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Monkey High! 5 by Shouko Akira: B+

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When reserved, intelligent Haruna transferred into a new high school, she never expected to fall for the most chipper and scrawny guy in her class. That’s exactly what happened, though, and she and Macharu have now been dating for a year.

In this volume, some difficulties arise in the lead characters’ relationship. It’s not as if they fight in dramatic fashion, but because they see the world differently, they sometimes have trouble understanding each other. Macharu is very open and optimistic while Haruna is neither of those things (she doesn’t even have any internal monologues). She seeks to protect herself and in, so doing, occasionally gives Macharu the impression that she doesn’t care about things that are important to him. Add in the complication that Macharu’s best friend, Atsu, actually sees and understands this side of Haruna better than Macharu does, and you’ve got an interesting romantic triangle forming.

On the negative side, in five volumes of the series, nearly every chapter has centered on the kind of event that veteran manga readers will have seen dozens of times before: a date to an amusement park, a trip to the beach, a summer festival, major holidays, et cetera. It grows quite tiresome. Too, while the art in general is good, some pages are so slathered with screen tone that they are positively grey.

Still, even though I can already predict that the next volume will prominently feature Valentine’s Day in some capacity, I’m looking forward to seeing how the drama plays out.

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

Monkey High! 4 by Shouko Akira: B+

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From the back cover:
Macharu’s best friend Atsu is really starting to fall for Haruna, especially since she’s been working at the same place he works and they’ve been spending more and more time together. With a jealous Macharu waiting and a persistent Atsu pursuing, who is Haruna going to choose in this bizarre love triangle?

Review:
I think I’m just gonna have to resign myself to semi-clichéd outings and a meddlesome bunch of friends with this series, because neither appears to be going anywhere any time soon.

Summer is approaching and, with it, opportunities for chapters about going to the beach, watching fireworks while wearing a yukata, et cetera. As before, Akira-sensei skillfully uses these familiar backdrops to develop her main characters. In the first chapter, we get some follow-up on the end of volume three, where Haruna admitted that she was uncertain of her own capabilities, seeing as how her father’s clout might’ve been responsible for her past successes. Now, when the opportunity comes to start a part-time job at a café, she goes for it, saying that she’s been inspired to try new things.

Macharu is supportive, but once he spots that Haruna and his best friend, Atsu, also an employee at the café, are becoming a bit more friendly, he begins to grow jealous. It’s something he can’t shake even by the end of the volume, despite Haruna saying that she wants to be closer with him and various occasions where she reinforces that he is the one that she likes. Playboy Atsu, too, seems to be growing more serious in his feelings about Haruna, and takes his mission to pester Macharu to the point that Yuko—one of those omnipresent supporting characters whose name I finally learned—comments, “Atsu, sometimes I just don’t know if you’re teasing Macharu or actually trying to sabotage him.”

I continue to like the relationship between the main characters, especially that Haruna continues to be quite unabashed in initiating smoochy time. In this volume, they talk about one day doing more than just kissing, and also admit that they’re scared. “It’s difficult to see where this love is headed.” It’s moments like these that enable scenes with overly familiar settings to seem like something new and unique. Too, it’s also difficult for a reader to see where this love is headed. While I highly doubt that Haruna will chose to be with Atsu in the end, I definitely think that interesting times lie ahead.

Losing my mind

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I really should send myself notes during the day. I swear I thought of four or five things over the course of the day that I wanted to blog about, but I can’t remember a single one of them.

Human relations have been strained for me the last couple of weeks, and if I believed in things like astrology, I’d be looking for some kind of celestial reasoning for it all. I’ve managed to offend people at nearly every turn, and I’m only grateful to those who have had the kindness to allow me to learn and grow from the experience instead of just walking away. I’ll be glad when this tension eases, however, and I’m once again able to interact easily and peacefully with my fellow humans. Maybe I just need a really good nap.

Volume thirteen of xxxHolic was released yesterday, and I shockingly forgot to pick up a copy then. I finally managed this on the way home from work today, and I’ve had a really enjoyable evening with it. Expect coherent thoughts sometime in the next few days, when I can work my way past undignified squee. I also picked up volume 22 of Fruits Basket while I was there, since I’d intended to purchase it last week, so I have that to look forward to as well.

Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with all those ideas that fled from me today. See you then!

Ultimate Venus, Vol. 4

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By Takako Shigematsu
Published by Go!Comi, 200 pp.
Rating: OT (16+)

At the end of the last volume, Yuzu had determined to foil her grandmother’s plan to force her into an engagement announcement at the wedding hall’s grand opening, and as volume four begins, she struggles for a way to follow through. Just as her plans are finally coming together, her bodyguard, Hassaku, figures out what’s going on and at first Yuzu worries that he’ll betray her plans out of loyalty to her grandmother. Thankfully he does not, and the plot works beautifully but this is not the end of Yuzu’s problems as her grandmother makes it clear that she will marry one of the three men chosen for her whether she likes it or not. After a painful rejection from Hassaku, Yuzu agrees to meet the other men, unaware that one of them would be her childhood friend Sudachi who has his own reasons for not wanting to be forced into an arranged marriage. Unfortunately, it seems inevitable that Yuzu will continue to cling to feelings for Hassaku, despite the fact that there are so many more interesting men around her.

After a fun start, this volume drags in the middle as Sudachi’s reluctant courtship begins. Still, there are some interesting moments, particularly with Masaya, the first of Yuzu’s so-called fiancés, and the book ends with a fairly troublesome misunderstanding that is sure to shake things up in the next volume. The premise of this story is startlingly similar to that of Kiyo Fijuwara’s Wild Ones, yet Ultimate Venus is so much more fun. Each of the characters is likable and idiosyncratic, and elements that feel tired and contrived in Wild Ones read as whimsical here.

Though this is far from the series’ strongest volume, it provides an opportunity for some nice character development and sets up some intriguing plot points as well. Ultimate Venus may not be a shojo masterpiece, but it continues to be a fresh, fun read.

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

They Were Eleven, Web Comics Weekend!

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Thanks to Brigid Alverson’s recent interview with Matt Thorn, I got inspired to read some Moto Hagio, beginning with her short science fiction manga from 1975, They Were Eleven. Last night I wrote up a review, which you can find below! I’m afraid my lack of background in manga shows terribly in this review, despite my ongoing quest to become more knowledgeable, so for further reading, I’d recommend going through Matt Thorn’s website, where he has many articles and resources chronicling the history of shojo manga, all of which are much smarter than anything I could write. My review, however, does include some nice images I scanned in from my copies of the manga so it’s worth checking out if you’ve never read it! They Were Eleven is unfortunately out of print here, but the Viz pamphlets can be picked up very reasonably on ebay, which is how I got them. Don’t even think about trying to get Four Shojo Stories, though, unless you’re a lot richer than I!

Over the next couple of days, I’ll be pretty much occupied at the New England Web Comics Weekend, which is conveniently located just a couple small towns over! My husband is a huge fan of webcomics, and I keep up on a number of them myself, so it should be an enjoyable event all around. There are quite a few interesting panels being presented, and you know I’ll be at the print vs. web discussion, right? :D I’ll try to report in at some point with any interesting news.

A million thanks to those who have chimed in with recommendations over at my Let’s Talk About Manhwa post! I’m so excited to find new things to read! Please stop by if you have anything further to add!

They Were Eleven by Moto Hagio Published by Viz Media

Sometime in the distant future, hopeful students from all over the galaxy gather for the difficult entrance exams at the elite Galactic University. For the final test, they are divided into computer-generated groups of ten students each and sent off to various locations where they must survive as a group for fifty-three days without pushing the provided emergency button, which immediately summons a rescue team, resulting in automatic failure of the entire group. One group is deposited on a derelict ship, devoid of engine power and filled with dangerous explosives, which they must safely maintain in orbit for the length of the test. As the group arrives on the ship, however, it becomes apparent that there are eleven students rather than the assigned ten, indicating that one of them must be an impostor. Potential disasters pile up quickly, including an unstable orbit and the presence of a deadly disease, and in the midst of it all the group begins to suspect Tada, a young Terran (Earth descendent) with intuitive powers and uncanny knowledge of the ship’s layout, of being the eleventh member.

With the ship’s mechanical problems and deadly health threat driving things forward, it is young Tada’s story that takes focus, as he struggles to understand his relationship with the decrepit ship while also attempting to clear himself of the other students’ rapidly-mounting suspicion. Despite the fact that his intuition saves the group early on, it also becomes the greatest point of contention amongst the group, and as more about Tada’s own history comes to light, each revelation seems to point more clearly to his potential guilt.

They Were Eleven ran over three issues in the Japanese magazine Shojo Comic in 1975. It was written and drawn by pioneering mangaka Moto Hagio, one of the famous “Year 24 Group” of female manga artists who revolutionized shojo manga, which up to that point had been mainly written by men. In the U.S. it was released in four “flipped” pamphlet-style issues from Viz Media in 1995, as well as in the compilation, Four Shojo Stories, both of which are now out of print (though the pamphlets are easily found on ebay). Lovingly adapted by Matt Thorn, They Were Eleven is an intriguing science fiction comic, featuring several of Hagio’s most prevalent themes, including childhood trauma and gender identification.

Two of the characters in the story are species whose gender is not determined until adulthood. One of these, Frol, who is decidedly feminine in appearance (referred to hereafter as “her” and “she”), is taking the test because she will be allowed to become male if she passes, a privilege otherwise only granted to a family’s oldest child. On Frol’s planet, “men govern and women work,” and becoming a woman would mean relinquishing all autonomy and joining the harem of the neighboring lord (eighteen years her senior), so it is understandable why she would want to instead take advantage of her society’s male privilege and collect a harem of her own. Still, it’s a little bit jarring that when the story finally reaches a point where it becomes clear that they may very well not pass the test, the only other alternative presented to Frol is for her to leave her own people, become a woman, and marry someone else. The fact that in every scenario her future as a woman leads directly to marriage is not a fantastic message for today’s young girls (nor is the fact that Frol, the story’s only obviously “feminine” character, is depicted as capricious and “simple”) and it is this that dates the series more than anything else.

That said, in the midst of today’s shojo offerings, it is refreshing to read a comic for girls in which a science fiction/mystery plot so markedly overshadows the story’s minimal romance. The atmosphere of the story is extremely tense throughout, and the level of complexity packed into four short issues is seriously impressive.

One of the most interesting aspects of the story is the various backgrounds of the students on the voyage, and what brings each of them to Galactic University. One student is the newly-crowned king of his planet-nation, who is taking the exam only to test his own abilities with no intention whatsoever of entering the university. Another is a half-cyborg, whose body was created to test out a potential cure for his planet’s deadly disease–one which kills every person on the planet by the age of thirty. Tada, whose parents both died when he was very young, seeks to make a way for himself out of the care of the Elder who adopted him. Each of the students has a rich backstory, some of which are only hinted at in this very short series, and each has his own personal determination to pass the final test. As the ship’s trajectory pulls them further towards certain death, it is the prospect of failure that terrifies and energizes most of these students rather than the growing risk to their lives, pushing the stakes to a place much higher than mere survival.

What is difficult to appreciate now is just how revolutionary Hagio’s art (and that of the others in the Year 24 Group) was at the time, as she eschewed the standard rectangle panel layouts of the day for innovative designs that were as vital to the tone and emotion of the story as the characters’ dialogue and facial expressions. This kind of drawing is common today, not just in shojo manga, and it’s difficult to imagine otherwise. Perhaps what is easier to note is that the art itself does not seem at all dated, and that alone is quite telling.

Something this manga brings to mind is the question of how much significance there is today in Japanese demographic categories, at least when importing manga to the west. In the case of They Were Eleven, for instance, it is difficult to determine just who wouldn’t be interested in the story in terms of gender demographics. Its science fiction setting, mystery plot, and even the very small glimmer of romance seem very much in line with works enjoyed by girls, boys, women, and men alike, and even for western comics fans only the characters’ oversized eyes are evidence of anything stereotypically Japanese. Reminiscent of the short stories of Ray Bradbury or Zenna Henderson, this comic uses the thrilling mysteries of space fantasy to provide food for thought about humanity and how we relate to and survive with each other.

For a glimpse into classic manga that is fast-paced, wrought with tension, emotionally compelling, and a pleasure to look at, Moto Hagio’s They Were Eleven offers the perfect, bite-sized package.

Bleach, Vol. 26

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By Tito Kubo
Viz Media, 216 pp.
Rating: Teen

At the end of volume 25, after discovering former soul reaper Aizen’s true objective, tenth division captain Hitsugaya was asked to stay behind for someone who was waiting to speak with him. That person turns out to be his childhood friend, Momo Hinamori, and volume 26 begins with a quietly horrifying scene in which she begs Hitsugaya not to kill Aizen, certain that he must have had good reason for his murderous acts. As short and simple as this scene is, it starts things off very effectively, setting a tone of tense anticipation that continues throughout the volume.

Though this volume’s big drama is saved for the end, its middle chapters provide some rich moments, particularly concerning Orihime, who is told very bluntly by Kisuke Urahara that her combat abilities are too weak for her to play a role in the upcoming battle with Aizen, and that she’d do best to stay out of the way. Orihime has long provided the heart of this series and here, poised on the brink of discovering her true worth, she shines, lending a much-needed warmth to the grim battle preparations that make up much of the volume. Rukia, too, plays a very poignant role here, making the series’ primary female characters the real stars of this volume.

Heavy on characterization and plot development, this volume is a welcome respite for the battle-weary, as it anxiously works its way toward its cruel cliffhanger ending. The volume’s humorous moments work well too, especially a scene in which Yumichika and Rangiku argue about their zanpakuto, each unwilling to admit that the qualities they find most frustrating about them are actually the same as their own.

Though this volume offers very little action, its quiet warmth and tense anticipation make for a nicely satisfying read.

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

Wild Ones, Vol. 6

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By Kiyo Fujiwara
Viz, 208 pp.
Rating: Teen

After volume five’s focus on holidays and gift-giving between Sachie Wakamura and her Yakuza family, volume six begins with a new school year and the introduction of Sachie’s new teacher who turns out to be her childhood friend, Chi-chan. Unfortunately, Chi-chan has a long-standing grudge against Sachie (of which she is completely unaware) and begins a campaign of harassment with the intent of exposing her family history to the entire school. Fortunately, even Chi-chan is eventually won over by Sachie’s plucky sincerity, and becomes yet another ally by the end. Also in this volume, Sachie saves a man’s family restaurant from unscrupulous loan sharks, and it is this plot that allows further development of the volume’s real drama—the continuing romantic rivalry between Rakuto and Azuma. Not that the rivalry actually gets anywhere. Though Azuma comes very close to confessing his feelings to Sachie, in the end he chickens out, leaving things essentially unchanged.

Out of all the things that are maddening about this series—the unbelievable premise, the warm-fuzzy Yakuza guys, the lack of any actual crime—the most maddening by far is the near suspended animation of the story’s romantic plot. While it’s usually effective to keep romantic tension going for as long as possible, in this case, the romance is just not exciting or complicated enough to withstand the wait. Sachie loves Rakuto, Rakuto loves Sachie, and so it has been for the entire length of the series. Everybody knows this. Nobody appears to object besides Azuma, and even he is visibly frustrated by Rakuto’s persistent inaction. In a more complex story this kind of anticipation might be intoxicating, but here it just makes the drama feel forced and repetitive.

That said, the volume does have some warm moments. The characters grow, little by little, and the uncomfortable bond between Rakuto and Azuma is almost interesting enough to make up for the endless drudgery of the romantic plot. While this series remains decidedly mediocre, there is still some distant hope of it one day finding its spark.

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

NANA, Vol. 15

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By Ai Yazawa
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Mature

After Search’s cruel delivery of a suggestive photo of Ren and Riera at the end of volume fourteen, this volume opens with the fallout from that and Takumi’s brilliantly manipulative efforts to keep the photo out of the papers. Unfortunately, the ramifications of the photo run deeper than that and Nana and Ren’s relationship continues to unravel further. Hachi and Takumi finally get married (thanks to Takumi’s manipulations) and Yasu and Miu begin to solidify their relationship as well. All of this brings Nana’s abandonment issues to the fore as she watches the most important people in her life drifting further away from her. Shin, too, feels the effect of the Search incident as Reira, suddenly aware of how vulnerable her world is to scandal, suggests they stop seeing each other. The appearance of the Search photo highlights how fragile everyone’s world is and how far a single act of thoughtlessness or cruelty can reach.

The expressive genius of Ai Yazawa’s art is what really makes this volume shine, elevating what could easily be trite soap-opera to the realm of top-notch fiction. Her ability to use panel layouts and close-ups to get to the heart of her characters is unmatched. The art feeds the complexity of the characters, transforming them into something that almost feels more real than “real life.” It’s not the art alone, of course. Yazawa resists letting any character fall into pat categories like “good” or “evil,” giving full dimension to each of them and their rich, complicated, gray-shaded world. Even manipulative, controlling Takumi, who frames everything in terms of protecting own interests, is not a clear-cut villain any more than Nana and Hachi perfectly virtuous heroines.

There is an interesting scene early in the volume, where the folks at Search mull over the power that they wield, finally determining that if Ren and Nana break up because of what they print, then the breakup was “meant to be.” “The strength of their bond will be tested,” says one writer, determined to justify the paper’s actions as some kind of righteous social experiment. The lengths to which people will go to justify their own poor behavior is a fascinating (if horrifying) study, and it is this type of insight into humanity that makes Yazawa’s writing so powerful.

Though it is clear that much of the story’s real drama is yet to come, this is a strong volume in an exceptional series that continues to be both beautifully crafted and extremely compelling.

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

Monkey High! 3 by Shouko Akira: B+

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From the back cover:
On Valentine’s Day, it’s no surprise that playboy Atsu gets plenty of chocolates from fawning girls. But everyone’s shocked when a heart-shaped box is found on Macharu’s desk—especially since it’s not from Haruna! Does Macharu have a secret admirer?

Review:
The trend of basing the chapters around relatively commonplace events continues—there’s one taking place on Valentine’s Day, one on Haruna’s birthday, and one about student council elections. The overall story continues to be pretty episodic, with much silliness from the supporting cast, but the moments between Haruna and Macharu are always serious and always good. I think that’s because Haruna herself is so serious she balances out the wackiness of her classmates.

Like the main couple in High School Debut, I like that it’s easy to see why Haruna and Macharu like each other and why they’re a good match. I get a little annoyed when various characters attest that Haruna really should be going out with Macharu’s friend Atsu because of his looks, but I suppose that does give her the opportunity to unequivocally state that she likes Macharu. There’s a great scene toward the end of the volume where she seeks him out to talk about some thoughts she’s been having, like how she’s not sure what she can do on her own, having always believed the influence of her politician father was in some part responsible for her success at her old school. It’s nice that they can talk to each other so freely. I also love that Haruna many times initiates the smooching, rather than passively waiting for it like some shoujo heroines I could name.

While I’m very happy with the development of the main couple, I could wish for a more memorable supporting cast. Atsu’s easy to remember because he talks so much. Next in recognizability are the guy that eats a lot and the girl from the student council, but that’s seriously all we know about them. There are a couple of other boys and girls who appear and have lines of dialogue and stuff and I have no idea what their names are or anything. I don’t want the story to veer off and focus on one of these classmates or anything, but they’re meaningless as they are.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, Vol. 1

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By Koji Kumeta
Del Rey, 192 pp.
Rating: OT (16+)

Schoolteacher Nozomu Itoshiki is pessimistic, depressed, and fed up with the world. He is first introduced attempting to hang himself from a cherry tree, where he is discovered by student Kafuka Fuura, who nearly kills him in the process of trying to pull him down. “What if I had died?” Nozomu exclaims, setting the tone for this whimsical black comedy from the start. Kafuka is the polar opposite of Nozomu, excessively optimistic to the point of delusion. Unable to believe that anyone could consider suicide on a beautiful spring day, she insists that Nozomu must have been trying to “make himself taller,” a practice she confesses her father took up often when faced with hard times. “At times, even mother would try to grow taller,” she says brightly, pushing Nozomu’s patience to the limit. Thus the two who never should have met, meet—the man who views everything negatively, and the girl who views everything positively.

Despite the inauspicious nature of their meeting, it seems that it was destined (or at least unavoidable), as Nozomu soon discovers that Kafuka is a student in his new class. The rest of the volume proceeds to introduce Nozomu’s other students one by one, each of whom is an extreme example of a dysfunctional stereotype—a stalker, a hikikomori (shut-in), an obsessive-compulsive, an abusive e-mailer, et cetera—most of whom develop some kind of fixation with their teacher. Though the premise could easily become mean-spirited, it never does, and each of the characters is presented with both humor and affection, the most poignant perhaps being Nami, the “ordinary” girl, whose only defining trait (much to her dismay) turns out to be that there is nothing really wrong with her at all.

Nozomu is not exactly a misanthrope, though he does suspect most people of plotting to wrong him, and he bonds with his students in spite of himself, if sometimes in slightly disturbing ways. Yes, he tears down their aspirations, belittles them with low expectations, engages in blatant favoritism (“Hold it! Don’t bully the girl I’m favoring.”), abandons them in class, and occasionally evaluates them as potential candidates for double-suicide. Yet somehow, through the filter of Koji Kumeta’s dark humor, he manages to be charming and almost warm as he leads his small band of misfits down the road to despair. His students are delightful, each in her own way, but Nozomu is the unlikely touchstone who keeps things grounded, and during the chapter or two in which he plays truant, his absence is keenly felt. Fortunately, the humorous payoff when he finally returns to the page is well worth it.

The real secret to this manga’s success is that nothing is ever allowed to become too serious or biting. The humor is dry but never bitter, and though some of the jokes translate better into English than others, each leads deftly into the next, showing off Kumeta’s satirical prowess. Even the fan service is played for laughs, deliberately inserted into the most absurd situations. The humor is sharp but never cutting, and the juxtaposition of complex satire, silly puns, and simple sight gags ensures that the mood remains light throughout.

One of the best visual gags happens quite early on as the book introduces Matoi Tsunetsuki, a girl who obsessively stalks any guy she falls for. After becoming interested in her teacher (Nozomu) she begins following him. This causes the boy she was previously interested in to become jealous, and so he starts following her. Another girl who is interested in that boy notices, and starts stalking him, and so on, until there is finally a chain of stalkers, each following the last with minimal subtlety.

The art is nicely clear and deceptively simple. Most of the girls are so similar in design, they look like a single girl with interchangeable hair, though the level of individuality granted to them with just hairstyle and expression is pretty impressive. The overall design is more complex, filled with fantastic angles and fun backgrounds, all in a wonderfully crisp style that manages to be both detailed and clean at the same time.

The book is dense with obscure jokes and Japanese cultural references, painstakingly annotated by translator Joyce Aurino over a whopping twelve pages at the back of the book. With so much information provided, it is easy to fall into the habit of checking the endnotes obsessively while reading, but this is really not a good idea. With a few exceptions (and despite what must have been an incredibly difficult translation process), Aurino’s adaptation stands strongly on its own, and though the notes are very interesting and informative, the interruption of the reading experience is simply not worth it. In most cases the context itself is sufficient, at least for the first read-through, and the notes can be viewed as an enlightening bonus to be enjoyed afterwards. With multiple layers of satire at work, this is definitely a book worth re-reading, so there are plenty of opportunities to catch new jokes that may have slipped by on the first read or two.

It is probably safe to say that the success of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei with any individual reader will depend entirely on whether or not that reader’s sense of humor meshes with Kumeta’s, and this question should be clearly answered by the end of the first chapter. If it’s not funny by then, it’s never going to be. But for those who are laughing by the end of the chapter, this book will provide a rare treat which, thanks to Del Rey, is about to become more common.

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

Monkey High! 2 by Shouko Akira: A-

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From the back cover:
Haruna and Macharu head off to the amusement park for their official first date! But how romantic is the date going to turn out with scary roller coasters, guys hitting on Haruna, and even rowdy classmates popping up?

Review:
Considering that my two complaints about volume one were its clichéd events and annoying supporting characters, this back cover blurb didn’t do much to entice me. Thankfully, the contents were better than described.

I continue to like the main characters and the contrast between them. Macharu is all spazzy, hyper, and enthusiastic while Haruna is beautiful and “cool.” It’s so nice to have a shoujo heroine who’s smart and reserved! The pain of her broken home life weighs on Haruna, and we see more evidence of that in this volume, so it’s nice to see her laugh in Macharu’s presence. She really needs someone like him, and this is the reason why she ultimately keeps some of her problems from him, to avoid damaging his carefree outlook.

The overall plots of these chapters are pretty silly—an amusement park date, the gang participating in a big quiz show, et cetera—but there are plenty of good character moments sprinkled throughout. There’s also a really cute bonus story about Macharu’s little sister, Misato. Usually the bonus stories included in manga don’t do much for me; this is probably the best one I’ve read in some time.

A few lunchtime thoughts

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Just a few loose ends on this lunch hour. Today is my eighth wedding anniversary, so I probably will not be online much this evening, but there are a couple of things lurking in my head which I will try to type out now.

Random: I finished Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei last evening in preparation for writing a review this week for Manga Recon, and it is one of those comics that makes me really, really wish I could read Japanese. Also, I’m really looking forward to completing my review so that I can finally read everyone else’s.

Also, someone’s comment early this morning got me thinking more about the discussion of online identity, specifically what I value most when I’m assessing someone’s credibility online. I replied in comments with my thoughts, but I’ll share them here as well. …

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Monkey High! 1 by Shouko Akira: A-

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From the back cover:
Haruna Aizawa thinks that school life is just like a monkey mountain—all the monkeys form cliques, get into fights, and get back together again. The school that she just transferred to is no exception. There’s even a boy called Macharu Yamashita who reminds her of a baby monkey!

It’s hard enough fitting in at a new school while dealing with family problems… Will Haruna remain jaded and distance herself from everyone around her? Or will Macharu win her over with his monkey magic?

Review:
Viz really does have some quality shojo of the high school romance genre. Love*Com, High School Debut, We Were There, and now Monkey High!. Each one that I’ve read, I’ve really liked a lot.

Haruna Aizawa’s father is an upstart politician at the center of a corruption scandal. Because of this, she transferred into a new high school, but the group dynamics—which she compares to a gang of monkeys—are much the same. She strives to keep her distance, but one boy manages to befriend her. Macharu is rather scrawny and not generally someone a beautiful girl like Haruna would consider the ideal boyfriend, but he’s kind, considerate, and sincere and before Haruna realizes it, she’s fallen in love with him. They receive instant support from their classmates who think the mismatch has great potential to be interesting.

Haruna and Macharu are both interesting characters, and it’s awfully refreshing to read a title where the heroine is not earning the affections of the dreamiest, most popular boy in school. Also, Haruna has had boyfriends before, so is not going spazzy over having attracted a boy’s notice. There are some genuinely cute moments between them, and I’m happy to see them become a couple so quickly, as I tend to like stories where getting together is only the beginning of the story, rather than its culmination.

There are some things I found a little annoying, though. The three chapters in this volume deal with the school play, school trip, and Christmas, respectively. Is Akira-sensei just getting the clichés out of the way up front? I’m a little worried. Also, I didn’t find it funny when Haruna and Macharu’s classmates just happened to be eavesdropping on the lead pair at a few crucial moments, interrupting with their antics.

Considering how often I grumble about unfunny attempts at comedy in manga, I wouldn’t blame anyone for concluding that I simply have no sense of humor. I assure you that isn’t the case; I just don’t like it when it isn’t part of the story but instead disrupts it.

Monkey High! was originally published in Japan as Saruyama! and is complete with eight volumes total. Viz is releasing it in English and five volumes have been published so far.