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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Volume 1

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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Volume One by Naoko Takeuchi

Sailor Moon is back in print! When I was reading these new editions from Kodansha I decided to start chronologically, so I read Sailor V first and Sailor Moon second. It is interesting seeing the contrasts in character present from the first few pages. In Sailor V, Mina gets in trouble for attempting a daring gymnastics move. In Sailor Moon, Usagi is running off to school with tears in her eyes from dismay at being late. Usagi is presented as the typical not very bright, somewhat ditsy shoujo heroine that most manga readers will be familiar with. But part of the reason why I like Sailor Moon so much is that Takeuchi does manage a couple subtle spins on the well-worn formula that she’s working with.

Usagi has a fateful encounter with a mysterious cat, then goes to school for a typical day. She gets punished and gossips with her classmates about Sailor V. She visits the jewelry store belonging to the family of her friend Naru. Outside, she throws one of her abysmal school papers into the face of a boy wearing a tuxedo and sunglasses. She thinks he’s a pretentious jerk for being so dressed up during the day, and he tells her to “study harder Miss bun-head!” IT IS TRUE LOVE! Later that evening the mysterious cat Luna visits Usagi and tells her that she’s been chosen to be a guardian. She gets her magical girl accessories and the phrase that triggers her transformation sequence (Moon Prism Power Make Up!) and she is off to fight the forces of evil at the jewelry store. This first chapter shows how Takeuchi’s storytelling has improved in contrast to Sailor V. By starting out with an enemy that could be directly hurting one of her friends, there’s more dramatic tension in Sailor Moon as opposed to the endless progression of pop idols that Sailor V fights. Of course, Usagi as Sailor Moon barely fights at all on her first outing. She halfway thinks that she’s dreaming and is surprised that she’s getting hurt, then she reacts to the fight by throwing a tearful temper tantrum. Fortunately her tiara boomerang vanquishes her enemy, and she finds out that she’s being watched by a mysterious man who introduces himself as Tuxedo Mask and says “Sailor Moon, I’ll certainly take note of you.”

Now that Usagi’s general situation is set up, she has to deal with Luna’s demands that she train and gather allies. There are other sailor scouts out there and Usagi has to collect them all (like Pokemon!) while struggling with her feelings for Tuxedo Mask and her own ineptitude. Usagi’s companions are generally in some way more capable than her, but you can see how their different personality traits would contribute to the formation of a good team. Sailor Mercury is a teen genius. Sailor Mars has the moral certainty of a shrine maiden. Sailor Jupiter is strong and brave. The sailor scouts are going after the “Legendary Silver Crystal”, as are their mystical enemies and Tuxedo Mask. Usagi is uncertain if Tuxedo Mask is an enemy or an ally, because while he certainly seems to appear often if she’s in the need of a rescue his motivations are unclear.

Takeuchi’s art seems to have grown a bit smoother when comparing Sailor Moon with Sailor V. The paneling is slightly more complex, although it is still a manga the focuses most on the faces of the characters without much attention paid on setting scenes or background images. The battles and team building in Sailor Moon seem to owe a lot to shonen manga, but being as girly as it is the battles involve costume changes and awesome battle cries instead of violence. While it might be pretty silly for girls to don sailor suits to fight evil, there’s a certain exuberant girl power vibe about the scenes when Sailor Moon and her allies line up to announce that their enemies are about to be punished. I do not know how it is possible not to love a manga that features a girl yelling “You will refrain from underestimating women! And with Mars Power, you will burn! These high-heeled legs will deliver your punishment!”

A Preliminary NYCC/NYAF Schedule

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So Comic-Con has released their panels and events schedule, and I’ve given it an initial glance. My first thought was that the folks who scheduled SDCC also scheduled this: it’s really top heavy, with Friday being insane and Saturday and Sunday being far more normal. And I’ll be there this year as Press, covering the event for Manga Bookshelf, A Case Suitable for Treatment, and freedom.

So here is what I have scheduled, bearing in mind that I’ve no doubt missed something important, I will have to eat at some point (veal parm sub lunch with Erica!), and that a couple of these will be “Sorry, already full” turned away at the door sort of panels.

FRIDAY

11am – 12 noon: Unusual Manga Genres

12:15pm – 1:15pm: Yen Press Industry Panel

1:30pm – 2:30pm: Dark Horse 25th Anniversary Panel

2:45pm – 3:45pm: Funimation Industry Panel

4:15pm – 5:15pm: Venture Brothers Panel

6:30pm – 7:30pm: Kodansha Industry Panel (with Hiro Mashima)

7:45pm – 8:45pm: XX: The Women of Queer Comics

8:45pm – 9:45pm: Vertical Industry Panel

As you can see, after this schedule I will basically be DEAD. Karaoke? Hah. I also fully expect I will be unable to get into the Venture Brothers panel. And I’ll see if I can feel out Dark Horse: if they have few to no manga announcements, I may go to Del Rey’s book panel instead. But hey, I have an hour for dinner! Bonus!

SATURDAY

10:45am – 11:45am: Bandai Industry Panel

1:30pm – 2:30pm: Archie Comics Industry Panel

5pm – 7:15pm: Fairy Tail Panel

7:30pm – 8:30pm: CBLDF: Defensing Manga

As you can see, a much saner day, with loads of free time to actually do other things. As with last year’s Durarara!! panel, if the FT panel is just cosplay and videos and squee, I may skip out. Also, I will do my best this year to avoid the hyper guy at the Bandai panel demanding moe blobs (no, I’m not exaggerating).

SUNDAY

FUNNY CARS!

10:45am – 11:45am: Viz Media Industry Panel

2pm – 3pm: Classic Warner Bros./Hanna-Barbera Cartoons Going Blu-Ray

As you can see (gotta have it in threes or it’s not jazz), this is the quietest day, which is good as I expect I will need to conserve ergs and rest my ankle which has only just healed and which no doubt I will be re-aggravating all weekend. That last panel, btw, is my one non-negotiable one.

Upcoming 9/21/2011

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Have you checked out the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week? Then we’re ready for a perusal of this week’s ComicList!

For me, the clear leader, at least in the Diamond-verse, is the fourth volume of Yumi Unita’s Bunny Drop (Yen Press). In this volume, single father Daikichi deals with the quirks of another member of his large family as he continues to learn to be a good parent to Rin, his late grandfather’s young daughter. It’s heartfelt and funny, and I highly recommend you try it if you haven’t already.

And I really must catch up on Yuu Watase’s very likeable shônen adventure, Arata: The Legend (Viz), though I’m nowhere near ready for the seventh volume, which arrives Wednesday. Fortunately, I can catch up via Viz’s iPad app. Now I can have menacing physical stacks of books and too many virtual ones in the queue.

For succinct assessments of some recent releases, check out the latest round of Bookshelf Briefs from the Battle Robot.

 

Codename Sailor V, Vol. 1

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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.

Codename: Sailor V Volume 1

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Codename: Sailor V Volume 1 by Naoko Takeuchi

I’ve had Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V in my house for a week, but even though I’ve read them for some reason I am still having a hard time believing that they’re real. Since Sailor Moon has been the holy grail of out of print manga series, it just seems wonderfully surreal that this series is finally getting a decent omnibus style release with a new translation. Sailor V was the prototype series for Sailor Moon, and Sailor V appears in Sailor Moon at first as a shadowy mentor figure. So many of the storylines that are explored more fully in Sailor Moon are introduced in Codename: Sailor V, which might not have as much depth but is still fun.

Like most shoujo heroines, Mina (short for Minako) is an aggressively average student. She prefers athletics and nursing crushes on unobtainable boys to her schoolwork. Her life changes dramatically when she meets a talking cat named Artemis who informs her that she’s been chosen as a protector of Earth. Once she’s equipped with some magical accessories she announces what she has become, “Champion of Justice! The Pretty Guardian in a Sailor Suit! Sailor Venus has arrived!” One of the things that I enjoy about magical girl manga is that although there’s certainly an element of makeover fantasy in the transformations, part of story also is all about power. When Mina transforms for the first time she says “I feel liberated! I’m overflowing with power! I’m struck with the urge to act!”

Unfortunately for Mina, the action she’s presented with gets repetitive. There seems to be an unending supply of demonic idol singers who are out to enslave the Japanese populace and feed off their energy, and Sailor V must battle all of them. In this way, Codename: Sailor V resembles a very simple shonen manga, except for the battles here are always needing to involve lots of cosplay and battle cries instead of actual punching. Still, there are flashes of humor on display that make the overall experience of reading the book a lot of fun. Mina seems to be very protective of governmental regulations, as when she’s battling one of her many rounds of evil idol singers she remarks that brainwashing is bad and “these are horrendous business practices and the Japanese Tax Office will not stand for it!” Later on when she’s talking to her mysterious boss about an enemy she encounters during a vacation she flies into action after the comment “I don’t know who he is, but I do sense a deep-seated grudge regarding Hawaii.” People with grudges regarding Hawaii must be punished!

One of the things that enlivens Codename: Sailor V is the supporting cast. As Sailor V grows in notoriety she is starting to get noticed by the police. The female Inspector General nurses her crush on V with giant posters in her office, and she arbitrarily orders around her more skeptical male sidekick. Mina gets an eye rolling reaction from one of her enemies to her proclaimed title of “Pretty Guardian.” I tend to grade magical girl shoujo for what it is. If there’s humor, costume changes, and a little bit of action I’m a satisfied reader. While I don’t think that Codename: Sailor V has all the elements that made Sailor Moon such a long and successful series, it was fun getting a glimpse of Sailor Moon’s origin and more of the origin of Sailor V.

Winter by John Marsden

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From the back cover:
For twelve years, Winter has been haunted. Her memories will not leave her alone. There are secrets she does not remember—but needs to know.

The time has come for her to go back home.

Every journey starts with a single step. But sometimes if you want to step into the future, you must first step into the past…

Review:
After reading Checkers, So Much to Tell You, and Take My Word for It, I realized that John Marsden has a certain… preferred pattern. In each case, something profoundly traumatic has happened to the (Australian) teenaged heroine and the slim book consists of her first-person narrative as she attempts to work past whatever it was, while gradually divulging enough tidbits to enable readers to figure out what happened. In many ways, Winter is very similar, though in this case, the titular heroine begins the book as in the dark as anyone else.

It’s been twelve years since sixteen-year-old Winter De Salis has set foot on the family estate of Warriewood. Both of her parents died when she was four, but she wasn’t told much about them by the relatives with whom she spent the intervening years. Now old enough to leave school and return home, that’s exactly what determined Winter does, and makes short work of dispatching the dishonest caretakers of her property while questioning anyone who might provide some useful information concerning her parents’ deaths. After making friends with a girl around her age, enjoying a bit of romance, and uncovering the family secret, she is eventually able to face her future without obsessing over the past.

Despite the structural similarities to other Marsden books, Winter doesn’t much feel like them. Its setting is more rural, for one thing, so there are sections like the one describing the cathartic process (for Winter) of removing unwanted blackberries from the property, or the depiction of her first attempt to take care of the cattle by herself. Winter is a unique protagonist, and I love how Marsden shows her capacity for being difficult—when you’re underage and you want something strongly, sometimes the only weapon in your arsenal is being stubborn—while simultaneously showing that she really is a good kid. She’s grateful for kindness and not so wounded that she can’t make new friends, and posits at one point that perhaps the early death of her famously strong mother is what has enabled her to become so strong herself. It’s a pretty devastating truth that she learns, but it’s believable that she is able to move on from it and not dwell too long on questions that will never have answers.

My only minor quibble is that the romance feels somewhat superfluous; granted, it plays an important role in demonstrating Winter’s progression from someone fixated on the past to someone anticipating the future, but I would’ve liked the boy (Matt Kennedy) to be a more well-rounded character. I’d almost wish for a sequel—perhaps a story set twenty years later with Winter and Matt as parents to a new protagonist—but I suppose that would require something traumatic to happen to their offspring, and we wouldn’t want that!

Pick of the Week: FMA, Zoo in Winter, Arata

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The choices are meaty this week at Midtown Comics, and choosing just one has given most of us a bit of heartache. See what we settled on below!

SEAN: As I noted in my shipping post earlier in the week, Fullmetal Alchemist is up to its penultimate volume. And you know what that means. That means the apocalypse is upon us. I had missed this series for quite some time because of a plot point early on that frankly creeped me out so much that I never wanted to go near the thing again (you can probably guess which one), but I have caught up, and am glad I did. With lots of awesome moments (both for men and women alike – FMA has some of the most badass heroines in manga) and a plot that rarely gets sidetracked, we should be headed up to one hell of a finale. If everyone can survive this book, that is.

MJ: I’m really torn this week, because though I feel it’s urgent that someone choose the fourth volume of Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves, if I really could buy only one volume of manga this week, it would have to be Fullmetal Alchemist. One of this series’ biggest draws for me is the fact that Hiromu Arakawa has really never strayed from her heroes’ primary objective, which means that we’re truly reaching the climax of the entire series. And with so much work and planning put toward building this up, you better believe it’s a doozy. I decided a long while ago that I was in this series for the long haul, and I’ve never regretted it. There’s no way I’d give it up now, even for the likes of Ono. Thankfully, in the real world, I don’t actually have to choose.

DAVID: It is hard to pass up on either Fullmetal or Five Leaves, but I can never seem to resist throwing my support to boutique publisher Fanfare/Ponent Mon and its mainstay manga-ka, Jiro Taniguchi. Now, I unexpectedly find myself liking Taniguchi’s manly-man meditations, books like The Quest for the Missing Girl, just a little bit more than his more subdued pieces like A Distant Neighborhood. In my perfect world, we’d be getting a new volume of The Summit of the Gods before the debut of A Zoo in Winter, which is basically a portrait of the artist as a young assistant. That’s just splitting hairs, obviously, as anything by Taniguchi hovers near the top of my must-have list, and I know we’ll be getting more Summit before too long. Fans of Bakuman might appreciate this alternate take on the subject, which will probably be more Sundance Channel than Shonen Jump.

KATE: I second David’s recommendation! I, too, like Taniguchi’s manly-man manga, whether he’s paying tribute to film noir (Benkei in New York, Hotel Harbour View) or writing a man-against-nature saga (Summit of the Gods), but I think Taniguchi is at his best when writing about more prosaic subjects. A Distant Neighborhood, for example, was a lovely meditation on adolescent awkwardness, while A Zoo in Winter, his latest, is about joining the world of adult responsibility. There are a few overdetermined moments, but on the whole, it’s a thoughtful, semi-autobiographical story about a young man who discovers that being a manga-ka is a lot more work than he ever imagined. Taniguchi’s art is crisp and evocative, and the script heartfelt but never saccharine.

MICHELLE: I intend to buy every single book mentioned above, but I’m going to have to award my pick to volume seven of Yuu Watase’s Arata: The Legend. I dove into this series just recently and fell in love with it in a big way. It’s got all your shounen adventure trappings—a modern-day teen in a fantasy world who is chosen by the most awesomest sword-god around and tasked with saving the princess—but with a real shoujo flair, as romances gradually develop, past trauma plays a part in present conflicts, and handsome guys regularly walk around bearing their studly midriffs. While I like certain of Watase’s shoujo works—I steered clear of Absolute Boyfriend but positively adore Fushigi Yûgi—I’m starting to think that shounen is where she really belongs!

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 9/19/11

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This week, Kate, David, Sean, & Michelle take a look at recent releases from Viz Media, Digital Manga Publishing, Kodansha Comics, and Vertical, Inc.

Afterschool Charisma, Vol. 4 | By Kumiko Suekane | Viz Media – Afterschool Charisma has all the right ingredients to be a Kaori Yuki manga: there are impossibly attractive leads wearing fanciful costumes (see Florence Nightingale’s clone), evil bishies (see Rasputin’s clone), wackadoo plot twists (see Hitler and Napoleon’s clones), and excursions into taboo territory (see Joan of Arc’s clones). What sets Afterschool Charisma apart from Fairy Cube or Grand Guignol Orchestra, however, is that Kumiko Suekane uses action sequences to advance the plot and not just interrupt the talking. In so doing, Suekane liberates her characters from the burden of explaining what’s happening — a key shortcoming of Yuki’s storytelling, which often bogs down in long-winded exposition. Suekane isn’t as wildly imaginative as Yuki, but shows a similar talent for creating and sustaining a mood of almost unbearable dread, producing a story that’s both incredibly suspenseful and deliciously silly. Recommended. -Katherine Dacey

Kimi ni Todoke, Vol. 10 | By Karuho Shiina | Viz Media- Sometimes you can get frustrated with a series taking so long to buildup to what seems like an obvious conclusion. You stare at the leads misunderstanding each other over and over, and wish that they’d just get on with it. Of course, when they DO get together, and it’s even sweeter than you possibly imagined, you forget you were ever frustrated in the first place, because it’s all worth it. This is an entire volume of payoff. Right from the cover, which seems to be a mirror of the first volume, through our desire to KILL Joe for being what he is – an author-crafted character designed to get in the way, and through Pin once again being helpful and yet appalling at the same time, it’s all worth it for those wonderful scenes of Sawako and Kazehaya finally achieving enlightenment. I think it can best be summed up by the start of Chapter 42, where Sawako has written notes her herself all over her room telling her it wasn’t a dream. No, but it sure felt like one, huh?– Sean Gaffney

March Story, Vol. 3 | By Kim Hyung-Min and Yang Kyung-Il | Viz Media – After two hit-or-miss volumes, March Story has finally found its sea legs. The five stories that comprise volume three run the gamut from folklore (“Wedding March”) to horror (“Song of the Waves,” “The Sword-Maiden and the Glass Palace”) to comedy (“Extra Version”) while giving each of the principal characters a turn in the spotlight. It’s hard to single out one chapter as the volume’s highpoint, though “Ode to a Doll” comes close: the plot revolves around a toy who develops a deep attachment to its owner, going to extreme lengths to bring a lonely little girl a few moments of joy. As in the previous two installments, the artwork is a pleasing amalgam of stylistic influences from Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away to Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. The character designs, faux-European settings, and objects are rendered in meticulous detail, making March Story one of the best-looking titles in the VIZ Signature line. Recommended. -Katherine Dacey

Mardock Scramble, Vol. 1 | Created by Tow Ubukata, manga by Yoshitoki Oima | Kodansha Comics – I’m probably as guilty as anyone of judging books by their covers, and I can’t say this one’s made a great impression, with its aggressively vulnerable but sexy waif gazing out at me. I was pleasantly surprised by the content behind that cover, though. It’s about a homeless prostitute who’s nearly murdered but ends up rescued and remade with amazing powers by an odd pair of private investigators. Our heroine, Rune Balot, adapts quickly to her new abilities to sense and control all of the electric currents around her, but she’s much less sure of her place in the world and even her willingness to stay in it. There’s a genuine gravitas to Rune and her plight, which elevates the book over its familiar and potentially pandering premise. Here quirky benefactors – a mad scientist named Dr. Easter and a great partner named Oeufcoque – have lots of promise. There is a lot of formula evident here, but there’s also a lot of sincere feeling and some fun surprises. – David Welsh

One Piece, Vol. 58 | By Eiichiro Oda | Published by Viz Media – Much like volume 57 before it—which saw the beginning of a battle at Marineford, where Luffy’s brother Ace is scheduled to be executed—the first half of volume 58 sidelines even Luffy (the only Straw Hat pirate we’ve seen in some time) to focus on the conflict between Whitebeard’s crew and the navy. That’s not to say that the conflict isn’t epic or interesting, but that it does not feel immediate. Not to worry, though, as Oda brings the emotional gut-punches to the second half of the volume, driving Luffy to the point of death to achieve his goal, reminding everyone of various familial or family-esque bonds, and then showing how such costly sacrifice can be squandered when one is unable to put aside their pride. This is tragedy, folks, in the Greek sense of the word. – Michelle Smith

Rabbit Man, Tiger Man, Vol. 1 | By Akira Honma | Digital Manga Publishing – In this yakuza-themed romance, Nonami, a brash mobster, falls in love with Uzuki, the timid doctor who saved him from bleeding to death in an alley. No yaoi cliche goes untouched: Nonami is boorish and heterosexual, but inexplicably and powerfully drawn to Uzuki, while Uzuki discovers that he’s attracted to Nonami, even though he’s sorely afraid of him. (Poor Uzuki sweats like a triathlete whenever Nonami calls him or walks into the same room.) Nothing about the characters or their relationship has a whiff of plausibility about it: is the Japanese economy so abysmal that Tokyo U. grads are really taking gigs as hit men? The artwork is Rabbit Man, Tiger Man‘s sole redeeming feature, as Honma demonstrates a flair for drawing handsome male characters and cute animal caricatures. Strictly for yaoi enthusiasts. -Katherine Dacey

Twin Spica, Vol. 9 | By Kou Yaginuma | Vertical – While this series is ultimately very gentle, I’m consistently impressed by the way Yaginuma makes the most of small character grace notes. In this volume, a relatively brief sequence shows an unexpected but rewarding side of Asumi, Yaginuma’s tiny, determined heroine. A younger student moves into her rooming house, and Asumi is troubled by the lack of respect she receives from the newcomer. One of Asumi’s defining traits is that she looks so much younger than she actually is, but it’s never really shown as bothering her. She compensates by redoubling her efforts. Now, she’s presented with someone who isn’t aware of those efforts, and just reacts to Asumi’s surface. It results in a few extremely telling moments that give Asumi the luxury of being a little egotistical and one of her friends the chance to show how well he understands Asumi. It’s not a seismic event, but it really adds to the overall narrative. – David Welsh

Velveteen & Mandala | By Jiro Matsumoto | Vertical – I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book, besides ‘alternative’. I was surprised, therefore, to find that it held my attention for almost the entire volume. Yes, I could have done without the casual body humor, and the fourth-wall breaking, normally something I’m quite fond of, didn’t really work for me in this setting. But much of the volume is spent trying to figure out what’s going on – how much of what Velveteen and the Super say is true; is this is post-apocalypse, the afterlife, or something in between; what’s alive, dead, or a zombie; and the entire problem of whether one of the two leads actually exists. I thought that it fell down a bit right at the end – after Velveteen is hit by the car, things fell apart for me. But just because the ending didn’t quite satisfy dind’t mean the journey wasn’t worth it. And I did love both final images of the heroines, each of which give a strange hope that isn’t anywhere in the actual narrative. Flawed, and not for the easily grossed out, but worthy.– Sean Gaffney

Oresama Teacher, Vol. 4

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By Izumi Tsubaki. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Viz.

We are perhaps in a golden age of strong, spunky shoujo heroines. Minako from Sailor Moon is back in the spotlight. Iku from Library Wars is beating up those who would dare censor books. And now we have Mafuyu from Oresama teacher, who may have to dress up like a guy due to circumstance, but has shown that she is the one to bet on in a fight over anyone. Heck, I think she could take out Ichigo from Bleach if she tried.

It is entirely possible that this is not someone’s brand of humor, but it just happens to be mine. Mafuyu is wonderful. The way that she finds herself thinking like a thug in order to solve problems. And even better, the fact that she’s still learning as she goes, where she finds for the first time what it means to have someone you like injured because of you. And then, of course, there’s pretending to be a gay boy rather than a girl in order to fool the easily fooled Hayasaka. And any interactions she has with Takaomi are fantastic, if only as he can still wrap her around his finger without even trying.

There’s an awful lot of fighting in this manga, so much so that I wonder if it might be better marketed to Jump fans. Even better, as with last volume we see that Tsubaki is actually training her readers on the mechanics of being in a fight. Last time it was escaping from being tied up, here it’s how to dodge and parry, something that poor Hayasaka and his straight-ahead mind have simply never learned to do. Mafuyu’s actually quite a good teacher, but she’s up against a formidable opponent here, and I hope Hayasaka starts taking her lessons to heart before he dies.

I particularly enjoy seeing all the characters that you think are there to be goofball and comic show their inner badass. Maizono, Mafuyu’s masochistic third in command from her old gang, shows up to bring her a present. He never finds her (a given, since he asks the two guys who don’t know she’s a fighter), but we get a good chance to see that while he’s a goofball in front of her, he can fight like a demon when pressed. In fact, it’s notable how Mafuyu’s big problem in her new school is that she DOESN’T have a gang yet. Her old friends were trained fighters who all knew each other’s best strengths and weaknesses. Here she only has Hayasaka, who refuses to duck.

And lest we think that Mafuyu has it all together and isn’t an idiot as well, there’s that final chapter, where she completely forgets that she can’t swim. There’s a bit of romantic tease in it (really the only tease in the whole volume), but it’s second to simply laughing at everyone. There are no subtle characters here. Oresama Teacher is in-your-face gags about a girl who simply cannot stop being a delinquent fighter. And that’s why we love it.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 1

by

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

I will try my best, but don’t expect me to be unbiased here. This is one of the most anticipated re-releases in the last 10 years, and I have been waiting for what seems like FOREVER. And now, it seems, it’s finally here. Sailor Moon is back, and she is Usagi Tsukino again, and the series, as reprinted in Japan with updated art (and a few rewrites of dialogue) from Takeuchi herself, is ours once again.

I can’t really summarize, so I’ll just try to give my thoughts. I really liked this volume. Takeuchi is clearly taking the time to develop a very different heroine from Minako’s Sailor Venus, one better suited for the long haul of character development, like the best shoujo heroines. As a result, Usagi may grate on some in this volume, especially if they’re reading it in conjunction with Code Name Sailor V. She doesn’t want to be a hero. She finds lethal danger terrifying, strangely enough. Luckily, she has various weapons and allies at her disposal, and (leaving aside the poses for the reader) does a good job despite her faults. What we really notice her is her ability to make friends, and get even the hardest of hearts to open up to her. Even Rei, who’s the coolest (and grumpiest) of the cast, is worried about her instantly.

Speaking of the other senshi, I like how they’re all different yet share a similar background of feeling as though they don’t belong. Ami is looked on as a prodigy, with all the good and bad that this implies, and seems to have taken it a bit too much to heart. “All that I’m good for is studying”, she says at one point, making one wonder if she has the typical “education mama” behind her. Rei, in contrast to her anime counterpart, gives off a cool and frosty aura, and has those who visit the shrine wonder if she uses supernatural miko powers for evil purposes. As for Makoto, well, she’s dressed like your standard 80s shoujo manga girl gang member. She’s huge, left her school for ‘unknown’ reasons, and no doubt has knives under that skirt. Scary girls, all of them.

Except, of course, they’re all nice as pie. (Well, OK, Rei is nice as sour cherry pie. But give her time.) What’s more, being a senshi gives them all a new purpose, and all three seem to feel as if this is the destiny they’ve been waiting for. It’s actually spelled out by Makoto, in her speech towards the end of her chapter. Fate brought them together. Now, Usagi’s backstory doesn’t match theirs – she’s well-liked and has no issues with lacking a purpose. So Sailor Moon isn’t quite as defining for her. It’s almost as if she has yet to discover her true role…

I had forgotten how fast things move in the manga. Most of Western fandom is more familiar with the anime plotlines and pacing, where it’s a good 8 episodes before we even meet Ami. Here we’ve already got 4 of the 5 main senshi before the book is out, and the entirety of the first ‘arc’ will be finished by Volume 3. This is a pacey series, which does not have patience for long protracted battles the way shonen manga does. Sailor Moon’s battles are fairly perfunctory and noticeably lacking in awesome moves. How the villains die is not quite the issue here. However, this does allow the main plotline to become relevant, and there are no monsters of the week. The search for the Silver Crystal (and the Princess) are what everyone is concentrating on, and Jadeite and Nephrite don’t get many second chances before they are dispatched. (By the way, the senshi kill off the bad guys here. Get used to that, much more than the anime.)

There’s some great humor here, but unlike the action comedy that is Sailor V, this is pegging itself as an epic romance. That Mamoru is Tuxedo Mask surprises no one, as clearly he and Usagi have that ‘destined’ look when they first meet in Chapter 1. After all, they bicker with each other. (By the way, the whole ‘secret identity’ thing gets kind of tossed aside right away here. Sailor Moon calls out the real names of her fellow senshi right off the bat, and there seems to be no issue of ‘why don’t they get that it’s the girls they know?’ here, as no one really sees them closely unless they’re unconscious or a villain.) The climax to this volume is actually more effective than the original Volume 1, which ended one chapter earlier. It makes you want to get more right away.

The presentation here is fine. I’m sure there are some translation issues, but I didn’t bother to get out my old Tokyopop editions and do a line-by-line compare. Nothing jarred enough that it made me want to verify anything, which is just fine. I particularly enjoyed Sailor Moon comparing Tuxedo Mask to Lupin III. (Usagi, you’re no Fujiko-chan.) This is the reprint edition from Japan, meaning we get nice new pretty covers (no stickers, though), and Kodansha’s usual liner notes. I do miss Takeuchi’s author’s notes in the originals, but she removed them from the reprint, so what are you going to do? They are basically more variations on ‘I am a busy and fluffy shoujo writer!’ in any case.

If you’re a big Sailor Moon fan, you’re going to be buying this anyway. If you’re not, well, Usagi may grate on you a bit at first, but give her time. The series is worth it. And the women in it kick eight kinds of ass. (Usagi, OK, does not kick as much ass. At least physically. But she gets to be the emotional core.) As we get further into the series, everyone will get even better. Highly recommended.