Reviews

By Quin Rose, Owl Shinotsuki and Delico Psyche, based on the game by Quin Rose. Released in Japan as “Heart no Kuni no Alice ~My Fanatic Rabbit~” by Mag Garden, serialized in the magazine Comic Blade Avarus. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Well this has certainly turned into a franchise, hasn’t it? Given sales in North America seem to be relatively strong (for manga), we shouldn’t be surprised. Yet here is the third spinoff series from the original Alice manga, with promises of a fourth this spring and two more in the summer. Each focusing on a different pairing for our heroine, in the finest otome game tradition. And each managing to also deal with the main serious game plotline, where your secondary goal is to figure out that Alice actually regaining her memories is BAD BAD BAD. And with one exception (sorry, Bloody Twins, you still suck), the spinoff manga have done an impressive job of doing just that.

Not that you would know it from the first half. And I try not to begrudge the series its romance – after all, that *is* the other half of the goal of the games, and its primary audience is women who like to see hot guys of various types (all psychotic, but in different ways!) fall for our stand-in-for-the-reader heroine. This time around, it’s Elliot March, aka the march Hare, who is Blood Dupre’s #2 at the Hatter Mansion. As with the rest of the cast, Elliot is drawn to Alice being different (her ‘outsider’ status) and both he and Alice starting to fall for each other while simultaneously not knowing what that is. You know the drill – “what is this strange pain in my chest”, etc.

Things start to change as we are reminded that the hatter clan is a mafia organization – and that Wonderland has a very casual, even callous view of death, given that it’s impermanent (well, relatively). Alice has been trying to distance herself from the fact that she’s living with a bunch of killers, so Blood (deliberately, I suspect) makes absolutely sure that she gets this shoved in her face, and knows that Elliot is a trained killer as well.

Then comes the part of the book that really knocks it out of the park. For all that Alice is the heroine in Wonderland to whom all the guys are attracted, she has amazingly low self-esteem, constantly living in the shadow of her perfect big sister (whose fate, again, is alluded to but never specified by the other men in the cast) and having to be around Blood, who physically resembles her old boyfriend/crush/whichever. Elliot notices that Alice gets depressed every time this comes up, and offers a solution. And once again, the manga (and no doubt the games) remind you that it’s not just a case of picking a hot guy and living sexily ever after – these people are SCREWED UP. Wonderland is a world of twisted values about death and what it means to be alive, and they’re not attracted to Alice’s personality or beauty – they’re attracted to Alice as she has a beating heart rather than a clock.

After this, the rest of the manga isn’t quite as interesting – it doesn’t help that Peter shows up, and is in ‘obsessive’ mode. It does end on a good cliffhanger, though, with Vivaldi calling for Alice’s head even as Elliot races to the Hatter Mansion to save her. There’s only two volumes in the series, so everything will wrap up nicely next time, I imagine. But this series continues to show how to make a really interesting romance series – having you constantly question everything about the heroes, heroine, world, and premise. Nice job.

By Mayu Shinjo. Released in Japan as “Ayakashi Koi Emaki” by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Margaret. Released in North America by Viz.

When I first heard this was licensed, I had assumed it was due to the popularity of Maru Shinjo, creator of Sensual Phrase and Ai Ore!, and that it would have lots of hot jerk guys trying to get into the female cast’s pants. Which is absolutely true. But little did I realize that the main reason this was licensed was probably because it played into Viz’s newfound obsession with yokai manga. I mean, this is basically just a sexier Kamisama Kiss, right? With adorable chibi-incubus!

This is very much on the ‘silly’ side of Mayu Shinjo’s work, which suits me just fine, as I like her best when she’s putting her heroes through the ringer rather than when they’re emotionally manipulating the heroine. Though there’s a fair bit of that going on here as well. But for some reason, I find it more acceptable here than I do in Ai Ore!. Miko is just a little bit stronger than Mizuki, and less likely to be taken in by some sweet talk and sweet loving (well, except in her dreams, where they’re apparently already gone pretty far). As for Kagura, there is a built-in plot device to keep him from being an ass – he’s in adorable SD-mode! Yes, many things that are hideously inappropriate when a grown man is saying them are totally OK when the guy snuggling the heroine’s breasts can fit easily in between them.

There are a few random yokai demons here, who look similar to the ones we see in, say, Nura, or Natsume’s Book of Friends. Those two titles would probably tone down the fact that Kagura is an incubus, of course. But Mayu Shinjo, who got her start writing softcore porn shoujo for Shogakukan and has never really strayed quite that far away, knows how to do the sexy. The relationship dynamics between the main couple go back and forth all the time, which makes things more interesting. Admittedly, things slow down a bit after the first 2/3 of the book, when the series switched from being a one-off to a longer run, and the author had to figure out what to do next. Thus we meet a new classmate who’s sensitive to spirits, and a manipulative fox creature (who, naturally, turns into a cute, shy bishonen).

This being a shoujo manga, there’s still plenty of waffling from the heroine about what these strange feelings are, with the added bonus of ‘what the hell did he do to me in my dreams?’. That said, the humor here is top-notch, with many amusing humiliations of our otherwise handsome seductive hero. There is a choice scene with a hamster that I won’t spoil, but made me laugh out loud. In Ai Ore!, Shinjo was always at her best when not taking her hero seriously, and the same applies here. Given all the cliches she has to work with – heck, the hero’s powers even awake with a kiss – I expect we’ll only see more of this in the future.

I always go back and forth on Shinjo manga, and indeed there’s a chance that this could turn sour in a hurry, depending on how Miko is developed. For now, though, we have a first volume that’s a winner, especially if you enjoy yokai comics but want a little spice to it.

By Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and GAINAX. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Viz Media.

The trouble with reviewing a manga series like Evangelion, with release dates from hell, is that of memory. I mean, I’m obsessed with Excel Saga, but even I had to do a bit of a reread when it was coming out on a once a year basis. And Evangelion isn’t even allowed that luxury – it comes out when a Japanese volume comes out, and Sadamoto is notorious for hiatuses, breaks, and 8-page chapters because the editors had to submit something or they’d lose their jobs. Luckily, he’s with Kadokawa Shoten, former home of CLAMP, so they’re used to things like this. What this means, though, is that it’s entirely possible that this manga, which started in 1995 in Japan, may not finish by 2015, which is the date it actually takes place.

However, the comet has passed by once more, which means that we have a new Evangelion volume. And luckily, Sadamoto continues to do what we all want him to do; he tells the basic story of Evangelion, but makes everything better and all the characters more tolerable. Now, this does have its down side, which is that he is still telling the same story. The manga looks as if it might end with Vol. 14 (though that’d be compressing things a bit), and we’re still heading for the orange goo horizon, if you know what I mean. But without Anno’s veneer of self-hatred and disgust surrounding Shinji and company, we’re left with a title that’s a bit less soul searching but has a lot more ‘hell yeah!’ moments.

Let’s start with the most obvious, which we started to see at the end of Volume 12: Shinji rescues Asuka. Now, this probably isn’t permanent; indeed, by the end of the volume, I’m not entirely certain if she’s dead or not. But that’s irrelevant. Shinji making an effort, doing something other than whine and clutch his knees, is the main reason to read the Evangelion manga at all. And his reunion with Asuka, however brief, is all the more touching for it.

As for the rest of the cast, well, Fuyutsuki and the Bridge Bunnies are mostly used to shout the plot at us, as you’d expect when the apocalypse is coming down and has to be carefully monitored. (At least they avoided saying that Lilith’s power levels were over nine thousand.) Ritsuko, meanwhile, also gets to meet a bad end, mostly due to the astonishing idea that she thought that the computers (i.e. her mother) would side with her over Gendo. I mean really, has she met her mother? That said, she too gets a better exit which is more satisfying, both for her and for us. (Who here wasn’t wanted to shoot Gendo in the throat? Come on, let’s not always see the same hands…)

We end on a cliffhanger, with Giant Rei towering over all, and Shinji having dream flashbacks to Yui trying to tell him something, only he’s not quite sure what it is. I’m not sure if everything will be resolved in the next volume, or even whether that volume will come out before I die. And I suspect this will all end in tears. But at least I’ll be able to look back on the cast and say they tried their best, which is more than I could say for the anime. (The new movies, I hear, are trying to do something similar.) Recommended, especially for those who enjoy seeing Shinji achieve things.

By Natsume Ono. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Morning Two. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

After seeing how popular (well, popular with manga bloggers) Natsume Ono’s other works were when Viz Media was putting her stuff out, Kodansha decided they wanted to get in on the game as well. After all, Ono didn’t only write for Ikki and Manga Erotics F, she also did stuff for Morning Two, Kodansha’s alternative manga magazine best known for Saint Young Men (which will never be licensed here ever). And Danza seems to be a good test market – it’s a collection of one-shot short stories, so little investment is required, and it deals with the same thing most of Ono’s best manga deal with – awkward conversations between people who have trouble communicating.

As with a lot of short story collections, it’s a mixed bag. Viz also did some of her collected short stories, and I think it shows that she works better at a slightly longer form with characters we can invest in (such as Ristorante Paradiso/Gente). Of course, this doesn’t mean that this collection doesn’t have some excellent stuff. But these are stories that are meant to provoke a wistful mood, with only one of them (involving Italian ices and police officers) even getting close to giving me a wry grin. When you draw mild, somewhat sad low-key manga, you need to anticipate that the reaction will be somewhat low-key as well. There’s also one short-story here that didn’t work for me, involving time-travel and father-son relationships. I felt this one added one too many plot complications, which is ironic given that almost 40 of its 60 pages are taken up with sitting at a table talking.

But as I said above, when Ono is on her game there’s no one I enjoy reading better. The best stories here involve things, again, I’ve seen from her before – grumpy fathers (or father figures) who gruffly disguise any feelings or emotions they may have under a veneer of indifference, doubly helped by the fact that they’re taciturn and uncommunicative naturally. Long pauses, saying things slightly poorly, shutting up for hours because you don’t want to risk spoiling the mood further… these are all things any reader is familiar with no matter what the country. And these stories (which take place in not only Italy, Ono’s default country, but also the United States and Japan)make you yearn for that connection, make you want to see everyone work it out. You want to see people talk, but it’s not drawn out enough that you’re yelling at the page.

As for Ono’s art, it is what it is, and I don’t think too many people read the story for her expressions. Which is a shame, as they fit her mood so well. If you have skill at drawing men who sort of frown and glance downwards furtively, well then write stories that use that! Ono’s heroes tend to look shifty even if they aren’t, which can sometimes help to pace a story as well, particularly the final one about a police officer and his new recruit, who’s listening to far too many rumors.

This isn’t going to be a knock-out up there with the best of Ono’s works, but nor is it just a collection of throwaways. It’s a Natsume Ono book, and if you don’t know what you’re getting by now it may not be for you. For those who do, it’s more of the same. (furtive glance to the side, frowns) And that’s enough.

(This review was based on a copy provided by the publisher.)

By Miyoshi Tomori. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Margaret. Released in North America by Viz.

This manga has been on my Bookshelf Briefs stack for the past few volumes, but it completely steps up its game here, so I feel I should do the same. We were in danger of hitting a rut and resolving things too early, with Maria’s latest antagonist, Anna, proving to be another in a series of foes that Maria and her harem… um, friends can win over with honest feelings and stubborn refusal to give up. But in this volume, we see that Anna is made of far sterner antagonist stuff, and steps up her game in a way that tries to both destroy Maria’s life *and* win the affection of Shin.

I’m quite impressed with the author, who has made Anna a villain who ruins the heroine’s life, through the usual shoujo tricks (oh dear, I threw your cellphone into the river by accident) and by things that only Anna could really utilize (telling Shin about Maria’s past). Both work quite well, but the latter really takes hold more than the former. And yet with all that said, it’s somewhat startling that I still really hope that she and Maria can work things out in the end. Maria, as we’ve noted before, *is* genuinely very hard to be around sometimes, and this would have been especially true given what happened between her and Anna. And clearly Anna is not doing this entirely out of pure hatred, given her reaction in that last scene.

Speaking of that last scene, it’s one of the best in the series to date, with Maria once again attempting to sacrifice herself in order to ‘protect’ someone else. Admittedly, this being Maria, it comes from a series of harsh truths and insults, but the heart behind it is there. And Anna can see that heart, which just makes it worse. Her final comment ‘You’re terrible at playing the devil’ is true – Maria is at her worst when she’s wallowing in her own self-hatred and trying to make everyone else see the same things she does.

And then there’s the revelation about Maria’s past that Anna shows Shin. While I’m not sure I buy the whole ‘it’s all Maria’s fault’ that was tossed in, I’m inclined to think the basic facts are true. I like that it took a lot for Shin to buy into this – actual newspaper clippings. Shin is not your typical guy who will believe anything a pretty face tells him. That said, this does affect Shin, but not in the way Anna expects – he’s now hell bent on helping Maria get over the trauma that this has left on her, and his discomfort around her stems from this. And I can see why he’s reacting this way – I mean seriously, how much more tragic can we possibly make Maria’s life?

All this plus we see Yusuke finally making his own move, even if he has to continue to couch it in ‘just kidding’ terms (which is going to come back to kick him in the ass one of these days). I think the audience now knows which pairing we’ll end up with by the end, but there’s 7 volumes still to go, so I’m fine with Yusuke showing he wants to be more than just a romantic runner-up – especially since he doesn’t have the knowledge Shin or Anna do. And by the way, the teacher from hell? Still there, still horrible. HE MUST GO. But the rest of the volume? Awesome.

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

Again, it’s been a long time since I reviewed Toriko on the main blog as opposed to a Bookshelf Brief. Jump series in general tend to lend themselves well to a paragraph rather than four or five paragraphs, especially when the volume in question is ‘they fight for 10 chapters’. Luckily, there’s a lot less fighting and a lot more character development here, although we do get the daily required amount of huge fictional animals, death-inducing climates, and large muscled men beating things up, all things Toriko requires for its daily nutritional value.

It seems appropriate that the Ozone Grass, the astonishing vegetable Toriko and Komatsu had spent most of last volume climbing to, turns out to be a pointer to both of the major themes of this episode. First off, it’s something that requires two people to work together to eat it properly, showing off the friendship part of Shonen Jump’s traditional motto. Toriko and Komatsu have been close since Volume 1, but there’s always been a bit of a tagalong ‘normal guy’ aspect to Komatsu, with Toriko going off on some dangerous quests on his own when he didn’t think Komatsu up to the challenge. These scenes really show off how important Komatsu has become in Toriko’s life, and that he really is perfect as Toriko’s partner. (I’d talk about the BL subtext, but I’ve mentioned that in prior reviews.)

And then, amazingly, after one of the more heartwarming scenes in the entire series, Toriko promptly misses the entire point and goes off to Gourmet World on his own, something so amazingly stupid you want to smack your head. In general, we haven’t really seen Toriko’s youth and inexperience all that often in the series to date, and indeed I sometimes forget that he’s only about 25 years old or so. But then, Toriko is always after the big experience, and notably when Sunny finds out what he’s about to do he doesn’t say anything, knowing that Toriko is the sort who is only likely to learn through bitter experience.

And bitter experience is exactly what he gets, as Gourmet World turns out to be a hellish environment straight out of nightmares. The sheer scale of all these dangers when compared with Toriko (who, as has been noted, is pretty huge) boggles the mind, and you have to wonder how he’ll get out of there. The answer is ‘saved by a stronger character’, of course, but only in order to drive home the two important morals of this volume. 1) Toriko is not ready for Gourmet World yet, and 2) Toriko, needs a partner, REPEATED FOR ADDED EMPHASIS. Luckily, this time around he seems to get the point, even if this means we are treated to a sobbing Komatsu spicing up Toriko’s food with something he really doesn’t want.

Unfortunately, Komatsu’s cooking knife is broken, and they head off to get a new one from the amazing knife master Melk. Who looks… suspiciously bishie for a character described as scar-covered and a loner. I sense a surprise coming next volume. In the meantime, this volume gave Toriko some much-needed humility, and saw him finally form what will hopefully be an equal partnership with Komatsu. All this, plus lots of weird animals getting beaten up. What’s not to love?

By Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki. Released in Japan as “Kurosagi Shitai Takuhaibin” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

I am pleased to report that this volume of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service has exactly what its readers look for each time around. There’s lots of grotesque set pieces which allow the artist to display a flair for horrible imagery. There’s wry and witty commentary between smart people. There’s genuine mystery, with our heroes being clever, and a nice use of synaesthesia as a plot point. And there’s copious endnotes from editor Carl Horn, explaining things like Karatsu’s Space Battleship Yamato reference and who Terry and Dory Funk are.

That said, there is one other development that not only surprised me but irritated me a bit. Not because of what the revelation was – yes, it sinks one of my ships, but given that this isn’t a harem manga I can deal – but because of its offhand nature. I am reminded of an earlier volume, when we saw a storyline end with Karatsu set on fire and an intense cliffhanger. Come the next chapter… and we’ve moved on, with nothing ever getting resolved. Here we see Sasaki and Karatsu get back from the Okinawa trip mentioned in the last volume, and for the most part it’s the same thing, except for that revelation. Which is laid out more to explain the deus ex machina of the story rather than for any dramatic tension. I do hope we eventually come back to it.

With all that said, it is an intriguing revelation, and also leads to some misdirection and amusement when we see Sasaki being sick and think it may be due to other reasons. Sadly, nothing quite so pleasant – it’s just the joys of being a woman. (KCDS is as blunt and matter-of-fact when dealing with periods as it is when dealing with corpses.) Sasaki also gets more to do than usual here, as she’s the focus of the 2nd case in the book, involving a jury trail where a man has already admitted his guilt. The jury system is still fairly new in Japan, and Carl’s notes help to lay out how it’s different from the U.S. The use of auras and synaesthesia manage to give it both a fantasy and realistic feeling, and the murder victims are both quite sympathetic.

Lastly, there were clearly not enough shots of nude women in peril in the series recently, so the final story more than makes up for that, combining a look at land redevelopment and harvest rituals with a good old fashioned psycho who likes to chop up young women. Luckily, the ‘karmic justice’ aspect of this series also makes a reappearance to give the reader someone to root for. Overall, this is a good but not great volume of our favorite cynical horror manga, offering some solid imagery and a few interesting revelations, even if the authors may not have figured out what to do with these revelations as yet. The series is still ongoing in Japan, so we may have a ways to go. Especially as I’m not sure when Vol. 14 is scheduled here. Fight on, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service!

By Mari Yamazaki. Released in Japan in two separate volumes by Enterbrain, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Beam. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Sometimes, the companies putting out manga in the West surprise you. Let’s face it, most of what comes out these days is meant to be popular and sell well. That’s the way of business. And I like a lot of popular, bestselling manga as well. But in times like these, with companies struggling to stay afloat, it’s far more likely you’ll see the latest “My Little Sister Has A Light Novel Series With An Overly Long Title” series than something from Big Comic or Evening (or, yes, even IKKI, though Viz has made an excellent effort). That’s why it’s always fantastic to see exceptions like these, a series with a nice big deluxe hardcover (which, admittedly, is probably the best way to ensure it will break even), which is about a Roman architect who finds he can now time-travel between Ancient Rome and modern-day Japan to learn about baths.

Seriously, just read that description again. It’s hard to find something farther away from ninjas and vampires. And yet I found this entire volume fascinating. There’s a nice balance between the so-called hook of Lucius marveling at the wonders of modern architecture and design (and beating himself up about the inadequacies of his time, which at times seems to be the dominant aspect of his personality) and Lucius’ own soap-opera of a life that his new designs bring about. There’s no real danger of ‘will bringing modern innovations into the past change the future’ – this isn’t a science fiction story, and notably how he does this is never really explained – it could easily be hallucinatory dreams.

But it’s his life, and those of his fellow Romans, that makes this such a page=turner. Lucius is modest to the point of self-loathing, has quite a few marriage issues (which, to the author’s credit, are not magically solved once he becomes more successful) and a number of jealous comrades. He’s also becoming closer with Emperor Hadrian, who has him design a few new baths, which leads to several obvious rumors about his sexuality (Hadrian’s tastes were well-known, though there’s a long series of endnotes for those unaware of the finer aspects of Roman history).

The Roman plotline (which actually is fairly historically accurate, to the degree allowed by the plot’s designs) is fairly heavy throughout, even as Lucius’s career prospects skyrocket. It’s therefore a relief that there’s always a modern Japanese time travel story to break this up. Lucius tends to overreact much of the time, in the best comedic tradition, and his awe in the face of things like Strawberry Milk or washcloths is just plain funny. The Japanese people he meets seem to be almost preternaturally unsuspecting and accommodating of him (oh look, another crazy foreigner) and always willing to expound on how awesome their baths/hot springs/etc are. (There’s some nationalism here, I admit, but it’s woven well enough into the plot that it’s easy to accept).

Yen’s presentation, as I noted above, is deluxe. A hardcover with a plastic slipcase in order to cover the Japanese original, which features a Roman statue with naughty bits. (Fear not – take off the slipcase and the bits are all present and correct.) The paper is high-class, and there’s comments by the author after each chapter about her research, Roman times vs. today, and how much she likes to simply bathe. A love of the bathing ritual permeates this book – not just getting clean, but everything about it – and it’s to Yamazaki-san’s credit that it doesn’t overwhelm the actual plotline of Lucius’s rise to fame and growing intrigue. This volume is a bit pricey, but it’s definitely worth it. Ask for it for Christmas!