Reviews

Sugarholic, Volume 1

July 30, 2009 by MJ 7 Comments

Sugarholic, Vol. 1
By Gong GooGoo
Published by Yen Press

After the house she lives in with her mother and grandmother is destroyed in a landslide, twenty-year-old slacker Jae-Gyu is sent away from her rural hometown to live with her older brother in Seoul. With little money and even less optimism, she gets off the bus in the big city, only to lose her money and make an enemy (a good-looking but arrogant guy whose shirt she accidentally tears) right off the bat. Things get no better once she finds her brother, who is obviously engaged in shady business and really doesn’t want her around. She does find some refuge in her best friend, Hyun-Ah, whose family moved to the city a few years back, but even that is marred by the re-emergence of Hee-do, a childhood playmate Jae-Gyu bullied repeatedly, who is now an up-and-coming pop star harboring a long-held crush on her. Then to top things off, she gets embroiled in the middle of some kind of dangerous family trouble involving the torn-shirt guy (a martial artist named Whie-Hwan) who insists they pretend they are in love with each other in order to save himself from being sent out of the country.

…

Amefurashi: The Rain Goddess, Vol. 1

July 28, 2009 by MJ Leave a Comment

By Atsushi Suzumi
Del Rey, 240 pp.
Rating: T (13+)

Gimmy is a teen boy living in a a desert town that gets its much-needed water by making offerings to the Amefurashi (rain goddess) living in a nearby nimbus tree. When the Amefurashi sends a request (usually asking for a doll) someone in the town must fulfill it or the rain will not come. When Gimmy is asked by the town’s wise man to make a doll for offering, he sets in to the task gamely, but as the appointed time approaches he begins to panic that he can’t finish it in time. Determined to get their older brother off the hook, young twins Mil and Mel dress up as dolls and place themselves on the wise man’s doorstep in a wooden toy box, pretending to be the offering. The wise man has the “dolls” sent to the altar and Mil and Mel are ready to celebrate their victory, but of course the Amefurashi comes along too soon and whisks them away.

When he realizes what’s happened, Gimmy climbs the tree to rescue them, but is himself captured by the Amefurashi, who turns out to be a cute little girl brandishing a whip. Gimmy tries various tricks to get his brother and sister back, including promising more dolls to the Amefurashi (who follows him back to town), but nothing goes as planned and ultimately the Amefurashi is so weakened by her excursion that her tree and the town come under threat from a rival rain goddess who wishes to gain control of the town’s rain for herself.

Though Amefurashi‘s premise on its own sounds like great folklore, the execution is so light and breezy, all the things that could have been truly compelling about it—the missing children, the weakening of the tree, the disastrous consequences for the townsfolk, even the Amefurashi’s obsession with dolls—are shunted to the side in favor of wacky action scenes (like the kids attempting to fight a giant flying caterpillar invading the tree), dull jokes (like Gimmy being taken for a “pest” and later an “ant”), and shots of the Amefurashi (who goes by the name “Sora”) looking feisty with her whip. There’s a lot of potential buried in this story, but most of it is brazenly ignored over the course of this volume.

Sora is alternately arrogant and bratty, powerful and helpless—childish to the extreme though her calling is so serious. The rival rain goddess later explains that Sora (and her tree) are yet immature, but it still seems odd that someone so much a part of nature would be so ignorant of the ramifications of her own actions throughout the volume. She is, at least, genuinely distraught over the fate of her tree which leads her to contemplating her purpose in life. Gimmy is a typical nerd hero, good at making things (including an experimental skateboard he loses to Sora early on) and somewhat bashful, but with a hero’s heart underneath. The twins, Mil and Mel, are just plain adorable.

By the end of the volume, it appears that Sora, Gimmy, Mil, and Mel are going to be heading off to save Sora’s tree (and ultimately the town) together, which has potential to create something almost as compelling as the folklore aspects might have been had they been truly explored. This may bring a little more cohesiveness to the story and should deepen the characterization somewhat.

Suzumi’s art is fun, expressive, and easy to follow, providing one of the highlights of the series so far. The visual storytelling shows off the mangaka’s strengths nicely, though the story itself lacks the same depth of skill. Though at this point, Amefurashi is nothing special, it does show potential for growth.

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

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Volume 2

July 28, 2009 by MJ 1 Comment

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Vol. 2
By Motoro Mase
Published by Viz Media

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Fujimoto is becoming accustomed to his job as the harbinger of people’s doom, but he’s not sure if that’s a good thing. The volume opens as his girlfriend tells him she’s leaving him because she feels crushed by the weight of his work. Meanwhile, the work goes on and this volume introduces two new victims of the government’s Social Welfare Act. Both stories are tragic, of course, perhaps even more so than those told in the first volume, though both victims also end up changing other people’s lives for the better, one through the work he’s able to during his short life, and the other, sadly, through her death.

Despite whatever “good” has been done by these individuals, however, there is still no evidence that the government’s systematic murder of its citizens is actually a positive thing at all. One emerges from this volume hoping against hope that Fujimoto might find the stomach to start a rebellion of some kind, not that he’s yet demonstrated anything approaching that kind of fortitude. His deepest conflict right now is whether to let himself grow colder still toward the unfortunate souls he must visit (on the way to one last-minute Ikigami delivery, he asks his driver to make a stop at the video store so that he can avoid paying a late fee) or whether he should try to discover some philosophy of life and death that he can use to help heal their pain. This is the extent of what he can manage emotionally at this point.

I found the individual stories in this volume even more compelling than those in the last, which is certainly something that will keep me reading. I do hope the story will find a new direction to explore before the manga’s current formula becomes tedious, as it undoubtedly will should it continue on like this much longer. For the moment, however, what is offered here is more than enough to keep readers engaged. Ikigami continues to be a fascinating and well-told story with fantastic art to match.

Volume two of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit will be available on August 11th, 2009. Review copy provided by the publisher. Click here to read my review of volume one.

Dororo, Vols. 1-3

July 27, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

If Phoenix is Tezuka’s Ring Cycle, Wagnerian in scope, form, and seriousness, then Dororo is Tezuka’s Don Giovanni, a playful marriage of supernatural intrigue and lowbrow comedy whose deeper message is cloaked in shout-outs to fellow artists (in this case, Shunji Sonoyama instead of Vicente Martin y Soler), self-referential jokes, pop-culture allusions, fourth-wall humor, and a bestiary of bodacious demons.

Its hero, Hyakkimaru, is born under a black cloud, thanks to a deal his father, Lord Daigo, struck with forty-eight devils: in exchange for political and military power, Daigo allowed each demon to claim one of his unborn child’s body parts. After his son’s birth, Daigo places Hyakkimaru in a basket and, against his wife’s wishes, sets the baby adrift on a river. A kind doctor rescues and raises Hyakkimaru, eventually building him a new body that transformed the legless, armless boy into a fighting machine equipped with an exploding nose and sword prostheses. It doesn’t take long, however, before Daigo’s minions begin attacking Hyakkimaru and menacing Dr. Honma. In an effort to spare his mentor’s life, Hyakkimaru bids farewell to Dr. Honma and embarks on a quest to reclaim his body from the demons who aided Lord Daigo.

Hyakkimaru soon acquires a traveling companion: Dororo, a pint-sized pickpocket with a big mouth and a bad attitude. Despite Hyakkimaru’s efforts to rid himself of Dororo, the kid bandit vows not to leave Hyakkimaru’s side until he gets his hands on one of Hyakkimaru’s swords. The two wander a war-torn landscape, stumbling across fire-ravaged temples, starving villages, bandits, profiteers, homeless children… and demons. Lots of them.

dororo2 Though much of the devastation that Hyakkimaru and Dororo witness is man-made (Dororo takes placed during the Sengoku, or Warring States, Period), demons exploit the conflict for their own benefit, holding small communities in their thrall, luring desperate travelers to their doom, and feasting on the never-ending supply of human corpses. Some of these demons have obvious antecedents in Japanese folklore — a nine-tailed kitsune — while others seem to have sprung full-blown from Tezuka’s imagination — a shark who paralyzes his victims with sake breath, a demonic toad, a patch of mold possessed by an evil spirit. (As someone who’s lived in prewar buildings, I can vouch for the existence of demonic mold. Lysol is generally more effective than swordplay in eliminating it, however.) Hyakkimaru has a vested interest in killing these demons, as he spontaneously regenerates a lost body part with each monster he slays. But he also feels a strong sense of kinship with many victims — a feeling not shared by those he helps, who cast him out of their village as soon as the local demon has been vanquished.

dororo3 For folks who find the cartoonish aspects of Tezuka’s style difficult to reconcile with the serious themes addressed in Buddha, Phoenix, and Ode to Kirihito, Dororo may prove a more satisfying read. The cuteness of Tezuka’s heroes actually works to his advantage; they seem terribly vulnerable when contrasted with the grotesque demons, ruthless samurai, and scheming bandits they encounter. Tezuka’s jokes — which can be intrusive in other stories — also prove essential to Dororo‘s success. He shatters the fourth wall, inserts characters from his stable of “stars,” borrows characters from other manga-kas’ work, and punctuates moments of high drama with low comedy, underscoring the sheer absurdity of his conceits… like sake-breathing shark demons. Put another way, Dororo wears its allegory lightly, focusing primarily on swordfights, monster lairs, and damsels in distress while using its historical setting to make a few modest points about the corrosive influence of greed, power, and fear.

If I had any criticism of Dororo, it’s that the story ends too abruptly. Neither hero has reached the end of his journey, yet neither seems firmly resolved to continue his quest; they simply part ways at Hyakkimaru’s suggestion. I’m guessing that Tezuka was avoiding the obvious, sentimental conclusion suggested by a major revelation in volume three, but even that would have been better than slamming on the brakes at an arbitrary point in the narrative.

Weak ending notwithstanding, Dororo is one of Tezuka’s most accessible series, free of the historical and cultural baggage that can be an obstacle to enjoying his more ambitious, adult stories. If you haven’t yet explored Tezuka’s work, have found titles like Apollo’s Song too fraught for your tastes, or are wondering why this somewhat corny, boy-versus-monster manga beat out critical favorites like Monster and solanin in this year’s Eisner race, Dororo makes a perfect (re)introduction to Tezuka’s unique storytelling style. Highly recommended.

This review is based on complimentary copies provided by Vertical, Inc. for the purposes of a review. I have not received any form of compensation from Vertical, Inc. in exchange for publishing my opinion of this book.

DORORO, VOLS. 1-3 • BY OSAMU TEZUKA • VERTICAL, INC. • NO RATING

Toxic Planet

July 26, 2009 by MJ

Toxic Planet
By David Ratte
Published by Yen Press

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Sam’s world is one created by industry and global warming, where vegetation is ancient legend and gas masks are a daily necessity. Both the earth and its atmosphere are irrevocably poisoned, ecologists are considered enemies of the state, and trees are seen only in museum exhibits. Yet somehow, all this is funny. Really, really funny. Released by Yen Press first as a webcomic and now in print, French cartoonist David Ratte’s satirical comic transforms environmentalism into the sublime by mixing harshly real messages with sharp, occasionally whimsical humor.

…

After School Nightmare, Volume 1

July 25, 2009 by MJ Leave a Comment

Just now I’ve posted a review for the first volume of Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare over at Comics Should Be Good! This is a series I keep hearing good things about, and my experience with the first volume certainly backs that up. I’ve always been fascinated by dreams, so just the premise was enough to get me hooked, but the story’s rich characters and fantastic art make it even more compelling. This review gets special mention over here, because I’m keen to add this volume to my “Recently Recommended” sidebar widget, that’s how much I enjoyed it. Please head on over and check out my review! (Reprinted here after the demise of CSBG)

On a somewhat related note, congratulations, also, to everyone over at CSBG’s parent site, Comic Book Resources for its Eisner win last night!

After School Nightmare, Volume 1 By Setona Mizushiro Published by Go!Comi

Everybody has some kind of secret, though Ichijo Mashiro’s is bigger than most: he was born with a male upper body and a female lower body, something he has successfully kept from his peers for his entire life. Unfortunately, this secrecy can’t last once his school enrolls him in a special after-hours “class” in which he is placed into a shared nightmare with other students. In the nightmare, the students are reduced to their “true forms,” revealing their worst fears and deepest wounds to each other. One student, for instance, appears in the dreams with gaping holes in place of her face and chest, while another appears in a full suit of armor. Yet another appears as a pair of endless, disembodied arms. Unlike the others, Ichijo’s true form looks exactly like himself, only dressed in a girl’s school uniform.

In order to graduate from the class, the students must obtain a mysterious “key” which any of them might carry, and in order to do so, the students consistently try to destroy each other within the dream. The students’ individual class sessions are limited by a cord with three beads on it that appears around their necks. When a student’s heart sustains damage (such as through extreme shock or pain) the beads break one by one. Three broken beads indicate failure, at which point the student wakes from the dream and is dismissed until the next class. It is clear that in order to graduate from the class, there is something each student must overcome, but no direction is given to them regarding how to do that or even exactly what it is.

Ichijo’s gender conflict is obviously the center of his own fear and it is fascinating to watch that explored in this volume. As the story begins, he experiences his first menstruation cycle which shakes his long-time identification as male and seems to be the catalyst for his initiation into the after school class. His loathing of his own body is paramount. “You’re not distorted at all, Mashiro-kun,” another student says to him after his first class, “even from the bottom of your heart.” “She’s wrong,” Ichijo says to himself. “This body I walk around in is the most distorted thing of all. That’s why I didn’t turn into anything else in that dream. Because this body is uglier than anything I know.” His personal struggle is complicated further by romantic attention from two of his fellow students–Kureha, a girl who was sexually molested as a child and now fears men (except for Ichijo, whom she now sees as “safe,” thanks to his female sexual organs) and Sou, a boy with a reputation as a womanizer in his class who has secretly harbored feelings for Ichijo all along, believing him to be male.

The issues of gender identification and sexuality addressed in the series are really compelling overall, though it’s hard to tell at this point just what the author is trying to say about them. It is clear that Ichijo associates being male with strength and being female with weakness which is a significant part of why he is so determined to live as male, but his ideas are being challenged from all sides which is terrifying for him but quite thrilling for the reader. These issues are not the entire focus of the story, however. For instance, one of the most interesting things about Ichijo, is that he is apparently the only student (in his current class, at least) to have ever tried to save another student during the nightmare–something which most of the other students see as extremely foolish.

The story’s supporting characters are at least as fascinating as Ichijo, though still somewhat mysterious at this point. Their personal scars are deep and their positions with each other terrifyingly vulnerable, both inside and outside of the nightmare, now that those scars are being openly displayed to each other day after day. Some of the students appear in such distorted forms during the dreams, it’s impossible to tell who they are in real life, but a few of their identities are revealed in this volume and that will probably continue as the series goes on. The emotional intimacy forced upon them during the dreams really is every teen’s nightmare and though the full implications of that have yet to be explored, it’s something I’m anticipating eagerly as a reader. There is so much rich material here to work with, I can only hope the series follows through.

Mizushiro’s art is a true highlight, especially during the nightmare sections which are genuinely creepy. This volume has a somewhat sparse look overall, with a restrained use of tone and a nicely crisp feel which adds to the tension of the story. The volume begins with a short section of genuinely beautiful color pages, the last of which is a poignant illustration of Ichijo standing in the shower, horrified by blood that has trickled to his feet, lending the series strong emotional resonance from the start.

After School Nightmare‘s tenth and final volume was released by Go!Comi in February of this year, making the full series available to English-speaking readers. Its strong art and compelling characters help to create a genuinely stunning first volume and this is a series I’ll definitely be continuing as quickly as I can.

Broken Blade, Volume 1

July 22, 2009 by MJ 1 Comment

Broken Blade, Vol. 1
By Yunosuke Yoshinaga
Published by CMX

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Rygart Arrow has grown up in a world where all devices and machines are powered by quartz, controlled by his people’s inborn ability to infuse the quartz with energy using nothing but a thought. Unfortunately, Rygart is one of the very rare few born without this ability, otherwise known as an “unsorcerer.” As the story begins, Rygart is abruptly summoned to his country’s capital to meet with the King and Queen, who also happen to be his best friends from boarding school, Hodr and Sigyn. Confused and completely in the dark about the reason behind his sudden visit, Rygart arrives cracking jokes, but the hilarity fades quickly as his friends share with him the fact that their country is under attack. Worse still, the invading army is being led by the fourth in their old school gang, a budding military genius named Zess. Baffled by the news, Rygart encourages Hodr to surrender to the enemy’s obviously superior forces, until Hodr reveals that one of the conditions of surrender proposed by the invaders is that the royal family (including his wife) be executed.

…

Boys Over Flowers 28 by Yoko Kamio: B+

July 21, 2009 by Michelle Smith

boysoverflowers28 From the back cover:
Tsukushi’s friend Yuki is still fixated on Sojiro*, a member of the F4. While struggling to understand him she immerses herself in a mysterious event from his past. Meanwhile, spies continue to track Tsukushi and Tsukasa’s every move. The two of them will have to take some outlandish steps to outsmart the snoops and get some “alone time!”

* The back cover actually says “Akira” here. Tsk tsk, VIZ. While Akira and Sojiro might’ve seemed interchangeable at the beginning of the series, they certainly aren’t anymore.

Review:
Here’s another volume that very nicely balances the relationship between Tsukushi and Tsukasa with Yuki’s ongoing efforts to get through to Sojiro. On the former front, after an annoying bout of insecurity in which Tsukushi wonders whether Tsukasa just sees her as a novelty because she’s poor (since she hasn’t seen him return to the dingy apartment he rented next door), they proceed to have some cute/good scenes, like when she thinks that her laying next to him will help him sleep in an unfamiliar place (wrong!) or when they very nearly consummate their relationship.

Yuki, meanwhile, has been told by Sojiro that there was one girl he loved—whom we meet in a side story called “Story of an Encounter”—but he did her wrong by not showing up to a certain rooftop at 5 a.m. as she’d requested. Yuki searches through a bunch of rooftops until she finds the right one and drags Sojiro off to see what the girl had been trying to show him. Personally, I’m not sure what Yuki sees in Sojiro, but I like her calm determination quite a bit, so I’m interested to see where this’ll go.

Once again, not a whole lot more to say other than “it’s good and here were my favorite bits.” With this volume, it also beats Basara for the honor of Longest Shoujo Series I Have Read.

High School Debut, Volume 11

July 21, 2009 by MJ 10 Comments

High School Debut, Vol. 11
By Kazune Kawahara
Published by Viz Media

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As this volume begins, Miyabi, the girl in Yoh’s prep class who was very obviously developing a thing for him in the previous volume, starts pushing herself between Yoh and Haruna. Though it is unclear in the beginning how much is intentional, as the volume goes on, she moves into bona fide psycho territory–sending fake messages from Yoh’s phone, blocking Haruna’s calls, and so on. Fortunately, just as this arc is becoming a bit too much to bear, things lighten up with a story in which Haruna’s lack of understanding about the significance of an overnight trip with Yoh runs them both around in circles, bringing the series back into its comfort zone (and me with it).

I won’t lie. I really disliked the first half of this volume. I have very little patience for the too-common portrayal of physically unattractive characters as obvious villains. I’ve long accepted that manga characters–especially shojo manga characters and always the romantic leads–are going to be uniformly beautiful people, even when they begin as ugly ducklings. The idea that people must be (or become) beautiful in order to be loved pervades all media, not just manga, and I’ve learned to clutch my Charlotte Brontë novels closely to my chest, deal with it, and move on.

It is really irksome, then, that in this rare instance in which a character with a plain face and unconventional body type is introduced, she is an angry, loathsome, seriously unbalanced stalker, threatening to steal the good-looking hero away from his cute, perky heroine. (Though even the heroine becomes overweight and unattractive while being kept away from her man–look what happens to a girl deprived of love!) I realize I’m ranting at this point, but I honestly found this story line to be pretty repugnant, especially in a series aimed at teen girls, many of whom may be seeing a young, female character who they can relate to physically for the first time ever in the manga they read, only to find her portrayed as a complete monster.

It is a real testament to the charm of this series, however, that by about ten pages into the next arc it had already won me back. Haruna is adorably innocent, Yoh is adorably devoted, and all is right with the world. I suspect most readers will not have the same extreme reaction to the beginning of volume as I had, but for those who might, take heart! Though the first half of this volume loses some of the fun inherent to this series, by the end it has returned to its usual, delightful self. High School Debut, I still love you.

Volume eleven of High School Debut will be available on September 1st, 2009. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Boys Over Flowers 27 by Yoko Kamio: B+

July 20, 2009 by Michelle Smith

boysoverflowers27 From the back cover:
Tsukushi makes a shocking announcement at a party! Then her parents move into a tiny apartment, forcing Tsukushi and her brother to get their own place—next door to someone she knows. And Tsukushi’s friend Yuki is becoming increasingly infatuated with Sojiro, one of the F4. Is she willing to compromise herself for what she thinks he wants?!

Review:
So many nice things happened in this volume. It’s a feel-good volume on the main couple front and also significantly advances the subplot about Tsukushi’s friend Yuki and her feelings for Sojiro.

What did I love?
* Kamio-sensei evidently knows full well that fans squee when Tsukasa is shown when wet hair, because she finds a couple of excuses to depict him thusly in this volume. I don’t disapprove.

* Tsukushi makes an effort to be more forthright with Tsukasa, and ends up telling the gang that she loves him and they’re going out.

* All of the shoujo angst about Yuki’s confession to Sojiro and his subsequent attempts to scare Yuki by making it seem he intends to bed her are a lot of fun. I’m really enjoying this subplot!

* After a thief breaks into Tsukushi and Susumu’s new apartment, Tsukasa moves in next door and takes an adorable trip to a public bath house.

* There’s a really sweet scene between Tsukushi and Rui wherein he says he’s happy for her but a bit sad as well, since he looked on her as his pet.

Other than new plot developments, there really isn’t a lot to praise in this series that I haven’t praised already. I can only say that I really like the place that it’s in right now.

Fruits Basket, Volume 23

July 18, 2009 by MJ 4 Comments

Fruits Basket, Vol. 23
By Natsuki Takaya
Published by Tokyopop

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Finally, after the intense drama of the last two volumes (particularly the breaking of the zodiac curse) things begin to settle for everyone here in Fruits Basket‘s final volume. Tohru and Kyo begin to plan their life together away from the rest of the Sohma family, Yuki gets ready to go away to college, and everyone begins to pair off with nothing now standing in their way (except, of course, themselves). The easing of all that drama, however, does not mean this volume is at all lacking in tear-inducing moments. There are touching scenes throughout the volume, between Akito and Shigure, Yuki and Machi, and Tohru and everyone. The most heart-wrenching scene of all, however, is a look at the sequence of events inside Kyoko Honda’s head as she lies dying in the street–truth that Kyo can never know and that Tohru believes without knowing.

…

Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You 1 by Karuho Shiina: A-

July 17, 2009 by Michelle Smith

kiminitodoke1 Sawako Kuronuma doesn’t mean to terrify her classmates. In fact, she wants nothing more than to befriend them, but her resemblance to a character from a horror movie combined with her reserved demeanor keeps them at bay. Everyone, that is, except for a cheerful boy named Kazehaya, who is friendly to all and known to look out for those who don’t quite fit in. When Sawako accidentally says something about him that might be construed as insulting, Kazehaya gives her the opportunity to explain her true feelings. Learning from this experience, she henceforth attempts to clear up misunderstandings about her temperament and rumored psychic powers by revealing her true feelings all over the place, earning her a few additional friends who are moved by her earnest efforts. Kazehaya continues to encourage her to open up, though the attention he pays Sawako causes rumors to fly, including one that might put her new friendships in jeopardy.

I could tell before I even confirmed it that Kimi ni Todoke was serialized in Margaret or one of its offshoots. There’s a similar (but not identical) kind of warmth to series like High School Debut and Crimson Hero that really I really like, and Kimi ni Todoke possesses it as well. Part of the appeal is the importance of friendship as the basis for a relationship, as in each of the series mentioned, the romantic leads have many reasons to like and respect each other, with their feelings developing as a result of one another’s good qualities rather than reasons more shallow. Friendships between female characters are also important, something which is sometimes lacking in shojo manga.

Another point in Kimi ni Todoke’s favor is that the main cast is genuinely likable. True, Sawako is somewhat clueless at times, but her inability to realize that Kazehaya has feelings for her is not due to ditziness; she just’s so very happy and grateful to have him as a friend that it simply doesn’t occur to her that he could possibly want something more. I’m also quite fond of Sawako’s first new friends, Yano and Yoshida, who look kind of tough but end up rallying around her at crucial moments. Sawako, with her long dark hair and spooky vibe and Yoshida, who is brash and rumored to be an ex-gang member, also remind me of Hanajima and Uotani from Fruits Basket, which is definitely a compliment.

Karuho Shiina’s panel layouts and sparse backgrounds pretty much adhere to the shojo standard, but she does possess a unique style where faces are concerned. They’re drawn simply yet expressively, perfectly suited to all of the sincere feeling on display. Sawako is depicted in a variety of ways—creepy-looking, super-deformed—and only manages an unselfconscious smile once, eliciting surprise from all around and prompting Yano to remark later that it actually made her seem “pretty normal.” It does take a little while to tell Sawako’s new friends apart, but they’re distinct enough that it’s not a major problem.

The bottom line: Kimi ni Todoke is feel-good shojo at its best.

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

Venus Capriccio, Volume 1

July 16, 2009 by MJ 3 Comments

Venus Capriccio, Vol. 1
By Mai Nishikata
Published by CMX

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Takami is a tall, pretty second-year high school student and also a life-long tomboy. When her most recent date dumps her for not being feminine enough, she runs straight to her childhood friend Akira for comfort, just like always. Akira, whom Takami first met as a child in piano school, is two years her junior and an accomplished young pianist who regularly plays at a local jazz nightclub. Since Akira is as delicate and beautiful as a girl (with unusually fair features thanks to his half-Austrian heritage) Takami has always treated him like a beloved little sister. When it becomes clear that Akira–now grown into an extremely attractive and confident young man–has feelings for Takami, she is forced to recognize that he is not her “sister” after all. Though Akira’s confession makes Takami feel happy, she is not yet sure how she really feels about him so, they continue on as friends for quite some time. The more time Takami spends with Akira, however–now with her eyes wide open–the more she begins to recognize his true worth, though it takes the appearance of a few determined rivals to help her finally understand her own feelings.

…

Cat Paradise, Vol. 1

July 16, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

When I was applying to college, my guidance counselor encouraged me to make a list of amenities that my dream school would have — say, a first-class orchestra or a bucolic New England setting. It never occurred to me to add “pet-friendly dormitories” to that list, but reading Yuji Iwahara’s Cat Paradise makes me wish I’d been a little more imaginative in my thinking. The students at Matabi Academy, you see, are allowed to have cats in the dorms, a nice perk that has a rather sinister rationale: cats play a vital role in defending the school against Kaen, a powerful demon who’s been sealed beneath its library for a century.

Yumi Hayakawa, the series’ plucky heroine, is blissfully unaware of Kaen’s existence when she and her beloved pet Kansuke enroll at Matabi Academy. Within hours of their arrival, however, they find themselves face-to-face with a blood-thirsty demon who describes himself as “the right knee” of Kaen. (N.B. He’s a lot more badass than “right knee” might suggest, and has a coat of human skulls to prove it.) The ensuing battle reveals that the school’s six-member student council is, in fact, comprised of magically-enhanced warriors who fight in concert with their pets. Each Guardian has a different ability; some possess super-strength, while others transform their cats into powerful weapons. Though prophecy foretold only six “fighting pairs,” Yumi and Kansuke quickly discover that they, too, have similar powers that obligate them to fight alongside the Guardians. Iwahara hasn’t explained why the prophecy proved wrong — a cloudy crystal ball, perhaps? — but it’s a safe bet that Yumi and Kansuke will have a special role to play in the impending showdown with Kaen, who has yet to materialize.

Though the plot sounds like an amalgam of manga cliches, Cat Paradise proves fun and fresh, thanks to Iwahara’s rich imagination and wicked sense of humor. The Guardians’ powers are handled in a particularly droll fashion: each student’s ability is based on his best talent, whether that be great physical speed or the ability to make a mean dumpling. The scenes in which Yumi and the other Guardians unleash their powers are both hilarious and horrifying, as Iwahara pokes fun at fighting-pair manga (e.g. Loveless) while punctuating the action with scary, visceral images (e.g. the demon’s coat). Iwahara also milks the talking animal concept for all its humorous potential, giving each Guardian’s cat a distinctive voice. The jokes are predictable but amusing; Kansuke speaks for many cats when he voices disdain for sweaters.

At first glance, Iwahara’s artwork looks a lot like other manga-ka’s. His cast is filled with familiar types, from the bishonen who’s so pretty people mistake him for a girl to the steely female fighter who looks older and more worldly than her peers. Yet a closer inspection of Iwahara’s drawing reveals a much higher level of craftsmanship that his generic character designs might suggest; he’s a consummate draftsman, favoring intricate linework over screentone to create volume and depth. (Even his character designs are more distinctive than they initially appear, as each human’s face contains a subtle echo of his cat’s.) The story’s good-vs-evil theme is neatly underscored by Iwahara’s use of white spaces and bold, black patches to create strong visual contrast and menacing shadows.

I’d be the first to admit that Cat Paradise defies easy classification. Is it a parody? A horror story? A plea for greater human-cat understanding? Or just a goof on Iwahara’s part, as his afterword suggests? No matter. Iwahara demonstrates that he can make almost any story work, no matter how ridiculous the premise may be. The proof is in the pudding: you don’t need to have a special fondness for cats, manga about cats, or manga about teen demon fighters to enjoy Cat Paradise, just a good sense of humor and a good imagination.

CAT PARADISE, VOL. 1 • BY YUJI IWAHARA • YEN PRESS • 192 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking, Volume 2

July 14, 2009 by MJ 5 Comments

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking, Vol. 2
By Koji Kumeta
Published by Del Rey Manga

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Unflinchingly bleak schoolteacher Nozomu Itoshiki and his students are back, beginning with a chapter set during Tanabata in which Itoshiki-sensei’s wish (“I want to resign”) stands in contrast to the actions of overly-optimistic Kafuka who hangs people’s college applications on the bamboo tree and convinces the masses that their wishes can be granted in their next lives. This chapter opens the volume well, re-introducing the characters effectively before moving on. This volume also features a visit from a man posing as Commodore Perry (the man who famously “opened” Japan), a tirade against information, the tragedy of overshadowed achievers, Comiket, a beach where everyone is perilously on edge, the Itoshiki family’s unusual marriage traditions, so-called “criticism training,” and an ode to instability, all presented with the same sharp, fast-paced satire as the series’ first volume.

The success of this volume once again mainly comes down to personal taste and sense of humor. If the first volume did not make you laugh, this one will not either, but if it did, you’re in for another treat. Though the numerous Japanese cultural references may actually be even more dense in this volume, Joyce Aurino’s adaptation still reads quite smoothly and I maintain my original recommendation against following her meticulous translation notes during the first read.

It is the thick layers of humor that strike me most in this series. Not only are each chapter’s main gags wonderfully funny and over-the-top, but the tiny details–small, throw-away jokes nearly lost in the din with their barely legible font sizes–are often so funny I have to stop reading to let myself get in a good, long laugh. Like the first volume, this book gets funnier with multiple rereads–another reason why catching each reference the first time around is honestly unnecessary. Unlike a lot of shonen manga which is consumed so quickly it leaves you just as hungry as when you began, this series is best ingested slowly, chewed carefully several times over for the most satisfying meal.

Simultaneously breezy and dark, volume two of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is just as grimly delightful as it can be.