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Two by Inoue: Slam Dunk & Real

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Slam Dunk, Vols. 1-2
By Takehiko Inoue
Published by Viz Media

Red-haired tough guy Hanamichi Sakuragi just can’t get a girl. After a string of rejections in junior high, he finally meets pretty Haruko on his first day of high school. Trouble is, Haruko already has a huge crush on a junior high basketball star who has also enrolled at their school! Determined to win Haruko’s heart, Hanamichi decides to join the basketball team. He’s a huge, strong guy with a lot of natural ability. Unfortunately, he’s also brash, self-involved, and utterly lacking in maturity or emotional boundaries. Can Hanamichi ever learn to be a team player?

On one hand, Slam Dunk is an extreme example of a typical shonen sports manga, with its overblown characters, outrageous rivalries, and intense focus on winning. On the other, it is a fresh, lighthearted look at a guy who just can’t seem to catch a break, despite a level of optimism previously unknown to mankind.

It’s not that Hanamichi never wins, of course. The guy can’t lose in a fight, and he even manages to win (sort of) against Haruko’s brother Akagi (who also happens to be the captain of the basketball team) in an epic game of one-on-one. What he can’t win, no matter how he tries, is the girl, and it’s somehow refreshing to meet a shonen sports hero whose real focus is far, far from the game. Also, while Hanamichi’s myopic pig-headedness makes him generally insufferable, it’s also the key to his charm.

There’s a scene in the second volume, for instance, in which the captain of the school’s judo team attempts to lure Hanamichi away from basketball by offering him some photographs of Haruko in exchange. After a series of conversations consisting basically of, “So, will you join the team?” “No.” “But don’t you want the photos?” “I do!” it finally becomes clear that Hanamichi intends to refuse the captain’s offer and simply take the photos by force. Though the scene does nothing to improve Hanamichi’s image as a hopeless brute, it is surprisingly satisfying to see the judo captain’s tired scheme dismissed so easily.

Another strength of the series is its supporting characters. Though Hanamichi’s strong and silent love rival, Rukawa, is barely seen in these early volumes, basketball captain Akagi is already a powerful character. Mature enough to separate his personal dislike of Hanamichi from his responsibilities as captain, he displays the beginnings of the kind of depth and nuance found in Inoue’s later seinen series, Real. Also notable is the basketball team’s manager, Ayako, who is very much welcome as a confident, athletic, female presence on the testosterone-heavy court.

Inoue’s art is similarly refreshing, with a clean, easy-to-follow quality too rare in shonen manga. The artwork is quite expressive as well, revealing a real investment in the characters and a genuine love of the game.

Though the real action gets a slow start in favor of important characterization (and some less impressive class hi-jinx), Slam Dunk shows its potential right from the beginning. Just two volumes in, it’s not difficult to see why it’s a popular series on both sides of the Pacific. Recommended.

This review is a part of Shonen Sundays, a collaborative project with Michelle Smith.

*****

Real, Vols. 1-8
By Takehiko Inoue
Published by Viz Media

Tomomi Nomiya is a high school dropout, consumed by guilt over his involvement in a motorcycle accident that leaves a young woman without the use of her legs. Kiyoharu Togawa is a former junior high runner whose struggle with bone cancer costs him his right leg below the knee. Hisanobu Takahashi is a high school basketball hotshot who becomes paralyzed from the chest down after colliding with a truck while riding a stolen bicycle. What these three teens all have in common is a passion for basketball.

It’s not quite fair to compare this series to Takehiko Inoue’s earlier basketball series, Slam Dunk. After all, Slam Dunk is written for young boys, and Real for adults. Still, with both series being released concurrently in English, its difficult to resist. Though Slam Dunk contains the seeds of a great basketball manga, it is through Real that Inoue is able to express not only his real love of the game, but his real insight into the human condition.

The main action of the series revolves around the Tigers, a wheelchair basketball team with which Togawa maintains a fairly tormented relationship over the course of the series’ early volumes. It’s this team that brings Togawa and Nomiya together to begin with (in a sort of roundabout way). And though Takahashi has (as of volume eight) still just barely begun rehabilitation that might make it possible for him to one day participate in wheelchair basketball, it feels inevitable that he’ll end up there at some point. The basketball scenes in this series are intense, in a very different way from the super-fueled play in Slam Dunk, and entirely gripping even for non-fans of the game.

What’s most impressive about this series, however, is Inoue’s ability to get inside his characters’ heads and transform their thoughts and feelings into compelling narrative. Enormous chunks of the later volumes, for instance, involve Takahashi’s bitterness over his father leaving him as a child, torment over his current condition, and his inability to adjust to his new body.

Inoue not only brings Takahashi’s memories to life with a series of powerful flashbacks, he also focuses heavily on Takahashi’s grueling rehabilitation process, with a level of realism that kicks your average training montage squarely in the behind. Yet, through all this, Inoue deftly steers clear of allowing his story become mired in its own weight. Even the series’ heaviest sequences are a true pleasure to read.

Something that seems important to note, and possibly why Real is able to avoid becoming intolerably dark, is that it’s clear from the beginning that Inoue genuinely likes people. Despite the fact that each of his characters has endured terrible heartbreak, pain, and various levels of personal misery (not to mention that most of them have also been responsible for causing significant pain to others), Real is far from cynical. There is no overarching disappointment in humanity here, no deep bitterness, no long-winded speeches about the unavoidable fallibility of the species. Even his characters’ most bitter reflections are directed toward individuals rather than humanity as a whole.

Inoue’s artwork in this series is impressively mature. Without the attractive sheen of Slam Dunk‘s shonen sensibility, the world of Real is unpolished and gritty. Inoue’s early expressiveness is even more pronounced in this series, and much more detailed. Also, despite some great dialogue, Inoue lets his artwork do the bulk of the storytelling. Important moments are played out visually, panel-to-panel, without the need for any narration or extraneous dialogue to pick up the slack.

Both heart-wrenching and down-to-earth, this series makes the most of its human drama, both on and off the court, without ever sinking into melodrama. Simply put, Real is real. Highly recommended.

Review copies of vols. 5-8 provided by the publisher.

Hey, Sensei?

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Creator: Yaya Sakuragi
U.S. publisher: Digital Manga
ISBN: 9781569700471
Released: April 2009
Original run: 2007

It is almost entirely the fault of Yaya Sakuragi’s Hey, Sensei? that I am now gladly suffering from an addiction to yaoi. Before Hey, Sensei?, I had never read yaoi. I had a basic understanding of the genre, but for whatever reason I had never tried it. (It actually really surprises me how long it took me to get around to reading any.) So, when I came across a review on Graphic Novel Reporter praising Hey, Sensei?, especially for not falling into some of the traps of the genre, I figured “Hey, why not? I gotta start somewhere.” I tracked down a copy with a little bit of difficulty and when it finally arrived I only allowed myself one chapter a day to make it last. Since then I’ve read plenty more yaoi and continue to do so but Hey, Sensei? remains one of my favorites—not just because it was my first yaoi manga, but because it is really quite good.

Hey, Sensei? actually contains two stories: the main story “Hey, Sensei?” which is four acts and an epilogue, and “Unbreakable Bones,” which is a one-shot. In “Hey, Sensei?”, high school math teacher Isa is taken aback when his ex-girlfriend’s younger brother, now one of his students, makes a pass at him during a review lesson. Isa can hardly take the situation seriously—what could Homura possibly see in a guy ten years older than him? The age difference will cause some difficulties, and they communicate terribly, but the two men have fallen hard for each other. In “Unbreakable Bones” two childhood friends are unexpectedly reunited after fourteen years. After growing apart, Yuji became a juvenile delinquent although he’s turned his life around and is now working in a ramen shop, while Manabu has become the small town’s local policeman. Yuji hates the idealized memories Manabu has of him, only to realize that he’s the one stuck in the past.

I really enjoy Sakuragi’s art style. Her men are distinctive and handsome and are unmistakably male. Her figures are elongated and angular, particularly noticeable in the hands and fingers and in the long, lanky legs when standing. These slightly odd proportions may bother some people, but I quite like the effect and love her character designs. Sakuragi also does a fantastic job with facial expressions, especially with the eyes; the characters don’t always come out and say what they’re feeling but it’s pretty apparent just by looking at them. She is also skilled in showing the same character at different ages and make the changes look natural while still being identifiable. One issue that I did have with the art was that the genitals were blurred out or erased. However, I’m not sure if this is the case in the original Japanese version or if the art has been censored for the United States which does happen. Either way, I found it distracting and feel that it calls more attention to itself that way.

While the stories in Hey, Sensei? may not be particularly original, Sakuragi makes up for it with the depth of her characters and their feelings for one another. Homura is immature, hot-tempered and brash but ultimately very sincere while Isa is inexperienced, sensitive and reserved but very capable of being stern when necessary; Yuji and Manabu’s relationship is also very sweet. The translation has an occasional awkward moment but overall is very good. In addition to Hey, Sensei? becoming a favorite, I have also become a huge fan of Yaya Sakuragi—I’ve also read and loved her Tea for Two series—and will pick up anything that she has worked on. However, Hey, Sensei? will always hold a special place for me. It’s one manga, yaoi or not, that I come back to again and again.

Striding Folly by Dorothy L. Sayers: A-

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Book description:
Lord Peter Wimsey’s last three baffling cases all demonstrate his unique detection skills at their most spectacular. The enigma of a house numbered thirteen in a street of even numbers. An indignant child accused of theft. A dream about a game of chess that uncovers the true story behind a violent death. Each of the stories introduces a different side of the twentieth century’s most ingenious detective hero.

Review:
Short as it is, Striding Folly is still, by far, my very favorite of the Lord Peter short story collections.

Of the three stories collected herein, the title story is of the least consequence. It’s chiefly about a country gentleman who is suspected of killing a neighbor who planned to sell his land to developers. Lord Peter comes in at the end and prevents a miscarriage of justice. The title, incidentally, refers to the more tangible sort of folly, that is “a whimsical or extravagant structure built to serve as a conversation piece [or] lend interest to a view.” This one happens to be located on a property known as Striding. I had always thought it referred to a bit of foolishness engaged in while ambling about.

In “The Haunted Policeman” we get our first glimpse of Lord Peter since the events of Busman’s Honeymoon. It’s just over a year since his marriage to Harriet, and Peter has just passed a sleepless night while his wife gives birth to their first son. Once all is declared well, his spirits are high and he desires some conversation, even though it’s three in the morning. A passing policeman fits the bill and tells Peter the story of how he came to be accused of drunkenness by his sergeant. The tale involves a murdered man inside a house numbered thirteen on a street with only even-numbered residences. Again, Lord Peter serves as a force of vindication. Though the solution to the mystery is fairly ridiculous, the depiction of Peter is really excellent. I love the notion that, when fretting especially about Harriet, he takes solace in the company of the servants, who allow him to polish the silver.

The second charmer in the collection is “Talboys.” A further six years have passed since the previous story and Peter and Harriet’s family has grown to contain three sons. The eldest, Bredon, confesses at the outset to having stolen two peaches from a neighbor. Peter punishes him and the matter is considered closed until the following morning, when all of the peaches are discovered missing. A visiting houseguest—friend to Peter’s notoriously censorious sister-in-law—persists in suspecting Bredon while Peter rather easily proves his innocence. Again, the mystery is not really the point here. Instead we get a truly wonderful portrait of Peter as father—always willing to have a roll with the dog, let his children clamber all over him, and participate in mischief. I might wish for more emphasis on Harriet in this situation, but her happiness is never in doubt.

Of all the Lord Peter stories, only these last two have ever tempted me to come back and read them again. I had wondered how any short story could provide a sense of closure to the Wimsey series, but in fact it works perfectly, since little time and effort need be expended upon a mystery which is only of secondary importance. I will probably end up reading Thrones, Dominations in the near future but I certainly see the rationale behind stopping here, too.

Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs: B

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From the back cover:
In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern—and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her—her best friend and her own daughter—in mortal danger…

Note: There are many, many different covers available for this series. I picked the attractive British version.

Review:
For those who aren’t aware, this is the first volume in the series of mysteries upon which the TV series Bones is based. But if you’re looking for a story with banter/sexual tension between two attractive leads and a supporting cast of quirky scientists, then you’re going to be disappointed. The only real similarities are that the main character is named Temperance Brennan and that she is a forensic anthropologist.

The story is set in June 1994 in Montreal. Dr. Temperance (Tempe) Brennan is working for the Province of Quebec, examining skeletal remains of various types discovered around the city. When she notices some similarities between dismembered murder victims, she becomes convinced there’s a serial killer at work and must convince the detectives—one highly skeptical (Claudel) and one more receptive (Ryan)—of her theory. There’s a lot of emphasis on forensic technique and quite a bit of detail on Tempe’s findings; though the squeamish might find the latter too abundant, they are at least never relished. Meanwhile, the killer is annoyed by Tempe’s interference and begins leaving grisly presents in her yard and targeting her friends and family.

Déjà Dead is at its best when slathering on the suspense. Probably my favorite scene in the book is a wonderfully spooky one in which Tempe hears a weird noise at night and must investigate its origins. And there are some genuine surprises, too. I didn’t expect that any real harm would come to anyone Tempe cared about, and I liked that the culprit was not easily predicted. The characters are memorable and I really like her kitty, Birdie. My favorite line in the book relates to his grooming process: “Birdie focused on inter-toe spaces.”

At its worst, Déjà Dead puts its heroine into situations where I am supposed to be concerned for her peril but am instead annoyed. Why, oh why, do you go investigate a possible burial site on a dark and stormy night? Why go loiter in the seedy part of town in the wee hours to tail a creepy perv? I guess this is supposed to show how brave and determined she is and that my disapproval shows what a stodgy prig I am. Also, having Claudel’s resistance to the serial killer theory persist for so long in the face of overwhelming evidence doesn’t make much sense. He’s not a stupid man.

Despite my few complaints, I did enjoy Déjà Dead overall. By the end, Tempe is getting along especially well with Ryan and it seems possible that she and the intriguing Claudel might interact more compatibly in the future. Both of these developments are welcome, and compel me to seek out the second installment.

Silent Möbius, Vol. 1

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I like science fiction, I really do, but I have limited tolerance for certain tropes: futures in which all the women dress like strippers — or worse, fascist strippers — futures in which giant bugs menace Earth, and futures in which magic and technology freely commingle. Small wonder, then, that Kia Asamiya’s Silent Möbius has never been on my short list of must-read manga — it’s a festival of cheesecake, gooey monsters, and pistol-packing soldiers who, in a pinch, must decide whether to cast a spell or fire a rocket launcher at the enemy. Imagine my surprise when I discovered just how entertaining Silent Möbius turned out to be, gratuitous panty shots, bugs, and all.

When shorn of its mystical mumbo-jumbo and elaborate character histories, Silent Möbius is, at heart, a classic “They came from outer space!” tale. The story begins in 2026, when the Earth is under siege from interdimensional beings known as Lucifer Hawks, fierce, shape-shifting beasties that can assume a variety of forms: dragons, humans, oversize millipedes. Only a small team of elite agents — the so-called Attacked Mystification Police Force (AMP) — are capable of killing the Hawks with a mixture of up-to-the-minute technology and good old-fashioned sorcery. Where the Hawks are coming from and why remains mysterious — at least in the very early stages of the story — though we learn that one agent’s father may be responsible for opening the floodgate between Earth and the Hawks’ home world.

If the plot is pedestrian, Asamiya’s towering cityscapes and appealing character designs aren’t. To be sure, there are plenty of other sci-fi manga from the 1980s and 1990s peddling similar visions of a dysfunctional future paved in concrete and lit by neon, but Asamiya and his helpers pull off even the busiest compositions, bringing the urban scenes to energetic life; I dare you not to compare Silent Möbius with Blade Runner. (Someone else must have thought so, too, as Asamiya was tapped to do the manga adaptation of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, yet another work that pilfered visuals from Scott’s ground-breaking film.) Then there are the character designs: each member of the AMP seems to be taking her grooming cues from the golden age of MTV, when video vixens came in two flavors: those with enormous feathered hair, and those with short, heavily lacquered locks. Better still, their uniforms consist of jackets with epaulets, neckties, and stirrup leggings. Who knew that 2026 would look suspiciously like 1986?

The other thing that won me over was the characters. I wouldn’t construe Asamiya’s decision to make the AMP a strictly female force as a nod to feminism; there are enough costume failures and half-clad characters to suggest Asamiya was as interested in satisfying the male gaze as he was in promoting the idea that women can kick ass just as well as men. At the same time, however, the ladies of AMP are tough and decisive, and don’t take guff from their male peers; in one of the series’ few nods to realism, the largely male police force resents the AMP for their ability to assume control of any investigation, grumbling about jurisdiction and occasionally baiting the women into fights.

Not that Silent Möbius doesn’t have moments of eyeball-rolling stupidity. Asamiya saddled his characters with borderline stripper names, for example: who but an adult entertainer would choose a name like “Rally Cheyenne” or “Katsumi Liqueur”? (Worse still: Katsumi’s father was Gilgelf Liqueuer, a name best suited for a drunken Hobbit.) Then, too, the series’ rather complicated mythology isn’t well explained; it’s the kind of universe where some characters kill aliens by drawing pentagrams on the ground while others use bazookas. And the cheesecake… sigh. I often had the sinking feeling that Asamiya was secretly auditioning to do a Pirelli Tire calendar with his frequent images of semi-naked women in provocative poses.

Costume failures and panty shots aside, I enjoyed the first volume of Silent Möbius well enough to continue with the series. It’s a fun, escapist romp that occasionally takes itself a little too seriously, but never bogs down in its own ridiculous mythology.

SILENT MÖBIUS: COMPLETE EDITION, VOL. 1 • BY KIA ASAMIYA • UDON ENTERTAINMENT • 200 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Silent Möbius, Vol. 1

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silentmobius1I like science fiction, I really do, but I have limited tolerance for certain tropes: futures in which all the women dress like strippers — or worse, fascist strippers — futures in which giant bugs menace Earth, and futures in which magic and technology freely commingle. Small wonder, then, that Kia Asamiya’s Silent Möbius has never been on my short list of must-read manga — it’s a festival of cheesecake, gooey monsters, and pistol-packing soldiers who, in a pinch, must decide whether to cast a spell or fire a rocket launcher at the enemy. Imagine my surprise when I discovered just how entertaining Silent Möbius turned out to be, gratuitous panty shots, bugs, and all.

When shorn of its mystical mumbo-jumbo and elaborate character histories, Silent Möbius is, at heart, a classic “They came from outer space!” tale. The story begins in 2026, when the Earth is under siege from interdimensional beings known as Lucifer Hawks, fierce, shape-shifting beasties that can assume a variety of forms: dragons, humans, oversize millipedes. Only a small team of elite agents — the so-called Attacked Mystification Police Force (AMP) — are capable of killing the Hawks with a mixture of up-to-the-minute technology and good old-fashioned sorcery. Where the Hawks are coming from and why remains mysterious — at least in the very early stages of the story — though we learn that one agent’s father may be responsible for opening the floodgate between Earth and the Hawks’ home world.

If the plot is pedestrian, Asamiya’s towering cityscapes and appealing character designs aren’t. To be sure, there are plenty of other sci-fi manga from the 1980s and 1990s peddling similar visions of a dysfunctional future paved in concrete and lit by neon, but Asamiya and his helpers pull off even the busiest compositions, bringing the urban scenes to energetic life; I dare you not to compare Silent Möbius with Blade Runner. (Someone else must have thought so, too, as Asamiya was tapped to do the manga adaptation of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, yet another work that pilfered visuals from Scott’s ground-breaking film.) Then there are the character designs: each member of the AMP seems to be taking her grooming cues from the golden age of MTV, when video vixens came in two flavors: those with enormous feathered hair, and those with short, heavily lacquered locks. Better still, their uniforms consist of jackets with epaulets, neckties, and stirrup leggings. Who knew that 2026 would look suspiciously like 1986?

The other thing that won me over was the characters. I wouldn’t construe Asamiya’s decision to make the AMP a strictly female force as a nod to feminism; there are enough costume failures and half-clad characters to suggest Asamiya was as interested in satisfying the male gaze as he was in promoting the idea that women can kick ass just as well as men. At the same time, however, the ladies of AMP are tough and decisive, and don’t take guff from their male peers; in one of the series’ few nods to realism, the largely male police force resents the AMP for their ability to assume control of any investigation, grumbling about jurisdiction and occasionally baiting the women into fights.

Not that Silent Möbius doesn’t have moments of eyeball-rolling stupidity. Asamiya saddled his characters with borderline stripper names, for example: who but an adult entertainer would choose a name like “Rally Cheyenne” or “Katsumi Liqueur”? (Worse still: Katsumi’s father was Gilgelf Liqueuer, a name best suited for a drunken Hobbit.) Then, too, the series’ rather complicated mythology isn’t well explained; it’s the kind of universe where some characters kill aliens by drawing pentagrams on the ground while others use bazookas. And the cheesecake… sigh. I often had the sinking feeling that Asamiya was secretly auditioning to do a Pirelli Tire calendar with his frequent images of semi-naked women in provocative poses.

Costume failures and panty shots aside, I enjoyed the first volume of Silent Möbius well enough to continue with the series. It’s a fun, escapist romp that occasionally takes itself a little too seriously, but never bogs down in its own ridiculous mythology.

SILENT MÖBIUS: COMPLETE EDITION, VOL. 1 • BY KIA ASAMIYA • UDON ENTERTAINMENT • 200 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Off the Shelf: Second Edition

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Welcome to our second edition of Off the Shelf with MJand Michelle!

Joining me again is Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith. This week, we cover a pretty varied range of titles, from Tokyopop, Yen Press, CMX, and Viz Media. I’ve got all shonen on the brain, thanks to this month’s Shonen Sundays, while Michelle takes a more well-rounded approach.

MJ: So, Michelle, thanks for joining me here again! What’s your first item for tonight’s discussion?

MICHELLE: How about a trip to bishie land with Alice in the Country of Hearts? Actually, I feel somewhat guilty referring to the series as “bishie land” because, while that’s technically an apt description, there’s really a lot more going on here than I ever would have expected. I read the third volume this week and enjoyed it quite a bit. …

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Scanlations & Shipping News

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Happy Humpday everyone! To start the day off, here’s a quick round-up of what’s been going on over the past few days at Examiner.com.

First, a link to my weekly report on what’s shipping to the Boston area this week: What’s new at Comicopia, June 9, 2010. The list includes a number of my favorites, for instance, Very! Very! Sweet, an adorable girls’ manhwa title from Yen Press featuring a teen who’s willing to pose as another teen’s girlfriend (typical romance plot) in exchange for a really nice cat tower (not so typical). Yes, I am that easily pleased. But c’mon. A cat tower. So adorable.

On the more serious side, this week’s haul includes the latest volume of Viz’s Children of the Sea, one of my favorite titles of 2009. To quote from my review:

“Igarashi’s art is absolutely stunning. With an ethereal, …

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Manhwa Monday: June Preview

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday! With June now upon us, it’s time to take a look at what’s coming out in print this month. It’s a fairly lean month for manhwa, but there are some real goodies in the bunch.

First of all, from NETCOMICS, comes the debut print volume of There’s Something About Sunyool, the latest from Youngran Lee, author of Click and a host of other NETCOMICS titles. Like 100% Perfect Girl, Sunyool is being released simultaneously in the US and Korea. This kind of arrangement is something Japanese manga fans have been begging for, yet NETCOMICS seems to have received very little attention for their trouble.

And speaking of 100% Perfect Girl, its final volume (11) comes out in print this month as well. Though this title is not a favorite of mine, it (like Sunyool) is yet another manhwa series for grownup women in NETCOMICS’ catalogue, something else they’ve been very generous about with not much fanfare. For those who still haven’t noticed, check out these titles, plus 10, 20, and 30, Full House, Please, Please Me, and Small-Minded Schoolgirls.

Yen Press also offers up two titles this month, both personal favorites. First, volume seven of Very! Very! Sweet, a quirky, adorable sunjeong series that easily lives up to its name. Who doesn’t love a girls’ comics heroine whose most defining traits are extreme frugality and a love of cats? Also quirky and adorable is volume four of 13th Boy, the only comic I know of featuring a talking cactus who occasionally transforms into a love-struck teen boy.

This week in reviews, Julie Opipari looks at volume one of Raiders (Yen Press) at Newsarama. Susan S. checks out volume six of Very! Very! Sweet at Manga Jouhou. And at Comic Attack, Kristin Bomba reviews volume four of Sarasah.

Also, some very sad news. Last week, Francis Metcalfe, known online as Tiamat’s Disciple, passed away after a long battle with cancer. TD was one of just a handful of manga reviewers who regularly reviewed manhwa, and he was linked to often from this column. He will be greatly missed. Brigid Alverson has more information at MangaBlog. You can also find my short, obituary-like writeup at Examiner.com.

That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to read up for this month’s Manhwa Moveable Feast!

Is there something I’ve missed? Leave your manhwa-related links in comments!

In the Teeth of the Evidence and Other Mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers: B

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From the back cover:
A fleeing killer’s green mustache. A corpse clutching a note with misplaced vowels. A telephone with the unmistakable ring of death. A hopeful heir’s dreams of fortune done in when nature beats him to the punch. A playwright’s unwatered-down honor that is thicker than blood.

In each case, the murder baffles the local authorities. For his Lordship and the spirited salesman-sleuth Montague Egg, a corpse is an intriguing invitation to unravel the postmortem puzzles of fascinating falsehoods, mysterious motives, and diabolical demises.

Review:
In the Teeth of the Evidence and Other Mysteries is a collection of short stories, not all of them technically mysteries. Two feature Lord Peter Wimsey, five star Montague Egg, and the other eleven tell of wanted criminals, murderous relations, unpleasant smells, and more!

The two Lord Peter stories, “In the Teeth of the Evidence” and “Absolutely Elsewhere,” are not very exciting. They’re better than some of the Wimsey stories in previous collections, but coming off a novel like Busman’s Honeymoon in which Peter’s character is explored in greater depth than ever before, they seem incredibly lacking by comparison. It’s like we’re seeing a mere shadow of the person we’ve come to know, and anyone could have taken his place without altering the story one bit.

Montague Egg’s stories are somewhat more entertaining, although they share the common trait of ending abruptly. The focus here is on Egg’s cleverness, and once the clues have been interpreted to work out the method of the crime or the culprit, the stories tend to just stop. I suppose it isn’t really necessary to show the criminal being apprehended, and perhaps this would grow repetitive after a while, but the suddenness of the conclusions is jarring all the same.

The best and worst of the collection can be found in the stories with no detective character. Standouts include “The Milk-Bottles,” in which a week’s worth of milk bottles accumulating on a doorstep leads to suspicions of a terrible crime, and “Dilemma,” in which various tough decisions of the “which one would you save?” variety are debated. This last isn’t even a mystery at all, but just a really good story with a nice ending.

Several of the stories have amusing endings, in fact, though just as many have predictable ones, and a few seem absolutely determined never to end. One of the most tiresome for me was “Nebuchadnezzar,” which features a party attendee who becomes convinced that a group playing charades is about to reveal the fact that he murdered his wife. I think we spend too much time in his head as he freaks out, and it becomes annoying. Similarly, parts of “The Inspiration of Mr. Budd,” about a hairdresser who realizes that his customer is a wanted criminal, are irritating as the protagonist dithers about what to do, though this one redeems itself in the end.

While nowhere near as good or satisfying as a Wimsey novel, and barely offering anything about that noble sleuth, In the Teeth of the Evidence is still notable for containing some very good short stories by Sayers. I’m glad I read it.