Archive for the English Manga Category


Click Manhwa, Volume 2 (English)

May 26th, 2009

After the fiasco of Click, Volume 1, I was not very much looking forward to sandpapering my psyche with Volume 2.

Although this volume was not my number one bestest read of the year, by the end I began to actually enjoy it.

The volume begins with a light Yuri appetizer, as rich, powerful, popular, cute girl Yoomi falls for now-female Joonha. In the meantime, Heewon has finally tracked Joonha down. However, she’s not *quite* gotten the whole story and thinks that Joonha is a boy passing as a girl. She will eventually be told a fake story that is quite intelligent and plausible – my favorite thing so far in the story, since it actually made some sense.

Heewon and Yoomi spend the rest of the book catfighting over Joonha who isn’t even remotely interested in either. Joonha is busy as her life becomes embroiled in the life of Yoomi’s ex, the playboy Taehyun, who turns out to be way more than he seems.

However, it is clear to all of us, except perhaps Joonha, that the true object of her love and devotion is her childhood friend Jinhoo, who has just returned to Korea after a musical tour abroad. It is quite obvious that they are meant to be together, so there is no doubt that the rest of the story will be devoted to keeping them apart.

The remainder of the book is a variation on one of the above themes. The plot, which spent the first volume wallowing in outmoded gender roles, has now moved on to the eternally fascinating concept of love, as seen through the eyes of every TV soap opera ever, and a cultural lens which is not my own.

Working against the book for me is the art. The faces are so horsey and the bodies those weirdly elongated, featureless things so common in the Korean manhwa I’ve read. Not insurmountable, just not my cup of tea.

There still is an earful of gender and sex role obsession. If gender issues are of interest to you, I think the wallowing might be entertaining for you. Gender issues are not particularly my interest, nor will I ever love a story that throws around words like homo, lesbo and pervert so casually, as if they are not full of hate.

But setting those two things aside, this volume is very much not the same level of suck as the first volume. The main reason for this is that Joonha actually shows some significant signs of not-assholish behavior. I wouldn’t go so far as to invite her over for lunch, but I might at least give her the time of day if she asked. If the story improves this much again for the next volume, I’ll actually start to like it. Here’s hoping! ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 5
Characters – 6
Yuri – 2
Service – 1

Overall – 6

Our royal nod of sincere gratitude today goes out to Okazu Superhero Dan P! Thank you, thank you, for sponsoring today’s review and supporting our bad habit!





Yuri Manga: Gakuen Alice, Volume 5 (English)

May 22nd, 2009

Gakuen Alice is a warped tale of children with immense, silly powers and what happens when stupid adults imprison them in the cage of a “school for gifted children.”

The heroine of this story, like so many shoujo manga heroines is cheerful, energetic, likable and not particularly intelligent – a lesson any child would immediately recognize as a warning against being the cheerful, energetic and likable person in their class. It’s only going to get you into hot water. Just keep your head down and you won’t get hurt.

Mikan, like Bink of the Xanth series, has the really troublesome talent of nullifying other people’s talents. But only when people’s lives are threatened, and she can’t do it on command. So of course, her life is a living hell, as students and teachers torture her for her lack of ability, both mental and magical.

Again in typical shoujo fashion, Mikan converts her many enemies to friends by mostly bearing up under tremendous odds until people realize that she’s actually fun and a nice girl, to boot. By Volume 5, she’s converted a huge chunk of her class to her side, has gained some peers with unusual abilities and, at last, attained some small amount of status within the school. Just in time for the school festival.

Yuri shows up in this volume in the form of a girl named…Yuri, whose “Alice” is to have other girls fall in love with her. Much to her chagrin. That she’s tall, attractive, butchy cool and has been slated to take the role of Prince in the class pla. doesn’t help. Because of wackiness, Mikan ends up with the role, but it doesn’t stop the girls from clinging to Yuri.

If you have seen or read Gakuen Alice, you will know that Mikan’s best friend is Hotaru, a cynical genius who pushes Mikan away as often as she is there for her. It seems that Mikan’s feelings are deeper for Hotaru than the other way around and, in earlier volumes, we see Mikan fantasizing about Hotaru while dreaming, as well as her overtly expressed desire to hug and kiss Hotaru.

In Volume 5, we are allowed a moment to wallow in this not-really-a-relationship. For it is the dance after the school festival. The boys are dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy and the girls are bedecked with angel wings. The tradition is that whomever you dance with for the final dance and you will be together forever. Rumor and conjecture fly about who Mikan will dance with. Hotaru is called up to the stage as the winner of the “Overall Excellence” award for the festival and is therefore allowed to announce her choice for partner. She chooses Mikan. In front of the whole school, and say what you will, you cannot tell me that Hotaru does not know what she’s just done. :-)

I know some of you nay-sayers will feel absolutely obliged to write in and educate us that Mikan is “really” paired with Natsume but, frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. For the night after the school festival, at least, it’s all about Mikan and Hotaru.

This was another of those books that was being worked on during the great Tokyopop meltdown of 2008, so there are a few inconsistencies and technical issues, but nothing that detracts significantly from enjoyment of this pinnacle of the series for those of us who think Natsume is an utter bore.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 2

Overall – 7

Thanks to Okazu Superhero Daniel P. for sponsoring today’s review and allowing me to revisit a series I much enjoyed the first time around!





Yuri Manga: Zombie-Loan, Volume 2 (English)

April 30th, 2009

As the curtain rises on Zombie Loan, Volume 2, Michiru has had to face the worst crisis of her life – a life already filled with far too many crises. Left alone by the death of her parents, she is being raised by her Aunt and Uncle who, she is sure, love her more for her enormous inheritance than herself. At school she is a doormat and is walked over by even those she considers friends. Life is bleak enough that she considers dying….until she actually does.

Michiru encounters two strange, unpleasant, but somehow admirable young men and slowly, she is introduced to a world in which zombies walk. Unfortunately, it is our world. Her ability to see the markings that indicate that a person is a zombie makes her – for the first time in her life – an important person. And in that small thing, she finds meaning. When she is killed, Michiru signs a “zombie loan” contract and is ressurected, to work off her debt by identifying zombies.

On the good side, Michiru gains some strength and purpose to a previously mopey life. On the bad side, chapter after chapter is filled with OMG, WACKY, CRAZY THINGS AND VIOLENCE! to the point where I was like, enough already.

Case in point. In the last chapter, Michiru and Koyomi are sent to go buy furniture. First, Koyomi spends the money on clothes for them, then OMG, WACKY, CRAZY THINGS AND VIOLENCE breaks out and in the end, the furniture is not bought.

This kind of thing is basically every chapter. Eat lunch? No, because OMG, WACKY, CRAZY THINGS AND VIOLENCE will make sure that Michiru does not get to eat lunch. Or clean her room, or…anything. Nothing normal will ever happen because of the wall of crazy-wacky-violent that springs up like an invisible fence everytime Michiru turns around.

There is Yuri. As in the anime, Michiru’s dormmate Koyomi has within her another personality, Yomi. Yomi’s ability to call forth the sounds of supernatural beings is also unique and valuable, so despite the disinterest in Koyomi, she’s kept around as a container. Yomi is also sexually attracted to Michiru – or so she says as an excuse for some light sexual harrassment. But, you know, by the end of the volume I kinda think she actually does like Michiru.

Nothing will come of it, of course. It’s service and no more. But with OMG, WACKY, CRAZY THINGS AND VIOLENCE happening every 30 seconds the occasional warm embrace isn’t a bad thing for Michiru or for us.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7 (I’m hoping this goes up as an actual story develops)
Characters – 7 (which is up one from the first volume)
Yuri – 6
Service – 4

Overall – 7, with potential.

I didn’t hate Zombie Loan by any stretch but if you, like me, need a respite and a balm at the end of this volume, let me recommend Walking Man by Taniguchi Jiro. An adult manga for adults, about a man who takes walks. That’s it. Nothing else. It was wonderful. My deepest appreciation and thanks to Deb Aoki who sent me a copy so that I could also become a convert and proselytize this book.





Tetragrammaton Laybrinth Manga, Volume 4 (English)

April 27th, 2009

When it comes to Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, Volume 4, you may find the air redolent with the smell of lilies. But when you investgate further , this series remains mostly nioi-kei. Which is not to say that it’s not fun and games in this intensely violent and blood-spattered volume.

Angela and Meg are bound by a deep, irreversible magical and emotional bond. As long as Meg needs Angela to exist, she will. It is this and this alone that keeps Angela alive when she finally confronts the beast who robbed her of her humanity. And it is this that most readers will assign the value of “Yuri.”

The cute little girl torture continues and the the source for so much of it is revealed to be the much maligned Gilles de Rais, either a child torturer and rapist or a scapegoat for the politically motivated destruction of the Templars, depending on which side you are on. This de Rais is a child rapist and torturer sating some demonic need in the readers who like to read about stuff like that, then project their self-loathing onto the bad guy. (Just a guess, but…)

The torture continues with the story of Trude and her pathetic, half-demon, guro-fodder sister and their tragic and unfulfilling story in the middle of which is a scene that undoubtedly Angela x Meg ‘shippers point to as a “see?” moment. ^_^

The end of the volume brings no resolution, of course, but Team Us is finally together, with mostly all our body parts and we’ve got the Big Ass Powerful Weapon (TM) with which we will “uncover the secrets of this place!” I look forward to the “secrets” since this series has freely borrowed from any number of semi-legendary/semi-historical things and I’m simply aching to know what gets plundered next. ^_^

And to see more demonic blood shed, of course. That goes without saying.

…and to smell more of the scent of lilies in the middle of all that blood.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4
Service – 8

Overall – 7

Today’s review was brought to you by Okazu Superhero Bruce McF. Thanks very much sir, for allowing us to wallow knee-deep in gore, pathos and Yuri.





My-Hime Manga, Volume 4 (English) Guest Review, by Jason T.

April 20th, 2009

So I was bitching rather genially about My-Hime, Volume 4 on Facebook and Twitter and got an email in reply from writer/editor/manga expert and all-around fun guy Jason Thompson.

He agreed vehemently that this was a dreadful example of manga and went so far as to graciously allow me to use his description of this series from as yet unpublished, Manga: The Complete Guide materials. I therefore offer up to you as our latest guest reviewer, the pithy thoughts of Mr. Jason Thompson:

MY-HIME (Mai-HiME, “Dancing Girl/My Princess”) （舞-HiME) • Noboru Kimura (story), Sato Ken-etsu (art) • TokyoPop (2006-2008) • Akita Shoten (Weekly Shônen Champion, 2004-2005) • Shônen Sci-Fi Battle • 18+ (language, graphic violence, nudity, sexual situations)

Adaptation of the anime series. Yuuichi transfers to a special school where certain girls possess an awesome power: the ability to summon a “child,” a big mechanical monster, when in the presence of the right boy, called the “key.” Yuuichi turns out to be the “key” of not one but two hime girls, Mai and Natsuki, who bicker over him in endless superpowered catfights. Sloppily drawn and crammed with too many female characters to keep track of, My-Hime—hime is Japanese for “princess” but here stands for “Highly Advanced Materializing Equipment”—is a tedious manga adaptation of a cynical “high-concept” anime, mixing “harem” romantic comedies and battle manga about people who team up with mecha or monsters. Characters we don’t care about fight one another, make passes at Yuuichi and tear up the landscape, leading up to an incoherent climactic fight with the aliens from the “Princess Star” which is the origin of the himes. The books are padded out with interviews with the anime staff, one of whom tells the reader “Reading My-Hime isn’t enough, so go for the anime, the figures, and radio and become a My-Hime Ph.D!” The worst feature of the art is the slack-jawed inexpressive faces.

.5 (HALF A STAR! -_- )

Thank you Jason for stabbing taking a stab at this series. Your brevity should have been matched by the series itself. Despite the craptasticness of the manga, I would like to thank Okazu Hero Elaine B. for bravely wading in and sponsoring today’s review!