MMF: Karakuri Odette Manga (English)

January 21st, 2011

Karakuri Odette Volume 1This month, the Manga Movable Feast is taking on a series that I personally consider to be one of the most enjoyable shoujo series I’ve read in the past few years. Along with the recent The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko, I consider Karakuri Odette a do-not-miss series for fans of shoujo manga who nevertheless crave something a little different from energetic, clueless girl is in love with jerky, but noble, guy.

Odette is a perfectly normal girl. She wants to make friends, she wants the people she cares about to be happy. She wants to be cute. She wants her battery pack to have a cute cover. The only difference between Odette and any other girl her age is that she was not created as an act of love between a man and a woman in bed, she was created as an act of research by a man in a lab. Odette is a robot, or android, if you prefer.

Odette’s story is not Pinocchio’s, however. While she definitely seeks to better understand the human experience, she does not desire to “become a real girl.” It would be a redundant wish because, as we see time and time again, she is already a real girl and the fact that she is an artificial/created intelligence changes nothing about that.

Karakuri Odette is not just a story about a robot girl being more human that the humans around her. (And even if it was, it would be delightful anyway.) By being so *real*, Odette actually does turn someone around her into a real person. Not Chris, her foster-cousin, another robot brought into the story as a weapon, but integrated into the family circle. Not Shirayuki, a self-ostracized girl who has never been able to relate to other people on account of the fact that she can hear their thoughts. No, the person Odette has the most profound effect upon and humanizes the most is her father, Yoshizawa-hakase.

To illustrate this, let me sum up a number of their conversations from various chapters into one whole conversation.

“Professor, I want to go to school.”

“Okay.”

“Professor, I want to be able to eat.”

“Okay.”

“Professor, I want to go to go shopping for cute clothes.”

“Okay.”

“Professor, I want a cell phone.”

“Absolutely not. You don’t need one.”

Can I get some raised hands from people who had that conversation with their fathers? Anyone? I thought so.

In Volume 5, it all comes to a moment in which, after asking for a cell phone again, Odette says something viciously and the Professor responds with “how dare you say that to your father!” (I’m working from the Japanese version, so my apologies if this differs from the Tokyopop translation. I haven’t gotten that yet.)

While fellow androids, the emotionally stunted Grace and haughty Travis call their creator “Papa,” it is Professor Yoshizawa who declares loudly that he loves every last screw in Odette.

Odette is just a perfectly normal girl, who is fundamentally different from everyone else, but is allowed, encouraged and supported by the people around her to be exactly who she is.

In honor of this month’s MMF theme, and the inspiration Odette is to me and hopefully to a lot of “different” people, I declare today “Odette Day.” For today, we won’t care if there are jellybeans in our eggs. For today, we will treat everyone as if they don’t have bad intentions. For today, we will be okay with being not like the other kids. For today, we’ll cover our insulin pumps and asthma inhalers with a cute fleece cover. For today, it’ll be okay to be different.

Happy Odette day to you all.

Posted in English Manga, MMF | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 9 (つぼみ)

January 20th, 2011

Reading Tsubomi, volumes 7, 8 and 9 in such a relatively short period of time has reminded me once again about what a linchpin continuity is for a serialized story.

The difference between that 5-month wait between volumes of a series here in the West and in Japan is HUGE for one incredibly important reason. In Japan, the readers are often being fed a monthly installment of story, while here in the west, there is just a silent space of time in which we amuse ourselves with something else. By the time we return to a story 5 months later, no one can really be blamed for having forgotten where we left off. Manga for younger readers often have a “The Story So Far” insert, but that’s not true for most adult-oriented works…nor is it true for quarterly anthologies such as Tsubomi.

So, perhaps more than three months have gone by when I finally get around to the next volume and I have a very hard time remembering who these people are and why I should care. This is, at least in part, because I found a number of the Tsubomi anthology stories not overwhelmingly interesting initially. It made it harder to remember them in the torrent of similar stories I read. But having read three volumes in a matter of three months, I find that I can remember far more of the stories than I previously did. I’ll chalk at least a little of this up to my failing memory, which cares about fewer things every day, and is far more relaxed about forgetting inconsequentials than it used to be. ^_^

Which brings us to Tsubomi (つぼみ), Volume 9.

“Hoshikawa Ginza Yon-choume” continues as Otome and Minato try to find balance in their domestic situation, and what, if anything, they expect out of each other.

Which is not entirely dissimilar from the situation in Morinaga Milk’s “Himitsu no Recipe” as Watanabe now has to reconcile herself to being in cooking club because she likes cooking, as opposed to being in cooking club because she likes the cooking club president. Her expectations have to shift if she is going to find any happiness at all.

In “Green” Youko and Megu show us how their relationship developed.

I like “Hana to Hoshi.” The simple addition of a backstory between the two protagonists gives this particular girl meets girl (again) tale some depth. In addition, the opening scene of this chapter, in which Hanai is practicing different ways to say hello to try to be cool and casual, gave the story a new level of verisimilitude.

Unlike “Prism” in which the rather tired trope of girl meets girl (who she thought was boy when they were young) is handled pretty unexcitingly. IF this story continues, I’ll hope it sets that trope aside and moves into new, somewhat less overused story lines.

Yay for “Lonely Wolf Lonely Sheep”! Here’s a Story A told with some genuine effort at making all the pieces feel new and fresh. Imari-chan and Imari-san begin to date, but long after Imari-san has healed up, something is still wrong with Imari-chan’s hand. The story of what exactly is wrong and the fantastic way Imari-san handles it, reminds me again there are no truly “original” stories, but that there are still plenty of ways to tell a well-told story originally.

“Tandem Lover” seems to have lost a lot of the obnoxious service that plagued its opening chapters. In this chapter two Tandem teams go full on to beat the crap out of each other. The lower pilot on each team is a little surprised to find that the upper pilots are motivated by a lovers’ quarrel.

We learn some of Kuroi-sensei’s backstory in “Renai Manga,” and really, it’s kind of predictable. Crisis and a love triangle means that this will probably hang on for a few more chapters, until a tearful happy “Story A” end.

“Endless Room” has officially become creepy. I don’t mind stories about the people who stay in the suite in a hotel, but the same androgynous waitress kind of watching over/seducing them is rather uncomfortable-making.

“In “Girls Ride” motorcycling and love triangles are the order of the day.

As always, there are stories that I have skipped, but I notice that I am following more and more of the stories in this collection. So, we’ll take this anthology off “critical” bypass “serious” and move it right to “stable.”

Ratings:

Overall – 8

If only for “Hana to Hoshi” and “Lonely Wolf Lonely Sheep,” I find myself actually looking forward to Volume 10, which comes out next month.

Posted in Tsubomi, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Yuri Hime Rebirth – Online

January 20th, 2011

For a limited time, the first issue of the newly rebooted Comic Yuri Hime is available online. Ichijinsha has also mentioned, on their editorial blog, a few series will be continuing only online.

The second volume of Comic Yuri Hime is now available wherever fine Yuri Manga anthologies are sold.

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime | 4 Comments »


Lucky Star Manga, Volume 6 (English)

January 18th, 2011

For a comic that has nothing to say, but keeps saying it over and over, getting more self-referential and introspective every time, I’m amazed to tell you that I actually found Lucky Star, Volume 6…funny.

Not hysterical fall over onto the floor funny, like say Hyperbole and a Half. (You are reading Hyperbole and a Half, aren’t you? If not, you really need to, because you’ll lose your cutting edge geek cred if you don’t and your 13-year old niece will roll her eyes at you because you are so lame.

No, Lucky Star is still basically this: Konata and Hiyori are otaku – and so are a few other characters whose names escape me all the time. Overall, I feel like the less Konata-Kagami time we get, the better the story is. Mind you, I really can’t keep all the characters straight, even with character personality inserts at the beginning of chapters, for one simple reason – the character highlighted almost never appears in the next comic and by the time they do appear, I’ve forgotten them again. But the characters themselves are merely here to deliver lines that we all think (as, obviously we, the readers, must all be otaku), “yeah, I hate that too.”

The art has not changed. Which means that the art is primarily strangely shaped heads floating just barely over the bottom of the panel. This strongly increases the “talking head” feeling of this manga, which then increases my inability to tell anyone apart, as they are all teeny, blob heads just barely floating over the bottom of the panel. Nonetheless, I laughed. I too thought, “Oh yeah, I hate that,” or “Oh yeah, I’m like that too.” I guess I should congratulate myself for being a good otaku.

….I would like to take this opportunity to say that, however good an otaku I am, I have no intention of visiting the city of Washimiya or its shrine.

The readability of the English edition has significantly improved since Bill Flanagan took over the translation. Either Bill is really doing his editor’s job or the editor has finally started to get into the game, as this was the first volume (we really wouldn’t want to rush these things!) that reads almost like normal people speak. Even jokes that complain about weird otaku-speak actually have a natural distinction between average conversational language and the slang-laden drivel that passes for conversation among fans.

There is no Yuri. If you see Yuri in this volume, you are working harder than Hiyori at it.

Ratings:

Art – 5 Floating blob-heads a the bottom of the panel…
Story – 7
Characters – 7(0)
Yuri – 0
Service – 10 for in-jokes that only an otaku could love

Overall – 7

I’ll never be a huge fan of Lucky Star and, to some extent making me wait ’til Volume 6 before it’s funny is simply too little, too late. However, for fans of the series, Volume 6 is closing in on a masterwork of in-jokes about in-jokes.

Many, many thanks to Okazu hero Nadia C for her sponsorship of today’s review!

Posted in English Manga | 3 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Flower Festa

January 17th, 2011

You remember Thieve’s World, don’t you? It was a multi-author fantasy fiction series. Each author would write stories in their own style, using their own character(s) and those of the other authors, all set in a single world. It felt like a good table-top RPG that people other than the players could follow. It was, depending on your opinion of author, character and story, variably successful.

Flower Festa is a very similar concept. Set in a generic girl’s school, each one of 20 creators was given the opportunity to create a character page, with character info and a single page comic showing us the character’s personality and/or interaction with other characters. After all 20 characters have been introduced, each artist then draws a short story with their and/or any of the characters in the story. The characters are all named after a flower, which might get cloying fast except that most names used are not unknown as girl’s names. Imagine a story where Lily is friends with Rose and Willow. It’s like that. Okay, by the last few characters, the names get a little sillier – one of my favorite characters is the foreigner Hibiscus (imagine an older, more together Tanya from Battle Athletes,) and a few of the names are just really stretching it, like Gabera and Higanbana. Aren’t those lovely names for young women? But heck if you were picking name #18 of 20, you’d be stretching too.

There is a generally Yuri overtone to many of the stories, with one semi-regular, established couple, Tsubaki and Bara. They are given a very Takarazuka air every time they appear, but they aren’t the only couple. Gabera’s got a thing for Kiku and there are a few other snuggly moments scattered throughout. I picked this book up specifically because Hojou KOZ was contributing. Her character, Momo, seems to be locked in a like-triangle with Ume and Sakura.

It’s a great idea that, I don’t want to say that it fails in execution, because it really doesn’t, but it does not make exciting, compelling reading. Each character is all right individually and cute with the other characters, but nothing really creative or particularly unique happens here. However, if you genuinely love girls’ school life romantic fantasy, this book will appeal. The multitude of characters will, at least, keep you from becoming bored.

Ratings:

Everything was variable

Overall – 6 but I’m not really the audience.

Surely I can’t have been the only person in the world who read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s character in Thieve’s World and went, “oh duh, he’s a woman,” can I?

Posted in Yuri Manga | 3 Comments »