As in Volume1 and Volume 2, Ichiroh!, Volume 3, follows the wacky daily life of a number of ronin – college-aged students who failed to get into university and are now studying at supplemental schools in a second or third bid to make it to upper education. And, as in Volumes 1 and 2, the trials and travails of Nanako, a serious-minded, hardworking student are meant to be hilarious.

They might be, too, if you can overlook the basic premise that Nanako, a hard-working and serious-minded student somehow failed her attempts to get into university.

Also side-splittingly funny are meant to be the many references to how little money Nannko has and how careful she is with her money. Because poverty is always a laugh and a half.

Ichiroh is a 4-koma, with a reasonably formulaic set-up for the panels:

Panel 1: Somebody shouts or declaims. Often inexplicably.

Panel 2: Request for clarification or explanation

Panel 3:  Set-up for…

Panel 4: Punchline, which is almost always delivered in bold, italic, large font.

Slide whistle, clown horn or trombone going bwah-~wah~waaahhh~  must be supplied by the reader.

Side characters are becoming more numerous now which, like Lucky Star, allows for more combinations of jokes. Mai-chan’s fujyoshi leanings are kind of “uh-huh” for us, but when she has to come out to Nanako and Akane, it allows them to sort of develop as characters. Same when we learn that Shino’s obsession with Nanako has actual made her less selfish, in an entirely selfish way.

I had noticed towards the end of Volume 2 that the entire series was giving off more of a harem vibe than it had begun with. This is not lessened in Volume 3. If anything, with the appearance of Kozue (another student at Nanako and Akane’s school) this feeling is increased significantly. Kozue has no reason to want to be around Nanako, but always is. And the addition of yet another tsundere character was a bonus for those people who like tsundere characters. This series has, like, 5 of them at this point.

Overall, Ichiroh! remains an unmemorable, but nice enough for a few evenings’ read, comic strip.

If you’re living the poor student life, have a miko or maid fetish or just like cute 2-dimensional girls standing around shouting punchlines at each other, you’ll probably enjoy Ichiroh! 

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 3

Overall – 7

Many thanks to Yen Press for providing a copy for today’s review and for being able to make a go of 4-koma here in the west.

Zombie-Loan is a “loud” manga. The characters scream a lot, they fight a lot, they shout at one another a lot. There is a lot of expository discussion by characters who “hmmph” dismissively at the protagonists’ lack of knowledge, then proceed to monologue the entirety of the story, with punctuations of shouts of denial by the listeners.

For an action manga, there’s a lot of talking.

For a complicated plot, there’s lots of fighting.

For an occult story, there’s a ton of humanity …

…and for a story about people, there’s a lot of handwaves of magic, and spells and powers being thrown around.

In the end, I find Zombie-Loan to be absolutely exhausting with very little payoff.

However, by Volume 10, Michiru is really starting to get a clue or three about her own existence and in a cliffhanger/climax she begins, for the first time, to truly assert herself.

To save Koyomi no less, although it might be too late.

The rest of the characters remain rather uninteresting to me, to be honest. The more the two boys yell, the less I can hear them. So it’s rather unfortunate that the bulk of these three volumes is mixed up in Shito’s backstory of angst, incestuous affection, misery, eternity, depravity and more angst. Snooze.

Just to sort of extra super duper piss me off, it turns out that Yomi, while living inside Koyomi, is a sort of refined male spirit made from the unwanted male children of Koyomi’s family. So…the one bit of Yuri we had to hold on to is not, and Koyomi is reduced to a vessel and a nonentitiy just as we were kind of getting to like her.

Ratings:

Art – messy
Characters – angsty
Story – scattered
Yuri – nonexistent
LoserFanBoy – must exist

Overall – loud

I’ve read a few of the recent chapters of Zombie-Loan in GFantasy magazine, and it’s more of the same – screaming, always with the screaming. But they’ll have to do it without me. 10 Volumes is more than enough for me to decide that this manga is just too loud for me to read.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kate Dacey for Volume 10 of this set. It will be going to a good home at the library. Thank you very much!

In the first 5 volumes of Click, I was able to pretend there was some Yuri and have therefore reviewed it. In Volume 6, there is none; the one “Yuri” character has disappeared from the narrative – literally. A few times someone comments, “gee where is she?” and is met with the complete and total unconcern of any of the main characters. So much for Heewon. She got a panel or three eventually, but no one really cares that the “beeyotch” is missing.

So today I’m going to use my review to “beeyotch” about something apparently inconsequential. The icky-making bad translation of “gay sex” terms in manga and manhwa.

You know, there’s this whole Internet thing, which *ought* to be able to help manga companies (who somehow manage to employ not one single gay person among their staff) to get the right equivalents to things like Uke and Seme, Tachi or Neko. But. Apparently Not.

When ADV and Infinity translated Yuri as “girl-on-girl” I assumed that it was LoserFanBoy-itis and laziness combined to not give a fuck. What do I blame “catcher” on? Seriously? “Catcher?” Is it that no one at Netcomics knows the term “Bottom” or did they think this was funnier? Is this a literal translation for the term in Korean? I don’t know. All I know was that every single time someone threw “…and you’re the catcher, no less” at someone else as an insult, I squirmed in discomfort. First of all, I can’t think of a single thing bad about being a bottom. Or a top, or anything. It’s just sex, for pity’s sake! What *is* the big deal about who is on top?

Secondly, the fact that on the one hand, there’s a doctor admonishing Jinhoo (whom I loathe) on the one hand that being gay is rare, but not perverted and on the other, there’s every single character throwing accusations of gayness around like it’s a booger. Gah. And the rare line….? Gauchet’s Disease is rare. Gayness, not rare. Just not a majority. A minority is not the same thing as “rare.”

The only character I like in this series is Taehyun. He is so much better a man than Jinhoo that at this point I want him to find someone not in this series at all and live happily every after with someone who would never grace the pages of this story.

Oh, and Fake BL. Joonha is a a girl, as we mention like every other panel, so there is no Boy’s Love in this series and the whole fakey BL thing is absolutely gag-making.

So, so very done with being the “catcher” here. I think I’ll “pitch” this manhwa into the circular file.

Ratings:

Art – hasn’t gotten better, which you’d think it ought to
Story – same
Characters – same
Yuri – .1 (Since we have to assume Heewon is still pining for Joonha)
BL Service – This would be the only reason to read this

Overall – N/A I can’t even rate it. I’m striking it from my memory. (Hear that brain? Make it so!)

The one truly wonderful thing about this manhwa is that it provides me with a brand new Okazu Hero, Nadia C.! Nadia, email me at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com for your Okazu Hero badge, suitable for display on social media profiles and websites!

There are a lot of things to like about Jormungand….was the way I wanted to start this review, but in reality, there is *very little* to like about this series. I just happen to like it anyway. ^_^

In Volume 4, the gang is wrapped up in protecting “Dr. Miami” from an enemy she doesn’t even know is there. Most of the rest of the volume is taken up in a game of chess with an ex-actress-turned-arms dealer/negotiator.

Extra time is spent on Valmet and the good Doctor kvelling over Koko in a spectacularly impotent manner, while both USA pawn “Schokolade” and ex-actress Amalia Torohovsky are macking on Koko probably half in reality and half in my imagination. It hardly matters who likes who because the storyline is rushed and inconsistent and while it makes sense overall…it’s not particularly well-conceived or executed.

The real problem here in Volume 4, though, is that the art is utterly craptastic. There is one panel in the entire volume that looks nice. The rest look so rushed, so dashed off, so plain old *bad* that it’s hard to take seriously. NOT that we were taking a manga about happy-go-lucky arms dealers seriously or anything. It just looks like the entire volume was drawn under deadline, while the artist had the flu, while the editor shouted at him.

Other than the terrible storytelling and horribly inadequate art, Volume 4 had a lot to like about it. (^_^);;

Ratings:

Art – 2
Story – 5
Characters – 8
Yuri – 4
Service – 4

Overall – 4 if you’re anyone else but me

By Volume 4, you have either decided that you enjoy this series, or you don’t. Nothing I could say, good or bad would convince you otherwise. I like it, despite the obvious flaws. I like Valmet, I like Dr. Miami, I like Schokolade, I like insanely violent women, so, I obviously like Koko, too.