Translucent, v.1

by Kazuhiro Okamoto
Published in the US by Dark Horse Manga


Slugline: Teenagers feel invisible. That much never changes.

Invisibility as a cycling, mysterious illness -- it's a reasonable enough story idea. Even when set in the mundane world of middle school. But volume 1 proceeds to introduce us to a group of familiar characters, all of whom are dead set on being as normal as possible. Here's a disease whose only physical effect is invisibility, and everyone's ignoring the obvious implications.

Furthermore, the storyline insinuates that the disease is partly psychological. Which could lead to interesting stories too, but there isn't much sign of anything interesting happening so far. I couldn't even guess what volume 2 would be about -- there's no apparent conflict or goal in mind. The girl suffering from this disease wants to be an actress, but the story of reaching that goal hardly needs an invented disease to be interesting. The added "problem" actually detracts from that, in my opinion.

You can also check out Ferdinand's review!



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

- Miranda

CBG Review: Hellsing, vol. 1

As a reminder of why we are running so many links at the moment, I have a contract with TokyoPop to write a pilot manga for them, and while I am working on it I am trying to avoid reviewing their stuff. So of course I get nothing but TokyoPop titles to review.

I have written a review for Hellsing, vol. 1, available on The Comic Buyer's Guide website. Please remember that the CBG website uses a 4 star rating. Check it out!



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

- Ferdinand

CBG Review: Megatokyo vols. 1-4

I have written a review for Megatokyo vols. 1-4, available on The Comic Buyer's Guide website. Please remember that the CBG website uses a 4 star rating. Check it out!



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

Empowered, vol. 1

By Adam Warren
Published by Dark Horse


Slugline: A title that revels in its own absurdity.

Don't you wish that more people gave manga a try rather than just knee-jerking writing it off as something strange and foreign? I am going to give you the same challenge for Empowered, a title by the original OEL artist, Adam Warren. It is a title about superheroes. Yes, yes, I understand, superhero comics are the devil compared to the purity of the manga, but then you are just as guilty as the people that are decrying manga, right? And let's face it, are the ninja feats that Naruto pull off or badassitude of Rurouni Kenshin that far off superheroes like Batman?

And if you strip all that out, the genre trappings, this is ultimately a story about college aged people trying to figure out what to do with their lives. And screwing up, and wondering what the hell they are going to do to pay the bills until the stuff they really like doing starts paying off. With boyfriends, booty calls, going out with girlfriends until you come home more than a little tipsy. After reading probably hundreds of high school stories where everyone seems so prim and proper, even the hooligans following a constrained set of behaviors, it was great to finally read some truly bad and but also behavior that felt more real. And relationships that start with sex and hormones and evolve towards love and that other sort of stuff rather than vice versa.

Empowered is a superheroine with a name that was best she could come up with and a supersuit that nothing to hide her butt or any other embaressing body parts. Worse still, while bulletproof it tears easily, and until it regenerates most of her powers are gone, so she ends up tied up way too often. Fortunately she has her boyfriend Thug Boy and her girlfriend Ninjette to bolster her while Sistah Spooky and the rest of the Superhomies continually belittle her. As you can see, this is something of a parody, something of a slice of life and a whole lot of the funny.

And as for Adam Warren, his first OEL was the US version of Dirty Pair in 1989. He has the experience and style, learned through years of practice and experience, so that it comfortably straddles both US and Japanese art styles and so it has become its own. Read it and realize that OEL can be and is it's own thing, and should be judged for what it is, not what you think it should be.



-Ferdinand

CBG Review: Tanpenshu, vol. 1

I have written a review for Tanpenshu, vol. 1, available on the Comic Buyer's Guide website. Please remember that the CBG website uses a 4 star rating. Check it out!



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

-Ferdinand

Hanami: International Love Story, vol. 1

Story by PLUS with Art by Sung-Jae Park
Released in the US by Dark Horse


Slugline: Is this story just about being stuck between two girls or stuck between Korea and Japan?

Joonho has finally had the courage to confess his love to Sae-un, the girl he has been attracted to in his Korean high school in and for once in these stories she actually reciprocates right there rather than refusing or running off. Unfortunately, as soon as he gets home from having his confession accepted, he find outs his family is moving Seoul that day. Once he complete the move he begins a long distance (well, medium distance) relationship with Sae-un, but his Japanese neighbor Hanami keeps on intruding on his thoughts and she keeps on finding herself thinking of him. But both of their lives in Seoul are complicated by cast of ludicrous characters.

I do find that there is an interesting subtext in the title. To say that there is an apathy between Japan and Korea on the cultural and historical level is to understate the case. Koreans who were relocated to Japan in World War 2, their grandchildren who remain in Japan are still not citizens. And let's not even bring up the issue of the comfort women (If you don't know what I am talking about, well, the wiki entry is here, and it is not pleasant.) So the fact that Hanami's grandfather actually married his Korean wife and then moved to Korea, well, just from that you can tell this is a manwha because the whole Korean issue is still very unspoken in Japan. That whole issue is something I hope that gets touched upon more seriously in later volumes.

Despite the cheese, cliche and chibi aspects of the story, the fundamental conflict that is driving Joonho and the story is handled well. Joonho is torn between Sae-un who he has been attracted to for a while before moving and the friendship and possibly something more he could have with Hanami. Sae-un is someone that he understands, liked for a while, but he is also separated from her, not by a great deal but still a distance. Meanwhile Hanami is right there, foreign and so exotic, yet needing him. But Joonho is right to wonder if she likes him on his own merits or because he is a substitute for the love she had previously lost. And while the issue of language/miscommunication is first played up for laughs it is then is played a little more straight. Joonho's sense of detachment and discomfort at the Japanese language study group feels right, and I think Hanami is purposely misunderstanding Joonho's explanation of his relationship with Sae-un. I wish that the early chibi /cliche aspects could just be forgotten, but if they continue to treat the love triangle as a real dilemma rather than an excuse for broad comedy, the series can only strengthen. If the story could perhaps begin to deal with Japanese/Korean issues, this could be an exceptional series.



Hanami: International Love Story, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Shaman Warrior, v.1

By Park Joon-Ki
Published in the US by Dark Horse


Slugline: We're introduced to the action-heavy world of shaman-based fighters. Sort of.

So much time is spent on the action, in fact, that almost nothing is said about what a "shaman warrior" actually is. Little is said about our apparent main character, Yarong, too -- but that doesn't matter because this first volume is something of a bait-and-switch.

The action is gritty and un-glamorous, which is fine, and a bit of back story is provided, but this is ultimately more of a prologue than a first volume. And as such, I don't know where the story will go from here except, probably, to more combat. Which is fine, too, but I have no reason to expect that there will be anything more than that.



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

- Miranda

Red Strings, vol. 1

Story and Art by Gina Biggs
Published by Dark Horse


Slugline: Do you choose your fate, or does your fate choose you?

This manga is the collection of webcomic. To read the webcomic, which includes the material in this volume, click here.

Miharu's parents have always been a little odd, but they have just dumped on her the biggest shocker, that they already have arranged for her marriage while she was still a baby with the son of a family friend. Needless to say, she does not take welll to this announcement and storms out. While out, she runs into an older boy that helps give her some perspective on the whole ordeal. And because this is a manga, that boy is Kazuo, the boy that is supposed to marry. Wackiness could ensue, but merely the mundane confusion as the series deals with these issues, along with the other problems of Miharu's friends and family.

I admit I do have a fondness for Red String, because I first discovered it a few years ago at SPX (read a report about the latest SPX here) and picked up an ashcan of the first chapter back then. But looking at the first volume as a whole, you can see the seams in it, for a webcomic flows differently in a published format. The chapters do not flow into each other easily and it feels like the overall story is moving in fits and starts. That being said, the art seems very old-school. As in the use of obvious tones and very sparse line art. It is the style that fans first imagined that American Manga would take back in the early 90s. Now that isn't a knock on the art style, but it is very realistic, refusing to fall into moments of kawaii and chibi art. For a realistic romance story, that is what you need. I am not sure how 'Japanese' it really is, but it has enough of those touches that it feels real. I took a look some of the later chapters that were available on the website, and it does seem to flow together better. There are no big flowery dramas, but Red String, despite it's talk of fate and the like, feels more real and grounded than most other shoujo.



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

-Ferdinand

Translucent, vol. 1

By Kazuhiro Okamoto
Released in the US by Dark Horse Manga


Slugline: Is becoming invisible a curse or a blessing for a teenage girl?

Shizuka is a teenage girl who has a medical condition that makes everything in her life harder to deal with. No, not diabetes like in an earlier review, but she is translucent. She turns invisible and back to visible in a monthly cycle (much like another cycle girls her age learn to deal with.) It is treated like an uncommon but still normal disease in the title, which frees the title to talk about how Shizuka lives with it rather than focusing on the disease itself. This is a slice of life title, with no overarching plot as such, and Shizuka and her friends, especially Tadami, in turn deals with and try to work around Shizuka’s translucent state.

The writers of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer had a saying about writing their episodes, "What is the metaphor?" While there was always a monster, each monster had to tie in some way back to the themes of growing up and high school. While this is a slice of life of comic, it is also has the metaphor of withdrawing from life and society made physical through the use of the translucent syndrome. Here, the metaphor is not particularly deeply hidden, where the confusion of wanting to be noticed and to be like everyone else is made concrete (irony only somewhat intended.) Shizuka's feelings of shame and confidence directly feed into her appearance, and the confusion in the steps between childhood and being a young adult is also expressed through her ‘disease’ and her friends, especially Tadami’s, attitudes and willingness to relax into childish games, but also to reject them. It needs to dial down the obviousness of the metaphor sometimes, but it is still an outstanding title.



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

-Ferdinand

CBG Review: Style School, vol. 1

I have written a review for Style School, vol. 1, available on the Comic Buyer's Guide website. Please remember that the CBG website uses a 4 star rating. Check it out!



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

-Ferdinand

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

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

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, v.2

by Eiji Ohtsuka and Housui Yamazaki
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manga



Slugline: If the victim is already dead, is it murder?

This is a strange and compelling horror story, well written, well drawn, and complete within the volume. I'm going to have to track down v.1.

Kurosagi Delivery Service is made up of people with unusual abilities who try to make a living helping the dead fulfil their final wishes. It's not a very profitable line of work. Between their attempts to get paying jobs, they are drawn into the strange goings-on at a funeral home that involve a young girl who can raise the dead -- sort of. Mostly.

The author does not feel the need to make the reader laugh much -- this is a straight-up, dark and uncensored thriller. Which is not to say that it does not have its lighter moments, or that it doesn't end on an hopeful note. It's a nice change of pace: a horror story that doesn't involve ongoing, grim situations.



The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service vol.2 is available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Miranda

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: White Maze

Written by Junichi Fujisaku
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse



Slugline: Guns go boom. It's Ghost in the Shell, what else could happen?

Ghost in the Shell manga (this is a novel) that are released by Dark Horse have an interesting sense of hyper-reality to them as they attempt to illustrate some concepts of science fiction/futurism in a more concrete form, such as the idea of augmented reality. But in this novel only the very basic concepts are used, making it no more than another cyberpunk tale. Not that it is a bad cyberpunk tale, but it is a fairly straightforward and not a very complicated one.

Bad man makes a virus with vampiric overtones that is quickly lost, and Motoko Kusanagi finds the bad man, who turns out, surprise, surprise, to be not so bad. But some even worse folks want to use him for worse ends. Look, I am not trying to be snarky; it is executed decently and there are some interesting character moments, but if you are looking for some hardcore cyperpunk/action or a big Ghost in the Shell post-modern metaphysics brainstorm, this may be disappointing. I suspect I will forget most of the plot of this book within a week.



Ghost in the Shell: White Maze is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Akira v. 1 - 6

by Katsuhiro Otomo
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manga



Slugline: Tetsuo rides the psychic-power rollercoaster amid chaos, apocalypse, and his ex-best friend trying to kill him.

I haven't read Akira in at least ten years, and I was a bit worried it wouldn't hold up after so long in the otaku world. But it does, and I know exactly why it converted me to the fandom.

- Crystal clear action. None of those big, vague, swooshes, no wondering whose ass that weapon came out of, no fudging of geography, physics, or biology.

- Excellent application of psychic powers. It's still some of the best telekinetic combat on paper. Makes Obi-Wan look like a noob.

- Consistent, if limited, characters. Especially Kaneda, who is not only an ass, he's too clueless to realize he's clueless and is the kind who brings a knife to a gun fight. A butter knife.

- Lovingly rendered military equipment. No roses or sparkles in this one, and a couple ass-kicking ladies that I can root for.

- Mass destruction. Tokyo gets flattened, and more than once.

- Plot never loses focus, even in the chaos of a freshly ruined city. We don't get sidetracked into tangential flashbacks. Everyone's relevance to the story is quickly established and we keep moving.

All these qualities are a bit unusual for a manga, in that they are rather Western and much closer to what Hollywood et. al. have trained Americans to expect. But it's Japanese enough to stand well apart from them, too. That's what makes Akira such a good "conversion" manga (and anime) for action/scifi/apocalypse fans.

If you have a friend who's curious about manga, I'd recommend Akira unless your friend's into sensitive romances (try Utena on those friends.) And I think the bridge can work both ways: read Akira and then pick up Dark Knight Returns,
V for Vendetta, Sin City or Crisis on Infinite Earths.



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

- Miranda

Banya, v.1

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



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

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

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

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

Well, maybe not even then.



- Miranda

Octopus Girl, v.3

by Toru Yamazaki
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manga



Slugline: If Madmagazine is too tame (or, possibly, too high-brow) for you these days, then suffer no more. Truly bizarre gross-out comedy has been brought to us by the good folks at Dark Horse.

This isn't a Dishonorable Mention, but I'll be brief because I'm not usually found hanging around the horror/comedy crossroads. I need to go bleach my eyeballs after reading this.

Octopus Girl is a semi-anthology of two girls who sometimes have the bodies of an octopus and an eel and who have strange, gory and sh*t-filled adventures. The art is hideous, but that's intentional. The dialog is flat, but that hardly matters. Believe it or not, I'm giving it two stars for inconsistency -- not all the stories are pointless or even sh*t-filled.

If you've got a friend who's into gross-out comedy and you're looking for a present for them, there's three volumes of this stuff for sale at Amazon.



- Miranda

Old Boy, v. 1

by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manga



Slugline: After being mysteriously imprisoned for ten years, our hero is set free and starts looking for answers.

I saw the Korean-made movie version of Old Boy (it's out on DVD now) so I have the disadvantage of knowing how it ends (maybe/probably.) It's not a gory movie, but it's violent and mean-spirited. (Some people compare it to Pulp Fiction... which may be true in attitude, but not much else.)

That attitude is laid out in the manga, but more dilutely. In v.1, our nameless hero is released from his captivity and only just begins to start looking for answers. Meanwhile, the bad guys are keeping an eye on him.

The movie is tightly paced and efficient, in the tradition of revenge thrillers, but the manga shows every sign of moving at a distinctly more manga-ish pace. The art and writing are perfectly competent, but it lacks a sense of urgency, for me, and the novelty of the situation can't be re-created because I've seen the movie. So my rating may be biased, but this manga just doesn't stand out enough to be above average.

If you haven't seen the movie and you like dark thrillers, check Old Boy out in manga form and give it a chance. If you did catch the movie, get the DVD and enjoy it again, with extras.



DVD:


- Miranda

Blade of the Immortal, v.15: Trickster

by Hiroaki Samura
Published in the U.S. by Dark Horse Manga



For the last 14 books, we've followed Rin, more or less, on her quest for revenge on Anotsu. In v.14, she took a pass and let him go. For a Western-style storyteller, that would be the end. But on we go, now with no clear goal in sight.
So now what? We meet new people, new opponents whose psychoses are established, or whose motivations are suitably muddled, and we revisit the vague involvement of the government in the whole situation. Maybe things will become clearer in v.16... and maybe they won't. Lose half a star for misplacing the plotline and making me wait impatiently for the next volume.

As a consolation prize, Manji gets his ass kicked but wins anyway, and Magatsu has a cool fight with Giichi and is left for dead. Again. Magatsu never gets any respect, and he keeps crawling back for more.

And Manji makes fun of Rin for worrying about him. Maybe she should just kick him in the nuts instead. He might find that charming.

OK, so I'm grumpy about the story turning around and doing a few manga-standard character introductions... again. I expected better.



- Miranda