Reviews

By Kaneyoshi Izumi. Released in Japan as “Men’s Kou” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Comic (“Betsucomi”). Released in North America by Viz.

We’ve almost finished with this short and enjoyable shoujo series. As we hit the penultimate volume, the main boys (well, the main straight boys) all have girlfriends of some sort or another. So we’re left with doing plots on side characters we haven’t seen much of till now, and working on seeing how well those relationships with the girls are being maintained. As always, communication is the key.

The first chapter shows us a girl who goes through guys like kleenex, and her platonic best friend who has tried going to Seiho to get away from the drama that is her life. Of course, ‘platonic’ in this case turns out to be as platonic as most other shoujo manga cute friendships. Maki manages to step in and show the two what everyone but them can see (and honestly, the girl gets it too), with that special blend of being a complete jerk for the right reasons that he does so well. Given that it’s all too easy to peg Maki into the ‘sweet’ hole, I like seeing him when he’s a bit of an asshole.

Next we’re back to Kamiki, with what was likely my favorite chapter of the volume. He’s come down with a bad cold, and is starting to lose the image that he projects so hard under a feverish glare of ‘you know what? I just don’t care anymore’. We see some shots of him as a child dealing with his somewhat scatterbrained mother. He acts the strong, always in control boy so he can please her… but then she worries he’s too stoic. Finding a happy medium is tough, especially when you’re busy burying most of your emotions. (Suddenly it’s easier to see why he might have fallen for his stepsister.)

It’s even harder when your girlfriend is acting a bit too clingy, and your best friend is trying to get a bit too involved in your life as always. Kamiki and Maki’s brief fistfight is not as startling as what he says, and despite it being due to a fever, I think Kamiki with the filter off is great at telling those little annoying truths. Maki’s dating a girl with the same name and a similar personality as his dead crush. Why wouldn’t anyone be wary of that? Heck, I’ve mentioned myself I keep waiting for it to blow up in my past reviews. Still, Maki’s rationalization is a good one, and I’m starting to think I may not get the full confession I was hoping for.

There then follows a weak chapter with a student teacher inspiring Maki to be an idiot. The chapter after that, however, tells Miyaki and Erika’s side of the Kamiki chapter, and shows how the two, despite being dissimilar, have become such good friends. It shows both of them not at their best – Miyaji overreacts to everything, and is constantly fretting, which Erika’s ‘I don’t need anyone or anything’ persona sometimes blinds her to when Miyaji needs a hug more than a kick in the pants – but the dynamic is excellent. I like that Miyaji, during their fight, can immediately tell that she hurt Erika, and how it gnaws at her. It makes her less of a giant flake, which she’s had a tendency to be in this series.

There’s another cliffhanger ending, this time playing on Miyaji’s insecurities, but given Vol. 6’s ending didn’t apparently do much I’m not sure if this one will either. Still, it’s another great volume of an underrated shoujo series, and with the next volume being the final one I hope that all our leads find some measure of happiness. Bittersweet endings can be nice, but I like sugary sweet better.

By Aya Kanno. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Hana to Yume (“Betsuhana”). Released in North America by Viz.

Well, in my review of Volume 10 I asked for an end to these ‘minor villains’ coming in to try to de-Otomen our hero, and do a degree I got that. But that’s because the series main villain makes her big return. Asuka’s mother is back, and she is not about to let her boy do anything girly whatsoever. But that’s not till 2/3 of the way through this volume. First we have to finish off the cycle of teachers who were brought in to clean up the school.

When we left our heroes, they were on a field trip to learn to become perfect samurai and geisha. Unfortunately, a landslide has destroyed the only way out to get food and supplies, and trapped them. Luckily, our heroes are not content to let gender stereotypes get in their way! Asuka creates festival decorations to distract the class, while Ryo goes hunting for giant fish, having earlier proven that she can’t be trusted with mushroom gathering. She also rescues an injured Tonomine, and in general is pretty badass. (Given I’ve whined about her so much in the past, I will grant her this.) She also cleans up nicely when she goes dancing with Ryo later.

The best chapters in the manga are the ones back at school dealing with Valentine’s Day, which naturally leads to another Otomen challenge, this one disguised as it’s based around punishing an anonymous person who wrote soppy romantic poetry. Asuka steps in to stop the punishment, and finds himself battling the school nurse, Oji, who is not only handsome and sexy, but also exudes pheromones to make all the girls fall for him. Asuka has merely his natural charm, handsomeness, and politeness to fall back on.

It’s a tough battle, especially as Ryo has seemed distant and keeps brushing him off. (If you’ve guessed what she’s doing, you’re right – this is Otomen. Surprises in the plot are for other manga.) But in the end, Asuka realizes that the shallowness of this competition is not for him, and throws it by giving all the chocolates back (notes he grabs each chocolate from a huge pile and remembers who gave it to him exactly), as the only ones he can accept are from Ryo, who of course has spent the last few days making her lethal chocolate for him. Awwwwww.

Unfortunately, after this we hit our Worst Case Scenario – Asuka’s mother is back, taking over the school as Kasuga and his squad of teachers failed. So Asuka is back to desperately hiding everything, which is even more unfortunate given there’s a class in teaching men how to bake cakes going on! This is the most cliched of the chapters, but does continue to lean on some heavy foreshadowing, and of course I can’t hope for his mother to give in right away, as otherwise where would the plot tension be?

The manga ends with a sample of the first chapter of Love Chick, Juta’s manga based on Asuka and Ryo only gender reversed. It’s a good thing it’s only fictional, as I found it quite dull. Oh well. More importantly, Otomen has now caught up with Japan, which mean we won’t get another volume for 6 months. So I hope you didn’t mind the cliffhanger. As ever, I want slightly more out of Otomen than what it gives, but an reasonably happy with it regardless.

I’ve spent the past few days down with a nasty cold, one of the worst I’ve had in years. Nausea, coughing, slight fever, weakness, the works. As a result, reviews have been thin on the ground. So I figured that, since I’m *already* ill, what better time to take a look at the August issue of Monthly Comic Alive, from the folks at Media Factory?

Usually whenever I go into NYC I try to get a different manga magazine to try out. Lately I’ve been limited as they’ve stopped carrying some of the really obscure ones, and the choices seem to be limited to the old classics – all the big 3 shonen, Morning/Afternoon/Evening, Big Comic/Original/Superior/Spirits, and Young ______. The remainder, down on the bottom shelf of Kinokuniya’s seinen section, tend to be what I call ‘media tie-in boobie magazines’, where the manga caters to people who like franchises and fanservice. Here you’ll find Kadokawa’s Shonen and Young Ace, for example, or Shonen Gahosha’s Young King Ours. And Champion Red goes here, despite its lack of tie-ins, by its sheer skeeziness.

Media Factory is in general known as an anime company first and foremost. In 1999 they started to put out a manga magazine Comic Flapper, which is still running, and was the home of Dark Horse’s incomplete series Translucent. In 2006 they noted the growing otaku market and started Comic Alive, which oozes otaku from its every pore. I picked up the August issue with trepidation. I mean, look at this cover.

So, knowing I was in for a rough ride, I started to glance through the contents. Let’s see…

It needs to be said, if you want to know what the current otaku kinks are, Comic Alive is a great place to go. Catgirls are in here, of course. As are maids. A lot of maids. Panties, of course. Gotta have lots of underwear. And of course lots of nudity as well. There’s also witches, mainly as half the magazine seems to be fantasy of some sort. Fans of current anime series will find a lot of this familiar, as many of these are current animes, past animes, or future animes. Sacred Blacksmith. Zero no Tsukaima. Sasameki Koto. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai. MM! Maria Holic. Stein’s Gate. In addition, a good number of those I just mentioned are based off of light novels or games, making it even more franchise bait. And a few of them have ‘side stories’ running in other magazines from other companies.

As I wrote short notes about each chapter I read, one thing kept coming up over and over. ‘Ecchi fantasy’. Not porn, of course, as that would require anyone actually getting lucky, which isn’t going to happen here. But… well, I could probably write a synopsis that would fit 75% of Comic Alive’s stories.

“Kenji, a nondescript ordinary guy, is going to school at Elite Academy, where he finds he is one of only 10 boys in a school almost entirely populated by girls. One day, he discovers that he is the bearer of an awesome power (magic/swordsmanship/being really nice, delete where appropriate), but one that can only be used if he gains power by earning the love and/or affection (really, rubbing against him will do) of at least five different 13-16 year old girls of varying personalities and body types, as long as you have one girl who’s flat-chested and angry and one who is buxom and seductive. Of course, Kenji is a nice guy, so these girls have nothing to fear. As the series goes on, he will come up against bigger villains and more girls, all of whom fall for him and most of whom he meets when he walks in on them changing, or in the shower, or hell, when they wake up naked in his bed. What’s Kenji going to do? How can he possibly decide which girl is his true love and which he just needs to use their affection to power himself up? Especially as he represents so many readers, none of whom will agree. (He’ll probably end up with the angry girl, but let’s hedge our bets and do a side-story in Shonen Ace where he doesn’t.) Soon to be a new anime in the Fall of 2012!”

There are a few bright spots. Sasameki Koto may be a bit more serious than it once was, but its relatively realistic look at a budding yuri couple is a breath of fresh air amidst all the panty shots elsewhere in the magazine. Likewise Himawari-san, another low-key series with a dash of yuri. I was also quite pleased with Suugaku Girl, which is apparently in its third incarnation, and is designed to teach difficult math concepts through the power of moe cat-eared girls. It has some service, but not a lot, and seems to be pretty dedicated to teaching its math (at least from the one chapter I read).

But really, the thing that struck me most about Comic Alive, a magazine devoted to being the go-to point for otaku who like to read more of the same, it’s that there were 4 different series that had 4-koma comedy spinoffs later in the magazine. Zero no Tsukaima, Mayo Chiki, Infinite Stratos, an Aria the Scarlet Ammo *all* have cutesy superdeformed 4-koma series to keep milking the same thing. Presumably as if they had to rely on series that weren’t part of a light novel/manga/anime/game franchise, it would be a very short magazine indeed.

By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan as “Mahou Sensei Negima!” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Everyone has heard of the phrase “it’s always darkest before the dawn”, and that proves to be true of Negima as well. Sadly, the dawn is not in this volume, which mostly brings our cast closer and closer to ‘the darkest’. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold…

When we left our heroes, we were in the middle of a big flashback telling the rest of the story of Negi’s mother and father. Having saved as many people as possible from a crushing death at the hands of the faceless bad guys, Arika is rewarded by being turned into a scapegoat and accused of the murder of her father and others in the name of ambition. It’s up to the others to rescue her… that is if she wants to be rescued. It has to be said that her rescue, and Nagi and Arika’s subsequent confessions, are one of the most heartwarming bits of the series, something which Akamatsu is clearly milking for all it’s worth, as he has several characters, including our current villain, tear up at it.

As a villain, Goedel’s not up to much. Sure, he can hold back Negi for a bit, but his crypticness just serves to annoy, and he reckons without the powers of Negi’s friends. Indeed, Chisame, Asakura and Nodoka all get great spotlights here, as we see that intelligent use of powers can get you far even if you aren’t a fighter. And, of course, we get the fighters as well, as Ku Fei shows up with her Monkey King Staff of Awesome.

And then the villains decide to attack… all of them. This means we have the palace guards coming to arrest Negi’s girls as conspirators (they don’t last long, especially once they start threatening Konoka in front of her protector…), as well as what appears to be Cthulhu. No, really, even Paru notes it. This proves much harder to battle as it starts ripping the palace into bits. So the new strategy is to get to the bottom of the palace and meet up there… but the goal is to avoid getting to the bottom the hard way.

Luckily, we have a few old friends showing up to help, who we knew were around but hadn’t actually seen for about 10 volumes. Takamichi manages to finish off the beatdown of Goedel, and notes that while he finds Negi’s desire to continue his father’s work dangerous, it also makes him quite happy. And then there’s Mana, who manages to be almost ludicrously good as she battles the random faceless Lovecraft monsters. Of course, that’s because fake!Asuna offers to pay her to do it… she had no interest in the innocents being killed otherwise (or so she says). Once again, Mana’s mercenary aspect is both amusing and disturbing. And Misora’s right, how DID she pull that bazooka from out of her cleavage? ^_-

Meanwhile, Negi Party are split further when a building cracks in half. Asakura almost falls to her death, but is saved by a surprisingly strong Nodoka… who’s then saved by her dungeon-crawling friends Craig and Aisha, who were worried about her and came back to help. (Asakura is quick to poke at Nodoka for attracting suitors, and also notes her new toughness.) So they’re safe! … for about 6 pages. Then The Lifemaker shows up. As with the rest of Fate’s team, he’s perfectly happy to fight any number of physically powerful types like Kaede or Setsuna, but wants Nodoka and her mind-reading removed from the board. So he attacks her, and Craig tries to defend… and gets vaporized into a spray of white feathers.

Now, given that he’s mysteriously vaporized into white feathers rather than, say, crushed into a pulpy mess, I suspect this is one of those many handy reversible deaths you seen in shonen all the time. Still, it’s plenty shocking given we haven’t really had ANY deaths in present-time Negima, and the last shot of the volume is Nodoka’s stunned face. After the relaxing kiss kiss carnival and political shenanigans of Volume 29, this one’s an action packed brawl, and it’s only going to get worse in Volume 31.

And there’s not even any fanservice this time! Well, not much…

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

And this is why everyone should give Jump series about 5-6 volumes before they give up on them. This omnibus is definitely a big step up from the first, with the leads being slightly more likeable, lots of interesting new characters introduced, and a new arc that promises to be much more thrilling – and possibly more deadly.

First, however, we have to finish up the cliffhanger from last time, with Naruto and company defending the bridge and its creator from the evil ninja and the mob boss who hired him. Once again, we are reminded that small, petty villains are always MUCH WORSE than noble yet evil guys in the Shonen Jump world, and while Zabuza spends a lot of time showing us what a horrible person he is, he does manage to get some redemption, as does his gender-malleable assistant. I was rather startled at the death of Haku here – it’s quite gory, and from a blow by Kakashi, no less (if accidentally). Clearly ‘nobody dies in Naruto’ is not a meme that’s going to take hold. Well, not yet anyway.

Once that’s over with, we head back to the village and begin our next big arc – the exams are coming up for journeyman ninja, and despite only having worked together for a short time, Kakashi recommends that they all do it. This is a huge exam with over a hundred ninja apprentices from all walks of life, most of whom we meet in this book. I have no idea who will be important later or not – the only ones that really stuck with me are Hinata, who clearly has a crush on Naruto that’s a mile wide; Ino, who has some sort of rivalry/friendship with Sakura; and Gaara, who gives off the appearance of being one of the next big villains, so must not be one.

And then there’s Rock Lee, who really deserves a paragraph of his own. Even though I’d never read Naruto before this, I still knew of Rock Lee – how could I not? Amazingly, he’s exactly as I anticipated, being a larger than life Sylvester Stallone type bruiser in the midst of all these tricky ninjas. His master Guy looking pretty much like him only older also amuses me, and I was rather startled to note that Guy can apparently hold his own with Kakashi – even the comedy characters here are tough cookies.

As for the exam itself, it’s a ninja exam, so naturally there’s lots of secret cheating, given they all assume the point of the exam is to see how good they are at not getting caught. The final question is psychological, something that works on many of the exam takers but not on Naruto, who is far too stubborn for such tactics. (Note: not dense – Naruto seems to fully understand what he’s sacrificing. It’s the principle of the thing that bothers him.) And then we get Round 2, featuring a survival match through a deadly forest – one that has been infiltrated by one of the villains, Orochimaru.

This last third of the omnibus is far more serious than the volume before it, and once again shows that the author is not afraid to laughter its minor cast members in the way of drama. There’s lots of good stuff here – Sasuke shows that he’s not all smug jerk, though unfortunately seems to get infected (possessed?) by the enemy anyway. Even better is Sakura, who while she doesn’t accomplish much does show a plucky streak that’s very endearing, and is at least clever enough to not fall for the minor mook’s traps. The three leads are all coming along, and I’m interested in seeing how they get out of all this.

This still hasn’t reached the heights of One Piece for me – the battles still have trouble keeping my attention, for one, and introducing 25-30 new cast members in 2 volumes is over the top even if you *aren’t* meant to remember who they all are. But it’s definitely come along from the first omnibus, and this new Exam Arc is indeed as exciting as people said it would be. I’m looking forward to seeing how things go from here on.

By Yellow Tanabe. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

The second omnibus edition of Kekkaishi continues the demon hunting plotline of the first, and adds such popular shonen tropes as the elite older brother who the hero looks up to but is also jealous of, as well as the grumpy new guy who insists he can do everything himself. Both are in the ‘I will not be nice to you as you are TOO WEAK’ school of characters, so Yoshimori is having an especially difficult time.

Of course, Yoshimori is NOT actually too weak, he’s simply too inexperienced and too eager to use his power as a blunt object. Many times throughout the volume, characters are impressed with how long he can keep his kekkai going, and how powerful they are. Of course, Masamori, his elder brother, really is pretty awesome in his own right, and demonstrates several times in this omnibus his coolness under fire. Judging by how he deals with both his little brother and Yomi, the minor villain from an earlier arc, he seems to favor the carrot and stick approach to learning.

One thing that intrigued me greatly throughout these three volumes was Yoshimori’s decision to seal off the Karasumori site. Given it’s what’s attracting all the demons they have to keep fighting, it’s a good idea at its core, but the 87 billion things wrong with it also make themselves known. To his credit, Yoshimori knows this, and spends a lot of the next couple of volumes trying to figure out the secrets of the site and how he can possibly accomplish such a thing. Seeing him deep in thought is also quite amusing, as he tends to squat down with this constipated look on his face – it’s no wonder Tokine figures out he’s hiding something right off the bat.

And then there’s Gen, who would appear to be the new regular character. He has ties with Yoshimori’s brother, and would appear to be there to be the ‘darker’ version of the hero, especially as we see the classic ‘he’s a wastrel who’s absolutely nothing like me – oh wait, except that we’re a lot alike after all’. I liked what his fighting revealed about Yoshimori, and how he’s the sort who thunders ahead without thinking, but as the battle rages gets craftier and more tactical. As for Gen’s own issues, briefly seen here, clearly they’re going to become more important in future arcs.

There’s more to talk about, like all the politics and rivalries going on around the land, and Tokine, who is a presence throughout the book, even if I don’t have as much to say about her this time. But as with Volume 1, Kekkaishi is a good example of solid, well-written shonen manga. It’s not breaking any new ground, but it’s exciting and fun to read. It also features one of the creepiest ‘retired professor’ types I’ve ever seen. He’s probably evil. (Remember, kids, always judge by appearances!)

By Shimura Takako. Released in Japan by Enterbrain, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Beam. Released in North America by Fantagraphics.

I will admit I sometimes get intimidated by manga that are ‘important’ or ‘worthy’ in some way. Given a choice between discussing the latest gegika masterpiece from Drawn and Quarterly and the seventeenth volume of shoujo series X, I’m going to take the easy route every time. It’s the sort of book that reminds you that you’re actually meant to be reviewing, not just rambling on. And I felt a bit like this while seeing Wandering Son’s fancy, well put-together hardback sitting on my pile. Which is amusing, of course, as the manga itself is quite unassuming and easy to read.

Wandering Son is about a time in life when every single interaction with anyone is fraught with awkwardness. Especially for a shy kid like Nitori. Things are in flux, and you start to get a sense that even though you really want to do something, that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem if it will just lead to laughter and being thought of as ‘weird’. Yoshino is more self-confident, both in her general personality and in her feelings regarding how she wants to be seen, but her own body is the one reminding her that things aren’t simply cut and dry.

And then there’s Saori, who winds up driving much of the plot in this first volume. Saori interested me quite a bit, if only as she made my skin crawl at times with her trying to force things onto people. The combination of the dress and suggesting the play was interesting enough, but then there’s her reaction after Nitori returns the dress. Christianity is growing in Japan, but I think for a young girl such as herself, the appeal of penance and forgiveness is what’s drawing her more than the faith itself. I’ll be interested to see how this pans out.

The mood of the manga itself is sort of ‘slice-of-life’, but the plot really doesn’t follow the same format as your typical school 4-koma. The basis of this story is transgender issues, and that’s what you get for these first eight chapters. It just so happens that the issues are part of Nitori and Yoshino’s lives, so they aren’t presented with a huge amount of heft the way they would in an after school special. The other classmates have not made much of a name for themselves (indeed, the author admits she hasn’t yet come up with a name for Nitori’s perky friend yet), but I expect that will change.

As for the art style, it’s handled with an amazing deftness. The characters are subdued much of the time, but not in a way that, say, Adachi’s Cross Game characters are. We do see a lot of emotion here, particularly towards the end where Yoshino’s growing up gets thrown back in her face by the class troublemaker (via a proxy, another thing I found quite true to life). But what I liked best was seeing the looks on Nitori’s and Yoshino’s faces when they did try to dress as the other gender. Nitori’s look of bashful happiness as he wears the hairband. Yoshino’s stunned joy and pride after she’s ‘hit on’ by a woman at a fast-food place. They’re expressions you remember, and make for a stronger work.

Fantagraphics has done a great job with this. It’s a handsome volume, well-bound and with sturdy paper. Matt Thorn’s translation and adaptation are seamless, and his essay on the use of honorifics is both enlightening and amusing, inasmuch as he wouldn’t want to use them for most titles, but this is an exception.

So intimidation aside, in the end this is simply a well-crafted story, well-told. You want to read Volume 2 right away to find out how Nitori, Yoshino and Saori continue to deal with these feelings as they grow older. I’m very pleased that it was brought over here, and hope that it sells well enough so that we might see other titles in a similar vein. Not necessarily transgender, but handling difficult issues with such a light touch.