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Monday Morning Links. Again.

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I’ve come to the conclusion that Monday is link-blogging day, so I’m just going to go with it. I’ll begin with a couple of links to my own offsite reviews. First, last Monday, I reviewed volume 22 of Fullmetal Alchemist for PCS’ Manga Minis. By now I’m sure everyone knows what a huge fan I am of the series, but I find myself needing to talk about it again and again in an attempt to sway the unconvinced. At 22 volumes, this series has still not lost even a crumb of its original appeal. Wonderfully drawn and well-plotted–if you haven’t yet given this shonen epic a try, this is the time to start.

Secondly, I have a review in today’s installment of PCS’ On The Shojo Beat, for volume nine of Yuu Watase’s Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden. Better than a prequel has any right to be, this series is much more than a rehash of Watase’s original shojo classic, …

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On Criticism: Why Editing Matters

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Have you ever read a review that was so riddled with misspelled words, grammatical errors, or nonsensical phrases that you began to keep a mental tally of the gaffes instead of following the author’s argument? I have. And while it would be easy to make light of such reviews, I feel compassion for the writer. I’ve made more than my share of mistakes online, from misspelling an author’s name to penning a sentence so tortured that, in hindsight, I wasn’t even certain what I meant. The majority of these mistakes can be chalked up to one thing: failing to edit my work carefully. Deadlines, job pressures, and personal commitments can make it easy to neglect editing, but failing to do so can compromise your authority as a writer and a critic, and anger creators who want to see their work treated respectfully; it isn’t pretty to be called on the carpet for writing a negative review that’s as problematic as the book under consideration. (Believe me, I’ve seen it happen. In a word: aaawwwwwwwkward.)

Below, I’ve outlined the steps involved in editing a review. These suggestions reflect the many years I’ve spent honing my own writing as a student, a teacher, an editor, a writer, and a Gal Friday with proofreading chops. This outline is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all proscription for catching mistakes, but a tool to help writers develop their own process for assessing and improving their work. Have an online resource that you think would be helpful for writers? Let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post to include your suggestion.

How Do I Edit My Stuff?

Most writers equate editing with checking their work for cosmetic problems—typos, extra carriage returns, and so forth. And while it’s true that proofreading is an important step in the editorial process, it’s generally the final one. The first—and most difficult—stages require you to scrutinize your prose for clarity, consistency, and economy (namely, can you say something in 10 words instead of 15 or 20?). Here’s a rough outline of the steps entailed in editing an essay or story:

Step One: Set the draft aside for one or two days.

There may be times when this simply isn’t possible, but allowing yourself time between drafting and editing will improve your chances of spotting problems.

Step Two: Read the review out loud, asking yourself the following questions:

Do the sentences flow smoothly? Circle or highlight any sentence that sounds choppy or awkward—the grammar may need correction, the word order may need adjustment, or the sentence may need to be shortened.

Do you use the same words or phrases too often? Circle or highlight those passages, then grab a thesaurus and search for alternatives.

Do you needlessly repeat information or opinions? There’s a fine line between elaborating a point and belaboring it; if you’ve described a book as “exciting,” “pulse-pounding,” and “thrilling” all in the span of a single sentence, you’ve said the same thing three times.

Step Three: Make your first round of corrections, then re-read with an eye towards structural issues. Ask yourself the following questions:

Does my review flow seamlessly from point to point? Look for awkward phrases, abrupt transitions, and weak topic sentences.

Have I achieved an appropriate balance between summary and critique? Generally speaking, reviews should be no more than 50% summary. If in doubt, trim any information that may be viewed as a spoiler, or is not addressed in your subsequent critique of the manga.

Have I substantiated my critique with evidence from the volume(s) I’m reviewing? If you describe a book as “dull” or “irritating,” be sure to explain why you feel that way: is it the dialogue? A particular character? The obvious plot twists?

Does the overall tone of my review match my opinion of the book? If you enjoyed a book, that should be evident from your word choice; the same is true for books that you didn’t like. If you’re ambivalent about a title, it’s OK to say so in the opening or closing of your review.

The Discard File

One of the main reasons we have difficulty editing is that we become attached to a favorite sentence or paragraph. Having crafted something that we like, we’re reluctant to delete it no matter how clumsy or inappropriate it may be in context. I have a remedy for deletion anxiety: cut and paste the offending passage into a separate file. That way, you can retrieve a sentence that, on second judgment, seems useful to your argument. Or you can do the eco-friendly thing and recycle a great turn of phrase in a future article. My own discard file has been a terrific resource for overcoming writer’s block, improving a weak review, and preserving kick-ass sentences that amused me but might never see the light of day.

Proofreading Tips

Allow at least a few hours (if not longer) before you begin proofreading, or you’re bound to miss mistakes. I find it helpful to read the document backwards—the strangeness of the experience forces me to look at the prose more carefully, though the technique might not work for everyone.

I have a simple checklist of things to look for when I proofread:

  • Extra spaces or carriage returns
  • Spelling errors, typos (e.g. extra or missing letters)
  • Subject-verb agreement (e.g. “They is” instead of “They are”), switching tense
  • Its vs. it’s, which vs. that
  • Punctuation and capitalization errors
  • Missing words (e.g. forgetting an article, “In this volume, the family gets dog.”)

Two other things on my radar screen are parallelism problems and passive constructions. Most writers don’t realize that when they make a list of items, all of the items of the list need to be structured/phrased in the same manner, e.g. “Among the things she owned were a broken TV, a rotary phone, and a cracked mirror.” Note that all of the items in this list are expressed as article-adjective-noun. The same rule applies to sentences using participles and verbs, e.g. “He enjoys many activities, from playing golf and swimming to gardening and walking the dog.”

One of my other pet peeves as a writer is the kind of vagueness that goes hand-in-hand with passive constructions. Phrases such as “Urasawa is widely acknowledged as a genius” do more harm than good, as they leave your reader to wonder, Who says Urasawa is a genius? His critics? His mother? A better strategy is to rephrase these sentences in the active voice: “Urasawa’s fellow manga artists revere him as a genius.” There are, of course, plenty of times when the passive voice is a perfectly acceptable choice, especially in academic writing, but if it’s possible to identify an agent, do so. Your writing will sound more authoritative.

The final thing to keep in mind when proofreading: be consistent. If you give the name of one city as “Austin, TX,” all the cities in your essay should be formatted that way (as opposed to “Boston, Mass.” or “Yonkers, New York”). If you decide to hyphenate Asian-American, then all occurrences of that word should be hyphenated. And so forth. There are several excellent style manuals on the market (such as The Chicago Manual of Style and The MLA Handbook) that provide the nitty-gritty on hyphenation, capitalization, italicization, etc. Don’t want to shell out the clams for a bound copy? Many universities have posted Cliff Notes versions of these venerable style guides; one that I find useful in a pinch is The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue.

When Deadlines Loom…

Pressed for time? At a minimum, run the SpellCheck function on your computer, but monitor it carefully—the SpellChecker can add mistakes to your work, especially if you use funky foreign words like fujoshi or gensaku-sha. If these are words you anticipate using in future documents, add them to your SpellChecker’s memory to avoid comically awful substitutions. I’m less enthusiastic about Microsoft Word’s GrammarCheck function. While it seldom misses glaring errors (e.g. “You is my woman”), it may gloss over deeper structural problems or flag a sentence that is, in fact, grammatically acceptable. Use sparingly.

Putting Advice Into Practice

Suppose you’re writing a review of a new series, Dogball D. You’re both bored by and frustrated with the first volume, as the characters’ mannerisms and physical appearance remind you of characters from Dragonball Z. At the same time, however, you recognize that the similarity is intentional. The challenge: how to express that idea effectively.

Version 1: The main problem with Dogball D is that the characters are boring and unoriginal and just like the characters in Dragonball Z. That’s understandable, since Yuki Yamamoto wrote her story for a magazine that was competing directly with the magazine in which Dragonball Z was a big hit for many years before Dogball D came out.

Version 2: Dogball D‘s biggest problem is the characters: they’re pale imitations of the Dragonball Z gang. The similarity is understandable, since Yuki Yamamoto’s story runs in Young Mister, a direct competitor of the magazine in which Dragonball Z was serialized.

In the second version, I’ve compressed the idea of “boring” “unoriginal” characters into a single, more forcefully stated comparison between Dogball D and Dragonball Z. I’ve eliminated several prepositional phrases (e.g. “for a magazine”) and conjunctions, and dropped the phrase “before Dogball D came out,” as the contrast in tenses (“runs” versus “was serialized”) implies that Dragonball Z preceded Dogball D — an impression confirmed by the initial statement that the Dogball D cast is a “pale imitation” of Dragonball Z‘s famous characters. You can only imitate existing models!

Here’s another before-and-after comparison, this one culled from my own writing. The first paragraph comes from my review of Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover; the second comes from the revised version now currently visible on the front page. Changes are highlighted in red:

Original: If you’ve spent any time around an art school or conservatory, you’ve met students like the Honey and Clover gang, a chatty bunch who are eager to share and compare influences, discuss their romantic lives in intimate detail, and wax poetic about their latest enthusiasms. In Honey and Clover, that garrulity reflects the characters’ deep-rooted need for community, both a boundary-drawing exercise — this is what I stand for — and an invitation to join the group. As characters grow closer to each other, however, they often find conversation inadequate to the task of bridging the remaining distance between them, a motif that Chica Umino uses throughout volume eight.

Revised: If you’ve spent any time around an art school or conservatory, you’ve met students like the Honey and Clover gang, a chatty bunch who are eager to share and compare influences, discuss their romantic lives in intimate detail, and wax poetic about their latest enthusiasms. In Honey and Clover, that chattiness reflects the characters’ deep-rooted need to define who they are and how they fit in with their peers. As characters discover common ground, however, they often find conversation inadequate to the task of bridging the remaining distance between them, a motif that Chica Umino uses throughout volume eight.

I decided to revise the paragraph because I found it wordy and, frankly, a little pretentious: “garrulity”? “Boundary-drawing exercise”? The emptiness of those words became even more apparent when contrasted with the review that immediately followed it, as my take on Mixed Vegetables was snappier and easier to follow. So I rolled up my sleeves and made several small but crucial changes by finding five-dollar substitutes for the fifteen-dollar words and eliminating the parenthetical remark from the second sentence. The result: a clearer statement of the same idea.

Conclusion

I’ve learned as much from my errors as I have from my successes, as they remind me just how difficult writing really is. The more I practice drafting and editing my own work, however, the better the final product tends to be. Confronting my own shortcomings keeps me humble, but it also keeps me invested in improving, too — each review presents an opportunity to refine my skills a little more, and a chance to reflect on what constitutes good writing.

On Criticism: Why Editing Matters

by

Have you ever read a review that was so riddled with misspelled words, grammatical errors, or nonsensical phrases that you began to keep a mental tally of the gaffes instead of following the author’s argument? I have. And while it would be easy to make light of such reviews, I feel compassion for the writer. I’ve made more than my share of mistakes online, from misspelling an author’s name to penning a sentence so tortured that, in hindsight, I wasn’t even certain what I meant. The majority of these mistakes can be chalked up to one thing: failing to edit my work carefully. Deadlines, job pressures, and personal commitments can make it easy to neglect editing, but failing to do so can compromise your authority as a writer and a critic, and anger creators who want to see their work treated respectfully; it isn’t pretty to be called on the carpet for writing a negative review that’s as problematic as the book under consideration. (Believe me, I’ve seen it happen. In a word: aaawwwwwwwkward.)

Below, I’ve outlined the steps involved in editing a review. These suggestions reflect the many years I’ve spent honing my own writing as a student, a teacher, an editor, a writer, and a Gal Friday with proofreading chops. This outline is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all proscription for catching mistakes, but a tool to help writers develop their own process for assessing and improving their work. Have an online resource that you think would be helpful for writers? Let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post to include your suggestion.

How Do I Edit My Stuff?

Most writers equate editing with checking their work for cosmetic problems—typos, extra carriage returns, and so forth. And while it’s true that proofreading is an important step in the editorial process, it’s generally the final one. The first—and most difficult—stages require you to scrutinize your prose for clarity, consistency, and economy (namely, can you say something in 10 words instead of 15 or 20?). Here’s a rough outline of the steps entailed in editing an essay or story:

Step One: Set the draft aside for one or two days.

There may be times when this simply isn’t possible, but allowing yourself time between drafting and editing will improve your chances of spotting problems.

Step Two: Read the review out loud, asking yourself the following questions:

Do the sentences flow smoothly? Circle or highlight any sentence that sounds choppy or awkward—the grammar may need correction, the word order may need adjustment, or the sentence may need to be shortened.

Do you use the same words or phrases too often? Circle or highlight those passages, then grab a thesaurus and search for alternatives.

Do you needlessly repeat information or opinions? There’s a fine line between elaborating a point and belaboring it; if you’ve described a book as “exciting,” “pulse-pounding,” and “thrilling” all in the span of a single sentence, you’ve said the same thing three times.

Step Three: Make your first round of corrections, then re-read with an eye towards structural issues. Ask yourself the following questions:

Does my review flow seamlessly from point to point? Look for awkward phrases, abrupt transitions, and weak topic sentences.

Have I achieved an appropriate balance between summary and critique? Generally speaking, reviews should be no more than 50% summary. If in doubt, trim any information that may be viewed as a spoiler, or is not addressed in your subsequent critique of the manga.

Have I substantiated my critique with evidence from the volume(s) I’m reviewing? If you describe a book as “dull” or “irritating,” be sure to explain why you feel that way: is it the dialogue? A particular character? The obvious plot twists?

Does the overall tone of my review match my opinion of the book? If you enjoyed a book, that should be evident from your word choice; the same is true for books that you didn’t like. If you’re ambivalent about a title, it’s OK to say so in the opening or closing of your review.

The Discard File

One of the main reasons we have difficulty editing is that we become attached to a favorite sentence or paragraph. Having crafted something that we like, we’re reluctant to delete it no matter how clumsy or inappropriate it may be in context. I have a remedy for deletion anxiety: cut and paste the offending passage into a separate file. That way, you can retrieve a sentence that, on second judgment, seems useful to your argument. Or you can do the eco-friendly thing and recycle a great turn of phrase in a future article. My own discard file has been a terrific resource for overcoming writer’s block, improving a weak review, and preserving kick-ass sentences that amused me but might never see the light of day.

Proofreading Tips

Allow at least a few hours (if not longer) before you begin proofreading, or you’re bound to miss mistakes. I find it helpful to read the document backwards—the strangeness of the experience forces me to look at the prose more carefully, though the technique might not work for everyone.

I have a simple checklist of things to look for when I proofread:

  • Extra spaces or carriage returns
  • Spelling errors, typos (e.g. extra or missing letters)
  • Subject-verb agreement (e.g. “They is” instead of “They are”), switching tense
  • Its vs. it’s, which vs. that
  • Punctuation and capitalization errors
  • Missing words (e.g. forgetting an article, “In this volume, the family gets dog.”)

Two other things on my radar screen are parallelism problems and passive constructions. Most writers don’t realize that when they make a list of items, all of the items of the list need to be structured/phrased in the same manner, e.g. “Among the things she owned were a broken TV, a rotary phone, and a cracked mirror.” Note that all of the items in this list are expressed as article-adjective-noun. The same rule applies to sentences using participles and verbs, e.g. “He enjoys many activities, from playing golf and swimming to gardening and walking the dog.”

One of my other pet peeves as a writer is the kind of vagueness that goes hand-in-hand with passive constructions. Phrases such as “Urasawa is widely acknowledged as a genius” do more harm than good, as they leave your reader to wonder, Who says Urasawa is a genius? His critics? His mother? A better strategy is to rephrase these sentences in the active voice: “Urasawa’s fellow manga artists revere him as a genius.” There are, of course, plenty of times when the passive voice is a perfectly acceptable choice, especially in academic writing, but if it’s possible to identify an agent, do so. Your writing will sound more authoritative.

The final thing to keep in mind when proofreading: be consistent. If you give the name of one city as “Austin, TX,” all the cities in your essay should be formatted that way (as opposed to “Boston, Mass.” or “Yonkers, New York”). If you decide to hyphenate Asian-American, then all occurrences of that word should be hyphenated. And so forth. There are several excellent style manuals on the market (such as The Chicago Manual of Style and The MLA Handbook) that provide the nitty-gritty on hyphenation, capitalization, italicization, etc. Don’t want to shell out the clams for a bound copy? Many universities have posted Cliff Notes versions of these venerable style guides; one that I find useful in a pinch is The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue.

When Deadlines Loom…

Pressed for time? At a minimum, run the SpellCheck function on your computer, but monitor it carefully—the SpellChecker can add mistakes to your work, especially if you use funky foreign words like fujoshi or gensaku-sha. If these are words you anticipate using in future documents, add them to your SpellChecker’s memory to avoid comically awful substitutions. I’m less enthusiastic about Microsoft Word’s GrammarCheck function. While it seldom misses glaring errors (e.g. “You is my woman”), it may gloss over deeper structural problems or flag a sentence that is, in fact, grammatically acceptable. Use sparingly.

Putting Advice Into Practice

Suppose you’re writing a review of a new series, Dogball D. You’re both bored by and frustrated with the first volume, as the characters’ mannerisms and physical appearance remind you of characters from Dragonball Z. At the same time, however, you recognize that the similarity is intentional. The challenge: how to express that idea effectively.

Version 1: The main problem with Dogball D is that the characters are boring and unoriginal and just like the characters in Dragonball Z. That’s understandable, since Yuki Yamamoto wrote her story for a magazine that was competing directly with the magazine in which Dragonball Z was a big hit for many years before Dogball D came out.

Version 2: Dogball D‘s biggest problem is the characters: they’re pale imitations of the Dragonball Z gang. The similarity is understandable, since Yuki Yamamoto’s story runs in Young Mister, a direct competitor of the magazine in which Dragonball Z was serialized.

In the second version, I’ve compressed the idea of “boring” “unoriginal” characters into a single, more forcefully stated comparison between Dogball D and Dragonball Z. I’ve eliminated several prepositional phrases (e.g. “for a magazine”) and conjunctions, and dropped the phrase “before Dogball D came out,” as the contrast in tenses (“runs” versus “was serialized”) implies that Dragonball Z preceded Dogball D — an impression confirmed by the initial statement that the Dogball D cast is a “pale imitation” of Dragonball Z‘s famous characters. You can only imitate existing models!

Here’s another before-and-after comparison, this one culled from my own writing. The first paragraph comes from my review of Chica Umino’s Honey and Clover; the second comes from the revised version now currently visible on the front page. Changes are highlighted in red:

Original: If you’ve spent any time around an art school or conservatory, you’ve met students like the Honey and Clover gang, a chatty bunch who are eager to share and compare influences, discuss their romantic lives in intimate detail, and wax poetic about their latest enthusiasms. In Honey and Clover, that garrulity reflects the characters’ deep-rooted need for community, both a boundary-drawing exercise — this is what I stand for — and an invitation to join the group. As characters grow closer to each other, however, they often find conversation inadequate to the task of bridging the remaining distance between them, a motif that Chica Umino uses throughout volume eight.

Revised: If you’ve spent any time around an art school or conservatory, you’ve met students like the Honey and Clover gang, a chatty bunch who are eager to share and compare influences, discuss their romantic lives in intimate detail, and wax poetic about their latest enthusiasms. In Honey and Clover, that chattiness reflects the characters’ deep-rooted need to define who they are and how they fit in with their peers. As characters discover common ground, however, they often find conversation inadequate to the task of bridging the remaining distance between them, a motif that Chica Umino uses throughout volume eight.

I decided to revise the paragraph because I found it wordy and, frankly, a little pretentious: “garrulity”? “Boundary-drawing exercise”? The emptiness of those words became even more apparent when contrasted with the review that immediately followed it, as my take on Mixed Vegetables was snappier and easier to follow. So I rolled up my sleeves and made several small but crucial changes by finding five-dollar substitutes for the fifteen-dollar words and eliminating the parenthetical remark from the second sentence. The result: a clearer statement of the same idea.

Conclusion

I’ve learned as much from my errors as I have from my successes, as they remind me just how difficult writing really is. The more I practice drafting and editing my own work, however, the better the final product tends to be. Confronting my own shortcomings keeps me humble, but it also keeps me invested in improving, too — each review presents an opportunity to refine my skills a little more, and a chance to reflect on what constitutes good writing.

Manhwa Monday: January Thaw

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One of my favorite reviews this week came from David Welsh over at the newly-renamed Manga Curmudgeon, for JiUn Yun’s Time and Again (Yen Press). Though this book has been featured here before, his review is so delightful, I simply can’t help myself.

David begins his review by likening the book to a character played by a young Barbara Stanwyck, “… sexy, funny, moving and often ruthless. It’s about an exorcist-for-hire who seems more inclined to give his clients what they deserve than what they request.” This description of the title’s lead character, Baek-On, is so apt, I wish I’d written it myself. Also this, “… his skills with the unquiet dead are virtually moot in balance with his indifference towards the unquiet living.”

Check out David’s review for further insight and wit. …

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Monkey High! 8 by Shouko Akira: B

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monkeyhigh8Beginning with volume seven, the age rating of Monkey High! was changed from Teen to Older Teen to reflect the leads’ growing interest in consummating their relationship. They finally achieve their goal in the first chapter of this final volume, but thereafter are kept busy with studying for exams and preparing for their final school festival.

An irksome last-minute rival pops up in the form of Gotoda, Haruna’s father’s secretary and his choice for her fiancé. Because her father, recuperating from an illness, and Gotoda are working from home constantly, Haruna accepts Macharu’s offer to stay with him for a while. Gotoda’s a scheming sort, though, and Haruna unfortunately allows herself to be swayed by his assertion that one day she’ll be a burden to Macharu. Happily, by the end of the volume she has found the confidence to believe that if such a time ever comes, they’ll work through it together.

The things that’ve been kind of annoying about Monkey High! all along are still annoying at the end: the reliance on shojo clichés and the occasionally intrusive antics of the supporting cast. Against the zany backdrop of a maid and butler café, for example, Haruna and her father have an important conversation. It’s a big moment, but is hampered by the shenanigans going on around it.

Still, despite its faults, the conclusion of this series made me sniffly and, really, isn’t that the best possible outcome for a Shojo Beat title?

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Monkey High! 7 by Shouko Akira: B

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monkeyhigh7From the back cover:
Different classes, college preparations, and a disapproving father all make it hard for Macharu and Haruna to be together. So when they win tickets for an overnight stay at a resort, it seems like a great chance for them to take their relationship to the next level…

Review:
Although I liked this volume of Monkey High! somewhat less than the others, it certainly has its share of positives. Macharu and Haruna, sent by their class to fetch a wedding gift for their teacher, spontaneously enter a raffle and win tickets to “Mouse World,” including an overnight stay at a resort hotel. Haruna is anxious and Macharu, who frankly admits he wants to have sex with her but is not the least bit pushy about it, realizes that the situation is troubling her and so gives the tickets to the teacher. This moment of genuine sweetness works to quell Haruna’s doubts and, when the trip won’t fit in with the newlyweds’ itinerary, it’s Haruna who now advocates going.

The resulting date is wonderfully awkward. Both are so concerned with making it a special day that every time something goes wrong, it’s a crushing blow. It’s a bit painful to read, but it’s a situation with which most people can likely sympathize. I also like how a couple chapters later, when Macharu suddenly gets gung ho about working to get into college, it’s Haruna who feels that she’s being left behind even though she’s the one with better academic prospects. She has several goals that she’s been pursuing independent of Macharu, but it’s only now that she realizes he’s going to be experiencing things without her, as well.

On the negative side… the whole resort plotline reminds me of something I just read in High School Debut and of course the two leads are interrupted (by the collapse of Haruna’s father) before they can consummate their relationship. It’s not that I’m all pro-teen sex or anything, but because they don’t go through with it, we’ll probably be in for more angst about whether they should. At least the interruption puts Macharu in contact with Haruna’s dad, who says nasty things about his lack of prospects and inspires all that hard work that has Haruna fretting.

Also, it feels like the whole volume centers on the question of closeness for the couple. How close are we? Are we less close now? It feels like we’re more close now. Oh, wait, now we’re less close again. Now we’ve had a poignant conversation and we’re close again. I still like the characters a lot, and these moments provide opportunities for Haruna to show her vulnerable side and Macharu his more mature side, but it does get a bit repetitive.

Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, Vol. 9

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By Yuu Watase
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: T+ (Older Teen)

Having been cruelly rejected by Uruki and the other celestial warriors, Takiko returns to her home world, prepared to rediscover an ordinary life. As though similarly prepared to rediscover her, “ordinary life” promptly greets her with a proposal of marriage from the young doctor who tended to her dying mother. Determined to put her love for Uruki firmly in the past, Takiko accepts the proposal. Meanwhile, Takiko’s father attempts to destroy “The Universe of the Four Gods,” to ensure that his daughter will never meet the fate of the Priestess of Genbu. Can true love be conquered by will alone?

With Takiko facing heartache in any world she chooses, this volume is easily the most poignant of the series so far. Her suitors, too, elicit great sympathy—each doomed to love a woman they must ultimately lose, whether to fate, distance, or lack of mutual feeling. The drama is intense but not over-the-top, and somehow the fact that Takiko must cause as much pain for others as fate causes her keeps her from becoming too tragic to be believed.

Rest assured, Takiko’s heart won’t deny itself forever, and though it will likely be a long wait before the next volume (still unpublished in Japan) reaches these shores, volume nine manages enough forward motion to keep most fans satisfied, at least in the short-term. Unabashedly romantic but never sickly-sweet, Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden continues to please.

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

Otomen, Vol. 5

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Otomen, Vol. 5
By Aya Kanno
Published by Viz Media


Buy This Book

As the volume opens, Ryo’s class nominates her as their representative for the yearly “Ideal Woman Contest.” To win, Ryo must compete in such “womanly” arenas as cooking, flower arrangement, and proficiency with the tea ceremony, none of which are remotely her strengths. Furthermore, her prime opponent is a two-time winner of the title who has a crush on Asuka! What is Asuka’s definition of the “ideal woman?” Can his affections be be swayed by a beautifully crafted bento? Also in this volume, winning a prestigious shojo manga award threatens Juta’s anonymity and the “Beauty Samauri” return, this time to the small screen!

Though this series remains as charming as ever, lack of significant character development is beginning to take its toll. Any real potential for a shift in the characters’ daily machinations (such as the threat of Juta being outed as a mangaka or Asuka as an “otomen”) is thwarted before it can make any visible waves, chapter-to-chapter. The one exception here is Ryo, who seems to be coming into her own as a capable, much-admired young woman, without being required to gain any traditionally feminine skills.

Despite the series’ sitcom-like stagnation, it is genuinely heartwarming to have its primary message confirmed ad infinitum, both in Ryo’s rising confidence and Asuka’s inner commitment to the things he loves most. “This is like a dream, isn’t it?” Asuka says to fellow Beauty Samauri (and secret make-up artist) Tonomine as they contemplate the freedom they experience only in costume. “We’re boldly revealing our interests and skills to everyone.”

Though “boldly” seems like a strong word for “openly, while in disguise,” Asuka’s feeling of liberation is obviously genuine and it’s hard to get picky about semantics. His sincere excitement is a strong reminder that, despite the series’ broad humor, the characters’ core conflicts are actually quite real and not likely to be resolved with a single grand gesture or event, no matter how earth-shattering.

With that in mind, perhaps it is too early to be frustrated by sluggish character growth. Does mangaka Aya Kanno have more in store for her characters than what immediately meets the eye? Events in the final pages of this volume do provide some hope in this area, supplying more than enough reason to stick around for the next volume. Until then, we can surely dream.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer: B-

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masqueradersFrom the back cover:
Temporarily abandoned by their scapegrace father, Prudence and Robin Lacey are forced to masquerade as the opposite sex to avoid capture by their political enemies.

Prue makes a devilishly handsome young man and her brother Robin is equally beguiling as her “sister.”

This, however, makes for some dangerous entanglements when Prue, as Mr. Merriot, falls in love with Sir Anthony, and her brother, posing as Miss Merriot, finds his heart struck by the lovely heiress, Letty Grayson…

Review:
Long have I nurtured a desire to read the works of Georgette Heyer, and what better place to start than the one with all the cross-dressing!

The Masqueraders is best described as a romantic farce. Siblings Prudence and Robin Lacey are the children of an exceedingly clever father who repeatedly gets them both involved in his schemes. Most recently, this involved being part of the Jacobite rebellion, causing them to go into hiding garbed as members of the opposite sex. Their father sends them to stay with a family friend where they are introduced into society as Peter and Kate Merriot.

Prudence, in the guise of Peter, begins to develop affection for the large and observant Sir Anthony Fanshawe while Robin, as Kate, comes to feel for a young heiress called Letty Grayson. To top it off, their father soon arrives, claiming to be Tremaine of Barham, heir to a Viscounty. Because he is an infuriatingly circumspect fellow, he won’t give them a straight answer as to whether he really is this person or if it’s just another of his masquerades, and both children have their doubts. Insert into this narrative blooming romance, a surly rival for Letty’s affections, a masked ball, a second claimant, a duel avoided, a duel provoked, a rescue, a death, an arrest, a subsequent rescue, and a pleasant though predictable ending and one gets an idea of the nature of this lighthearted tale.

While I did enjoy reading The Masqueraders, it never succeeded in surprising me any. Too, I found the siblings’ father to be quite tiresome—especially his tendency to proclaim himself a great man—and never did see what Robin liked so much about Letty other than her looks; her head is full of thoughts of romance and little else. More to my liking was the pairing of Prudence and Sir Anthony. Stolid and wry, he’s a likable fellow and also admires Prudence for the best of reasons, citing that he has never once seen her betray fear or lose her head.

All in all, this is a frothy confection that amuses without offering much substance. Still, I definitely liked it will enough to persevere in my goal of reading all of Heyer’s works. I know her fans are many, so if anyone has any particular recommendations of what I ought to read next, I’d be happy to receive them.

King of RPGs, Vol. 1

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My big news for the day is to point you all to my review of Jason Thompson and Victor Hao’s King of RPGs over at About.com!

In the interest of being professional (as well as conforming to About.com’s strict format and character limit) I did not gush nearly as much over this comic as I might have in this blog, so let me make this perfectly clear: I really enjoyed King of RPGs. I mean, really, really, really.

Was it my experience with gamers that most hooked me? Hard to say. Was it my love of shonen manga? I dunno. Do I think Jason Thompson is Just That Funny? Maybe. All I know for sure is that I spent a significant portion of my reading time laughing out loud in a truly obnoxious fashion and that there was one Death Note reference that literally had me falling out of my chair.

Whether you love gamers, manga, or just a good, long laugh, I recommend giving King of RPGs a try. Check out Deb Aoki’s introduction and my full review for more. You may also be interested in Deb’s recent interview with the creators, Jason Thompson and Victor Hao, here!