Archive for the English Manga Category


Attack on Titan Manga, Volume 10 (English)

December 20th, 2013

I know. You’re looking up at the URL and checking the date just to make sure you clicked on Okazu, and not, say, A Case Suitable for Treatment. Nope, you’ve come to the right place. It just happens that, quite unusually, I am reviewing a manga  that is 1) available in English and 2) massively popular. This happens so rarely here that it is worth noting.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time discussing the plot of Attack on Titan, it’s structure, art, characters, strengths and weaknesses. I have done that in detail elsewhere. I intend to only discuss two things in today’s review.

As set up I will say that, if you have not yet read any of Attack on Titan, without spoilers, I can tell you there is excellent reason why it is so popular. It hits a pop culture critical Zeitgeist,  is suitable for older teens and adults who are the main audience for that kind of thing and it is not bad for what it is. Although I feel there are more flaws than, perhaps, many of the fans of the series do. This is a tale of the twilight of humanity, and not a gentle twilight, as we saw in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. In Shingeki no Kyoujin, humanity’s flickering out quickly and under extremely brutal circumstances.

Today, instead, we discuss Volume 10 and 2 specific characters. Ymir, a member of the Survey Corps who is introduced to us as having a secret and Christa, a member of the Survey Corps who is revealed as having a secret. Realistically, by Volume 10, we should all be very comfortable with the idea that most, if not all, of the Survey Corps members carry a burden they believe is secret. Why else would they sign up for what must by any rational person be seen as certain, horrifying death?

In Volume 9, we encounter Ymir, unliked and unlikable and Christa, who appears adorable and honorable and who Ymir sees right through. And yet, they have a connection. It first appears to be only on Ymir’s side. She’s poking and prodding at Christa, apparently to unearth her sore point. When she uncovers it, she does something unexpected – Ymir opens her own self up to Christa. Now they share each other’s burden.

In Volume 10, their bond ramps up in intensity. I don’t know that I’d call this love, in any meaningful way,  but they need each other, that is obvious. By the end of the volume, they’ve made a pact to both live more honestly…a pact that becomes part of the main plot with Volume 11 (which I read on Crunchyroll’s manga platform.)

It’s not a “Yuri” storyline and I do not trust the creator to not kill both Ymir and Christa horribly, so don’t get your hopes up for a happy ending for them. ^_^ But it’s there, if you want it.

Also, there is a character who Japanese readers seem to have identified as gender non-specific. Hanji is referred to in the English translate as “Ms.,”but the author has stated that Hanji has no specific gender. (By author request, the ‘Ms.’ has been removed from later volumes)

Ratings:

Art –  I’m not a fan. I think the art at best is a 6
Story – I’ll leave this as an ambiguous 5 for the moment, pending my more detailed review.
Characters – Same as above
Yuri – 4-ish if you squint a bit in a dark room
Service – 8 all Guro. Because of the violence, I won’t watch the anime, specifically because of sound effects.

Overall – A qualified 8.

My fuller review – and more detail on Hanji – is up on Hooded Utilitarian.





Yuri Gift Guide 2013

November 28th, 2013

In honor of the spirit of the season, that is to say, rampant consumerism along with seasonal shifts ^_^, I’ve been putting together a Gift Guide for folks who are Yuri fans for the past few years. (Click the link to see the previous years’ Gift Guides.) Finally, you have a short, simple list with links, that you pass over to your family, and say – “Here, I want this.” ^_^

This year’s list is in no order, just as they come to mind. As usual, feel free to suggest ideas in the comments!

downloadCrunchyroll Subscription

Don’t know what get or what to ask for? This gift is good for anyone, pretty much, especially now that CR has added manga to the mix. There’s bound to be something there for any fan. For as little as the cost of a sandwich per month, you and/or someone you love can access tons of anime, and watch as the selection of manga grows! There’s no real down-side to this gift. ^_^

 

 

Kisses, Sighs, Cherry Blossoms Pink by Morinaga Milk

Popular with Yuri fans of all kinds, this high-school love drama is available complete in one volume. Translated by our friend Anastasia Moreno, you can be sure that the girl gets the girl.

This completeset also includes other one-shot stories by Morinaga-sensei that ran in Comic Yuri Hime in the magazine’s early years.

 

 

 Whispered Words by Takashi Ikeda

If you or your friend can wait until spring for it, this Volume 1 of 3 will be a great Yuri gift. This silly, then serious, then realistic, then delightful school romance contains every Yuri trope ever…including the one where the girl gets the girl and lives happily ever after. You just gotta wait for it. ^_^

I have every reason to believe that this will be an exceptional addition to every English-reader’s Yuri collection.

 

 

Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi (Volumes 1-6) (Volumes 7-12)

Because Sailor Moon changed the world and changed both anime and manga in ways we’re still feeling even now. Because we would not have had Yuri the way we think of it without it, (and you should meet Haruka and Michiru if you have never formally met.)

If you have not yet had a chance to experience the manga (so you can compare it with the upcoming anime) this is a perfect gift to grace your shelves!

 

Wandering-Son-5Wandering Son by Shimura Takako

This manga is not “Yuri” but has characters that are sexual and/or gender minorities.

This is exactly the kind of book holiday lists are made for. Hardcover, beautiful reproduction. This is a keepsake, the kind of thing you hold on to and re-read over and over.

 

 

swbAoi Hana/Sweet Blue Flowers Anime Box Set

I know this was on last year’s gift guide, but just in case you haven’t had the chance to get it yet, this makes a perfect gift for you or a fan close to you who wants to have you over for a watch-a-thon. ^_^

A very slightly idealized story of a girl falling in and out of love and learning to be the person she is.  A terrific story, told be a terrific storyteller.

 

Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda (Box Set 1) (Box Set 2)

This classic, containing the second Girl Prince to grace anime, is epic in scope, soapy of story, and shiny and tragic and wonderful. Like too-rich chocolates, it’s best savored in small doses. But is definitely should be savored.

When you’re enjoying any anime with a suave, masculine female character, when Sei is being the consummate Takarazuka Top Star, or Haruka is making Usagi blush, remember it was paragon of honor and nobility Oscar de Jarjeyes who set that benchmark – and she has never been bested. (And thanks to AnimeSols, we can look forward to Oscar’s complete opposite – tortured, depressed Saint Juste from Dear Brother, in days to come.)

I don’t have any real coals to offer this year, so I’ll just go out of the pale and suggest that if you’re looking for something good whether it’s Yuri or not, I suggest Attack on Titan. Giving nothing critical away, this is a not-cute or sweet story with characters who have more than one emotion each, which has hooks into the current zombie craze and an interesting storyline. It’s especially good for teens and adults who don’t find typical Shounen Jump-style fighting series to be compelling.

There you have it – my suggestions for 2013. Please feel free to toss in your own in the comments and if any of them really rock, I’ll move them up into the post. Happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating. Once again, I am so very thankful to each one of you for reading Okazu, today and every day. ^_^





Wandering Son Manga, Volume 4 (English)

July 30th, 2013

WanderingSon4We’ve covered a few volumes of Shimura Takako’s Wandering Son, published in English by Fantagraphics here on Okazu, but it hasn’t been featured regularly.

We’ve covered Volume 1 and Volume 2 and I hope those reviews were enough to encourage you to buy and read Volume 3. The early volumes introduce us to Shuuichi, a boy who wishes to become a girl and Shuu-chan’s classmates, friends, enemies (among whom I have to count his sister, the aspiring model) and Yoshino, a girl who wishes to become a boy.

In Volume 4, the story remains complex and emotional as always. By this point, Shimura-sensei’s characters are finely wrought, so the tension in each panel is palpable. Manga scholar Matt Thorn has gotten out of the way of his own translations, so the story flows as smoothly as a story as jangly as this can possibly flow.

The children are just beginning to enter puberty, and their bodies are not necessarily their friends. In this story we see the complexity of sex, gender, gender roles and sexuality laid out in the messy mishmash that it is. After reviewing Anything That Loves last week, I found myself paying attention – for the first time – to Anna, another aspiring model and peer of Shuuichi’s sister, Maho.

Anna is not presented to us as a nice person. She’s mean to Shuu-chan…but then her introduction to him was dismissive and unkind and Maho is selfish, not supportive of her brother and uninterested in him as a person. (The last, admittedly, pretty common among siblings.) Anna, taking her cue from this, has teased Shuu-chan in an immature way – but also in a way that clearly indicates to the audience that she is interested in him.

It’s hard enough as an adult to understand the mechanism for “showing interest in” another person. As a tween/teen, there is pretty much no socially acceptable mechanism for this at all.  Any expression of interest of any kind is grounds for teasing. And here is Anna, interested in a boy who would prefer to not be a boy….she’s got to be asking some questions about herself in the middle of the night. Is her interest in Shuu-chan in the boy-girl he is or the person he might become? There are no answers for this at this point, and as we saw in Anything That Loves – there may never really be an answer. Anna is immature enough to take her confusion out on Shuu-chan…which puts us in a bad place as readers. We might be sympathetic to her if she was merely angry at Shuu-chan for not being what she wanted, or at herself for having confusing feelings, but in her (and Maho’s) hurtful words and actions we’re seeing something that is way too close to bullying and bashing for us to be sympathetic at all.

Next volume they start middle school with the addition of the rigid gender-identifier, the school uniform. What, for so many shoujo heroines is a looked-for right of passage, will be for Shuu-chan and Yoshino-kun, a political and social statement. This gender/sex/sexuality/ thing is really complicated. I’ve already got my fingers crossed tightly for them and I don’t even have Volume 5 yet.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – ?

Overall – 9

The best, perhaps the only real way to  describe Wandering Son, is that it is compelling story-telling.





“Tokyo Love ~ Rica ‘tte Kanji!?” named a “Best Manga for Grownups” at Comic-Con

July 23rd, 2013

We like to think that it wasn’t just because we’re friends with most of the panelists at San Diego Comic-Con’s 2013 “Best and Worst Manga” Panel, that our own Tokyo Love ~ Rica ‘tte Kanji!? was included on the list of “Best Manga for Grownups.” ^_^

Many thanks to Brigid, Deb, Christopher, David and Shaenon.

Experience Rica Takashima’s look at lesbian life and love in Tokyo in the 1990s for yourself. Read Tokyo Love ~ Rica ‘tte Kanji!? for free, legally online! Enjoy!





Yuri Manga: Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossom Pink (English) Guest Review by Melissa M.

June 12th, 2013

Kisses_ssWoo-hoo!  It’s Wednesday and we got ourselves a Guest Review! As I mentioned in last week’s YNN Report, “I’ve reviewed it 3 times already (when it first came out from Yuri Hime and Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the new edition when Futabasha put them out.” By all means feel free to read those and get the first and middle looks at this series. Now we’ll take one last look at the series.

Sine I’ve reviewed this story a bunch of times, I think it’s time for someone else to get a turn. ^_^ Melissa M. has stepped up to the plate with her very first Guest Review here on Okazu! I just love when that happens.  Please welcome Melissa to the stage. /applause/

Morinaga Milk’s Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossom Pink follows Hitomi and Nana, longtime friends and new lovers, through high school and their developing relationship.

KSCBP was written in 2003, several years before the series GIRL FRIENDS, by the same author. Unlike Akko and Mari, Hitomi and Nana have to deal with their crises largely alone. Nana mentions that she and Hitomi have had sex but also wonders what counts as sex between two girls, and is upset that she has so many questions and nowhere to turn. It makes me wonder just how few resources there were for the LGBTQ community in Japan ten years ago. Hitomi is afraid that her love is preventing Nana from living a normal life and overcompensates by trying to be “manly.” Both are terrified of being found out, and near the end, they run away together, deciding that their relationship is more important than their friends and families. Their circumstances make KSCBP a more angsty series than GIRL FRIENDS, but also perhaps a more realistic look at the problems and misunderstandings a lesbian couple could have in a society that offers them no role models. It’s nice to see Morinaga addressing issues like these, which seems a bit unusual for her stories. But it’s not all sorrow and fear. The girls have plenty of good times together as they and their relationship mature, and they find that some friends are supportive. I think they have a good shot at keeping their promise to get married and to have their story continue forever.

My only real quibble with this story is the ending, in which everything is suddenly resolved. Hitomi and Nana move into their own apartment together with the blessing of their parents, to face college and life together. It seemed a bit too abrupt and magically-happy-ever-after, almost dismissing all of their earlier fears. But who am I kidding, it turned me into a puddle of squee on the floor. ^_^

The anthology also includes five one-shots set in Hitomi’s and Nana’s high schools, interspersed through and mostly unrelated to the main story. They generally include Morinaga’s stock character designs, the taller outgoing long-haired blonde and shorter quieter short-haired brunette, so it can be a bit difficult to tell in flipping through the pages whose story you’re in. The relationship chart in the back is a big help here. I didn’t like any of these quite as much as the main story since the one-shot format leaves little room for character development, but your mileage may vary.

Seven Seas did a great job with this anthology. I particularly appreciate the fact that they left the larger sound effects in place and added a small translation, almost like furigana, above them – it seems less disruptive than replacing them with English or putting a list of translations at the back.

This is a heartwarming story that belongs on every Yuri lover’s shelf, and a comparison with GIRL FRIENDS makes it clear how far Yuri and (hopefully) society have come in the past few years.

Ratings:

Art – 8 (Being older work, it’s not quite as polished as GIRL FRIENDS)
Story – 9 for the main story; 6-8 for the one-shots
Characters – 9
Yuri – 10
Service – 4

Overall – 9

Hitomi is a cat person! That makes me smile. ^_^

 

Erica here again: Yuri Shimai, the original magazine in which Nana and Hitomi’s story began, was the very first magazine of its kind.  The whole wallowing in angst about “does she feel the same way?” of the early chapters was very typical of stories at the time. The later chapters you’re referring to were all written recently – not in 2003, but in 2011, for the Futabasha edition.

That having been said in 2003, there was LGBTQ life in Japan, but that mostly meant bar life. Resources are way more abundant now, even in smaller cities. Which is all to the good. ^_^

Thank you Melissa for weighing in with your point of view!