Boys Over Flowers: Season 2

December 15, 2015 by 2 Comments

Boys Over Flowers Season 2 by Yoko Kamio

Boys Over Flowers Season 2 is available for free on a chapter by chapter basis on the Viz Manga app, Comixology, and on the Kindle.

I was a little hesitant about starting this series, which is a bit odd, because I absolutely adore Boys Over Flowers. I’ve collected the manga, and watched many of the tv adaptations of the property. I was worried that a return to Eitoku Academy would feel a bit stale. While this series doesn’t exactly feel fresh and new, Kamino is such an assured creator, it mostly won me over.

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The social gap that was caused by the departure of the F4 has been filled by a new gang of students – the Correct 5. They are but a pale imitation of the F4, and they are lead by Haruto, a short boy with a penchant for superstition and ordering random quack objects out of the back of magazines. Haruto is joined in his misadventures by his right hand man Kaito, who seems reasonable and sane. There are two other male members, Sugimaru (the strong one), and Issa (mostly invisible). The Correct 5 is rounded out by Airi, a girl who you can tell is evil due to her curly pigtails.

The not-Tsukushi main female character is Oto, who is attending Eitoku while working a variety of side jobs. She used to be rich, but her family has fallen on hard times. She’s keeping up the pretense that she can actually afford to go to Eitoku, but the Correct 5 are determined to drive any poor students out of school, in order to try to better its standing. It seems like when the F4 left, much of the glamour that attracted students went too, and the school is struggling especially when compared to upstart Momonozono Academy.

Oto and Haruto meet when he isn’t able to send his butler in to the convenience store where she works to pick up his bizarre mail order packages. Haruto is worried about his secret being uncovered, and Oto isn’t afraid to try to blackmail him in order to keep her status as a student. One of the things I appreciated about Oto was her guarded personality. The first Boys Over Flowers was a bit more dynamic because Tsukushi was always so vocal, but Oto is doing her best to stay under the radar, to the point where she’s actually repressing her impulses.

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Haruto is an absolute idiot, but he’s somewhat adorable in his lavish lifestyle, slavish devotion to the memory of Tsukasa, and bumbling reactions to Oto as he begins to realize that he has a crush on her. One of the things that I didn’t like much about the chapters that have been released so far, is that the rest of the Correct 5 haven’t really had their personalities filled in yet. I thought that the first Boys Over Flowers did a better job balancing out and introducing the cast of characters and giving everyone a chance to develop. To be fair, Kamino does realize this, there’s a side story about Issa making the point that he never actually shows up in the manga, so I’m hoping that there will be more plot development later on.

Kamio’s art is great – she has a facility with facial expressions that make the funny scenes teeter on the edge of caricature while still seeming fully human. Really, my main quibble with this series is that it does suffer in comparison with the original. It was a bit telling that one of the most exciting moments in this series was when one of the original members of the F4 popped back for a very brief cameo. There are cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, and it did want to keep reading once I got going. I appreciate that Viz is experimenting with a free, digital release for Boys Over Flowers Season 2 and I hope it leads to more digital shoujo!

Black Rose Alice, Vol 6

December 13, 2015 by 2 Comments

Black Rose Alice Volume 6 by Setona Mizushiro

I was disappointed when I realized a couple volumes in to this series that it was on hiatus in Japan. But by that time I was thoroughly won over by Mizushiro’s surreal and unique take on vampires and the tragic tone of the manga in general. It turns out that I shouldn’t have been worried too much, because while this volume doesn’t wrap up all the possible loose ends in the series, it does provide a satisfying conclusion.

Dimitri is away, and Alice and the twins are living in the house, dealing with the aftermath of Leo’s death. The twins’ backstory is told through flashbacks, and it is just as dark as one might expect from this series. Neither twin seemed like particularly great humans, but Kai’s actions are particularly despicable, making his current more winning personalty stand out in contrast to his past actions. There’s a moment of levity injected into the household when Dimitri returns home with a human woman who he once saved from a horrible assault, promising to make her his vampire bride. Now Akari is all grown up, and determined to experience the most cliched date possible with Dimitri by her side. This prompts feelings of jealousy in Alice, and an emotional confrontation.

As far as endings go, this volume concludes with one that is about as happy as it is possible to get, considering that everyone is doomed. Black Rose Alice is such a delightfully odd series, one that doesn’t turn aside from the darkness in human (or vampire) nature. It is a more mature, and quirky addition to the Shojo Beat family. I highly recommend it. This is one of those series that I’ll take down from the bookshelf and reread every few years.

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Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 1

November 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Vol. 1 by Izumi Tsubaki

This was by far one of my most anticipated new manga titles of the year. I generally don’t get into 4-koma manga all that much, but Oresama Teacher is one of my favorite shoujo comedy titles, so I was looking forward to reading this.

Poor Chiyo has a crush on the handsome yet mysterious Nozaki. When she confesses her affection to him, he assumes that she’s a rabid fan and hands her an autograph – as it turns out he’s secretly a successful shoujo manga-ka. Chiyo soon finds herself serving as his assistant, along with a quirky supporting cast. Nozaki is incredibily odd, as the main thing that he’s an expert in are shoujo manga tropes, which causes plenty of real-life confusion. He also finds inspiration from his classmates, turning one awkward boy nicknamed Mikorin into his shoujo heroine and making a tomboyish girl his inspiration for a new male character. Shoujo and manga conventions are constantly lampooned, for example Nozaki has a habit of always drawing his favorite face, making his characters indistinguishable from each other. Also, his relationship with his deadpan editor is hilarious, as Nozaki is always determined to believe the best of his editor, even when his drawings get a lukewarm or negative response.

One of the things I like about Tsubaki’s work is that she’s able to quickly assemble a large and exceedingly quirky supporting cast, providing plenty of fodder for humor. That she’s able to go from two characters to over half a dozen within the constraints of a 4-koma strip in one volume is impressive. This is a genuinely funny manga, and the perfect thing to get for a manga fan for the holidays if they haven’t snagged it already. I will never think about tanuki the same way again after reading this volume!

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Yukarism, Vol 4

November 10, 2015 by 2 Comments

Yukarism Volume 4 by Chika Shiomi

I’ve always liked manga by Chika Shiomi, and even though my favorite of her works is the older title Night of the Beasts, her art and storytelling skills have progressed greatly over the years. Yukarism’s final volume is a great way to wrap up the series, coming to a conclusion with a few nice plot twists that make it not at all like a standard supernatural shoujo manga.

As this series unfolded, we’ve seen the present day characters grow more and more affected by the past. Yukari is starting to show symptoms of illness that mirror the sickness of the courtesan Yumurasaki, while Mahoro is taking on the supernatural powers of Takamura. Edo bodyguard’s protectiveness is manifested in Satomi in the modern day. Not only are personality traits crossing over to the present day, as the volume progresses the past is physically manifesting in the present. While it seems like the present day trio is doomed to repeat the tragedy from the past, Shiomi manages to wrap things up in a much more satisfying and hopeful way.

I don’t want to give too much away of the resolution of the manga, but I thought it was very nice that the inevitable love triangle in most shouojo manga was sidestepped. Most of the problems of the past centered around the trio not communicating clearly with each other and making assumptions, and in the present day the high school students manage to work things out both in their own lives and for the spirits that possess them briefly. Even situations that seem very threatening get resolved, but not without enough of a struggle that the happy ending feels unearned.

Shiomi’s art is always clear and easy to follow, but the level of detail in the flashbacks to the Edo period, combined with the way the past is portrayed as bleeding into the present in this volume makes the illustrations stand out. In the hands of a lessor artist, the events could easily be a muddled mess, but both spirit possession and the physical struggles are portrayed with clear techniques that never confuse the reader. I honestly would have been happy if this series were stretched out over another volume or two, but by the end there is resolution for each character, both past and present. There’s a depth of emotion in this concluding volume that shows how Shiomi is able to be so precise in planning out her story, it never feels unearned. Yukarism is a series that I’m going to keep on the shelves for a long time, and I’m going to look forward to reading it again.

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Idol Dreams, Vol 1

November 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Idol Dreams Volume 1 by Arina Tanemura

I was curious to check out this manga, mostly due to the fact that it is a slightly older skewing shoujo title. Also, the premise, about a 31 year-old office lady going back in time to relive her youth seemed interesting.

The hapless office lady in question is Chikage Deguchi, who is bullied at work. She’s let her 20s pass her by while she’s stuck in a style rut, repressed, and unable to find a boyfriend. Her humiliation is complete when she goes to a high school reunion. She’s humiliated even more at a high school reunion. She manages to make incidental conversation with a classmate named Tokita who happens to be a pharmaceutical rep, but her encounter with her high school crush doesn’t go well at all. Chikage is depressed and determined to end her life, when Tokita rescues her and tells her all about an experimental medication that will allow her to replay her wasted teenage years.

Chikage clearly operates under different human subjects rules than most people in the pharmaceutical industry, as he supplies Chikage with pills that transform her into a 15 year old and then sends her on her way, with instructions to check in often so he can gather data. Of course, as soon as teenage Chikage steps foot on the street, she’s recruited to be a stand-in model opposite the most popular member of a boy band, and thus her career as a budding teen idol begins!

Teen idol Hibiki looks a lot like Chikage’s old crush from her high school days, and she finds herself getting swept up in the life of a teen idol. She’s determined to master the social skills that she didn’t pay attention to as a young teen. The situation of a 31 year old woman in a 15 year old’s body and a 15 year old boy being paired up has the potential for a great deal of creepiness. I wasn’t taking this romance very seriously though, because it is clear that Tokita has an unexpressed crush on Chikage, and he seems to be one of the few men her own age that she can actually talk to without becoming self-conscious. So, even though there might be a bit of a wacky love triangle developing (like the original Amethyst Princess of Gemworld with reverse aging) I’m fairly confident that the romantic resolution to this manga will be non-squicky. We’ll see what happens in the next volume though.

Tanemura is always at her best when drawing super cute people, and the contrast between older Chikage and young idol version Akari is pronounced. I enjoyed seeing the friendship develop between Akari and the other boy band members, but I thought that Chikage’s occasional encounters with Tokita were much more promising in terms of any romance developing. Overall, I thought that this was a promising start to a new series, with the potential for the romance plots to derail and become off-putting. I generally enjoy Tanemura’s manga, and a series set in the world of teen idols is the perfect excuse for her to break out all the stops with the flourishes and detailed costumes that she does so well.

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