SERIES UPDATE: Kashimashi vols. 2 and 3

Please check out our review for the first volume of Kashimashi

First of all, Kashimashi the manga diverges significantly from Kashimashi the anime, so if you like one, you may not necessarily enjoy the other. Volume 2 is pretty much a holding pattern with Hazumu and the two other members of his/her love triangle, along with their friends, trying to have typical high school adventures and shenanigans, but the undercurrents of Hazumu's transformation into a woman and the status of his/her feelings for Tomari and Yasuna keep on reasserting themselves. In the beginning of the third book Tomari and Yasuna have come to an understanding, and even a weird kind of friendship between the three of them (try to keep your minds out of the gutter,) but a revelation at the end of the third book will undoubtedly put pressure on all three of them as they try to deal with a ticking time bomb that now is part of the story.

Maybe it's just my fondness for yuri, but some of the problems of Hazumu's transformation come up in the third volume, along with a compelling reason (even if it involves a lot of handwaving to believe) that the status quo of their relationship/non-relationship has to be upset, make it more interesting for me. The second volume is actually fairly skippable, with some of the character's traits being revealed, especially among the supporting characters, but what I feel as the main drive of the story is starting get into gear only at the end of volume three. And I think it has a good ending, suggesting that everyone's relationship will have to change but not invalidating what has gone on before. It also gives the main character Hazumu a reason to stop being a pushover, which is good. Right now I would say that the 3 1/2 stars I gave to the first volume is teetering down to a 3 star rating, but if the fourth volume lives up to the promise of the end of volume 3, it will easily keep its current rating and possibly climb.

The Kashimashi vol. 2 and vol. 3 are both available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, v.1

by Ei Itou
Published in the U.S. by Seven Seas

Slugline: Nuns! Demons! Scythes! Gatling guns! And it's yuri!

This has many of the same elements as Chevalier d'Eon -- Christian-based horror, demonic transformations, regenerating heroines, deity-patronized weaponry (but they get the deity right) -- set in Victorian London and presented in a clearer art style. Our two girls, Meg and Angela, are standard-issue tormented killing machines as of v. 1, and while this is part of Seven Seas' Strawberry (yuri) line, there isn't anything particularly romantic or unusual about their relationship. Yet.

I don't see anything particularly unique about this story so far, but the action is well handled and large amounts of blood are dished out via dismemberments, large-bore automatic weapons, and the weaponized farm implement du jour, our magic scythe. The artist is less worried about striking dramatic poses than Chevalier's artist, and more interested in getting to the flying body parts. Other plot elements, all of which we've seen before, serve to get us from Combat A to Combat B. If you're in the market for girls and gore, this is a good pick.



Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, v.1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Only Words

Written by Tina Anderson, art by Caroline Monaco
Published by Iris



Slugline: Yaoi of a Nazi and a Catholic seminarian. Turn back now or forever hold your peace.

A short review for a short, intense study on the powerful lure of the forbidden. And with the multiple layers of wrongness come stronger desire and more serious fallout -- political, religious, and ethnic on top of the usual homosexuality taboo... potent stuff. There's sex, yes, but it's part and parcel of these characters' trajectories. Kudos all around.



- Miranda

Peace Maker, v.1

By Nanae Chrono
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Tetsu wants to join the Shinsengumi to train and get revenge, naively thinking that the Gumi is some kind of martial arts club.

Nominee for Potentially Misleading Cover, 2007: it looks like a serious and artistic manga, but inside it's actually a slapsticky shonen romp. In v.1, at least.

Volume one assaults us with several characters we've seen before - the tiny, high-octane guy, the effeminate-yet-manly guy, the tormented killing machine - and a standard revenge plot on top of what could be a more interesting story: the Shinsengumi's side of the story, in Meiji Japan. For those of us who first met the Shinsengumi in Ruroni Kenshin (speaking of tiny, high-octane guys), hearing their side of the story could be interesting. But there's no guarantee that Peace Maker is the series to do that. Any politicking is firmly set in the background, behind the comedic beat-downs and the background sob story.

Beneath the physical comedy, there may be rumblings of the serious story the cover portrays this as -- Tetsu is eager to "become a demon" to get his revenge, obviously not knowing what he's getting into in his hurry to become the man he thinks he wants to be.



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

- Miranda

Dark Moon Diary, v.1

Story by Che Gilson with Art by Brett Uher
Released by TokyoPop



Slugline: Didn't I already review something like this?

Priscilla's parents have died and she moves to Nachtwald, a small European country/city -- where monsters, such as vampires, witches, and so on, are the majority of the population -- to live with her aunt and uncle. Priscilla finds out that her mom was a vampire (the normal rules about sunlight and so on obviously don't apply here) and thus her aunt, uncle and cousin are all vampires. Their efforts to try to feed her create one of the running subplots of the book, since their diet seems to consist of items that require you you to best them in battle first. Her cousin, Kitten, is the queen bee of the school and doesn't want her talking to the requisite tall dark and handsome (actual) prince of the school. As retaliation, she lights Priscilla's locker on fire, and at that point Priscilla loses it (the locker had a picture of her mother in it), punches Kitten, and stalks back to their castle to leave. She gets as far as the airport when her uncle catches up with her, calms her down, and brings her back with a peace offering of a small picture/painting of Priscilla's mom when she was Priscilla's age. Her aunt and uncle realize that they have been a little clueless about her troubles adapting and promise to try harder to help her adjust.

This not a bad book. In fact, I found some bits of it very good. Priscilla's reaction to having her locker destroyed -- the first instance of someone actively trying to get her rather than passively just letting bad things happen to her because of her lack of knowledge -- was to immediately stand up for herself and punch Kitten out of her shoes. And the food bit, something so small but it became a great gag that not only drove some of the action (she made a friend by having someone show her where the ice cream parlor was) but it also became emblematic of all the little annoyances and craziness that she was forced to put up with in Nachtwald. Despite all that, I felt that I had I seen the setting and the basic plot too often before. It was that sense of tiredness, of having seen the same routine so many times, that dragged me down. I want to see what this writer can do in the following volumes, because I sense that the overall storyline can be different and exciting, but with this volume basically setting up the characters, the plots and the setting, I felt, well, bored.

(Strangely, there's nothing in Amazon with this ISBN!)

But Dark Moon Diary, vol. 1 is available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

I Hate You More Than Anyone!, v.1

by Banri Hidaka
Published in the U.S. by CMX



Slugline: When is falling in love, in a shojo manga, ever simple? Kazuha gets the old bait-and-switch treatment.

Despite that it's a classic case of bait-and-switch romance, Hate You is full of snappy dialog and fun physical comedy. It also features some rare charater details: Kazuha is the eldest of six (!), both of her parents work (understandably), and the youngest kid is in daycare.

It's the hunky daycare teacher who is the first target of Kazuha's affection, and then she gets thrown into the arms of his friend the hairdresser -- against her will, at first. Sugimoto is starting to charm her, by the end of v.1, so we're sure to hit the rocks in v.2 before the series title become totally inaccurate.

The art is fun and funny -- though the artist drops details at will, especially parts of Sugimoto's sunglasses -- and Kazuha's role as default mom to her siblings rings truer here than it does in other manga. Most of the sound effects have been translated and replaced in the artwork, which I know angers some purists, but you know what? I can't read Japanese, I don't have the time or energy to learn a whole new writing system with six billion different characters, and I appreciate that CMX made the effort.



I Hate You More Than Anyone!, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Fantamir, v.1

By Eun-Jin Seo
Released in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: Something is different about this title. No, it's not that it's Korean. Wait, I know, it's because no one is madly in love with anyone else!!! Is this even a high school drama?

Mir is a young sorceress, but she has lost her powers and rather than disappoint her family she fled the isolated compound she has grown up in and runs away to the big city, in this case Seoul. One of her family's retainers follows her, and reassures Mir that her mother, who is in charge of her clan, will let her stay in the city and will allow her to go to a school. Of course, once she gets to the school she immediately gets swept up into the competition between the Wonhwa and the Hwarang, the leading girls and boys of the high school. Mir quickly is challenged to a duel with Ba-Ri, the leader of the female Wonhwa, which begins with a swordfight. Mir wins unexpectedly (she still has a touch of her enhanced abilities, just not her full sorceress's powers) and claims as her prize a vow of friendship with Ba-Ri. That is all that Mir really wanted, to make some friends rather than be isolated like she was previously. The other parts of the duel are put off until Ba-Ri recovers from a minor injury, but meanwhile Mir discovers that her mother was once a member of the Wonhwa. Mir runs away from the school in frustration, certain that this is just another one of her mother's stratagems to get Mir to do as she wishes.

As I mentioned in the slugline, there was something that I was enjoying in the title, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Then it hit me: no one was pining over somebody else. Not to say there weren't romantic interests, they were there, but they are not the drivers of the action or the definition of the characters, they were just part of them. Romance is the usual source of conflict for any sort of high school drama, but here the characters were trying to react to each other as people, not necessarily as lovers or competition. There is a moment of jealousy in Ba-Ri that starts the duel, but I am not sure if that was really jealousy or just a subtle power play of the factions, and that ambiguity is exciting. And there is a whole supernatural element that has yet to be really played around with. So I am cautiously optimistic about the series, and could easily seeing myself giving this series a high rating in a volume or two.



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

- Ferdinand

Shoujoai Ni Bouken: The Adventure of Yuriko

Written by Erica Friedman and Illustrated by Kelli Nicely
Published by ALC Publishing



Slugline: How often do con mascots get novels?

First of all this is not a manga, but instead a light novel, in a way. Yuriko is the mascot for Yuricon, an anime/manga convention dedicated to all thing yuri, aka lesbian relationships. As in, real lesbian relationships rather than what guys want to see. ALC Publishing, an arm of Yuricon, has been publishing OEL in that genre for several years now, and it is only recently that any other publishers have stepped into the breach, the only one having a deliberate yuri line/focus so far being Seven Seas.

Yuriko is a openly lesbian idol, with a reputation of being a little bit of a player, who has been shanghaied into returning to high school for a reality television show. So she has to juggle her professional commitments, her personal friendships and the return to high school -- something that no amount of money would ever entice me back to. And as an adult suddenly being dropped into high school, she has to remember all those things they promised in high school that you would need in life, like calculus, which she had quite reasonably forgotten as soon as she became an idol. Fortunately, she has a sempai, a girl almost a decade her younger, to guide her through the mess. I think the relationships she makes with the students, who may be younger than her but still face their own challenges, are interesting and realistic.

This rating is for the entire story arc, including the followup volumes that have not been published but have been made available online. In fact, everything has been made available online, but I believe from a quick perusal that the illustrations that grace the printed volume are not. I think for the most part the story is good, juggles relationships, both short-term and possibly longer, fairly well, but while I can believe Yuriko can fall in love, I have a hard time accepting the speed it happens in. The quality of the art, even when used as spot illustrations, is what I would charitably call uneven. While interesting, ultimately it still reads as a a very lightweight shoujo story that does not make a deep mark on the mind.

And as for the link, it is here.



- Ferdinand

Series Update: Crossroad 2 & 3

SERIES UPDATE

To see our review of Crossroad, vol. 1, click here. We followed up this review with one of Crossroad vols. 4-7.

These two volumes are full of romantic pining, confusion, and comedy -- which is standard fare for shojo manga, but the dialog is so fresh and believeable that it singlehandedly keeps the story from going stale. Kudos to Go!comi for having the guts to publish a manga where a high school student dates a teacher, risky as that is.

I would give these two volumes a 3.5, same as the first volume, for injecting fun into familiar relationship problems (everyone's too terrified to actually speak their minds, of course...) and handling a tricky subject (students dating teachers) with humor, yet drama. From how volume 3 ends, I'm guessing 4 will begin a new problem cycle. Check the bargain bins for this one -- I cleaned out the dealers at Otakon and got these cheap!

Crossroad, vol. 3 is available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Stand By Youth, v. 1

Story by Young-Bin Kim with Art by Juder
Released in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: What if your SATs really did determine what you did for the rest of your life?

Sometimes it is easy to forget that the differences between the US and Japan are more than just cosmetic, that there are some deep differences aside from just wearing school uniforms. And those differences are even bigger once you add Korean manwha to the picture. In Stand By Youth, we are talking about tests that define what schools you get into to a much greater degree than the US's SATs do. If you do not do well enough, you go to cram school for a year in order to take the test again and repeat the process as often as need be. Stand By Youth is about one of these students, Hyungmo, who usually does well in school but manages to choke big time in the exams and places dismally in them. He has to go to one of the cram schools to prepare for the test again and due to his scores he ends up in a class filled with juvenile delinquents. Once there he meets Sora, a fellow student who has to study for the test. After consoling Sora because her alcoholic father has shown up at the school threatening to withdraw her, they start, or at least Hyungmo thinks they have, dating. But she has a secret and whether or not they are really are dating in anyplace but in Hyungmo's mind is a question that has yet to be answered.

This is an interesting title, especially given that it gives us a view of the cram school environment (though they are not exactly cram schools by the Japanese definition) in Korea. There are some cliches wandering around and I think I see some story elements coming, but neither is this title a complete cookie cutter. The guy is spineless, but he's not clueless. He can see through the front that others are putting up to encourage him, though it does take a little effort on his part. It is also a snapshot of that point between high school and college, where people whom you've known all your life leave you behind -- literally in the case of Hyungmo -- and you have to figure out what you are going to do next and how you will shoulder the new responsibilities that come out of that time. Hyungmo does still have his parents around to rely on, but he now sees his relationship with them differently, as he has to prove to them that their faith in him is justified. But then those annoying cliches masquerading as characters wander back in, so while it has something worthwhile story-wise, there is a lot of other stuff obscuring those elements.



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

- Ferdinand

Venus Versus Virus, v. 1

By Atsushi Suzumi
Published in the U.S. by Seven Seas



Slugline: Two hot goth girls in action! Plus they may be one of the Seven Seas yuri titles! Can this possibly ever get any better?

Sumire is a typical girl who has one problem: she can see dead people sometimes, and sometimes the dead people can see her back. One day a ghost threatens her, and a goth girl shoots it dead. Which is an interesting feat since it was already a ghost, but is beside the point. They go back and forth and the goth girl named Lucia uses her as bait for the Virus, a type of contagious ghost, so to speak. In the process of getting the ghost that been haunting the school, Lucia has to shoot Sumire with her spirit bullets, which has the dual effects of making Sumire a great target for roaming Virus ghosts, but also gives her the ability to kill them. Sumire realizes that she needs help, training and protection and moves in with Lucia, much to the consternation of her friends who do not realize exactly what is going on. She goes on a couple of jobs, but only barely survives them just trying to avoid invoking her own strange abilities.

There are some interesting character bits here, despite my claims of yuri fandom. As in, the women looking longingly at each other is not what I am talking about here. While Sumire starts out shy, her development to being a little more outgoing is organic, and while she currently plays the helpless female, she may have a monster inside and the cynical, world-weary Lucia may be the one to drag her back to reality. Decent action, interesting characters and some different story twists make this an enjoyable read. 3 stars, with a bullet.



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

- Ferdinand

Hollow Fields, v. 1

Story and Art by Madeleine Rosca
Published by Seven Seas



Slugline: What if Harry Potter was a girl, attended a school for mad scientists, and had no idea how use a wand/screwdriver..?

Lucy Snow manages to get a little bit lost on her way to a new boarding school and ends up at a different school instead, one that offers free room and board, and expects the very best of its students. Or else. Because after she has signed on the dotted line, she discovers that the school is intended to train the next generation of mad scientists, with classes like graverobbing and how to build killer robots -- things that Lucy has no experience or skill in. But she better not have the lowest grades at the end of the week, because that is when the student with them is sent to detention. And no student has been seen after they have been sent to detention. Considering the nature of school, no one is thinking that is because the kids in detention are having so much fun that they have completely forgotten to come back to their dorm room or the dining hall. Lucy stumbled across some secrets, some of which help her along and set up things for the next volume, provided she survives the first detention selection at the end of her first horrible week. But that experience gives her a goal to focus on.

This is one Seven Seas' successes, and they have already gone back to press within a month of its release. It's also the only book that was created by someone outside of Asia to win a major international contest for manga in Japan. The title revels in finding an expectation and then breaking it. The fellow outcast she meets on the first day? Gone in less than ten pages rather turning into the Ron to Lucy's Harry. Her Hermione, on the other hand, definitely has his own agenda, and despite being the child of dentist, she has no idea how to be a mad scientist, she has no inherent skills or prophesied abilities, but she is willing to work long and hard at it in order to become better. Not only just to survive, but to have a goal greater than that, a goal that the rest of the students, perhaps due to their expectations, have apparently never have thought of.

The art is the mad scientist clockwork design, and all of the teachers of the school, the Engineers, show both their strangeness but at the same time their approachability in their design. Miss Notch goes from kindly doorkeeper to ferocious jailer without any radical transformation sequence but instead through just demeanor -- which is a harder trick than one would think. There are a few points where I thought it just didn't quite close the gap or hit just the right note, but because the story was willing to ignore what it was supposed to do and with an art style that is impeccably matched with the material, this book is still worth a look.



Hollow Fields, vol. 2 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Good Luck, v.2

by E-Jin Kang
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Not confused enough yet? Don't worry: at the end of v.2 we start throwing random passers-by into the mix.

I will admit that I have more trouble keeping Korean names straight than I do Japanese names. It does not help that "Shi" and "Hyun" both show up in more than one person's name. But I'm trying, because this series has gotten a few genuine lols out of me and that's worth fighting for when you're old and jaded.

Shi-Hyun both survives the betrayal of a friend and consents to a first date with the hot boy at school, which then turns into a tangled web of romantic interests including the hot girl at school and Shi-Hyun's adopted brother. And then she starts flirting with a guy on the train and it looks like he'll be sucked into all of this too. (Run! Run while you can!)

The art swings from fun to romantic at will, and the dialog drifts toward the melodramatic but still rings true. So it's still a thumbs-up and I'm glad to have finally found v.2 -- I was starting to worry they'd canceled it right out of the starting gate.

Check out our review for Good Luck, vol. 1.



Good Luck, vol. 2 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Series Update: The Drifting Classroom, v. 4 - 6

SERIES UPDATE

The numbers are whittled further and further down, as tends to happen in horror stories, by increasingly strange, unlikely, and a situations that might be convincing if I didn't already know that bubonic plague is transmitted by fleas, not by touch. And believe me -- if you've got fleas, you know about it. Those kids should be itching up a storm if they've got fleas. And then there was the mummy, which starts out great, even funny, and devolves into a plot device.

But despite the occasional stretching of credulity, Umezu-sensei continues to present scathingly honest reactions to outrageous situations. We take a right turn at Lord of the Flies and head into pogrom territory -- all the more grimly realistic because history is littered with purges like this.

I thought volume 6 would be the end, but there's more to come. Our narrator is safe, we know, but will anybody else be left when it's all over?

The Drifting Classroom vol. 4, vol. 5 and vol. 6 are all available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Alive, v.1

by Tadashi Kawashima, art by Adachitoka
Published in the U.S. by Del Rey Manga



Slugline: After a worldwide rash of suicides, things start getting wierder for Taisuke, Megu and Hirose.

This is an odd first volume. First, for a solid week thousands of people commit suicide, many of them publicly or in front of loved ones. Then, there seem to be strange new powers afoot and Hirose's got them. Taisuke may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he's loyal. Megu, so far, is just a skirt.

There's a faint Akira vibe to the story, since one friend has acquired a mysterious power -- I'll put even odds on it destroying him -- and the other friend may not be capable of helping him in any significant way. The art and characters are standard-issue at first glance, but there are a scattering of poignant moments that caught my eye.

This was not an instant-grab series, for me, and the rating reflects its lack of impact. But I'm just curious enough that I may seek out volume 2 on my own.



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


- Miranda

Clubbing, vol. 1

By Andi Watson and Josh Taylor
Released by Minx, of DC Comics



Slugline: Why is it that goth girls have to face undying horrors from beyond who want to snack on the world? Why not wholesome Midwestern farm girls?

We are going to do something a little bit different here, we are going to talk about Clubbing, a title from DC Comics' Minx line that is aimed at girls. While not a manga, it is certainly trying to aim at the same demographic and there is some crossover potential, or at least DC Comics is hoping that there will be.

Charlotte Brook is a goth girl from the West End of London who has been banished from the city for trying to pass a fake ID. She has been sent off into the country to work at her grandparents' golf course and play as dumb as humanly possible in order to sneak out of said work as much as possible. But her hopes for a quickly passing summer are dashed when one of the neighborhood ladies is killed. Charlotte and the groundskeeper's son Howard, who is the only male in town under the age of 50, try to understand what is going on, what that strange symbol was on the murdered woman's neck, and what connection Charlotte's grandparents have to the whole mess.

Both Andi Watson and Josh Howard are well known US creators, with Josh Howard's Dead@17 title being one of the popular horror titles of recent memory, but here the story just does not jell together properly. It feels like there were several pages missing -- not that there were actual holes in the storyline, but instead moments when the whole ending seemed rushed and tacked on after a leisurely exploration of the world that Charlotte found herself in. The conclusion feels unsatisfying, as in afterwards I am still not sure what exactly Charlotte did in the book to be the protagonist. Was she just the observer of the action going on around her, or was she actually part of the story? I came away uncertain of that very basic fact.

Still, the art and dress style were fun, and the language, if not accurate, sounded right and seemed to fit the goth attitude better than most. There were a couple good character moments, especially over whether or not Charlotte was actually goth enough or a poseur when confronted by the countryside goths, and the use of British slang was enough to make you realize that you were actually in a different country without being so heavy that you had a hard time following it.




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

- Ferdinand

We are now ProsperosManga.com

We have been around long enough, and have enough of a readership that we decided to make it a little easier for people to reach us. Starting, well, today, you can simply just enter www.ProsperosManga.com and you will get here, without having to remember all that blogspot nonsense.

-Ferdinand

We Shadows, v. 1

By Sonny Strait
Released by TokyoPop



Slugline: An epic story manages to emerge from an confusing mess of a beginning.

We Shadows has a rather inauspicious, confusing beginning. As far as I can tell, there are several strands of storyline that eventually coalesce into a tapestry, though admittedly I am not sure where all the pieces go yet. There is a man that keeps on having blackouts, has a job that's driving him crazy, a psychologist who seems to know way too much of what is going on, and the annoying ability to snap and threaten everyone around him with a magical control over plants. That is the first section of the book -- just work past that and get to what ends up being the main meat of the book. A character, Puck, has been a mercenary away from Earth for a long time and ends his existence due to ennui. The queen of the Faeries -- and in this case the faeries are more like Tinkerbell -- Titania, has been napping, usually more asleep than awake, along with most of her subjects since the beginning of the age of industry. The Glamour Gloms, creatures that first appear to be faeries but are later revealed to be both more and less than just that, have been using glamour in all of its forms to stay awake and in power. Goat is a wingless faerie who has been kicked about by the Gloms, thinking that she is in training to be a faerie princess -- a belief that is fostered by a talking mushroom that no one else can hear. That being said, the mushroom has been misleading her, and that there is a fate both greater and lesser than what she is hoping for awaiting her.

If this synopsis is a little bit all over the place, that is partially an result of the story. The first half is slow going, and there are a lot of things going on that don't seem to hold together. By the end of the book, well, you are sure that Goat is the main character, and what the central story is, but there are some peices that still seem left over. Much like those Lego sets you would get in Christmas, there would always seem to be a few pieces left over that you had no idea where they went, but still you knew that they have to belong somewhere. I am betting that they will fit in the next volume, but at the moment they just lay there.

It may be just me, but I also sense an attempt to follow the Star Wars archetype of storytelling. The first story injects hope, the second volume despair, and the final volume triumph. Then again, I may have read more articles about myth structure than are good for me.

Sonny Strait also includes a lot of extras in the back, including his entry in the 24 hour comic, something that many manga fans may not be aware of: a challenge to create a 24-page comic in 24 hours. It is, in theory, a superhero comic, so that means at long last TokyoPop has finally published one.



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


- Ferdinand

Series Update: Deathnote 7 - 10

SERIES UPDATE

Volume 7 wraps up the first story arc, and then we skip a few years to start round two with some new characters. How do you keep a story fresh and interesting, especially one so saddled with exposition and complexity?

Well, leather pants would not have been my first choice but it works. The Deathnote show moves to the U.S. for a little while and the portrayal of Americans, particularly the president, does not ring very true. (Particularly if you try placing Bush in the role.) On the other hand, the story does begin to branch in some new and complicated ways -- and the writer runs the risk of it all turning into deadwood now that the novelty of the series has worn off.

We'll see what happens.

Check out our review for Deathnote vols 1-6 also on Prospero's Manga.



Deathnote vol. 7, vol. 8, vol. 9 and vol. 10 are all available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Me & My Brothers, v.1

by Hari Tokeino
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: After Grandma dies, Sakura comes home to find she has an assortment of stereotypical half-brothers.

This is almost exactly the same setup as Crossroad, but in a more typical, sitcom-ish vein. Nobody bothered to tell Sakura that her father had four sons by a previous wife, and so when Grandma dies (yes, her parents are dead too -- it's a deadly job, in Japan) it's a big surprise when they turn up instead of Child Protective Services (does Japan even have a CPS?)

Much is made of the fact that Sakura is not even her father's daughter, though I'm not clear on why that matters when you're building a family from scratch anyways. Sakura doesn't remember the brief time they all lived together when she was a baby, so it's a houseful of strangers and all the awkwardness that comes with.

The flashbacks are sweet without being too syrupy. However, the boys fall neatly into stereotype -- the angry one, the cross-dressing housekeeper, the responsible one, and the shy one -- and Sakura herself is a typical manga girl. So this is a competent, but not exceptional, first volume.

(Note that only in manga would "cross-dressing houskeeper" be a stereotype. Oh, how jaded I've become...)



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

- Miranda

Kingdom Hearts II, v.1

By Shiro Amano
Released in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: Isn’t this supposed to have Disney characters? Or, you know, real characters rather than ciphers?

I understand that the Kingdom Hearts franchise has its fans and I don’t want to knock them, but I hope the video games are a lot better than the manga, since I understand that the videogames came first. This first volume of the new series doesn’t tell you what is going on, implies that nothing you see is real, and has discontinuities in storytelling that I hope are part of the plot -- but I have no idea of whether this is true or not. It is just all over the place, I have no idea what is going on with the characters, and except for a single panel there are no Disney characters that I recognize.

If you are going to have the main character driven by a mystery about what he is, you need to have some kind of payoff along the way rather than stringing things along hoping people will stick with you. That is what happened with the X-Files and after a while people stopped giving them the rope to hang themselves because there were never even any minor payoffs along the way to the big one. Maybe if I was willing to read every single Kingdom Hearts manga before this one, and the background for the videogame, I could appreciate what they were doing here, but if so, they should have labeled this part 7 of 20 or something along those lines, rather than #1.



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


- Ferdinand

Sale on Icarus Publications at Right Stuf

There is a sale going on at Right Stuf International for the Icarus Publications titles. Since those titles are not usually available via amazon.com, I thought I would point them out here. Remember, all of the Icarus Publications are adult!

Check out all of the reviews from us for Icarus here!

-Ferdinand

Re: last night's lack of post

Last night fell into the "Too busy with paying work and oh no it's late already, I need to get to bed" category. Hopefully, next week won't be as crazy -- and we will be able to do all three days of Otakon, with any luck. Weekend after that, we are off to San Diego Comic Con, so no post on the 26th, and maybe-maybe-not on the 31st.

Stay cool,
Miranda

Million Tears, v.1

by Yuana Kazumi
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: Immortals wrestle with the meaning of existence, since they don't have much else to do.

Another reviewer compared this story to Anne Rice's work, which added tremendous depth and dramatic possibility to vampires. I don't think this is at all on par with Interview with the Vampire -- Lestat has more passion for life in his pinky finger than the three characters here have, combined.

And if you're going to live forever, being as dispassionate, petty and purely ornamental as possible is even more pointless than when mortals do it.

But about the story: starts out a bit interesting, falls into a standard-issue romance, then picks up a few more interesting elements which, unfortunately, seem to disagree with the beginning. This is supposed to be a two-volume series, so hopefully things will be explained in the next book. Our three immortals are bland, thus far, and the only character of any real interest -- or in any real danger -- is the "extra" girlfriend. The artwork is described on the back cover as "gorgeous" but I don't find it particularly noteworthy. The cover's nice, I'll give them that.

This is the kind of story that's bound to have its devoted fans and probably a slew of fanfic, but on the grand scale of things I can't say that it's dealing in any novel ideas or personalities.



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

- Miranda

Avalon High: Coronation, v. 1

Written by Meg Cabot, art by Jinky Coronado
Published by TokyoPop



Slugline: Meg Cabot is a great writer, but not a great scriptwriter.

I admit I have read some of Meg Cabot's books for teens, most of which are aimed at girls. Her most famous series is the Princess Diaries, which have very little to do with the movies. But I appreciate good writing no matter what the genre, and she is able to provide a view of teen life that at least seems real, if not exactly accurate. Avalon High: Coronation is a sequel to a previous work, where tomboy Ellie moves to a new town, ends up dating Will Wagner. Will's best friend Lance ends up dating Arthur's ex Jennifer, and helps Arthur survive a confrontation with his half brother Marco. If all this sounds familiar, there is a reason for it. An ancient society believes that Arthur is the reincarnation of King Arthur, and that many of the people in their shared lives are reincarnations of Arthurian legends, with Ellie herself the reincarnation of the Lady of the Lake.

For the actual story, not much actually happens here. Ellie, Jennifer and Jennifer's former best friend Morgan are all nominated for homecoming queen. Ellie has been having unnerving dreams about Marco, and there is an attempt to get Arthur to reconcile with his father, who expected him to go to the Naval Academy instead of aiming for a liberal arts education, and his mother, whom he had never known until recently was more than his step-mother. There is a lot of back story, presumably from the first book that was in prose, taking up what feels like the first third of the book. That is the downside of prose versus graphic novels -- you can cram a lot more story in just a few words than in graphic fiction, where each moment has to be its own panel. So this doesn't feel like its own story, merely a continuation of another, and one that ends definitely in the middle so that you just got the second act and nothing else. And some of the character moments, which Meg Cabot usually handles so deftly, come across like a sledgehammer, telegraphed both coming and going. I presume that is because of her unfamiliarity with the medium rather than anything else.

I wanted to like this a lot but I found it hard to do so, and this may only be worth your while once the additional volumes are out so you can go from the prose novel into a completed graphic fiction storyline.



Avalon High: Coronation, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.


- Ferdinand

Le Chevalier d'Eon, v.1

Story by Tou Ubukata, art by Kiriko Yumeji
Published in the U.S. by Del Rey Manga



Slugline: d'Eon, spy for Louis XV, lets his dead sister do the dirty work of cleaning up the mass murderers in Paris.

Apparently, horror can be spiced up with a few random Bible verses and throwing the name "Thoth" around. (Why would the Egyptian god of scribes patronize a sword?) And also by setting it in pre-Revolutionary France so we can enjoy the costuming even though it's terribly impractical for fighting in. Add yet another goofy action hero -- one who seems more inept than usual, even though he's supposedly the king's spy -- who's posessed by the vengeful spirit of his dead sister, the "Chevalier", crazed "poets" prone to turning into toothy snakes, and a big heaping pile of publisher's hype and here we are. Chevalier d'Eon.

The art reminds me of Priest, deliberately rough, reminiscent of woodcuts, and so busy in the details that I think clarity begins to suffer. Sadly, there's also a certain lack of imagination here. There's plenty of combat, but none of it particularly original. There are plenty of characters, none of them particularly innovative in their depiction or their actions within the story. Toward the end, a little effort is put into developing what may be a real character but by that time, I was thinking of the next manga I had to read.

And the most discouraging point is, I think, that anybody with the slightest observational powers ought to notice the rather distinctive cat who hangs out with both the Chevalier and d'Eon. Duh, people.

Maybe the anime kicks ass. I'll still give that the benefit of a doubt.



Le Chevalier d'Eon, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

War Angels, v.1

By Jae-Hwan Kim
Released in the U.S. by Tokyopop



Slugline: I may have paid attention in school more if we had nuns like these!

In 2504, mankind has been decimated by a nuclear apocalypse and the starvation that followed killed most of humanity. What remains lives in fear of the Beastmen, genetic amalgamations of man and beast that were created before the apocalypse to fight in wars, but now rule over the remainder of humanity. There is a hope that there will be a messiah born to free humanity, but the Mother of said messiah has been captured by powerful Beastman. Archangels, powerful agents of the Church who are dedicated to the Messiah, have been sent out to rescue her but they are just as evenly matched by the Beastmen, with superhuman abilities.

There is a nun with a big gun, a sword guy and a martial arts master for the Archangels team. Their names barely were noticed, because they fell so easily into stereotype, and to complete the typecasting, the villain muses philosophically as he brushes off martial arts attacks that compress stone. Jae-Hwan Kim does have a US fanbase because of his prior work on King of Hell and Warcraft, both from TokyoPop, so they will be attracted to this because it delivers what Jae-Hwan Kim's titles always promise: action that is so over the top that it needs an oxygen mask. It may also be of interest for Original Global Manga fans, since this was made for TokyoPop, rather than being licensed like the rest of Jae-Hwan Kim's work.



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

- Ferdinand

Battle of the Bands

by Steve Buccellato
Published by Tokyopop



Slugline: Lightweight, slapstick action. Please check your brain at the door to avoid damage.

This book caught me at the wrong time, and I'm trying not to blame it for that. It's a silly romp through a world where punk bands battle more literally, but despite the katanas and light anti-tank weapons, nobody really gets hurt. Unless it's useful to the plot, of course.

I do have to call the writer on a detail that I bet he thought nobody would be old enough to catch: the climactic battle between our heroines in Led Salad and their dastardly French enemies, the Whores d'Oeuvres, is a rip-off (or a homage) of the the classic Duran Duran "Wild Boys" video. Gotcha!

The story felt rushed, as there's a lot to cram in for one volume... and I'm not a fan of the dialog. It gave me whiplash going from heavy, intellectual Deathnote to this much lighter fare, and that put me in a bad mood. But slapstick has its place and it can be fun, so fill your flamethrower with tar and feathers, and have at it.



Battle of the Bands, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Flashbang!

Flashbang! 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.

Deathnote, v. 1 - 6

Story by Tsugumi Ohba, art by Takeshi Obata
Published in the U.S. by Viz



Slugline: It's simple: write someone's name in the Deathnote and they die. Getting away with it is the tricky part.

I know, Deathnote is old news and everybody loves it already, but this review is for everybody who hasn't tried it yet. I only just started it, myself.

It took me five volumes to think to myself that normally, this amount of dense exposition would be godawfully boring to slog through. With how short my attention span has gotten from reviewing manga, that should tell you something right there. The dialog is packed with information. There's not a lot of action. The plot is Byzantine, to say the least. The artwork is good but not what I'd call fabulous. And it's got a few blazingly unique characters.

The only thing I can think of that might turn readers off is the complexity, in fact, but everybody's actions are well documented beforehand -- which in itself ought to be godawfully boring, too. How is the writer getting away with this?

I think I'll need to read all 83 (or whatever) volumes to get to the bottom of it.

Check out our review of Deathnote vols. 7-10 also on Prospero's Manga


Death Note vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4, vol. 5 and vol. 6 are all available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Time Guardian, v. 1

By Daimuro Kishi and Tamao Ichinose
Released in the U.S. by CMX

Slugline: There is no manga that could not improved by a monkey. A monkey’s paw, that is.

Miu, a girl who always seems to be late, by fiddling her watch while trying to get ahead of things manages to finds a curious little shop. The proprietor Kusaka calls it a pawnshop for time: by placing a precious memory as collateral, you can borrow time from your future in order to accomplish what needs to be done now. Though Miu has no need for it (despite appearances to the contrary) apparently one of the clocks of the pawnshop has selected her as the Go-Between, and her role is to guide the people who are borrowing time in a direction that is ‘just.’ Miu is one of those typical spunky girls, and has a mild infatuation with Kusaka, so she takes to the role, helping a sick girl have the perfect date, a pop idol reconcile with her father, and helping a fellow student confront his parents and tell them of his true love.

At first I was thinking that there was going to be a monkey’s paw aspect to this story, as in the gift that will turnaround and bite you. While Kusaka is very mercenary in his choices, he seems to be following both the letter and spirit of his agreements. At first I was little down on this story, for while it is okay it doesn’t exactly sizzle, and none of the characters exactly leap off the page and are immediately interesting.But then I saw that this is rated for E for Everyone, and got it.There is nothing here that is offensive, and the story is not too challenging but still has goals -- just not for Miu, at least not yet.It also explains the use of the talking frog Ginzo, whose purpose I didn’t immediately get but who serves as a foil to Kusaka to fully bring out his thinking.So I think this is a good intro-level or early reader manga title, while someone who has read a few, or is just more sardonic, may find it a little slow.

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

- Ferdinand

Right Stuf and referrals

We had one comment, and a couple emails about this, so I thought I would lay things out.

Yes, we do get referral fees from both Right Stuf and Amazon, along with all the Google Ads.

No, we have not become rich. I don't even think we have earned more than $20 from all sources of revenue from Prospero's Manga.

That being said, we are currently not thinking of shutting Prospero's Manga down, but I hope you can understand that the site can be time sink, and sometimes we have to prioritize our time with the stuff that pays.

Yes, Right Stuf does gives us a better referral fee than Amazon, and anything you find via both the links and our link to the search page (right column, just under the Pocky ads and above the ratings/genre listing) gets credited to our account.

That seem reasonable and fair?

Oh My Goddess!, v. 1

by Kosuke Fujishima
Released in the U.S. by Dark Horse



Slugline: If you haven't already heard about Oh My Goddess, reading a slugline isn't going to help.

Let me you tell you a tale. Way back in the year 1994, when there was nary a single manga in ye ole bookstore, back before people had the book larnin' to read right to left, there was a small little title called Oh My Goddess...

Sorry, I just can't keep that going and I suspect what I have already written is bad enough. Oh My Goddess is one of the grand dames of US manga publication, and here it is presented in its original format. Initial print runs of the title were flipped, but this reprint brings it back to its original orientation and includes several color pages that were left out of previous versions released in the US. The basic story is almost universally well known in anime/manga fandom: the lovable loser Keiichi dials the wrong phone number and the goddess Belldandy appears to make his wish come true. For the more experienced manga readers, reading the first volume may illuminate the roots of all harem comedies (except without the full harem as of yet) -- but that feeling comes not from copying the other comedies, but instead this being one of the parents of that genre.

That being said, how is it as itself, rather than as the vanguard of the entire manga boom? I have to admit, the first volume does show its age. The art style is starting to look old-fashioned (these pages were first drawn in the late 80s) so readers expecting something something else will be disappointed. These are mostly standalone stories that don't quite link together right and you can see the seams between them. That is the downside of its age -- most people have seen the other versions of the story in anime, so they were introduced to the stories in their most finished form, while here it is still raw. So while it is put together well, it is not up to the standards that many people are expecting out of more current titles that are being licensed, which I hope explains my less than stellar rating for the title.



- Ferdinand

Series Update: Kuro Gane 4 & 5

SERIES UPDATE

Volume 5 ends the series, and this is still a series of individual adventures with some recurring characters and a lot of recurring themes. I hadn't realized that yakuza, moneylenders and vengeance-driven youngsters were so thick on the ground in 19th-century Japan. Jintetsu doesn't seem to have made a dent in their numbers, despite his efforts.

I would average the series out at two and a half stars -- some interesting elements, more predictable elements, and characters who are not very unusual for this genre.

- Miranda

Right Stuf links

I originally added the Right Stuf sales links for items that were not sold through Amazon (mostly the adult titles) but then started adding them to all entries to give people more choice. However, so few people have used them I am thinking of no longer including them for all entries, and just put them as needed.

So do readers have any thoughts about this? Email or comment here if you want to keep the Right Stuf links around...

Gunsmith Cats Burst, v.1

by Kenichi Sonoda
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manga

Slugline: A follow-up to the original Gunsmith Cats, this series puts the girls back in action.

This volume contains a few very short stories and a longer story that only gets more and more complicated as it goes. I'm not sure whether the author expects us to know the characters already (I managed to miss both the anime and manga Gunsmith Cats) or if he just has not burdened them with a lot of personality, but I didn't find Rally or Minnie May terribly interesting.

The short stories were light and amusing and even the detailed gun-describing episode was interesting (then again, I've been known to find Punisher's equipment issues "interesting" -- though I'm not a gun nut at all.) The longer story was, however, increasingly tedious though I will give points for a more accurate portrayal of America than I've seen in other manga. The gun-toting granny was fun and the story has its good points, but on the whole it failed to grab me.

Fans of the Cats shouldn't let me stop them from trying Burst, of course. But if you're new to it, like me, this isn't the best place to start... try to find the original anime instead, it has a good reputation from what I hear.

- Miranda

Eden: It's an Endless World, v. 1

By Hiroki Endo
Released in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manga

Slugline: Ho-hum, just another post-apocalyptic disease ridden future with killer robots. How sad is that?

Eden is a rarity nowadays: a post-apocalyptic future that was wiped out by a plague that did not turn everyone into zombies. Instead it is more about what the people that survive the aftermath of an apocalypse, admittedly one that leaves the survivors relatively intact (dying of radiation disease is not very conducive for anything but a story about a slow slide into death.) (Hey, On The Beach pulled it off -- Miranda) There is a lot of dime-store philosophy, but I am not sure if I buy it. Plus there seem to be two completely different stories going on here, centered on different children of the same man (I think.) However, the stories are told consecutively rather than being intermingled so that they could play off each other. But this jump between characters makes me wonder how much the stories are separated by time, because a robot is in both of them and I am not sure if it is the same robot or different ones. That uncertainty is not entertaining, actually, it's just confusing. Plus the big bad of the series is an organization that apparently is trying to take over the world -- what remains of it -- but for the moment it exists just as a name, nothing more. Mysterious, without having a point to it.

-Ferdinand

Trinity Blood, vol. 1

As some of you may know, I also do reviews for the Comic Buyer's Guide over on their own website. Their format is a little different from what we use here, they have a 4 star system as compared our five star system, and the focus is on titles that would appeal to the readers of traditional western comics, but I thought it would be easier if I just directly linked them from here.

First up, a review of Trinity Blood, vol. 1



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

-Ferdinand

The Twelve Kingdoms, Sea of Shadows

Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow
Written by Fuyumi Ono
Released in the U.S. by TokyoPop



Slugline: Even in Japan, the books are better than movies/anime

Yoko was the stereotypical good girl, desperately working too hard just to be like everyone else in her high school and fulfill everyone else's expectations of her, but she is swept out of this world and into the Twelve Kingdoms, with demons, flying tigers (I wonder if that is some sort of joke on the WW2 US flying unit in China) and green monkey swords. This is what the anime is based on, and you can see the hasty joints of the work where it broken apart in order for it to work in the anime format.

Because the story is basically about Yoko's journey, a solitary one, in which she first discovers what it means to be alive rather than dead to the world, then what it means to be open to others and trust once you decide that what you are and what you do mean something. The novel expands the time experienced by the characters, so that weeks and months fly by and developments that felt odd and rushed in the anime are smoother here. In the anime the solitary nature of the journey had to be overcome because it wouldn't have been much fun to run episodes where the main character doesn't even talk, so they gave Yoko companions. However, that immediately and irrevocably changes the nature of her journey. While the anime was okay, this light novel is much stronger and still is a relatively quick read with a large type on small pages.

The Twelve Kingdoms, Sea of Shadows is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Site updates and other slowness

Hey there, sorry for the slowness in updating, both of us are working like madmen at our RL work, partly to catch up and pay for that vacation a few weeks ago, add in the typical couple miscommunication, and you get a little lagging in the posting.

But if you check out along the side, you will find that we were able to accomplish something. We now have links on the side for Pocky! Necessary fuel for when you are trying to read six different manga in a row.

More posting soon!

-Ferdinand

Dragon Eye, v. 1

By Kairi Fujiyama
Released in the U.S. by Del Rey Manga



Slugline: Is there much of a difference between Dragon Eyes and Nine Tailed Demon Foxes?

In the near future, a virus that acts like the ones in zombie movies but turns the victims into Dracules -- creatures that are transformed from into something large, nasty, immortal and crazed with a desire for killing and infecting humans -- has forced the survivors of humanity to live in protected cities. They are protected by the VIUS, those that have an immunity to the virus and also have kick ass mystical martial art skills. Leila is a new VIUS recruit, wanting to gain the Dragon Eye, a semi-mythical artifact that allows one to kick even more Dracule patootie, but discovers that her new superior has it/one, but it is a curse. Plus the same superior, Issa, has recruited another VIUS, one who hates his guts, thinking he is the one who killed his sister without reason years ago.

Okay, this looks and feels a lot like Naruto, with Issa being a very close stand-in for Naruto himself. But the missing element is that despite a similar mystery around both main characters -- who and what they are -- Issa by design is in on his secrets and is party to them, while Naruto is discovering what is going on with the readers. For with Naruto it is a joint journey of discovery. With Issa and Dragon Eye it is more like trying to worm information out of someone who takes far too much pleasure in hiding it from you. Maybe if there wasn't Naruto to be such a close comparison to I would be able to rank this title higher -- it does have nice art and a clearly written story -- but it still suffers in comparison.



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

-Ferdinand