Manga-ka: Izumi Tsubaki
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: August 2010
Synopsis: “For a brief moment, Chiaki fears that another girl is giving Yosuke a massage on the sly. As graduation day approaches, she must untangle her feelings for Yosuke and tell him how she really feels. Love, romance and massage…the exciting conclusion to The Magic Touch!”
Having heard both good and bad things about this series, I decided to undertake a review of the final volume for team Kuriousity. Catching up on the series with a previous volume beforehand, reading this last instalment left me pleasantly surprised. Magic Touch takes a fairly odd concept and delivers an entertaining, offbeat shojo series.
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Missed this when it was originally posted to the site but mid-August my review of Crimson Cross was posted over on AnimeNewsNetwork.
What to say about this one… well, it wasn’t bad, persay, but I’d felt like I’d read a near-exact story a hundred times before. It’s a vampire story about the son of Van Hellsing who is turned half vampire and thusly spends his grim days hunting the uber-power vampire who turned him. Along the way he meets carbon-copies of the same female archtype to give him some sort term angst. He broods, he reflects and generally fails at defeating the vampire. There’s a werewolf in there too somewhere. It’s just really stereotypical, unfortunately, and I found myself bored half way through when I realized it wasn’t going anywhere different than the usual.
This book was also another case where I was really underwhelmed by their graphic design decision for the front of the book. The thick flat-colour maroon border just suffocates the artwork – I don’t understand why they wouldn’t use a full-bleed of the art itself.
Overall, it’s as my review says, I can only really recommend this book to “those entirely new to the concept, or those so smitten that they must have all there is to do with the undead-leeches.” Sadly it’s a been-there-bit-that experience.
Author: Venio Tachibana
Manga-ka: Rihito Takarai
Publisher: June
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: August 2010
Synopsis: “It is rumored that Touji Seryou, one of the more popular boys at school, would go out with anyone who asks him out on a Monday morning. But on this particular Monday morning, the first person he meets at the school gate is no other than Yuzuru Shino, Seryou’s sempai at the archery club. On a whim, and well-aware of Seryou’s reputation, Shino asks Seryou to go out with him. Thinking that it will be treated as a joke, they’re both guys after all, imagine Shino’s surprise when Seryou takes him up on the offer!”
Touji is on a quest for true love – or any love really. Half-scorned and left dangling mid-affection by his brother’s girlfriend, Touji has spent his school year dating a different girl every week. But only for one week. Date them on Monday, break up with them on Sunday – it’s a seven day ritual that he’s yet to find reason to break. Until he gets out a by a guy anyway – cue Monday to Thursday!
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My recent review of Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories has been posted over at AnimeNewsNetwork. This is Fantagraphics’ first manga release and they did it in style – hardcover and everything.
When I first read this compilation of stories, I was a little underwhelmed. I liked it well enough, I enjoyed reading it but it didn’t leave much impression. I waited a week and read it again and suddenly it seemed completely different. It goes to show the importance of rereading, especially for these more subtle series. Too often I fly through a new book and more time is spent simply on absorbing what happened instead of how or why. A Drunken Dream is definitely more about the hows and whys. I was entranced the second time through as I picked up lots of little things I missed the first time.
The review tells what I liked how the book in more detail but summed up I’d really recommend it, not once but twice (and more times for extra charming effect) – it’s a beautiful book.
Manga-ka: Yoshiro Tatsumi
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: March 2010
Synopsis: “Susumu Yamaji, a 24-year-old pianist, is arrested for murder and ends up handcuffed to a career criminal on the train that will take them to prison. An avalanche derails the train and the criminal takes the opportunity to escape, dragging a reluctant Susumu with him into the blizzard raging outside. They flee into the mountains to an abandoned ranger station where they take shelter from the storm. As they sit around the fire they built Susumu relates how love drove him to murder.”
Black Blizzard is an important work in manga cannon, but luckily it’s more than just a dusty piece of history. Even today it is still an engaging thriller worth reading. Susumu is a piano player who’s down on his luck. When he falls in love with a circus performer named Saeko, it leads to a series of events which end with Susumu killing a man while in a drunken rage. When the manga starts he has been arrested by the police and is on a train, handcuffed to a fellow prisoner.
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Author: Satosumi Takaguchi
Manga-ka: Yukine Honami
Publisher: eManga
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: March 2008
Synopsis: “Shuuiku Academy’s students are leaving for summer vacation, but Yuuhi-kun is stuck in the dorm. It doesn’t matter that home lies on the same backwoods country property as the school campus – his house is being remodeled, so Yuuhi’s got nowhere else to go! Likewise, Sango-san will be staying behind to keep an eye on things, leaving the two of them all alone with nothing but time on their hands. Will being away from prying eyes lead Sango to temptation?”
This volume threw me for a loop. I completely did not get the whole dream sequence until the very end of that section, so while I was reading it, while it was kind of entertaining, it was also just a bit…odd. Once I realized it was a dream, it made more sense though.
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Manga-ka: Eiichiro Oda
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: June 2010
Synopsis: “Camie the mermaid offers to take Luffy and the crew to Fish-Man Island if they’ll help rescue her boss Hachi from the notorious Flying Fish Riders. Ignoring all of the warning signs (hint: her boss sounds suspiciously like an old enemy!), the crew agrees to help their mermaid friend, only to end up losing Camie to the kidnappers too!”
An alternative title for One Piece vol.51 could be “How to Write a 50+ Manga Series.” In this volume Oda reintroduces characters from over a dozen volumes ago and also weaves in new ones who have strange but important ties to the main cast. It’s amazing how easily both the old and new characters are able to slip into the story. The huge cast highlights how big and real the world of One Piece feels. While of course the main cast is always caught up in some adventure, the side characters have lives and goals of their own that continue even after they’ve left the main story.
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Manga-ka: Natsumi Matsumoto
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: June 2010
Synopsis: “Momoka is eager to give Ryuga the antique pocket watch she bought him for his 17th birthday, but when she gets to school, the Ryuga she meets is only 13 years old! A tiny trickster fairy who lives in the watch has taken Momoka back in time, and now Momoka must find her way back to the present day.”
As Matsumoto adds the element of dinosaur-obsession into an already panda-inclined manga, cuteness levels jump into overdrive in this volume of St. Dragon Girl. A personable narrative combines with clever design elements to make a very readable series that touches upon most of the basic elements of shojo manga for a younger audience, while also appealing to general manga readers. Everything is handled in an efficient fashion that endows it with endearing charm, whether it‘s time travel, sinister paintings or overly violent mermaids.
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Manga-ka: Yoshiki Nakamura
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: August 2010
Synopsis: “Kyoko is basking in the glow of working a Christmas miracle and getting some birthday booty of her own. But she’s so unused to this kind of joy that she ends up late to the script reading for her new drama. Now her whole day is a mess and Ren is mad at her! Can Kyoko balance revenge, a career and her own happiness?”
I find I enjoy Skip Beat most when the characters are pretending to be other people. That’s not a dig at the main characters. I really like Kyoko and Ren and find them a nice change from usual shojo leads. But,when they’re acting, or at least working on their craft, that’s when it feels like the manga is firing on all cylinders. This volume brings the focus back to show business world, making it one of the better volumes in the series in a long time.
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Author: Satosumi Takaguchi
Manga-ka: Yukine Honami
Publisher: eManga
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: November 2007
Synopsis: “When class president Sango Tsutsui and the other student administrators end up sequestered away at a director’s meeting, Yuuhi-kun is left back at the school, alone and defenseless. Will Yuuhi’s naive, country ways make him fair game for the Ezaki trio? Or will Tsutsui-san return in the nick of time to save him? Could it be that absence truly makes the heart grow fonder – are Yuuhi and Sango ready to take their strange relationship to (gasp!)… the next level?!”
Now this was an interesting instalment. I liked this second volume of Can’t Win With You for the most part, because Hayate and Kanya are by far my favourite couple in this series so far and there was a lot of development in their story. This strikes me as slightly odd, since the story is about (or is supposed to be about) Yuuhi, and, by extension, Sango. It makes me wonder a little just exactly which story the author wanted to tell.
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Manga-ka: Souya Himawari
Publisher: June
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: April 2010
Synopsis: “Roh is an outrageous orphan who has survived on the streets relying solely on his own strength. When he is taken in by a loving grandfather and grandson, Roh begins to believe that life may not be that bad. But when Seishin’s grandfather dies unexpectedly, Roh finds himself responsible for more than just himself!”
A one-shot collection of short stories, Moonlit Promises easily surpasses the mediocrity of other similar collections. Visually pleasing artwork and tender stories that vary from a genetically-engineered song-bird to a genie trapped in a ring and two boys becoming mercenaries to make a living, this trio of stories is worth having on any boys’ love readers’ shelf.
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Manga-ka: Yuko Kuwabara
Publisher: June
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: August 2010
Synopsis: “When happy-go-lucky Shiro is suddenly murdered by a jealous lover, he finds himself summoned to heaven by the teeny-tiny (and totally bored) God Kami-Sama. The two soon hatch a plot to form a “family” featuring the beautiful ninja Kuro…but little do they know that Kuro has his own troubled past! Will these three lonely misfits find a way to overcome their differences and forge a lasting bond?”
Garden Sky is another of the books I question the validity of labeling boys’ love, especially when Digital Manga has their Doki Doki line-up which fits this one-shot like a tailored glove. There’s the potential for boys’ love here but that’s about as far as it goes. The book is split up into two different stories, each one building itself up like your average tale of boy-loves-boy but then stops just before the point where you’d officially deem it one. This isn’t to say the book will really appeal to those who aren’t fans of the genre, but even those who are will likely find themselves a bit disappointed in more ways than one despite some polished art and likeable characters.
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Author: Satosumi Takaguchi
Manga-ka: Yukine Honami
Publisher: eManga
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: August 2007
Synopsis: “Yuuhi-kun planned to build a soccer field on the piece of mountain land that was his inheritance, but when his brother’s elite Shuuiku Academy needed a new campus, Yuuhi was forced to reconsider. Now he finds himself both the landlord, and a student at the school! Needless to say, the other students are none too happy about being shipped out to the boonies, so Yuuhi – AKA “chicken-head” – has become the object of their collective ire. But there’s something about the country bumpkin that has many students eyeing Yuuhi in a different way…a way that makes him very uncomfortable. Seems there’s a lot more than “book-learnin’” going on at this school, and Yuuhi’s about to get a whole ‘nuther kind of education!”
I used to think I was not a fan of the school boy stories, however, I keep reading them, so I guess I must see something in them after all. This one uses the typical excuse of a school full of hormonal boys to explain why they are constantly all over each other.
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Happy Birthday to me! I’m 24 today which I’ve been warned means I’m only one year away from being five years to thirty – this is scary now I’m told.
On a completely unrelated note (and one considerably more post-relevant), I’ve got a new review up over at AnimeNewsNetwork – Alice the 101st (Vol. 01).
I was really excited for this book as a fan of the artist’s previously-released-in-English series, La Esperanca. Alice the 101st is thus far considerably less melodramatic but that’s not a bad thing; there’s some interesting different plot elements coming together and a fun amount of humour in this one as well. I thought things fell into place a little too easily though so there’s room for improvement in volume two in regards to handling the plot it has a little better. What I liked the most though was the artwork which looks really sharp, especially the stronger use of black. Snazzy stuff and fun to see how her art’s evolved since the last series I read.
A digital copy of this book was provided by eManga.com for review purposes
Authors: Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan
Artist: Faith Erin Hicks
Publisher: First Second Books
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: August 2010
Synopsis: “Neither artistic, dreamy Jenna nor surly, delinquent Lucas expected to find themselves at an invitation-only summer camp that turns problem children into prodigies. And yet, here they both are at Camp Fielding, settling in with all the other losers and misfits who’ve been shipped off by their parents in a last-ditch effort to produce a child worth bragging about. But strange disappearances, spooky lights in the woods, and a chilling alteration that turns the dimmest, rowdiest campers into docile zombie Einsteins have Jenna and Lucas feeling more than a little suspicious… and a lot afraid.”
(Editor’s note: Sharing something a little different today, a review of Brain Camp to commemorate it’s release this week. Sure manga’s the proverbial bees-knees for most of us, but let us never forget how much other fun, quality stuff is on shelves to check out also. Now and again I’ll be having these special reviews to show some other titles that I think readers here would be interested in as well. Enjoy!)
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