Age Rating: Older Teen
Genre: Seinen
Price: $10.99

For all Kyousuke's resistance to Tena and her bossy ways, he seems to have settled in quite nicely to being a sort of househusband to her and the other tuners. But while Mezzo and Sopra have agreed not to collect Kyousuke's viral notes, there's no telling what might happen if he meets yet another tuner! So when Kyousuke runs into Arun, an elite tuner at the top of her class, could this spell the end of his musical aspirations . . . and his life!?

Sesuna Mikabe's Tena on S-String revolves around a tuner named Tena and her "slave" Kyosuke. Tena is a spoiled and bossy tuner that has Kyosuke wrapped around her little finger. Kyosuke is Tena's "slave" and essentially takes care of her and two of her other tuner friends. Kyosuke, the male lead, is an aspiring musician and composer. In this 2nd volume of the series just when Kyosuke thinks he has enough dealing with tuners 24/7, dealing with the bratty Tena both in and out of his home, he runs into another tuner!

 Despite what the quick synopsis may claim I didn't find anyt scenes involving Kyosuke that could be deemed as life threatening. Rather I liked the introduction of Arun, especially because Tena was not involved in those parts. I seemed to have a harder time getting through this volume than I first thought. The artwork seemed to be leaning more towards a shojo-ish style then seinen, which could cause the reader to stop and scratch their head a bit. The parts of this volume that dealt with the other tuners living with Kyosuke and, later on in the story, when he runs into another tuner were the most enjoyable to read. I wanted to see the other tuners, Mezzo and Sopra, fleshed out some more throughout the volume, even though tuners other than Tena, did take up at least half of the plot and most of my attention.

It is sad to say but I just couldn't stand the main character: Tena. Her constantly being domineering and controlling of Kyosuke just got too old too fast for me. The only saving grace she had for me was her gothic lolita type clothes she had. I enjoyed the color insert in the beginning of the book. This volume doesn't have end on a cliffhanger which as a reader left me satisfied enough at the moment with this series. I don't plan on running out to quickly read the third volume as it left me mildly interested in the story and plot thus far. Since I already have a massive to-be-read pile I doubt it would be anytime soon.

Genre: BL/yaoi
Age Rating: M/Mature/18+
Price: $13.95

"I don't know what kind of history you two have got... but Anzai was really happy at the thought that he was going to get to play ball with you, Wakamiya."

Ah, sports: hotbeds of drama, competition, and sublimated homoeroticism. Name a sport, and there's probably a manga about it, if not more than one; in the case of basketball, one of those manga is The Object of My Affection, though as you might have guessed from the genre label, the basketball is less the focus of the stories than an excuse to bring the main characters together.

The collection begins with four linked one-shots, "Desolate Days", "Favorite", "Cellular Trap" and "Another Day With You". These stories cover the beginnings of a romance between Wakamiya, an eager freshman and new member of Kanan University's basketball team, and Anzai, a junior who was Wakamiya's idol back when he was in middle school due to his outstanding basketball skills. Wakamiya discovers that Anzai never turns up for practice, and learns from Anzai's childhood friend that Anzai has suffered an injury that will prevent him from ever playing basketball seriously again, which forces him to confront the true nature of his feelings for Anzai. If that "twist" sounds familiar to you, you've probably read Isaku Natsume's Dash!; and if it's not familiar but you predicted it anyway, you've probably read... well, any BL manga ever.

So the plot's not original, which could be said of almost all BL manga, a genre whose artists apologise for deviating from the expected formula; and yet although it's not winning any prizes for its plot and premise, this isn't quite BL-by-numbers, either. Okuda has a low-key sense of humour, strong characterisation, and an eye for the kind of telling real-life detail that reveals the relationships between her characters indirectly rather than spelling it out. The one-shot "Chewing Gum Baby" showcases this in a nice light-hearted scene; there is a dramatic revelation, as you might expect, but it's what happens afterwards that's really telling, and that makes the story worth the price of admission.

The title story is the longest, and deals with a high school love triangle between Anzai, Anzai's childhood friend Yoji, and Myojin, a third boy who joins their school and their basketball club. Yoji is pining in secret for the carefree Anzai, unwilling to risk their friendship by revealing how he feels, while Myojin keeps his eyes on Yoji, observing Yoji's crush on Anzai while cultivating a crush of his own on Yoji. Typical teenage meanderings ensue, though Okuda has a lighter touch with the complications than most; and it's refreshing to see a BL love triangle where the main characters actually communicate with each other and are careful of each other's feelings.

There's nothing spectacular on offer in The Object of My Affection, which is part of the appeal; it's all very down to earth and realistic, and the events and emotions ring true.

Age Rating: Older Teen
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Price: $10.99

With the Imperial Army in hot pursuit, Housei leads Taitou and the others on a little detour to the home of his master. But the “mean old devil woman” he had described turns out to be nothing of the sort. Master Kouei is a veritable font of widsom; in addition to knowing a more covert route into the capital, she is well versed in the legends of the Hokushin-Tenkun. There is much she can teach Taitou as he struggles to control the overwhelming power of his star, but will she have enough time to impart her wisdom before tragedy strikes?

Taitou and co. continue their journey to the Capitol, though the stories are less serial than the  first volume and focus more on their purpose; getting the Kenkaranbu back. Taitou gets some real training on how to control his star’s power, and more is revealed about Taitou’s and Ryuukou’s past, where they seem to have a surprising connection.

Needing to find a less direct route to the capitol, Housei leads everyone to his Master,Kouei Kuju. Known as the “Font of Knowledge”, she spends her days studying scrolls and knows a lot about the Hokushin-Tenkun, some of which even Ryuukou didn’t know. Kouei is the typical master who seems harmless, but hides a greater power behind her gentle smile. When she can’t persuade Taitou to leave Laila, she instead helps him him learn to channel his ki and use soukihou. Fortunately, not a lot of time is dwelt on this, and there’s no montage training sequence. Unfortunately, Kouei doesn’t last long as Shimei reappears, which is a shame. She had potential to be more than exposition.

This volume also reveals more about Taitou and Ryuukou. They seem to have more in common than either realize (or that Ryuukou would want to admit). The volume starts with Taitou reliving a memory from the past through a dream. The family we were introduced to in the first volume isn’t his real family, and he believes he was abandoned by his real parents. Ryuukou, in contrast, learns that the man he always thought of as his father isn’t, and does learn the identity of his real father. This was an actual surprise to me. I didn’t see it coming.

What wasn’t a surprise was Taitou seeming to know the layout of the palace as he sneaks in to give the Emperor a punch in the face for the way the people are being treated. He can predict what’s around a corner before turning it. And in a familiar courtyard, he unknowingly meets the Emperor, Taiga. Their conversation before the Emperor reveals the truth does change Taitou mind about the punch, but not about trying to change the empire. I really liked this scene, which is also the last chapter in the book. I liked seeing Taiga, the boy emperor who is controlled by most of the court and Keirou specifically get to speak frankly with Taitou.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about volume 2 of Hero Tales. The move away from episodic stories to more movement in the actual plot is a marked improvement. There are still a lot of cliche elements like the boy emperor who’s just a puppet to a corrupt court, and the set up of Taitou past that keep this title from moving up into great territory. I’m hoping something interesting comes out of Ryuukou’s family revelation, as well as Laila’s strange ability to reach Taitou when Hagun has taken him over. There is potenial there, as there is with this whole series. Here’s hoping more will be actualized in the next volume.

Genre: Fantasy/Romance
Age Rating: T (13+)
Price: $14.99

Yayoi - the 78th Head of Household of the Suzuka Clan - is a mystic with a tremendous power over the spirits.  Of course, along with great power comes those with the desire to steal it!  Enter Ura, who wants to become the King of the Demons.  He comes to the human world to challenge Yayoi, but ends up stripped of his powers - and is sealed away as a black cat instead!  Although Ura is still hell-bent on "eating" Yayoi's power, the unlikely pair find themselves caught up in an adventure they never imagined!

A fantasy series for teen girls, Mugen Spiral is composed mostly of one-shot stories that involve Yayoi defeating demons with the help of Ura, a demon she seals away in cat and/or human form until he needs to bail her out.  It's better than it sounds, since the stoic and very powerful Yayoi isn't the type of heroine that needs to be rescued often, and Ura is a very unlikely white knight.  It's also mercifully light on both zany gags and dark melodrama, two extremes that fantasy series tend to get caught in, though there are just enough touches of both to keep things interesting.

The magic and fantasy elements, such as the demon world Ura comes from and the nature of Yayoi's powers, aren't elaborated on very much.  Most of the conflict comes courtesy of demons, including Ura, who show up to consume Yayoi's powers in order to become the next Demon King.  The chapter-by-chapter situations are a little underwhelming (because Yayoi is so powerful, she normally just falls for tricks), but both Yayoi and Ura are likable characters, and seeing the banter between them and the chemistry build on a chapter-by-chapter basis makes this more fun than it ought to be.  Yayoi is very serious and has a habit of reading more into Ura's intentions than he would like, which of course Ura plays off as annoying.  There's not a whole lot of romance between the two of them until the very end, but anyone who felt short-changed in the main storyline should be more than pleased with the excellent bonus story at the end of the volume.

There is no overarching story, and what seems like a developing plot winds up unresolved in the end (Ura wants to save his dad from a deadly curse, which never happens).  There is a three-chapter arc involving a struggle with Ura's dark magic brother (another story with a cliffhanger that doesn't go anywhere), and... well, a lot of other plot threads and story hints that never quite get resolved.  It's easy to tell that it was one of the artist's first ongoing series, and also one that was subject to a lot of editorial pressure and perhaps an early ending.

Overall, this reads a lot like a mediocre series, and it is.  The stories are only okay, and it ultimately doesn't go anywhere.  Fantasy fans might be a bit disappointed by the lack of definition in those elements as well, but Yayoi and Ura make up for a lot of weaknesses, and make this a pretty fun light read in the end.  The omnibus treatment makes this a great value, too.

Age Rating: 13+
Genre: Fantasy
Price: $12.99

I'll start by throwing this out there: I was a compulsive World of Warcraft player for a solid six months of my life in college.  Eventually, despite having a blast playing with my friends, I quit the game, permanently deleted my character, and haven't looked back since.

I have a fairly good grasp of the WoW mythology up until the first expansion pack, which allowed players to travel through a portal to reach the realm of Outland.  That's where Shadow Wing picks up and instantly crushes the reader with page after page of narration explaining why the portal is significant and why the inhabitants of Azeroth are crossing over. 

This could have been a great hook, if not for two setbacks.  First and foremost is the hideous, eye-straining font that the narration is printed in.  It made me cringe every time it popped up in the story and it appears in nearly every panel for the entire first chapter.  The second issue is that it spends a ton of time building the back-stories of the characters, which are both clearly established on the back-cover summary and by the characters' actions.  I get it: Jorad is a paladin seeking redemption and he is in love with Tyri.  Tyri is a blue dragon who can take human form and, because she is one of the most powerful creatures on Azeroth, is way too headstrong for her own good.

The story is far from engaging: Jorad is taken captive while trying to redeem his honor and happens to cross paths with Tyri, who has been drawn to Outland for mysterious reasons.  Since he is a cardboard cutout, obsessed with honor kind of guy, he goes out of his way to try to protect her (futile).  She has yet to realize that she may lose a battle and hurt him in the process (inevitable).  They're trying to uncover more about two nether dragons, who are like Tyri in some ways but completely enigmatic in others.  Thrown into the mix are the hellbent-on-world-domination Ragnok Bloodreaver and his followers.

The art is some of the most detailed I've seen compared to most manga on the shelves.  Kim's character designs (especially when it comes to their faces) are insanely detailed, to the point where I wonder how many hours it took for him to sketch and ink Jorad's beard in every panel.  The dragons are densely shaded and the intricacies of their scales are always included.  That being said, the battle sequences are a mess, often impossible to follow.  Characters are struck, although you're almost never sure by what or by whom.

Truthfully, the story did not build enough intrigue for me to want to continue with the second installment.  If you're a big WoW fan, though, you may find a lot to love, as this story might bridge a few gaps the game left out.

Age Rating: Teen
Genre: Drama/Romance
Price: $10.99

Crown Prince Shin and Crown Princess Chae-Kyung are the picture of happiness as they celebrate their first wedding anniversary in a lavish, high-profile public display...but all is not well behind those loving gazes and wide smiles. With the tension between her and Shin growing, Chae-Kyung can’t help but look for a way out of her situation. But when the Queen, who is with child, decides to have Chae-Kyung be her proxy, the pressure is on for Chae-Kyung to keep herself and her marriage together. Will she look to Yul for guidance, even if his advice could spell disaster for the royal family that Chae-Kyung is growing to love?

Things aren't getting any easier for Chae-Kyung in this volume of Goong. News that the Queen Mother is pregnant causes complications for everyone in the palace. For Chae-Kyung, it draws her further into the affairs of the palace, when all she wants is out. For Shin, it causes him to become serious about being the Crown Prince, and that means divorce may no longer be an option for him and Chae-Kyung.

The possibility of a new heir in the palace causes a shift in priorities for a lot of people in this volume. Shin decides he can no longer keep trying to get out of being the Crown Prince. He feels a responsibility to his mother, and doesn't want to leave her and his soon-to-be sibling alone in the viper's den that the palace can be. But if he has to stay and be miserable, he is determined that Chae-Kyung will stay with him. He can no longer promise her the divorce she's been longing for, for the last year. This only makes Chae-Kyung more desperate to want to leave. But, her inability to refuse the Queen Mother instead pulls her further into the workings of the palace as she becomes the Queen Mother's proxy, over the Daebi-mama, who seems to have another plot brewing again Shin and Chae-Kyung, that now has to speed up. Yul now doesn't just want to win Chae-Kyung over, he wants to hurt Shin by taking away what's most important to him.

There isn't much change in Shin and Chae-Kyung's love-hate relationship. Shin continues to be cruel in one moment, and then show a moment of kindness in another. But Chae-Kyung is getting used to life in the palace and with Shin as she starts to shoot back at him, leaving him speechless at one point. That was nice to see. But after eight volumes of the volleys, it would be nice to see more movement forward in their relationship. The two-steps-forward, one-step-back is starting to get tiresome.

It was also nice to see Shin step up and start accepting his responsibility as Crown Prince. While the King keeps going on about the arson fire set in Daebi-mama's quarters, showing his obvious bias for her even though his actual wife is now pregnant with his child, Shin nicely tells him off, that he's going to remain Crown Prince whether the King likes it or not. I would like to see something like this from Chae-Kyung. She is a little too whiny about not wanting to be in the palace, and wanting to go home. She was doing well against the pit of vipers that is the Weimyung-bu, keeping them in their place (with some help of course). More of that would be good, but to get that she would have to accept her place in the palace.

Yul seems to be turning down a dark path, as he goes out for revenge against Shin rather than just win Chae-Kyung over. I liked him better as the friend/third side of a love triangle than the almost menacing figure he's becoming. It seems the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all. And I have no sympathy for Daebi-mama. She claims to have given up her happiness to fulfill her promise to make Yul the Crown Prince, but she's too power-hungry for that to really be believed. Her only happiness comes from growing influence and power, and she really needs to be checked.

Overall, Goong provides another volume of soap-opera-y goodness. It's crisis after crisis, and the surprises never stop. The ending is also a fitting cliffhanger. Reading about characters getting so dramatic about their lives and problems has never been so much fun.

 

Age Rating: 16+

Genre: Parody

Price: $14.95

Publisher's Info: They say you cannot choose where and when are born; we are gifted into the worlds are parents are living at the time. Whether a blessing or a curse, as individuals we must make the most of our environments to advance as best possible given the circumstances present. For the cast of Peepo Choo, their places of birth, whether they be the suburbs of Tokyo or the South Side of Chicago, appear to be a curse they cannot escape...until they realize the world is a much smaller place than they thought.

On the surface Milton appears to be your average a high school student living in the thugged out streets of Chicago's South Side. As is the case with many teens looks can be deceiving. When he's not at school or riding the metro, he is at the local comic shop cosplaying as his favorite Japanese animation character Peepo Choo! A hardcore fan, Milton knows every line from the Peepo Choo animation by heart. He can happily replicate the Peepo Dance with ease, and genuinely believes the world depicted in this cartoon is "the real" Japan. [Note: I've cut the description short because of information about material not in this volume--Justin]

I get the sense that, if he couldn’t draw, Felipe Smith would like to make a living repeatedly punching people in the face, pausing only long enough to make sure they got the joke. Fortunately for us, he can draw—he draws like a damn demon, that one. His art is an assault, seemingly stripped of all subtlety. It is full-bore satire, and he wields it like a machete.

Ostensibly Peepo Choo has a plot: Assassin owns a comic book store in Chicago as a cover, and takes his sex-obsessed, comics-hating employee and an otaku-to-the-extreme customer with him to Japan as cover for a job killing a young yakuza. But, really, that plot doesn’t do justice to this over-the-top satire of East-meets-West, West-meets-East, Japan as seen (and fantasized about) in the US, and the US as seen (and fantasized about) in Japan.

Like the best satires, everyone is skewered: American comics culture, American anime and manga fandom, male porn obsession, Japanese obsession with cute, with American pop culture, with gangsters as symbols of power—I could go on and on. The book’s chock full of so much funny, brutal, venomous lampooning of the absurdity of our collective obsessions it’s hard to describe any one piece.

A lot has been made of the fact that Felipe Smith is an American cartoonist who has successfully bridged the gap between “manga-influenced” and “manga-ka,” which, if my parsing of that makes it sound like an enormous leap, then I’m not going far enough. That is a Herculean feat, to be sure. I remember being astounded at Paul Pope’s crushing stories of pages and volumes of work never published while he was under contract with a Japanese publisher in the '90s. I think Smith succeeds where Pope failed for two reasons—first, his art is powerfully influenced by manga, and manga now is in no small part influenced by the west. I mean, open a page of Peepo Choo and hold it next to a page from Natsume Ono’s not simple from Viz. Which one is the manga-inspired cartoonist and which one the western-inspired manga-ka? Not to pick on Paul Pope, but THB, and everything before his journey down the manga rabbit hole, is much more influenced by South American and European cartoonists, mostly Hugo Pratt, than any Japanese work. Felipe Smith has already absorbed the rhythms, the lines, and the sensibilities of manga—it’s part of his art’s DNA.

But more so than this, I think Smith succeeds for a second, more visceral and relevant reason. He doesn’t give a damn what anybody thinks about his work. He’s been doing his own thing from the get-go, and he doesn’t need your approval, or the Kodansha editor’s, or the readers of Morning Two, where this was first published. Sure, he needs your money, and the approval of Kodansha if they're going to publish it, but, let’s face it, he’s not about to change a line, or a character, or a word or phrase to suit anyone but his own artistic and satirical sensibilities. Why does this lead to success? Well there's not a hesitant line, beat, character, or anything in the whole volume. It's all strong stuff, and the better for its over-the-top tone.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t “merely” satire. Smith does care about one thing—his story and his characters. Especially his characters. He loves them even as he lampoons them. Maybe more than other cartoonists and writers because they live in a world that mocks them, and yet you can see Smith’s hand as he guides his characters, like fate, through the story, protecting the innocent even as their (mis)perceptions of their world are assaulted and torn down. There’s refuge for the forlorn and lost in this tale—but delicious will be the moment that everyone gets what coming to them! Especially that damn “Peepo Choo” character—iconic representation of everything vile about Pikachu and everything it represents. Or doesn’t, really. After all, Japan doesn’t come wrapped in a Pokemon ball, and Hollywood hasn’t been able to fit all of America in a glock. At least, so far.

Finally, it's important to note: Felipe Smith walks the line between satire of the culture of sex (read: porn) and extreme violence as closely as possible. That’s right, he’s also mocking you, the discerning comics/manga reader who insists that these things are for "mature adults" now. There’s no pulling that off with this book: that cover should tell you everything you need to know about whether or not it’s a good idea to read this on the subway, at a restaurant, in front of your mother, wife, children, grandpa, etc. Or, to put it another way, when my bookstore co-worker saw this and found out I had ordered it, she said in a whisper to another employee: “it comes wrapped in plastic. Like porn!” Like I said at the beginning, Felipe Smith wants to punch us all in the face. Repeatedly, until we start laughing.

Age Rating: Older Teen

Genre: Drama/Mecha

Price: $12.95

I guess this shows my age, but I’m one of those kids that was part of the original Power Rangers generation. When I was little, I would wake up early to watch Power Rangers, chomping at a bowl of Cheerios and waiting to see what kind of cool, gigantic monster the Power Rangers would have to fight. I’m sure that this formative education is why I enjoy the mediocre Rosario + Vampire; I can’t get enough of the baddies Tsukune and his harem fight every week.

The giant robots genre is a staple in both Japanese and American pop culture. Voltron, the Autobots, and Power Rangers litter the kid’s television landscape. Most of these shows, with a few notable exceptions, are sugar sweet, sappy tales that don’t really challenge the viewer in an emotional fashion – and why should they? These shows are media intended to be consumed by kids around the age of 5.

Some writers have challenged the status quo of the genre, but none have done it quite as effectively as Mohiro Kito, a writer with a knack for subverting seemingly incorruptible subject matter. His manga Bokurano: Ours, published as a part of the Viz Media Signature Line, takes the age-old formula and asks this simple question – “What would real children do if they had the ability to power a gigantic robot?” The picture painted by Kito is one that is part Gundam and part Lord of the Flies.

In Bokurano: Ours, 15 children stumble upon a cave full of computers and a man who calls himself Kokopelli who claims to be developing a video game. The kids all want to play, and so they place their hands on a stand and say their names as a part of an elaborate sign-up process. What they don’t realize is that the “game” they’ve signed up for is a battle against aliens trying to destroy the Earth. To twist the plot even more, the children realize that the battles aren’t all fun and games when the first chosen pilot falls dead after a successful battle.

Now chained into an existence certain to cause their deaths with no possible means of escape, the pilots of the giant robot Zearth must decide how to use their power in the last moments of life. Some will surely use their power for good, but others, as shown in the third arc of the first volume, will be reckless, or even vindictive in their final moments. The result is a candid and somewhat depressing view of the world we live in. Bokurano: Ours treads dangerous water in this regard. If the book’s content becomes too depressing, with no bright light to pull the reader out of it, the work is merely a dark, nihilistic torture porn, and cannot adequately convey the candid message it is trying to deliver. At the same time, the series cannot stray from its path; we know that there are 15 pilots, and that 15 will die. To deviate is a cop-out. Either path is disastrous.

Still, Bokurano: Ours, at least for the time being, manages to walk the line very carefully, and delivers its message with surprising punch. Whether or not the series can stay afloat, or be drowned by the emotional weight of its own plot, is something that will be enumerated in further volumes.

Age Rating: 18+
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Price: $14.99

The biggest growing issue with Berserk (aside from the fact that Miura is only publishing a handful of chapters each year) is that the plot has been plodding along for some time now. Sure, there have been some big battles in the previous volumes. Unfortunately, though, a big showdown does not always equate to a big revelation. The only thing volume 33 does really well is let the reader know that volume 34 will contain some huge, earth-shattering moments.

A ho-hum battle is fought against pirates, which establishes Roderick and his crew as the best sailors around--at the cost of an entire chapter. Yes, once again Miura proves that he can draw a huge sweeping battle scene and discuss nautical battle tactics, but it's done to the point of overkill. His drawings are stuffed with details: splintering wood, booming cannons, giant clouds of smoke, and turbulent seas. There are countless pirate crew members decked out in hats, bandannas, and vests whose entire lives last no more than a single panel. While readers can certainly appreciate this painstaking attention to detail, it makes me wonder if this will be a chapter that plays any amount of importance in the story to come, or if it's all a grandiose exhibition of skill for a throwaway encounter. I guess I'll find out in the next volume (or two).

Schierke continues to train Farnese in the magical arts, which leads to them spying on Guts watching Casca from a distance. They've both been wondering for sometime why he goes out of his way to protect her and it makes the reader wonder (for the billionth time) exactly when they're going to find out the whole truth of Guts and Griffith and the eclipse.

Speaking of Guts and Casca, there is a fantastic moment involving the two of them aboard the ship. When Casca (who has been senseless for how many volumes now?) takes a tumble into the sea, Guts tries to catch her. He realizes, too late, that he's reached out with his fake arm and he can't grip her hand properly. Later, Guts reflects on how he his fake arm was something he designed to help him kill, not save. It's moments like these that remind me just how good Berserk can be: it doesn't have to be flashy fights with impossible monsters. Instead, the most intriguing fight is the one that is constantly raging inside of Guts, who is still trying to sort out his real goal. Which is more important, killing Griffith or protecting his new band of friends? The ever-fascinating Berserker armor comes to life again midway through the volume, providing some excellent inner-monologue that covers this very subject.

While the volume as a whole is a bit of let-down because it's so much of a build-up, I can still say that I am eagerly anticipating the cataclysmic events of volume 34. There are also a few genuinely nice character moments scattered throughout, which provide a little bit of payoff in a mostly side-tracked set of chapters.

 

Genre: BL/yaoi/anthology
Age Rating: M/Mature/18+
Price: $13.95

Don't let the title mislead you: Reversible is not an anthology about BL couples who switch sexual roles. In fact, it doesn't seem to have much of a theme at all -- not that it needs one; although the eleven stories featured are all by different artists and have a wide range of types of characters and situations, they feel as if they're coming from a similar place. Perhaps because the artists are relative newcomers, this anthology being their collective debut on the US market, the stories have an original, off-beat feel that makes them refreshing to read.

The collection gets off to a good start with "Tell Me You Like Me" by Saki Takarai, a funny, sweet, and erotic story about an established relationship between two office colleagues. Takarai's characters are well-observed, and her art style has a lovely loose openness that gives each page a sense of motion and each facial expression a sense of life. This may be my favourite of all the stories in the book, not least because the main characters' relationship feels very real, full of little pitfalls and difficulties but also brimming with warmth that's a joy to read about. My second favourite would have to be Neri Koizumi's "Sakuragawa University Cheer Squad", in which a hard-drinking university student falls for a kindergarten teacher; it has a down-to-earth charm and a slightly goofy humour that reminds me of Ellie Mamahara's Alley of First Love; and as with Alley of First Love, Koizumi manages to populate her world with vivid and well-realised secondary characters in a short span of pages.

There are three stories here that deal with high school love triangles; Kazuha's "Tri-Color Love Song" appears to be the first chapter of an ongoing series, which is a little frustrating to see in an anthology of otherwise self-contained stories, though as a first chapter it's intriguing enough to make me want to see what happens next. Haruki Fujimoto's "Boyfriend" goes the other way and is itself divided into chapters, each chapter giving us a different character's point of view. The ending is unresolved, and while I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was a sequel in the works, it's strangely satisfying as it is, with a multitude of hints at things going on under the surface that aren't made explicit and don't need to be. Of all the stories in the collection, this one has the most interesting art, reminiscent of Takako Shimura at times. "Perfect Age" is a little hard to understand at first -- the characters' names aren't given early enough, so that untangling who's talking about whom is tricky -- but it has a sweetly melancholic tone and a light, open art style, both of them rare and lovely.

Also featuring high schoolers, but without a love triangle, are "Caged Bird" by Kometa Yonekura, "It Falls At Night" by Shiori Ikezawa, and "Dear Boys" by Misora Hatori. Like "Tri-Color Love Song", "Dear Boys" is very obviously the first chapter of an ongoing series; unfortunately, it feels much less complete than the "Tri-Color Love Song" chapter, with the little that happens on-page seeming more like setup than an actual story, and not the setup for anything particularly unusual either. (Gosh, an ordinary boy goes to a private boys' school with a powerful student council and unusually attractive students? Never seen that before.) "It Falls At Night" is a charming little piece about two boys taking advantage of summer break to sneak around their school grounds -- and running into something unexpected on the way; "Caged Bird" is on the surface a pretty typical "why does he love me?" story, but Yonekura generates a sense of intensity of emotion that lifts it above the norm.

Rounding out the collection are the sweet but unremarkable "Catch!", the quirky and fun "Office Mermaid", and the slightly disappointing "Happiness, Fun, Kindness", which doesn't really do enough with its premise -- if your main character is an angel who's fallen to earth, I expect you to use that as the basis for something really interesting, not just some smoochy conversations with his human boyfriend.

But none of the stories are bad, and the few less-good ones aside, this collection is very high quality -- a substantial and varied array of fresh, heartwarming, entertaining stories with enough quirks and originality to be refreshing and distinctive. I look forward to seeing more work from all these artists; with this as their US debut, they've got off on the right foot.

Age Rating: Not Rated; Older Teen

Genre: Drama

Price: $24.95

A collection of short stories in the gekiga tradition, people who are familiar with Yoshihiro Tatsumi may be as surprised as I was by the strangely positive stories in this volume. All are set in remote mountain villages untouched by modern conveniences, and focus on events in the lives of the mountain residents. Many also feature touches of folk tales and fantasy creatures to woven into the narrative.

The stories vary widely, from coming-of-age stories (Mulberry, about a squabbling young boy and girl who suddenly mature when the girl, who lives in a brothel, gets her first period) to love stories (in Funeral for Wild Geese, a man caught in a blizzard gives up his old life to marry a lonely local woman) to eerie supernatural comeuppance stories (in Kokeshi, the mentally unbalanced master of the village goes around ravaging women until he is avenged by the kappa who were born of the miscarriages of his illegitimate children). Even the darkest subject matter is somehow lightened by the mountain setting and the attitudes of the characters, who seem intent on making the best of things rather than dwelling on their misfortunes. The folk tale elements are also well wrought and lend a sense of the unreal to the events, be it a tree spirit seeking out its young female lover as its last act, a restless ghost taking form as an avenging cloud of fireflies, or a kappa out to protect the honor of a battered wife. 

My favorite story in the volume was Pulp Novel About a Sack. It features a wandering monk who happens into a village of older women whose husbands have all left to find work elsewhere. When one of the women goes too far when assisting him with his bath, the town residents work out a deal and... "pass him around like a rosary bead" while keeping him captive in a burlap bag. It's shocking because of its content, but it's even more extraordinary due to the fact that a man is the one being victimized, something you rarely see in this type of story. It also keeps an entirely neutral perspective, casting the women in neither a desperate or evil light, so that the reader is forced to make their own conclusions. The neutral perspective and dark story also stand in sharp contrast to the picturesque rural setting and depiction of quiet village life. Neutralizing a brutal topic comes up again in Kokeshi, where the story of the village master abusing women is set against scenery where kappa slip in and out of the paths of angry villagers and kokeshi dolls are used as a plot device later. Interestingly, in this story, the rape is avenged, unlike in Pulp Novel.

Not all the stories deal with dark subject matter. Some are pleasant, and sometimes they end well, but never do they moralize or balance good against evil. They simply tell a story, and rather the story is good or bad, the people good or evil, is left entirely to your own judgement. The characters reflect surprisingly little on the events, and sometimes all the reader is left with is a slice of life narrative. All are extremely well-told, however.  Much like the Tatsumi books, the pacing can be slow and the subject matter dark, but these are excellent examples of the comic short story done right, and should appeal widely to an adults outside the manga audience.

Age Rating: Teen 13+
Genre: Comedy/Shojo
Price: $9.99

When two mysterious young men walk into the café to declare war, Uru’s passion gets the best of everyone, and they accept the challenge—with one condition: the loser will have to quit the industry for good. However, just before the contest, Shindo sprains his wrist! And when Uru’s mother shows up at Bonheur, will she convince Uru to go back home? Café Bonheur will have to survive through some turbulent times if it’s to stay happy—and in business!

In Kou Matsuzuki's second volume of Happy Cafe the story picks up right where it left us in the first volume with Uru cheerfully serving customers delicious sweets made by the hands of a seeming-not-so-sweet Shindo. In Café Bonheur things heat up when the Abekawa brothers present a challenge that puts their business on the line.

Within this second volume of Happy Cafe the setting of the story began to evolve outside of Café Bonheur as it brought in new characters from a rival cafe. As a reader I felt that it expanded the cafe from being the main focal point and fleshed out the personalities of the main characters more by having them interact outside the circle of just Uru, Shindo, and Ichiro. Yet again Uru's mother, Yukie, attempts to bring her daughter back home for good. This time around I felt that Yukie showed more genuine concern about Uru's well-being overall.

Overall I enjoyed the next installment of this series. As the main characters began to develop I was better able to distinguish Shindo from Ichiro, which during the first volume initially was somewhat daunting if it wasn't for the two male characters having different hair colors. The introduction of the Abekawa brothers, who also thankfully have different hair colors, as rivals was presented more as pranksters than an actual threat to the business of the cafe. In the least it was able to showcase to the reader a better image of what the Happiness Town district is made of.

At the end of this volume contains Kou Matsuzuki's debut work, Estimated Young Man and Girl. It may be a romance one-shot that is full of cliches but it was a bonus. After seeing how much more detailed and fleshed out her current work, Happy Cafe, is in comparison to Estimated Young Man and Girl, I have a better appreciation and longing to see how her art will develop more in the coming volumes.

This may not be the most complex or profound shojo title I've come across in 2010 but it is a delightful treat when looking for something light and carefree to read.
 

Genre: Autobiography/Memoir
Rating: Older Teen
Price: $29.95

Winner of 2010 Eisner for Best U.S. Edition of International Matierial-Asia!

Nearly 850 pages of pure comics genius. And it feels like it ends just a bit abruptly.

But that's a minor point against it. A Drifting Life is epic. It's sort of a mashup of several things, even though it's an autobiography mainly about the comics career of Yoshihiro Tatsumi. He also draws highly from his family life, even far into his adulthood.

What's interesting about the work is that pieces of history and other short elements are woven into the narrative in a way that makes this more than just an autobiography -- it's sort of a window into the era and culture of Japan.

But, most importantly, it's about comics.

Tatsumi grew up interested in comics, so the main focus through the work is on his career as a manga creator and how that meshed with his personal and school lives. But it starts at the end of World War II, just as the Japanese emperor announced the surrender of the country. The earliest reference to comics in the work is Tatsumi asking his brother if he was able to find Osamu Tezuka's "Lost World."

Tatsumi and his brother grew up admiring comics and adoring Tezuka and others. They both dreamed of a future comics career. Tatsumi engaged in his passion, creating comics and sending them in to Manga Shonen and other publications. At first his works were not good enough to be published. But then he kept getting his works published, sometimes even two works in one publication.

From there, he and several other young manga-ka formed the Children's Manga Association and published their works. One of the most striking parts of the novel came after his Tatsumi, in his teen years, found that his brother had torn up lots of his comics pages, partially because of jealousy and partially because he was sick for an extended time and was unable to create anything.

Cinema was a main thread through the novel, too. Tatsumi would see double and triple features when films came to Japan. Then he would take elements of storytelling of what he had seen and translate that and use them in his comics. For him, comics were a form that could handle alternative storytelling, and he experimented with that a lot. He started to watch a lot of film, domestic and foreign, and became enthralled with a lot of foreign films, among them "Bambi."

The work also focused on creators working for multiple publishing houses. In those instances, the competing house that agreed to print the artist's work would ascribe a pen name to it, so that the publishing house that worked with the artist first would not see a loss of income from consumers looking for a specific artist.

Tokyo. It's the capital of Japan, and it's also the place where Tatsumi and others tried to get their own artists coalition going. But it ended up throttling Tatsumi's creativity because he would spend so much of his time trying to correspond with the others, edit their works and perform all the behind-the-scenes duties. Eventually coalition sizzled out, and Tatsumi was all the happier for it doing so.

Other things Tatsumi touches upon in the work include his family relationships (his dad in particular seems to be quite a character), uneasiness around women, and thoughts on comics. (Quite often he engages in arguments with his brother, who seems to hold a more traditional sense of what comics should be; the two butt heads more than a handful of times.)

Perhaps the one thing that did seem lacking about this monster work was the end, at least in terms of Tatsumi's career. There was one final scene from 1995, a skip of 35 years from the previous scene. It's a bit odd that the author would choose to skip over so much of his career, but that could be that he felt he had told all of his influence on comics already. And he'd certainly be right. Still, I found the ending just a big lacking, almost like crashing into a wall.

But the ending was not enough to pull down the work as a whole. In fact, it is quite an accomplishment to not only show his creative side, but to do so in a way that is endearing and interesting. You won't want to put this down.

Publisher's info: All penniless college student Taiga Mutou wants is a cool job and a cute older woman as a girlfriend. So when he spies a Help Wanted sign outside an office and a hot girl inside, he applies for the job, no questions asked. After a few bumps at the beginning, things start going Taiga's way, prompting him to steel his courage and ask out Yuiko, that hot girl he spied through the window, on a date. And when she later asks him if it's okay that she's a fujoshi (a very, shall we say, distinct kind of comics/animation geek), he tells her it's fine out of sheer excitement. But poor Taiga has no idea how much trouble he's just gotten himself into!

Last week, I reviewed Peepo Choo, by Felipe Smith, a manga that viciously, but hilariously rips into otaku culture (among other). It seems that getting geeks to laugh at themselves in manga is on the upswing, because this week’s book, My Girlfriend’s a Geek Vol. 1, pokes fun at fujoshi, or the girl fan of boys love (bl) anime and manga. However, where Felipe Smith uses satire like an explosive force, in this series, Rize Shinba, uses a subtle, even gentle hand, turning the mocking lampoon into an affectionate jest. You might say the fujoshi and the boys who love them are more ribbed than ridiculed here.

My Girlfriend’s a Geek is quite charming, a layered, frothy comedy of errors where our hapless hero, Taiga Mutou finds himself willingly falling down the rabbit hole as he follows his new girlfriend into her secret world of manga fantasies and predilections. What’s exploited very well here is the triangulated distance between the girlfriend Yuiko’s full-on, hardcore fandom, the reader’s knowledge of that fandom, and Taiga’s complete lack of awareness of everything he’s getting into. We laugh because we know what Taiga does not: we know what Yuiko means when she tells Taiga that she finds his formal speech cute because, “the hints of younger man Seme really tug at my heart. Polite speech is so Moe!”

In this first volume, much of his reaction is to shrug off the strange and murky aspects of Yuiko’s obsessions with a kind of “who cares, I’ve got a hot older girlfriend” attitude. It isn’t until about three-quarters in that he begins to get a clue as to what kind of relationship he’s in, or what kind of place he has in Yukio’s fujoshi-colored-glasses view of the world. And, while I imagine this is even more funny if you are a gal like Yukio, I found an interesting perspective reading it as a former young geek who’s only desire was a girlfriend. The way the geek roles are reversed, but not the typical gender roles (Taiga wants to get the girl, Yukio is the older, pretty object of his affections), mean I get a certain kind of laugh just seeing the frisson of desires that at times complement and at times confound one another. (It’s also nice to see that it wasn’t necessarily my own geek obsessions holding me back as a young man…)

Not only did I enjoy this volume, but I also wonder what’s in store for our young couple—where does this lead them? What conflicts lie ahead? And will Taiga ever be able to get ahead of the curve on Yukio’s perverse imagination? It’s definitely worth checking in so see where Rize Shinba takes things.

Side note—there’s an excerpt from the book that this manga is based on, which evidently was developed from a blog. (Sort of like if they made a tv show based on S**t My Dad Says…oh, wait) That was terrible, I thought, and made me feel even better about this manga. Rize Shinba has crafted a fun bit of comedy and romance out of a bumbling, yapping unfunny mess.

Age Rating: Teen
Genre: Drama
Price: $11.99

Claire Lyons is the new girl at Octavian Country Day, an exclusive private school in Westchester County, New York, but this girl in GAP overalls isn't even close to prepared for the social (and fashion) demands of her new peers. To make matters worse, Claire's family has moved into the guesthouse of the Block family, and Massie Block just happens to be the queen supreme of Claire's new school and hasn't taken a liking to the new girl squatting on her estate! Does Claire have what it takes to become a part of The Clique?

Yishan Li’s manga adapation of Lisi Harrison’s popular Young Adult novel series The Clique is filled with melodramtic moments, pranks, and friendship rivalries.

Claire and her family moves into the guesthouse of Massie until her family can become more financially stable. Before even getting a glimpse of Claire, Massie has already had it set in her mind that she will not like nor have any intention of becoming friends with the poor girl. Initially naive Claire tries to be chums with Massie til making a few friends of her own at the elite Octavian Country Day school located in Westchester County that  they both attend. After being pushed aside and being the butt of pranks Claire decides to push back with some schemes of her own.

Overall the artwork for this volume is done very well. I enjoyed the eight full pages of color in the beginning of the book along with the illustration of Claire and Massie’s group of “it” girls. The illustration of the girls turned out to be a handy reference while reading. One of the problems I had was with the character Dylan since her appearance to Massie was very similar (along with her attitude which makes it all the more difficult to distinguish the two.)

Before I even picked up this book I expected that I would have not enjoyed reading this because I have never come across any of the novels, nor had a desire to do so. But I was surprised to find this to be a quick, light, and somewhat enjoyable read. Perhaps the melodrama is thicker in the novels since I was half-hoping for it to be much more fierce and spiteful between Claire and Massie.

Age Rating: M (18+)
Genre: Romance?
Price: $19.99

At the age of twenty-five, newlyweds Makoto and Yura experience intercourse for the first time. 

Now, with their first anniversary right arund the corner, Makoto and Yura are just as determined to be sexually fulfilled as the day they said their vows!  But fears Makoto might be cheating test Yura's trust and inhibit her libido, while their niece Jun looks for love in all the wrong places.  Follow the hot young couple as they step up into love and continue getting it on... and on... and on!

This volume continues the one-shot chapter formula, with the bulk of the focus on Makoto and Yura learning the best ways to satisfy one another amid a variety of everyday situations (ski trips, separations due to work, various anniversaries, et cetera).  Alternate perspective and advice is offered, however, in chapters about Makoto's over-sexed 20-something sister and Yura's confused and newly available teenage sister.  There's even some advice offered for singles, couples in sexless marriages, and others as well.  It's light on plot, but extremely thorough and very informative in a non-creepy way when it comes to the how-tos.

A likable main couple goes a long way to keeping these books readable, and this volume does do a lot of "stepping up" and deeping of Makoto and Yura's relationship, if nothing else story-wise.  There are less stories about interrupting side characters this time around, and lots and lots of focus on just Makoto and Yura, which means there's a lot of Makoto asking for sex.  It seems he thinks of little else.  This would come off as crass in any other series, but he's completely guileless when he does it, and more often than not, Yura readily accepts.  It also helps that it's clear that he genuinely loves Yura.  There are plenty of chapters where the two dote on each other outside the bedroom, and even a chapter or two completely without sex, but full of affection. 

Having said that, as a romance manga, it's not very good, but that's because the emphasis is on the sex education.  The statistics and factoids are still fascinating, and the variety of situations never fails to amaze me.  This time, we learn the how-to of massage oil, the science of alcohol and sex, different methods and techniques to use in the bath, and even what to do if you want sex while your mother-in-law is visiting.  In addition to thorough, annotated walkthroughs, the usual statistics about how many couples do what and what males and females prefer accompany the how-to sections.

This was unfortunately the last volume Tokyopop released before they restructured, and it seems no further volumes are planned.  But still, these four omnibus volumes stand as one of the more fascinating and unique examples of just how diverse manga in Japan really is.  And it's not bad as a sex guide, either.

Age Rating: 16+
Genre: Horror
Price: $9.95

Traveling in-between the world of the living and the twilight world of the dead, Akamushi, the shaman known as the Red Spider Exorcist, wields the powers of a giant spider to combat the demons of the netherworld. In a serendipitous moment, a young girl meets Akamushi, and falls in love with him at first sight. However, it turns out her grandfather and mother are haunted by a "Waraigao" - a demon that attacks living human bodies from the inside, eroding and eventually deteriorating them!

Volume 2 of Taimashin picked up right where volume 1 left off with Megumi at the hot springs. Her story is finished and a second story starts up involving a young girl whose family seems to be cursed. This volume gives some more insight into the nature of Akamushi, and that he might not be completely the hero he appeared to be in the first volume.

Megumi's story is completed as the truth about her is revealed as is the reason why she is being chased by the demons. There is a climatic battle between Akumushi and Kirai. Iran's attack in the hot springs also comes to fruition with a Ginga seed that she implanted in Akamushi. The tide turns a few times, it all ends happily with Megumi able to finally move on. Megumi's state was fairly obvious by the end of volume 1, but how she came to realize it and who was with her was the twist and it was a good one. This story was a good introduction to Akamushi and Gyouanja, showing what they are capable of doing. They seem to work as a team, supporting each other when needed, but not necessarily fighting together. Akamushi is shown to be dedicated to his work, as he stays with Megumi right up to the very end. And even when faced with an alien plant, he proves to be unable to be killed. But he does seem to have one failing, the same one all men have; he doesn't understand women. His confession of this at the end made for a humorous ending.

The second story that stars in this volume involves another girl, Midori Kurosawa, who is bullied mercilessly at school for being apart of the "Laughing Face Family". The Laughing Face is said to be a face of concentrated human evil. We see its effect of Midori's grandfather, as he eats everything; bugs, tree bark, doors. He even tries to go after Midori. Akamushi is somehow summoned to her family's house. These first few chapters are filled with plenty of action, but very little information is given about what's going on, or who summoned Akamushi.

The glimpses we get into who or what Akamushi is in this story are tantalizing. He isn't completely the "good guy" we're lead to believe he is in the first volume. His arrival up a river causes both human and animals to go insane, causing the death of a fisherman and his family, but he doesn't seem concerned at all about the effect he's having on people. And when he arrives at Midori's house, he seems more excited about being able to feast, spending his time lying around in a spider's web than helping. Gyouanja has to appear and push him into doing something before things get worse. I like how we're not sure who or what Akamushi will be feasting on. And the demonic look on his face is a nice contrast to his usual handsome, placid expression.

This second volume of Taimashin: The Red Spider Exorcist continues to be a great read. Akamushi is a fascinating character. The tidbits that are revealed about him only make you want to know more. He's fun to watch in action. The stories are well written with great setups that pull you in without a lot of explanation, so you have to keep reading. There is some gore. Megumi gets her heart tore out, and Midori's mother stabs herself in the stomach. Don't do what I did and read this during lunch. But beyond these few scenes, there isn't anything really disturbing. This title continues to be a must read.

Genre: BL/yaoi
Age Rating: M/Mature/18+
Price: $12.95

When I first heard you speak your native language, it sounded like some little bird singing. Like the sounds just rang and danced off your tongue. I didn't even think they were words.

I absolutely adored Maiden Rose, even though it's chock full of elements that on some level I think I should take issue with. But the emotional intensity of the story, the superb execution of the art and writing, and the sheer unabashed romanticism of it all sweeps me away on a tide of pleasure and silences my intellectual objections.

Set in a world both like and unlike our own, Maiden Rose is about love in a time of war. Taki Reizen is an aristocrat and military commander in a nation allied to "Eurote"; while abroad on a diplomatic mission, he meets Claus von Wolfstadt, a Saxon whose nation is at war with Eurote. Claus is powerfully smitten, and when Taki is deported for espionage, he demands to go with him, and gives up his wealth, his citizenship and his rights to become Taki's "knight". Taki agrees, over the objections of many in the military who consider Claus dangerously headstrong. "I don't understand why Lord Taki wants such a man around him," says one. "Who cares how capable he is? We call Claus a dog, but the truth is... he's a mad dog."

The story is told in a non-linear way, alternating flashbacks with present-day action so that we often see a situation before seeing how it came to be. In this way, Inariya adds layers of significance to each scene that aren't always immediately apparent, and the manga benefits from being re-read as well as from being read carefully the first time. In particular, Claus and Taki's relationship takes on a different hue in retrospect, when the revelation at the end of the volume makes sense of certain puzzling scenes and deepens the reader's understanding of how much both Claus and Taki have sacrificed and what they are enduring.

The relationship is, naturally, at the core of the story, and it's beautifully realised. Claus is stubborn, headstrong, fiercely independent and heedless of protocol; being in a foreign country, he has no ties to anyone but Taki and doesn't much care, but he's also liable to misread or misunderstand the situations he finds himself in. Taki is equally stubborn and strong-willed, but as a noble in a wartorn land, he is keenly aware of his responsibilities and of the webs of social rules that entangle him. Their relationship is as much a struggle as a joining, as much defined by conflict and abuse as by love. Although Taki is Claus's commander and could have him dismissed or deported with a wave of his hand, in private Claus is the dominant one, and his behaviour is often cruel and brutal. It's hard to get into details without spoiling the story, but suffice it to say that the sex scenes are explicit enough and often unpleasant enough to make more sensitive readers very uncomfortable.

Yet that discomfort is part of the point. Inariya's cleverly constructed a situation in which Taki and Claus can't really win, either by following their own desires or by denying them. That they love each other is not enough, for there is a wide world beyond the two of them, and that world creeps in where it's least wanted, disrupting their most private moments.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Inariya mostly wanted to do this manga so as to indulge a uniform fetish without having to deal with troublesome real-world history; but self-indulgent as it is at times, Maiden Rose is emotionally complex enough to be immensely satisfying to read, and it's gorgeous to look at from the first page to the last; Inariya's layouts are denser than is usual for any manga, especially BL manga, invoking the intensity of battle and sex and the claustrophobia of Taki's highly-scrutinised life, and opening up to lighter, less tightly-packed pages only for those brief moments of emotional clarity. Taki and Claus look convincingly different -- Taki being slender and elegant, Claus tall and muscular -- and convincingly "foreign" to each other without (as is so often the case in BL manga) looking like members of different species. For all that it's set in a fantasy world, Maiden Rose is more realistic than most BL manga.

Minor objections aside, Maiden Rose is a rich, meaty feast of a book, worth tasting and savouring. Highly recommended.

Age Rating: 18+

Genre: BL

Price: $12.95

University study Tetsuhiro Morinaga has been in love with his homophobic, violent and tyrannical sempai Souichi Tatsumi for more than four years now. Even though he’s told Tatsumi how he feels and even managed to steal a kiss, expecting anything more seems like nothing more than the stuff of dreams... That is until the long-oppressed Morinaga gets his biggest chance ever. Might his unendingly unrequited love finally be returned?

You know, I read a lot of boys' love and yaoi manga, and one thing I'll never get used to is the non-consensual sex that happens so frequently.  I take issue with it every time, and it's a stumbling block even for otherwise great series like Gerard and Jacques.  With an entertaining opening, it was hard for me to take that this series used non-con as the catalyst almost immediately.

But that aside, this book was good in a lot of other ways.  It's a follow-up to Challengers (released by DramaQueen), but this series follows a different set of characters.  The foul-mouthed gay-basher Tatsumi steals the show, and makes for an unlikely romantic interest.  Nothing seems to please him, and he even yells and complains all the way through the sex scenes, when most victims of non-con simply take it in these series.

I was a little disappointed that a character like him was somewhat wasted here, since there could be a really great story built up around relieving him of his prejudices.  Non-con isn't the way to start that story, though, and he unfortunately... begins to pine after Morinaga after he disappears at a certain point in the book.  Happily, he's not head-over-heels, or a total convert, but there's at least one sappy scene that I didn't want just yet.

I also like the setting, and the fact that the characters are adults, which are things I prefer when reading yaoi manga.  The art is also quite good, especially for a BL series, with crisp thin lines and just enough detail. 

The series is five volumes long, and with so much condensed in the first book, part of me wonders if there's four volumes of material left, but on the other hand, I do very much want to see how Tatsumi develops a soft side.  A great character is really all it takes to hook me in one of these series.

Age Rating: Older Teen
Genre: Action
Price: $10.99

While I can’t say that I have a love-hate relationship with shonen manga, I do tend to be a bit critical of it at times.  In some instances (Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, and Cat Paradise  come to mind) the genre can be breath-taking, hilarious, awesome, and heart-rending. I think this has a lot more to do with developing a great set of characters, and essentially allowing them to interact in natural ways. It doesn’t matter if the characters are shamans, alchemists, pirates, demon-fighters, or bakers – if the author can give me awesome characters, I’ll generally love the book. The plot has to go somewhere, but good characters are what make the best manga. The same is true for the opposite side of the coin. Books that have poorly developed characters get left at the bookstore, even if the setting and art are awesome. This seems to be the trend for some of the latest shonen offerings from a variety of publishers. Case in point? Nabari no Ou.

Nabari no Ou introduces us to Miharu, a young boy who has been born with the power of the Shinra Banshou written on his being. He is confronted by his English teacher and fellow classmate, who urge him to join their Nindo club – essentially, a masked form of training for Miharu. Things get a little hairy, and after a fight with the Grey Wolves, a faction of ninja intent on capturing Miharu and extracting the secret art out of him, Miharu, Tobari, Raimei, and Kouichi all start a search to acquire the secret arts of the various Ninja clans so that Miharu can activate the Shinra Banshou and become the Nabari no Ou.

In my review of the first volume, I suggested Nabari no Ou as a good read, saying that “[if] you're looking for something that isn't Naruto, this is a good place to start. [Nabari no Ou]’s style and characters make it much different than other ninja manga, and that's a good thing.” Into the fourth volume, I still have to say that Nabari no Ou is definitely not Naruto. Unfortunately, I may have to revise my comments slightly.

It might have been better if it were Naruto.

The plot of the comic isn’t bad. It’s part ninja, part magic, part supernatural intrigue, and it all flows together in some sort of mindless mishmash that you generally see in action-packed books. Mysterious bad guys, ultimate super powers, striving to be the best – it’s all been done before. So it’s not that hard to see that the plot, while serviceable, is generally unremarkable. The art is great, to a point, as long as you can get over the doe-eyed main character and what the author assumes passes for emotive facial-expressions (generally, all the characters in Nabari no Ou do is stare at things).

The characters are another thing entirely. It seems that Yuhki Kamatani, the author of the series, believes that the best way to develop a character is to envelop them in secrets and slowly peel off layers like an onion. This technique can be pretty effective, if done correctly. The trick is that most stories start half-cut into the onion. We already see a complex character, and the secrets covered up in their most inner layers add to the complexity. Nabari no Ou makes the mistake of starting each character at the papery shell of their personhood, so to speak – where the complexity is completely covered up, and only a sliver of character can be exposed. Miharu, the indifferent. Raimei, the spunky samurai/ninja. Kouichi, the nerdy murderer.  Instead of knowing more, and getting a sense of the seriousness of the storyline and the character interactions, we have very little information to work with. What happens is that instead of carrying the story, the characters collapse into it.

Now, there are some exceptions to my generalizations. I find the mysterious, murderous Yoite a compelling anti-hero, and he intrigues me, but he is beset by the same character development issues. In the first four volumes he generally just kills things, and coughs up blood. Well, wait, why do I like this character again?

I enjoy a good shonen bash every now and then, and I can certainly understand why some readers might enjoy the bits of action interspersed with snarky, off-the-wall humor. This is certainly not Naurto, and while I may not like the fox and his 50+ volume epic story, I can’t say that Nabari no Ou is a better comic. It lacks strength of storytelling, but this only readily becomes apparent after two or three volumes.

Bottom line: While Nabari no Ou will initially amuse you, its shoddy character development can’t sustain a complex plot into later volumes.

These three volumes of One Piece are about 2/3 of the way through the Water Seven arc. It's the longest arc so far. Volume 40 has Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates racing through Enies Lobby, the court of the World Government to rescue Robin. They are joined by the Franky Family and Galley-La company who are there to save Franky who was taken by CP9. It's mostly Luffy  plowing through with the rest coming from behind. Volume 41 reveals Robin's childhood and why she is the most wanted person by the World Government. Volume 42 begins the battle between the Straw Hat Pirates and CP9 to save Robin.

Volume 40 is mostly all fighting. Luffy is just punching everyone in his way and moving on, while the rest of the Straw Hats and Franky Family take on the ever-growing resistance from the marines on the island. This volume is a good example of how Eiichiro incorporates flashbacks for characters into battles, keeping them from becoming tedious. In this volume, we learn more about the King Bulls Sodomu and Gomora. They were rescued by the Franky Family, and have sworn their loyalty to them. These flashbacks, often short and spread out through the fight gives the characters a motive, and makes their determination more understandable. They are fighting for the sake of fighting, but because they believe in something and have someone to protect. I also liked the tie-in back to Giant Kings the Straw Hats met back at the beginning of the Baroque Works Arc. Usopp's information about their true whereabouts gets the Giants at the gates to switch to their side.

Volume 41 is entirely dedicated to showing Robin's back story. I think to be a Straw Hat Pirate, one must have a tragic past, which Robin has in spades. She's lost her homeland, her mother, her friends, and was make public enemy #1 all in one day. This incident also reveals who I think is the true enemy of One Piece. Even though there are bad people and pirates that the Straw Hats have fought in the world, none can really compare to evil the World Government and their military arm, the Marines have done. For the sake of covering up the past and keep the truth from getting out, they destroyed an entire island and all the knowledge, including the people, that was collected on it. This might sound a little weird, but I felt more strongly about the loss of knowledge and archaeologists than Robin's personal losses. I can deal with people hurting other people, but wholesale censorship, which is essentially what the World Government was doing, I have no tolerance for.

What really made these volumes shine was Luffy and his dedication to Robin as a friend and companion. Friendship is supposed to be one of the components of Shonen Jump stories, but One Piece takes this further. Luffy is like the embodiment of friendship. It's always been important to him. Sides don't mean anything and don't get in his way. A friend is a friend, no matter what. Luffy's constant striving to get stronger is based in his desire to protect his friends and would willingly die fighting to save any of them. How many friends can you say you have like that? There is no compromise with Luffy when it comes to friendship. He ignores Robin's protestations of rescue, and rejects her declaration that she wants to die. After hearing what the World Government did to Robin and her homeland, he has their flag burned down, effectively declaring war on them. There are no limits to what Luffy will do for a friend, and I really like that. At one point, Oda draws an awesome scene of the Straw Hat Pirates lined up on the wall opposite Robin, showing their solidarity and determination to rescue her no matter what. The impact of it isn't lost on either Robin or the reader. The Straw Hats are the friends that Robin didn't realize she was looking for, but was told she would find out at sea by the giant Saul before her island was blown up.

Volume 42 returns to the more typical one-on-one fighting that is usually seen in Shonen Jump titles. Now it's CP9 vs the Straw Hat Pirates as the race to rescue Robin continues. Only now Robin has joined the struggle. Now that she's found real friends, she doesn't want to lose them.

One Piece is an unusual tile for Shonen Jump in that its protagonists can have tragic background and typical goals of most Shonen Jump titles, but it doesn't fall into a lot of the failings of those other titles. No one gets angsty about their past, at least not for long, or about not being powerful enough. If they aren't, they just keep working to get better. Luffy's simplistic approach to life and enthusiastic attitude makes it impossible for anyone, character or reader to stay down for long.

No matter how serious the story gets, One Piece never loses the fun and adventure that made it popular in the first place. And that's what makes this a title to never stop reading.

 

Age Rating: Teen
Genre: Romance
Price: $10.99

When I first read through Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, I was floored at how… bad it was.

Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution is a book about a big girl named Hitomi who likes to eat sweets, and hangs out with 5 extremely hot dudes that all live in the apartment complex that her brother operates. She’s generally a nice girl, but her big size gets her in trouble, and in a Wallflower kind of way, she decides to get healthy with the help of these gorgeous men.

When I first read the book, I had a hard time making sense of it, for a few reasons. I suppose Ugly Duckling's Love Revolution would make sense to you if you had played the dating sim originally published in Japan by GungHo Online Entertainment. If you played the game I suppose you would understand the back story, the characters, and the relationship that the female lead has with all these guys. It’s the content that makes any story interesting. With all that backlog of content, you could easily step into this manga and really enjoy the extra non-game content in it.

But without any of that previous understanding, Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution is a freaking mess. There is no backstory or development to be found in this book, so what you're really getting is a sort of slice-of-life comedy with out the "life" part.

One of the only things I enjoyed about Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution is the fact that our main character, Hitomi, (who is 220 lbs, height unknown) is drawn as a fat person. This is something I don’t expect much from shojo. We see this trend to draw characters in the same way throughout the book, or to make people look normal when apparently they aren’t. In Kimi ni Todoke the main character is this cute girl with long black hair, and apparently she’s supposed to be this creepy ghoul-looking person.  Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution does not fall into that trap, and that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s the only good thing about this book.

As soon as I laid eyes on the cover of Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, I began to dislike the art style. One of the major things I don’t like is that the main character is drawn as a caricature of a fat person. She has a bulbous nose and squinty eyes, and her body is made up of huge circles. She doesn’t look like a real person – she looks like a balloon or some sort of inflatable toy. Another chubby classmate is drawn in the same way. It’s supposed to be funny, but it just looks crude, as though the author doesn’t know how to draw characters that aren’t smoking hot dudes. I understand the point is to force me to focus on her actions instead of her looks, but I prefer characters to not look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  I realize that manga isn’t necessarily the beacon for art that looks natural or realistic, but there’s a reason I dislike chibi illustration.

My irritation with Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution continues with the plot, which is completely fragmented. Reading this book feels like we’re seeing different stretches in time where big plot events have happened in between what’s illustrated. It seems to me that the manga is literally trying to fill in spaces where the video game didn’t explore very thoroughly, which is completely bizarre without a game to play to bounce the book off of. For example, earlier in the series we see Hitomi bringing cookies of some type home from the store to eat while she studies, and she can’t keep her mind off of them. Typical fattie behavior, right? Well, somewhere between chapter four and chapter five, our heroine has some startling revelation that she needs to cut back on sweets and start exercising. She’s already started a training regimen with one of the hot boys, and every time she sees a sweet or candy, she has the willpower to avoid it and not eat it. Now that’s a change – when did that happen? And that’s the main issue – the change is remarkable only in that it’s something to talk about in the chapter and no amount of exposition or dialogue attempts to address this gaping hole in the timeline of the story.

On another note, each of the five boys that the main character, Hitomi, is supposed to interact with on a “dating-sim” level never stands out further than the archetype that character represents in these types of games, and that’s really a shame. The soft-spoken boy with glasses never differentiates himself from the yakuza runaway or the grumpy class president. When the character feature that distinguishes one of the five romantic leads from the rest of the group is the visor he wears, that says something about the quality of the author’s writing and character development.  (i.e. IT’S TUUUURRIBLE)

When it comes down to brass tax, Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution is shoddy workmanship, in every way. Poorly illustrated characters interact and develop poorly, all while floating through a poorly constructed plot.

 

Age Rating: Teen
Genre: Drama/Romance
Price: $10.99

Thrust in the middle of a family feud, Jae-Gyu reluctantly accepts Whie-Hwan’s proposal (he may be a jerk, but he’s loaded!). For the next month, she’s agreed to pose as his live-in girlfriend and obey his every command! It’s been less than a week since she moved to Seoul, and already she’s in way over her head! And small-town life has done little to prepare her for the dark deeds of city nightlife. When Jae-Gyu’s ignorance lands her in a roomful of eager playboys with money to burn, will it be her millionaire “boyfriend” or her rock star admirer who comes to the rescue?

This next installment of Gong GooGoo's Sugarholic picks up right where it left off in the first volume. The seemingly ignorant Jea-Gyu ends up staying at rich boy Whie-Hwan's apartment and agrees to his demands of being in a fake relationship with him in an attempt to fool his guardian and to atone for the ordeal she caused in the previous volume . In a plot twist this will end up being to Jea-Gyu's advantage as staying at her brother's place turns out not to be so stable after all.

One of the big draws that I have towards this series is the humor that stems from Jea-Gyu's self embarrassing moments that she isn't even conscious of while doing. For me it is a reminder that she isn't a city slicker and has much to learn about the vile aspects of what city life has to hold; especially when night falls. As a reader it is hard to tell whether she blindly believes that her friend's coworkers are taking her to some fancy party as a paid guest or if she is just that nonchalant that she doesn't care either way. So far the plot has been building up these various situations involving Jae-Gyu but nothing has really blown up in her face or begin to unravel before her. This pulls me in more to see if the plot will build up more and more or will it unravel in one fell swoop by the hands of fate.

I really enjoyed that this volume comes with a sneak-peak at what happened after a certain "kiss." The great artwork and thickening plot is keeping me interested in how this series will unfold. Hoping that Whie-Hwan and pop stars get fleshed out some more in the coming volumes, though we got a glance at Whie-Hwan's background it still leaves much to be know about his current situation. The first volume introduced a lot of side characters (which with any series can be a tad overwhelming at first trying to keep track) but now we are beginning to see their stories unfold and how they intertwine at some intervals in this volume.

Age Rating: 18+
Genre: General
Price: $19.95

In this third collection of short stories from famed gekika author Yoshihiro Tatsumi, the stories are longer, and the content more about the situations surrounding the sad characters rather than the depths of despair they can reach.  A lot of the topics range back to post-WWII Japan and the effects on society, but some stray towards less specific targets, such as an older man who lusts after a younger coworker, and another about a young man living in a slum-like apartment complex that winds up vacant at the end of the story.  All are emotionally powerful, and all offer commentary on the darker side of human nature and urban living.  This collection was edited by Adrian Tomine, and features an introduction by Frederik Schodt that sheds light on some of the symbolism that might not be immediately recognizable to an international audience.

It's been a long time since I read the two short story collections that come before this, but I still think this would be my favorite of the three.  With most of the stories dealing with depressing content, being hit with story after story about unwanted pregnancies and unwanted elderly, they can wear on you pretty quickly, so I think the context provided in these stories appealed to me more.  The content was also marginally less depressing, dealing with sexual obsession rather than unhappy marriages, disillusionment rather than unemployment or difficult jobs that don't pay.

The first story, "Hell," was my favorite in the collection.  In the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a soldier tries to find something to hold onto in order to keep his sanity.  He is touched by the scorched shadow of a son giving his mother a massage, both vaporized immediately when the bomb hit, and he takes a photo.  Later, he sells it and becomes internationally famous, with many latching onto the photo as a human symbol of the loss.  Later, he meets the real son of the woman who died, who reveals to him that far from the touching scene of domesticity, the boy giving the massage is actually someone he hired to murder his mother, caught forever in the act by the photo.  The main character is deeply disturbed by this upset, and the story ends with the media rejecting the image and all the humanitarian efforts he worked so hard for dissolving.

While this is a sad story, and it does touch on the same blue collar people that the earlier collections focused on (the photographer was a soldier, and only sold the photo later because he badly needed the money, the son tried to extort money out of the man in exchange for his silence about the real intent of the photo), but it tells a story rather than just assaulting you with the crushing depression of a terrible living situation. 

There are stories that simply look at a moment in the lives of the characters.  Two stories at the end of the volume, "Good-Bye" and "Click Click Click," are both good examples.  "Good-Bye" looks at a woman who is selling herself to the American soldiers who occupied Japan after the war and the father that exploits her, and "Click Click Click" is a strange story about a quiet man who does good deeds to cover his bizarre foot/shoe fetish.  Neither states the theme in so many words, and I had to read "Click Click Click" twice to make sure I understood what was going on, but I also like that Tatsumi, while seeming to point an accusatory finger, doesn't really taint the stories with a viewpoint or a moral.  He merely shows, which is similar to the stories in "Red Snow" by Katsumata, save for the fact Katsumata's stories are full of characters who don't seem to judge each other.  These stories do have conclusions and a bit of a narrative, and are less like snapshots than some of the older stories.

Many of the stories are tales of sexual obsession or frustration.  Both above can fall in that category, but so can "Life is So Sad," about a wife who abstains from sex while her husband is in prison, "Night Falls Again," about a lonely man who frequents strip clubs and peep shows (this short story is just a snapshot, with no real narrative), and "Just a Man" and "Rash," which are two very different looks at impotency, though I may be misjudging the symbolism in "Rash."

A story that is still good, but feels out of place, is "Woman in the Mirror," about a young boy who comes face-to-face with a classmate that struggles with gender identity.  The main character makes a harsh judgement against the boy he catches dressing as a girl, and ultimately nothing comes of the confrontation, but it still raises points about alternate lifestyes that I have yet to see in Tatsumi's work.

With more heavily narrative stories, a variety of unusual topics, and a close look at the lowest levels of the pecking order, Good-Bye is yet another wonderful collection from Tatsumi.  The stories seem to have matured and become more, while still retaining the darkness that made his earlier collections so unusual.  Tatsumi is well worth checking out if you have yet to read his work, and I would encourage you to start with this collection.

Genre: Comedy/slice-of-life
Age Rating: OT/Older Teen/16+
Price: $12.95

Linear inequalities and masturbation are things that should be learned before the end of junior high!

I've never read a Fumi Yoshinaga manga I didn't like, so it came as no surprise to me when Flower of Life captivated me within a few pages and kept me eagerly reading and wanting more throughout its four volumes. It's a refreshing change to read a high school-based comedy that is apparently set in the real world, not the extra-dramatic fantasy world where most shoujo and shounen manga take place. The characters are real (even the strangest ones), and the situations are real (even the wackiest and most dramatic), which makes the emotions evoked in the reader all the more profound.

The main character is the blond-haired and cheerful boy Harutaru Hanazono, who explains on his first day at a new school that he has had to miss a year due to being treated for leukemia. The dropping of that bombshell leaves his classmates not quite knowing how to react to him, but Hanazono's adaptable and generous personality smoothes over the awkwardness and he quickly makes friends -- and his friendships have knock-on effects, altering the relationships between the other students. The structure of the manga is much like another Yoshinaga series, Antique Bakery, with a series of loosely related episodes gradually coming together to reveal connections that weren't immediately apparent.

Hanazono's interest in manga, and his talent for drawing, gives rise to a number of subplots that give Yoshinaga a chance to poke gentle fun at obsessive otaku and the dedicated amateur artists who work in frenzied bursts to get their books ready for Comiket twice a year. Being something of an otaku myself, these subplots have a particular charm for me, but what's especially lovely about them is how grounded they are. Even when it seems like a standard shounen manga train-fight-defeat-train-fight-victory cycle is setting in, something mundane happens that cuts it off and reinforces the ordinariness of the characters. And that very ordinariness is what makes them so likeable and so believeable: they all have the worries and concerns and joys and sorrows that real high school students have; any hint of melodrama or contrivance is swiftly nipped in the bud, and though the kinds of stock situations that crop up more often in manga than in real life do sometimes pop up, they're never allowed to play out in the standard and prescribed manner.

Flower of Life is very funny, with its humour always flowing naturally from the characters and the situation, and it's also very moving; the moment when the significance of the title is revealed brought tears to my eyes. Yoshinaga's crafted another winner here, a subtle and clever coming-of-age comedy with depths that reveal themselves gradually. Highly recommended.

Age Rating: Tween/Teen

Genre: Drama/Space

Price: $10.95

Admitted to the prestigious Tokyo Space Schoo, Asumi appears to be on track to make her dreams come true. However, enrollment was just the first of many trials she must overcome on her path to the stars.

As Space School starts, Asumi is still enthusiastic about it despite having several disadvantages working against her. Her family is poorer than most of the other students. She is there on a scholarship. She has to live in a 40-year-old dorm and work a part-time job in a restaurant. She doesn't even have a cellphone. Her friend flippantly tells her to ask her parents for one since they're only 30,000 ($300), not realizing that's a lot of money for her father to come up with. She's shorter than everyone else. At 4'8", she doesn't fit the standard gear, and will need special gear made just for her. She's a poor swimmer. We saw in the first volume were she nearly drowned, and as a result didn't like swimming. Asumi works hard to compensate for as many of these disadvantages as she can, sometimes to the point of exhaustion and/or injuring herself. But that is how determined she is to succeed.

Asumi's biggest disadvantage comes in the form of one of the teachers, Mr. Sano. He apparently worked with Asumi's father on the original Lion mission, and blames him for its failure. He transfers his anger toward Asumi's father to Asumi, and when Asumi's size becomes an issue, he tries to get her to quit the program with the implicit permission of one of the board members. In the harshest of terms he tells her she won't succeed in the program because of her father's failure. His words hit her hard, though, it's hard to tell which part. Does she believe she won't succeed, or does she believe Sano's claim that her father was to blame? Whichever it is, it still works as Asumi distances herself from her friends and is unable to concentrate on her school work.

This volume also gives more insight to Marika Ukita, the stand-offish girl who Asumi keeps trying to be friends with. It does appear that Asumi's persistence is starting to pay off, as Marika helps in trying to find Asumi when it's believed she's lost, and she also dives into the pool to help Asumi when she wears herself out swimming. Both Asumi and Marika seem to have had similar experiences growing up despite their very different circumstances. As Marika realizes this, she does seem to warm more to Asumi. This as well as some background we learn about Marika will no doubt come into play in Asumi's favor in the next volume.

The volume ends with two more short stories about Asumi's childhood. The first is about her elementary school teacher Suzunari, who was in love with the pilot of the Lion, and her struggle with trying to move on with her life. The second shows Asumi's father's job after the accident, where he must meet with victims of the accident and try to offer restitution. This story shows Asumi's trend of not talking about the Lion accident. She meets a girl her age who was disfigured in the accident who is angry and bitter about what she lost, but never once does Asumi share her own losses with the girl. The same is true in the first volume, when she has the flashback to the accident. She breaks down, but never explains to Mariko or Kei why she reacted that way. Her complete avoidance of the tragedy of the Lion accident seems strange, even as a teen. That seems like something one would want to talk about, even 15 years later.

I'm still really enjoying Twin Spica. My only complaint about the series is that volumes are too short! I can understand publishers wanting to end the volume on a cliffhanger just to make sure readers come back, but what about those of us who are already hooked? I don't want to wait for the next volume, I want to know now! I still highly recommend this series. It has a good ensemble cast of characters and a lead that is both likable and relatable to both teens and adults.

Genre: BL/yaoi
Age Rating: M/Mature/18+
Price: $15.95

You're the kind of person that plans his moves ahead of time. It wasn't "fate" that made you choose me.

I never thought I'd read a BL manga that made me want to make comparisons with Yes, Minister. BL doesn't tend to be big on politics, and when the characters engage in bluffs and double bluffs, they're almost always about love and sex. So there's something particularly intriguing about The Prime Minister's Secret Diplomacy, in which a neophyte diplomat finds himself strangely drawn to his superior, who is both a razor-sharp negotiator and the neophyte's future brother-in-law.

Shiraishi, the neophyte, and Yoshinaga, his superior, are atypical characters for a BL series: they're both rather cold, and although Yoshinaga's brilliance exerts a kind of fascination, he's not exactly likeable. It's easier to imagine being painfully obsessed with Yoshinaga than choosing him as your favourite drinking buddy. Shiraishi is a little warmer, a little more human, but still forced (by his position, if nothing else) to be calculating and to scrutinise his relationships with a tactical eye.

You might think that this would be off-putting, and if you're looking for a standard hearts-and-flowers BL story, The Prime Minister's Secret Diplomacy is not going to fill that slot. But Youka Nitta has the writing skill to pull off the twists and turns of a relationship between two men who play their cards close to their chests at all times, even when appearing to reveal vulnerabilities; she's done the research to make the diplomatic plotting nuanced and grounded enough to be believable; and her slick, near-naturalistic art reinforces the mood and themes of the story perfectly. What's on offer here is not so much intimacy as it is engagement, in the military sense: Yoshinaga and Shiraishi size each other up, look for weaknesses, make strategic attacks and retreats. Most importantly, they stay in control, because too much is at stake for either of them not to.

This all sounds very unromantic, and, well... it is. The Prime Minister's Secret Diplomacy is about two men who fall in love... kind of... but it's more a psychological drama (with elements drawn from suspense stories) than a romance. The chess-game-like nature of the relationship doesn't in any way detract from the eroticism of the sex scenes, or undermine the moments of connection between the two main characters; rather, it flavours them, adds an extra harmony line underneath. In every scene in this manga, there is a sense of tension, of something being unexplained or undisclosed -- left hanging, in a way. And you might expect that to be frustrating, but it never is. It's simply too well-done.

Publisher Series Info: Ultimo and Vice are Karakuri Doji, the mechanical embodiment of pure good and pure evil, devoid of human emotions that can cloud one's judgment. Their purpose: to battle to the death to prove once and for all whether good or evil is the most powerful force in the universe

Publisher Volume Info: Things just keep getting more complicated for Yamato since Ultimo showed up. Now Yamato and Ultimo must face new dôji and deal with people whose intentions aren't always so clear. Can Yamato find the strength to meet these challenges and solve the mysteries of the Karakuri Dôji?

If you're not aware, this is the series, announced with much fanfare, that is the East-meets-West brainchild of two comics giants, Stan Lee, the bombastic co-creator of most of Marvel Comics greatest and most enduring characters, and Hiroyuki Takei, the manga-ka best known in the West for Shaman King, but also responsible for popular series Butzu Zone and Juki Ningen Jumbor.

Despite the big media celebratory announcement by Viz, the series quickly hit rough waters when it came to readers and critics. Publisher's Weekly declared the concept itself "dead in the water," calling the initial volume a "laughably bad adventure". My local librarian wrote a review for the School Library Journal in which she summed it up as mediocre, referring to "shaky" plot devices, and art that is both "creepy" and "confusing."

Not a winner of a manga, it would seem. And, when I saw Stan Lee's name attached to the project, I assumed as much, or worse. Stan's work is cliche'd, and has been for years. He's more of a carnival barker than anything else, a living cartoon of himself, and I think his true enduring legacy is the corporate narrative that is Marvel Comics, as well as certain somewhat endearing if possibly caustic aspects of American comics culture.

Let's face it, what could be more yawn-inducingly generic than "who will win, good robots or evil robots?" It's like the old "who's stronger, The Thing or The Hulk?" I mean really, who gives a rat's ass? I want some basic things from my comics, my manga, or any other thing I'm reading: Great characters--individuals who have specific, fresh, intriguing motivations. Great setting--a place, whether wholly original or just made new by the story, that comes alive as the characters move through it. Great conflict--how have these characters had their needs and desires thwarted by each other and their environment? And various other factors: great art, great writing, etc.

Which is where Hiroyuki Takei comes in. I ended up checking out Ultimo (full title: Karakuri Doji: Ultimo) after reading a great overview of the manga-ka's work by Jason Thompson entitled "8 Reasons Hiroyuki Takei is the Greatest Shonen Manga Artist Working Today." Talk about bombastic! Yet the article makes a great argument, and I became enthusiastic to go back and check out Shaman King again, and to give Ultimo a chance.

When I first encountered Shaman King, it seemed to fall into some kind of generic space already covered by the overlapping vectors of YuYu Hakusho and Kekkaishi while the shadows of Yu-Gi-Oh! design work and the twin Shonen monsters DragonBall Z and Naruto lurked in the background. But Thompson's arguments about Takei would suggest that he's something of a slow burn. His approach is to take on the challenge of the constricted, episodic plot arc of Shonen manga head on, only to see where he can take it. Or to swallow whole massively cliche'd set-ups only to consume them and spit them out as something new and twisted and wholly his own.

That was my hope in picking up Ultimo. And, to be honest, after flipping through the first volume, I decided to hold off until at least the second to see how he's punching holes in the formulaic set-up Stan Lee created. Unfortunately, I'm not that impressed so far. There are hints, to be sure--remember how that one reviewer referred to the art as "creepy"? There's a bit of a funky, clunky twist to the robots here--they're little moe children, but with enormous robot hands that make them look hapless rather than ass-kicking, and they battle in bewildering ways. Not on the surface, no, but underneath the top layers the battles are certainly strange--structured and executed in seemingly familiar ways, yet still...off somehow.

And that's true of the whole series so far--on the surface, it still clings to much of the cliche'd formula established by Stan Lee. Yet cracks are starting to show. Right now, these little twists aren't much to delight in--but I'm going to keep up with this series for a little while longer in anticipation of a moment when Hiroyuki Takei delivers on Jason Thompson's bold assertion, and the manga really busts out in all kinds of interesting, ragged, fascinating ways.

And, if and when that moment arrives, I'll let you know.

Age Rating: 13+
Genre: Action, Drama, Supernatural
Price: $12.95

A boy with sparkling gorgeous golden eyes, Kyonosuke sniffs Koyuki like a dog... and suddenly asks her the strangest question - "Have you seen my brother?" Who is this boy and what is he talking about?! Turns out that he's not a human - he's a wolf - a member of Inugami, the Wolf God tribe. Kyonosuke's brother has been missing and he has been instructed to find him and bring him back to the leader. But why is he around Koyuki all the time? Can she be holding a key to a missing brother?

Initially, the story is somewhat off-putting, a mix of a fantasy setting (the initial introduction to the Inugami family) and a modern school setting (where we meet Koyuki immediately after).  Usually, the two don't go together when we see both appear simultaneously at the beginning of the story, and lots of terrible manga start this way, but the intro manages to use both relatively well.  It backs off of the fantasy elements and simply presents Kyounosuke as a semi-magical being lost in the big city.  He has heightened senses of smell and hearing, but that's all, and after initially meeting Koyuki after picking up the scent of his long-lost brother, he takes a backseat to Koyuki trying to figure things out while he battles with illness.  Later, his powers develop a little more, but they still aren't overly fantastic.

It's an interesting tactic, and having Koyuki puzzle her way through things is a much easier way to introduce the setting than simply being told outright.  At the moment, the narrative is what sets it apart from any number of other bland fantasy series.  The plot is still relatively generic, with Kyounosuke looking for his older brother so that he can be convinced to take over the leadership of their clan.  Koyuki, still a rather generic high school girl at the end of the volume, helps him get used to the city and gets caught up in various crazy Inugami situations like fights, power struggles, and even manages to get herself kidnapped for good measure.  Covering all the bases, the volume ends on a cliffhanger when Kyounosuke comes back from a long disappearance as a student at Koyuki's high school.

It's nothing more and nothing less than the plot descriptions tell you, which means the first volume is quite vanilla.  But in addition to decent storytelling techniques, the mystery behind Kyounosuke's brother winds up being engaging, with plenty of semi-hints and a very real question about whether he's dead or alive.  The magic use is minimal, with most of the fighting done the old-fashioned way.  The Inugami characters are accompanied by dog-like spirit guides, but these do little more than look cute.

The characters are also thus far unexciting.  Kyounosuke is likable, and has his share of quirks, but he has yet to stand out in any way aside from a couple noteworthy battles and a strange meekness for such a strong character.  Koyuki is completely unremarkable, only her compassion really stands out, and the side characters, ranging from a mouthy elder to groveling servants to the standard tough guy and rich girl, are faceless at this point.  They aren't badly written, and are serving their functions in the story admirably, but that doesn't stop them from being a little boring.

While it's mostly unremarkable, there are shades of a good story to it, and it's possible that future volumes will develop the mystery surrounding Kyounosuke's brother and the budding relationship between Koyuki and Kyounosuke in an interesting way.  It's a good series to keep one's eye on, but thus far is nothing more than an interesting light read.

I didn't notice until I was writing up the review, but it's interesting that this book is in DMP's DokiDoki line, usually reserved for boys' love titles.  There is no chance of Wolf God ever turning into one, and it reinforces the fact that DokiDoki is a Shinshokan imprint more than a BL one.  But it's still strange after all the DokiDoki books I've already read.

Age Rating: All Ages
Genre: Action/TV Tie-in
Price: $7.99

Max is obsessed with dinosaurs. He knows his Tapejara from his Pteranodon and can find fossils better than a trained paleontologist. When he discovers a stone tablet that transports him to the age of dinosaurs, it's a dream come true-until it becomes a nightmare. An evil genius named Dr. Z has enslaved the dinosaurs so he can use their hidden powers to take over the world! Now Max has to defeat Dr. Z and his Alpha Gang to save the ancient beasts and life as we know it.

Dinosaur King is based on a trading card game and TV show. Over the two volumes that make up this title, Max faces and fights the six members of the Alpha Gang and their leader Dr. Z, to free the enslaved dinosaurs. He is helped by his best friend Rex and dinosaur partner King.

Max is the typical hero. He's goofy and not-to-bright, but very enthusiastic about his chosen hobby. He has a strong sense of justice and a trademarkable cry of "It doesn't matter how impossible it seems, I've gotta try!", which he shouts once to twice a chapter. His best friend Rex is also rather typical for this kind of series, being smarter and more level-headed than Max. He is the voice of reason, and a loyal friend.

The villains aren't much different. Dr. Z is your typical mad scientist who wants to take over the world. He is obsessed with either getting Max to join him or to destroy him. His henchmen are after power just for its sake,to get revenge on a world they feel wronged them, or because they just don't know better. They aren't really evil, more misguided. One of them, No-piece, isn't interested in any of that, but has a very personal reason to work with Dr. Z.

The hook of this series is of course, the dinosaurs. There are the well-known ones, like Tyrannosaurs and Triceratops who make an appearance. But there are also several lesser known species such as the Irritator and Torosaurus. Since this is based on a trading card game, the dinosaurs have special attacks that are element-based which they use against each other in battle. And there are plenty of those. Every chapter features Max and/or Rex fighting one of Dr. Z's minions or Dr. Z himself.

While the story is competently written, it is stuck dealing with the tropes of a boy's fighting title. Max and King must go up against seemingly impossible odds and win most of the time. Their first defeat must then be turned into an increase of power in order to take on even stronger foes. The plot is a typical "boy saves the world" scenario and everything, from Max's personality to the battles are very over the top. The messages of friendship and never giving up are far from subtle in the story as well. The art matches the writing. It's very well done, especially the dinosaurs. They are fairly detailed and distinctive, even between the different Ceratops species. The character's reactions are over exaggerated, whether happy, sad or excited.

Dinosaur King is a good short, self-contained series, but it's definitely not for everyone. The simplistic story and over enthusiastic lead can get annoying, especially when he shouts out his battle cry. Younger kids, seven to ten would probably enjoy this series the most. Fans of battle type games like Pokemon might enjoy this as well, as Max and King's relationship calls up images of Ash and Pikachu, right down to the lightning attack. It might be a little too commercial for some parents tastes, as it emphasizes the trading card game aspect by including collectible cards and pages between chapters that talk about cards in the game that relate to the preceding or upcoming chapters. If you took that aspect away, it would still be decent story, if a little hyper.