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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 (Melinda Beasi & Michelle Smith)

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 Melinda who 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.

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: Sailor Moon, Vol. 8

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sailormoon8Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 8 | By Naoko Takeuchi | Kodansha Comics | Rated: T (13+)

And the hits just keep on rolling in this volume. After the hellfire brought down by the destruction of, well, the whole district, the Sailor Senshi find themselves facing down the remains of Hotaru’s body as it takes on the form of one of Pharaoh 90’s creatures. Meanwhile Chibi-Usa’s body remains in a critical condition. If they’re not going to be destroyed by this creature, then the newest member of the Senshi, Sailor Saturn, will finish them off.

On one hand, I’m fine with this volume because we finally get to end the ridiculous Pharaoh 90 story arc. I know I should expect these arcs since they are the meat and potatoes of the whole gig. But I find myself trying to invent reasons to be excited about them. I suspect it’s the fact that, after eight volumes, I want something else to happen. I want some kind of overarching villain to appear; I want some kind of “There’s a reason all of this is happening.” But every time, the Senshi just battle just another group who want to suck the energy/emotions/blood/flesh or whatever other substitute the story requires out of people to go to Valhalla/Eden/7-Eleven or whatever other substitute the villain requires. I swear to Jiminy nobody even says out loud that it’s awful suspicious that all these groups keep attacking the girls and don’t seem to have an overarching agenda.

I don’t know, readers, I feel like I am not skilled enough to figure out the appeal of watching the same fight happen to the same team in every volume. Yes, the appeal is that the gang gets to have an adventure, but it’s getting kind of repetitious. I want to know more about the team—yes, even Usagi. We do get snippets, but for the last few volumes there seems to be some kind of attempt to answer the question of what happens when Chibi-Usa goes back home to the future? Takeuchi is going for an idea of domesticity between Mamoru, Usagi and Chibi-Usa. But it only comes out when there’s no fighting going, so you can pretty much guess how often this happens.

What is weird about reading this volume, and indeed the rest of the volumes, is that I want something closer in tone to Codename: Sailor V than what’s presented here. In Sailor V, when Minako had to fight a different foe, at least it wasn’t relentless. Foes, who are about as thin as anything that Sailor Moon comes up with, were dispatched, sure. But at least it was over and done in two volumes. This has been going on in Sailor Moon for eight volumes and I really hope that things change in the run up to the end.

So at the halfway point in the volumes, am I happy? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, I’ve gotten to watch as Takeuchi paints a pretty epic canvas taking ordinary girls and making them responsible for people’s safety, even those they don’t know. I never get a sense that they don’t take their duties seriously. As they struggle to beat every adversary that stands against them, they have their moments of indecision but they always overcome them and find inner resolve to succeed. I’m a sucker for story dynamics like these. Plus for all her insufferable points, Usagi is a good leader who cares about her flock.

Where the series lets her down is when she reverts back to type and becomes an airhead after saving the world. I could buy that for the first couple of volumes but now I have to wonder if the author is deliberately sabotaging her lead because if she became more confident then there wouldn’t be much tension. The only way to stop that would be if the author actually wanted to make the kinds of changes that would simultaneously improve and ruin the tempo already set. Heaven and hell, I suppose.

On the other hand, the series seems to be incapable of letting the story go out on a limb and have more serious stakes. When the characters risk their lives, I’m never in any doubt they will make it through. When Mamoru was facing against his old friends, there was a real sense of danger and the gang had to fight to save themselves from being destroyed. But now it’s become so par for the course that I’m not even worried about them.

The team really must work on their tactics because they get hit again by the bad guys and spend a good portion of the initial battle—you guessed it—knocked unconscious. I shouldn’t be surprised, but still I have to stare at the page and say “What, again?” The promise of the Outer Senshi returning for the next volume intrigues me as their departure from the roster is not done with any finality, but in a manner that suggests when they do return it will be interesting to see how the Inner Senshi treat them.

Again, I find myself locating genuine problems that I have with the series, but they are not enough to stop my enjoyment of the proceedings. My worry is that when the final volume comes, it will be another cases of fighting yet another unknown boss and then that’s it, we’re out of time here folks.

License This! Tera Girl by Mizusawa Megumi

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Tera Girl vol. 1

Today’s title is one I really think stands very little chance of seeing the light of day in the US, but that won’t stop me from gushing over it and hoping for a miracle to occur.

Tera Girl (or Temple Girl) by Mizusawa Megumi is the story of three sisters whose dad is a Buddhist priest. The three girls, Satoru, Hikari, and Ogami, could not be more different. Satoru is a university student studying medicine. She doesn’t hate that her family owns a temple, but she decided to focus on her own goals rather than the family business. Ogami is the youngest. She hates living in a temple and chose to go to a high school in another town so that no one would know about her family. Then there’s Hikari, the middle daughter. Also still in high school, she loves everything about the way she was raised and is a devout Buddhist. As a daughter, she can’t take over the temple herself, but her dad is counting on her to marry a man who is willing to become a priest and take over the temple.

Not only is this just a cute story in general and my favorite genre of shoujo (sweet romance with genuinely nice male characters, strong female friendships, no magic or anything out of the ordinary), it’s also a really neat look at how Buddhism works in Japan. Most Japanese people are culturally Buddhist, but not at all religious, so the manga is written for an audience who has little in common with Hikari’s upbringing. One reason I like school manga and workplace manga is that I like reading about everyday life in different places (though I also love things that take place in familiar settings, so maybe I just like stories about ordinary stuff), and this hits that same kink.

Tera Girl is a fairly recent series, with its third volume just released in February, and it’s by a very prolific, popular author, so that should mean it has a good chance at getting picked up, right? But no. I don’t know what it is about Mizusawa Megumi, maybe she is one of those authors who do doesn’t want her work translated, or maybe publishers just don’t think anyone is interested in the sort of stories she writes, but not a single one of her manga have ever been published in the US. Even scanlators don’t seem to care for her (so maybe that is a sign that there isn’t a lot of interest in what she writes, I don’t know).

If you were into anime in the mid ’90s, you probably remember Hime-chan no Ribbon, which while never officially licensed in the US, was very popular on the fansub circuit at the time and often shown at anime clubs. That’s probably her most well-known series outside of Japan, and that was twenty years ago. It’s also not at all typical of what she writes, since it’s a sort-of magical girl story, whereas the vast majority of her manga is the sort of everyday romance/slice-of-life stuff I love.

I know I said much the same thing in my post about Aozora Yell, but I feel like the US manga industry could really use more shoujo of this sort. So much of what’s put out here skews towards obnoxious love interests and female rivals. Kimi ni Todoke is popular, so it’s not like no one at all is interested in stories where the majority of the characters are nice and friendship is as strongly valued as romance, but there’s so much more like that in Japan and I don’t know why more of it isn’t given a chance.

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: Strobe Edge, Vol. 1

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Strobe Edge Vol.1 | By Io Sakisaka | Published by VIZ Media | Rated: Teen

strobe_Edge

Here is your basic relationship equation: Girl (Ninako Kinoshita) likes school friend (Daiki Korenaga) but develops feelings for other school boy (Ren Ichinose). After finding out she might love Ren, Ninako discovers Daiki has feelings for her. So, Boy + Boy / Girl = Story. Not the most original idea but Strobe Edge uses what it’s got and delivers a good slice of teenage angst with some aplomb. Some parts I liked in its execution, some I did not. Shall we begin?

Understanding love is one of the fundamental questions of humanity. What is it? Why is so good and bad at the same time for us? Why do we need it so much? What does it feel like? For teenager Ninako, the fact that she’s never been in love, never been loved (that she knows of) and doesn’t know how it feels is the smartest and dumbest thing about this manga. I would like to say that there’s more to it than that but I respect when authors can just explore a simple idea and run with it, warts and all.

On one hand you want to scream at the girl for being so naïve that she doesn’t know what love is, presumably because she must be loved at home. I mean, I haven’t seen her family yet but she gives no indication that things are bad. Plus she has her friends in school, so she must know what love is! Yes, I know, love for your friends is not the same as love for a significant other. But the basic feeling is the same. I don’t understand why Io Sakisaka tries to present Ninako as laughing with her friends in school and then have her go into automaton mode around Ren. It’s like “What is feeling I have? I … feel? What is feel?” (Sorry, I’m being really simplistic with that last sentence but you get the idea). It’s a set of mental tracks that doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere. I don’t know if I have the fortitude to root for a character who is that emotionally stunted.

Yet, in the same way, it is fun to watch her as she tries to make sense of these two guys and their attempts (or non-attempts) at getting her to like them. If I had to choose, I would say that Ren is a better character than Daiki. Daiki comes across as a nice guy but there’s something off about a guy who wants the girl but when he finds out that somebody who is dating his sister is interested in the girl, he warns them off from the girl but not his sister. I dunno, but Ren for all of his aloof slightly bad boy angle is a better idea in action as everybody, and I mean everybody, reacts against him. He doesn’t need to do anything and people take notice of him or are aware of him. Ninako is aware of him but as she gets into the mystery of who Ren is as a person we see her change as she realizes that by studying him, she fell in love with him. This is done in a slowly unfolding manner rather than BOOM! I LOVE HIM. Which would cheese me off as that isn’t what Sakisaka is possibly going for here.

The best way of describing the three kids; relationship is this: imagine if they were part of a solar system, OK? Ninako is in the middle of the system and Daiki is the sun. The sun in Ninako’s world is bright, happy to have her around and has always been in her view. But one day a gas giant, Ren, which had always been there but did nothing, suddenly exerts an influence over the planet in the middle. Not enough to completely dislodge it from the sun’s view but once the gas giant has started, a critical change occurs on the planet in the middle. Daiki isn’t going to give up Ninako to someone like Ren but I don’t think it’s as simple for them as “I must possess her!” because Ninako is trying to sort out her own head at the same time. Speaking of Ren, I don’t know why the author chose to insert that final revelation about Ren and his relationship with Ninako at the point she did. I can’t go into specifics without spoiling certain things, but it felt like it was an attempt to promote the idea that Ren really was too good to be true. I am not saying that it is unwelcome but it could have been left until volume two and that would have been a better jumping point for the cast to deal with in the rest of volume two. It’s kind of happily maddening, that’s how I would describe it.

Is there a point in saying that the artwork in this is gorgeous? It’s not master craftsmanship levels at work but the story that it tells, the work on display suits it perfectly and I don’t have a problem with the amount of daydreaming the cast seem to engage in as long as the art looks like this.

I am a bit of a soap drama watcher and while I don’t need to obsess over every episode of the shows I watch, I would say that Strobe Edge has some of that going on here. This first volume presents a few problems for me, that much is certain, but there’s just enough in the way Sakisaka presents the cast and the setup that doesn’t allow me to dismiss it out of hand without giving it a proper whirl. Much like those soaps I am not supposed to like.

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: Sailor Moon, Vol. 6

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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 6 | By Naoko Takeuchi | Published by Kodansha Comics USA | Rated: T, Ages 13+

A curious thing happened to me the other night. After reading the sixth volume of Sailor Moon, I looked back over the earlier volumes of the series, and I came to the inescapable conclusion that the Sailor Senshi could be confused with a murderous vigilante gang. Now, before you laugh, let me explain it this way. In this volume, the girls find themselves tangling with the Mugen Group and their master, Pharaoh 90. The entire clan of bad guys all live in an evil-looking tower and seem to be happy drawing in unsuspecting minions rather than going out to destroy. Oh, and no, I’m not kidding about the evil tower part, several characters mention the fact that they get a weird feeling just looking at it. Therefore it becomes evil, the Trashheap has spoken on the matter.

As I was saying, the Mugen group are turning their students into monsters with the aid of some questionable science, at best, and then said monsters go on a rampage. The Senshi turn up and vaporize the bad guy and everything’s all right with the world. But if you viewed it another way, the Senshi have been going around destroying public property, causing mass panics and riots to break out, and killing any God’s amount of singers/idols/famous people because they were in league with that month’s chief villain. Isn’t anyone going to notice they’re, I dunno, dead? Or that there seems to be an abnormal amount of incidents around this particular part of Tokyo? Don’t get me wrong, I’m as OK with suspension of disbelief as the next person but does Takeuchi expect us to believe that nobody has noticed anything, at all? One of these days, I’ll get an answer, I just don’t think it’ll come from Sailor Moon. Not that I mind, because in this volume, we are introduced to Sailors Neptune and Uranus, two of the more interesting Senshi. I only know of these two by internet reputation so in that respect, I’m kind of trying to walk around spoiler territory for myself here. Haruka (Uranus) is interesting in that she is presented as a girl and a fella. There’s no ambiguity with her/him when they interact with other people. Strangely, the only person who is confused and states that she is confused is Usagi but that’s because Uranus kisses her in her male persona. There’s something familiar about Haruka to Usagi and it upsets her to think about it. Curiouser and curiouser. Michiru as Neptune is not as exciting but she definitely is more mysterious. I think because of her lower profile, I worry that Takeuchi will give all the revelations to Uranus, and that would be not so good.

Also, we are introduced to Hotaru Tomoe, a person whom I’ve heard about but know nothing about. Hotaru is a sick young girl whose father works for the Mugen group in their laboratory. He’s kind of like the Josef Mengele of the Mugen group insofar that nobody he knows specifically is being hurt by what he’s doing. In the meantime, eh, what do a couple of students matter? How do people like Professor Tomoe get college educations? Does nobody notice when his report cards read “COULD WORK HARDER. COULD APPLY HIMSELF. COULD BE LESS EVIL.”? Whatever his problem, Hotaru looks like she needs a friend, and she gets one in the form of Chibi-Usa. After stumbling into her in front of the Tomoe lab, Chibi-Usa decides to hang out with her. Is this going to end well? I don’t know but I’m happy that Takeuchi has decided to give Chiba-Usa something to do other than hang out with Usagi and Mamoru and monopolise their time together.

One of the wildest moments for me in this volume is the amount of bad guys who get vapourised by the Senshi. Sweet Christmas, they get enough time to say things like (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Sailor Mars! Sailor Jupiter! You won’t stop me or my master, Pharaoh 90! I’ll defeat-AARGGGHHHH!!!” before being turned into crispy critters. They even have their power levels displayed above their heads at one point and I was thinking going from head to head, “One round, one round, two round, end of level boss.” I am telling you, reading manga shouldn’t be this much fun. Every time a new villain is introduced to the series, I keep thinking of Col. Trautman saying to the Sheriff in Rambo that if he (the Sheriff) wants to send that many men to deal with the problem to not forget a supply of body bags. It’s almost like there’s no reason to give any credence to these lieutenants, they are literally not going to be in the book long enough to like or hate. Their job is to advance the plot or the characters or both. I’m not disparaging the practice, I’m just saying that you should be aware going into the series.

William Flanagan’s translation notes return in full and as always they are fun but not exhaustive. Things like naming structures and meanings of places and things always help me whenever I read manga so I was missing them in the previous volume. Kodansha continues to put out an excellent book with it being just the right size for me when I’m trying to find my groove at home (I would never read Sailor Moon out on the streets of Dublin. I value my life more!)

We are just around the halfway point in the manga and yes, we have a new villain who is in the Bwa-Ha-Ha mode again but this time, we don’t know if the new Senshi are friend or foe. This complicates matters and makes for an interesting interlude

Limit, Vol. 1

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“The world doesn’t suffer fools or fugly people” — so says Sakura, the most popular student in class 2-4. Sakura is a classic Alpha Girl: pretty, manipulative, and confident that at fifteen, she’s discovered the secret to being successful. (“Both studies and make-up. They’re real important for enjoying life, you know?” she informs her pal Konno.) Though Sakura’s friends may not like her, they recognize her power and follow her example; when Sakura declares that the awkward, quiet Arisa Morishige should “die,” Sakura’s friends are all too quick to agree.

The dynamic between Sakura’s clique and Morishige is dramatically reversed, however, on an annual school trip to “exchange camp,” where second-year students spend a week roughing it in a rural setting. En route to camp, a bus accident kills most of the class, leaving a handful of survivors stranded in the wilderness. The remaining members of Sakura’s clique soon discover that their nasty antics have demoted them from the A-list to the D — a demotion that, in their new, desperate circumstances, has potentially deadly consequences.

In a more cynical frame of mind, I might describe Limit as “Lord of the Flies with chicks,” but that cheeky brush-off doesn’t quite do justice to Keiko Suenobo’s story. Her principal characters are just as concerned with survival as William Golding’s private-school boys were, but the girls’ internal power struggles are less a exploration of Hobbesian philosophy than an extreme dramatization of the cliquish behavior found in Japanese high schools. In other words, it’s Mean Girls… with weapons.

Entertaining as that sounds, Limit suffers from a crucial flaw: Konno, the narrator, isn’t very interesting, as her primary role is to be an inoffensive reader surrogate. Konno is pretty and smart enough to be a member of Sakura’s clique, but passive enough that her behavior won’t elicit criticism from most readers; Konno is never portrayed as a ringleader or enthusiastic participant in Morishige’s degradation, though she clearly joined Sakura in harassing Morishige. That’s a mistake, I think, because it permits the reader to side too readily with Konno when the tables are turned, ignoring the fact that Morishige’s rage stems from being bullied on a daily basis by Sakura and Konno.

The other survivors are a more compelling lot, even if each neatly slots into a well-established role: The Principled Outsider, The Timid Girl, The Frenemy. That Suenobo endows each of these girls with more humanity than those roles require is testament to her skill as a writer. Volume one’s most moving scene, for example, belongs to Ichinose, Sakura’s best friend. Though she and Konno have moved in the same social circles, the bus accident reveals that Ichinose views Konno as a rival for Sakura’s friendship. Ichinose’s desperation at being “traded in” for the smarter, prettier Konno is palpable, and the rawness of her angry confession is one of the few moments in the script that doesn’t feel like a rote portrayal of mean-girl politics.

Perhaps the strongest element of Limit is the artwork. Suenobo’s meticulous efforts to dramatize her characters’ inner turmoil reminds the reader that Limit ran in Bessatsu Friend, not Weekly Shonen Magazine. Konno and Ichinose scream and cry as lustily as any character in Cage of Eden, but Limit‘s characters register a much fuller range of emotions than just fear of being lost or eaten; Konno and her fellow survivors are by turns angry, jealous, gleeful, miserable, spiteful, bitter, remorseful, and fearful — of one another. By far the most dramatic example is Morishige, who morphs from cringing, sweaty scapegoat to demonic avenger; her once dull, shark-like eyes are suddenly animated with a fierce, nasty sense of purpose, and she moves with a speed and deliberation that surprise her classmates.

Suenobo also demonstrates a flair for staging action scenes. The bus accident is depicted in a brief but effective sequence that makes creative use of camera angles to suggest the severity of the crash. Likewise, Suenobo firmly establishes how desperate the girls’ situation really is; in a few carefully drawn panels, the reader readily grasps the geographic obstacles to rescue, from sheer cliff walls to impenetrable woods. That no one’s cell phone works feels like an unnecessary touch, given the care with which Suenobo sketches out the crash site and its environs.

If the story is, at times, a little uneven, or ungenerous to Morishige, Limit still shows considerable promise. Suenobo makes good use of her teen-survivor premise to explore the politics of bullying without being too mawkish. At the same time, however, Suenobo manages to write a scary thriller that’s sophisticated and suspenseful enough to sustain an adult’s interest; the story’s occasional Grand Guignol touches add a welcome dash of camp, preventing the story from sinking under the weight of its Very Important Message. I can’t imagine what will happen in volume two, but I’m looking forward to reading it… with the lights on. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc. Volume one will be released on October 9, 2012.

LIMIT, VOL. 1 • BY KEIKO SUENOBO • VERTICAL, INC. • 176 pp.

Limit, Vol. 1

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“The world doesn’t suffer fools or fugly people” — so says Sakura, the most popular student in class 2-4. Sakura is a classic Alpha Girl: pretty, manipulative, and confident that at fifteen, she’s discovered the secret to being successful. (“Both studies and make-up. They’re real important for enjoying life, you know?” she informs her pal Konno.) Though Sakura’s friends may not like her, they recognize her power and follow her example; when Sakura declares that the awkward, quiet Arisa Morishige should “die,” Sakura’s friends are all too quick to agree.

The dynamic between Sakura’s clique and Morishige is dramatically reversed, however, on an annual school trip to “exchange camp,” where second-year students spend a week roughing it in a rural setting. En route to camp, a bus accident kills most of the class, leaving a handful of survivors stranded in the wilderness. The remaining members of Sakura’s clique soon discover that their nasty antics have demoted them from the A-list to the D — a demotion that, in their new, desperate circumstances, has potentially deadly consequences.

In a more cynical frame of mind, I might describe Limit as “Lord of the Flies with chicks,” but that cheeky brush-off doesn’t quite do justice to Keiko Suenobo’s story. Her principal characters are just as concerned with survival as William Golding’s private-school boys were, but the girls’ internal power struggles are less a exploration of Hobbesian philosophy than an extreme dramatization of the cliquish behavior found in Japanese high schools. In other words, it’s Mean Girls… with weapons.

Entertaining as that sounds, Limit suffers from a crucial flaw: Konno, the narrator, isn’t very interesting, as her primary role is to be an inoffensive reader surrogate. Konno is pretty and smart enough to be a member of Sakura’s clique, but passive enough that her behavior won’t elicit criticism from most readers; Konno is never portrayed as a ringleader or enthusiastic participant in Morishige’s degradation, though she clearly joined Sakura in harassing Morishige. That’s a mistake, I think, because it permits the reader to side too readily with Konno when the tables are turned, ignoring the fact that Morishige’s rage stems from being bullied on a daily basis by Sakura and Konno.

The other survivors are a more compelling lot, even if each neatly slots into a well-established role: The Principled Outsider, The Timid Girl, The Frenemy. That Suenobo endows each of these girls with more humanity than those roles require is testament to her skill as a writer. Volume one’s most moving scene, for example, belongs to Ichinose, Sakura’s best friend. Though she and Konno have moved in the same social circles, the bus accident reveals that Ichinose views Konno as a rival for Sakura’s friendship. Ichinose’s desperation at being “traded in” for the smarter, prettier Konno is palpable, and the rawness of her angry confession is one of the few moments in the script that doesn’t feel like a rote portrayal of mean-girl politics.

Perhaps the strongest element of Limit is the artwork. Suenobo’s meticulous efforts to dramatize her characters’ inner turmoil reminds the reader that Limit ran in Bessatsu Friend, not Weekly Shonen Magazine. Konno and Ichinose scream and cry as lustily as any character in Cage of Eden, but Limit‘s characters register a much fuller range of emotions than just fear of being lost or eaten; Konno and her fellow survivors are by turns angry, jealous, gleeful, miserable, spiteful, bitter, remorseful, and fearful — of one another. By far the most dramatic example is Morishige, who morphs from cringing, sweaty scapegoat to demonic avenger; her once dull, shark-like eyes are suddenly animated with a fierce, nasty sense of purpose, and she moves with a speed and deliberation that surprise her classmates.

Suenobo also demonstrates a flair for staging action scenes. The bus accident is depicted in a brief but effective sequence that makes creative use of camera angles to suggest the severity of the crash. Likewise, Suenobo firmly establishes how desperate the girls’ situation really is; in a few carefully drawn panels, the reader readily grasps the geographic obstacles to rescue, from sheer cliff walls to impenetrable woods. That no one’s cell phone works feels like an unnecessary touch, given the care with which Suenobo sketches out the crash site and its environs.

If the story is, at times, a little uneven, or ungenerous to Morishige, Limit still shows considerable promise. Suenobo makes good use of her teen-survivor premise to explore the politics of bullying without being too mawkish. At the same time, however, Suenobo manages to write a scary thriller that’s sophisticated and suspenseful enough to sustain an adult’s interest; the story’s occasional Grand Guignol touches add a welcome dash of camp, preventing the story from sinking under the weight of its Very Important Message. I can’t imagine what will happen in volume two, but I’m looking forward to reading it… with the lights on. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc. Volume one will be released on October 9, 2012.

LIMIT, VOL. 1 • BY KEIKO SUENOBO • VERTICAL, INC. • 176 pp.

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: Sailor Moon, Vol. 5

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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Vol. 5 | By Naoko Takeuchi | Published by Kodansha Comics USA | Rated: T, Ages 13+

I’m trying to put into words the ideas I’ve discovered with this volume of Sailor Moon. In this volume, the fight between Wiseman and his Malefic Black Crystal and our heroes reaches its crescendo. Some of our heroes are not going to be returning, I’m sad to say, and one character who only recently got introduced is for the chop. As I said, it’s not easy trying to explain the ideas I’ve had bouncing around since I finished the volume. I guess if we’re boiling it down, it’s the idea of infinity and eternity. In my mind, Sailor Moon and her friends embody the idea of infinity. The idea of infinity is that there is no end to it, stretching out into an endless horizon. The Sailor Senshi are that concept in action. On first inspection there seem to be limits to their powers. Even after three of them being captured, Sailor Moon still finds an unending horizon of strength to fight back against the power of Wiseman and his planet, Nemesis.

As the fight against Wiseman heats up to include fighting against one of their own, the team has to—has to—find the inner strength to defeat an enemy who just won’t stop. And in turning to eternity, we see the concept in Wiseman. Here is an enemy who has been waiting for so long to destroy Neo Queen Serenity, 30th Century Crystal Tokyo, and the Earth in general that he has been bleached by the universe until only the hate remains. He could wait forever for his revenge, he just doesn’t want to. In this volume, despite the team fighting their hardest fight, Wiseman and his cronies just keep coming.

The core of this volume is the maturing of Chibi-Usa into a girl who isn’t just the daughter of the King and Queen of Crystal Tokyo. She drops the bratty act in this volume and becomes a person who has only an idea about who she wants to be. The people around her only want the best for her but if she doesn’t recognize that, events will destroy the people she loves. The way Takeuchi writes the relationship between Usagi and Chibi-Usa, initially I despaired that it would degenerate into catty, screaming sessions between them. But Usagi starts seeing her as her daughter rather than the Queen’s daughter (Usagi has, up until this point, been viewing Chibi-Usa as another person’s daughter and not hers) and this causes her to risk everything. The person who helps her see this, surprisingly, is Mamoru. Without his character taking the risk to trust Chibi-Usa, the way Takeuchi is going with this wouldn’t work.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems with this volume. The other Senshi get pretty much pushed to one side and I thought they were treated as kind of “We need Sailor Magic artillery! Quick, call up our reserves!” And after I’ve been introduced to them properly over the last little while, it felt a bit jarring. Another problem is Demande (yeah, remember him?). We’ve been given hints that he’s really unsettled by something about Wiseman. When his suspicions are confirmed, he quickly descends into madness. Completely. Totally. I really mean this, he just goes crazy and does the whole Andross from StarFox: “If I go down, I’m taking you with me!” After watching him be so measured for the last few volumes, his spiral into CrazyTown is positively Shakespearean.

The destiny angle comes up again in this volume and I must say, I’m trying hard to figure out if Takeuchi will ditch putting Usagi in peril anymore. The reason I say that is because we know she becomes Neo Queen Serenity, so putting her in danger doesn’t make any sense since we know she’ll be ok. Yes, I know that she could be put into a pocket dimension or into the far future but still, I would feel kind of insulted if the author tried to do this.

If nothing else, normally I should hate the fact that Takeuchi keeps trapping me in endless cycles of “New enemy! Even more effeminate than the last! Another Senshi is kidnapped! Another massive fight! Another defeat for the Senshi! Another stand-alone fight between the big Evil Cheese and Sailor Moon!” I really should be annoyed because she hasn’t changed the record once, but really the parts I like the most about the fights are the little moments when Usagi and Mamoru try and reconnect with each other. They’re the parts that reveal the most about these two lovers and the lengths either will go for the other. It takes skill to pull the wool over my eyes like that and still get me to come back. Yeah, like I’m that important, right?

No translation notes this time around but that’s OK, there weren’t really any moments that confused me. One thing I wanted to ask you guys about. A few of the pages in the book are blurry and smudged. Dialogue is also blurred, so it’s a printing issue. Is this affecting anybody else’s copies? Let me know, would you?

We are nearing the halfway point of the series and while I’m enjoying myself, the fact is that little voice in the back of my head is whispering “It’s almost half over!” This makes me a little sad because I don’t want the merry-go-round to stop. It has to, I know, still here I am. This is a fine entry and I can’t say anything more praiseworthy in life than that.

(After a two month hiatus, I’m back on the column! Apologies if you were wondering where I had gone. The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service MMF kept me busy so I decided to skip doing a column post for August. I’m up at full speed again and I’d like to know if there are any immediate recommendations you would suggest for after I end covering Sailor Moon.)

A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 4

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A Devil and Her Love Song has been one of 2012’s best surprises. Though the series uneven — and sometimes a little silly — its heroine is one of the most memorable in the Shojo Beat canon. Maria Kawai looks like a mean girl on the surface: she’s pretty and unsparingly blunt, pointing out her classmates’ insecurities with all the delicacy of Dr. Phil. Yet Maria’s bull-in-a-china-shop demeanor reflects her own uncertainty about how to be the kind of person who’s liked for who she is, not the kind of person who’s admired for telling unpleasant truths. And that makes her interesting.

Early in volume four, for example, Maria confronts queen bee Ayu in the bathroom, where she finds Ayu primping for the television cameras. When Maria questions Ayu’s behavior — “But you look the same,” she tells Ayu — Ayu is furious. Maria, however, persists — not because she wants the embarrass a rival, but because she wants to share a hard-won piece of advice. “If someone likes you, or wants to get to know you, it’s not because of how you look,” she tells Ayu. “It’s because you show them how you feel.”

Ayu’s subsequent behavior, however, points to one of the series’ weaknesses: characters have epiphanies with whiplash-inducing frequency. (Saul would never have made it to Damascus if he fell off his donkey as many times as Maria’s classmates do.) Though some of these epiphanies feel genuine, many are contrived: would an alpha girl suddenly confess her feelings to a cute boy in front of all her friends, risking public rejection? Or the class darling admit that she’s actually a nasty manipulator, risking her popularity? Those are nice fantasies, but not very plausible ones; Tomori is working too hard to convince us that Maria’s classmates secretly wish they could be more like her, and not giving group-think and fear enough due.

The series also relies heavily on shopworn gimmicks to advance the plot. The arrival of a television crew in volume three, for example, serves no useful purpose; they disappear for long stretches at a home, only to materialize when the plot demands that someone bear witness to the class’ antics. Maria’s long-running feud with her teacher, too, feels more like an editor’s suggestion than an original idea. To be sure, a student as outspoken as Maria might infuriate a certain kind of adult, but her teacher’s cartoonish behavior renders him ineffective; his actions seem too obvious, too ripe for exposure, for him to pose a real threat to Maria.

Where A Devil and Her Love Song shines is in Maria’s one-on-one interactions with other students. These scenes remind us that everyone is wearing a mask in high school — even Maria, whose sharp comments are as much a pose as Hana’s forced cheerfulness. Though Tomori nails the mean-girl dynamic in all its exquisite awfulness, the best of these exchanges belong to Maria and Shin. Their will-they-won’t-they tension is certainly an effective narrative hook, but what makes these scenes compelling is their honesty. Tomori captures her characters’ body language and fitful conversations, which unfold in fragments, silences, and sudden bursts of feeling, rather than eloquent declarations.

I don’t know about you, but that’s how I remember high school, as a time when I had flashes of insight and bravery, but a lot more moments of cringe-inducing stupidity, cowardice, or tongue-tied helplessness. That Tomori captures adolescence in all its discomfort while still writing a romance that’s fun, readable, and sometimes endearingly silly, is proof of her skill. Now if she could just ditch the television crew and the evil teacher…

Review copy provided by VIZ Media.

A DEVIL AND HER LONG SONG • BY MIYOSHI TOMORI • VIZ MEDIA • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 4

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A Devil and Her Love Song has been one of 2012’s best surprises. Though the series uneven — and sometimes a little silly — its heroine is one of the most memorable in the Shojo Beat canon. Maria Kawai looks like a mean girl on the surface: she’s pretty and unsparingly blunt, pointing out her classmates’ insecurities with all the delicacy of Dr. Phil. Yet Maria’s bull-in-a-china-shop demeanor reflects her own uncertainty about how to be the kind of person who’s liked for who she is, not the kind of person who’s admired for telling unpleasant truths. And that makes her interesting.

Early in volume four, for example, Maria confronts queen bee Ayu in the bathroom, where she finds Ayu primping for the television cameras. When Maria questions Ayu’s behavior — “But you look the same,” she tells Ayu — Ayu is furious. Maria, however, persists — not because she wants the embarrass a rival, but because she wants to share a hard-won piece of advice. “If someone likes you, or wants to get to know you, it’s not because of how you look,” she tells Ayu. “It’s because you show them how you feel.”

Ayu’s subsequent behavior, however, points to one of the series’ weaknesses: characters have epiphanies with whiplash-inducing frequency. (Saul would never have made it to Damascus if he fell off his donkey as many times as Maria’s classmates do.) Though some of these epiphanies feel genuine, many are contrived: would an alpha girl suddenly confess her feelings to a cute boy in front of all her friends, risking public rejection? Or the class darling admit that she’s actually a nasty manipulator, risking her popularity? Those are nice fantasies, but not very plausible ones; Tomori is working too hard to convince us that Maria’s classmates secretly wish they could be more like her, and not giving group-think and fear enough due.

The series also relies heavily on shopworn gimmicks to advance the plot. The arrival of a television crew in volume three, for example, serves no useful purpose; they disappear for long stretches at a home, only to materialize when the plot demands that someone bear witness to the class’ antics. Maria’s long-running feud with her teacher, too, feels more like an editor’s suggestion than an original idea. To be sure, a student as outspoken as Maria might infuriate a certain kind of adult, but her teacher’s cartoonish behavior renders him ineffective; his actions seem too obvious, too ripe for exposure, for him to pose a real threat to Maria.

Where A Devil and Her Love Song shines is in Maria’s one-on-one interactions with other students. These scenes remind us that everyone is wearing a mask in high school — even Maria, whose sharp comments are as much a pose as Hana’s forced cheerfulness. Though Tomori nails the mean-girl dynamic in all its exquisite awfulness, the best of these exchanges belong to Maria and Shin. Their will-they-won’t-they tension is certainly an effective narrative hook, but what makes these scenes compelling is their honesty. Tomori captures her characters’ body language and fitful conversations, which unfold in fragments, silences, and sudden bursts of feeling, rather than eloquent declarations.

I don’t know about you, but that’s how I remember high school, as a time when I had flashes of insight and bravery, but a lot more moments of cringe-inducing stupidity, cowardice, or tongue-tied helplessness. That Tomori captures adolescence in all its discomfort while still writing a romance that’s fun, readable, and sometimes endearingly silly, is proof of her skill. Now if she could just ditch the television crew and the evil teacher…

Review copy provided by VIZ Media.

A DEVIL AND HER LONG SONG • BY MIYOSHI TOMORI • VIZ MEDIA • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Dawn of the Arcana, Vols. 3-5

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On the surface, Dawn of the Arcana looks like a Harlequin romance. Its flame-haired heroine is feisty and impetuous, torn between her feelings for the man who raised her and the man she was forced to marry. Both men are keen to “own” her — their word, not mine — and are willing to go to ridiculous extremes to prove their devotion, even setting aside their differences to honor her requests. And true to Harlequin form, the heroine frequently struggles to reconcile the circumstances of her marriage and her growing feelings for her jailer-husband.

Peer beneath its romance-novel trappings, however, and it quickly becomes clear that manga-ka Rei Toma is actually writing a pretty nifty fantasy-adventure as well, one with interesting moral dilemmas, parallels with contemporary geopolitics, and multi-layered characters whose behavior frequently deviates from the Harlequin playbook.

In volume three, for example, Nakaba’s mother-in-law attempts to dye her hair black, lest visiting dignitaries realize that the new Belquat princess hails from Senan. Toma might have used this scene to provide Caesar an opportunity to publicly declare his feelings for Nakaba, or demonstrate Nakaba’s ability to endure hazing with noble forbearance. Instead, Toma transforms this act of fairy-tale cruelty into a moment of self-actualization: Nakaba seizes a sword and defiantly gives herself a fabulous pixie cut — er, short, boyish locks — denying the queen the satisfaction of humiliating her in front of the royal family.

That act resonates throughout the next three volumes, as Nakaba sheds her girlish braid and girlish indignation in favor of a stronger, more active role in defeating Belquat’s royal family. Though Nakaba’s new ‘do leads to some predictable exchanges about “looking like a boy,” both Loki and Caesar admire her determination: red hair symbolizes more than just her country of origin, but also the struggles that helped define her as a person.

As appealing as such scenes may be, they highlight the series’ main drawback: the artwork is too plain and spare for a story with such vivid characters. Though the principal characters’ costumes are rendered in considerable detail, the supporting cast resemble Renfair extras, with faintly old-timey clothing and long tresses. Worse still are the backgrounds: with their perfect right angles and unvaried lines, they look like stills from an ancient Nintendo game, rather than a representation of a specific time and place. That sterility isn’t a deal-breaker, but it does reinforce the impression that Toma hasn’t quite developed the artistic chops to fully realize her vision.

Despite its artistic shortcomings, Dawn of the Arcana remains an appealing mixture of fantasy and romance, offering just enough sword fights, scenes of female empowerment, and emotional entanglements to appeal to fans of both genres.

Review copies provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

DAWN OF THE ARCANA, VOLS. 3-5 | BY REI TOMA | VIZ MEDIA | RATING: TEEN (13+)

Dawn of the Arcana, Vols. 3-5

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On the surface, Dawn of the Arcana looks like a Harlequin romance. Its flame-haired heroine is feisty and impetuous, torn between her feelings for the man who raised her and the man she was forced to marry. Both men are keen to “own” her — their word, not mine — and are willing to go to ridiculous extremes to prove their devotion, even setting aside their differences to honor her requests. And true to Harlequin form, the heroine frequently struggles to reconcile the circumstances of her marriage and her growing feelings for her jailer-husband.

Peer beneath its romance-novel trappings, however, and it quickly becomes clear that manga-ka Rei Toma is actually writing a pretty nifty fantasy-adventure as well, one with interesting moral dilemmas, parallels with contemporary geopolitics, and multi-layered characters whose behavior frequently deviates from the Harlequin playbook.

In volume three, for example, Nakaba’s mother-in-law attempts to dye her hair black, lest visiting dignitaries realize that the new Belquat princess hails from Senan. Toma might have used this scene to provide Caesar an opportunity to publicly declare his feelings for Nakaba, or demonstrate Nakaba’s ability to endure hazing with noble forbearance. Instead, Toma transforms this act of fairy-tale cruelty into a moment of self-actualization: Nakaba seizes a sword and defiantly gives herself a fabulous pixie cut — er, short, boyish locks — denying the queen the satisfaction of humiliating her in front of the royal family.

That act resonates throughout the next three volumes, as Nakaba sheds her girlish braid and girlish indignation in favor of a stronger, more active role in defeating Belquat’s royal family. Though Nakaba’s new ‘do leads to some predictable exchanges about “looking like a boy,” both Loki and Caesar admire her determination: red hair symbolizes more than just her country of origin, but also the struggles that helped define her as a person.

As appealing as such scenes may be, they highlight the series’ main drawback: the artwork is too plain and spare for a story with such vivid characters. Though the principal characters’ costumes are rendered in considerable detail, the supporting cast resemble Renfair extras, with faintly old-timey clothing and long tresses. Worse still are the backgrounds: with their perfect right angles and unvaried lines, they look like stills from an ancient Nintendo game, rather than a representation of a specific time and place. That sterility isn’t a deal-breaker, but it does reinforce the impression that Toma hasn’t quite developed the artistic chops to fully realize her vision.

Despite its artistic shortcomings, Dawn of the Arcana remains an appealing mixture of fantasy and romance, offering just enough sword fights, scenes of female empowerment, and emotional entanglements to appeal to fans of both genres.

Review copies provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

DAWN OF THE ARCANA, VOLS. 3-5 | BY REI TOMA | VIZ MEDIA | RATING: TEEN (13+)

Adventures in the Key of Shoujo: X, Vol. 1

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X, Vol. 1: 3-in-1 | By CLAMP | Published by VIZ Media | Rated: T, Ages 13+

CLAMP might be the first manga artists I became aware of back in the day. While Sailor Moon and its risable dub didn’t interest me, the dubbed version of Cardcaptor Sakura, or Cardcaptors as it was known, was interesting. Knowledge that was based on a Japanese manga sent me to the old MIXX edition of the book. So I knew they existed. A few years go by and I own smatterings of Legal Drug, xxxHolic, Tsubasa Chronicle, Magic Knight Rayearth and a few others. But strangely, it was the discovery of an anime version of one of CLAMP’s bigger properties that would start over ten years of frustration. The title? X.

X tells the story of Kamui, a young high school-going boy who returns to Tokyo after the violent death of his mother. Childhood friends, Fuma and Kotori, are of course delighted to see him again. However, things cannot be as they once were. Kamui seems to be pursued by people who want to possess him and his psychic powers. One one side, Princess Hinoto who only wants Kamui for noble purposes and on the other, Kanoe, her sister, who only wants Kamui for destructive reasons. Every physical conflict in the story is settled by psychic battles that take place inside barriers. No battle can damage the real world while it happens inside the barrier but once a combatant dies, the damage becomes real. Now the countdown is on to 1999 and the day of reckoning.

Wow, CLAMP’s serious stuff always reads like a 70’s disaster movie starring Cary Grant and Ava Gardner. It sounds goofy as anything but once into the nuts and bolts, it really has legs to run with. X, I’ve known about since watching the Rintaro-directed movie from the mid-90’s. And of course, the TV series from Yoshiaki Kawajiri, I’ve not seen but heard about. But you see, the most famous thing about one of CLAMP’s biggest titles is that it was never finished. The team just stopped working on it (for particulars, see the Wikpedia article on it) and have never gone back to it. I guess being successful means you don’t have to be consistent. The movie and the TV show had to craft their own endings so your milage will seriously vary. But the manga is good, I have to say. After reading about the books for a while, I picked up the VIZ omnibus edition of volume 1. I’ll try not to spoil the other versions too much for you.

Kamui might be the most annoying CLAMP creation I’ve seen. He’s the lead, the hero, the chosen one—but by God, he’s so confident in his own abilities, it borders on arrogance. He fights anyone at the drop of a pin, which since he’s a psychic warrior, means the bar repair bill is going to be high. He’s angry, moody and pushy. He’s haunted by his last night in Tokyo before he and his mother had to flee. It’s so hard to see into his character in this volume. I get the sense that the manga version of Kamui cares about his childhood friends and normal people but psychic fighters, he couldn’t care less about, like they are fair game since he’s the king of the junkyard dogs. This is inconsistent with his promise to his mother to live long enough to see the year 1999. He’s fighting anybody without regard for his safety. What does this mean? The authors aren’t saying. Kotori is a typical non-leading female character from CLAMP in that she’s a frail, fragile girl who just wishes, darn it, can’t we all just get along? She clearly has fuzzy feelings for Kamui but he’s shutting her out to protect her. Fuma, well, is a nice guy who loves his sister Kotori and tries to shield her from the childhood trauma of finding their mother butchered, together. He loves his friend Kamui and would never hurt him but he’s being pushed to choose whom to protect. I’m not talking about the rest of the characters because you should find out yourself.

I like the set up of this first volume. You get a sense that something is coming from Hinoto’s apocalyptic visions to the way in which Kanoe is moving and maneuvering her own players. Kamui knows, just knows, something bad is after him and he tries shutting out Fuma and Kotori to protect both of them from whatever it is that pursues him. There are unintended fights between him and Hinoto’s people but the real fight is yet to happen. Another thing is, and this is one of CLAMP’s major strengths, that all the cast get a chance to explain themselves to the audience, and in doing so engage in exposition. It’s a really interesting technique to observe. If anyone else did it, I’d roll my eyes but CLAMP always make it seem natural. Even the antagonists get a chance to do this. It’s doesn’t make them any nicer people but at least I understand their motivations a bit better now. Finally, there seems to be a conscious choice to set the fights during the night. Nothing bad really happens in the day and in this volume the daytime is associated with Kamui’s arrival in school, and public, for the first time when he arrives in Kotori’s field of vision out of a school window as if heaven sent. Interesting concept, since later in the day, Kamui tries to coldy dismiss Kotori (of course we know he’s trying to protect her). Dining on ashes at the end of the day, before the eternal night, perhaps?

Talking about a CLAMP book means talking about artwork and this work benefits from VIZ selecting a larger format book size. Every ink brush stroke, every pencil line is detailed and prominent, every character is clear. The work in here has an almost dream-like quality with long elegant lines and weird tilted camera angles. CLAMP aren’t really urban or technological artists, but when they do decide to do that type of work, it’s always refreshing to see it on display. Trying to pin down their technology style is a bit difficult. It’s one part Shirow Masamune, one part Michael Okuda, how’s that? And the character designs are, as always, varied and function oriented. Everyone looks like what they wear suits them.

I have never liked the anime ending to the X movie. But while I’m resigned to the fact that CLAMP might never finish their popular series, at least it looks good, is written smartly and has enough steam to see me through to X Omnibus vol.2. For newcomers to CLAMP, it’s a good place to start and a good book to own. For veterans, well. You’re already trapped in the hole, so keep going, huh?

To submit your contributions to the CLAMP MMF for inclusion in this month’s archive, please send your links by email to melinda@mangabookshelf.com or via Twitter to @mbeasi. If you would like your contribution(s) to be hosted at Manga Bookshelf, please email them to Melinda, along with any included images.

My 5 Favorite CLAMP Manga

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I’ve read almost every CLAMP title available in English, from X (or X/1999, as we called it in back in the day) to Gate 7, and while I can’t claim to love them all, there is a core group of manga that I’ve read, re-read, and recommended to other fans. I make no special claims of excellence for these series, though I will say that these manga impressed me with their technical brilliance, genre-bending narratives, and beautiful artwork, if not their stellar endings.

MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH (Dark Horse; 2 volumes)

It’s easy to forget that Magic Knight Rayearth ran in the pages of Nakayoshi, as it adheres so closely to the friendship-effort-victory template that it almost passes for a Shonen Jump title. A careful reading of MKR, however, reveals it to be a unique fusion of shojo and shonen storytelling practices. On a moment to moment basis, MKR reads like shojo: the heroines denigrate their academic prowess, swoon over the only cute boy to cross their path, and extol the value of “heart” in defeating their enemies. The intense and protracted battle scenes, however, scream Naruto — or maybe Gundam — as the girls are pushed to their physical and emotional limits while casting spells, swinging swords, and piloting giant robots. That CLAMP reconciles such tonally different genres into a coherent whole is an impressive narrative feat; no matter how many times the heroines utter dippy or painfully sincere sentiments, their tenacity in combat makes them every bit as bad-ass as Naruto, InuYasha, or Ichigo Kurasaki. -Reviewed at The Manga Critic on July 22, 2011.

LEGAL DRUG (Tokyopop; 3 volumes)

I hesitate to use the word “intertextual” to describe Legal Drug, as that term is so heavily freighted with academic associations. But intertextual it is, as Legal Drug takes place in a universe that’s been carefully mapped out in prior works such as Angelic Layer, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Suki. Major and minor characters from Chobits and Suki wander in and out of the story, providing comic relief and commentary on the budding relationship between Rikuo and Kazahaya, two handsome young errand boys for the Green Drugstore. As in xxxHolic — a series in which Rikuo and Kazahaya make guest appearances — the supernatural frequently intrudes on mundane existence, giving rise to scenes of sublime comedy and surreal grace. An odd mixture of melancholy and whimsy, with a soupçon of shonen-ai.

CLOVER (Dark Horse; 1 volume)

Clover is a gorgeous train wreck, an unholy marriage of shojo, steampunk, and science fiction that almost — almost — gels into a coherent story. The plot revolves around a class of psychically gifted individuals known as Clovers, who have been rounded up, tested, and sorted into categories based on their abilities. The most powerful — Three- and Four-Leaf Clovers — have been imprisoned, as they pose a threat to humanity.

In the small fragment of story that CLAMP completed, the Clovers’ abilities are hastily sketched; the few demonstrations of their powers are less-than-awe-inspiring, and the government’s reasons for fearing them poorly explained. But oh, the atmosphere! Anyone who remembers what it felt like to be fourteen will recognize the Clovers’ magnificent isolation, as they struggle with feelings of loneliness, rejection, and desire; that they’ve been singled out for being different (and special!) only heightens the emotional intensity of their dilemma. The artwork, too, is a feast for the eyes, with inventive layouts and sensual character designs that rank among CLAMP’s finest. Even CLAMP’s use of soggy, overwrought song lyrics as a narrative device contributes to the story’s moody beauty, if not the pantheon of great love songs.

SHIRAHIME-SYO: SNOW GODDESS TALES (Tokyopop; 1 volume)

Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales is testament to CLAMP’s Borg-like ability assimilate any genre or artistic style and make it into their own. The three stories that comprise this slim volume are folkloric in tone and subject-matter, but expressed in a visual language that’s a beautiful synthesis of shojo manga and ukiyo print-making; the characters — with their pointy chins and artfully tousled hair — inhabit stark landscapes reminiscent of the Kishi and Shijo schools. If the overall mood is more subdued than xxxHolic or Tokyo Babylon, the stories are nonetheless moving in their directness and simplicity. The first, “On Wolf Mountain,” is the strongest of the three, exploring how one girl’s quest for revenge is transformed by the discovery that her enemy is, in fact, more courageous and generous than she ever imagined. The other stories — “The Ice Flower” and “Hiyoku no Tori” — read more like entries in Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan and Other Strange Stories, but are nonetheless effective parables about sacrifice. An out-of-print gem.

X (VIZ; 6 volumes)

On many levels, X is a bad manga: the characters are underwritten, the storytelling is lazy, and the dialogue is comically awful. (Don’t believe me? Check out Party Like It’s 1999, a Tumblr blog dedicated to exploring X on a page-by-page basis.) If you can look past the 90s hair and the tin-eared dialogue, however, what you’ll discover is a fierce apocalyptic drama that boasts some of the best end-of-the-world imagery in any manga not written by Katsuhiro Otomo. Oh, and blood. Buckets of blood.

The battle scenes are kinetic and violent, executed with a gory zest that’s difficult to resist. The dream sequences, too, are suitably shocking: characters are dismembered, crucified, impaled, and engulfed in flames, often right before their loved ones’ eyes. I hesitate to suggest that X‘s body count is a victory for women, but it is a sharp and welcome rebuke to the idea that female readers strongly prefer conversation and character development to butt-kicking and carnage. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 10/16/11.

So, readers, I turn the floor over to you: what are your favorite CLAMP titles? Which manga do you recommend to friends and new fans? Inquiring minds want to know!