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My Love Story! Vol 2

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My Love Story! Volume 2 by Kazune Kawahara and Aruko

I thought the first volume of this series managed to be both hilarious and refreshing with its unconventional for shoujo manga premise of focusing on the foibles of a unconventional male hero. The second volume took first place on my to-read pile as soon as I got it, and it was just as delightful as the first volume. There are a few episodic chapters here that all manage to focus on something a bit different, while still providing some continuity in exploring the developing romance between the giant Takeo and his cute girlfriend Yamato, with conventionally attractive Sunakawa acting as a willing and supportive third wheel.

The first chapter shows Takeo tasked with the job of rounding up some boys to go along on a group date with Yamato and her friends from school. BYamato has told all her friends how awesome her new boyfriend is, and when they are confronted with the somewhat ungainly Takeo and his band of misfits, they don’t react well. Takeo does excel at feats of strength, and when a fire breaks out he manages to rescue everyone from the burning building, winning the admiration of every new acquaintance. Yamato and Takeo’s relationship is tested further when he agrees to do the judo team the favor of temporarily joining them before a big match, which causes him to have to spend too much time training. Sunakawa acts as a somewhat enigmatic but still caring sounding board to the couple. As Takeo starts preparing the best birthday ever for Yamato, he notices that the usually reticent Sunakawa seems to be even more preoccupied, causing him to have to choose between his girlfriend and his best friend.

The type of comedy in My Love Story! is tricky to pull off. Even though Takeo is drawn to be exaggeratedly not the shoujo manga ideal and he gets into plenty of ridiculous situations, the steadfast affection of Yamato and Sunakawa ensures that he’s never an object of ridicule. The world might be against him, but he has the support of people who think he’s great the way he is. It’s a nice central message that’s absent from more cynical series. Aruko does a great job with drawing physical comedy of the series, with plenty of exaggerated expressions and action elements, but there are also plenty of more subtle moments as Sunakawa shields his emotions and Yamato reacts with joy to practically everything Takeo does. This is all a balancing act of plot and art, and My Love Story! pulls it off well.

Spell of Desire, Vol. 1

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Spell of Desire Volume 1 by Tomu Ohmi

I am unapologetically enthusiastic about Shojo Beat’s new habit of releasing slightly smutty josei manga under the Shojo Beat imprint. More josei is a good thing! I was happy to see that after a few volumes of Tohmu Ohmi’s Midnight Secretary, another series of hers was licensed by Viz. Spell of Desire is that series, and I might even like it more than I like Midnight Secretary, as impossible as that might seem.

As you might guess from the title, with Spell of Desire, Ohmi has turned her attention to witches! Kaoruko Mochizuki is a herbalist in a small village, but one day a mysterious man named Kaname Hibiki shows up at her store and announces that she’s a witch, descended from a long line of women with mystical power. It turns out that Kaoruko’s long lost mother is a Witch Queen, and she’s sealed her power within Kaoruko. As the power begins to activate, Kaoruko will need help controlling it, and Kaname just happens to be the Knight dedicated to her protection.

I loved the contrast between Kaoruko and Kaname. She’s drawn as an earthy, hippie type, with flowing layers of clothing with botanical prints that reflect her connection to her profession. Kaoruko is a bit naive, but committed to the customers at her shop and the simple way of life that she enjoys. Kaname’s severe, with an all-black wardrobe and glasses that make him look stern. He also has a bit of a snarky and cynical personality. Kaname comes with two animal companions named Dragon and Unicorn, that appear to be a fluffy white cat and dog, but actually possess mystical powers themselves. When Kaoruko accidentally activates her mystical powers, they manifest as black vine tendrils winding across the panels in the manga, becoming more tangled as her powers become more out of control. Of course, there is a fail-safe mechanism to calm Kaoruko down – kisses from Kaname.

The first volume deals with the conflict between Kaoruko and Kaname as he insinuates himself into her life in order to protect her from her runaway witch powers. It is terrible, but Kaname and Kaoruko have to kiss very often because her powers are starting to really get out of control. While at first Kaoruko is resistant to the idea that she’s a witch, she decides to accept her situation calmly and deal with it even if there are things that she doesn’t understand. Kaname comments in response, “You’re such a decent person it’s almost ludicrous.” Kaoruko is left wondering about Kaname’s real relationship with her mother the Witch Queen, and I can see how there will be plenty to explore in future volumes as Kaoruko has to deal with her new reality as a witch and Kaname’s place in her life. Fans of Midnight Secretary or paranormal romance manga in general should snap this up!

My Love Story! Vol. 1

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My Love Story! Vol 1 by Kazune Kawahara and Aruko

It is fairly rare for a shoujo manga to manage being both hilarious and heartwarming, but My Love Story! delivers. I was looking forward to this title because I absolutely adore Kazune Kawahara’s previously translated series High School Debut, and this new manga more than lived up to my expectations.

My Love Story! is extremely refreshing because in a dramatic shift from most shoujo series, it focuses on a boy as the main character. And the boy that it focuses on is Takeo, a hulking giant who is drawn exactly like the manga stereotype of a local gang leader, with a hulking body, thick eyebrows, and overabundant sideburns. Takeo is looked up to by everyone who plays sports with him, but his true friend is Suna, conventionally attractive in exactly the way a shoujo reader would expect, with windswept hair and a habit of rejecting all the girls who have crushes on him. Takeo has a habit of falling for girls who are crushing on Shun, who are then promptly turned down when they confess their feelings. On a fateful day Takeo saves a girl from being groped on a train, and she shows up the next day at his house with a cake to thank him. Rinko is an incredibly sweet and cute girl who enjoys baking and shyly blushing whenever she comes up with an excuse to be around Takeo. Unfortunately Takeo is so used to being passed over for Shun, he tries to set up Shun and Rinko, while being utterly unaware the the cute girl that he loves actually loves him back.

There’s plenty of caricature and humorous reactions as Takeo goes through extreme emotions. While it would be easy for Takeo to be the target of jokes, Shun genuinely cares for his best friend. While much is made of Takeo being an unlikely shoujo hero, he’s actually surrounded by supporters. It turns out that Shun is rejecting any girl who speaks badly about Takeo, because he has no interest in dating anyone who shows themselves as a mean person. Shun manages to get Rinko and Takeo together, and it is nice to see a manga series centered around people who just simply care about each other. My Love Story doesn’t suffer from second volume syndrome at all, by the end of the first two chapters I was utterly won over by the combination of characters, humor, and random feats of strength exhibited by Takeo as he goes about his day. The art maybe relies a bit too much on the contrast between Takeo being a blundering thug in a sparkly shoujo world, but there’s plenty of plot driven and situational humor to balance out this aspect of the manga.

As Rinko and Takeo start going out, Shun learns that his older sister has also been nursing a crush on Takeo that she has never expressed, because she was waiting to tell him her feelings when she was older. She immediately concludes that Rinko must be no good, and heads off to intervene, but Rinko and Ai quickly bond over their shared feelings. The end of the first volume of My Love Story! is too funny to spoil, but I’ll be looking forward to the second volume for this winning combination of laugh out loud moments and quirky romance.

Shojo Beat Quick Takes – Midnight Secretary Vol 6 and Dengeki Daisy Vol 14

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Midnight Secretary Vol 6 by Tomu Ohmi

This volume of Midnight Secretary shows the relationship between Kaya and her vampire boss Kyohei on firmer footing, but the manipulations of the vampire clan start to interfere with the couple. Kyohei takes Kaya to a party as his date, and there’s a bit of unexpected fallout from the action. Kyohei’s vampire mother shows up to warn Kaya off of becoming involved in a human/vampire relationship. Kaya has a bit of a pregnancy scare, and she’s worried about what would happen if she had a vampire baby, because the vampire clan would swoop in and claim any vampire child as one of their own. It turns out that Kaya’s not pregnant and Kyohei tells her that he has no intention of marrying her or having children with her, simply because of the way their relationship would be stressed with outside interference as soon as it takes on the appearance of being serious. While he doesn’t want Kaya to be manipulated by the vampire clan, she’s soon deluged with marriage offers as the clan takes steps to separate her from Kyohei. Vampire politics soon becomes even more of a focus of the volume, as the head of the clan shows up, looking less evil than one would suppose! Throughout the trials and tribulations in this volume Kaya and Kyohei’s relationship remains strong, but we’ll have to see in future volumes if they can withstand the forces that are seeking to drive them apart. This series continues to be very entertaining. I’m always amused by the combination of heartfelt romance, the paranormal elements, and boardroom politics.


Dengeki Daisy Vol 14 by Kyousuke Motomi

Dengeki Daisy is still going strong in its 14th volume. I have to say, I don’t really care about the latest hacker drama that is occupying all the characters, it is really the way that they interact with each other when dealing with the high stakes world of computer viruses and conspiracy theories. In their search for “M’s Last Testament”, the group has finally found out more information about the mysterious hacker Akira, and learned how exactly he became so twisted. One of the reasons why I like this series so much is that the reactions of the characters seem so much more authentic and less reliant on what I’d expect to see in a shoujo romance. When Teru learns the truth about Akira she can see why her other friends feel an obligation to help him, but her own suffering at his hands has left her wondering if he’s a person without any hope of redemption. In a more typical series, the disclosure of a character’s tragic past would prompt people to immediately move towards forgiveness, but Teru isn’t able to get over the past and she’s very forthright about her feelings. This drives a bit of a wedge between her and Kurosaki, as he moves on with the rest of the team even though he understands Teru’s reasons for not wanting to participate. In true Dengeki Daisy fashion, this first crisis of their relationship is solved with text messaging, in a nice bit of circular plotting that echoes back to the beginning of the series. Motomi could really just call each new hacker MacGuffin 1 or MacGuffin 2 and I’d still love reading this series just because it is so well executed and the characters are very memorable.

Phantom Thief Jeanne, Vol 1

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Phantom Thief Jeanne Volume 1 by Arina Tanemura

Phantom Thief Jeanne is by far my favorite Arina Tanemura series. It is also one of her earlier ones, since it came out in 1998. It might be less polished than her more recent series, but I have always found it amusing because it has a certain magical girl “throw the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks” approach to plotting that I find amusing. It also has one of the most bonkers ending volumes I’ve experienced in shoujo manga. I already own the full set of this series from the CMX edition that came out in 2005, but this reissue from viz is based on what I assume are the Bunkoban volumes in Japan, so instead of a seven volume set, this edition will be 5 longer length volumes. There’s a new translation, a color page, and a couple extra sketches in the back.


The Jeanne in the title is in real life the ordinary high school student Maron Kusakabe, who is in the rhythmic gymnastics club at her school. At night, she magically transforms into Phantom Thief Jeanne, who fights for the forces of good in the universe by detecting demons hidden inside masterworks of art and exorcising them. The demonic possession will also extend to the owner of the piece of art, leading Maron to have plenty of encounters with oddly acting art collectors. Maron is aided in her holy quest by her helper, the tiny angel Finn. Maron’s phantom thief name is due to the fact that she’s the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, so she is extra skilled at being a art thief warrior for God. As the volume begins, Maron attempts to deflect her friend Miyako’s interest in her secret alter ego and she’s made a bit nervous by Chiaki, the flirty new boy who just moved in next door in her apartment building.

Maron has a frustrating day and heads out for her typical night out phantom thieving. Her best friend Miyako, who’s father is a police detective, is on the scene determined to capture Jeanne. Like any good phantom thief, Jeanne tends to leave warning notes with clues about where she intends to strike. Jeanne has one of the best magical girl introductions, as she proclaims “I am the Phantom Thief Jeanne…sent down before you by God!” It is hard to argue with the power of the Almighty. When she seals the demon inside the painting, she yells “Checkmate!” and a white chess piece appears. The painting changes into a depiction of an angel, and usually the owner of the painting is so happy at the quality of the new work of art and the lack of danger to their immortal soul that they don’t tend to mind Jeanne’s intervention.

Jeanne is bounding along in the night, trailing ribbons when an enemy appears! It is Phantom Thief Sinbad and he announces his intention to challenge her! Maron goes through her regular school activities, fending off Chiaki by day and dealing with Sinbad’s sudden appearance near all the works of art that she’s targeting at night. It is amazing how Sinbad basically looks just like Chiaki but with a headband and a cloth covering the lower half of his face. Sinbad has similar powers as Jeanne, but he can turn captured demons into black chess pieces and has a dark angel helper as a counterpart to Jeanne’s angel Finn. As a shoujo manga heroine, Maron is both exuberant and kind. Chiaki clearly starts developing feelings for her as he spends more time with her. Maron is also desperately lonely, because her parents went away and haven’t been in touch with her. Maron has a great deal of difficulty trusting people, but she starts opening up to Chiaki a little bit. As Jeanne’s missions continue, Sinbad acts as more of a helper than a rival, but he seems very conflicted about it.

The art in Phantom Thief Jeanne is exactly what you would expect from a Tanemura title, but maybe a tiny bit less detailed than her later works. I enjoyed having a chance to read the manga again in a new edition. I thought that the new Shojo Beat translation was a bit more subtle and smooth than the CMX editions. I also preferred the lettering in the Shojo Beat edition. The CMX version tended to use a great deal of variation in font size and font weight to convey emotional aspects of the dialog, and while that can be an interesting approach, when I was reading a few pages from each edition side by side, I thought that the CMX edition was a bit more choppy in terms of reading experience. Since this is a reissue, I almost wish that the edition had been a bit more deluxe, with a few more color pages or some other extras. I did like the new edition very much, I’m not sure I’d recommend that everyone who already has the CMX version rush out and buy it right away but it has been so long since the first edition of Phantom Thief Jeanne came out there’s a whole new group of readers that can experience this title for the first time!

Dawn of the Arcana Vols 11 and 12

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Dawn of the Arcana Vol 11 by Rei Toma

Dawn of the Arcana is a series that I think is best experienced in mini bursts of 2 or 3 volumes, simply due to the deliberate pace of the storytelling in the manga, as well as the fact that it sometimes takes a half volume or so for my brain to kick in with my memories about what happened in the previous volume due to all the relationships developing and the shifting nature of the geopolitical situations happening in Toma’s world. Usually I’m far too impatient to let the volumes pile up like this though!

After 10 volumes, the new status quo for red haired socially outcast with alarming powers of precognition Princess Nakaba and formerly arrogant but really a nice guy who has a social conscience inspired by the power of love Prince Caesar is to be separated. Nakaba has returned to Senan, determined to do some ruling in her own right, and Caesar is back in his home country of Belquat, dealing with his evil family. This volume shows the emotional impact of Nakaba’s power, the Arcana of Time, as she is determined to save the outcast child of a village that is in the direct path of an avalanche. This becomes a story that further explores the position of the humanoid animal hybrid race called ajin, as Lala the child with bunny ears is actually the product of a human/ajin encounter, leading to her abandonment. Lala has one human friend, and Nakaba’s ever present ajin protector Loki is there to save the day as always.

Loki always seems to have a new revelation every few volumes, either about his emotions or background, and a secret is revealed in this volume that shows that he and Nakaba have even more in common than I previously thought. While there’s the more conventional romantic storyline with Caesar and Nakaba, I actually find Nakaba’s relationship with Loki much more interesting, as they trade off protector duties in unexpected ways. Nakaba decides to take power in her home country, and her choices are largely driven by wanting to prevent Loki from going too far for her.

Dawn of the Arcana Vol 12 by Rei Toma

Everything keeps zipping along, as now that Nakaba and Caesar are in power in their respective countries, they have a chance to finally see each other again, when Caesar is ordered to invade Senan. Nakaba’s been looking in on Caesar and remarks that he’s going to start a revolution, so she’s “Here to lend a hand.” Nakaba’s power also provides Toma with a great way of providing more backstory about her characters. Nakaba looks back at Caesar’s father when he was young, even though Loki warns her that it might be difficult for her to see because she’s “too kind”. Nakaba sees King Guran’s first meeting with his unconventional first queen, the commoner Sara. The unhappy ending of this romance provides a reason for why King Guran might have ended up so twisted and bitter, but it doesn’t prevent a confrontation that is sure to cause even more fallout to happen in the volumes ahead.

One of the things that I really like about the art in this series is that it is so clear and easy to read. Toma might not have the most intricate backgrounds or innovative approach to paneling, but I’m never left puzzled about action scenes or finding that I have to go back and reread a page to make sure I understand the sequencing. The wordless exchanges between Nakaba and Caesar and the sidelong glances between Loki and Caesar do more to express the tensions between the characters than several pages of dialog. Overall, these were two very solid volumes in a fantasy series that is always surprising me with unexpected depths. I’m looking forward to the next few volumes to see what will become of Nakaba, Caesar, and Loki (well, really mostly Loki).

Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden, Vol 12

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Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden, Vol 12 by Yuu Watase

I’m sure it sounds odd, but I was actually a bit nervous about picking up the final volume of this series that I’ve been enjoying so much, simply because I’ve been a bit frightened of the ending. I knew that plenty of deaths would be occurring. This is no big secret, since the heroine Takiko has been dying of tuberculosis throughout the series, and the presence of a couple ghostly Genbu Celestial Warriors in the first Fushigi Yuugi series gave enough hints towards inevitable tragedy that a certain air of melancholy has hung over this manga, giving it an additional theme that has offset all the fantasy adventure I’d expect from a Yuu Watase series.

When I put this volume down, I realized I was wrong to be nervous, because the ending was the best one possible given the set of circumstances the characters found themselves in. The final confrontation with the Qu-Dong army has arrived, and even though Takiko has married the Uruki, now Emperor of Bei-Jia, all the efforts of her Celestial Warriors aren’t going to fend off the eternal winter that is going to threaten all the people of Bei-Jia. The Celestial Warriors fight gallantly, but Takiko is determined to see her destiny as a priestess fulfilled, even if she ends up being consumed by the god that she summons. There are plenty of quiet moments between the characters mixed in with the battles, and each Celestial Warrior gets a bit of a sendoff. Tomite teases Takiko one last time. Hatsui is courageous in battle. Inami deflects volleys of arrows with her hair, arranged in a giant web. Naname undergoes an unexpected and meaningful last transformation.

Throughout everything that happens in this final volume, the connection between Takiko and Uruki remains strong and supportive. As a heroine, Takiko’s quiet and unwavering determination really sets her apart, and I thought that this series exhibited more maturity in storytelling than the first Fushigi Yugi series. This is one of my favorite Yuu Watase series, and that’s saying a lot since I’ve read and enjoyed most of her manga. I’ve read all the volumes of this series as soon as I’ve been able to get my hands on them, and the only thing that has marred the reading experience is the long wait between volumes! I really want to set aside some time and read the whole series again in a shorter span of time, to see what I think about it without having to wait months and years between volumes. Overall though, I don’t hesitate to recommend Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden to anyone who enjoys fantasy and adventure shoujo.

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: Princess Knight, Vol. 1

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PrincessKnight volume 1Princess Knight Vol.1 | By Osamu Tezuka | Published by Vertical Inc. | Rated: Unknown
“The Prince is here!”

Looking at Osamu Tezuka’s work, I would be hard pressed to pick one thing the man was most famous for. 150,000 individual pieces of artwork, dozens of works in manga and anime, almost single handedly popularising manga as we know it in Japan plus innovations in genre and work ethic. The last point is interesting as it pertains to my review. Shoujo is a genre that had existed before Tezuka came along but he is indelibly linked to it. Princess Knight is a title that many creators of manga in Japan cite as an influence and it’s not hard to see why. A magical fairytale setting, a prince/princess to root for, a cast of evil villains to hate and a wonderful Wagnerian background. So does the book have it’s share of problems? Yes, but I’m not that annoyed by them. Let’s begin, shall we?

I imagine that Princess Knight volume 1 starts much like the 1959 Walt Disney version of Sleeping Beauty. Don’t ask me why, the two art styles are miles apart, the tempo is all wrong and the movie came out three years after the first version of the book finished in Shojo Club. But two things stay true in both cases: the sweeping nature of the story (Princess Sapphire is carried through her adventure by the people conspiring against her, Aurora is carried along by the plotting of Maleficent, dragons, witches, sword fights) and the fact that both stories deserve epic, classical scores. Shame only Sleeping Beauty has that score.

In creating Princess Knight, Tezuka seeks to both subvert and add to the Happily Ever After idea by having the Princess take on the attributes of the Prince arch type. Sharing two hearts, the Prince is daring and brave while being graceful and light (the story goes a bit overboard with some of these traits but I’ll save that for later). It’s hard to decide where Sapphire wants to go as a character from the start of the book. She fulfills all her roles as Prince because she has to but then, in her off time, she likes to be a princess and wear dresses and do all the things that Princess’ are supposed to want to do (need to find that particular rule book and beat up its author) in these tales. But she’s constantly having to walk a tightrope between what she wants and what’s demanded of her. If she slips for an instant, the Duke will strike and that will be the end of the fairy tale. You get the sense from the first five or so pages that Sapphire is screwed no matter what she does. Tink (or Choppy depending on what version you’re reading) is a nice enough character but he reminds me a little too much of Dororo from the title of the same name but with a little more reserve. The characters Tezuka has on display are varied and I do like them but it’s frustrating for me to have to read this as I’m not and was never supposed to be the target audience. You could argue that Tezuka was primarily creating the story for young girls exclusively but since that time the title has taken on a life of it’s own with people of all ages enjoying it. I have read commentary on the story in regards to how Sapphire reacts to danger in both of her guises, male and female. I will get into that in a minute.

But for now let us talk about how the book looks at times to veer into silly country and how it always seems to pull out at the last second. Tezuka is famous for his gags in the middle of high drama and Princess Knight is no exception. In our modern times, this sort of pop culture reference assembly line might seem trite but Tezuka was doing stuff like this years before it was expected. Like calling for the villains to photograph the Princess in a compromising position only to be told cameras haven’t been invented yet. Or the fact that the good and true characters all have named after natural minerals (Silverland, Sapphire) versus the synthetic names of the villains (Nylon, Duralumin). Couple that with Tezuka having characters like Madame Hell (Madame Hell!!!) being entirely superfluous and then Tezuka will draw a whole page panel scene with her bringing the elements of nature down on someone. It’s always hard to gauge whether or not to laugh at what he’s trying to say. What can’t be argued with is the fact Tezuka really keeps the pace going. The use of Looney Tunes-esque sword fighting is quirky, I must admit. It really looks like “Take this! And That! Touché!!! Ha! I meant to lose my sword like that!” in sequentially paced panels. Sapphire doesn’t get a chance to herself and goes from one adventure to another, one life or death moment to another. While Prince Franz goes from wandering pretty boy to foil for Sapphire’s male persona and onto love interest. All while the evil elements conspire against the Princess and her family. Tezuka takes a Disney approach to pacing. In fact, early Disney movies might be the best way of describing the tone and pace of the whole endeavour. Films like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are reflected in this story with a European style of storytelling (good always triumphs, animals are your friend and yes, there’s magic involved). For me, I like the whole tone and would have liked to see more from Tezuka in this genre.

The tricky thing about this story is two-fold: does the story still hold up against other shoujo works and secondly does the dual-gender identity story have weight today? For my money, it doesn’t really hold up as a shoujo story as the whole genre has moved on from what Tezuka helped to pioneer. It sits more as the story that started it all in a manner of speaking to borrow one of Disney’s taglines. When put against a franchise monster like Sailor Moon, Princess Knight feels quaint but I give it a pass because of the time it was made in and the fact that the story still works as a fairy tail. As a gender identity story, I must say it has things to say in today’s world. I would preface the next statement by saying that it is my opinion that Tezuka didn’t foresee how the manga’s unique twist would be interpreted. How could he as the things that today’s youth and people in general face as personal difficulties couldn’t have been imagined in 1953? Sapphire’s want to be a boy AND a girl goes to the heart what people of all walks of life must go through in the name of love. Who do I love and how does their gender make a difference to me? How does my gender make a difference to them? You don’t have to be one specific gender to know that crosses like these are hard to bear. The fact that Tezuka wrapped it up in a fairy tail makes the transmission of the story’s heart to modern times amazing to see.

When we leave the volume, Sapphire gets involved with the Prince Franz, finds her mother turned to stone and facing enemies both real and supernatural. So where could Tezuka go at the end? Have Sapphire board a pirate ship, of course! I wasn’t expecting that. We’ve gone from Disney to Burt Lancaster high adventure. Where will we and Tezuka goes from here? I am looking forward to find out.

More Princess Knight at Manga Bookshelf: Manga Artifacts: Princess Knight (Katherine Dacey) | Off the Shelf: Princess Knight (MJ & Michelle Smith)

Happy Marriage, Vol. 3 & Demon Love Spell, Vol. 5

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Happy Marriage Volume 3

I continue to enjoy Maki Enjoji’s series about an office lady who abruptly finds herself married to a seemingly cold and domineering company president. Chiwa and Hokuto have gradually grown closer over the first two volumes of this series, and the relationship continues to develop further in the third volume. Chiwa finally deals with Hokuto when he’s in a vulnerable position when he suddenly becomes ill, and she has to tend to him at home. One thing I enjoy is the way Enjoji slips into showing action without words or thought balloons in order to show events with more emotional impact. When Hokuto wakes up in the middle of the night and sees Chiwa sleeping by the side of his bed, he looks absolutely shocked, then silently pulls her over so she can sleep more comfortably beside him. There are still some slice of life humorous moments in the manga, like when Chiwa deals with Hokuto’s hidden slovenly habits at home and her tendency to become an “Octopus Woman” when she sleeps.

The big emotional breakthrough in the volume occurs when Chiwa and Hokuto have to go visit his family, and Chiwa sees how poorly he’s treated by his relatives. This explains a great deal about his personality and motivations, and Chiwa gets so angry she is more emotionally honest about her feelings for her husband as she’s sticking up for him than she’s ever been when talking to Hokuto directly. I’m looking forward to what happens next! It is a bit odd to root for a married couple to get together, but Enjoji manages to pull this situation off with an engaging story and sympathetic characters.

Demon Love Spell Volume 5

This volume will be particularly fun for any fans of Mayu Shinjo’s series Sensual Phrase. Demon Love Spell can be depended upon to serve up plenty of humor and paranormal romance hijinks, and this volume picks things up with a funny plot device. Incubus Kagura and priestess Miko decide that they’re going to move out of Miko’s family home/shrine and her father promptly agrees! But before they go Miko’s father uses his priestly powers and puts a curse on Kagura so that he will be utterly incapable of romancing Miko in any capacity. The young teenager and incredibly old incubus struggle with finding an apartment. Miko starts working a part-time job to support them. They barely ever see each other, and it seems like their new apartment may also be haunted!

In any romance manga, misunderstandings get in the way of true love, and when Kagura decides to go into showbiz in order to make some money to support Miko, she promptly becomes jealous and concerned that he’s getting “powered up” from other women. Kagura’s demonic hotness ensures overnight success as a male model, and he soon becomes a pop sensation as well. Much is made of Kagura’s resemblance to the hero Sakuya from Sensual Phrase, and I found it hilarious that Shinjo’s habit of drawing her male heroes in a very similar fashion was acknowledged in this manner. All in all, this was another fun volume of this series. I’m definitely enjoying Demon Love Spell much more than Ai Ore, and I hope that more of Shinjo’s series get translated over here.

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: Strobe Edge, Vol.2

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Strobe Edge Vol.2 | By Io Sakisaka | Published by Viz Media | Rated: Teen

strobe_edge_vol_2

Ah, the tangled web of love. After being shot down by school hotie, Ren, Ninako is trying to adjust to life in a post-rejection world. The poor girl has been told by the guy she likes that he’s not interested after she told the guy who is interested in her that she wasn’t interested! Now that the whole school knows, she is trying to figure out the “what now?” It’s not fair when that happens to someone but to her credit she’s trying to deal with it. Though, there are a couple of moments in this volume where she kind of scares me with something along the lines of “I still love him but I’m happy to be around him.” That is a recipe for disaster but who wants to listen to little old me? Anyways, the point of this volume seems to be that section in the guidebook where you really should let sleeping dogs lie. Ninako doesn’t seem to disengage from Ren, in fact she’s over the moon that they will be attending school council meetings together. I feel that she is trying to live off the embers, as it were, of her infatuation with Ren. I really love her earnest wish to be around her currently-not-to-be beau but I can’t help but feel she’s going about it in the wrong way.

Ren for his part almost seems to not notice that the girl who confessed to him is now hanging out with him. Now, the author looks like she’s skirting this issue by showing us the rejected girls club, a group of girls who have been rejected by Ren alone, and their snotty attitude toward him. But after Ninako rejects (lot of rejections going on in this volume) their ideas, she is then ostracized from a club she didn’t want to be part of. Wait, what? We then get them bullying her in minor ways for the remainder of the volume. Does this happen to Japanese girls or girls in general? If it does, man that is a sad way to conduct yourself. While I’m sympathetic to Ninako and her plight, the fact that she still likes Ren even after she tells us, the reader, that she knows Ren has a girlfriends is kind of weird. What is she trying to accomplish by doing this? She isn’t a bad person so she wouldn’t try and steal Ren from his girlfriend, Mayuka. But she still wants to be around Ren? Sorry, I don’t get it. On the other hand, Ren spends much of this volume going from cold fish to says hi to Ninako to getting into an embrace with Ninako. No wonder the girl doesn’t know which way is up.

Another thing I don’t get is Daiki. He is Mayuka’s younger brother and the guy who Ninako rejected. He spends the entire volume chasing around after Ninako or getting in classmate Ando’s face (more on him later) for being so brazen as to ask the girls for their numbers. Daiki is my least favourite character because, and I’m just giving my initial impressions of him here, he comes across like a sore loser in this edition. Like someone took away his beloved toy and won’t give it back. I understand he’s just as hurt by Ninako as she is with Ren but there’s no excuse to treat other people this way. On the subject of Ando, he is a great element to the cast. He’s a disruptor, coming in and hanging out with Ninako and making her goes places with her. He seems to be just another cad but then he has an interesting conversation with Ren when they witness her standing up to the Rejected Club. More or less, he warns Ren not to treat Ninako to same way as the other girls he rejected. That is a strange statement to make. He, ostensibly, doesn’t know Ninako until he joins the class so why would he say this? Could this mean he knew Ninako before and she doesn’t recognise him? I’ll be interested to see volume three for a clarification. Ando seems to be fresh with everyone but he skirts a fine line between being outgoing and being a complete flirt. Is he really into Ninako or is he playing? When he kisses Ninako on the head, he does seem upset that he upset her.

One thing that bothered me more than the up and down character reveals was that I couldn’t recognise a lot of the girls in this volume. Io Sakisaka is a good artist with wonderful designs so the fact I have to stare at each girl’s hair style to recognise Ninako or others is a little much for me. It’s not a major thing but it did become distracting through the middle of the book.

The series looks like it is a lock for my ongoing pile in a way that I haven’t been able to attach to Sakura Hime. I’m interested in the characters plight (yes, even Daiki) so I want to see how things start to turn out for them.

Little bit of housekeeping here, readers. You may have noticed that it has been around four months since my last post here on Manga Bookshelf. First, my apologies to you and also to MJwho basically left me alone to sort out my stuff. For the purposes of letting you guys understand that I wasn’t just sitting on my duff, scratching my proverbial, here’s what happened to me over the summer. First, I effectively lost my job. It was a nice job, I liked it but it didn’t like me and the people where I worked couldn’t have been more accommodating to me but c’est la vie. Next, I got a bad respiratory infection that wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t serious but it kind of kills your ability to like reading manga. Lastly, writers block set in whenever over the month of August I tried to read anything. Just a wave of “ugghhh” set in whenever I tried to concentrate. But that’s all done with now and I’m looking forward to posting the end of the Sailor Moon series and seeing how that turns out. So, thanks for sticking with me, readers and I promise I won’t do that again.

Sweet Rein Vol 1

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Sweet Rein Vol 1 by Sakura Tsukuba

I had totally forgotten that Sweet Rein was coming out, so when I saw it I got to be pleasantly surprised all over again. Sakura Tsukuba had two series published by CMX, Penguin Revolution and Land of the Blindfolded. Both of these series fit well into the low-fi, cozy vibe that was characteristic of many of CMX’s fantasy series. I was very happy to read Sweet Rein, and I’m calling it now – this is the perfect feel-good shoujo for the holiday season.

Sweet Rein has the sort of premise that is most enjoyed when the reader doesn’t think about it too hard. Kurumi is walking along alone when she bumps into a boy. Kurumi and the boy are suddenly tethered together, and he rushes up to her and yells “Master!” He then proceeds to explain “I’m your reindeer and you’re my Santa Claus!” It turns out that mystical reindeer with the power to take human form are bonded forever to a human Santa Claus, who is the only person who can release the reindeer’s magical powers. Kaito comes from a family of magical reindeer, and he cheerfully and happily fulfills all of Kurumi’s commands. Kurumi is extremely dubious about the invisible tether that connects them and also is very uncomfortable with the idea that she has any form of power over another being. Kaito is just happy that his Santa Claus is a nice and cute girl who is so concerned for him.

Kaito being at Kurumi’s beck and call is played more for gentle laughs than anything else, as he shoots away from her in the air when she yells “Get off of me!” and promptly appears outside her window when she wishes for his presence. Kurumi is genuinely kind, and Kaito’s presence eases her loneliness. She’s extremely careful not to get entangled in a romantic relationship with him, because she doesn’t want to abuse her power over him. In the meantime, Kaito’s enthusiasm serves as a counterpoint to Kurumi’s introspection, and it is clear that he’s fallen in love with her almost immediately.

For a manga dealing with Santa Claus and reindeer, it is actually a bit surprising how many stories in this volume take place in the spring or summer. Kurumi does deliver presents on Christmas Eve, but much of the manga is centered around Kurumi fulfilling a wish for a sick boy she encounters while on summer vacation. Readers also get a glimpse of Kaito’s extended magical reindeer family. I was actually a bit disappointed that a there was a lengthy vampire back up story, not because it was poorly executed, but I wanted to read a bit more of the main story. Tsukuba’s light and playful illustrations complement the story, ably depicting Kaito flying through the air or swooping in to comfort Kurumi. In the hands of a creator with less of a deft touch, the master/servant relationship in the manga might have seemed a bit off-putting or odd, but here it just seems like a way for two people to slowly discover how much they care about each other.

Voice Over! Seiyu Academy, Vol. 1

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Voice Over! Seiyu Academy Vol. 1 by Maki Minami

This was a book that I thought I wouldn’t like very much, but as I read through the entire volume I found myself begrudgingly enjoying it more than I expected. I ordinarily enjoy manga set in the world of show business. Here, the setting here of a specialized voice over training high school had the potential to both be a bit interesting due to the possibility of learning more about this specialized acting niche in Japan but it could also be somewhat infuriating if the plot devolved into the arcane hierarchical clique hijinks that tend to plague many a shoujo title. Also, in terms of the plots that I tend to enjoy over and over again, I will happily read multiple manga about office ladies forced to marry their harsh yet irresistibly handsome bosses, but high school clique wars tend to make my eyes glaze over unless I’m distracted by other plot elements like space aliens, juvenile delinquency, or magical powers. As I was reading Voice Over, I did think it would have strong appeal to younger teen readers.

Hime’s idol is a famous voice over actress on the anime Lovely Blazers named Sakura Aoyama. Hime’s accepted into a special voice acting school, but she has to fight against her natural tendencies towards emoting in a deep raspy voice. She’s quickly singled out and placed in the “stragglers” group that makes up the bottom students in her class. To add to Hime’s stress, Senri, the son of her idol is in her class and he is both incredibly gifted and a grouchy snob.

Hime is as plucky and determined as you would expect a shoujo heroine in her situation to be, even though she is promptly nicknamed Gorilla Princess by her classmates due to her deep voice. Hime’s motley crew of stragglers includes the super adorable Tsukino who can’t project her voice, an ex-juvenile delinquent named Sho, and boy with horrible nerves and an unfortunate accent named Mitchel. Hime’s initial overtures to Senri are met with determined rudeness. There is a voice over battle (isn’t there always) between the stragglers and their more high-class competition. Hime ends up using her deep voice to surprising effect when she subs in for Mitchel and ends up doing a superb job as the prince in a Snow White play. Hime and Senri keep running into each other, and she gradually sees his more human side. I found Senri’s habit of adoring kittens contrasted with his horrible manners to be lacking a bit of nuance. But I was very amused by some of the visual techniques Minami uses to portray the voice over acting of the cast. Little old ladies and old men appear in the background of the panels whenever Hime acts, providing an amusing way of showing how mismatched Hime’s voice is with the lines she’s speaking. I also enjoyed the glimpse of the almost too close to each other male idol duo at school with their legion of female fans who want to ward off any girl from getting close to them so they can continue to get their yaoi fix.

As I was nearing the end of the volume, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, simply because all the elements of humor were almost enough to distract me from a plot that I’m not particularly interested in. This manga doesn’t have the manic energy of an Oresama Teacher that makes the plot almost irrelevant though. If future volumes lean more on the high school clique fighting and less on wacky voice over antics, I expect I’ll be less entertained. I do think that readers less jaded than me would enjoy this manga quite a bit.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Strobe Edge, Vols 5 and 6

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One of the reasons why I keep reading manga is that it still has the capacity to surprise me. I found the fifth volume of Strobe Edge exciting to read, because it went in a totally different direction from what I was expecting. I’d always expected that the love triangle between Ren, Mayuka, and Ninako would have to be resolved somehow, but I wasn’t expecting a big change to come from Mayuka this early in the series. Ren is deliberately holding himself back from developing feelings for Ninako due to his sense of duty towards Mayuka. She’s emotional fragile and stressed out with the demands of her modeling career, school, and her parents’ divorce. Ren has a finely honed sense of integrity and wouldn’t do anything to hurt another person, with the expense of actually subverting his own feelings in the process.

I always expect anyone in a shoujo manga with a modeling career to be evil, but Mayuka shows that she’s been slowly picking up on Ren’s distance, coming to terms with her own goals for how she wants to live her life, and she realizes that she’s the one who is going to have to take a big step forward on her own. The change in Ren and Mayuka’s relationship isn’t without pain on both sides, but everything is handled with a degree of emotional maturity and sensitivity that is notable. It is fun to read a shoujo series that explores the shifting relationships between characters with such nuance.

In the meantime Ninako and Ando are in the grips of adorable teenage awkwardness, as she attempts to bury her own feelings for Ren and Ando tries to show her that he’s the better choice for her. Ando’s shifted from the cheerful flirtations personality that he displayed in the first few volumes to showing Ninako just how much he cares about her. There was a fun bonus story in this volume that delved into the past friendship between Ren and Ando, and just where it went wrong. This is the type of bonus story that I really enjoy, as it gives the reader a glimpse of the characters in a slightly different context, and provides more background as the manga moves forward.

There’s emotional turmoil ahead in the sixth volume of Strobe Edge, as Ando’s antagonism towards Ren resurfaces and Ren is dealing with the aftermath of his breakup with Mayuka. The burden of popularity and extreme handsomeness weighs heavily on Ren, as he is girlfriendless for barely a day before the girls at school start circling him. Ninako assumes that Ren is sad, and doesn’t want to do anything to add to his stress. Even with Valentine’s day coming up, she doesn’t want to add to the mountain of chocolate he’s going to be receiving from all the other girls.

There are some fun action scenes as Ren and Ando (mostly Ando) work through some aggression on the basketball court. The antagonistic relationship between them takes a turn towards the hilarious as Ando gets injured and when he wakes up and spots Ren he yells “You’re what I have to wake up to?” If Strobe Edge was only focused on the relationship between Ninako and Ren, it has the potential to get boring fairly fast. But seeing Ren and Ando start to work through their issues feels like an important emotional breakthrough. Ando instructs Ren not to smile, and Ren assumes that it is because his smile is somehow hideous, but really Ando doesn’t like the inadvertent effect a smiling Ren has on all the people in his vicinity. The end of volume six offers the promise of a new beginning at the start of a new school year, with Ren and Ninako being assigned to the same class.

Strobe Edge is a good example of why sometimes it is good to give a manga series a few volumes to develop before giving up on it. I was a bit on the fence about this series after reading only the first volume even though I generally enjoyed it. I wouldn’t have thought from just the first volume that Sakisaka would have built up the interesting relationships between the characters and handled some emotional journeys without relying on some of the standard shoujo plot elements. In some ways Strobe Edge is a less angsty successor to We Were There, as both series explore similar nuanced psychological territory.

Review copy of vol 6 provided by the publisher.

Kaze Hikaru, Vol. 21

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Kaze Hikaru Volume 21 by Taeko Watanabe

Kaze Hikaru is one of those titles that makes me feel happier just because it exists. The new volumes come out very slowly now, so when one appears it is always a good excuse to celebrate! This volume was particularly rewarding for any long-time reader of the series, as Sei and Soji begin to acknowledge their feelings about each other although they remain very much constrained by Sei’s disguise as a male Shinsengumi recruit and the customs of the times.

In the aftermath of Sei’s mission, it is announced that she’s going to be reassigned to Saito’s troop. Soji decides to create more distance between him and his young protegee by telling her that he requested the transfer and abruptly ordering her to leave him alone, saying “I got sick of your chasing me around like a girl.” Sei assumes that Soji thinks her feelings are burdensome and decides to run away. She leaves, fortunately during her rest period so she won’t be executed for desertion. Soji is relaxing, assuming that he’s fixed everything but he’s alarmed when Saito informs him that he’s in love with Sei.

Sei travels to a nunnery where she’s taken refuge before, learning about village healing from the head nun Suigetsuni. Sei has decided to sever the ties to her old life and join a nunnery, because it is the only way to sever her ties with her previous life. Soji becomes more and more worried as he realizes that no one knows where Sei is, and with his position in the Shinsengumi he can do nothing but sit, wait, and be forced to execute her for desertion if she doesn’t come back. The parallel stories shifting back and forth between the couple were particularly effective in this volume, as Soji’s growing concern forces him to confront his own feelings about Sei, and Sei grapples with her thoughts about healing and death as she learns more about Suigetsuni’s life story.

Watanabe is a master at spinning out a story, as 21 volumes into Kaze Hikaru, I’m in no hurry to see it wrapped up. Even though so much of this manga revolves around the characters being unable to express their emotions to each other, it is easy to see just how much Sei and Soji have changed each other through their unconventional friendship. As always, the author notes manage to distill an incredible amount of research into a few pages focusing on an element from the historical setting of the manga. This volume focuses on clothing and her reasons for depicting the Shinsengumi a certain way. If you aren’t reading this manga yet, give it a try! This is such a thoughtful, well-executed historical series that really stands out as having much more substance than most shoujo manga.

Demon Love Spell, Vol. 3

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Demon Love Spell Volume 3 by Mayu Shinjo

It is nice being able to read a Mayu Shinjo series that I can wholeheartedly enjoy. There are so many overly serious paranormal romance stories out there, it is still refreshing to visit Demon Love Spell for a bit of a comedic spin on the genre. Bumbling shrine maiden Miko and overly alpha male incubus Kagura are just goofy enough to be funny but not ridiculous, and their relationship has enough character-based humor that it is easy to root for them as a couple.

This volume opens with the overly theatrical banishing of a demon by Sou Yamabuki, a former pupil of Miko’s father. Kagura in chibi-form gets jealous that Miko is crushing on Yamabuki on TV, but she assures him that she thinks he’s the coolest. At school the next day Miko gets a bunch of attention from other guys and excitedly assumes that she’s now popular with boys. Miko and Kagura go on an actual date with some great moments where Miko blackmails Kagura into ignominious activities like eating hamburgers by threatening to shrink him again. The ending of the date is interrupted by Sou, who promptly banishes the source of Miko’s new found charms – a weak succubus demon. With Sou, Shinjo explores the old standby “sudden fiance” as he decides that he needs to marry Miko in order to take her away from Kaguya. Sou also reveals that while Miko’s ability to apply her power might not be the best yet, she’s actually extremely gifted. Sou’s desires seem to center more on gaining demon fighting power than truly caring for Miko. Kaguya decides upon an extremely unorthodox method to fend off his rival, but it does show how much he actually cares for the priestess. The next main story in the volume focuses on the sudden appearance of a handsome snow demon who spends some time protecting Miko when Kaguya storms off in a huff.

I still sort of wish that some of Shinjo’s other, earlier series would be translated over here. Sensual Phrase has most other English-translated shoujo beat for unadulterated melodrama. But Demon Love Spell is a nice substitute. It has the humor of Ai Ore without going too far out into left field, and the relationship between Miko and Kaguya is nicely balanced due to the power imbalance inherit in him spending a good portion of each day as mini-figure clipped to her handbag. This was a satisfying volume of this series, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with Miko’s newly revealed power in future volumes.