Archive for the English Manga Category


Day of the Revolution Manga, Volume 1 (English)

October 8th, 2008

How fitting that today, the Day of the Revolution, we start with a hero. Today’s review was sponsored by Martin S from Austria – thank you very much Martin. You are today’s hero! ^_^

Day of the Revolution tells the story of Yoshikawa Kei, a little punk-ass boy who is respected by his punk-ass friends and kind of idolized by them as well, since he’s kind of cute and girly. Kei learns that he is actually Intersexed. Because of a complicated family situation, he chooses to become a girl, rather than continue on as a boy. Hilarity ensues. Kei, now known as Megumi, finds it just about impossible to hide her identity from her former pals, which was a relief, since an extended series of gags while she attempted to do so would have been dire. ^_^

Tsuda Mikiyo, who also draws under the name Zaou Taishi, has a number of strongly gender-bendy and fakey Yaoi and Yuri titles under this name. Previously, I reviewed Family Complex, another series picked up by DMP. Originally, DMP announced Day as a Yuri title, but I and other folks wrote in to explain why it really isn’t. Nor is it truly a transgender story, but so few manga really are, when you think of it. So, once again, if you’re interested in MTF gender switching, this story could be of interest to you. In a way it is a sort of Intersexed story although, as with so many gender and sexuality stories, the larger issues of identity are subsumbed by inane details of gender roles. I cannot believe that the *most* important issue of someone transitioning from one sex to another is sitting with their legs closed. I just cannot.

Nonetheless, this is a reasonably amusing story. Much like Family Complex the fake BL and fake Yuri actually work in terms of the comedy. I don’t feel like the author is dissing or minimizing the issues, just that she’s writing a comedy and we should stay light hearted about it all.

The other feature of this book is the author’s extended author’s note. Tsuda is the only author I’ve ever read that draws herself as a human as well as some avatar character. And her author’s notes are detailed pieces of autobiography that give some actual insight into the woman behind the art. It’s refreshing and entertaining, a stark contrast to most of the other author’s notes I’ve read. (The worst two so far, “Recently I’ve developed an interest in hand lotion,” and “…who has started developing feeling for organutans.” I mean, really.)

At the end of the volume, Megumi, stressed out about the possibility of having to one day have sexual relations with a man after an aborted attempt at rape, chooses her friend and mentor as a woman, Makoto, to be her partner. This is what DMP assumed made it a Yuri story. It isn’t. Obviously they hadn’t read the second volume. But I had. ^_^

More gender-bendy goodness to come in Volume 2!

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7, 9 if you’re looking for Intersex stories that aren’t porn
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2ish, if you squint
Service – 5, a little for the BL fans, a little for the rest.

Overall – 7

I think I actually like Tsuda on her own more than with her BL manga partner Eiki Eiki. Sacrilege!

 





Yuri Manga: Burst Angel, Volume 1 (English)

October 1st, 2008

BurstAngel1I previously reviewed the Burst Angel manga back in 2005. You can find all of those reviews under the Bakuretsu Tenshi category on the right-hand sidebar, if you want to compare and contrast my first impressions.

In the original manga reviews I pointed out that the manga is somewhat – not significantly, but somewhat – Yurier than the anime. Sure, in the anime it’s *obvious* to anyone with two eyes that Jo and Meg are together. They even go so far as to show affection for one another. What we *want,* however, is a big old snogging scene where Jo rescues Meg and reaps the just rewards of that effort.

We don’t get that in Volume 1 of Burst Angel manga, either. ^_^;

What we do get, is more of Meg fantasizing about the life she’d like to live with Jo, instead of the hand-to-mouth, job-to-job, violent existence that they currently lead.

I’ve read comments here and that dismiss the manga because there is a young boy character inserted into the story. Don’t dismiss it because of that. The story is never about the boy, even if he does return later in the volume. The story is absolutely, firmly, about Jo and Meg. And, like the anime, it quickly becomes about Jo.

If you like the classic western structure of the early anime episodes – Meg and Jo get a job, defeat the bad guys, don’t get paid, move on, get a job, etc., you’ll enjoy this volume of the manga. If you’re looking for something more like later episodes of the anime, hang on – it’ll get there. The last chapter gives us a glimpse into that, as Amy and Sei-who-is-not-named-Beth show up on the very last pages, hinting at more to come.

The translation and adaptation are all fine, no complaints here, but I was really floored at how awful the reproduction of the art is for this TokyoPop edition. It’s pretty loose art, hard to follow at times in the original – very pencil drawing sketchy, if you know what I mean – but the pages of the English language edition…! If you don’t have the original to compare from, it might not seem that bad, but wow. It really is. I hope the second volume is reproduced better, since it’s my favorite of the three.

In the meantime, enjoy this action-filled prequel to the Burst Angel anime!

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7

Thanks once again to Eric P. for being the sponsor of today’s review! You have joined Dan and Ted the Awesome in the ranks of Okazu superheros. ^_^





Battle Club Manga, Volume 6 (English)

September 18th, 2008

While Battle Club is in no way a “Yuri” manga, Volume 6, the last of the translated volumes, has a pretty big chunk of Yuri.

Ostensibly, the story is still about Tamako’s quest to gain strength and skill through wrestling, but since the book starts with their teacher Tondemon disappearing, we pretty much abandon that quest to wallow in cosplay, lesbianism, tragic tales of the past, trap-infested obstacle courses into mansions of the rich, ghosts and other completely real things.

For those of you who read Battle Club for the plot, you’ll be pleased to note that for all that these stories are pretty much unrelated to the wrestling club, in their own way they have *more* plot than the entire story up to this point.

The rest of you, which is to say, all of you, will be pleased to learn that there’s plenty of service in both quantity and variety. For the purposes of this blog post we’ll stick to the Yuri.

After Mukoda is defeated by Tondemon-sensei and Tondemon disappears, we turn our attention to Shiba, ex of the Karate club and supposed lesbian. She starts the chapter off by an extended fantasy about sex with Tamako, followed by a string of circumstantial circumstances that, lo and behold! are exactly like her dream. Only she doesn’t get to have sex with Tamako.

Later, as Wrestling Club Captain Taiki reflects on his past and how he became a cross-dresser (although not as to the origin of his large rack of lamb) we get a glimpse of the (of course) lesbian feelings heaped upon the (of course) receptive captain of the Black Cat High wrestling club.

I’m fascinated at the eroticization of wrestling. Although I don’t find it half as appealing for myself as someone just seriously putting the beatdown on someone, I can kind of see where people are going with it. And this manga takes it to such utter bizarre extremes that it ultimately would have to be read as a comedy, even if it weren’t also full of ridiculous gags, puns and purely comedic scenes. I wonder if that makes Battle Club the first erotic wrestling comedy in manga? Probably not, what was I thinking?

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 2
Characters – 3
Yuri – 6
Service – a zillion

Overall – 4

I don’t have anything left to say about this manga except my thanks to Everett L. for his sponsorship of today’s review!

…oh wait, yes I do. When Shiba joins the wrestling club, they spell her name wrong on the name plaque in the dojo. D’oh!





Stray Little Devil Manga, Volume 3 (English)

September 14th, 2008

This is a true story:

Once upon a time there was a girl. She met another girl and *instantly* found her to be the most irritating creature in the whole of the universe.

For many reasons, they kept running into each other and for different reasons they had to work together on some things. But never once did the girl ever dislike the other girl less. In fact, proximity created complete contempt.

In this real story, the girl never ever could stand the sight of the other girl. Even though she still runs into her from time to time, the girl can barely tolerate her for even a moment.

In the manga version of this story, you’d all be reading this and thinking, “Yuri.” Take a moment to consider how freakish a conclusion that is. ^_^

Stray Little Devil, Volume 3 starts with Pam and her friends all looking for rare ingredients to bring back her familiar’s voice, during which Pam is knocked unconscious. She is (of course) revived, and proceeds to “save” a lost soul, which is to say that she makes him face up to his crimes and take responsibility, ruining his life. The idea of a devil taking the high moral road amuses me.

The end of the book finds Lin-Fa confronted with a direct request to investigate Pam, and the gem she wears. Lin-Fa waffles back and forth about her feelings about this, and decides to brazen it out, her heart beating the whole time, and find Pam at her job. The idea that devils need part-time jobs befuddles me.

The crisis comes when Pam says that she considers Lin-Fa a *friend!* Oh no! A high-handed Angel can’t tolerate niceness like this from a lowly devil intern. So of course the only appropriate reaction is to slap her silly and reject her utterly. An act that will be the “sad” part of the next volume, until Pam has to save her ass or they have to work together to escape or something.

Thus we come to the end of Stray Little Devil Volume 3. I fear for all of you that Love, love, love! this series, that I will simply not feel the love. It’s okay. If you’ve got a tendency toward moe it’s probably very good. For me, not so much.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 1
Service – 4

Overall – 6

In the true version of this story, there is no Yuri, and if the girl could have slapped the other girl, possibly repeatedly, it would have been a kindness.





Shin Megami Tensei Kahn Manga, Volume 1 (English)

September 11th, 2008

Some weeks ago, my parents were visiting and my Dad, as he is wont to, was going through my piles of anime and manga looking for something crappy to read. (Me, with crappy manga? How utterly likely.) So, I pulled one of the manga off the pile and said, “Here, I’m told this one is dreadful. I haven’t read it yet. You can be my sacrificial reader.” And with that I handed him Shin Megami Tensei Kahn.

Twelve pages into it he looked up and said, “I feel my brain crinkling around the edges.” Halfway into it, he gave up. I said cheerfully, “But you didn’t get to the lesbian rape part – keep reading.”. Manfully, he churned away at it and when he was done, he handed it back and said, “I think the panel on the bottom of Page 59 sums it up nicely.” I took the book, opened up to page 59 and read the bottom panel in which Nobu, with a completely slappable expression says, “It stinks.”

So, here’s the first review on Okazu ever done by my father – Shin Megami Tensei Kahn stinks. ^_^

To be fair to Dad, it really does stink. This series takes place some time after a previous series. The synopsis of the previous series is written on the first two, almost completely unreadable, pages of the book. At first I thought it was just meant to be jumbled up letters that were artsy, but after a moment I realized that those word jumbles contained actual information that was kind of crucial to understanding what had happened previously. Assuming one wants to understand.

In short – terrible things happened in the past, leaving Nobu and Yumi the sole survivors of the demonic destruction of their former school. Nobu is instantly unlikable. His expression made me root for the punks who tried to beat his ass in the very first chapter but, sadly, he’s the hero and we’ll never be rid of him. Yumi was a typical two-dimensional, uninteresting shell of a female character who mostly spends her time obsessing about Nobu. Nobu spends his time complaining that things stink.

In the second half of the volume, Yumi is trying to forget what happened and move on with her life, but sadly her life doesn’t want to be moved on with. Her questionably lesbian roommate Saeko (the traditional name for the classmate with “issues”) is first “seduced” by the “sexy” demonic teacher who vomits worms into her mouth and then Saeko tries to turn her wormy seduction onto Yumi. Amazingly, Yumi does not succumb. The volume ends with lesbianism-inducing worms all over the place and Nobu on the run, suspected of killing his mother, which he didn’t, not that we care all that much.

Ratings:

Art – 3
Characters – 3
Story – 3
Yuri – 6, but…worms
Service – 4 for the guro set

Overall – 3

As bad as this manga is, there wasn’t anything bad enough to make me want to read more. I’m with Dad on this one. Nonetheless, my sincere thanks to Bruce M. for sponsoring today’s review and opening up a whole new world of bad for me to enjoy. ^_^