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.

Two from Yuriko Matsukawa: Not for a Student and Hush A Bye Baby

November 12, 2012 by 1 Comment

I previously reviewed Matsukawa’s two volume series Late Advent, so I was interested in checking out some of her one-shot works that are now available on emanga.com. Not for a Student and Hush a Bye Baby are both collections of stories, with one long anchor story for each volume followed by a few shorter stories.

Not For A Student – available on emanga.com

Miki is a photographer who abruptly decides to become a teacher when losing a competition scuttles her chances of a professional career. Before her student teaching stint she has an odd encounter with a waiter at a nightclub who is so compelling that she has to photograph him. Imagine her surprise when she finds out that he’s Takase Misaki, one of the worst students in the class she’s been assigned to student teach. Takase is constantly skipping school, only showing up when he feels like it, and the rest of the students in the class seem to be in a bit of a conspiracy to help him get away with whatever he wants to do. Miki has the desire to prove what a great teacher she can be by trying to help him, but her efforts are met with a surprising degree of intimidation and blackmail from Takase. As she discovers the secret he’s protecting, she begins to act in a very un-teacher-like manner.

This volume was an enjoyable collection of shojo short stories. In addition to Not for a Teacher, it included a story “Aim for Acclaim My Beautiful Hostess!” about the trials and tribulations of a traditional inn owner in Tokyo and her unexpected romance and another story, “Put Your Right Foot Forward” about a girl pursuing her passion for dance only to get caught up in a rivalry between to potential partners. Matsukawa’s art still has that old-school style that I enjoy, and this collection was a pleasant diversion. Not For A Student‘s more dramatic story was balanced out by the slice-of-life stories in the rest of the volume.

Hush A Bye Baby – available on emanga.com

I found Hush A Bye Baby: Midnight’s Rebel Army a bit more entertaining than Not For A Student, just because the premise for the main story was more crazy, as convenience store worker Sakaya finds herself accidentally handcuffed to cute, yet tragically haunted biker Reiji (just like the 39 Steps, but not!) who has a mysterious past. Don’t all tragically haunted bikers have mysterious pasts!? Sakaya ends up helping Reiji investigate the truth of an accident he was framed for, and they grow closer in the process even though they have to endure being shackled together for a couple days. My only complaint with the art for this story is that the chain connecting the handcuffs seemed to randomly expand and contract at various points of the story, but on the whole it was still very entertaining. I always enjoy linked short stories and restaurant settings, so the other half of the volume was a treat. “No Saint of Soupe” deals with a French Restaurant in Japan, and a romance between the owner’s daughter and a gifted chef named Rene who only specializes in soups much to his brother’s dismay. “Professional Passion” turns the focus on Rene’s older brother as he deals with an inexperienced reporter who is assigned to cover him for her first big professional story.

If I had to pick between these volumes and only recommend one, I’d go with “Hush A Bye Baby” since the combination of manacled bikers and foodie manga is pretty irresistible. Both volumes were entertaining though and would provide a quick entertaining read for any shojo fans looking for single volumes of manga.

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.

Library Wars: Love and War Volume 8

August 23, 2012 by 4 Comments

Library Wars: Love and War Volume 8 by Kiiro Yumi

I knew that this volume was going to be dangerously adorable when I saw Iku and Dojo in an over-the-top romantic pose, complete with a ribbon in a heart shape proclaiming “Prince and Princess.” I’m always in favor of shoujo manga featuring prominent ribbons. Iku’s administrative woes are revealed to be caused by the machinations of Tezuka’s big brother – the evil library futurist. He asks for a meeting with Iku, hoping to win her to his side and use her to influence Tezuka. This meeting is where Iku’s so-called simplemindedness comes in handy, because she just flatly rejects him and his evil plans even when she has the opportunity to save herself from an administrative witch hunt. She says “If Tezuka learned that his big brother did something so shameful, he would be hurt. I mean how could I be so selfish? Tezuka is my friend.” Dojo shows up in a dress uniform halfway through the meeting and drags Iku away. What then follows is a totally cute scene where Dojo forces Iku to sit on a park bench because he can’t pat her head to praise her when she’s standing due to her high heels. Iku begins to ponder Dojo’s prince-like behavior, but when she gets a letter from Tezuka the Elder pointing making insinuations about Dojo and Iku’s princely ideals, she finally realizes that Dojo was the library officer who helped her save her favorite book from censorship when she was in school.

Iku spends the rest of the volume in full freakout mode as she attempts to process her own emotions and understand Dojo’s current feelings for her. There is a nice sideplot that shows Tezuka saving Shibazaki from unwanted male attention. It took eight volumes for Iku to finally realize her feelings for Dojo, but I have to say that as a fan of the series, it was worth the wait. There was much more focus on the emotions of the characters and their shifting relationships in this volume, as opposed to the usual library crime of the week. While I do enjoy all the paramilitary exercises about library books, I found this volume much more gripping than the past few volumes of Library Wars. It looks like this series is up to ten volumes in Japan, and I’m guessing it will get wrapped up in a little bit now that the central romance is finally starting to move forward. I’m looking forward to Dojo’s reaction once he knows that Iku knows he’s her prince.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Late Advent Volumes 1 and 2 by Yuriko Matsukawa from emanga

August 19, 2012 by 2 Comments

I was excited to see that some shoujo titles are starting to pop up on emanga.com, because it seems as though most of the titles released through the DMG program are yaoi, and a little yaoi generally goes a long way with me. I often enjoy two volume series like Late Advent. Sometimes manga that’s complete in one volume doesn’t really follow through on character and plot development, but two volumes is often enough space to experience a short series without feeling rushed. I think this manga originally came out in Japan in 2000, but I thought it had a bit of an older 90s shoujo fantasy vibe.

Late Advent Volume 1

Reira Bandou is going through her normal everyday life, going to her college classes and learning about eight classic statues that depict Buddhist deities. Reira is exausted because she’s been having strange dreams, and as she’s sitting in class a strange blobby demon starts crawling up her desk. Reira starts having encounters with odd people who claim that they knew her in a past life, and that she’s descended from Ashura, the Buddhist god of War. She meets Kubanda, a feral-looking hipster who introduces himself as her lover in a past life. She also meets the gentle Kinnara, a boy with a visible third eye, a talking myna bird who is Karua, and Shagara, whose human form is that of a cynical professor. As Reira starts to adjust to her changed circumstances and struggles to control her new supernatural powers, she’s aided by the deity Gobujo, who only seems to appear as a voice or spirt but hasn’t yet manifested in human form. With the eight deities gathered together, they have to face down the new invasion of demons that might have been triggered by their presence.

Late Advent Volume 2

Matsukawa’s art is smooth and assured, with her deities shown as garbed in fantasy armor with fangs when they channel their godly powers. The adaptation here seemed smooth. I spotted one obvious error, but overall Late Advent was very readable. I found myself having a bit of difficulty following the sequence and reasoning behind all the demonic battles, and Reira seemed to gain new confidence with her powers between volumes. I was also a bit sleepy when I was reading Late Advent, so
some of my difficulties in following the plot were probably due to fatigue. One of the aspects of the series I enjoyed was the contrast between Reira’s occasional flashbacks or dreams and the current incarnations of the various deities. Elements of the past inform the present, and in some cases the current lives the characters are living provide a way for them to work through the trauma of their past lives. I did enjoy Late Advent overall. The Buddhist deities with super-powers but was a nice change of pace from some of the other fantasy series that I’ve read, and I enjoyed the old-school feeling of the art. This is a good series for shoujo fantasy fans to check out. As a shoujo fan, I want to see a good variety of publishers coming out with new titles, so I’m happy to see new shoujo on the emanga platform and hope that this series is a sign of more shoujo to come from emanga.

Electronic access provided by the publisher.

« Previous Page
Next Page »