Hana Kimi 3 in 1 Edition

February 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Hana Kimi 3 in 1 Edition by Hisaya Nakajo

I read Hana Kimi when it was coming out originally, and it is one of those series that I reread every couple of years. It is the reason why I remain such a sucker for cross dressing reverse harem scenarios, and I find it to be a great silly shoujo series. I was happy to see that Viz is releasing the earlier volumes in the 3 in 1 omnibus edition. Hana Kimi first started coming out several years ago, so hopefully this new edition will create some new readers for the series. This is similar to the other 3 in 1 editions from Viz, the first three books packaged together on fairly thin paper with no new extras.

One of the keys to enjoying Hana Kimi is being able to suspend a ton of disbelief for the first few chapters, because the heroine’s scenario in this manga relies on a staggering amount of coincidences that are possible only in manga land. Mizuki Ashiya has been living in the United States, where she became infatuated with a super-star track and field athlete named Sano Izumi. Sano’s high jumps are sublime, and Mizuki is inspired to take up track and field herself. Not content to only improve her athletic ability, she decides to move back to Japan, disguise herself as a boy, and enroll in Sano’s high school. Osaka High School happens to have dorms and she’s assigned as Sano’s roommate! Despite being a cross-dressing stalker, Mizuki is peppy and cute, with the type of reckless personality you might expect from someone who just casually moves to Japan as a boy because she digs someone’s high jump. When Mizuki gets to school she finds out that Sano has given up jumping due to a tragic past with accompanying psychological issues, and he finds her boisterous attempts at friendship rather annoying.

As you might expect from a manga set at a boy’s boarding school, there’s a large supporting cast. There’s the fabulously gay school doctor Umeda, soccer star Nakatsu whose feelings for Mizuki lead him to start questioning his sexuality, womanizing RA Nanba, and dorm mascot Yujiro. Sano and Umeda find out Mizuki’s secret very quickly, but Sano continues to pretend that she’s a guy. His attitude towards her gradually changes from annoyance to curiosity to fiercely protective. The three volumes cover Mizuki dealing with fitting in at school, the possible resurrection of Sano’s high jumping career, the sudden appearance of Mizuki’s older brother, and the consequences when Mizuki isn’t as watchful of her safety as she should be. The stoic hero with a tragic past is a pretty common type in shoujo manga, but I have to say that Sano is one of my favorite examples of this character. Nakajo does a great job showing the way he snaps to attention whenever anything that happens that might menace Mizuki.

Hana Kimi isn’t deep by any means, but it is one of my favorite comedic romance shoujo manga. Sano and Mizuki end up developing a close friendship partly because they aren’t at first relating to each other as a boy and a girl. I’m happy to see this series get more attention with this rerelease.

Review copy provided by the publisher

Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura Volume 6

January 24, 2012 by 2 Comments

Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura Volume 6 by Arina Tanemura

I’ve missed a bunch of volumes of this series (must go back and get them) and an extensive supporting cast now surrounds the protagonist moon princess Sakura and her fiancenemy Aoba. The lines are now drawn between the humans and the moon people led by Sakura’s older brother Enju. Sakura is trapped in the middle, faced with the fact that she’s going to cause the destruction of the side she chooses not to ally herself with. While I’ve missed a bunch of backstory, it wasn’t hard for me to pick up and enjoy this volume, because Tanemura excels at creating pretty manga. The main story here focused on the relationship of Asagiri and Ukyo and their distant history in a matriarchal village filled with snow spirit maidens.

Asagiri’s village has plenty of women and very few men. While Ukyo goes out of his way to be nice to her, she doesn’t have much use for him. All the other women keep trying to pursue him. The snow village has a legend which demands that a maiden sacrifice herself to ensure the safety of all the inhabitants. There are creepy snow hags in the mountains, and they seem to be increasing in number! I have to take a moment to note that the snow hags look like demons out of a horror manga, with wrinkly faces, empty eye sockets, and mouths of broken teeth. The snow hag images are quite disconcerting and effective when compared with Tanemura’s usual ornately pretty style. Asagiri and Ukyo end up developing a tentative romance, and this ensures Asagiri’s doom as jealous females in the village manipulate the sacrifice selection process to ensure that Asagiri is going to be the one chosen for this year. Asagiri and Ukyo’s story had a folktale feel to it, and Tanemura is always great at portraying the scorn and anger that result in love gone horribly wrong. Asagiri has a revelation about the true nature of the legend behind her village, and the effects of her new knowledge and subsequent loss of faith are profound.

There was an almost shocking shift of tone between Asagiri’s fate and the back-up stories that concluded this volume. The Angelic Gold Coin of Maple Rose is an entirely too sweet story about an angel who becomes human for a day. I was more amused by Mascot Sports Festival, which features all the sidekick characters from Tanemura’s other series fighting it out to see who is the cutest. Most of my amusement was centered around seeing all the characters line up with Finn, the angel from Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne drawn as so infinitesimally small that she needs her own arrow and name label. There’s an additional bonus story from Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross, which fans of that series should also find amusing.

Overall this manga reminded me of what Tanemura does best, and the character designs for the snow hags were a real surprise. I need to fill in the gaps in my manga collection!

Review copy provided by the publisher

Kamisama Kiss Volume 7 by Julietta Suzuki

January 20, 2012 by 2 Comments

Kamisama Kiss Volume 7 by Julietta Suzuki

One volume of Kamisama Kiss is pretty similar to the rest, but that doesn’t really matter because Suzuki’s series is so cute and well-executed. One thing that I was excited to see is a bit of a trend to longer storylines, with a chapter that will be continued in the next volume! This doesn’t happen all too often in Suzuki’s manga as many of the chapters in her books are remarkably self-contained.

This volume starts out with a cute story about new Snake Shinsei Mizuki, who is feeling left out because he has to stay back at the shrine while Nanami and Tomoe go to school in the human world. Mizuki is spectacularly unsuited to the modern world, managing to get conned into buying a goofy looking protection sticker that he wears on his head as soon as he steps foot in the outside world. The next story shows Nanami and Tomoe visiting an amusement park together. Nanami is feeling suspicious and jealous when she finds out that Tomoe has been keeping a woman’s hairpin in his room. Tomoe is still loudly proclaiming that he’ll never fall in love with a human woman, while basically going on a date with Nanami. Nanami’s jealously almost ends up derailing their day, but they end up having a relatively peaceful ride on the ferris wheel.

The larger issue everybody has to deal with is Nanami’s attendance at a gathering called the Kamu-Hakari in Izumo. Mizuki informs Nanami that taking a fox shinshi along will result in Tomoe being harassed. Nanami ends up attending the gathering with Mizuki, but her naivete and expectations that other Kami are going to be nice are about to be tested horribly. One of the most enjoyable parts of Kamisama Kiss is seeing the unique character designs Suzuki develops for the otherworldly beings who Nanami meets, and the Kamu-Hakari gathering is full of new, slightly menacing gods who are not amused at the idea of welcoming a human in their group. Nanami finds herself cut off from any support and encounters Kirihito, a mysterious human with something extra going on. Nanami is promptly sent on a dangerous mission to the land of the dead, while Tomoe tries to live it up since his mistress has left him behind.

While there were a couple of fun stories that focused on individual characters, I was happy to see the turn towards more narrative complexity. It will be interesting to see if Nanami comes away from the Kamu-Hakari with more godlike abilities, or if her human perceptions and emotions will continue to be her best weapons in dealing with other kamisama. Tomoe continues to protest far to much about his emotions and Nanami continues to pine, but after seven volumes I’m still not tired of reading their story.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Dawn of the Arcana Volume 2 by Rei Toma

January 14, 2012 by 1 Comment

Dawn of the Arcana Volume 2 by Rei Toma

I enjoyed the first volume of Dawn of the Arcana, so I was happy to see that the second volume continues to be an entertaining fantasy story with the added bonus of the development of a tortured love triangle that was hinted at in the earlier volume. Caesar and Nakaba continue to have a rough time as newlyweds in a political marriage. Toma is pretty good at portraying Caesar as a poor little rich boy who is deserving of sympathy. He makes some clumsy attempts to give Nakaba expensive presents, when really all she cares about is being able to rescue an injured bird. While Caesar is quick to get angry when he sees Nakaba rejecting his advances, the puppy dog look on his face when he accidentally does something to cause Nakaba to be happy is pretty endearing.

Nakaba finds herself falling for her enemy prince husband despite her best intentions, and as I was expecting her servant Loki isn’t all that happy to see Nakaba and her new husband getting along. Nakaba also gets a welcome dose of levity when a little boy from her home named Rito shows up to be another one of her attendants. Rito is an Ajin like Loki, but he exhibits tiny ram horns in contrast to Loki’s canine characteristics. But things aren’t going to go smoothly for Nakaba, as a series of poisonous attacks on Caesar results in her being placed under suspicion by the court. Loki explains the source of Nakaba’s visions and says that her power may be growing. Loki’s quiet patience finally wears out and he confesses his feelings to Nakaba. She’s left feeling torn between her loyalty to Loki and the guilt that she feels when she enjoys spending time with Caesar.

One of my quibbles with this volume is that Nakaba didn’t have any clear ass-kicking moments that were so nicely exhibited in the first volume. While being caught in the throes of young love may throw her for a loop momentarily, I’m hoping that she has a few more take charge moments in later volumes. As she begins to be more comfortable with her visions, it will be interesting to see if she’s able to untangle the complicated web of plots that surround her in a new and unfamiliar kingdom. While the plot elements in Dawn of the Arcana still aren’t all that original, I’m very interested to see what happens next with Nakaba, Loki, and Caesar. I just hope Nakaba has a chance to punch someone in the next volume.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Skip Beat Volume 26

January 10, 2012 by 1 Comment

Skip Beat! Volume 26 by Yoshiki Nakamura

I’ve been in a bit of a post holiday blogging malaise, what with going on vacation, getting sick, coming back from vacation, still being sick, and just dealing with work. But there isn’t any better way to snap yourself out of a manga blogging funk than to pick up a fresh volume of Skip Beat! The plot arc introduced in this volume looks like it will be really fun, and this volume would be a good jumping on point for anyone who has read a few volumes of the series but hasn’t kept up with recent developments.

One of the ways Nakamura excels as a manga artist is that she’s great at drawing someone in the grip of absolute rage. We get treated to several panels of anger in the early section of the drama, where Kyoko and her fellow LoveMe Section members are dealing with the emotional fallout from their Valentine’s Days. The president of LME Lory asks how everybody’s day went and a dark cloud descends over Kyoko and Moko. Kyoko yells “It was a nightmareish evil day that threatened my peace and quiet!” Moko fiercely proclaims “It was a day that polluted society…a day that made idiots even more stupid!” Lory is disappointed in everybody’s progress and hands out new assignments with the word describing Kyoko’s as “Dangerous.”

Kyoko is told that she has to pick up a new actor named Cain Heel who apparently resembles a member of the yakuza. When she sees a man dressed in dark clothes, radiating such a hostile aura that all the other people in his vicinity are stepping away and staring at him, she walks up and says “Mr Tsuruga?” The man stands up without saying anything, Kyoko falls to the ground and he stalks off, stepping over her. Kyoko is mystified because she thought that the man was Ren based on his proportions. As she’s walking down the street trying to process her experience, a long dark arm snakes out from an alley and pats her on the head. It is Ren after all, and he’s portraying a new actor in order to further his career. Lory announces that Kyoko is going to be Cain Heel’s lucky charm, his treasured sister Setsuka. Kyoko gets a gothy-makover and the Heel siblings are ready to launch Cain’s new career. This means that Kyoko and Ren are going to be forced to be in close quarters, with plenty of agonizing moments and crazy fashion to look forward to. What more could any fan of Skip Beat! want?

Lory speculates that forcing his two actors together will result in great things, and he takes particular note of the fact that Kyoko must have been observing Ren very closely in order to penetrate his disguise. Kyoko gets to work thinking through the character of Setsuka, hoping that her acting will get Ren’s approval. In the meantime Ren is being tortured by the mini-skirts Kyoko has to wear as Setsuka. Skip Beat! is always entertaining, but I’m really excited to see what Ren and Kyoko will get up to as the Heel siblings.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

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