre of Jason Statham are intentional is difficult to say; some of the plots skirt the line between theft and homage. Mamorou’s fellow crime fighters, in particular, seem like IMF recruits, as they’re armed to the teeth with the latest spy technology and weaponry — an incredible feat for an off-the-the-grid vigilante organization with no ties to the government or the mob. (Just in case we don’t fully appreciate how awesome this weaponry is, there are several scientists on hand to explain in excruciating detail how they work.) The sheer abundance of borrowed characters and story lines, however, work in Death‘s favor, with no single borrowing overpowering the resulting fusion of sensibilities.

Like many action manga, the artwork tacks between static scenes of talking heads — usually imparting some key points of information about a bad guy’s history, or describing a hypothetical technology — and kinetic scenes of bone-crunching violence. Though the fights aren’t as inventively staged as a John Woo shoot-out, DOUBLE-S wins points for carefully delineating the space in which the gun battles unfold; the reader is conscious of how walls, objects, and sight lines influence the outcome of those battles. DOUBLE-S is overly enamored of slo-mo bullets — a visual gimmick so overused in the last fifteen years it’s become a parodic gesture — but he uses it to good effect, demonstrating how swiftly Mamorou moves, and how precisely his blade slices through solid objects:

Mamorou slices bullets with his scientifically modified katana.

DOUBLE-S has several other nifty tricks up his sleeve as well. In one of the manga’s recurring visual gambits, DOUBLE-S shows us how Mamorou perceives his environment through his special goggles:

A Tokyo street as viewed through Mamorou’s goggles.

Though the characters are recognizable in their computer-enhanced form, they have a spectral quality to them; if anything, they resemble echoes or after-images, rather than corporeal entities. The artist’s quick cuts between Mamorou’s perspective and ours neatly underscores how much Mamorou must rely on his other senses to give these incomplete forms flesh and blood: how else could he be so devastating, given the limitations of his goggles?

Perhaps the best compliment I could give Death‘s creators is to note the skill with which it recycles familiar action-movie conventions. We’ve seen Death‘s characters and plots and scientifically implausible weapons in other stories, but Hiroshi Takashige and DOUBLE-S stitch them together in such a fashion that the seamwork is almost invisible. The resulting manga isn’t original, exactly, but it has enough style and integrity to engage the reader’s interest, making it an agreeable beach or airplane companion.

Review copy provided by Yen Press.

UNTIL DEATH DO US PART, VOL. 1 • STORY BY HIROSHI TAKASHIGE, ART BY DOUBLE-S • YEN PRESS • 448 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Until Death Do Us Part, Vol. 1

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Until Death Do Us Part is a slickly packaged compendium of action movie tropes that reads like a story. That’s not to say it’s bad — it isn’t — but to warn you that you may experience a powerful sense of deja-vu as you thumb through its numerous shoot-outs, explosions, and speeches about terrorism.

The opening pages plunge us directly into the action: a solemn pre-teen girl leaps from a speeding car, accosts a blind man, and begs him to help her, promising him jewels and money in return for his assistance. That man, Mamorou, proves surprisingly adept at dispatching bad guys; he’s a modern-day Zaitoichi, using a pair of special goggles and a fine-edged sword to disarm Haruka’s captors, a group of thugs in the employ of the Ex Solid Corporation. (Which begs the question: how does such an ill-named company stay in business? But I digress.) Haruka’s ability to pick Mamorou from a crowd of thousands is no accident; like the pre-cogs in Minority Report, she has an uncanny ability to predict the future. For several years, she used that power to enrich her family — mostly by playing scratch tickets — but now she finds herself running from several powerful organizations, each of whom sees her precognition as a tool for advancing their own interests.

Whether Until Death‘s similarities to The Professional, Mission: Impossible, Minority Report, and the entire oeuvre of Jason Statham are intentional is difficult to say; some of the plots skirt the line between theft and homage. Mamorou’s fellow crime fighters, in particular, seem like IMF recruits, as they’re armed to the teeth with the latest spy technology and weaponry — an incredible feat for an off-the-the-grid vigilante organization with no ties to the government or the mob. (Just in case we don’t fully appreciate how awesome this weaponry is, there are several scientists on hand to explain in excruciating detail how they work.) The sheer abundance of borrowed characters and story lines, however, work in Death‘s favor, with no single borrowing overpowering the resulting fusion of sensibilities.

Like many action manga, the artwork tacks between static scenes of talking heads — usually imparting some key points of information about a bad guy’s history, or describing a hypothetical technology — and kinetic scenes of bone-crunching violence. Though the fights aren’t as inventively staged as a John Woo shoot-out, DOUBLE-S wins points for carefully delineating the space in which the gun battles unfold; the reader is conscious of how walls, objects, and sight lines influence the outcome of those battles. DOUBLE-S is overly enamored of slo-mo bullets — a visual gimmick so overused in the last fifteen years it’s become a parodic gesture — but he uses it to good effect, demonstrating how swiftly Mamorou moves, and how precisely his blade slices through solid objects:

Mamorou slices bullets with his scientifically modified katana.

DOUBLE-S has several other nifty tricks up his sleeve as well. In one of the manga’s recurring visual gambits, DOUBLE-S shows us how Mamorou perceives his environment through his special goggles:

A Tokyo street as viewed through Mamorou's goggles.

Though the characters are recognizable in their computer-enhanced form, they have a spectral quality to them; if anything, they resemble echoes or after-images, rather than corporeal entities. The artist’s quick cuts between Mamorou’s perspective and ours neatly underscores how much Mamorou must rely on his other senses to give these incomplete forms flesh and blood: how else could he be so devastating, given the limitations of his goggles?

Perhaps the best compliment I could give Death‘s creators is to note the skill with which it recycles familiar action-movie conventions. We’ve seen Death‘s characters and plots and scientifically implausible weapons in other stories, but Hiroshi Takashige and DOUBLE-S stitch them together in such a fashion that the seamwork is almost invisible. The resulting manga isn’t original, exactly, but it has enough style and integrity to engage the reader’s interest, making it an agreeable beach or airplane companion.

Review copy provided by Yen Press.

UNTIL DEATH DO US PART, VOL. 1 • STORY BY HIROSHI TAKASHIGE, ART BY DOUBLE-S • YEN PRESS • 448 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Weekend update

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I have the latest picks from this week’s new manga releases at MTV Geek; new Saturn Apartments makes me so happy! Lissa Pattillo gives her take in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA. Sean Gaffney has the scoop on next week’s new manga.

At The Comics Journal, Ryan Holmberg has a fascinating essay about Osamu Tezuka, Mickey Mouse, and kakihan, a method of reproduction used by low-quality publishers in the 1940s, and how that played into issues of appropriation and authenticity.

In digital news, ANN has the scoop on the nine new volumes going up on JManga next week.

Laur Uy has an interview up with Cassandra Jean, the artist of the Yen Press adaptation Beautiful Creatures.

Tony Yao discusses the importance of good storytelling in manga at Manga Therapy.

Derek Bown considers the entire run of Bleach in his latest Combat Commentary at Manga Bookshelf.

The Japanese publisher Enterbrain has put out a trailer promoting the upcoming volume of A Bride’s Story; it’s in Japanese, but the art looks good in any language.

News from Japan: The social-media project “Social Kingdom” invites the public to redraw a panel of the manga Kingdom; anyone with a Twitter or Facebook account can participate, and the organizers hope to set the world record for the largest number of collaborators on a single manga. Add Black God to the list of manga series that are winding up in the next few weeks. The 4-koma manga The Comic Artist and His Assistants, by Doujin Work creator Hiroyuki, is also coming to an end. Salaryman Kintaro manga-ka Hiroshi Motomiya is launching a new series in the same spirit, featuring the son of Kintaro. The organizers of Comitia are planning a foreign comics festival to be held jointly with Comitia in November. Gato Asou, the character designer for the upcoming film 009 Re:Cyborg, will draw a three-volume manga adaptation as well. The film is loosely based on the classic Cyborg 009 manga. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: MJ and Michelle Smith discuss some old and new releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

Ash Brown on vol. 9 of Blade of the Immortal (Experiments in Manga)
LCMoran on vols. 1-6 of Can’t Lose You (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Connie on vol. 1 of A Devil and Her Love Song (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Durarara!! (Manga Xanadu)
Chris Beveridge on Honey Darling (The Fandom Post)
TSOTE on vol. 11 of Moyashimon (Three Steps Over Japan)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 62 of One Piece (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Anna on vol. 9 of Oresama Teacher (Manga Report)
Bill Sherman on Rohan at the Louvre (Blogcritics)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Saturn Apartments (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 18 of Slam Dunk (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sakura Eries on vol. 6 of Spice & Wolf (The Fandom Post)
Patricia Beard on vol. 1 of Tenka Ichi!! (The Fandom Post)

One Piece, Vol. 62

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

Now that the gang is back together, we are off to Fishman Island. No, really! Really and truly, they do finally arrive at Fishman Island this time. Which sort of ends up being a mixed blessing, I will admit. I’m afraid that Fishman Island’s arc is similar to Skypeia and Thriller Bark – you like it more on a re-read, but at the time, it just annoyed you. Still, being annoyed by One Piece is still superior to being entertained by other, lesser shonen series.

Of course, first we have to get to the island, which is not as easy as it sounds. This is the better half of this volume, with each of the crew showing off why they’re awesome – everyone gets to fight (except Nami, whose navigation skills are what’s awesome here), we get another dumb goofy villain who actually seems to have more staying power than we expect, and Luffy tames a kraken. Of course he does.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Fishman Island is not quite as welcoming as you would have expected given our adventures with Cammie and Hachi. It turns out that the island was under protection by Whitebeard, and with him gone, power balances are quickly shifting. Another of the Four Emperors – Big Mom – is supposedly protecting them now, but this seems more like mafia protection than anything else. What’s more, the issues of prejudice – on both sides – that we’ve seen before in the Arlong and Sabaody arcs are still around, and there’s some particular nastiness when it becomes very hard to find a blood donor for Sanji, who is dying due to idiocy.

No, I won’t ever stop complaining about this. I will give Oda credit – when he decided to overuse a dumb idea, he really goes all out – but I still hate Sanji’s complete incompetence around women, even if you do acknowledge that he was on the okama island for two years. We see everyone else’s flaws here as well – including Nami’s lust for money, which hadn’t come up in a while – but it’s just harder to take with Sanji nosebleeding all over the place. Even if he is surrounded by gorgeous mermaids.

Having arrived at Fishman Island, our heroes are escorted to King Neptune and his beautiful daughter, but there’s already a conspiracy against them, as the local fortune teller has said Luffy will bring ruin to Fishman Island. Sounds like one of those self-fulfilling prophecies to me, honestly. A bigger problem is that we’re simply introduced to too many characters too fast here – there’s at least 20 new characters, each with boxes giving names and what time of Fishman they are – and there’s simply no way to know at this point who we have to be paying attention to. Well, except for Hody Jones, who appears to be the villain of the arc so far.

On a side note, the last cover page shows Makino with a baby?!?! Oh Oda, why you gotta destroy the Shanks/Makino shipper dreams? :)

There’s lots of cool action here, and some fun goofy humor. I also like that Oda is not forgetting about Nami’s past – there’s a great shot of her shuddering when she sees one pirate has an Arlong tattoo. But the arc is a bit too new to see where the plot is going, and thus this whole volume ends up being a bit more confusing than I think it really deserved to be. Hopefully next time we’ll see Jimbei and things will begin to get knit together.

Off the Shelf: Ode to Lionel Richie

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MJ: Hello, hello!

MICHELLE: Is it me you’re looking for?

MJ: Heh. Yes. Though now I’m a little embarrassed about it.

MICHELLE: I had the sheet music to “Say You, Say Me,” if that makes you feel any better.

MJ: It does, it does. So. What have you been reading this week?

MICHELLE: Well, as promised, I undertook a marathon read of We Were There in order to finally get current with the series (now up to volume 14 in English). I must admit that I’m still kind of gathering my thoughts from the experience. But the thing that sticks in my head from when you talked about this volume last week is “That’s how you write a shoujo manga!” and I find that I couldn’t agree more.

There were several twists along the way that I totally didn’t expect, and I shan’t spoil them here, but I will say that I kind of love where the characters are at the moment, even though it’s pretty heartbreaking for some of them. I feel like mangaka Yuki Obata does an especially good job making readers understand exactly why Yano has the living situation he does without coming right out and saying, “it’s atonement.” I must also sing her praises in regards the “show, don’t tell” method of storytelling—in the volumes leading up to this one, we’d seen Yano referred to as kind but cold, and to see him so visibly, demonstrably moved in this volume shows how deeply he still loves Takahashi.

If I had any complaint at all, it would be that I could write multiple paragraphs about Yano, a couple of paragraphs about steadfast Takeuchi, and perhaps a sentence or two about Takahashi, the heroine. It’s not that she’s a flat character, exactly, but she is somewhat of an angelic figure, the only one who can heal Yano’s hurt. It struck me today that we see far more of a supporting character’s family than we ever see of hers!

Ultimately, I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed catching up with this series, and how much I look forward to the final two volumes.

MJ: I feel like I could really write a lot about Takahashi, but maybe it’s just because I identified with her so strongly early on in the story. I suppose I feel like I *know* her in some way, despite the fact that she’s not as obviously fleshed-out. I could write a book about Takeuchi, though, mostly because I feel so freaking SORRY FOR HIM. Poor Takeuchi.

Seriously, though, this is a great shoujo manga.

MICHELLE: I definitely identify with her on some levels, to be sure. And man, Takeuchi. There are some especially painful moments for him in volume 14, too. I keep hoping he’ll get together with Sengenji in the end, but that’s a little bit Marmalade Boy.

Anyways, what have you been reading this week?

MJ: Well, first I read volume one of Shuzo Oshimi’s The Flowers of Evil, a new shounen series from Vertical. With the back cover tagline, “Aren’t you a perv too?” I wasn’t sure this would be a good fit for me, but I actually liked it quite a bit.

Kasuga is a bookish middle schooler who buries himself in Baudelaire poetry while admiring his pretty classmate, Saeki, from afar. One day after school, he finds himself alone in his classroom, along with Saeki’s gym bag, and impulsively steals her gym clothes to take home with him. He regrets this action pretty much right away, but by the time he has an opportunity to try to put the clothes back, the whole class is buzzing about a clothes-stealing pervert. Worse still, the class outcast, a foul-mouthed girl named Nakamura, saw him steal the clothes, and is using the information to blackmail him into hanging out with her.

Nakamura is obsessed with Kasuga’s bad deed, and with the idea of seeing Kasuga act out his fantasies (or what she imagines to be his fantasies) with the clothes, and she’s enough of a bully to get under his skin with it all, especially after Kasuga actually scores a date with his dream girl. This aspect of the story gives it a fetish-y feel, similar to something like Sundome, though the vibe is a bit different than that series, since the girl who’s controlling the hero isn’t the object of his sexual fantasies (at least not yet). If anything, it seems like she’s drawn to him mostly because she’s relieved to find out that she’s not the only person in her class having “perverted” thoughts, which is sort of heartwarming in an odd way.

What really makes this story work for me, is that both Kasuga and Nakamura are sympathetic characters, whose personal failures and perversions really ring true for their age. It’s hard not to relate to the boy who is aware that his obsession with foreign poetry is based in a kind of desperate pretension, but can’t stop himself from embracing that anyway, or the unpopular girl who is so grateful to find that she’s not all alone with her sexual fantasies, and can’t quite keep herself from wanting to know more, even if she has to be a bully to get it.

It may be too early to say this, but while I never would have recommended Sundome to *you*, Michelle, I think I actually might recommend The Flowers of Evil. And I certainly recommend it to everyone else.

MICHELLE: Yeah, I just don’t know. I’m a little intrigued and a little hesitant. I may just have to bolster my courage and give it a go.

MJ: I can at least reassure you that the first volume is very tame, sexually, so testing the waters should be relatively risk-free.

So what else have you got for us this week?

MICHELLE: To give a little bit of contrast to We Were There, I opted for another shoujo love story now in its fourteenth volume, Karuho Shiina’s Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You.

Despite a few superficial similarities—the protagonists live in Hokkaido, there’s a girl named Takahashi and a somewhat inscrutable character named Yano…—the depiction of first love in these series could not be more different, with the sweetness of Kimi ni Todoke offering a bit of brain balm after the more-or-less realistic drama of We Were There.

The premise of the series is that Sawako Kuronuma has always unintentionally scared her classmates with her spooky behavior and resemblance to a horror movie character, but has now finally made a couple of good friends and found love with the popular Shota Kazehaya. The fourteenth volume finds the main characters on a school trip to Okinawa, and while Sawako and Kazehaya come reeeeeeally close to sharing their first kiss, and it’s all very adorable, the really emotional moments belong to her two friends.

Most of the time, tomboyish Chizu is rather ditzy, but when she realizes that her childhood friend, Ryu, likes someone and hasn’t told her who it is, it really bothers her. She is genuinely shocked to learn that she is the object of his affections, but the volume ends before she can really begin to process the information. Even more affecting is Ayane Yano’s failed attempt to fall in love—seeing her two friends confess their love in recent volumes (Chizu has long had a thing for Ryu’s brother) made this mature and rather private girl yearn to experience love, and when a boy in another class asked her out, she said yes, thinking she might be swept away on the tide of his feelings for her. Alas, things don’t go as planned, and she ends the volume in tears.

I love that a character as complex as Ayane exists in the realm of shoujo manga, usually populated by girls who don’t think much before they speak, and find myself rooting for her happiness even more strongly than I do for the main characters, now that they seem to be on the path to happily ever after. I wonder if Yuki Obata and Karuho Shiina are in secret communication and Ayane is, like, Motoharu’s long-lost cousin or something.

MJ: I’m a few volumes behind in this series, but I love the fact that its cheerful sweetness manages to feel just as rich and emotionally true as the delicate melancholy of We Were There—thanks largely to the awesomeness of Chizu and Ayane. I’m a real sucker for female friendship in manga, and these two are the greatest example of that since Fruits Basket‘s Uotani and Hanajima. I’m so glad to hear there’s so much of them in volume fourteen.

MICHELLE: I am sure that Chizu and Ayane would totally be friends with Uotani and Hanajima. Not only that, the four of them would look on proudly as Tohru and Sawako tentatively became friends.

What else did you read this week?

MJ: This week, I also read volume one of Kyudo Boys, a series of short shoujo manga by Keiko Nishi, available from JManga. I say “shoujo,” because the stories are school-based, and it ran in Wings, but for the record, JManga classifies it as josei.

The stories all revolve around the members of a high school archery club—both male and female members. Some of the stories are romantic, like one about a boy who can’t decide whether he has a crush on a new girl or her twin brother, or a later story (one of my personal favorites) about an archery nerd who discovers that it’s his very nerdishness that makes him attractive to a pretty team member. I should note, however, that not all the stories are romances, and even the ones that are, are more concerned with exploring the idiosyncrasies of their subjects than reaching any kind of romantic conclusion. I love romance—we all know that—but even I have to admit that it’s refreshing to read a shoujo manga in a school setting that isn’t playing by those rules.

Short stories have never been my favorite format for manga, but these make the best of their brevity, by focusing on small moments and embracing an open-ended feel. Nishi never gets too ambitious. She doesn’t rush. She presents us with a few deft snapshots that let us feel like we’ve really gotten to know and love these students, without ever giving us too much to handle, story-to-story. Her artwork is charming, and relatively sparse, with a light touch that matches the breezy tone of the book overall.

Though it may seem like I don’t have a lot to say about this manga, the truth is, it’s simply charming. It’s a very satisfying light read, and I’d recommend it without question.

MICHELLE: I’ve definitely had Kyudo Boys on my radar as a candidate for a future Going Digital column. That’s largely because Keiko Nishi was responsible for some of the first josei to hit American shores. Like you, I’m not particularly into short stories, but I am definitely, definitely down with idiosyncratic romance!

MJ: Unlike Flowers of Evil, I can *wholeheartedly* recommend this series to you. It’s absolutely your kind of manga.

MICHELLE: That’s good to know!