.hack//Legend of the Twilight, the Complete Collection

Art by Rei Idumi with Story by Tatsuya Hamazaki

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline: A secret epilogue

Shugo and Rena have won the online avatars of the legendary dot hackers in the MMORPG The World and gather friends that are not just interested in their famous avatars but in sharing their adventures.  Shugo while dying in The World is gifted with an artifact which allows him to break the game’s rules. The appearance of their avatars and artifact has CC Corp, the owners of The World, in a frenzy to prevent what happened the last time they were around.  Shugo and Rena encounter the avatar of a child claiming that the entity that gave Shugo the artifact is her mother and believe returning the child is their quest.  With that goal they explore the seedy underbelly of The World and overcome resistance by CC Corp to return the daughter and tell her mother their stories.  Along the way, colleagues of the original owners of their avatars help them.

While not precisely a sequel to previous .hack stories, Legend of the Twilight draws heavily on the consequences and characters of them.  Roughly the first half of the volume merely refers to them but in the remainder these previous stories become ever more important until it seems that Legend of the Twilight is just an epilogue not its own story.  As the story becomes more of an epilogue the action/adventure aspects become minimal until the whole point is to tell the story to others rather for it to have its own purpose.  While it manages to avoid most of the metaphysical diversions that other stories in the .hack series fall prey to, it still feels the need to ponder the nature of friends and comrades.  In a way, this being a complete collection means taking the less interesting parts at the end with the more entertaining ones.

.hack//Legend of the Twilight, the Complete Collection is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

World of Warcraft: Mage

Story by Richard A. Knaak with Art by Ryo Kawakami
Published by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Treachery that can be seen from up high. 

Aodhan is a trainee mage in the flying city of Dalaran.  He became a trainee despite the opposition of his warrior family that did not see the usefulness of mage skills as compared to the family’s tradition so Aodhan instead follows his uncle Crevan’s example.  When Dalaran is attacked by blue dragons, Aodhan learns that Crevan’s example is perhaps not the best one to follow when he tricks Aodhan into releasing him from prison.  As the attack continues, Aodhan realizes that his uncle is not as virtuous as he had once thought and that the trainers who were so hard on him were so to make sure he did not make the same his mistakes as his uncle.  With that in mind, Aodhan manages to turn the tables on his uncle and help save Dalaran. 

This story would have been better served as a short story rather than filling an entire volume.  Mage is part of the classes line of Warcraft manga but what makes the class different and special wasn’t shown here.  This was a fairly typical ‘boy finds out his inspiration has feet of clay while people he not had much respect for have more wisdom that he thought’ story.  Variations of this story are fairly common but rather than trying to make interesting twists on it, pages are filled up with essentially meaningless fight and chase scenes that only make it clear that Aodhan's uncle is up to something while Aodhan stays clueless.  Meanwhile, some things are hand waved away rather spending pages to set things up for the story in order to make room for those fight and chase scenes.  There are a couple nice bits where items introduced earlier in the story are revealed to have more than one use but it that effort would have better spent working on making sure that the story held together better. 

World of Warcraft: Mage is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

.hack//Cell, vol. 1

Art by Akira Mutsuki with Story by Ryo Suzukaze

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Is it surprising that virtual reality screws up your identity?

Midori is a high school girl who becomes ill and is confined to the hospital as she grows weaker.  There is another Midori who is a professional victim in The World, a massively muliplayer computer RPG.  As a victim she allows other Player Character to try to hit her earning money if they fail .  However being a victim can attract Player Killers (PKs) who hunt down and kill other players in the game.  Midori's latest session of being a victim spirals out of a control as a crowd of PKs surround her which attracts the attention of a PK Killer.  The PK Killer is so powerful that the PKs later kidnap Midori's sidekick Adamas who is killed and resurrected repeatedly to attract either Midori or the PK Killer's attention.  Adamas is toughened up by his experience so he asks to meet Midori in real life.  This forces Midori to confront her suppressed memories as the Midori in the hospital struggles to live.

It has been hard to review the .hack titles since they all seem to be too abstract for their own good.  Using computer games as a metaphor to explore reality and identity is all well and good, but .hack tries too hard with characters wondering if anything exists rather than starting smaller such as if they have done what they think they have.  When Midori's view of the world collapses and she is left with nothing, it is hard to care because everything so far in the story has seemed random and meaningless.  The volume also ends abruptly with no satisfying partial resolution or even interesting cliffhanger to draw readers back, just Midori getting more lost and apparently fading away.



.hack//Cell, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Alice in the Country of Hearts, vols. 1-3

Art by Soumei Hoshino and Story by Quinrose

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Where being in love and wanting to kill the person makes perfect sense.

Alice is resting in her garden with her sister when she is taken by a man with rabbit ears to Wonderland.  She arrives at the clock tower which is at the center of Wonderland’s three feuding territories.  They are the Mad Hatter’s mafia based out of his mansion, the Queen’s castle surrounded a garden maze and the amusement park run by Mary Gowland.  The conflict seems to be mostly between the Queen and the Mad Hatter but none of them really like each other or the clock tower’s master who is traditionally neutral.  Alice is forced into this world, with her unique status of an outsider that making her interact with others to return home.  She learns that a difference between her and Wonderland’s is that she had a heart while everyone else has a clock.  This difference and what it means along with everyone loving her continually surprises Alice as she gradually forgets about escaping Wonderland.

In many manga it seems that every male character that sticks around for more than a couple of panels falls in love with the female lead character.  Here, they take that and make it a plot point!  Everyone in Wonderland is supposed to love Alice, it is part of being an outsider.  But because the Wonderland natives are already fighting this just gives them one more reason to it to continue and get even worse.  The characters reflect their roots from the source material which means they can be very odd making into them both charming and disturbing at turns.  Alice’s shuttling between factions can feel a bit repetitive but every time Alice visits someone the question is whether or not this will be the time the character will stop being charming and become deranged.

Alice in the Country of Hearts, vol. 1, vol. 2 and vol. 3 are all available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Songs to Make You Smile

By Natsuki Takaya

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline: When do shojo songs not make you smile? 

Songs to Make You Smile is an anthology volume by Natsuki Takaya, creator of Fruits Basket.  This collection is mostly of one-off stories of young love, though there is a Tsubasa: Those With Wings story included that uses its characters to tell a twisted Snow White tale.  The story that gives its name to the anthology is a high school romance between an unemotional singer whose emotional songs touch the heart of a girl whose own heart has been lost due to bullying.  Next, Chisato feels emotionally cut-off from her recently deceased father but through the actions of her new stepmother she reconnects with him.  Inagaki is a world class violinist who other students often deride for riding on his famous parents’ coattails, but a viola player can hear his true original music playing through.  Finally, a young man given to knitting and other less than manly arts is given the courage to declare his love through the actions of his grade school cousin.

One of the worst parts of any anthology is that often they hide one or more clunkers that just are not very good but rely on the rest of the anthology to get readers.  None of the stories here are that, surprising since it was originally published before Takaya's far better known Fruits Basket, meaning that they were made when she was still gaining experience.  There are several different artistic styles she in the book showing that growth, with the one with the Chisato character looking the oldest but none feeling dated.  There does seem to be reliance on standard storytelling elements but while none of the stories feel original neither do they feel particularly cliche-ridden.  The only story that particularly stands out is the Tsubasa: Those With Wings side story, mostly because it is such a cheerfully abusive tale that manages to avoid being cruel.

Songs to Make You Smile is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

World of Warcraft Shadow Wing, vol. 1 The Dragons of Outland

Story by Richard A. Knaak with Art by Jae-Hwan Kim

Published by TokyoPop

Slugline: Watch out for falling dragons!

The demons that attacked Azeroth have been defeated and pursued back to their homeworld through a mystical gate.  Among the armies that followed them back to Outland are Tyri and Jorad, who have been seen before in the Warcraft titles.  Jorad is still desperate to prove himself as a paladin of the Light so he takes on an important mission to coordinate friendly forces but he is waylaid and rescued by Tyri.  Tyri, who is a blue dragon that can transform into an elf, has felt herself drawn to Outland by her magic.  Together they convince some of Outland’s inhabitants to help them solve the mystery of the strange Nether Dragons and what their connection to other dragons be.  Meanwhile, a Death Knght has learned how to seize control the Nether Dragons and is planning on using them to rule Outland.

The World of Warcraft manga have been reviewed previously (see links), some of which have been by the same same creative team but they earn their new low rating for the new reasons here.  This is because of how the story is told rather than the content or the style of the story.  Richard Knaak is better known as a novelist and it seems that most of the problems come from using a novel’s pacing in a manga.  Five or ten pages of text reads a lot slower than the same number of pages in a manga.  A character that changes their mind over five pages of text seems more natural, like they had a chance to cool off and think, while doing so in the same number of pages in a manga pages seems like a waste to have the first scene at all.  Once again, it seems that this title would appeal just to fans of World of Warcraft rather than a wider fantasy audience.

World of Warcraft Shadow Wing, vol. 1 The Dragons of Outland is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Portrait of M & N, vols. 1 and 2

By Tachibana Higuchi

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline: Why does love have to hurt?

Mitsuru and Natsuhiko have both started in a new high school and have attracted attention because of their appearance and aloof demeanors.  But they both have secrets that drove them from their old schools and inaccurate rumors about those secrets have followed them and begin to make their lives more difficult.  Fortunately no one has learned that the secrets are that Mitsuru is a masochist while Natsuhiko is a narcissist.  While both have triggering events that cause their behaviors to flare out of their control, they manage to keep them a secret despite the other students’ curiosity.  Their shared secrets tie them closer together even though their respective obsessions put up obstacles to being emotionally honest with each other.  The mental confusion and uncertainty that they both face comes across each day as they try to keep their secrets and rein in their behaviors.

While aspects of Mitsuru and Natsuhiko’s relationship feel true, especially their uncertain feelings, the portrayals of their masochist and narcissist tendencies are not, especially with the idea of having such blatant triggering events.  Those are not intended to show the difficulty with living with such tendencies as a teen, but instead to set up comedic situations.  That uses up a lot of the respect the manga had earned, because it turns what could have been serious high school drama into something that uneasily straddles the divide between drama and farce.  The title would have been much better served if the humor had came from the story or if there were characters there for comedic relief.  There are several characters that could have taken that role, but they were not central enough to the story to take up that burden.  Still, a good story that is undercut by a cheap device to inject comedy.

Portrait of M & N, vol. 1 and vol. 2 are both available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

Neko Ramen, vol. 1 Hey! Order Up!

By Kenji Sonishi
Published in the US by TokyoPop






Slugline: Not realistic in that no cat work around that much water.

While on his lunch break Tanaka decides to try out a new ramen shop and discovers it has the strangest chef he has ever heard of.  It is not that the ramen chef Taisho is particularly skilled (in fact, he does not seem to be very good) but instead that he's a cat.  Taisho ran away from home, determined to not be like his cat model father who specialized in being too cute for words.  After his dream of being a sushi chef fell through (he snacked on the fish) he turned to ramen noodles. Taisho swears that he plans to become a famous ramen chef, but his ramen never really improves and he seems to be more interested in fame than anything else. Strangely he ignores his quickest route to fame for while Taisho knows that he is a cat, he refuses to act like one and ignores that others refuse to do the same.  You can find most of the humor of the series coming from either Taisho's ineptitude or the face he is a cat in a chef's world as Tanaka tries to be the voice of reason.

Neko Ramen is another 4-koma but like many other 4-koma collections, there are several short stories in the volume that are not. Unlike many other 4-koma collections, the shorts work very well and continue story threads that were begun in the 4-koma. A lot of the humor derives from jokes about ramen noodles, so on occasion there are gags that lack punch because they rely on knowing more about ramen noodles than one would normally know outside of Japan. That being said, most of the jokes come across without any difficulty because they rely on standard comedic situations such character obliviousness. The strongest source of humor comes from Taisho's inability to accept that a talking cat could be unusual, and while it could have gotten monotonous, those gags are broken up with enough other kinds of humor that it never does.

Neko Ramen, vol. 1 Hey! Order Up! is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Starcraft: Ghost Academy vol. 1

Written by Keith R. A. Decandido with Art by Fernardo Heinz Furukawa
Published by TokyoPop

Slugline: Brain panning is not an "This your brains on drugs" reference.

This manga fills in a missing gap in the Starcraft: Nova novel when Nova goes to the Ghost Academy.  In Starcraft, Ghosts are psionically powerful humans that are drafted to help keep the Dominion secure.  Nova is training to be one after suffering the the standard traumatizing childhood awakening of her psionic powers that both drives and isolates her.  But she is not allowed to be too isolated because the Ghost Academy trains in teams, and because of her isolated nature the others in her team suffer in their grading.  Things come to head when one of her teammates, a son of powerful political leader, helps create a situation in which another teammate who is a drug addict goes off the rails.  Though Nova helps her teammate and graduates to the next stage of her training, she has her memories erased of the incident and gains a new foe she does not even remember.

This is another title where the lack of knowledge about Starcraft handicaps the reader since it seems to expect that you already know background. This is made worse because Nova has already starred in a novel with the manga taking place in a gap in the novel.  As an example, some of the characters seem extraneous but if the reader knew the larger story their presence may make sense. The main character Nova is in a journey to be more connected to her fellow soldiers, but there is a moment of that journey that is missing. In the manga she realizes her behavior is harmful, and there are moments where she connects with the rest of her team, but there the moment in between when she makes the decision to change which is missing. While these are problems, they are not terrible ones since one of the purposes of the manga is to fill out the Starcraft backstory, so as long as it does that the manga has some worth.

Starcraft: Ghost Academy vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Happy Cafe, vols. 1 + 2

By Kou Matsuzuki

Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Don't people need to search for happiness somewhere other than small shops?

Uru decides to live on her own so not to get in the way of her mom's happiness with her new husband, so despite still being in high school she has gotten her own place and her own job.  Her job as a waitress at a cafe brings her into contact with odd people, the strangest being the cafe's chef Shindo who is a strange mixture of caring and impassiveness.  The three workers of the cafe help each other and their patrons out, though mostly Uru needs their attention.  Uru, after she learns she didn't have to leave the house, needs the help to balance her own growth and independence to her mother and stepfather's protective impulses.  Otherwise their major challenge is when a competing cafe issues a challenge to them but despite Uru's foolhardy acceptance of it, everything turns out well though the competing cafe workers settle into a resigned tolerance of Uru and her cafe. 

This is another entry in 'happiness can only be found in a small shop' genre of manga.  This reminds me a lot of Haru Hana, which was reviewed in March, not in the characters but in the situations that they find themselves in.  In both an late teen, early twenties woman enters the shop, whom the female protagonist first looks at in suspicion but whom later becomes friends of the shop's workers because of the way they help her.  She becomes a supporting character that continues to show up and in both titles the character is introduced at the end of the first volume.  But while this a faithful entry into a well-established sub-genre, it still is a solid one.  Other than one or two extreme character traits (which in comparison to other manga are not that extreme) it remains well-grounded.  The story and characters deliver a satisfying but not particularly memorable manga.



Happy Cafe, vol. 1 and vol. 2 are both available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand

.hack//4koma

By Koichi Sumimaru

Published in the US by Tokyopop

Slugline: hack is just a very bad cough

.hack is one of those series that appears to be very popular despite all of my attempts to understand it.  Considering that there is little attraction for me towards a humorous take on it.  It seems that most of the volume requires previous knowledge of the .hack characters and story in order to get the jokes, though I suspect even if I did understand more of the references I would not find them very funny since the their setups are not very interesting.  The volume is actually a compilation of four different creators take on .hack, though Koichi Sumimaru is responsible for most of the material.  This is unfortunate, since that material is the least funny in the volume despite giving the title it's name.  The 4koma, or four panel gag strips, starts the volume, making it a hard slog to wade through it and reach the other creators contributions.  Most of the other creators' material can be understood on its own, without being already immersed in the .hack universe, but by the time you reach it any enjoyment that could be had has been leached away.  Unless you are a hard-core .hack fan, especially of The World and The World R:2, there is nothing here worth your time.

.hack//4koma is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Ratman, vol. 1

Story and Art by Inui Sekihiko
Published in the US by TokyoPop






Slugline: Rats are not exactly good models for heroes or villains.

Shuto wants to be a hero, which is more possible than the typical childish fantasy because he lives in a world where super heroes are common. Even though he is short for his age and so few people take him seriously, he continues to espouse the notions of justice that he believes are the bedrock of heroes. Only two people seem to take his desire seriously, a slightly odd student at his school named Mizushima and Rio, the daughter of the head of the Hero Association. Shuto finally gets his chance to be a hero by rescuing Mizushima but discovers that it was to trick him to undergo an experiment and be forced to become a villain by Mizushima's sister. Shuto's first mission as a villain brings him into conflict with the Hero Association, leading to Rio vowing to hunt him down personally along with the Hero Association as a whole.  Shuto is torn between his heroic desires and the messed up reality that he finds himself forced into.

Shuto has the sort of personality that is so earnest in wanting to be a hero that he would normally annoy anyone. So when the trap is sprung and he is forced to become a villain instead, Shuto's stunned response makes the story. Sure, that particular twist can be seen coming a mile away, but since it is a twist that the character would never expect because of his nature, the readers can allow themselves to enjoy it. Sadly, for the moment the female characters are just foils for Shuto to react against rather than having their own personality.  While parts of the manga descends into parody the fact that Shuto is taking the heroic ideals so seriously suggest that will have a more mature examination of them, though the rest of the story may be less so. It is the interplay between the two that will keep things interesting.

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

-Ferdinand

Red Hot Chili Samurai, vol. 1

Created by Yoshitsugu Katagiri
Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Just as spinach gives you strength chilis make you a swordsman.

Kokaku is the son of the Han's (or province) leader.  The province is small and poor so Kokaku has to help in keeping the peace, which he is glad to do because it allows him to kick butt on a regular basis.  Unlike many other samurai Kokaku does not feel the need to use his sword to kill, having been taught while he was young and impressionable that the sword was to protect people.  Kokaku has some friends who help out in upholding justice and other cool sounding catchphrases like that.  These are the studious and serious guy, the competitive girl and the silent ninja, all of whom do not really need names since they are their appearances.  Despite his need to make sure that the people are protected and justice is served, Kokaku still has more than a healthy ego, often revealing his family tattoo of a black crane when knocking out his opponents so that they know who beat them.

Something about the name Red Hot Chili Samurai led to the impression of the title being more energetic and interesting than the resulting rather standard adventure story with samurai trappings.  The samurai aspect does not seem to be that important since anachronisms are introduced on the flimsiest of reasons.  The use of the chilis, rather than being symbolic of characters or having some subtle meaning becomes just another gag.  The supporting characters are straight out of central casting with only the smallest of flourishes to make them unique.  While there is an attempt to show Kokaku's motivation, by the time it is introduced there is already ample evidence that shows instead his desire to be the center or attention and put his opponents in their place.  That way, Kokaku gets to be arrogant in an acceptable way.  None of the characters are mean, but neither are they as heroic as they think they are.

Red Hot Chili Samurai, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

Deadman Wonderland, vol. 1

By Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou
Published in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  Prisons and amusement parks are not a good combination

In the near future Ganta is among the few survivors of the Great Tokyo Earthquake but by the time he is a teenager he barely remembers it and has adapted to high school life.  The mysterious Red Man then kills everyone else in his class and Ganta is convicted of the crime and is quickly sent to Deadman Wonderland, a combination private prison and amusement park built on Tokyo's ruins.  Private prisons are never nice places in fiction and Deadman Wonderland is no exception with prisoners pitted against each other to entertain visitors and earn privileges.  In the case of death row prisoners like Ganta, the privileges include living for another three days.  To help him survive long enough to prove his innocence a childhood friend from pre-earthquake Tokyo is helping him while Ganta also learns to master the powers that the Red Man left in him while killing his classmates.

While there are some similarities to such titles as Battle Royale and Death Note (here are our reviews for Death Note 1-6 and 7-10), here the main tension seems to be from Ganta coming to grips to the mysteries that surround him.  The Red Man is central to these mysteries and at this stage in the series he is like a storm that comes in and upsets the natural order of Ganta's life. Shiro, Ganta's childhood friend, helps lighten the title though still leaving the danger in it intact. That way the story is not too dark though how maniac Shiro is will have to be managed so it doesn't become silly and descend into parody, admittedly not terrible danger. This is a good start to a potentially complex emotionally charged thriller, but it is still only a good beginning not proof of a successful continuing title.

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

-Ferdinand

Haru Hana, The Complete Collection

By Yuana Kazumi
Released in the US by TokyoPop

Slugline:  What is better, music or a massage?

Hana has just moved to Tokyo, hoping to overcome her previous experiences with boys and work at being a violinist.  Her problem is that she breaks out in hives whenever she even touches one, but she hopes that things will change.  Haru is a fellow student that soon learns to tease Hana by touching her and causing her to breakout, but he has his own problems that he needs to be distracted from.  He works as massuesse while trying to recover his memories, while Hana is forced to work at the same place to pay off her sister's debt.  Needless to say it is inevitable that these two will team up together, each using their own skill in a relaxation center that is named after them, Haru Hana, as they work to understand and help each other (and the occasional walk in customer).  And of course, become emotionally involved.

Haru Hana falls into this weird territory between plot driven manga and slice of life ones.  The volume's stories are meandering but have some purpose, but not enough to say that they are moving towards something.  It is only until the final third of the volume, when the creator probably realized that some sort of conclusion was needed that Haru's amnesia subplot is resolved with various aspects skimmed over to do so.  Even the romance between Haru and Hana remains sketchy, but despite it the reader is left with vivid impressions of the series.  The character art helps, being very evocative so that after most of the storylines have been forgotten there remains a very strong image of Haru and Hana working and playing in the shop.  It is that ability to create a lingering image and set of emotions that makes this series worthwhile.

Haru Hana, The Complete Collection is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Hanako and the Terror of Allegory

By Sakae Esuno
Published in the US by TokyoPop

 

Slugline:  Is eating fish with human faces cannibalism?

Aso Daisuke is a former police investigator that  is now a private detective with an unusual focus, dealing with allegories that are more popularly know as urban legends.  For instance, when Kanae Hiranuma hears the urban legend of the axe murderer who lurks under the bed, the story has such an effect on her that it literally becomes real to her, a situation that Aso rescues her from.  Unfortunately she cannot pay her bill and decides to work with him and his even stranger partner Hanako to pay it off.  The cases soon become even stranger and more bizarre, moving from the gotcha factor of the axe murderer to a full-blown psycho-sexual laden tale involving human faced fish.  The manga is given more meaning by the fact that Aso is suffering from allegories himself, making him both less and more than just human.

At first it seem like this will be another creepy-crawly filled horror manga, but it is during the human faced fish story in the last half of the volume that it becomes clear that this is something more else.  The horrors the characters face become less important than then the ones that live in the characters' minds and drive them.  The story could use better explanations of the urban folklores used in the background, for while the allegories that drive the story are well explained, the ones that drive the characters seem less so, especially the one that Hanako is part of.  For an explanation of it, click out this link.  Much like the creator's other work, Future Diary (see the Prospero's Manga review here) this appears at first like many other stories but soon shows that the idea behind it can be much deeper than what the source material may originally suggest.

Hanako and the Terror of Allegory is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

World of Warcraft: Death Knight

Story by Dan Jolley and Art by Rocio Zucchi
Published by TokyoPop


Slugline: A common tragedy

Thassarian was once a soldier under Prince Arthas, so when the call was made he left his farm and remaining family to go with the Prince and attack the evil forces of the Scourge to keep them from his homeland. Thassarian and the rest of their force was betrayed by their Prince and was killed. Brought back as a Death Knight he has to blindly follow orders until a raid on a chapel which housed the bodies of heroes made him confront the ghost of his heroic father. That brought Thassarian back to himself, but while under the Lich King's control he had done horrible things and even though he had pledged to fight the Scourge and the Lich King, his allies and the common folk he seeks to save hate and fear him. The evil he was once part of has many faces so that it is hard to find them even though there are ones right next to him no matter where he goes.

This is the first of the class focused manga titles for World of Warcraft, which reveals the background of a character of the class example from the game. It is hard to judge this manga by the fact that it is a prequel to part of the World of Warcraft game background which I have not experienced. Some of what seems to be dangling plotlines may turn out to link into the greater story of World of Warcraft, but without that knowledge it is hard to judge. If this is supposed to be about the Death Knight class, at the end of the volume I am still not quite sure what a Death Knight can do, even though I do not expect shouted out names of abilities or other in-game information. As a action fantasy story it succeeds even though the tragic elements seem almost by the number, but the story does not seem to fully embrace or divorce itself from the World of Warcraft background.



World of Warcraft: Death Knight is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Mikansei, vol. 1

By Majikoi
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Sluglines: Singers who don't pretend to be able to sing.

In the 23rd century, the 21st century is seen as a crude and immodest era. That is also the reason why Neo likes it, especially because of the singing, dancing and short skirts. She is accidentally hurled back in time and immediately finds a reluctant singing partner in Sayaya. Despite early disastrous performances, Neo so loves singing she manages to keep Sayaya involved as they work together as they move towards a seemingly impossible goal of impressing a talent manager. There are additional complications ranging from Neo's inability to contact her future, the resemblance of a 21st century singer to her missing 23rd century childhood friend and who is secretly supporting her in the 21st century.

One of the problems of idol manga is how to represent singing in that format. Since it is nearly impossible to get a tune or melody from reading the lyrics, I tend to just scan over them because if they become important they will be repeated. When the manga tries to have characters hailed as talented musician with only the lyrics to go by it is hard to take it seriously. Mikansei gets around this problem by having the first audiences boo the characters offstage. Considering how often lead characters of manga just have to sing once to become stars, when that didn't happen here it was a pleasant surprise. The characters are putting in the time and effort means that when they finally 'really' perform their applause will have been earned. Neo is facing many challenges not just in her musical profession or romantically, but on different levels as well but none are such thatNeo's sunny attitude appears to be denying reality. Mikansei succeeds because it subverts and deals with the cliches of idol manga rather than ignoring them.



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

- Ferdinand

Bloody Kiss, vol. 1

By Kazuko Furumiya
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: They promise the next volume is better?

Kiyo has always fough against others impressions of her family, so when her grandmother wills her decrepit mansion to Kiyo she can only see that selling it would make the law degree she needs to clear her family's name possible. The problem is that two vampires are already squatting at the property having been invited to live there by Kiyo's grandmother and want to stay despite Kiyo's plans. To make things even more complicated one of the vampires, Kurobashi. wants Kiyo to be his 'bride,' his sole source of human blood which will strengthen him supernaturally. Kiyo initially refuses, but when (evil) lawyers try to forcibly sell the mansion out from under her, she reluctantly agrees to giver her blood to him, permanently linking them together. Since she is now his 'bride' he uses his new supernatural abilities to help her at work and school.

The back cover blurb extols that the end of the second volume is great. Well, the question is why bother to buy the first volume if they feel that they need to talk about the second on it? This is only a two volume series, and maybe TokyoPop wanted people to know they could have a complete story in just two volumes that has a great ending, but if that was the intent it was not communicated clearly. This is another poor but hardworking girl stuck between two supernatural guys story, but the second guy, Kurobashi's servant, just too thinly sketched out so the sense of a competition over her is not clear. As it is, that better be one heck of twist/surprise in the next volume because at the moment it just feels like every other shoujo/vampire story.



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

- Ferdinand

Karakuri Odette, vol. 1

Created by Julietta Suzuki
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Robots who want emotion because of peer pressure

Karakuri Odette like many other 'humanoid robots goes to high school' stories with a brilliant professor who sends his advanced robot to a high school who has various adventures. The title manages to avoid most of the obvious traps of that premise by keeping the stories small and focusing on slices of life. It also helps that the robot Odette actually does act detached from her emotions, unlike in other stories where robots insist on becoming more 'human' even though they already display a full range of human reactions. Though it is billed as a comedy it feels more like a drama since it is more about the characters rather than setting up weird situations and characters to be mined for humor.

A lot of manga suffer from something I call cast bloating, with many minor characters who readers still want to follow as over time a manga's cast gets larger. That happens when a creator introduces a new character to be bounced off the rest of the cast to create new and zany situations rather than utilizing the current cast. The problem is when these guest star characters may be so open-ended that they will end up sticking around to finish their story. If the guest character is ignored it will feel like the title has distracting dangling plotlines but if they are left onstage they take time and focus from the main characters. Karakuri Odette manages to avoid that by making the guest stars' stories feel complete with enough wiggle room that the guest stars could return but that they don't have to. It is a narrow line to walk, but it shows the care and craft that went into manga better than any story summary.



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

- Ferdinand