Mai, The Psychic Girl, The Perfect Collection, V. 1

Story by Kazuya Kudo with Art by Ryoichi Ikegami
Published in the U.S. by Viz



Slugline: You really wouldn't want to get this schoolgirl angry.

Mai, the Psychic Girl was one of the first manga that was widely released in the US. Originally released in floppies in the late 80s, it was a title that showed me, regardless of what Miranda says about Akira's influence, of just how nasty and explodey-heady psychic combat could be. Mai Kuju, daughter of a line of shrine guardians, has telekinetic ability on a truly high order, and is pursued by an international conspiracy for world domination called the Wisdom Alliance. The first book of the perfect collection reads very quickly, for most of the story is either kung-fu action or extended chase sequences, as Mai and her father realize the danger that they are in. Actually, I remember that being a problem at the time that it was being released, but the 22 page issues went by so quickly that it didn't make it really worth the time to pick up individual issues, and at the time the idea of collections were still very new.

The plot is rather straightforward, and at times it seems to be relying on the power of coincidence to make things flow, but this is not a story that asks for much deep thinking, merely that one sits back and enjoys the pretty explosions, bashed bodies and the downhill ride. It does have a couple bits of unnecessary but not really exploitative nudity, and a couple of places where if you stop and think you may say "ick," but nothing too bad, at least in this first volume of the perfect collection.



- Ferdinand

Angel Cup, v. 2

Written by Dong Wook Kim and Illustrated by Jae-Ho Youn
Published in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: Girls hit hard, especially against boys. A little while ago I suggested folks to check out my other reviews over at CBGxtra, which reminded me of one of my favorite books to review, Angel Cup, a Korean manwha about girl's soccer. I waxed pretty lyrical about it, but I really thought it was a good title and fit in well with the comic shops' attempts to do outreach to readers other than the normal comic store readers. (My Comic Buyer's Guide reviews are centered around that, oddly enough.) So when I got a chance to pick up Angel Cup vol. 2, I did so.

But the last half of a soccer match took up virtually the entire volume. Some sub-plots were moved forward, and some things were confronted, but there was nothing really surprising or that I wasn't expecting, except for the final score. Underdogs can win without winning, and with the odds stacked up against them, the girl soccer team made a good showing, with the implication that once they pull together and get organized, a rematch's result is far from certain.

I am half-tempted to tell you to skip this volume, but I'm loathe to suggest that for fear that one or two details may end up really mattering, so while the big game is a cliche‚ in sports manga, I am still more interested in the stuff before and after the game, and that intrigue was lacking in this volume.



- Ferdinand

O-Parts Hunter, v. 1

Story and Art by Seishi Kishimoto
Published in the U.S. by Viz



Slugline: Repackaged, extruded fantasy by-product never tasted so good!

One thing right out of the gate, O-Parts Hunter was created by the brother of Naruto's creator, so artistic and stylistic similarities are to be expected to a certain extent.

On the face of it, this is a story that we have seen a hundred times before. Boy who has a terrible force within himself tries to compensate by becoming more powerful, along with a girl who has to be cheerful to make up for a family secret. Ancient unknown civilization has left weapons of unimaginable power lying about for anyone to find.

But at the moment when everything is about to fall hopelessly into cliche, they draw back. The darkness that is within Jio, the main lead, is not potential but actual, with a real bodycount, and it's implied that along with not-so-nice folks, some actually random folks have been killed by his darkness. True, the character has some distance from his dark acts, but by the same token he is still doing it, a far more difficult choice to pull off. And his goal of world domination is quickly and ruthlessly undermined and laughed at, and what he really wants is revealed.

Sure, the female lead is not as well drawn as I would hope, at times the action is hard to follow, and there is one case of deus ex machina that is really close to the traditional god coming down of the sky to take out an offending foe, but I see that there are some interesting character bits that hopefully the creator will explore in later volumes.




- Ferdinand

Samurai Girl: Real Bout High School, v. 1

Story by Reiji Saiga and Art by Sora Inoue
Published in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: It's a sad day when a story about hot girls in school uniforms that kick ass makes me just go "eh."

A school with too many martial arts club ends up holding special fights in order to mediate the conflicts between the clubs, with the head ass kicker being a new transfer student who wants to take on all the highly skilled martial artists at the school and has arranged the fight system in order to do so. Our heroine is Ryoko, who loves samurai movies and thus has learned how to kick ass with a sword, and lusts after the head of the kendo club but has a strange attraction to the mysterious newcomer.

There are some interesting fights, but that's about it. Silly, over-the-top opponents, the fight formula, the love/hate relationships, the competent girl that still needs help on occasion in fighting yet is not confident in herself and so on.

I've seen all of these elements before. Admittedly, Real Bout is sort of shameless in the way that all of them have been all shaken together into a single pot, but while the art is nice, unless you really want another school based fight manga, eh.



- Ferdinand

IC in a Sunflower

by Mitsukazu Mihara
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Another anthology of varyingly dark stories from the Gothic Lolita creator.

The costuming is not as elaborate as in volumes like RIP, which will be a disappointment to the costuming fans. The individual stories are up to par with Mihara's other works so far as dialog (good) and structure (good) and worldbuilding (quite good and efficient) but the characters are similar to others he's written and there is not really a unifying theme. Except maybe the "mature" elements like sex and murder, but those certainly aren't unique to this volume.

This still makes for good reading if you like stories with a dark side. There are some mild science fiction elements, but Mihara generally focuses on modern complications of old problems and the jaded modern people who run into them. Mihara is also one of the few manga writers who has both a fair volume of material published in the US and it is all of consistently good quality, so look for his name. I enjoy his gothic-modern writing, but I also hope to see him tackle other styles, someday.



- Miranda

Mugen Spiral, v. 1

Created by Mizuho Kusangi
Published in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: Look, you can see the female lead's spine disappear before your eyes!

Yayoi is a female mystic who has to fight off and capture demons, which includes Ura, son of the Demon King. She is strong, powerful and has her own agenda.

She is, of course, doomed to irrelevance.

Because Ura is a hottie, he gradually takes over the story, becoming more powerful (or more properly, recovers to his true level of power), directing the course of the story so it is about him and what he wants to do, and while Yayoi does not suffer a depowering event, for some reason her abilities are just not as effective as the story goes on, eventually rendering her by the end of volume 1 as the helpless hostage.

Look, a woman does not have to be weak and rely on the man in order for there to be a valid romance. And I am not just saying this because Miranda would go off on a rant about it. It just would be a refreshing change of pace if once, just once, the female who starts the series competent ends the series just as competent. For once!

I actually had hope for this volume because it started out so strong, but it managed to sink very quickly into the normal tropes/tripes, and so despite being competently executed and not bad on the face of it, I give it a kick a little further down on the rating scale because this title has no reason to exist. We've seen it all before, and before, and look, over there, here is the same damn plot line of the romantic female lead becoming marginalized!



- Ferdinand

What else we do...

It's been a while since we talked about our other projects that are manga and anime related.

Every two weeks I put a manga review up CBGxtra review forum so just look for all the reviews there that have the Manga Review title. This week I put up a review for TokyoPop's upcoming title Phantom.

I write a monthly manga column for the Comic Buyer's Guide, a print publication you should be able to find on better newstand. This month's column in issue 1626 is a mixed bag about Shinto, the academic study of manga and yaoi. You can find some of my back columns on my general website. (Along with our RPG and other gaming work)

And I have anime/manga related articles and reviews for Comic and Game Retailer and Newtype USA.

Check out some of the other stuff we've done!

-Ferdinand

Pearl Pink, v. 1

Created by Meca Tanaka
Published in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: A tomboy in love that remains a tomboy by the end of the volume? Miracle of miracles!

Ah, the stories of young love, people promising to get married when they are 3 and 7. Do you actually remember much of what happened to you when you were that age? I admit, I am older than the typical age of the characters in these sort of books, so technically have more stuff to remember and some of the early stuff may have been misfiled, but really, how strong are your memories from that age? I only have a handful, and most of them are random bits. Only a couple of them are confirmably real and not imaginings.

But these sort of life-changing promises are routinely made, and worse yet, routinely remembered in manga and are expected to be honored. Tamako, the tomboy of the slugline, received a promise from Kanji that if she was strong, he would marry her. (Why is it that the girls remember these promises in manga, but rarely the guys?) She defined the strength as physical, assertive strength, while he is strong in a quiet, understated way. (See, females and males can both be strong in manga AT THE SAME TIME!)

When the story actually talks about love, relationships, and knowing/liking each other, that rings mostly true. And Tamako has several really good moments with her mother. But then you add in the fact this is set at the ever-popular idol agency, the rampant and actually detracting silliness of the story/characters at times, and could have been a very good romantic story has been reduced to merely average.



- Ferdinand

Revolutionary Girl Utena, v. 1 - 5

by Chiho Saito, Created by Be-Papas
Published in the U.S. by Viz



Slugline: Utena duels to save the prince she met years ago, save the Rose Bride and to claim "the power to revolutionize the world" (whatever that means.)

This is the manga version of the classic anime, and being condensed to five volumes suits the story quite well. With less time to wander, the story gets right down to the dueling and the slapping and the explaining what's going on.

Utena is a classic shojo manga because it goes so far above and beyond the stereotypes of the genre -- not breaking out of them, but amplifying them to blinding brilliance. Everyone's a drama queen, there are cute, strange pets, magic costume changes, vaguely defined powers that are never used, a crossdressing heroine, temper tantrums, and everyone gets slapped at least once. It's a tribute to the power of visuals, too: roses, wrought iron and long hair don't have to work as hard to carry it all as they did in the anime, but they are there.

Utena set the bar for the shojo that followed, and most of them fail to capture half the passion and obsession and melodrama of this series. This is a must-read for any serious fan. Love it or laugh at it, I guarantee you will not forget it.

p.s. Yes, it's complete in 5 volumes -- less, actually, and there are several short stories to fill out the volumes. They're fun too.



- Miranda

R.O.D. Read or Dream, v.1

Story by Hideyuki Kurata, Art by Ran Ayanaga
Published in the US by Viz Manga



Slugline: For a detective agency, there sure is not much detecting going on here.

I am just in the mood for revealing my weaknesses lately, and this time I will admit that I have a weakness for reading. As in, whatever promotes it, is good for it and so on, I am usually in favor of. Thus I am fond of the original R.O.D. anime, though I do believe that the first episode of it was the best.

I understand that this series is supposed to be related to the first one in some way, but only the barest sketches of it are apparent here. Sure, in the first story they use the ability to control paper, but then for the rest of the book, their abilities are completely immaterial. There are the standard three females: the hard nosed one, the friendly one, and the distracted, abstract one. Though I do appreciate some of the funny bits about book storage (which reminds me I need to get another bookshelf for my manga), but this is really not a funny book. The book is rated for older teens, but I really do not see why -- maybe something happens in later volumes -- because this volume, with its short simple stories, would make a decent tweener book.

Maybe this is intended for other audiences, and if I read more volumes things would be different. But as of this first volume, this is merely a slightly cliche story about three sisters who like to read, and that love of reading gets them involved in strange adventures (ghosts, aliens). The stories are competently executed and clearly drawn, but neither do they strike me as especially well done or original.



- Ferdinand

Patchwork

Patchwork and all other explicit titles have been moved to Prospero’s Manga – Mature, a review blog for explicit manga titles. Please check there for reviews of such titles.

Punch!, v. 1

Story and Art by Rie Takada
Published in the U.S. by Viz Media



Slugline: Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" has never been so true.

Elle is a typical high school girl, pining away, hoping for romance. Unfortunately, her family is filled with martial artists, runs a gym that trains them, and she has already been promised to the grandson of her grandfather's greatest rival, who also trains at the gym. Whenever she finds someone she likes, the gym attendees manage to find some way to convince that person that it would be better for his health to stay far, far away from Elle. Up until the day that the street tough Kazuki walks into her life.

For a story that is about a girl balanced between two boys, there is a not a lot of balancing. Ruo, Elle's fiance, is a cardboard character barely developed past the fact that he loves Elle despite her rejection, and like most manga guys he has serious problems with impulse control. Kazuki, once you get past the fact that he is often covered in blood not his own, has all of the soft bits that make teenage girls go all squee-ish.

Sorry, not sure what the adjective form of "squee" should be.

Other than some interesting story bits, this is just an competently executed shoujo story that has very little conflict to drive it, at least by the end of this volume.



- Ferdinand

Updates to the Blog

With the influx of new readers, we've just finished a labeling project. You will notice a whole slew of new labels on the right hand side of the site. I think we got most of the useful types, but let us know if any come to mind.

As you can see on the label list, several companies are well represented . That's because they send us review copies. If you want your company's products reviewed, please consider adding us to your comp/review list. And if you want your favorite company's products reviewed, email them to add us to their review list.

Hopefully we will continue to add content and aids for Prospero's Manga over the upcoming weeks and months.

-Ferdinand

Aoi House, v. 2

Written by Adam Arnold with Art by Shiei
Published by Seven Seas



Slugline: Harem girls who know that they are in harem, and know enough to mock the whole situation.

The second volume of the OEL Aoi House, I feel, suffers from its legacy of being a webcomic and being printed by Newtype USA. Sure, everyone and their cousin has either been exposed to it (heh, sorry, feeling the sophomoric humor, exposed to it, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more) via the reprints or the webcomics, but the fact that it has to be continually up, always funny, always grabbing people's attention, means that it never has a lull in the action. When you read it as a graphic novel, you need those lulls for character bits, so that the characters hit more than one note. While a couple of the harem girls did so, I think the majority of characters were more obviously one-note than they were in the first volume. I am not sure whether that is just me, the side effect of writing for graphic novel or webcomic, but it was just not as surprising as the first one.

What did take me almost completely out of the story was the Final Fantasy riff in the middle of the volume. Apparently, I am the only anime/manga fan whose knowledge of Final Fantasy is gleaned solely from AMVs I have watched over the years. So I recognized a couple of the outfits, but the whole joke just went right over my head. Not necessarily its fault.

I still like the central conceit of a couple of hetero fanboys trapped in a harem of yaoi-crazed fangirls. There was some movement toward an overriding story arc, but this volume just didn't get to me the same way the first one did.



- Ferdinand

Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~, v. 1

Story by Satoru Akahori with Art by Yukimaru Katsura, original character design by Sukune Inugami
Published in the US by Seven Seas



Slugline: A guy who is a girl, who turns into girl, gets more action then when he, no she, no whatever, was a guy.

First off, I will have to beg the reader's indulgence. I, the bitter old anime/manga fan, who first saw Ranma 1/2 from a tape off Japanese TV with someone the room yelling out relevant plot points since there was no such thing as subtitles, have a singular weakness. It's yuri. Romantic titles with all-female leads. Not to say my brain completely turns to mush, but I notice that I am lot more forgiving of these titles than most others. I think I have managed to be impartial here, but take what you will with a grain of salt.

Hazumu, a guy, likes Yasuna, a girl, and thought the feeling were at least appreciated, but when he confesses to her she does not take it well. His feelings squashed, Hazumu takes to the surrounding hills, where he is squashed by a falling spaceship. The aliens, feeling bad squishing someone, decide to do some repairs, but there were only so much genetic material left (when they squish someone, they really squish someone) and they could only rebuild him as a her.

Thus, the main conflict of the series. Hazumu as a girl manages to connect to Yasuna in a way he couldn't as a boy, and discovers a new connection to a childhood friend Tomari (a tomboy neighbor) and she isn't quite sure how to handle it. Is a boy in a girl's body a hetero girl, a lesbian, or what?

These sorts of questions could have been really delved into, but they are only explored in connection with the main characters' relationships. I would have liked to see more about Hazumu wrestling with his/her own questions of identity. That would have been a much heavier title than the light, fluffy romantic fare we have here, which I still find it interesting, though some of the supporting characters are sillier than they need to be.



- Ferdinand

Soul Rescue, v. 1

Created by Aya Kanno
Published in the US by TokyoPop



Slugline: Another entry in my list of proof that Japanese creators don't know the difference between angels, fairies and Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Sorry, it is my genetic Catholicism expressing itself, but the portrayal of angels and God here is just so, well, generic. They could have called them spirits, aliens or even Muggles and it wouldn't make a difference. I'm sorry, there would have been one difference -- they wouldn't have had all that cool wing imagery. I'm no dogmatic, but I do ask that if a creator uses an archetype, they do some basic research. If I did a story featuring Kabbalists, I would have done as much research on Jewish beliefs as I could.

But it's not like the creator spent a lot of time coming up with the story. It is a basic "got to save X number of people/souls/hamsters" storyline. Main character begins with an almost immediate change of heart, no real resistance, even though he proclaims his so-called resistance every change he gets. There is one good plot twist, the failure-in-success bit, which usually shows up later in these type of series, but it is still fairly standard.

Art is okay, but occasionally hard to follow. Not very much to be excited about either way. It's just an overwhelmingly average book, and not very well executed.



- Ferdinand

Little Queens, v. 1

By Yeon-Joo Kim
Published in the US by TokyoPop



Dishonorable Mention

My brain hurt after reading this. The story tone and the actual flow of the plot, what exists of it, jumps all over the place. I kept on thinking they had accidentally forgotten to include some panels, pages, heck, a whole chapter. Not sure why they're queens in training, and by the time they kind of gave half an explanation I didn't care. Characterizations seemed to change page to page, sometimes panel to panel. Sometimes the story took itself very seriously, other times it became very metatextual, which that is a difficult feat to pull off and the story failed in that regard. And honestly, I spent first couple chapters trying to connect the intro text to the story I was reading, and it was only after the headache started that I realized that it wasn't worth bothering. Time jumps around without explanation.

So yeah, not loving it. If the art was truly spectacular I might have rated it better, or if the story was an ambitious failure I could forgiven the attempt, but it is neither, merely average in both respects.




- Ferdinand

Kamiyadori, v.1

by Kei Sanbe Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop





Slugline: Jillald and Vivi fight a war of attrition against a nasty disease in a dystopian world.

Back when I reviewed Blame, I said something about writers not having to explain everything -- but there's a certain minimum that has to be put out there. Blame fell a bit too short on that, for me. Kamiyadori is an example of one that falls on the "just enough" side.

Of course, only so much explanation is needed when the primary goal is to shoot big guns at nasty mutant sick people and have as much casual female nudity as you can get away with. Too much exposition just gets in the way. However, there is enough to hint at an underlying world that might be interesting if the writer can bring together the elements -- some of which seem kind of random.

("The holy is coming." The holy what? And why does it seem to be making things worse?)

Jillald is a Right Arm, an elite commando, who may be losing his edge but he's still got his improbably ass-kicking shotgun. Vivi is his sidekick and a poorly socialized indigent, which gives her license to not say much, cause all kinds of trouble and go bare-assed frequently.

The two of them shoot infected people, traumatize small children, and deal with those trying to capitalize on the plague. Volume 1 ends mid-storyling, giving it somewhere to start in v.2, but I do wonder how many volumes you could do before this all gets repetitive. Maybe v.2 will introduce a larger story arc.



- Miranda

Someday's Dreamers, Spellbound, v.1

by Norie Yamada & Kumichi Yoshizuki
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Magic-user Nami fumbles her way through high school and meets Ryotaro, motorcycle boy.

Nami is the basic puppy-eyed manga girl -- prone to screw-ups, ambitionless, miserable. Ryotaro is the basic gruff manga boy -- snappish, defensive, yet harbors a "soft side." That they are going to fall in love and overcome various obstacles is a foregone conclusion. The story is set in a carbon-copy Japan with one little hook thrown in to make it different -- except it rings hollow.

Nami is a magic user. A screw-up, but a magic user. The other characters treat this as only mildly unusual, so one must assume that there are a fair number of magic users in the population. So it's odd that the world does not seem to have any real support structure for her ability. There are self-help books, apparently, but no special magic class at school, no magic social clubs, no magical version of team sports -- and considering that she's supposed to get a certification to practice, you'd think there'd be as many magic-test-prep courses as there are SAT-prep-courses. We don't even see one other magic user, in v.1.

It's as if the writer threw in Nami's trouble with her magic just to give her something to feel bad about. Which is a mighty shallow reason to include magic and all the implications that magic brings with it. There are plenty of odd problems Nami could have without even leaving the bounds of modern-day Japan.

That her getting a handle on her skill is a part of the story is obvious -- it's poor writing, though, that in the whole first volume there's no sign that magic has been integrated into the world the writer has created.



- Miranda

Question for our reader(s)

You may have noticed our switch to the new Blogger and the change in our index -- it's now by tags. Everything is indexed by ranking and I also created a few other groupings: yaoi, original English language, and manhwa.

Question: are there any other groupings that would help you find the reviews you want? We've debated whether to do a shojo group, or a science fiction group or what, so why don't you all tell us what would work best?

Comment to post an answer.

- Miranda

Train Man

by Machiko Ocha
Published in the U.S. by Del Rey Manga



Slugline: Ikumi emerges from his otaku shell with the help of online friends.

There are several versions of the Train Man story ou there, but here's the basics: an otaku stands up to a drunk on the train, meets a girl as a result and is encouraged by online friends to date her and develop a relationship.

This is the shojo version, so the emphasis is very much on his fears and the support of his friends -- and their ascii art, the likes of which I haven't seen since my bulletin board days. The story is sweet in an ordinary, everyday way, and the writing does attempt to treat the unseen, unmet friends as real people by showing them hanging around their computers waiting for news. But on the other hand the art is standard-issue and there aren't exactly any surprises.

Plus, our hero isn't the most otaku of otaku... he bathes. His place isn't a mess. He seems to have a little spare money that he hasn't spent on manga/anime/cosplay gear. And while it was amusing to see ascii art and proto-133tsp33k again, it's a bit of a disconnect in today's world of IMs and Flash-laden webpages.




- Miranda

Gakuen Heaven

by You Higuri and Spray
Published in the U.S. by Blu



Dishonorable Mention

Even by my slightly lower porn standards, this is a flop -- main character's a Mary Sue, everyone's perfect, the plot drowns in tearful gratitude, the bad guys exist only to create hurt/comfort scene, and it's just generally boring.



- Miranda

Nosatsu Junkie, v.1

Created by Ryoko Fukuyama
Published in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: For once, it's the female character who has "the darkness" around her and the guy has to "rescue" her from herself.

This has been a tough rating to decide on. In our system, 3 stars means that the title is average. This is a shoujo title that has some of the standard tropes -- cross-dressing, people who want to become idols/models to get back to their exes -- but they do put a nice little twist to it. In this case, it is the female lead who is dark, whose appearance puts people off, and the male lead who starts to see past that and helps her start to come out of her shell. It is not the most original concept out there, but it was nice little twist, and managed to be entertaining.

But, while the art itself was fine, the layout of the panels and pages were at times confusing, jarring me out of the story at several places, forcing me to go back over pages since I was think I must have missed some connecting panel. Which character was which was sometimes not intuitively obvious just looking at the panel, and you had to rely on the dialogue balloons.

Despite that, I still rank it as a three-star, because I do feel that sometimes that I am little hard on shoujo titles, and the story was pretty good.



- Ferdinand

Dolis

Created by Maki Kusumoto
Published in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: College is even more emotionally screwed up than high school? There is no escape!!!

Dolis is an odd little thing, a one-off story of a doomed little romance between a college-aged couple, of people that don't know who they are and simply don't care about others. The question I had when reading this was whether I could care about the characters, and except for a few instances I just couldn't. The use of text served to distance the reader even further from the characters. This is an interesting character sketch, but not really much of an interesting story.

What is very interesting is the use of color in the title. Supposedly many manga titles in Japan, at least when they are first published in magazine, use one or two additional colors rather than just being black and white. Each chapter of Dolis uses a different set of colors, which makes it a very visually striking book, even if the actual line work is merely okay. I actually feel sorry for the editors and layout folks for this title, because originally each chapter was in a separate issue, surrounded by different stories, whereas here it is the same story, so some of the color schemes seem to clash.

So if you want to see some interesting use of color in manga, Dolis is a good choice. Beyond that, I don't find a lot of excitement in the title -- if anything, it serves to drain you of it.



- Ferdinand

Recast, v.1

Created by Seung-Hui Kye
Released in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: Just try to focus on the pretty, pretty pictures and avoid the word balloons. They will only sadden you.

The pictures are pretty.

And that's the limit of the good things I can say about Recast, a fantasy action manhwa. The story is all over the place, things seem to happen for little reason, and you have to rely on story notes and explanation pages to get vital information that you need in order to meet important characters and understand what is going on, and...

Look, I can see something good in all this, but it is so buried in confusing, pointless plot bits that I have little hope it will be salvaged. While the art is nice, even the fight scenes are not very well constructed, with confusing panel to panel sequences. Maybe that is enough for some people, but I require an interesting story that makes sense.



- Ferdinand

Airgear, v. 2

by Oh!great
Published in the U.S. by Del Rey Manga



Dishonorable Mention

This book made me laugh. It was almost as funny as Samurai Champloo, in fact. Problem is, I don't think the writer intended it as a comedy.

Oh, and the publisher had to change the girl's assless chaps into jeans for the front cover. Because if you're flying through the air on magic rollerblades, assless chaps are exactly what you want for those rough landings.



- Miranda

Rose Hip Zero

by Tohru Fujisawa
Published in the US by TokyoPop



Slugline: There's a rose on her hip. I don't know what the "zero" is all about.

Rose Hip Zero is a series from the creator of GTO, which would normally be a great motivator for one to check this out, but not so much in this case. Rose Hip Zero is about an almost supernaturally competent female teenage assassin, Rose, and the bad boy cop Kyoji as they take on the teen terrorist organization ALICE. It is an exactly manga-by-the-numbers action story. With a teen girl in a school uniform who likes to do flips (no fan service there!).

There are a couple weird story bits, which in GTO reflected the wackiness of the main character and his effect on the world, but here just seem odd when compared to the terrorist-derived storyline and the implied stakes in the story. I tried to find out more about the story and series, but apparently this is the second of a three-series set. As far as I can tell, Rose Hip Rose, the predecessor story, has been released in the US, and Magnum Rose Hip, the successor is currently being serialized. I suspect they may shed more light on some of the things here.

While the art is nice, sometimes parts of it are mislaid so that the full impact of the story is lost. For instance, there is a full page spread, which is nice, but an important story bit is hidden in the crease so that you can't see it. So while this is a good action story, that's all that it is, despite attempts to try to draw you in and build a backstory.



- Ferdinand

Junjo Romantica, v.1

by Shungiku Nakamura
Published in the U.S. by Blu



Slugline: College student Misaki falls for famous author Akihiko and Hiroki falls for Nowaki. Caution: explicit gay porn.

This is a story in two parts, and Akihiko seems to be the only connection -- Hiroki had a thing for Aki, but it's not clear if this is parallel to Misaki's story or not. Maybe it doesn't matter. The transition threw me for a loop since I kept confusing Hiroki with Misaki's brother.

I'm not a big fan of romance stories, partly because there seem to be a set number of ways for the relationship to develop and one of them involves what would normally be prosecutable cases of sexual assault. That would be the style featured in Misaki and Akihiko's half of the volume. The theory that the ends not only justify the means but somehow make it more "romantic" has never sat well with me. Hiroki and Nowaki's relationship reads more easily, after an initial case of home invasion.

Both stories contain well developed characters with heartaches and fears and a life outside their porn, but the plot focuses solely on getting two guys in bed with each other. Along the way, some funny moments and snarking kept the drama from getting too thick. The art is all right -- the guys are prone to having gigantic shoulders, though, and too-small heads -- and the sex is explicit without being hardcore, obviously drawn within the bounds of Japan's censorship laws...



- Miranda

Queens, v.1

by Sung-Hyen Ha
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Pil-Hyun desperately wants to be more "manly" and apprentices himself to a manga artist to do so.

...because they are such paragons of manhood. Especially the female ones. Yes, the kid is doomed.

This is, in fact, an interestingly different look at the "femmy" boy character type. I'm not saying that all guys who like teddy bears or wearing dresses should aspire to be more "manly" -- I think you should be yourself and hold out for the people who will understand you, but at the same time I know how hopeless that can seem when you're a teenager.

Overly "feminine" boys turn up frequently in manga (this is a manhwa, though) and they don't seem to face the same problems that such a guy would in the U.S. Pil-Hyun's quest for "manliness" gives the reader a window on how masculinity is defined in Asia -- where it's obviously both similar and different from the American definition.

Along the way, I'm sure there will be a look at the less glamorous side of being a professional artist, which is also worth seeing.

If it weren't for that, Queens would be a moderately amusing comedy of failures, mistakes and bad luck. Those aren't exactly uncommon, though this one puts a bit more effort into developing the characters. The art is competent but unexceptional. I'm a bit surprised to be recommending this title and looking forward to volume 2.



- Miranda

Penguin Revolution, v.1

Created by Sakura Tsukuba
Published in the US by CMX Manga



Slugline: Beware armed penguins! (Which is true only in the most metaphorical way.)

I usually do not like shoujo titles, because they seem to use the same three or four plots over and over. When I first read the cover copy for Penguin Revolution I was very tempted not to bother. We have cross-dressing characters and it is set in the talent agency. I've only read about a dozen titles in that ballpark.

But while Penguin Revolution is not the salvation of the shoujo genre, neither does it fall headlong into all of the traps that I expected. The cross-dressing, while played for laughs, isn't because of romantic misunderstandings. While the reason that it is happening isn't an especially sound one, let's admit it, how many sound ones can there be? And our lead character isn't trying to beat the odds and get people to see her obvious talent, but instead just trying to help out a friend and trying to avoid living on the streets.

The main character Yukari has the ability to sense a person's creative talent by seeing an otherwise invisible set of wings on the person, the greater the wings, the greater the talent. Considering how she grew up, she craves stability and wants to avoid the entertainment industry but she still ends up living with a talent crossdressing as a girl and she has to get into entertainment to help keep his secret. While she is fond of him, she is not reduced to a simpering mess by his or any man's presence (except by the brilliance of his wings, but then again any set of wings can affect her) and she can defend herself.

The art is straightforward and tells the story effectively and while there is nothing in the title that speaks of brilliance, sometimes executing the same old thing in a good way is worth more than you think.

Finally, this is a CMX Manga title, which may leave a bad taste in fans' mouths, but the company has learned from their previous mistakes and this book at least seems solid.



-Ferdinand

The Good Witch of the West, v.1

Story by Noriko Ogiwara, Art by Harahiko Momokawa
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Daughter of a missing princess turns up in a small town, and is chased by mysterious bad guys.

It's a story that turns up often enough in the fantasy fiction shelves -- princess disappears with her lover and a pretty girl turns up a generation later wit all the indicators of royal blood. At the same time, there's trouble in the kingdom from a mysterious cult/coven/etc.

In this version, so far, Firiel has no apparent abilities other than making sure the boys in her life stay fed. Except for a lucky kick she gets in. Still, it's the kind of story that can be entertaining when it's done well and there are some interesting details. A book of standard Western fairy tales makes an appearance, but they're not well known stories in this world. Firiel's friend -- and her father's apprentice -- may have a dark side lurking within.

Volume 1 is a standard beginning to the story: Firiel finds out about the missing princess and is stripped of her childhood -- and volume 2 will be a big influence on my opinion of the series. Though if it were a fiction book and the first 200 pages couldn't tell me if the story was any good I'd have gotten bored already, but hey, it's manga.



- Miranda

Dokebi Bride, v.2

by Marley
Published in the U.S. by Net Comics



Slugline: Sunbi is plagued by evil spirits and the strange new world of the big city, but she gets some advice on how to fight back.

This volume has it all: horror, philosophy, jokes, Korean folklore, tragedy... I get a lot of manga for free, but I went to the store and bought Dobeki Bride and I plan to do it again.

Here in Seoul without her grandmother's guidance, Sunbi struggles to settle in while being tormented by various nasty spirits. It's not easy to sit through class with a demon chewing on your head. Her human acquaintances range from the cousin who hates her to the paranormal buff with the Kirlian camera to a monk who helps Sunbi out of a bad spot. She's hurt and confused by it all, but remains proactive and starts searching for ways to protect herself from these demons.

The art has occasional perspective problems, but segues easily from the mundane world to hyper-detailed horrors of the paranormal. It's not a horror story, though. It's the sort of strong heroine story that I would recommend to anyone, along with Polly and Eternal Sabbath.

I'm hoping I can find an equally good boy-centerd series to go with these, in all honesty.

The back page says v.3 was due in September '06... I'll have to see about that, and order it straight from the source if my book store isn't keeping up.



- Miranda

My Hime, v.1

Written by Kimura Noboru and Illustrated by Ken-etsu
Published in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: Whose brilliant idea was it to have distraught schoolgirls battle each other and have 'children'?

This is one of those manga that at first glance seems relatively, but when you start really taking it apart it starts mildly creeping you out. The two female leads, Mai and Natsuki, are driven by duties to others. Because of these duties they create mystical creatures called children with the main male lead Yuuichi, and even though they do not like him, their try to focus on their child. They are called princesses (the English translation of hime) and they are both protected and isolated, made to serve others. And in the process of doing so, they are revealed to the male eye in tons of fanservice. I've never formally studied feminist theory, and my thought processes do not usually turn to it, but this work I suspect revealed far more about what the expected Japanese roles for women and gender relationships than the creators intended.

And to show how bad I am at feminist theory, I am now going to put it all aside, and try to talk just about the manga as presented.

The story is basically about an Academy that is under attack by entities called Orphans, and school students called Hime use their psychic abilities to defend the school, with the story revolving two of the Hime and the new male transfer student who is a Key that helps the Hime create Childs, psychic creations that boost the Himes' abilities. Okay, one of the non-lead female students says to the male student "Please, open my keyhole..."

Ewww.

Okay, the art at times is a little confusing, with lots of fan service and the plot is, well, thin. Painfully so and unrealistic even by manga standards. I find that there are some good character touches and moments that rang true, for instance, real sexual tension in this sort of highly charged environment must have considering the sort of relationships that exist between Himes and Keys. I haven't watched the anime that this is based on, so if you really liked it, this is supposedly a re-imagination of aspects of the original story and you may want to read it because of that. Otherwise this is just something to looked at, experienced on a surface level if you like fan service and pseudo-sexual imagery, but otherwise, eh, not enjoying it.



- Ferdinand.

Daphne in the Brilliant Blue, v.1

by Shiki Satoshi
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Bored teenager wants to be a secret agent.

This story is so resoundingly ordinary that I have very little to say about it. It's been decked out with various science-fiction trappings -- underwater cities, super-duper-jet-skis, government agents in scanty outfits -- but it's just another bored teenager with an unlikely job and a couple "oddities" thrown in.

Ai spends her time in school or test-driving high-speed jet-skis because her dad is a muckety-muck scientist and she gets involved in chasing some escaping terrorists and running into the special agents assigned to eliminate said terrorists (I'm sure there are "secrets" the government's suppressing that the terrorists want to educate everyone about) so Ai wants to be a secret agent and she's kidnapped by the terrorists but saves the day and... gratuitous boobs, hooray.

There's nothing particularly bad about Daphne, but there's nothing noteworthy either. This author also wrote Kami Kaze, which I found more interesting and I'd recommend over this title.



- Miranda

Judas, v.1

by Suu Minazuki
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: "Eve", possessed by "Judas" (no relation to any Biblical characters) must slay lots of bad guys.

But there's more to it than that, it seems. The "bad guys" are themselves possessed by another spirit, one claiming to represent life to Judas's death. There's an organization involved, somewhere, and recurring cross-shaped hypodermics. And at the end we meet Zero, who's cast as Judas's nemesis.

That's the interesting stuff. On the other hand, Eve is a boy and a crybaby to boot. Mizuki, a 16-year-old medical/computer/all-around supergenius, joins their quest to kill 666 after Judas kills the priest who ran the orphanage Mizuki grew up in. The group also picks up Kogiku, who seems to attract animals and is slightly more useful than Eve. Judas himself is tiresomely petty and bossy, most of the time.

But there are some genuinely strange moments and enough of the underlying world-building, mentioned above, to hold my interest. I found the artwork to be occasionally unclear about what was going on, sometimes forcing me to backtrack in the middle of an action sequence. It's not so great when a portion of the swirling cloud effects turns out to actually be a giant scythe. I'd like to know about these things before we get stabbity.

Whoever wrote the back cover blurb didn't read it, I'm thinking -- there's more to this than just killing 666 people. At least, that's what I'm hoping. 3 stars, with a bullet.



- Miranda

Making Comics

By Scott McCloud
Published by Harper Paperbacks



Slugline: Everything else you need to know about making comics .

I've said before that we will occasionally review stuff here that are not precisely manga, but will be of interest to manga fans even if they do not seem to at first blush. In the western comics, Scott McCloud is one of the foremost theoreticians of comics. Calling him a theoretician makes him sound very dry and possibly boring, but he approaches his work in a very entertaining style, packing it with ideas that explode like grenades in your consciousness just a few minutes into reading the book. And reading the book is not a very difficult task, considering it is a comic book with Scott McCloud himself guiding you through the work.

Making Comics is not about art, or how you draw chibis, but instead about the more abstract and more important issues about what you draw, how you frame, how much space should be between panels or should there even panels at all. He doesn't give you any concrete answers, but points out what the questions should be. If you have ever looked at a page and wondered why it just didn't feel right, Making Comics offers a concrete list of questions you can ask to help you discover just why that is.

While he does mostly focus on western comics, McCloud has been looking at some of the regional differences between comics, and he does have a short section about some of the differences between American and Japanese comics.

Considering just how many "How to Draw" books there are on the market, and how many of them are manga-focused, if you want to learn how to draw that is well covered. But if you want to do more than just arrange them one after another, if you want to tell a story with your pictures, to turn something good into something great, Making Comics is an invaluable toolkit to have, just as important as pencil and paper.



- Ferdinand

Banya, v.1

by Kim Young-oh
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manhwa



Slugline: Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night... and not siege armies or monsters either, apparently, will stop this delivery man.

This is the sort of fantasy world where everyone wears neo-traditional garb except for the teenage girl (of which there is only one.) She, of course, must wear something inspired by current teen fashion.

The three kids, including Banya, all work for the Desert Post Office (without a boss or even a town in the vicinity) and are similar go-getter personalities. Bany is particularly known for his over-the-top stunts to deliver a package, so when a wounded messenger has to pass his burden on, it goes to Banya. Bad guys show up in pursuit of the message, and the chase is on.

There are plenty of over-eager, over-competent teens in manga, plenty of mysterious bad guys, random monsters that eat your camel, and plucky girls to back up the main man. Overlook these sorts of standard fantasy tropes and Banya is a fun enough action story. There may not be any noble sacrifices -- everyone's got to pony up the delivery fee -- but it'll be a fun romp since nobody seems to be taking this too seriously. At least not until people start getting killed.

Well, maybe not even then.



- Miranda

Re:Play, v.1

By C. Lijewski
Published by TokyoPop



Slugline: Re:Play is another one of TokyoPop's OGM's created by a winner of the Rising Stars of Manga contest, in this case Christy Lijewski. Though she was discovered that way, she is also producing a monthly comic for Slave Labor Graphics, which after reading Re:Play makes me want to check it out.

Re:Play is a musician manga, but I'll try not to hold that against it. Eh, it's not that I have anything specifically against manga featuring musicians, but it seems to be popular out of proportion to its actual usefulness. I mean manga, or any comic for that matter, can not actually convey the music that is such a central part of the story. Of course, that may be the attraction, that you don't have to be concerned about the music.

Cree is the singer of a small-time band that was starting to take off when their bassist ditches both the band and her. But fortunately she finds a new bassist Izsak, who is a amnesiac homeless street musician. Nothing can go wrong there, right? Needless to say she starts to fall for him, despite her best friend Rail's misgivings. There may be something to his concerns, since there are some very odd people that are overly interested in Izsak. Plus Izsak himself has some strange needs.

Okay, I said earlier that I usually have problems with musician manga, well this is one that proves the rule by being the exception. The art is a jagged style, which fits the characters and the story. Cree is fairly well established character-wise, while the others are described as far as they are needed to keep things moving. Surprisingly enough, Izsak's secret wasn't revealed at the end of the volume, which would have been a good capper, but instead the story ends on a emotional note. There is some strangeness and action, but it is understated and hinting, rather than being full out. I definitely want to see more.



- Ferdinand