Archive for the English Manga Category


Najica Blitz Tactics Manga, Volume 1

November 17th, 2007

I finally had a chance to open up the bag of manga I bought at Yurisai to sit down and read it, and lo and behold, I find I had bought Najica Blitz Tactics from Bill at Anime Castle. Why? I have no idea. And so today I sat down to read what is clearly a plotless piece of junk.

You know how some people have good gaydar? I actually do, but that’s not the point here. The point is that I also, inexplicably, have exceptionally good Yuridar. I can pick a book quite randomly off the shelf at Book-Off and find that, magically, there is some Yuri in it. And not just Yuri in which two women are near each other a lot and they seem to like one another, no I mean – Yuri as in a raging lesbian who sleeps her way through the book. Yet another magic lesbian power for Erica. Woot.

Let’s face it – no one in their right mind cares about Najica. It’s so junk that it makes other junk look good. (On the other hand, last night I watched the end of ICE, which was so bad that it made Najica look good, so everything’s relative.)

The plot is thin and silly – Najica and her non-human sidekick Lila are agents for CRI, a top-secret perfume company.

…

Should I continue?

Okay, then. Together they wear short skirts and fight against corporate espionage, random baddies doing who knows what and occasionally save a small European kingdom along the way.

In one of the chapters, Najica is sent to assasinate a competitor who is flooding the market with cheap off-brand copies of a high-end perfume her company makes. (Noooooo! the wife says) She tracks him to a casino, where’s she’s hit on by some young jerk. The competitor disappears, but Najica finds him trussed up, because he had the young jerk’s parents killed back in the day. Najica sympathizes, but won’t get paid if she doesn’t do the work, so she’s the one who shoots him. As it turns out (I know you’re waiting for it) the jerk is actually a woman. As Najica and Lila drive away, young, female, but no less jerky than before, jerk runs after Najica trying to get her name, her number, her body…bwa-wa-waaaah.

In other news, Najica and Lila have that typical fanboy-Yuri relationship which implies that they might have some feelings for one another if, say, Lila was human. But she isn’t, so any emotions you see are entirely you projecting. Najica is clearly fond of Lila. Any other emotions you see are entirely you projecting.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 2
Characters – 4
Yuri – 3
Service – 8

Overall – 4

It’s crap. It’s not even so bad it’s good. But it’s still better than ICE.





Aqua Manga, Volume 1 (English)

November 8th, 2007

Before I launch into today’s review, I have another news item of interest that I want to add to yesterday’s news.

English manga guru and editor of Manga: The Complete Guide, Jason Thompson, has named Yuri Monogatari 5 one of the hottest translated mangaof the autumn. Thanks Jason! We think so too.

Okay, so on to today’s review!

Aqua was the predecessor to Aria and is pretty much exactly the same, only a little less refined. This volume is the first of the “new” Aria volumes by Tokyopop. I can’t say I was hugely impressed. I admit to having some actual expectations of quality for this volume, so when I got it, I was disappointed. See – there’s that thing about expectations, again. Not having them makes everything so much easier.

The story of Aqua Volume 1, is delightful, whimsical and fluffy – exactly what one expects from another sojourn on the planet Aqua and the in city of Neo-Venezia, specifically. Volume 1 follows the ironically named Mizunashi Akari as she travels to Aqua to take up a position as a gondolier-in-training at Aria Company, and her adventures once she gets there. For a previous look at the story, here is my review of Aqua in Japanese.

Yuri is confined to Aika’s raging case of akogare. As this is the beginning of the story, her case is a bit more persistent and crushy than it will later become. If you were to read this first, you could easily be half-convinced that Aika’s pretty far gone. It’s a cute, classic “schoolgirl crush”-type crush. ^_^

For the story and characters – I agree with most other reviewers, Aqua is great. But technically…

Aside from the not very attractive new logo for Aqua, the cover of this volume is also burdened by the cover art used for the second release in Japan – a picture I really just don’t like. The first cover was ever so much more attractive. I know it’s just me being old and grumpy – but the picture makes me feel like my eyes won’t focus right.

The reproduction of the color pages in black and white is simply *bad*. Very, very bad. And the reproduction quality for the entire volume fades in and out without rhyme or reason. Maybe it was a printer error, maybe it was something else, but it irked me. Alot. I’ve had similar problems putting together the Yuri Monogatari series, but I’m working with multiple artists and systems, and varying levels of understanding about DPI and format. Tokyopop wasn’t. So what was the deal?

My only other complaint is just me being a total asshole. ^_^ (Hey, why should today be any different?) The preview at the back of the book, which is titled Aqua, Volume 2, is inexplicably actually a preview for Aria, Volume 1. I guess the editor hadn’t read the manga and wasn’t familiar with the actual story. But I was kind of surprised that that wasn’t caught.

Now, the thing that Tokyopop was trumpeting about the new acquisition and the eventual release of their own editions of Aria 1-3, was the new and improved translation. I had no problem with the original ADV translation, but that’s probably because I wasn’t paying attention. I read those first volumes in English once – a million years ago it feels like – and haven’t looked at them again.

I will give TP total props for leaving in all the honorifics. That was great. It was so great that I never even noticed that they were there, because I was just reading the story, not squicking at “Miss Alicia” and the like. So total thumbs up for that, TP. In asshole mode once more, I didn’t much like the font they chose for the words – and you know, I’m not sure I ever really felt that strongly about a font before. There was just something about this one. My last completely absurd LFG complaint is that, while I understand completely that they had to change some things to differentiate from the ADV translation, changing “embarrassing lines are prohibited” to whatever it was that they used just to make sure it was different, felt forced and awkward. AND they were changing the meaning of the words, which is unforgivable. Use “embarrassing lines are forbidden!” or something, if you must. But again, that’s me doing that LFG thing where if it’s not exactly the way we want it, we fans lay on the ground and kick and scream until we get a lollipop. ^_^

Objectively, if one had no expectations, Tokyopop did a fine job, with the exception of the rendering of the color pages. Those were just…bad. As an adaptation from the Japanese, linguistically is volume is good, but technically not so much.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 7
Story – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 1

Translation – 8
Reproduction – 4

Overall – 6

For my part, I’m probably going to give this volume to the library and stick with the original Japanese volumes when I want to spend some time with Akari and the crew.





Venus Versus Virus Manga, Volume 1 (English)

September 14th, 2007

I have been holding off reviewing Venus Versus Virus. For many reasons. Before I get into them, let me thank the good folks at Seven Seas for a review copy…and let me apologize in advance for what are going to be some harsh comments….

Venus Versus Virus has no Yuri. None. Not a single honest emotional connection between any of the characters, much less love or desire between the two female protagonists.

There are people who say it is Yuri – they are wrong. There is splash page art, in which the two leads are draped over one another. And there is a moment, in which two of Sumire’s friends misinterpret something she says to *assume* a lesbian interpretation where none was intended (and how droll and “Three’s Company” is that?) And, during a crisis, Sumire, scared out of her freaking wits, throws herself into Lucia’s arms.

None of these equal Yuri.

If you come across a mention of the Yuri in VVV, you are reading something written by a person who cannot discrimate between women who love/desire one another (we call those “lesbians”) and women who are posed upon one another for money.

Let’s revisit what “Yuri” is – the representation in anime, manga or doujinshi of a woman in love with, or who desires, another woman. It’s *possible* that Lucia and Sumire could, potentially, someday in the future, fall in love with one another. Possible, not probable. Highly unlikely, in fact, since Sumire is straight and spends much of the series longing after a male upperclassman. But the point is – two women who are sempai/kouhai does not make a series Yuri. Two women in the same frame, sharing a experience, does not make it Yuri. By that standard, I and every female friend I have ever had, regardless of our personal and sexual preferences, are somehow a couple.

Aside from this, the manga itself is simply very…okay. At best. Of the many Dengeki Comics to have brought to the US, this is one of the least good I’ve read.

The story, such as it is, deals with demons that infest humans and take them over (the “Virus” of the unfortunate title.) Lucia runs a clothes shop by day, but her true occupation is to exterminate these Viruses, thus making her the Venus of the title. Lucia wears Goth-Loli getup, packs a gun and wrears an eye-patch which *ought* to be enough to pique my interest, but she doesn’t. I think it’s because she has the eyepatch over the wrong eye for her to appeal to me. (No, I don’t know *why* it matters – but, yes, it matters! ^_^;)

Sumire is the typical schoolgirl until she ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, between Lucia’s gun and a Virus. When she’s shot, she somehow takes on the anti-Virus properties of Lucia’s weapon, and in doing so, becomes a magnet for the Viruses and a weapon against them. And if she had the least little inkling of personality…we might even care.

This series has some potential for some good fights, but eschews it for extended mutation scenes with extra oozing and gloating/drooling.

I want to say that I think Seven Seas did as good a job as they could with this mess – the translation/adaptation is decent enough, but it is not their finest work. The art is dark, a little rough and hard to follow, and the paper they chose makes it all blur together. There are even a few typos, which are inevitable from time to time.

In general, of all the Seven Seas books I’ve read, this is simply the least good in every possible way. As I said in my review of the VVV anime: “This is a classic case of the “Newtype Effect” in which two otherwise straight women are deployed draped over one another to play the Yuri-service card, when there is no Yuri and neither character is remotely lesbian. Not that this will stop fans from insisting.”

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 5
Characters – 4
Yuri – 1 (if you don’t care that there really isn’t any, but you can make it work in your head)
Service – 6

Overall – 5





Yuri Manga: Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, Volume 1

August 28th, 2007

When people first fall in love, one of the the inevitable feelings they encounter is that if their lover should, for even a second, stop needing them to exist, they might well cease to exist.

Imagine for a second if that were *really* true.

You would be tethered to that person forever. And they would be enslaved to you, or otherwise you could no longer be.

Somehow, it doesn’t sound so much like fun, does it?

In Tetragrammaton Labyrinth Volume 1, Angela is no longer alive, but neither is she dead. As long as her partner, a nun named Meg, needs her, she can remain in existence. If Meg should stop needing Angela, she would cease to exist utterly. But Angela has a need of her own – she wants to die as a human. To that end, she and Meg fight demons who infect and infest humankind in a battle to protect not only all humanity, but Angela’s chance at the death she craves.

The story takes place in Victorian England, but Angela is drawn as a Goth-Loli, and Meg is given rights and responsibilities not usually given to nuns. I particularly love the manga trope of nuns who hear confession, for instance. I’m not a Christian (although I have played Saint George in a mystery play, does that count?) but I know that only priests can hear confessions. And I am also fairly sure that Meg’s sexy nun outfits were bought, not from the convent, but from the local Halloween supply store. ;-) But I digress.

Aside from the religious dissonance, there’s temporal dissonance as well. This is a Victorian England in which occult magick and Big-Ass Guns(TM) coexist. If demons and their ilk didn’t *actually* walk the streets of Victorian London, I’m inured to their proposed existence from the oh-so-many series that include them. ^_^

Because of the existences of the aforementioned demons, B-A Guns and magick, it’s not too much of a surprise that Tetragrammaton Labyrinth is also full of violence and blood. This is your quintessential Victorian Goth-Loli horror manga, baby.

The book, like most of the adaptations by Seven Seas (and thanks once again to Jason and the folks at 7S for providing me with a copy to review!) is done well. The translation feels seamless, and in general, the reproduction is high quality. The fact that the source material is thoroughly and firmly “meh” is not their fault at all.

And therein lies the problem. Tetragrammaton Labyrinth just isn’t a very good story. Sure, there’s lots of action, and violence and some of what passes for plot, but at it’s heart, it’s basically a violent, bloody, string of servicey scenes that barely hold together.

Which brings me to the “Yuri.” I called this a “Yuri” manga in the title of the review, because it is an incontrovertible truth that Meg and Angela are inextricably bound to one another. Especially towards the end, they appear to even show affection for one another. The codependency of their relationship alone is grounds enough to call this relationship “lesbian.” ^_^ But with one being a nun and the other an undead pre-pubescent child, that sort of makes the relationship thing moot. So, really, the Yuri here is an implied fetish, no more. There’s no way to know if they are “in love” with one another and I’m fairly certain that the author is more interested in drawing Angela without underwear than answering that question, so don’t expect the Yuri to be more than two females draped over one another. If that’s enough for you, well then, enjoy! ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 6
Story – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 4

Overall – 5

Considering that I had read this manga years ago in the original Japanese and basically dismissed it as tripe, I was surprised that I didn’t hate it in English. Is it high art? Nope. (Quick, name three manga that are. Exactly.) But since Scape-God never went past one volume, this ought to fill yours (and my) random fake-Yuri with scads of violence and blood needs for a while. ;-)





Yuri Manga: Kedamono Damono, Volume 2 (English)

August 15th, 2007

Thank you, everyone who emailed or commented to wish Okazu a happy birthday! Special thanks to Brigid of Mangablog, who stuck the news at the top of her wonderful blog with very kind words attached. ^_^ (If you don’t already, you should absolutely read Mangablog. It’s awesome-ness personified. She works much, much harder on her blog than I do here.)

Today’s review has been sponsored by Eric P – thank you sir for your kindness. Sponsorship of materials for review makes a *tremendous* difference to me, really. Some of the companies will send me books or give me anime, but most do not. I buy all of the Japanese materials I review, and your support in the form of a book or video from my Wish List is just so important and helpful. Thanks to everyone who has ever sponsored a review! When I say that I couldn’t do it without you, I really mean it! ^_^

Kedamono Damono, Volume 2 is exactly like Volume 1, only more annoying. Mainly it is more annoying because it is *exactly* like Volume 1. Not a single thing has changed, except for the expected love rival for Konatsu’s affection. In effect, we’re watching the same story all over again, with no development, no progress, nothing.

I admit – I expected this to be the case. I was discussing this with Sean Gaffney last weekend, and he mentioned that this quality of prolonged repetition is something that he has come to expect from Tokyopop manga. As soon as he said that, I was in full agreement. It’s a manga quality – repeating the same situation over and over, changing only one characteristic from episode to episode. This works okay in action/fantasy stories, where the Monster or Enemy du jour can be taken at face value…but in stories about relationships that are predicated on one thing being out of balance so the relationship can’t just *be* a relationship, it’s downright exhausting.

Haruki still changes gender, he’s still rude and awkward about it as a boy and perfectly fine with getting Konatsu as a girl. Konatsu is still passive-aggressive about it all. Haruki’s family also still changes gender and he is still over the top upset by it all. I’m a pragmatist. Like, dude, get over it already. It is what it is. You’re what? 17? That means you’ve, at minimum, thrown 6205 hissy fits about something you can’t change. Aren’t your arms tired from being flailed uselessly all the time?

In the final chapter, there’s a pretty decent scene – when Haruki stops changing gender every time s/he sneezes and he proclaims that he’s back to being a normal guy. Konatsu sweetly comments that he’s never been normal and that’s why she likes him. For one second, I almost liked them both. Then she goes and ruins it by kissing him as she calls him a beast. This is important. Because the next story is a vile little character piece about a girl who loves a boy who treats her like dirt in public. And it really gets my goat to see this portrayed as a “love” story.

Dear shoujo manga readers – boys treating you badly is NOT a sign of love.

I get angry every time I see a dysfunctional, non-communicative troll being portrayed as a love interest. Not to mention bored.

So, as a gender-bending, Yuri, shoujo, romance manga goes, Kedamono is a mediocre specimen. I would definitely not give it to any young person questioning his or her sexuality or gender. But I think if the reader is the kind of person that enjoys gender-bending with a straight romance at the core, like Hana-Kimi and Ouran, this will probably be the light-hearted romp it’s meant to be enjoyed as.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 6
Story – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 5

Overall – 6

Ishkabible. I really didn’t get as worked up about this manga as it sounds. It’s pretty much just more of the same.