• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Melinda Beasi
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Paul Beasi
    • Derek Bown
    • Katherine Dacey
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

i am here

Bookshelf Briefs 8/8/11

August 8, 2011 by Melinda Beasi, Michelle Smith, David Welsh, Katherine Dacey and Sean Gaffney 4 Comments

This week, Melinda, Michelle, David, Kate, & Sean check out recent releases from Viz Media, Vertical, Kodansha Comics, Dark Horse, & Yen Press.


13th Boy, Vol. 8 | By SangEun Lee | Published by Yen Press – At my age, it isn’t often that a teen romance comic can really make me angst over which potential suitor its heroine should ultimately end up with. Most of the time, these conclusions are obvious, and even when they’re not, it’s difficult for a writer to make even one romantic prospect interesting enough for this jaded forty-something to genuinely root for, let alone two or three of them. Not so with manhwa-ga SangEun Lee, whose love interests each suit her quirky heroine uniquely, even if one of them is actually a sentient cactus. That said, here in volume eight, it’s hard not to root pretty exclusively for the cactus. Charming and idiosyncratic as always, 13th Boy remains one of the freshest, most imaginative girls’ comics currently in publication. Highly recommended. – Melinda Beasi

13th Boy, Vol. 8 | By SangEun Lee | Published by Yen Press – I feel like I’ve talked a lot about the inventive whimsy of 13th Boy, and been derelict in extolling its dramatic virtues. This volume is more of a setup for future fallout, but readers can still anticipate the inevitable (and major) repercussions to come. Hee-So begins the volume so worried and depressed about her missing cactus, Beatrice, that she can’t even summon the energy to bathe. When Won-Jun visits, he gets the impression that Hee-So feels she can’t rely on him for help, and so turns toward the desperately dependent Sae-Bom, who is being sent to live with her father in America and asks him to come along. I love that, despite its fanciful elements, 13th Boy can serve up realistic drama like this wherein it’s the characters’ choices and personalities that have led to the deterioration of a relationship. I am seriously pining for volume nine already. – Michelle Smith

Black Jack, Vol. 15 | By Osamu Tezuka | Published by Vertical, Inc. –For my money, every volume of Black Jack has a “price of admission” story, and I always like to identify them. This time around, it’s “A Cholera Scare.” The title alone is endearing, and the story has plenty of other aspects working in its favor. First and foremost is the fact that it heavily features Black Jack’s creepy assistant and ward, Pinoko. While Black Jack worries that he’s contracted a potentially deadly contagion, Pinoko is left to deal with a walk-in patient at the clinic. The story is constructed and timed in some really imaginative way, and Tezuka packs an awful lot into a mere 20 pages. While individual Black Jack stories can vary in quality, there’s always at least one that justifies the purchase. – David Welsh

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 3 | By Kazue Kato | Published by Viz Media –Like so many of my favorite fictional institutions of learning, the True Cross Academy displays a reckless disinterest in the safety of its student body, especially the ones pursuing the exorcist track. In this volume, our principle characters deal with an aggressive new instructor and a potentially deadly field trip. Relationships are tested! Secrets are revealed! A kitty joins the supporting cast! In other words, Blue Exorcist continues to improve. Kato even works up the nerve to invoke the events of the first, terrible chapter of the series, and she gets away with it. The underlying plot of the series is probably its least successful element, but that hardly matters chapter by chapter. I like the characters and the scenarios Kato invents for them, and the art is always clean and interesting. – David Welsh

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 3 | By Kazue Kato | Published by Viz Media – Blue Exorcist is an interestingly mixed bag. Like Joss Whedon’s television epic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series uses an over-the-top supernatural premise as a metaphor for the real horrors of a troubled teen, struggling to overcome his personal demons so that he might finally have a taste of life’s most precious treasures—friends, family, and a sense of real belonging. Unlike Whedon, mangaka Kazue Kato fails to make her story’s supernatural plotline genuinely compelling, but the rest works so well, this hardly matters. This volume gets off to a particularly strong start, as brothers Rin and Yukio work together to quell the grief of Father Fujimoto’s abandoned familiar, and continues to gain momentum throughout. Extra points to Kato for clear, readable action scenes and saving the life of a cat. Recommended. – Melinda Beasi

Fairy Tail, Vol. 14 | By Hiro Mashima | Published by Kodansha Comics –First off, I’m pleased that the ‘take out all the female members and turn them into hostages’ plot died fast. If only as it leads to a lot of great moments for the female characters in this volume. Erza, of course, gets to show her badassery and why you should never try to outbluff or outthreaten her. Lucy gets to show she’s more than simple fanservice with the help of Loke. Juvia shows she’s still worried about everyone trusting her now that she’s a new member, and gives a good reason why they should. And Levy gets to show that it’s not just hitting really hard that wins these fights.But really, the big climax here is seeing Mirajane lose it, and discovering both what she’s like at full power, and why she tries to avoid it. She’s quite terrifying. Fairy Tail still isn’t the very best shonen out there, but it’s comfortably in the bracket below it.– Sean Gaffney

Fairy Tail, Vol. 14 | By Hiro Mashima | Published by Kodansha Comics – Something I’ve long wished for from Fairy Tail is more information about the members of the guild who aren’t the main characters. Happily, Mashima has concocted an arc that seems specifically designed to provide just that. Laxus, one of the most powerful members of Fairy Tail, has launched a takeover attempt, which involves forcing the guild members to fight each other. It’s unfortunate that many of the female members are sidelined at first, having been turned to stone while competing in a beauty pageant (sigh), but when they are eventually freed, they proceed to kick ass, so that makes up for it a bit. Highlights include seeing Mirajane’s abilities at last and some noble self-sacrifice from Juvia, a reformed enemy who has recently joined the guild. I hope this increased level of involvement from the supporting cast continues in future volumes! – Michelle Smith

I Am Here!, Vol. 2 | By Ema Toyama | Published by Kodansha Comics – When it was announced that Kodansha Comics would be taking over the release of manga they’d licensed to Del Rey, I was really hoping we would get the second half of I Am Here!, an earnest shoujo romance that I found to be surprisingly enjoyable. Happily, it made the cut and now I know for sure that a) Ema Toyama can draw some seriously cute bunnies (seriously) and b) the plot does, in fact, eschew an obvious outcome. It’s too bad Toyama had to utilize a random mean girl as drama instigator at one point, but at least Hikage, the painfully shy heroine, was able to blossom at last and become strong enough to follow her heart. Getting the whole story in two omnibus editions is also pretty durn awesome. – Michelle Smith

Magic Knight Rayearth | By CLAMP | Published by Dark Horse –First of all, unlike the souped up, fancy Card Captor Sakura reprints, there’s no reason for fans who own Tokyopop’s 2nd release of Rayearth to get this one. It’s a very good, decent reproduction and translation – but it’s not the huge advance CCS is. As for the content, it’s still a lot of fun, especially if you aren’t already familiar with the ending. One of CLAMP’s first titles to mix the shoujo and shonen genres, this story of three high-school girls who find themselves called on to save a fantasy world takes itself seriously when it wants to, and makes fun of itself the other times. There’s no amazing characterization here, though I am quite fond of Caldina and her “I’m doing this for the money” attitude. (Note her lack of obsession lets her survive.) But really, it’s the ending that made everyone remember Rayearth, and led to its sequel – it’s a gut punch if you don’t know it’s coming.– Sean Gaffney

Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, Vol. 4 | By Yuuki Fujinari | Yen Press – Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution may be the most tepid reverse-harem manga ever written. The series drifts aimlessly from one uneventful scene to the next, as the characters perfect their swimming technique and attend tag sales. Not only does the story lack dramatic shape, it also lacks memorable characters; each of the boys in Hitomi’s circle is so faultlessly polite and supportive of her weight-loss goals that he comes across as a paid consultant, not a friend. There’s nothing wrong with a manga about nice guys, of course, but authors like edgy characters for a reason: bad boys make more compelling subjects than goody-goodies. Even Hitomi remains a cipher; she’s kind and determined to lose weight, but those two characteristics alone aren’t enough to make her seem like a real girl struggling with a real problem, a shortcoming made all the more obvious by the abrupt, wish-fulfillment ending. – Katherine Dacey

Filed Under: Bookshelf Briefs Tagged With: 13th boy, black jack, blue exorcist, Fairy Tale, i am here, Magic Knight Rayearth, ugly ducking's love revolution

Off the Shelf: In which there are bunnies

November 24, 2010 by Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith 6 Comments

Welcome to another edition of Off the Shelf with Melinda & Michelle! I’m joined, once again, by Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This week, we take a look at a couple of final releases from Del Rey Manga, as well as new volumes from Viz Media and Vertical, Inc.


MELINDA: I was going to open tonight’s discussion with a text rendition of “Over the River and Through the Woods,” but I realized probably neither of us are headed to grandmother’s house tomorrow.

MICHELLE: Well, I might end up at a grandmother’s house, and though this will include going over a river, there aren’t any woods. More like a security gate.

MELINDA: I suppose if you consider that my mother *is* a grandmother, that counts for something. And I’ll have to drive through some woods, so perhaps between the two of us, we have it covered?

MICHELLE: Sounds like it!

MELINDA: So how have you been passing the time leading up to your turkey coma?

MICHELLE: Well, as you no doubt are aware, Kodansha recently announced that they’ll be taking over distribution of Del Rey’s titles. The last batch of manga to come out under the Del Rey label was released yesterday, so I was marking the hopefully-not-really-a passing of a great publisher by checking out some of their newer releases.

First on my agenda was the first volume of I Am Here!, a five-volume shoujo series—originally published in the magazine Nakayoshi—that is being released here in two omnibus editions. It features Hikage Sumino, an 8th grader so severely shy that she’s practically invisible to her classmates and the world at large. Her existence is a lonely one, for although no one’s picking on her, no one knows her name, either. The only friends she has are Black Rabbit and Mega Pig (I am not making this up), frequent readers of her blog who provide her with advice and encouragement.

One day Hikage falls victim to the “locked in the gym storage room” cliché and is found by Hinata, one of the most popular boys in school. Any time Hikage played hide and seek as a child, “it” never remembered to look for her, so to be found at all is quite a big deal for her. She begins hanging around Hinata more, who pretty quickly confesses that he likes her. Even the small amount of socializing they do raises the ire of Hinata’s possessive fangirls (another cliché) and Hikage is subjected to bullying and a notoriety that she never would’ve expected. Eventually, she grows enough spine to refuse to agree to stop hanging around Hinata and vows to become the kind of person who can handle being his girlfriend.

So, yes, there are a lot of clichés in this story. But somehow its quiet earnestness really worked for me! Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading a good deal of shounen and seinen manga lately, but something as sweet and simple as I Am Here! proved genuinely entertaining. All of the characters are fairly lackluster, but I still enjoyed reading about them. Of particular note is the fact that Hikage keeps a blog and counts two members of the online community among her close friends, which kind of weirds out Hinata. In any other shoujo series this full of tried-and-true story elements, I would be absolutely convinced that Hinata is Black Rabbit, but I’m actually not sure. Probably he is, but all the same I’m impressed that I still have a tiny shred of doubt about that halfway through the series!…

Read More

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: 7 billion needles, i am here, natsume's book of friends, panic x panic

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework