Demon Love Spell Vol. 1 by Mayu Shinjo

December 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I ended up liking Mayu Shinjo’s Ai Ore a bit more than I thought I would after reading the first omnibus volume. The second series settles in as more of a straightforward comedy series, without some of the problematic gender dynamics that were present in the earlier series. Still, Ai Ore didn’t inspire much rereading or long term affection from me. One of my problems was that the male lead of Ai Ore looked nothing like Sakuya from Sensual Phrase. Shinjo has a somewhat limited set of character designs, but when she does hit on a design she does execute it very well. I experienced far too much cognitive dissonance in Ai Ore expecting a Sakyua clone to pop up, only to be disappointed. Fortunately in Demon Love Spell, the demon in question looks like a typical Shinjo hero half of the time!

Miko is a shrine maiden (ha ha!) who isn’t very good at her job. She can’t sense the demons that she battles, so her technique is limited to chanting random spells and hoping that one of them works. She sees all the girls in her class crying over a faithless boy named Kagura. One of the victims jokes that Kagura has to be a demon because no human boy could go through women that fast. Miko makes up for her lack of skill with enthusiasm and she decides to rush off and exorcise the womanizer. Miko fins Kagura kissing yet another girl and starts lecturing him about the dangers of being possessed by an incubus who preys on the sexual desire of women. Kagura finds Miko extremely hilarious until she casts a spell on him and he actually disappears. Miko starts crying because she thinks that she accidentally killed someone when she hears an angry voice yelling at her from the vicinity of her shins, saying that it is impossible that someone like her could bind his powers.

Kagura wasn’t possessed by an incubus, he actually is one of the most powerful incubi around, and now he’s trapped as a powerless chibi version of himself only a few inches tall. Miko and Kagura end up developing a symbiotic relationship. When she’s in contact with him she can actually see the demons she wants to battle. If Miko gives Kagura a tiny amount of affection, his powers kick in and he’s able to help her. Kagura in appearance and demeanor is very much a typical Shinjo alpha male. He’s imperious and demanding, which doesn’t always play very well when he looks like a three inch tall cherub. One of the reasons why I wasn’t able to enjoy Ai Ore as much is that the relationship between the protagonists was a bit unbalanced. Even though this was deliberately done to contrast with the character’s outward appearances, Mizuki was too tremulous and Akira too demanding for me to really root for them as a couple. The personalities of the characters are much more balanced in Demon Love Spell. Miko might not be the best shrine maiden in the world, but she has no problem torturing Kaguya in his chibi form by dressing him up in clothes belonging to an old doll of hers. She decides to fasten Kaguya to a chain and hang him on her handbag to take him to school with her, and she starts lecturing him on proper behavior, saying “Bag mascots aren’t supposed to talk!”

Kaguya is still able to use manifest his regular form and power up when he visits Miko in her dreams, but she doesn’t remember anything the next morning. The incubus helps Miko fend off all the demons that are gathering around her, drawn by the fact that she managed to capture him. As the story develops, it seems like Kaguya is starting to feel genuine concern and affection for Miko. Or perhaps he’s just comfortable with the fact that he’s able to hang out in her cleavage when they enter battle together. Demon Love Spell was a fun comedic version of paranormal romance manga. While the comedy explored in Demon Love Spell is on a bit of a similar wavelength as Ai Ore, I found the characters much more interesting and sympathetic. I think readers who tried Ai Ore and didn’t care for it should give this series a try. I still tend to prefer Shinjo when she is in serious and dramatic soap-opera mode as seen in Sensual Phrase, but Demon Love Spell was quite enjoyable.

Shojo Beat quick takes: Kimi Ni Todoke, Oresama Teacher, and We were There

November 5, 2012 by 1 Comment

Kimi Ni Todoke #15

One of the reasons why Kimi Ni Todoke doesn’t seem to be getting stale even at volume 15 is that there are so many rich and emotionally charged stories that center on the supporting cast. If the manga only focused on the lead couple, I could see myself getting a little weary, but being able to stop every now and then and see a relationship explored that has a totally different dynamic keeps everything interesting. As one would expect from the cover to the volume, the relationship between Chizuru and Ryu is given the spotlight here, and this resulted in one of the most gripping shoujo manga that I’ve read recently.

Ryu has confessed his feelings for Chizu, and she isn’t sure what to do. She’d been nursing an unrequited love for his older brother for a long time, and always thought of Ryu as her brother. Now, she doesn’t want to face him and the fact that their friendship won’t be the same. Ryu’s relieved that he’s finally no longer hiding how he feels and he’s actually feels calm even if Chizu is avoiding him. She’s sad, but still drops off rice balls at Ryu’s house and he reveals to Kazehaya that she’s been bringing him food since the winter of third grade. One of the things that I enjoyed most about this volume was the way it delved into the reasons behind the character’s feelings. Kazahaya ends up serving as a sounding board for both of his friends, and he attempts to find out why Chizu is so upset. With the revelation of Ryu’s feelings, Chizu thinks that their sibling-type relationship was a lie, and everything that she valued “never existed.” Kazehaya asks if knowing that Ryu loves her makes her a little bit happy and she thinks that it never occurred to her. She’s crying because she can’t hang out doing goofy stuff like playing video games and eating ramen anymore because he’s not her brother. Chizu thinks back to the beginning of their friendship when they were little kids and constant companions. When Ryu’s mother died, their friendship developed a deep bond when Chizu vowed to be Ryu’s sister.

Kimi Ni Todoke delves into some pretty serious issues as Chizu works through her feelings, but everything is explored in a very natural and unaffected way. While there are plenty of scenes of the characters working through their feelings, much more is expressed through the portrayal of everyday actions like bundling up before a walk to school in the winter, or the neighborly way Chizu and Ryu’s families trade food back and forth. The act of eating home cooked food takes on a ritual significance when Ryu’s life changes so we see why Chizu’s act of dropping of snacks and Ryu’s habit of preparing lunch for her means so much more than just making sure that a friend has something to eat. Kimi Ni Todoke is such a standout shoujo series, and I become more and more fond of it with each volume.

Oresama Teacher #11

I can always count on this manga to make me smile, and I was particularly delighted that this volume featured the always entertaining plot line of Mafuyu trying to defeat a new enemy. But first, the reader is treated to what might be one of the most ridiculous Christmas dates ever to be portrayed in a shoujo manga, as Hayasaka goes on a date with his hero Super Bun. Mafuyu trying to negotiate the date while still wearing her Super Bun ceramic mask was quite a sight, and it was fun to see a comedic twist on this shojo plot staple. A new enemy appears in the form of the rather sickly student council stooge Ayabe, who goes everywhere with a guitar case on his back. He decides that he’s going to take Mafuyu down, but his methods are a bit odd as they involve actions like shutting himself in a locker and sending out death vibes when she walks by. Ayabe challenges Mafuyu and he actually manages to defeat her, leaving her to decide that she’s going to figure out everything about him in order to beat him next time. Her resolute stalking of him throughout the school makes some bystandars assume that she has a crush on him, but she’s really trying to know her enemy the best she can.

Oresama Teacher‘s formula of exaggerated behavior and ridiculous situations might be a bit predictable, but Tsubaki’s storylines always seem to have a bit of a weird and unexpected twist that maintains my interest. The source of Ayabe’s delinquent fighting powers was incredibly goofy, but I would expect nothing less from this series. I hope the next volume swings back to feature a bit more Takaomi and Bancho, because I’ve missed them. They make brief appearances in this volume, but not quite enough to satisfy me.

We Were There #15

This is the next to last volume of We Were There, and as much as I admire this series I think I am ready for it to be over. I could see how things were starting to wind down in the last volume, and that continues in this volume as Yano begins to realize the continuing depth of Nanami’s feelings for him. One of the things that We Were There really excels at as it shows the characters age from high school to young adulthood is portraying the burden of their shared history. Yano’s relationship and sense of obligation to the Yamamoto family finally reaches a stage where he may begin to move forward with his life, but I’m still wondering if Yano and Nanami really should end up together just due to the weight of their pasts. If Yano actually gets past all the guilt he’s been carrying around, he might actually be a whole human being once again, and it is clear that there is no other person that Nanami can be with. I’ve said before that this series reminded me a bit of Sand Chronicles, in the way both of them go for absolute melodrama in the way the plots unfolded. This isn’t a bad thing, but I think the emotional trauma has me looking forward to the final volume of this series while at the same time I’m very happy that Kimi Ni Todoke is up to 17 volumes and still going strong.

Review copies provided by the publisher

Jiu Jiu Volume 2

October 25, 2012 by 2 Comments

I’ve been meaning to write about the second volume of Jiu Jiu and decided to finally sit down and do a post this week because it is during the Vampire Manga Moveable Feast and there is a new vampire character in this manga! Here’s my review of the first volume. I found the art in the first volume a little bit hard to decode, but for whatever reason I thought the second volume was much clearer. Either I was more used to the drawing style, or the layouts got a bit easier to follow. In any case, I had a much easier time reading this volume. For those people who enjoyed the first volume of the series, the second is much the same as Takamichi and her Jiu Jiu Snow and Night spend a fair amount of time exploring their feelings for each other in between episodes of demon-hunting shenanigans.

Things get shaken up a bit with the sudden arrival of an imperious vampire pig bat, who initially looks like an elementary school student when he switches to humanoid form. Takamachi thinks that it is adorable but Snow and Night are sensibly suspicious of any new addition to the menagerie. Meru has fixated on Takamichi for a ritual involving his first time taking blood from a human. He reveals that he’s actually 17, but can only reach maturity with the addition of blood. The contrast between Meru’s various forms was quite amusing, with the ungainly pig-bat being quite the caricature. Jiu Jiu flashes back and forth from scenes exploring emotional abandonment to more typical shojo manga staples like trips to the beach. Themes of maturity and growing up are explored, as the contrast between Snow and Night’s actual ages and their appearance sometimes gets the quasi-family group into trouble. Meru serves as a contrast to this dynamic since he switches between younger and older forms.

Jiu Jiu is still very episodic in nature. While the two volumes released so far explore the same themes, it doesn’t have the narrative urgency that would come from a more involved storyline. Still, I found myself enjoying Tobina’s unique art style more in the second volume just because it was more comprehensible, and there are elements in Jiu Jiu that are really quite odd, with all the cages and the characters’ tendencies to sleep together like a pile of puppies. I’d likely recommend this series to any fan of supernatural shojo who was looking for something a little offbeat.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Full Moon O Sagashite Volumes 5-7 by Arina Tanemura

September 27, 2012 by 2 Comments

I was hoping to finish up this series by the end of last week for the Manga Moveable Feast, but that didn’t end up happening. I did throughly enjoy the last half of Full Moon O Sagashite. One of the reasons why I liked the series so much when I started reading it was because Mitsuki didn’t seem to have the personality I’d expect from a typical dying shojo heroine with the alter ego of an idol singer. The sentimentality does get ratcheted up in the later volumes, but the sentiments expressed never feel unearned. One big thing that goes into making the series feel fully realized is the way Mitsuki’s shinigami companions all have their own motivations that sometimes conflict with each other. How and if Mitsuki should be supported in her ambitions is something that is debated and at times thwarted. After getting this far into the series I wasn’t annoyed by the the generational connections and coincidences that bound Mizuki’s extended family together with the shinigami, instead I was amused as more of the backstory was filled in and we started to see that Mizuki’s support system wasn’t sent to her randomly at all.

I don’t want to give away too much about the ending of the series except to say it was happy and not unexpected. I wasn’t disappointed by not being surprised by the conclusion of the series, instead by the end of the seven volumes filled with ups and downs and occasional suffering it was good to see everything headed in a positive direction. While I read and enjoy plenty of manga, it is somewhat rare for me to finish a serie with a feeling of fondness. Any shojo fans looking for a dose of warm fuzzies will be well served by Full Moon O Sagashite.

Kamisama Kiss Volume 10

September 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

Kamisama Kiss volume 10 by Julietta Suzuki

Kamisama Kiss continues to be one of the most consistently charming shojo manga being published today. I need to fill in the gaps in my collection, because I tend to read random volumes here and there, but it is very fun to read. I was delighted to discover that shrine goddess in training Nananmi and cynical fox spirit Tomoe’s relationship has progressed somewhat. Of course in shoujo manga land, relationship progression means making overtures of affection or declarations of love when the object of one’s affection is unconscious, but I’ll take whatever I can get.

Nanami finds herself entangled in a rengu succession battle, as she has to sneak into Mount Kuruma and determine what is happening to the hapless Tengu under the rule of the overly strict heir Jiro. She also needs to track down the reasons behind the mysterious disappearance of the ruler of Mount Kuruma, Sojobo. Nanami gleefully comes up with a reckless infiltration plan involving a variety of disguises and the aid of the youngest and most vulnerable tengu. The interaction between the characters in Kamisama Kiss is always fun to see, and it was interesting to see Nanami’s newfound confidence as she dons the disguise of a male tengu and then proceeds to boldly run through the entire hall inorder to set up her own magical shield. Tomoe detects Jiro’s fascination with Nanami and assumes her form in order to provide a necessary distraction, and Tomoe’s version of Nanami is hilarious to watch in action because his body language of languid flirtation stands in such contrast to Nanami’s usual open enthusiasm. Not many artists could pull off a scene like that very well, and I always put down each issue of Kamisama Kiss with renewed appreciation for Suzuki’s illustration skills.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

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