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

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

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

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

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

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

By Shimura Takako. Released in Japan by Enterbrain, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Beam. Released in North America by Fantagraphics.

I will admit I sometimes get intimidated by manga that are ‘important’ or ‘worthy’ in some way. Given a choice between discussing the latest gegika masterpiece from Drawn and Quarterly and the seventeenth volume of shoujo series X, I’m going to take the easy route every time. It’s the sort of book that reminds you that you’re actually meant to be reviewing, not just rambling on. And I felt a bit like this while seeing Wandering Son’s fancy, well put-together hardback sitting on my pile. Which is amusing, of course, as the manga itself is quite unassuming and easy to read.

Wandering Son is about a time in life when every single interaction with anyone is fraught with awkwardness. Especially for a shy kid like Nitori. Things are in flux, and you start to get a sense that even though you really want to do something, that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem if it will just lead to laughter and being thought of as ‘weird’. Yoshino is more self-confident, both in her general personality and in her feelings regarding how she wants to be seen, but her own body is the one reminding her that things aren’t simply cut and dry.

And then there’s Saori, who winds up driving much of the plot in this first volume. Saori interested me quite a bit, if only as she made my skin crawl at times with her trying to force things onto people. The combination of the dress and suggesting the play was interesting enough, but then there’s her reaction after Nitori returns the dress. Christianity is growing in Japan, but I think for a young girl such as herself, the appeal of penance and forgiveness is what’s drawing her more than the faith itself. I’ll be interested to see how this pans out.

The mood of the manga itself is sort of ‘slice-of-life’, but the plot really doesn’t follow the same format as your typical school 4-koma. The basis of this story is transgender issues, and that’s what you get for these first eight chapters. It just so happens that the issues are part of Nitori and Yoshino’s lives, so they aren’t presented with a huge amount of heft the way they would in an after school special. The other classmates have not made much of a name for themselves (indeed, the author admits she hasn’t yet come up with a name for Nitori’s perky friend yet), but I expect that will change.

As for the art style, it’s handled with an amazing deftness. The characters are subdued much of the time, but not in a way that, say, Adachi’s Cross Game characters are. We do see a lot of emotion here, particularly towards the end where Yoshino’s growing up gets thrown back in her face by the class troublemaker (via a proxy, another thing I found quite true to life). But what I liked best was seeing the looks on Nitori’s and Yoshino’s faces when they did try to dress as the other gender. Nitori’s look of bashful happiness as he wears the hairband. Yoshino’s stunned joy and pride after she’s ‘hit on’ by a woman at a fast-food place. They’re expressions you remember, and make for a stronger work.

Fantagraphics has done a great job with this. It’s a handsome volume, well-bound and with sturdy paper. Matt Thorn’s translation and adaptation are seamless, and his essay on the use of honorifics is both enlightening and amusing, inasmuch as he wouldn’t want to use them for most titles, but this is an exception.

So intimidation aside, in the end this is simply a well-crafted story, well-told. You want to read Volume 2 right away to find out how Nitori, Yoshino and Saori continue to deal with these feelings as they grow older. I’m very pleased that it was brought over here, and hope that it sells well enough so that we might see other titles in a similar vein. Not necessarily transgender, but handling difficult issues with such a light touch.

For those who read my site by looking at the category archives, I have reviews of Eyeshield 21 36 and Skip Beat 24 on this week’s Bookshelf Briefs. They can be found here: Bookshelf Briefs

As much as I’ve loved super-hero comics, I’ve never really enjoyed super-hero cartoons. (Don’t even get me started on super-hero movies. I haven’t liked one since the second Tim Burton Batman movie.) The cartoons tended to seem overly simplified and overblown to me. They either didn’t have any character continuity at all, which made them suffer in comparison to the ongoing comics, or they handled it so baldly that I felt like I was getting a history lesson.

It’s been a while since I’ve read super-hero comics regularly, mostly because they’ve become mope-y and insular beyond even my ability to tolerate. I do have a super-hero cartoon that I love, love, love. It’s The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which airs on Disney XD (though I’ve been catching up on it on Netflix). Here are some of the reasons why I’m so smitten:

1. The episodes can be very funny. Part of the fun of the comics is the banter and bickering among the heroes, and writer Christopher Yost does a great job with that. The banter is character-driven rather than writer-specific. The Hulk is a riot. I always thought that character’s addition into the Avengers’ comics canon was a mistake that was hastily and appropriately rectified. He just didn’t work as a part of a team, what with his portrayal elsewhere in Marvel’s shared universe. Here, there’s no other portrayal to consider, so he can be cranky and troublesome, but you still believe he wants to do good with this group. He’s smart in an instinctive way, and he likes to needle people, which yields some great lines. There are also some fun, subtle jokes. I thought it was terrific that the Avengers ended up fighting an alien robot in a drive-in movie theatre, since the tone of the episode was very much in keeping with the kind of creature flicks that ran there.
2. The episodes that I’ve watched (about half of the first season) are very exciting. The Avengers face big stakes – massive prison break-outs, the Masters of Evil, alien invasion, a takeover by gamma monsters, etc. Even more importantly, those stakes tend to be external to the fact that the Avengers exist. (At a certain point with any super-hero property, a lot of what they do consists of reacting to villains who want revenge.)
3. There’s a good division of attention among the characters. Someone clearly cares enough to track the way the characters interact and to make sure everyone gets time in the spotlight. There’s a consistent team dynamic that consists of specific individual relationships, which is something the comics don’t manage all of the time, so the show certainly gets extra points for that. And nobody gets marginalized because of power levels: Thor and Hulk are the best at hitting things, but everyone believably brings something to the table – Hawkeye’s skill, Wasp’s energy and speed, and so on.
4. The gang’s all here. Aside from the horde of villains that crash in and out of the narrative, there are tongs of supporting characters to add spice. You can’t seem to do an adaptation without Nick Fury lurking on the periphery, obviously, but it’s nice to see Jane Foster driving an ambulance, Pepper Potts rolling her eyes at Iron Man, Doc Samson helping out with gamma-related issues, and so on.
5. There’s good subplot management. The act of teasing to the next big thing while in the midst of the current big thing was always essential to my enjoyment of super-hero comics. That element is very much in place here. Yost is very good at suggesting the current adventure is part of a larger threat, adding a level of excitement and interest.

Now, the series isn’t perfect. The team’s roster needs more women. Wasp is a terrific character, an enthusiastic adventurer who holds her own rather than the dingbat girlfriend she was for so long in the comics. But, as much fun as it is to see the closing team shot at the end of the credits, it’s always sad to see Wasp doing solo duty when it comes to representing women. This might be rectified; Carol Danvers has appeared and taken steps toward her super-hero destiny. In the episodes I’ve watched, the Black Widow has played a significant (though morally ambiguous) role, and Mockingbird made a great impression as a SHIELD agent. But I want to see another super-heroine in the credits, if not more than one.

Also, the theme song is kind of terrible. Rhyming “one” with “won” always grates on my nerves; some couplings only work in print. And yes, that’s picky of me, but I’m a Sondheim devotee, so my expectations of lyrics are very high.

But if you’re like me, and have fond memories of when super-hero adventures were fun to follow, then you really should give this series a try. It’s terrific.