Monday, May 05, 2008

Foxy Lady, vol. 1

Story and art by Ayun Tachibana
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: It's titles like this that makes me think one of the requirements for Japanese editors is the serious need for therapy

I am not sure I want to destroy what little faith my readers may have left in the quality of manga. That manga editors signed off to publish this makes me think the creator had something on them, or that the editors really had faith in the creator's art. But the story that comes with the art...

Jin is a shrine heir and one day his cousin Kagone, a half fox demon/human shows up at the shrine dorm where he is living, asking to mate with him to turn her human and stay in the human world.

Yeah, my reaction also. But of course Jin, despite looking at magazine telling him ways to determine if a woman is attracted to him, meets a woman that tells him exactly what he wants to hear, he suddenly decides to be all noble and such. For a few moments he shows a spine, but then it reverts to being a wet noodle as he gets bossed around by virtually everyone. Despite the fact they live in the same dorm, nothing at all happens between Jin and Kagone, surprise, surprise. Jin has a couple of, well friends is a little too strong a word, but they can't be called anything else due to the rules of manga, who are just creepy. There is the slightly older guy who wants to take pictures of Jin's female classmates and a childhood friend that seems to have been pretending for as long as they have known each other that he was a girl. At least he/she is honest, and is planning to build a harem at the new school that is his attending, which just happens to be Jin's. No faux respectability or kindness here. That desire, to actually recruit a harem, I can actually believe. I mean, how difficult can it be when it seems virtually any guy can get a harem? Virtually everything else in the manga requires unnatural amounts of suspension of disbelief.

I could go on with all the unnatural and unrealistic character motivations and actions here, but ugh, thinking about them just makes me want to rant more about them. It feels like the author knows what the reader's expectations are, so he just skipping over the sections that don't interest him (not that they are not important to the characters.) Only a few moments of interesting character work save this from becoming a dishonorable mention.



Foxy Lady, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand

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