Shinobi Life, vol. 1

By Shoko Conami
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Not just another time-travelling ninja love story. Really, I am not being sarcastic!

Beni wants to die especially if it can be her dad's fault. Her father feels no guilt over Beni's mother death/suicide and only haphazardly remembers to hire bodyguards to protect Beni from kidnapping attempts. But the latest one is foiled when a ninja literally falls out of the sky to rescue her. Kagetora has been swept through time away from Beni Hime-sama to his princess’s near identical descendant Beni. Uncertain about the strange world he finds himself in, Kagetora knows his duty is to protect Beni. Beni is confronted with two problems as a result, one is how to keep up the illusion she is Beni Hime-sama with the modern world is just some of grand deception and also how to resolve the growing feelings between Beni and Kagetora, especially considering his awareness of their ‘social rank’ differences.

For once, the central conceit of the story is tackled straight on and now allowed to linger. Often, series seem to hang on hilarious character misunderstandings long past their expiration date, being dragged out for so long that it ends up making the characters look clueless or deliberately stupid. Beni's attempt to keep Kagetora in the dark about his time travel and refusing to acknowledge their attraction could get old fast, and had already started to. It would have been better off if the situation had been resolved because of Beni's deliberate decision, though once they were on the path of that part of the story being resolved, the characters did not shy away. It's not like that all of the barriers to their relationship are now gone, or that Beni does not still need protection, though the remaining visible complications to their relationship come from Beni's life, which remains anything but simple.



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

-Ferdinand

Suihelibe!, vol.1

By Naomi Azuma
Released in the US by CMX Manga


Slugline: Alien gamekeeper after school club

Tetsu is looking to join a school club and decides to join the biology club. As soon as he checks it out, he has to defend the club's existence to the school council, along with helping Lan, an schoolgirl alien, recover some alien animals around the school. Tetsu manages to convince Lan to join the biology club so that it will continue, and over the course of the volume gathers another three members to reach the minimum size of the club of five members so that it can continue to exist in spite of the school council’s opposition. Of course, along the way Tetsu and the new members of the biology club help Lan recover some of the alien animals that she has been sent to Earth to recover.

This is definitely a kid’s title, since it is so very, very mild. The art style is very open and rounded so all the characters look and feel very young and wide-eyed. The challenges that the character face are not that, well challenging or dangerous, which fits the intended audience. The characters are only lightly sketched out, with Tetsu being the most with Lan the alien all, well, surface. The other three members of the club are pretty much stereotypes. Just because this is a kid's title doesn't mean it shouldn't have any depth, but despite that lack it is solid and not bad. Just the story has all the dramatic tension of overcooked pasta and thus not very enticing.



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

-Ferdinand

Gun Blaze West, vol. 1

Story and Art by Nobuhiro Watsuki
Released in the US by Viz Shonen Jump


Slugline: More character background than actual story.

Viu is nine years old but can't wait to head out into the Old West. But he lacks a goal until the failed gunslinger Marcus comes into town and tell Viu of Gun Blaze West. This is a place where the strongest test each other every ten years with the winner get the finest gun made. This sets up a fairly standard shonen desire to be the very best style story, but as Marcus and Viu train, outlaws move into the area and after several skirmishes their bioss is defeated by Viu but at the cost of Marcus's life. This drives Viu to train hard for the next five years until he reaches the goals that Marcus laid down before dying. With his goals met, Viu starts his journey west to find the Gun Blaze West, and almost immediately finds someone else who is looking for the same place, much like many other shonen where the hero starts acquiring allies on his travels.

What is odd is that the whole section with Marcus, which is really a background character piece, which is normally handled in flashback, took about 3/4 of the volume. So at the end of it we truly feel Viu's connection with Marcus and his desire to search for the Gun Blaze West, but we have already spent the majority of the first volume and we have yet to begin the main story. I don't want to say that this wasted time, because good character work is never really wasted, but the timing of it, frontloading it all, makes it almost like it should be a prequel book on it's own or something, rather than going into the main story of the search for Gun Blaze West in the middle of the book. The book ends at a good point, but still the Marcus/Viu subplot probably could have accomplished what it needed in half of the space it eventually took up, without upsetting the flow of the story as much.



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

-Ferdinand

Blank Slate, vol. 1

Story and Art by Aya Kanno
Released in the US by Viz Shojo Beat


Slugline: This is supposed to be a shojo title?

Zen is a serial criminal, committing wanton murder and mayhem just because there is nothing else better for him to do. He wanders through people's lives, upsetting the rich and powerful to the point that even though he is in an occupied country, he is considered more of an threat than the native rebellion. He is destructive for reasons that he himself cannot fathom, for being without memory he acts without repercussions. The first companion he acquires is a bounty hunter intent on understanding Zen but dies in the process. The foreign doctors lasts longer, still with him at the end of the volume, probably because he may solve the mystery of Zen's own existence and abilities.

This is not an approachable title by any means, not because of gore or violence but by the meaningless of Zen's actions. After reading it I still have no idea why this is considered a shojo title, except perhaps that is by Aya Kanno who is better known for titles that fall more squarely in the shojo genre. That or it will be revealed that several of the characters are really girls (don't even chuckle, far stranger things have happened.) For a main character, Zen has no real character to hang the story on, which leaves most of the work of the story having to be done by the supporting cast. Considering the chaos that Zen causes and attracts, you can understand that there is a bit of a turnover in those characters. While there is an attempt to hand a mystery in the character in the last chapter of the volume, it is easy to believe that this was originally intended as a one-off that was later extended into a series, so it took a while for the creator to figure out what to do with the character over the long term. I suspect the 2nd volume will tell us more about where the series is going then the first volume did.



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

- Ferdinand

Slam Dunk, vol. 1

Story and Art by Takehiko Inoue
Released in the US by Viz Shonen Jump


Slugline: There has to be easier ways of impressing girls.

This is a motivation I can understand, getting involved in a sport because the girl you like likes it in turn. Hanamichi is desperate enough to do or try anything to attract the attention of a desirable girl. Trust me, he didn't have to suffer through 50 rejections first in order to be in the proper frame of mind to try anything to keep a girl's attention. Fortunately, his attitude toward basketball doesn't change overnight, and Hanamichi focus is more on his two main rivals within the team for Haruko's attention, her brother Takenori that Hanamichi battles for respect and acceptance, and Kaede who is a more traditional romantic rival. Though Kaede at the moment does not seem to be doing much other than being a far-off target for Haruko's sighs. Hanamichi manages to get on the team after demonstrating a slam dunk in a competition with Takenori, but then is forced to do fundamental drills. Of course, Hanamichi wants to impress Haruko, which involves actually being in the game and that causes the conflict that the volume ends on. Never mind that it would be normal for drills to be switched up to help keep the the attention on the drill rather than letting the mind wander after prolonged periods.

Why bother reviewing a 100 million manga selling title? It's not like this review is going to cause people to discover an otherwise overlooked gem or that people will learn that Slam Dunk is the basketball manga that they were looking for. But I think I can share with readers a reason why I think it was successful as compared to other sports/fighting shonen manga, which I think comes from Hanamichi himself, especially his motivations. Normally in these manga the main character's has already begun his quest to be the best, to excel. Here, Hanamichi has the potential to be great but at the same time he does not see basketball as an end in itself or a way to express himself, but a way to achieve a selfish goal, to get the girl. Undoubtedly, that will change over the series, but that makes it an interesting progression to watch out for. Sure there is the unavoidable silliness that seems to be part and parcel of all shonen manga, but I find that redeemed by the interesting characters work with Hanamichi.



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

- Ferdinand

Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney

By CAPCOM Games
Released in the US by Del Rey Manga


Slugline: I hope the game is much, much better than the manga.

Game based manga have a tough time of it, and sometimes I snark on them on them a little freely. This time, I can not snark on this mess enough. It bills itself as a prequel to the game, but the volume was such a confused mess that I had to research in order to figure out what was going on with the volume. There are 20 shorts in the volume but they are widely varying in tone and in art style. There are some fairly serious stories, silly ones and ones that barely qualify as a story, breaking the fourth wall freely. None of the characters are introduced, with the apparent assumption that the reader is already familiar with them. What I discovered is that this actually a collection of dojin, so the stories in this volume were not necessarily intended to be presented together. Which explains why there are two separate 'lost kitten' stories in the volume. At the end of the volume I have virtually no idea who the characters were and this was despite the volume being thicker than the standard. This is for game completists, and even then save yourself the headache and just shelve it with the rest of your collection without punishing yourself by reading it.



Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Papillon, vol. 1

Created by Miwa Ueda
Published in the US by Del Rey


Slugline: A shojo that only has one bit of wackiness? How novel!

On the face of it the brief description makes Papillon sound like an rather unremarkable shoujo, but underneath it all there are some interesting subtext running through it. The story itself is rather off the shelf, two identical sisters raised separately so that one is shy and the other outgoing compete over the same guy, that being the one bit of wackiness of the title. But there are some interesting bits...

The guidance counselor , the voice of authority of the book, rather than enforcing wa, the tenets of social harmony that the school system reinforces in Japan, is instead encouraging competition for the sake for oneself.

The prettier twin sister had a reason to be pretty and loved, to be the center of attention, rather than receiving it as her natural due.

The plain sister's 'friend,' stabs her in the back, showing that just because people find themselves in similar circumstances do not naturally get along, and that the friendship was based on convenience/proximity rather than anything else.

The failures of the shy sister is not due to wacky circumstances or deliberate sabotage, but the type of self-sabotage that the shy and uncertain all partake in.

Now, neither does this manga cover new ground, not really, but the characters and how they interact is interesting and not just according to the standard fill in the dots plot. I feel the characters' pain, their discomfort but I am not moved by them, not yet. This is one of those series that I almost wish I had the next volume already in my hands, because how that is executed could radically improve this series rating up to a four, easily.



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

- Ferdinand

Dororo, vol. 1

By Osamu Tezuka
Published by Vertical Publishing


Slugline: The demon version of the game Operation.

It is hard to honestly review Tezuka's titles. His presence looms so large over the history of manga it's hard to separate the work from the creator, something that can be hard to accomplish even on less notable creators. Dororo is from Tezuka's later period, when he was transitioning to more mature works and exists at the juncture of horror and action. The main character, Hyakkimaru , is trying to recover the 48 body parts that his father gave away before his son's birth for power. Born alive, the remnants of the child kept mystically alive without the missing body parts grew up, using prosthetics and other artificial devices to appear human. But the various forms of death stalks him, and the only way he can become whole and get death off his trail is to hunt down the 48 demons, each time killing one having one of his body parts regenerating. The title of the series Dororo comes from the child thief that is following him, determine to steal Hyakkimaru's valuables (but the most valuable bits of him, his very body, has already been stolen) even though it seems to be more of an excuse for Dororo to follow Hyakkimaru's quest.

The other hard part of reviewing Tezuka is the fact that while he uses many genre conventions, that is because he is often creating those conventions. His art has not aged well, being very cartoony by modern standards. But while some of the characters seem thinly sketched, what is going on conveys a world that is terrible and cruel with people with even the best intentions inevitably being get punished. Even the main characters, Hyakkimaru and Dororo cannot afford to trust each other despite their 'friendship', because that is how this world works. I assume that this period is intended to evoke one of the civil war periods in feudal Japan, and at this time the only thing that makes sense is Hyakkimaru's search to reclaim itself. Each piece he reclaims is a gift he appreciates, which in turn reflects on the world around him. So despite the cartoony and simplistic veneer on top of the story, something deeper is going on, about how seeking oneself is more than just a selfish quest.



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

- Ferdinand

REAL, vol. 1

By Takehiko Inoue
Published in the US by Viz


Slugline: Definitely not a continuation of Slam Dunk!

Nomiya has a bit of a guilt problem, since a girl he picked up and took riding on a bike, there was an accident and she is now in a wheelchair. He was well on his way of flunking out of school before this, but this only confirmed his status as a dropout and as he tries to assuage his guilt by helping the girl. However, the only thing that seems to attract the girl's attention is another wheelchair bound basketball player named Togawa. Thus starts an odd little friendship between Nomiya and Togawa, that is cemented by both of their intense love of basketball, letting them challenge Nomiya's former schoolmates for use of their gym to practice basketball. Later, they use their skills to hustle rich kids, until they meet a challenger that they cannot defeat, forcin Nomiya to directly face his fear of driving while Togawa goes back to his basketball team to increase his skills. Meanwhile, the head of the school's basketball team that Nomiya and Togawa humiliated, Takahashi, is showing off for his girlfriend and gets into an accident, so that he no longer has any feeling below his waist.

Inoue is far better known for his more famous work, Slam Dunk, a basketball sports manga. But while basketball is nominally the topic of REAL, the true topic is about what people will throw themselves into in order to avoid dealing with their real problems. Basketball is both their escape from reality and their salvation that leads back to it for these characters. Nomiya is isolated and alone, driven by passion for basketball but it is that same passion that drives him back towards interacting with others again, while Togawa being beaten at a one on one game is the catalyst for him to embrace his old team. Takahashi on the other hand has a long way to fall yet before he can start to climb again. While this is not the most subtle of works, by the same token some of the directions are interesting and each of the characters are unique and for the most part have enough rough edges that they don't feel like cookie cutter creations.



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

- Ferdinand

Astral Project, vol. 1

by marginal and Syuji Takeya
Released in the US by CMX Manga


Slugline: Jazz that literally produces an out of the body experience.

Masahiko is living in Tokyo doing odd jobs, escorting former idols to prostitution meetings when he learns that his sister has died. Dodging his parents, he returns to his childhood home to get a momento of his sister, and choses to take the unmarked music CD in her player, the last thing she listened to. Once he has returned to Tokyo, listening to the jazz music on the disk, he has an out of the body experience, as his astral form wanders over the city. The rest of the first volume is taken up by Masahiko trying to understand just how his sister died, who else is wandering the astral space over Tokyo and trying to origin of the jazz music on the disk that his sister left behind.

This is a mature title, not for any reason that I can tell in the first volume. Probably the naughty stuff starts kicking in the later volumes, but here we have profoundly isolated character, Masahiko, who can literally float above it all. But as the volume progresses, the mysteries that his sister have left him drive him to interact with others, both in the real world and the astral world. The Japanese fascination with jazz music and musicians also rears it's head, but it is tied into the mystery in a natural way, and provides an additional point of confusion/contention for the characters. The characters' are being pulled out of their normal patterns, and the storyline timebomb dropped at the end of the volume was a good change of direction.



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

- Ferdinand

Fate stay/night, vol. 1

Manga by Dat Nishiwaki with original story by TYPE-MOON
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Cross platform marketing doesn't have to suck

This is another entry in the Fate stay/night marketing colossus, which spawned out from visual novel, including an anime and now a manga. It seems that the manga is based mostly on the anime, which selectively chose specific storyline elements of the visual novel to bring to screen. In this incarnation Fate is mostly a fighting manga, as 7 magi and their servants battle over the grail. In comparison to other fighting manga, the storyline is not too far out of the way of standard fight manga, with the characters so far falling into many of the standard archetypes. That said, it is being well done with not too many gratuitous power-ups, everyone is acting reasonably intelligently (though I understand that will change in later volumes) and considering the heavy presence of Fate stay/night in anime/manga fandom already, most readers will already have a good idea if they will like the basic story and characters. What I can say is that as a manga, this version of Fate stay/night is reasonably well done and executed version of the anime.



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

- Ferdinand

Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted

Written by Yamashita and Johnson with Art by Delk, Lorenzo, Shelfer, Watson and Steinbach
Published by TokyoPop


Slugline: Just which version of the Ghostbusters are we dealing with here?

With a new Ghostbusters video game there has been efforts to revitalize the brand. There are six stories in this anthology, with the inner four chapters having linked subplots culminating in the fifth volume with unrelated stories first and sixth. It is a strange arrangement, with 2/3 of the book culminating in a final scene, then throwing something else there at the end. The art is not cohesive at all, and there are only a couple of stories where the art matches the story being told. The sad thing is the best story of the bunch in chapter 4 is completely undercut in subsequent chapters. Plus, it feels weird in that the creators are drawing inspiration from the various different incarnations of the Ghostbusters, from the two movies, the long running cartoon series and finally the ground breaking role playing game that was made based on the movies, that was infamous for it's bad puns. And for all I know, they may also have drawn upon the depictions in the recent video game. If they had drawn equally from all the sources, it wouldn't be so bad, but the different chapters seemed to draw on different aspects, so that the tone of the characters and story changed chapter to chapter. There are some nice moments, Winston gets a chance to shine in a way he so rarely got to, but the diverging creators of the volume seem to be unable to create a single version of the Ghostbusters that you can enjoy throughout the volume.



Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, vol. 1

Story and Art by Yoshio Sawai
Published in the US by Viz


Dishonorable mention
Slugline: There is no story here just a really long line of sight gags.

Okay, I admit failure here. I only managed to read about half of this, because there is no sense of logic, storytelling or even what the hell is going on other than an endless line of sight gags. It could be a parody of fight manga. Look, one of the biases we admitted, in the side column in fact, is that we are older readers. I do not require a story, I understand that there are valid experimental manga that are more abstract, but this is just a long line of bad and stupid jokes that would only appeal to a 10 year old. Think of the worse stupid/raunchy movie you've ever seen, and then using that same attitude to make a manga. If you like that, all the more power to you.



Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Black Lagoon 001

Story and Art by Rei Hiroe
Released in the US by Viz


Slugline: Nice explosions, bad panel to panel storytelling

Rokuro is having a bad day. Asked by his company to take a disk to Southeast Asia by a transport ship (what, suddenly there were no flights between Japan and Thailand? I thought there were Japanese businessman specials to there?) he ends up kidnapped mostly by accident when mercenary pirates in an World War 2 era PT Boat take his disk. Revy, a short tempered woman with a fondness for handguns and explosives decides to take him along, but it turns out that the information on the disk is more important to the company than Rokuro's survival, leaving him to join the mercenaries on the PT Boat including the crazy one Revy, and he now calls himself Rock. But you can take the salaryman out of the corporation, but you can't take the suit and tie away from the salaryman as Rock tries to find his place in the criminal and mercenary infested world of Southeast Asia.

First off, the manga is in a slightly larger format which is nice to show off the art. And the art is nice, but there are more than a few places where it is impossible to follow the action because the panel to panel transitions are just a mess and so are hard to follow. If I hadn't seen the anime episode based on a manga chapter, where Revy goes jumping amongst the pursuing boats, I would have had very little idea what was actually happening. The series is like an early 90s style action/shoot-em up, with Russian mafia and a love of random excessive and inappropriately used firepower (torpedoes that take out a helicopter!) that make my heart glad merely reading it. If only the mechanics of the storytelling were done better! Hopefully that will continue to improve, because I want to see if they can use a depth charge to take out a jet fighter in the next volume....



Black Lagoon 001 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Sugar Princess: Skating to Win, vol. 1

Story and Art by Hisaya Nakajo
Released in the US by Viz Shojo Beat


Slugline: How to make what is basically a sports manga a shoujo, make it about skating!

Maya is at the local skating rink with her younger brother after winning a free trip there when in a fit of energy she launches herself into a spinning jump, which she doesn't land but still manages to do well enough to attract the attention of a professional coach. He's hoping to train her and pair her with his star, Shun. Maya appreciates Shun's form and grace, but Shun has very little desire to do pairs skating anymore, after the loss of his last partner. Maya takes to training, under Shun's reluctant guidance and works hard to be his equal in grace and style, but the potential closing of the skating rink that they practice at throw a wrench into her plans.

This is like a lot of other sport stories, they tend to be either underdogs who manage to win, or newbies whom everyone underestimates and manage to succeed. Notice there is a very fine line between the two, but right now the story is about a newbie, though it looks like that it is all going to be about the underdog. But it is still very much a shoujo, with the blending of the sport/shoujo aspects working better than I thought. Shonen sports is sort of the default, but the inherent grace of ice skating and the shoujo pretty boy aspects work together. It still has all the shoujo genre trappings, but adding the sport elements makes it somewhat more interesting.



Sugar Princess: Skating to Win, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Time Stranger Kyoko, vol. 1

Story and Art by Arina Tanemura
Released in the US by Viz Shoujo Beat


Slugline: Have a sister who is annoying? Just timestop them for a decade or two.

We have previously reviewed another Arina Tanemura title, The Gentleman's Alliance Cross, vol. 1.

Have a twin sister that has been trapped in time since your birth that you desperately want to know, and whose father is the king of planet Earth? Well, you may as well wait to do anything until you have a desperate need for a stand-in so you can continue to go to high school without any realizing who you are. But wait, the moment you accept the mission to find the twelve mystical doohickies to release your sister (how did she get into the time trap in the first place? And if she is timestopped, why does she look the same age as her non-timestopped sister?) you still end up leaving the school? Never mind the two hunky guys who protect you are from a mysterious dragon clan, the best fighters evah, who were wiped out years ago but for some reason no one has ever bothered finding out who or why?

Your dad really needs to start paying attention to his kingdom, the whole planet Earth, a little bit more. Or at least let the bureaucracy do, umm, something useful. Like help you or something.

This story is a mess. You can tell that this is early Arina Tanemura, because while her magical girl stories have been a little bit flaky in my opinion, they have never been this flaky. The story is just all over the place, with rationalizations and takebacks all over the place. The only thing that is good about this is that Tanemura had already matured as an artist when she had done this, so the nice art is the only thing that is saving this from a lower ranking. But unless you are a die-hard Arina Tanemura fan, I find it hard to find any reason to give this title any attention.



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

- Ferdinand

Bratz: Super Bratz

Written by Christine Peymani and Art By Anthony Tan

Published by TokyoPop

Slugline: Why do I find their lack of noses the most disturbing thing about the Bratz?

The All-Ages rating for this title is a little misleading. The rating really should say "Aimed at Pre-Tween Girls, All Others May Suffer Saccharine Poisoning." Not because the title is particularly bad, but because the pre-tween target demographic is the only one that the book really cares about. If other types of readers happened to pick up the book, that is fine, but having something that could appeal outside of that narrow demographic seem unimportant. Which is a shame, for I can easily see that this title could have been a successful really All-Ages title, but because it is linked to the Bratz property, it is limited to a certain approach and attitude to fits within that.

The girls of Bratz learn that their special skills that have made each of them stand out before were only the beginning manifestations of their superpowers. The cheerleader that could do high leaps now flies, the athletic type is a speedster, the social butterfly is a mind reader, etc. The Bratz discover that there is local school that teaches people how to use their superpowers, which apparently means road trip! The Bratz decide to go to school there, but discover that other students have their own selfish plans. Which the Bratz, after one failed attempt, discover the ways to use their new abilities to uncover what the not-so-nice students are planning and present proof to the teachers, who take care of the problem.

So yeah, this is X-Men lite with a side of the Bratz brand. I assume what minor character touches there are is from whatever character bible the Bratz brand managers gives out. I also assume that is why there are so few character flourishes for each Bratz, so that the property can be extended into as many different venues and forms as possible, without having to worry about keeping track of multiple character facets that may not work in any particular media. The response to that challenge is to minimize the individual characters.

What was nice is all I know about the Bratz is what I learned from the trailer of their rather horrible movie I was unfortunate enough to see twice. I didn't even need to know that much to pick up the book and go right into it, because you could learn most of that in the first chapter, along with the fact that they enjoy all the normal tween activity even though one of them was old enough to drive a car. It took me a little longer to keep all the characters straight, and the fact that the characters didn't have noses threw me far more than I thought it would. The character's characteristics, such as they are, are hard to tell apart other than by their special ability, but the Bratz are not credulous and are willing to entertain the thought they are not trapped in a simple, straightforward plot (which they are, but at least they consider otherwise).

Ultimately, this is not a book about the characters, it is about making sure that the property of Bratz exists in manga form. Which is a shame, because I think without that intent, and inherent set of boundaries that purpose imposed on the title, the core concept and the creators could have done more with it. But that would require taking risks that one does not allow with a multi-million dollar brand, especially in a particularly low profile manga (in comparison to the rest of the brand). So it is what it aspires to be, competent, rather than anything more.

Bratz: Super Bratz is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Goth (the Manga)

Story by Otsuichi with Art by Kendi Oiwa
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: More Schizo than Goth

Yoru Morino is the stereotypically tortured high school student who has scars on her wrists showing how dangerously out of control she is, while Boku is that wonderfully nice neighbor boy next door that no one ever realizes ate a half dozen co-eds and did even worse things to their remains. But Boku has yet to descend truly that far into madness, and may never really do so, but he is still macabre to say the least, and fascinted by death and especially the pain of death. He seems to revel in Yoru almost becoming a victim in each chapter, but at the last moment something pulls him back. Maybe it is because he sees a chance for a better, darker experience, much like how some individuals would take torturing a puppy over pulling off a bug's wings. It is a dangerous relationship that Yoru and Boku both seem to actually need.

This is a dark series of stories, that isn't quite sure what kind of horror it truly is. Perhaps that is actually that is more of a strength than a weakness of the series, because some of the book feels like it is psychological horror, descent into one's own madness while other bits feels more supernatural. Still, Yoru's sense of victimhood is perhaps the most interesting part of the book, with the death of her sister giving her the chance to change roles, but still wanting to create sequences where she is the victim and the target. In that way, her wrist scarring was probably not an actual attempt to kill herself, but instead a way to mark herself further as a victim, so that others will see it and seek her out. Heck, it worked for the other character of the manga, Boku, his vulture like relationship with her beginning once he sees the scars and realizes how that would interact with his own interests and the hand taker's own ones. In a way, Yoru the victim is the true focus of the story, as what she does that attracts the attention of killers is the active role, while Boku merely circles, waiting for the right moment to absorb what he needs from the situation.

This story almost, almost manages to get four stars, but story construction messiness in a couple of the chapters was the only thing that holds it back, and even then it was a close call. Catch me on another day I may have easily given it four stars and debated going higher.



Goth (the Manga) is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Faust, vol. 1

Edited by Katsushi Ota
Published in the US by Del Rey


Slugline: Maybe it is Japanese language not the people that is in love with convoluted sentences and recursive thought processes

Faust is actually an prose fiction/manga anthology that is originally published in Japan as a mook (with magazine dimensions with book-like thickness) in a US format more akin to a traditional paperback. Faust has a reputation of a showcasing new voices and cutting edge fiction in Japan. For the most part the stories were in the modern magical vein, in which the stories happened in the here and now, but there is something just beyond the normal human sight going on.

Is this anthology good in the traditional sense, as in having engaging stories and characters? It is sort of hard to tell. I think that there must several inherent levels of the Japanese language that simply don't exist in English, perhaps how the kanji is written can affect it's meaning? And when you translate those texts into English, unpacking those concise kanji that can have multiple layers and meaning results in long sprawling English sentences that seem to wander about. This problem does not appear as strongly in manga, because at least part of the story is being carried by the art. In short stories, the English tradition has been towards efficiency of word and action, dating back to Edgar Allen Poe who created the western short story. Every word needed to have meaning and carry forward the story in his work, and his successors have followed in Poe's trail. Reading the stories in Faust in comparison, they all seemed very meandering. Unpacking the plot sometimes took work and in one particularly surreal example I gave up and just went along with the ride. The characters would think aloud so much it was hard to determine what if any internal lives that they had. Because that is another example of the difference between the languages, the Japanese language contains so many different meanings in the same words that English speakers just pick up the dictionary meaning and so miss the rest of what is 'said', which would be unspoken and part of the character's internal life in an English short story. But in translations all this has to be laid out otherwise the meaning of the text would be lost.

I think. One of these days I will sit down and have a long talk with translator about this process.

That being said, Faust is worth reading, even if it seems difficult and meandering. It is an attempt to do something different and new in the American manga industry, even more so than the other light fiction that have been published. Only one short seems directly connected to anything already in the US (an xxxHOLic short) while 'Drill Hole in My Brain' seems to ferociously cling to surreal jumps and ignoring the niceties of plot. But the rest of the stories can stand alone without too much work on the part of the reader. There are also some interesting behind the scenes shorts, talking to writers in an odd format. I don't understand why some of the manga is repeated in color and black+white, but the color versions drew a deeper emotional response from me, while the manga that was presented only in black+white showed the excessive talkiness that seems to be the hallmark of Japanese fiction. While the plots are hard to decipher, it is the characters that are the anthology's strength, even if the most interesting and revealing of them tend to be not the one that you expect.

I also feel like I need to bring this up. Putting age guidelines on books that are mostly prose offends me on a basic level. Reading and learning is perhaps a fundamental right, and one should read what interests them and what one has the capability to understand. By placing arbitrary age limits on a prose title, you are inherently limiting people to that arbitrary category. It is an accident of legal history that we can place age restrictions on images but not on words (free speech is free, but free expression through art is not) but even though there is some art here, the majority of the work is prose and should be treated like prose rather than the age-limited art. If you want to see the damage of what even well intentioned age rating can do to a comic industry, just look up the history of Frederic Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent and the Comics Code Authority.

And yes, this is a picayune infraction, but this is one of the areas that I care deeply about, about everyone's right to read and write what they wish, and even the best intentioned limits should be pushed back against.



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

- Ferdinand

Speed Grapher, vol. 1

Written and Illustrated by Tomozo and Yusuke Kozaki, Based on the story by GONZO
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Not about a guy who can draw real fast.

Speed Grapher is about war photographer Saiga's new job as a freelance political paparazzi in a near future Tokyo suffering from another major economic crash. After an injury forces him to take a less 'strenuous' job photographing corrupt politicians and dodging their security details, Saiga confronts one of the corrupt politicians that he had revealed as he is being killed by a man who literally stretches like rubber. Escaping through the use of his wits, Saiga traces the politician trail to an underground club that is using an unaware student named Kagura to grant some people strange abilities and to kill others. In the confusion of confronting them, Kagura gives Saiga the ability to destroy anything he takes a picture of, and they them flee as Kagura awakes, trying to avoid others that Kagura has given abilities to and trying to uncover what is going on.

The background of this manga feels a little odd, with the special abilities of the world relying on neither magic or science. The powers depend on the receiver's psychological state, where the power derives from the character much more than in other titles. The war photographer Saiga takes pictures of things and places in the process of being violently destroyed. But rather than capturing that moment in a photograph, Saiga now causes that moment to be forever lost, showing an internal conflict of Saiga. There is also the inherent subtext of Kagura, the overlooked and forgotten student, being able to give powers to people who want them, but the powers she grants are never exactly what the people need. But through it all Kagura is able to maintain her own detachment and 'innocence' from the consequences of the abilities she grants. Even though these subtexts are not fully explored in this volume, it does set up some interesting character bits to be followed up later. I have not seen the anime that the manga is based on so I do not know how closely the manga follows the anime's plot, but at least it seems implied that these points will be dealt with. Not only is there depth to the story and how the powers work and how they reflect the characters, Saiga shows cleverness in using his environment and his own abilities to even up the odds in otherwise difficult situations. The fact that the characters and story show such signs of thought and consideration, for the moment at least, gives me hope for the series and makes me half interested in seeing the anime.



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

- Ferdinand

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, vol. 1

By Kou Saskura
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Another entry in the why did they bother? category

Hector and Isaac are both generals in Dracula's demoniacally enhance army. They are wiping out all resistance ahead of them until Hector disappears. Isaac is sent to retrieve or kill Hector, depending on what Hector has done. But Hector has just been sunken in depression in a church, doing nothing but still Isaac unleashes a werewolf to find him, uncaring of the consequences. One of those consequences is the murder of the father of Ted, a boy in the village where Hector is hiding, and it is he who drives Hector to do something about the danger that is coming, no matter what the price will be to Ted.

I do not play video games, so I have no idea how much fidelity that the manga has with the source material. The only thing I can tell you that two disciples of Dracula with uncertain powers seem to be heading toward a confrontation whose reasons I can barely understand. I mean, we need to have a fight, otherwise why bother, but the reason why they fight is a lot of hemming and hawing, along with Dracula standing next to a window for the entire manga looking dangerous. Supposedly the main character of the manga is someone for the time being just seems to be a supporting character, maybe as witness type character who is supposed to tell others of the action. But it is just such a half-assed way to tell a story. Even the church's nun Rosalee seems more important to the story, and we do a lot of character work on her, but then she just drops from the story. This seems to be something that only fans of the videogame would enjoy, but considering it's haphazard nature it is hard to tell whether or not even video game players would get it.



Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Burst Angel, vol. 1

Story and Art by Gonzo and Minoru Murao
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: When is a sequel a prequel?

Jo and Meg are freelance troubleshooters in a near future Tokyo where violence is common. Even in Takeru's private school, far from the dangerous parts of Tokyo that Jo and Meg live, there is violence in the form of school bullying. The two types of violence converge as Jo and Meg's pursuers (who were trouble they had earlier shot at and now were interested in returning the favor.) discover them hiding in a randomly chosen apartment, which just happens to be Takeru's. Even after Jo and Meg leave Takeru's life (after causing a lot of property damage in the apartment's parking lot) he cannot forget them, and after some other cases manages to catch up to Jo and Meg, just as someone from Jo's past also catches up with them.

From some poking around online, it seems that this manga is a prequel to the animated series. It focuses on two characters from the anime, Jo and Meg, with a recurring role for Takeru, a student who is bullied often. Takeru seems to be counterpart of Kyohei in the anime, the ordinary guy drawn into the world of violence that Jo and Meg live in. Considering that later the threats that they face are more epic in scale, here the array of thugs and enforcers that are the majority of the opponents of the volume don't really seem like a threat. About half of the volume have chapters that Takeru appear in, as he tries to understand the world he has been drawn into while the episodes that feature Jo and Meg show off their relationship, dysfunction and all. Some of the fight scenes are a little muddy, especially the ones that feature opponents that Jo actually have trouble with, so it is hard to compare the intensity of the fights. Jo has the standard thousand yard stare/PTSD symptoms that so many of the 'tough' women in manga/anime have. Which makes me wonder what is/was the source of the yuri undertones between Jo and Meg, since I doubt Jo is mentally capable of reaching out to begin one. It is also sad the only way that I could determine that this was prequel was from wikipedia, not the actual book itself.



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

- Ferdinand

Update to Blog Frequency

As one can imagine, things are tough all over, and the number of review copies I have been receiving have been dipping. I cannot afford to purchase that much new manga out of pocket, so for the time being Prospero's Manga will be dropping to 2 reviews a week, posted on Tuesday and Thursday. Sorry about this!

-Ferdinand

Seduction more Beautiful than Love, vol. 1

Created by Lee Hyeon-Sook
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Korean schools still have corporal punishment? Another important safety tip for manga fans who go abroad.

Daoun is a new teacher at a high school and temporarily takes over the homeroom of a class with one of those quietly tortured pretty boys the clutter up manga/manhwa, Ryumin. He barely pays any attention to schoolwork but enjoys twisting her head about over whether or not he is trying to seduce her, drawing her out emotionally then (apparently) feigning disinterest. But both have their own other romantic interests, Daoun has an old college friend Hyunwoo who never managed to tell her how he felt before and has become a new teacher at the same high school that Daoun teaches at and Ryumin has a girlfriend (of a sort) that seems to be able to manipulate everyone but him.

This is a fairly low key title, no big or broad character traits or actions. Daoun is a little clueless, which is best shown by how her mother manipulates her into a blind date but also because she can't seem to make head or tails of Ryumin or Hyunwoo . Why is it in real life (or at least western fiction) that it seems women can see right through guys (not that it is all that difficult) but in manga/manhwa/eastern fiction women never seem to have the first clue on what is going on men's minds, or even can decipher the most blatant of actions? I realize that the truth is probably more in the middle (and that fact would destroy whole buildings of the Library of Congress) but it just seems that Daoun would have at least some clue Hyunwoo likes-likes her, even if she doesn't acknowledge it out loud. Most of the other character's confusions are more or less believable but having the main character being so clueless is just annoying and let's you see the hand of the author pushing the characters around like chess pieces just so that he can have story that lasts longer than an episode. And more importantly make sure to have lots of moments filled with sexual tension. Nice art though, easy to recognize the characters and each is attractive in their own way.



Seduction more Beautiful than Love, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

The Mysterians, vol. 1

Created by Chuck Russel and Michael Uslan, Script by Jay Antani with Art by Matt Hentschel
Published in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Not related at all with the cult classic Japanese giant critter movie

Imagine a Earth where Dick Cheney and George Bush were considered environmental wussies. Yes, hard to imagine, but that is the near future of the Mysterians, where the environment is going to hell in a hand-basket, except that there are not enough reeds left growing to weave a hand-basket. But five teenagers whose parents died arguing that the environment and the political situation was deteriorating learn that they have been changed, partly through their own abilities and some of them by genetic/organic engineering derived from alien technology. Wait, alien technology, did I forgot to mention the aliens? Yep, you see the aliens are behind all of the trouble on Earth because they need to reduce the Earth to a polluted wasteland so they can get a decent breath of air. But not to worry, five teenagers who have never meet before will gain strange powers to save the Earth! The only thing that is missing is a few color pages so that we can tell which color each teen's organic bio-armor is, since biologically similar creatures still would never be as tacky to be all in the same color!

Heh, sorry. The environmental message here is a combination of Captain Planet and X-Files, and even some of the classic cult movie THEM. It is so blatant and over the top that it is hard to take seriously. At least from a storytelling perspective, truth always seems so much more illogical since it does not have make sense as a plot. Obviously there is also the sentai/Power Ranger influences on the story are just a little bit obvious. Still, the whole story seems very simplistic, but the creators seem to have decided to compensate for that by having just as much over the top goriness. The disguised aliens are unstoppable unless you pull out their power source, which gives one a lot of reason to rip their corpse apart looking for the important bit. So lots of exposed spines and intestines. Nothing too stomach turning, but it was actually surprising to see it shown. Not sure if the shock value is worth it though.



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

- Ferdinand

Jyu-Oh-Sei, vol. 1

By Natsumi Itsuki
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline:Classic sci-fi straight out of creature double feature era.

Thor and Rai are identical brothers with radically different personalities. Rai is the studious type wanting to be scientist while Thor wants to be a pilot, but since they are sons of one of the leaders of Earth colonized solar system, they are being pushed more towards leadership positions. But somethings happens, and their parents are killed with the brothers exiled to the secret prison planet Chimera, where the days are months long and the environments are so harsh that most die. Thor and Rai are separated, and Thor learns that his weaker brother has died. In order to get revenge for his family and to get the necessary treatment that all inhabitants of this solar system need to live into their twenties, Thor decides to become the Beast King, leader of Chimera and the sole person allowed off world. In this he assisted by Tiz , one of the few women on the planet that seems astonished by Thor's ability to resist her blunt demands and Third, a character that Thor is rightly suspicious of.

Before cable, you would be able to watch barely logical sci-fi pulp shows and movies on Saturday, dating back to the 50-60s. Popular sci-fi at that them was an uneasy mix of the big idea, the idea of planet's rotation being so slow that it the day/night would be seasons and other little twists on sci-fi tropes. But the big focus of the story would always be the pulp aspects with dramatic rescues, allies who seem to be villains (much like early portrayals of Flash Gordon allies Zarkov and Barin), treacherous environments, even more treacherous enemies and despite the presence of blasters most of the combat being hand to hand. So by the modern styles of sci-fi this is horribly dated, but it also fun and while I would trade my Phillip K. Dick novels for it, it is sci-fi story that many will be able to identify with.



Jyu-Oh-Sei, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Aspirin, vol. 1

By Eun-Jeung Kim
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Never has a title been such an accurate descriptor of the drugs I needed after reading it.

This is another one of those manga that thinks by being self-referential, they can get away with having a ridiculous plot and have random things happen. Why? Because the characters seem to know that they are in a manga and absurd plot contrivances and weird coincidences happen in manga all the time, so why bother stringing together the very basic plot structure. Or have characters be internally consistent or even have motivations beyond the most basic? Someone unleashes the four gods, but he really didn't and he was set up to take the fall, but he can do it because someone says he can, blah blah blah. Didn't care, the main lead is a cipher, the only person that that I felt the least amount of connection to was Samson, the nun who mom had relations with the Angel Samson, which is wrong on so many Biblical levels that I can't even begin to describe. The art is okay, the actual mechanics of storytelling is decent, it's just the story itself that is trying to be told makes very little sense and has even less desire to be so.



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

- Ferdinand

Vidia and the Fairy Crown

By Haruhi Kato
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: When did Disney add a whole colony of magical fairies to NeverLand?

Vidia is one of the fairies of Neverland, living in Pixie Hollow with the more famous TinkerBell. Unlike most of the other fairies she has seen way too many goth movies and is a bit dark and sarcastic. However, despite her joking on the matter, she insists she would have never stolen the fairy queen's crown the night before a party. Very few fairies believe her, since Vidia wears way too much black, but Prilla, one of the younger fairies believes in Vidia's inherent, well, not goodness but lack of cruelty and together Vidia and Prilla follow the chain of evidence that leads to the missing crown. Despite the temptations, Vidia does the right thing and returns the crown to the queen even as she disses going to the party to celebrate her successful return of the crown.

Silly Disney all ages manga, can't be as cruel to it as I want to, it's like kicking a kitten. And not one of those evil Llolcat kittens. The plot is very linear, which is my main problem with it. We go from scene A to scene B to scene C and there is very little real interpersonal conflict. Sure, no one really likes Vidia , but no one really interferes with her task or even tries to delay her. So yeah, that is about as realistic as most other children's fiction, but once you accept that, it's not that bad. There is only one place that the chain of logic really didn't follow, and Vidia does have a believable moment of weakness, the desire to pay back everyone that had accused her of something she didn't do. Trust me, every kid knows that feeling and the desire to get even. But anyone over the age of ten is just going to find overly linear and not very interesting, while younger readers may find it more engaging.




Vidia and the Fairy Crown is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Jade of Bango, vol. 1

Story by Ae-Ju Yim with Art by Jin-Ju Yim
Released in the US by TokyoPop


Slugline: Despite Japan and Korea having a history of disliking each history, their manwha and manga is not that different.

Lin, is a cheerfully happy girl despite the fact that her mother was killed by a monster one night and lives with her forgetful father. Of course, she just accepts that monsters killed her mother in a world that seems otherwise exactly like our own. Despite the fact that she can see ghosts Lin doesn't think that there is anything wrong with her world until monsters start attacking her directly and night falls instantaneously around her. After a rescue she learns that she is the Jade of Bango, with a Phoenix related power that can destroy the world, so of course she gets a hot but emotionally distant protector (is this an attempt by get women to accept that emotionally distant men are cool, or that they need to settle for that?) Lin is also informed that he will be her husband. Of course she has no problem with that, or that her protector's rival arrives to take her away from him, but despite the whole kidnapping thing she thinks that they are friends. And yes, it is even sillier than this brief description of it.

Wow. Mystical girl with the power to destroy the world is given a hot but emotional distant protector. Never have read anything like that. This week, that is. As a manwha I was hoping to see some interesting spins on the standard manga genre conventions, but nothing of that was here. Sure, some of the iconic imagery was different (different portrayal of the ghosts) and the costumes seemed more Chinese based than usual, but otherwise is way too conventional. Even the two girl friends with one more mysterious one having lesbian overtones is right out of the manga playbook. The one thing that was forgivable was this appeared to be a double volume, so at least there was decent chunk of story to suffer through.



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

- Ferdinand

Blog update

Some stuff got delayed, and we're are going to be blogging daily for a little bit to catch up.

-Ferdinand

1520, vol. 1

Story and Art by KAI
Released in the US by UDON


Slugline: Is humorous transformation really a manga genre?

Zellos is the prince of a poor kingdom and has been told that he will marry the princess of rich neighboring kingdom. But by merely sneaking in to see his future bride, he is disgusted by her spendthrift ways, especially by her refusal to eat a rare delicacy that she was offered by her father's Prime Minister. Through a bit of silliness both Zellos and the princess's super-efficient maid Ana each take a bit of the cake with unusual consequences. Both characters are 15 years old but thanks to the magic of the cake their combined ages now cannot exceed 20 years. That means their default age is 10 years old each, but if one of them laughs/cries (depending on which one) they revert to their true age of 15 while the other is further regressed to the age of 5 but eventually revert back to their average of 10 years old. This is a problem because the Prime Minister is not happy his plan failed, the leadership of the neighboring kingdom is not happy with Zellos's wedding plans and there are some bandits out there that are far too interested in two 10 year old 'kids' wandering around unsupervised.

Magical aging/transformation manga seem to be numerous enough to form their own subgenre but this manga has some clever variations on the theme. The shared ages mechanism feels rather novel (it probably has been done before, but I don't recall any at the moment) and the characters, rather than being complete opposites Zellos and Ana have strong devotion to duty. The differences between them is how they express it and will undoubtedly be the source of their personal conflict. That still is a far more believable and sustainable for characters, rather than having opposites attract. Still too early to see how the series will turn out but I am interested in the journey so far.



1520, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Warcraft: Legends Vol. 1

Written and Art by Jolley, Kim, Knaak, Lewter, No, Olivares and Wellman
Published by TokyoPop


Slugline: A perfect fine anthology of Dungeons and Dragons...I mean Warcraft stories.

There are four short stories in this volume, the first being an side story of the Trag, the minotaur from the earlier Warcraft manga facing his own uncertain future. There is a story about about a farmer seeking to better his family through confrontation with zombies, a gnome making a name and legend for himself and a dwarf learning the meaning of family and responsibility. Only the first story really felt like Warcraft, the rest could of them could have been any fantasy world with the generic races that populate them. They are perfectly well crafted and put together stories, but you could have put any number of different titles to them and it would be hard pressed to tell these stories were not crafted with that world in mind.



Warcraft: Legends Vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand