VIZ

Missin’ and Missin’ 2: Kasako

September 16, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

missin After reading Missin’ and Missin’ 2, I’m convinced that novelist Novala Takemoto was a teenage girl in a previous life. But not the kind of girl who was on the cheerleading squad, the volleyball team, or the school council — no, Takemoto was the too-cool-for-school girl, the one whose unique fashion sense, sullen demeanor, and indifference to high school mores made her seem more adult than her peers, even if her behavior and emotions were, in fact, just as juvenile as everyone else’s. Though this kind of angry female rebel is a stock character in young adult novels, Takemoto has a special gift for making them sound like real girls, not an adult’s idea of what a disaffected teenager sounds like.

Consider Kasako, the heroine of Missin’ and Missin’ 2. Kasako feels estranged from her peers’ pop-culture interests, finding refuge in “the antique, the outmoded, indeed, the passe.” Though she has a special affinity for Schubert lieder and Rococo artwork, she finds a kindred spirit in Nobuko Yoshiya, a popular romance novelist whose career spanned the Taisho and Showa periods. Like an earlier generation of schoolgirls, Kasako is enthralled with Yoshiya’s Hana monogatari (Tales of the Flower, 1916 – 1924), a pioneering work of Class S fiction, or stories about romantic friendships between teenage girls.

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Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You 2 by Karuho Shiina: A-

September 16, 2009 by Michelle Smith

In volume one of this charming series, Sawako Kuronuma learned that by sharing her true feelings she could clear up misunderstandings. When malicious rumors begin to circulate about two classmates who’ve been kind to her, with Sawako named as the source of the stories, she desperately wants to clear up the “misunderstanding,” too innocent to understand that the tales have been spread purposefully to turn her new friends against her and make the sought-after Kazehaya disgusted with her.

Happily, the two classmates in question, Yano and Yoshida, aren’t fooled for a second that Sawako could be responsible. That is, until her hesitance to presume that they could actually already be friends makes them wonder how she really feels about them. I love that these two tough girls have clearly grown attached to their strange classmate and when everything is explained, with Kazehaya once again providing Sawako with helpful advice and encouragement, it’s rather sniffle-inducing. It’s depressingly rare that female friendships are given so much attention in a shojo series, and I heartily approve!

That’s not to say that romance is entirely missing. Although their relationship is developing slowly, Sawako seems to be starting to view Kazehaya in a different light, while Kazehaya is holding back in order to let Sawako enjoy having friends for the first time. I’m sure that when they finally do get together, it’ll be touching and sweet, just like everything else about this series.

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

Love*Com 14 by Aya Nakahara: B-

September 16, 2009 by Michelle Smith

Tall Risa Koizumi and her short boyfriend, Atsushi Ôtani, have been dating for a while and have weathered various obstacles. Their latest opponent is Risa’s visiting grandpa, whose primary objection seems to be their difference in height. He feels so strongly about it that he hires a hostess to seduce Ôtani in order to sabotage their relationship. This leads to two chapters of extremely frustrating angst and misunderstanding, in which Ôtani believes the tale fed him by a buxom stranger over Risa’s insistence that her grandfather is responsible. Of course, after all is revealed and Ôtani bravely dashes off to rescue Risa from the clutches of some possibly dangerous men, Gramps has a change of heart.

For the most part, the events in this volume are annoying. Grandpa blows in like a foul breeze, causes a few chapters’ worth of havoc, then wafts out again. Everyone acts like a moron at least once. The follow-up chapter, in which Haruka, Grandpa’s pick for Risa’s suitor, has his heartbreak assuaged by his fangirls, is pointless.

And yet, for all of that, it’s hard to completely dislike this volume of Love*Com. Scattered throughout are some genuinely nice moments between the lead couple, like Ôtani’s adamant declaration that Risa’s the only one he loves or an evening scene in a playground after Risa has run away from home to protest her grandfather’s meddling ways. This series certainly isn’t perfect, but it’s easy to forgive its flaws when it manages to deliver when it really counts.

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

Love*Com 12-13 by Aya Nakahara: B

September 15, 2009 by Michelle Smith

I used to be very fond of Love*Com but after a disappointing eleventh volume, my ardor cooled and the volumes have been piling up. For most of these two volumes, I was happy again, but when Risa’s grandfather is introduced at the end of volume thirteen, it all goes rapidly downhill.

Volume twelve begins with the gang awaiting Ôtani’s exam results and Risa trying to decide which vocational school she wants to attend. After this is resolved nicely, it’s revealed that one of their friends, Suzuki, failed to get into the same college as his girlfriend and is now waffling on whether to give her up to a more muscled dude who might protect her in his absence. This plot involves a judo challenge, which would otherwise be very stupid, but somehow Suzuki is kind of appealing and I wound up not disliking this story, despite all the silliness. I think a lot of the appeal is that, while helping their friend, Risa and Ôtani work together well. Overall, I noticed a distinct lack of squabbling between the two of them in these two volumes, which is nice!

Of course, our couple can’t remain stable and happy for long, so as soon as the Suzuki plot is resolved, Risa’s brother has to voice his objections to the relationship which stupidly causes the protagonists to wonder whether they belong together. And as soon as that’s resolved, Risa’s horndog grandfather, who is about as one-note and ridiculous as a character possibly could be, objects to Ôtani because of his height and sets about trying to break them up. At least Risa reacts hotly, and some nice discussions about trust result, but my intense dislike for grandpa means this arc can’t be over soon enough for me!

On the positive side, these two volumes contain quite a few amusing moments. I shan’t list them all here, but I will end with my new favorite absurd quote from an author’s sidebar.

Drain your salads thoroughly! This is my plea!

Review copy for volume thirteen provided by the publisher.

Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1

September 15, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Built in 1607, the Ooku, or “great interior,” housed the women of the Tokugawa clan, from the shogun’s mother to his wife and concubines. Strict rules prevented residents from fraternizing with outsiders, or leaving the grounds of Edo Castle without permission. Within the Ooku, an elaborate hierarchy governed day-to-day life; at the very top were the joro otoshiyori, or senior elders, who supervised the shogun’s attendants and served as court liaisons; beneath them were a web of concubines, priests, pages, cooks, and char women who hailed from politically connected families. This elaborate social system was mirrored in the physical structure of the Ooku, which was divided into three distinct areas — the Rear Quarters, the Middle Interior, and the Front Quarters — each intended solely ladies of a particular rank. The only male permitted into the Ooku (unescorted, that is), was the shogun himself, who accessed the “great interior” by means of the Osuzu Roka, a long corridor that connected the shogun’s living quarters with the imperial harem.

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Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1

September 15, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

The “great interior” plays a prominent role in Fumi Yoshinaga’s latest series, Ooku: The Inner Chamber. In Yoshinaga’s alternate history of eighteenth-century Japan, however, women run the show, thanks to a devastating plague that killed most of the country’s men. The shogun’s duties remain unchanged by this unexpected gender reversal, and she, too, enjoys the same perks that her male predecessors did. The twist: the Ooku is now home to hundreds of handsome men from important families, all of whom live according to the code established in Hideata Tokugawa’s reign.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Yoshinaga’s conceit is that so much remains the same, despite the sudden challenge to established gender norms. Marriage practices remain firmly rooted in money, social status, and fertility (men’s fertility, that is); palace residents continue observing the established pecking order and its attendant rituals; the shogun questions the cost, but not the necessity, of the Ooku itself. The men, in fact, embrace their subordinate roles without hesitation; their petty squabbles, hazing rituals, and political jockeying suggest their inability to imagine anything more important than competing for the shogun’s attention.

Where Yoshinaga takes the most risks is in her portrayal of Yoshimune, the newly appointed shogun. Yoshimune is a rare type in popular entertainment: a strong, intelligent, brusque, and frankly carnal woman with uncanny leadership instincts. She’s dismayed by excess and ritual, which she views as a drain on the shogunate’s dwindling resources; in her personal and political decision-making, she strives for simplicity and efficiency, even going so far as to restrict herself to two meals a day. In true Tokugawa fashion, Yoshimune is wary of the outside world; in one of the volume’s best scenes, she receives Dutch ambassador dressed in male attire, then uses her throne as a bully pulpit to inquire about the all-male crew of his ship. “‘Tis reported that there is not one woman in your entire company. Wherefore is that?” she demands of the bewildered captain. “Are all the women of Holland weak and sickly?”

Like Yoshinaga’s other costume dramas — especially Gerard and Jacques — Ooku is very talky. Too talky, in fact; the first three chapters unfold at what might charitably be described as a glacial pace, as we watch a young samurai enter the Ooku to avoid a financially beneficial but emotionally sterile marriage. Normally, Yoshinaga excels at conversation-driven storytelling, but the dialogue in Ooku falls flat, thanks to a stilted script that’s liberally peppered with “thees,” “wherefores,” and “forsooths.” (One character angrily addresses another as “thou vile cur!”, an insult that last carried weight in Elizabethan England, while another makes reference to a “man’s nether hole.”) Without an intimate knowledge of Japanese, it’s impossible to know if the problem originates with Yoshinaga’s script or Akemi Wegmuller’s translation; either way, the dialogue’s awkward marriage of contemporary and archaic language proves distracting, keeping the reader at arm’s length from the characters’ feelings.

The other problem with the script is that Yoshinaga uses conversation to explain everything, from the mysterious origins of the redface pox (the fictional disease that kills off the male population) to the elaborate rituals observed within the Ooku. Too often, the script reads like a history textbook; characters don’t have a discussion but lecture one another, revealing little about themselves in the process. Yoshinaga pauses from time to time to stage a dramatic moment — an attempted rape, a sword fight, a lovers’ parting — but she never quite brings the Ooku to life; the first few chapters feel more like a pageant or a historical re-enactment than a drama.

Yoshinaga’s artwork, on the other hand, is elegant and effective, capturing the opulence of Tokugawa-era fashions as well as the austere beauty of Edo Castle. As with all her manga, Yoshinaga’s limited repertoire of character designs seems less a flaw than a charming idiosyncrasy, as if she’s employing the same troupe of actors again and again. Yoshimune, for example, strongly resembles Flower of Life’s Majima, yet Majima’s sharp profile suits Yoshimune perfectly, as do the determined gait and fierce stare that distinguish Yoshimune from the softer, more stereotypically feminine women in her orbit. In service of Flower, those physical characteristics made Majima seem like a shifty operator, but when re-purposed for Ooku, these traits endow Yoshimune with an almost god-like aura, suggesting both her discipline and her strong sense of purpose.

I’ll be honest: I’m not quite sold on Ooku yet. For all its dramatic and socio-political ambitions, volume one isn’t nearly as daring or weird or pointed as it might have been. If anything, it reminds me of a BBC miniseries: it’s tasteful, meticulously researched, and a little too high-minded to be truly compelling. The introduction of the complex Yoshimune, however, bodes well for future volumes, as she brings a sense of urgency and purpose to a script that sometimes meanders.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

OOKU: THE INNER CHAMBERS, VOL. 1 • BY FUMI YOSHINAGA • VIZ • 216 pp. • RATING: MATURE

Boys Over Flowers 36 by Yoko Kamio: B

August 24, 2009 by Michelle Smith

After 36 dramatastic volumes, Boys Over Flowers has finally come to an end. It’s just too bad it didn’t happen sooner. The end of volume 31 would’ve been a good place, for example, with Tsukushi and Tsukasa finally realizing that their love is what’s most important in their lives. Instead, after Tsukasa recovers from a rather lame bout of amnesia, he announces that, due to his father’s sudden illness, he is taking off for New York after graduation and won’t be back for four years.

Although some very nice moments between the main couple result, like a night spent alone together and some endearingly misspelled skywriting, on the whole this volume is a disappointment on that front. With Tsukasa’s departure looming and Tsukushi forced to deal with her wacky family, they spend too much of this final volume apart for it to truly feel satisfying. Also, while I don’t really mind checking in on some of the secondary characters introduced throughout the series, I begrudge them the pages that could’ve been spent on the protagonists.

On the positive side, the volume provides some unexpectedly touching moments with Tsukushi and the rest of the F4, who are graduating, too. Instead of taking dates to the prom, they’ve decided that the last girl they want to dance with in high school is Tsukushi and we get a little farewell moment with each of them. Also, a bonus story about Akira, the least developed member of the F4, proves to be surprisingly entertaining.

Boys Over Flowers might end with a whimper rather than a bang, but don’t take that to mean that it isn’t ultimately well worth reading.

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

Boys Over Flowers 29-35 by Yoko Kamio: B

August 23, 2009 by Michelle Smith

These seven volumes leading up to the conclusion of Boys Over Flowers, which now has the distinction of being the longest shoujo series I’ve read, feature some pretty drastic reversals of fortune. Through spontaneous trips to New York City, love confessions from unexpected sources, kidnappings, deserted islands, stabbings, and amnesia, Tsukushi and Tsukasa endure a whirlwind of on again, off again romance that can leave the reader rather dizzy.

Because it’s better simply to go with the shoujo flow than try to reconstruct a linear account of what happens, I’m going to forgo any attempt at a comprehensive summary and instead write a little bit about each volume individually.

Volume 29: B
Tsukasa is convinced that he can make his mother understand his feelings for Tsukushi. The two of them have a very sweet date, one of their first that’s uniformly happy, with visits to pet stores and attendance at a baseball game. Alas, this game is the scene for a record-breaking home run for an American player, and Tsukushi’s catch of the ball ends up televised in New York, where Tsukasa’s mother happens to see it. She yanks Tsukasa back to New York, and Tsukushi pluckily follows.

After a couple of dumb chapters wherein Tsukushi just happens to run into someone she knows, things pick up again when she finally gets to see Tsukuasa. He coldly tells Tsukushi to go home and that he’s staying in New York of his own volition. She is stunned, but then sweet Rui arrives to lend her his support.

Volume 30: B+
Rui reveals that he is in love with Tsukushi. Although they don’t really work as a couple—the one date they had in the past was pretty awkward—I still see why they’d be drawn together. There’s a certain aura that Rui exudes, a strong, wistful kind of pull, that produces romantic angst of such a wonderful quality that it quite literally makes my heart ache a little. Even better is that this time, Tsukushi’s feelings for Tsukasa don’t waver in the slightest.

On the annoying side of things, Tsukushi just accepts Tsukasa’s cold dismissal and is on the verge of returning to Japan, when Kaede turns up at the airport and gives her one wish (in return for helping save a business deal). Tsukushi wishes for Tsukasa to keep his promise to have a hot pot dinner with her. A few days later, Tsukasa returns to Japan to spend just one day with Tsukushi, and it’s wonderfully sad and they’re about to have a tearful goodbye when suddenly some thugs with tasers arrive and kidnap them.

Volume 31: B
Tsukushi and Tsukasa awake to find themselves on a ship set on auto-pilot. When they arrive at a deserted island, Tsukasa proves himself surprisingly reliable by catching some dinner and, as they explore their surroundings, he reveals why he sent her away in New York and Tsukushi finds the courage to declare that she never wants to be separated from him again. Predictably, it turns out that their friends were behind the kidnapping, but neither Tsukushi nor Tsukasa is mad, since Tsukushi feels the experience has taught her what’s really important to her and Tsukasa decides that he’s going to leave his family.

Alas, Tsukasa’s sudden disappearance has hit the news. There’s a media frenzy upon his return and, in the commotion, he ends up getting stabbed by a guy with a grudge against his family. “Why is it,” Tsukushi wonders, “that every time I’m about to grasp that hand it just slips through my fingers?”

Volume 32: B-
Tsukasa nearly dies from his injuries, but miraculously recovers, though he has amnesia as a result and can’t remember Tsukushi. This ailment is untimely since, in grudging gratitude for Tsukushi’s life-saving actions after Tsukasa’s attack, Kaede says she’ll consider her son dead for one year. Throughout the rest of the volume, Tsukasa continues to be unable to remember Tsukushi while a very annoying, supposedly innocent girl at the hospital begins spending a lot of time with him.

A new romantic rival this late in the game is irritating. It’s strange—previous volumes prove I can accept and be entertained by all kinds of ridiculous drama, but this arc is just incredibly frustrating. I do like that we get a glimpse of a softer side of Kaede, though, and hope that it’ll be followed up on in the future.

Volume 33: B-
The amnesia plot persists and Umi continues to hang around Tsukasa, prompting him to wonder if perhaps she is the person he’s forgotten and taking credit for making a bento lunch that he found nostalgic somehow. Kamio-sensei attempts to portray Umi as naive and oblivious rather than calculating, but it doesn’t really work for me and I still hate her unreservedly. Thankfully, Tsukasa begins to realize that being with her simply doesn’t feel right and eventually scares her away with his temper, still awful when not modulated by Tsukushi’s influence.

Tsukushi, meanwhile, has become convinced that the Tsukasa she loves no longer exists and decides to see him one last time to return the mementos of their relationship. The encounter angers her enough to bean him in the head with the baseball she caught on their date and viola, his memories return. I’m more relieved than anything else, though there are certainly some nice moments after their reunion. The volume ends with them heading out to enjoy the freedom granted by their one-year grace period, promising to think about what to do after that when the time comes.

Volume 34: B+
Now that Tsukushi and Tsukasa are back on the right path—though Tsukushi can’t quite believe that it’s not going to all fall apart again, given their track record—focus shifts back to the subplot involving Yuki and her feelings for Sojiro. After helping him to attain a bit of closure regarding the one girl he ever really loved, she’s been keeping her distance. When they reconnect at a dinner to celebrate Tsukasa’s recovery, he offers to do something for her to repay her actions, and she asks him to instruct at her school’s Tea Club, unaware that the Sara in the club is the very girl that Sojiro once loved.

Angst ensues, but it’s enjoyable. Yuki is a strong and likable character (whose increasingly mature outlook has been an inspiration for our heroine), Sojiro has some unexpected layers, and it’s nice to give the main couple a break sometimes and let others bear the brunt of the drama burden for a while.

Volume 35: B
The Yuki/Sojiro storyline plays out to its conclusion and it’s awesome. Less awesome, alas, are the developments with our main couple. They couldn’t possibly be allowed to enjoy the year of freedom they’ve been granted! Instead, Tsukasa’s father collapses and he decides to go off to New York after graduation and take the reins of the company, leaving he and Tsukushi only a few more days together.

Firstly, this is entirely out of the blue and runs contrary to what Tsukasa was just saying a few volumes ago, about how he’s going to leave the family and all that. Secondly, as his departure approaches, the story turns into a tour of memories, with random reappearances by side characters that I don’t really care about.

All in all, of these volumes, I loved the scenes between Tsukushi and Rui the most, followed by the resolution to the Yuki and Sojiro story. There are some really great moments with the main couple in there, but the amnesia plot and this latest announcement of Tsukasa’s kind of bum me out in that department. Instead of being excited at the prospect of what the final volume will bring, I’m now kind of wary.

Black Bird 1 by Kanoko Sakurakoji: B-

August 16, 2009 by Michelle Smith

Misao Harada has always been able to see spirits, but when she turns sixteen, things suddenly get a lot worse. Kyo Usui, her childhood friend and first love, returns after a ten-year absence just in time to inform her that she is “the bride of prophecy,” and that now that she is sixteen, all sorts of demons are going to want to drink her blood, eat her flesh, and/or marry (read: sleep with) her, all of which will confer some benefit to the demon, be it eternal youth or prosperity for his/her clan. Kyo is a demon himself—a tengu, as it turns out—and appoints himself Misao’s protector, fending off other demons while pressuring her to become his bride.

There are several very good reasons why I shouldn’t like Black Bird. In the first place, it’s another supernatural romance where the somewhat ditzy heroine is possessed of delicious-smelling blood that inspires the hottest guys around to fight over her. In the second, Misao’s childhood memories of Kyo have left her waiting for some guy to show up and protect her from the spirits who’re harrassing her. And thirdly, when Kyo does arrive to perform that function, he does things like fly up into the air with Misao (who is scared of heights) in his arms in order to encourage her to cling to him, saying, “You can’t live without me. I have to teach your body that.” Creepy! That’s just a step away from, “Why are you making me hurt you?” in my book.

And yet, I did like Black Bird, at least more than I’d expected to. Misao, though she’s weak in some ways, is adamant about not becoming Kyo’s bride—even though she’s attracted to him—because she believes he’s only interested in the prosperity that sleeping with her would grant his clan. These doubts also come into play for some fine drama later on when a tricky kitsune (fox demon) arrives and points out that it’s likely not a coincidence that Kyo was Misao were childhood friends, that Kyo must’ve been establishing that early relationship in order to foster a preference for him in Misao’s mind down the road. The notion that her precious memories might all be a sham leads Misao to push Kyo away, though of course he persists in protecting her anyway. It’s angsty, but good.

Sakurakoji’s artwork is attractive, and even though Misao and the rest of the cast boast rather humdrum character designs, Kyo really stands out, making it easy to see why Misao would be so captivated by him. Also, while I’m genuinely not one for smutty scenes, the ones in Black Bird rely more on suggestion than explicit detail, making them all the more sexy.

In the end, Black Bird really is nothing more than your standard wish-fulfillment fantasy. And I think I’m okay with that.

Black Bird is published in English by VIZ. The series is still ongoing in Japan, where eight volumes have been released so far.

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

Crimson Hero 11 by Mitsuba Takanashi: B

August 16, 2009 by Michelle Smith

The Crimson High girls’ volleyball team has made it to the third round of the Newcomers’ Tournament and is facing its first serious challenge. Things are going well and they win the first set, but when the opposing team intentionally wounds Crimson High’s star setter, there’s no one who can fill in. Instead, the Crimson High girls rearrange their strategy to protect their injured teammate and refuse to give up. Their spirit of camaraderie and teamwork inspires their rivals, who are, of course, actually sympathetic girls being led astray by an unaccountably obnoxious coach.

Okay, yes, I completely admit that Crimson Hero can be sappy at times. This whole volume seems calculated to make one verklempt, be it the way that the most inexperienced member of the team demonstrates her growth by scoring the winning point or how the girls from the other team come to regret the way they’ve abandoned their friendships in pursuit of the number one spot on the team. Transparent manipulation like this would usually annoy me, but it just works so well in a sports manga that I can forgive it.

There’s also a little progress on the romantic front. It seems that one of the boys who likes Nobara might still have feelings for his ex-girlfriend, but it’s really nothing to get excited about. I’m just here for the volleyball.

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

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, Vol. 1

August 7, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Tegami Bachi has all the right ingredients to be a great shonen series: a dark, futuristic setting; rad monsters; cool weapons powered by mysterious energy sources; characters with goofy names (how’s “Gauche Suede” grab you?); and smart, stylish artwork. Unfortunately, volume one seems a little underdone, like a piping-hot shepherd’s pie filled with rock-hard carrots.

The problem lies with the story: manga-ka Hiroyuki Asada takes a simple premise and gussies it up with fussy, poorly explained details. The story itself may remind readers of Banya the Explosive Delivery Man or The Postman, as Tegami Bachi‘s principal characters are also mail carriers — or, in the series’ parlance, Letter Bees — who traverse dark wastelands to deliver letters and packages to the far-flung residents of their homeworld. In the case of Tegami Bachi, that homeworld is Amberground, a planet illuminated by a single, man-made star that hovers above its capital city, Akatsuki, where the wealthiest, most powerful citizens live. Amberground’s cities are separated by country inhabited only by Gaichuu, giant insects whose metal exoskeletons are impervious to most weapons, save the shindanjuu, or heart gun, the preferred sidearm of Letter Bees.

…

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, Vol. 1

August 7, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

How, exactly, the shindanjuu works is never satisfactorily explained, despite its prominent role in the story. I had to consult the appendix, which defines “heart” as a magical, omnipresent energy that penetrates and surrounds most living beings, not unlike The Force. (The Gaichuu, lacking heart, are vulnerable to its awesome power, especially when it takes the form of hollow bullets). The shindanjuu also enables Letter Bees to experience other people’s memories in a vivid, almost hallucinatory fashion. As with the magic bullets, the gun’s dream-sharing capacity gets only a cursory explanation; the dream sequences are hella confusing, requiring several readings to figure out whose memories we’re seeing.

Tegami Bachi‘s other shortcoming is its two principal characters. Gauche Suede, the older, more experienced Letter Bee, is a stock shonen hero: a confident, tough-talking loner who turns out to be a softie under his cool, competent exterior. Lag Seeing, the younger one, begins his journey as a package — he’s one of Gauche’s deliveries — and decides to become a Letter Bee after Gauche safely guides them through Gaichuu-infested territory. Lag, too, is a familiar type, the slightly dim but very sincere Kid on a Mission who views mail delivery as his true calling. Both characters have sad back stories involving female relatives — again, a standard shonen trope that does little to enrich the story.

The artwork, on the other hand, is genuinely striking; Tegami Bachi is one of the best-looking titles in the Shonen Jump catalog. Hiroyuki Asada’s landscapes are beautifully rendered, giving a clear sense of Amberground’s geography, technology (they’re in the nineteenth-century Bavarian phase of development, to judge from the architecture), fauna, and flora. And man, what flora! In one amusing sequence, Lag fights Gaichuu in a forest of giant broccoli. Does make you wonder, though: how do those florets get so big without sunlight?

Asada makes effective use of screentone to capture Amberground’s perpetual night, reserving true black for the sky and for a few important details: Gauche’s jacket, the Gaichuu’s carapaces. He incorporates star imagery into almost every scene without it ever seeming cheesy or heavy-handed; the stars have symbolic importance, to be sure, but they also serve an artistic purpose, bringing light and contrast to a layout that might otherwise be a murky mess.

If I seem unduly harsh in my assessment of Tegami Bachi, it’s only because it has the potential to be good — really good, if Asada focuses more on character development and less on mystical hoo-ha. The premise lends itself to both a Delivery of the Week format, in which each chapter functions as a stand-alone story, and to a more traditional Boy on a Quest narrative, in which Gauche, Lag, or both set out to rescue the people they love. Either way, I’ll be picking up volume two to see if the storytelling rises to the level of the artwork.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one will be available on September 1, 2009.

TEGAMI BACHI, VOL. 1 • BY HIROYUKI ASADA • VIZ • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN

Children of the Sea, Vol. 1

August 5, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

cots1 The ocean occupies a special place in the artistic imagination, inspiring a mixture of awe, terror, and fascination. Watson and the Shark, for example, depicts the ocean as the mouth of Hell, a dark void filled with demons and tormented souls, while The Birth of Venus offers a more benign vision of the ocean as a life-giving force. In Children of the Sea, Daisuke Igarashi imagines the ocean as a giant portal between the terrestrial world and deep space, as is suggested by a refrain that echoes throughout volume one:

From the star.
From the stars.
The sea is the mother.
The people are the breasts
Heaven is the playground.

How, exactly, sea and sky are connected is the central mystery of Children of the Sea. The story begins in the present day, as a woman promises to tell her son “about a giant shark that lives deep beneath the waves,” “the ghosts that cross the sea,” and “the path that connects the sea to space.” We then jump back to a defining moment in Ruka’s childhood when, on a visit to the local aquarium, she saw a fish disappear in a bright flash of light – what she describes as “a ghost in the water.” Ruka doesn’t think much of the incident until she meets Umi and Sora, two humans whose bodies are better adapted to life in the ocean than on land. Under the watchful eye of her father and his assistant Jim, the boys live at the aquarium, venturing out into daylight only to visit the hospital and swim in the open ocean. Eager to know more about Umi and Sora, Ruka sets out to sea with them, where she watches the boys swim with a second “ghost in the water”: a luminescent whale shark that leaves a starry wake in its trail.

…

Children of the Sea, Vol. 1

August 5, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

The ocean occupies a special place in the artistic imagination, inspiring a mixture of awe, terror, and fascination. Watson and the Shark, for example, depicts the ocean as the mouth of Hell, a dark void filled with demons and tormented souls, while The Birth of Venus offers a more benign vision of the ocean as a life-giving force. In Children of the Sea, Daisuke Igarashi imagines the ocean as a giant portal between the terrestrial world and deep space, as is suggested by a refrain that echoes throughout volume one:

From the star.
From the stars.
The sea is the mother.
The people are the breasts
Heaven is the playground.

As Ruka struggles to understand Umi and Sora’s connection to the shark, she begins to realize that a profound change is taking place at sea. Thousands of common fish are disappearing from aquariums around the world; rarely seen deep-water species are washing ashore on Japanese beaches; and dugongs are visiting waters normally too cold for such tropical creatures. What these events mean is not yet clear, though they all seem like manifestations of the same phenomenon.

ruka1

Daisuke Igarashi is a masterful storyteller, liberally mixing genres – the coming-of-age story, the scientific mystery – to create a unique drama that’s eerie and compelling. As fanciful as the story’s details may be, Children of the Sea maintains a firm grip on reality, thanks to its memorable, true-to-life characters. Ruka, in particular, is a fine creation, a strong, independent girl who reacts with her fists instead of her mouth, has trouble making friends, and burns with curiosity about the things she’s seen. Umi and Sora, too, both have distinctive personalities; whatever their role in the story’s eventual denouement, neither are portrayed as innocents or naifs but as smart, worldly, and sometimes prickly individuals who are in a desperate race against time.

Igarashi’s expert storytelling is beautifully complemented by his artwork. He favors a naturalistic style, rendering every element of the layout in his own hand rather than relying on tracings or prefabricated backgrounds. As a result, his pages are visually complex but thoroughly organic; every element of the design feels essential to establishing the story’s location in space and time. His characters are realistic, though their proportions are slightly awkward. Their large heads and big hands make them seem otherworldly and fragile, especially when contrasted with the large, powerful animals they encounter at sea.

If you’re not yet sold on Children of the Sea, I strongly encourage you to visit Viz’s IKKI website, where all eight chapters of volume one are available for free online browsing. Be warned, however, that this poetic, graceful, and thought-provoking story may cast a spell on you, too, making you reflect on the truth of Jacques Cousteau’s comment that “The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.”

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

CHILDREN OF THE SEA, VOL. 1 • BY DAISUKE IGARASHI • VIZ • 320 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Boys Over Flowers 28 by Yoko Kamio: B+

July 21, 2009 by Michelle Smith

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

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

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

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

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