I haven’t forgotten you, I’m not sick or anything, just been a slow, slow, slow reading week. I’ll be back when I’ve managed to finish a thing. ^_^
Archive for the Miscellaneous Category
Seiten no Hekigan Manga, Volume 1 (晴天の碧眼)
Natsuki is anti-social. Despite her very best efforts, she has one friend in school and still, after all these months after transferring in, has to turn down requests from her classmates to hang out with them. It makes her grumpy. Also making her grumpy is when the other girls talk about her, or when they leave her alone, and when her mother does nice things for her, and everything about being alive. As Seiten no Hekigan, Volume 1 (晴天の碧眼) opens Natsuki is happiest left to grump by herself on the school roof.
One day, sitting on the roof grumping by herself, Natsuki feels a gross gloopy thing hit her in the face. She’s utterly grossed out, think it’s bird poop or something, when it hits her again, and again. A blue Jell-O-like rain is falling from the sky and Natsuki is freaking, until the blue goop starts to pool and becomes a big blue jelly creature that jumps her. When Natsuki regains consciousness, she’s on the school roof, with a naked girl on top of her, kissing her. Natsuki guesses correctly that the naked girl and the blue creature are the same, that the “kissing” thing was so the creature could read her mind and that the creature is an alien. Points for Natsuki not being a dingbat.
The blue creature, now an attractive Japanese girl with blue eyes, goes home with Natsuki, where she brainwashes everyone into remembering that Natsuki has a half younger sister, who has been overseas. “Aoi” joins Natsuki’s family all too seamlessly, and Natsuki occasionally wonders if she wasn’t brainwashed as well. Eventually Aoi admits that she was a criminal at home and was sent here as punishment. But, no, Aoi insists, she hasn’t brainwashed Natsuki at all.
The rest of the volume is taken up with Natsuki and Aoi having a big fight, learning why Natsuki is so angry and them making up. Their affection and caring about one another develop into genuinely sisterly feelings. In the final pages, we see another blue goop alien arrive and take on the form of a cat, as the mental background music suddenly turns very ominous.
While the story starts with a kiss, by the end of the first volume, I’d say that it isn’t really “Yuri” at all, but is instead sisterly affection with a frisson of Yuri for readers who are uncomfortable with the idea that women have more layers of relationships than “sex with” or “no sex with” each other.
But the surprising thing is…it’s a pretty good story. Nothing is unique really; intruder in class draws the attention of the class grump and forces her into society is pretty much the same story as Zenryaku, Yuri no Sono Yori, among others, (and now that I think about it, the character types are extremely similar, as well) but something about it works for me.
Ratings:
Art – 8 Solid, unexceptional, pleasant.
Story – 8 Same as above
Characters – Surprisingly realistic for all that Aoi is an alien.
Yuri – 1 After that one kiss, it’s all in your head or not
Service – 1 Same as Yuri, after the first scene, there’s basically no service
Overall – 8
I guess Volume 2 will be the inevitable “Aoi has to go back home to her planet” crisis and we’ll see if it holds up under pressure. ^_^
34-sai Mushoku-san Manga Vols. 1-4 (34歳無職さん) Guest Review by Bruce P.
It’s Guest Review Wednesday once again on Okazu and I couldn’t be happier…but that’s because I’ve already read today’s review and I can’t stop laughing. Once again it is my sincere pleasure to welcome back Okazu Superhero, longtime friend, traveling companion and amazing Guest Reviewer Bruce P Yaaaayyy!
I picked up a copy of 34-sai Mushoku-san (The Unemployed 34-Year Old), (34歳無職さん) Volume 1, by Ikeda Takashi, with the not unreasonable thought that the author of Sasameki Koto might have included some Yuri along the way. I was wrong; four volumes later, and there hasn’t been a hint of Yuri. Instead what we are given is a viciously drawn-out interior monologue of boredom, hopelessness, and personal failure. It’s cruel, peculiar, glacial, and grindingly depressing. Plus it makes me laugh. What a great manga.
The protagonist, who is never named, is a 34-year old woman who lives alone in an apartment and who has lost her job. The first chapter starts right off with a gag–she wakes up and can’t find her glasses (they’re on top of her head). The jokes continue. She doesn’t get up in time to take out the recycling. Her vacuum cleaner falls over. And then it falls over again. What we have here is a wacky slice-of-life story, as our madcap heroine searches for love and employment in the big city! Except…she doesn’t actually ever do any searching for love, or for employment, and as the same jokes begin to repeat, and repeat, it becomes clear that they are not jokes at all. They are symptoms, and despite her best excuses she is a woman in serious trouble.
Though able to deal marginally with others, even if there aren’t many others she ever deals with, at home she lives in a state of almost total paralysis. She cannot pull herself out of her futon until late afternoon, or up from under the kotatsu – Yui from K-ON! all grown up when it is no longer cute. You get the sense that losing the job may not have had much to do with the economy after all. She’s isolated from her family (including a daughter) and has only one acquaintance, a woman she meets occasionally for dinner and who is blatantly drawn with eyes always shut. Her only real companion is her apartment. She just swirls slowly, sleepily around in the drain of her well-vacuumed world. And if that doesn’t make you want to shell out for the multi-volume set, be assured that in Volume 2 she takes dramatic steps to change her life, by contemplating possibly taking dramatic steps to change her life. Contemplation of these steps continues in Volume 3 and Volume 4.
It sounds grimmer than kidneys on toast. Why read it?
(1) Asymmetric though she is, her character is strikingly realistic, and in more spots than are comfortable I can see, in her, a reflection of some of my own unlovely edges. This is both disturbing, and of value when I’m trying to get out of bed in the morning.
(2) It’s beautifully and brilliantly drawn, which nicely counters the subject; some chapters contain no words at all, but are simply picture plays as she bleakly and languorously contemplates her empty life. It’s like mime, in two dimensions, though not as depressing.
(3) Ikeda-sensei has a nice comic touch, and it really is quite funny. Even if laughing at all the pratfalls feels somehow misdirected, like appreciating the Hindenburg disaster on account of it being all bright and sparkly.
(4) Nothing has changed in four volumes. I’m still waiting for the thing to happen.
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Ratings:
Art: 9. Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Story: 5. Not so much a story as a slowly deteriorating situation. I’m betting on something happening; it eventually did in the classic gently-paced series Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou when Kokone reappeared. My suggestion is to add robots.
Character: 18. She’s not honestly sympathetic, but credit for every year over the age of 16.
Yuri: 0. Unfortunate, but ideally Yuri requires a second character.
Service: 2. A few sponge bath scenes, if you’re desperate enough.
Overall: 8. 34-sai Mushoku-san will not be to everyone’s taste. However, I have never been a fan of action series, and with this one I hit the jackpot.
Kill La Kill Contest Answer!
There was, as I said, only one right answer to “Who Was the Best Character?”
As amazing as Ragyo was – and she was the most fabulous villian of the last several years – and as excellent as Ryuuko and Satsuki were, there really can be only one best character.
The Banchou of Honnoji Gakuen…Manshoku Mako.
Those of you who voted Mako in the comments, please email me at yuricon at gmail dot com with your name, age and mailing address and I will send you a present in recognition of your wisdom. ^_^
