iPad Manga Reviews – Rosario Vampire and Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan

April 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

One nice thing about the insanely cheap prices for first volumes in the Viz Media iPad store last month is having the opportunity to try out some new titles that I wouldn’t ordinarily read. Sometimes this will make for a pleasant discovery, and other times I will just confirm that certain manga titles aren’t for me.

Rosario Vampire Volume 1 by Akihisa Ikeda

Rosario Vampire is a fairly standard harem manga that provides the slight twist of a monster school setting. Tsukune is an average human boy who finds himself inexplicably attending a high school for monsters where they practice their skills in pretending to be human. Tsukune is promptly befriended by the most beautiful and powerful girl in the school, a vampire named Moka. She’s drawn to him as a blood source, but she also acts as his only friend. The story in Rosario Vampire is pretty much what you’d expect. There’s plenty of accidental touching and viewing of young monster babes in their underwear. Tsukune’s status as an undercover human is occasionally threatened, and Moka is able to unleash her mystical powers to defend Tsukune whenever he needs rescuing. The art is clear and easy to follow, and for a shonen harem manga this series does seem competently done. But there wasn’t anything extra to engage me, as a reader who isn’t really in the shonen harem manga target demographic. If I want to read a manga about a schlubby human boy tormented by a oblivious girlfriend with amazing powers, I’d just go back and track down some Urusei Yatsura.

Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan Volume 1 by Hiroshi Shiibashi

I’ve written before about having “yokai fatigue”. There are so many manga series that feature people fighting spirits, it really takes a special series like Kekkaishi to win me over as a dedicated reader. Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan does exhibit some cliched shonen plot devices, but the basic premise provides an interesting counterpoint to the standard super-powered teen fighting evil spirits plot that manga readers have come to expect. In Nura, the hapless teen with hidden powers isn’t an ordinary human. Rikuo’s been born as the heir to the Yokai Clan – a group of powerful spirits that functions a little bit like a powerful mafia family. Nura’s grandfather the supreme commander is powerful, but he tends to use his mystical powers to perform a dine and dash when he takes his grandson out to eat at local restaurants. Rikuo grows up in two worlds, surrounded by strange spirit guardians who present themselves as heroic and his classmates at school who think that yokai are evil and annoying. Rikuo doesn’t want to become a yokai, but his monstrous side comes out when his classmates are threatened.

Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan starts out with the familiar framing device of showing Rikuo as a small child in the first chapter, while the second shows him as an adolescent still struggling with the demands of his family and normal school life. One of the things I look forward to in yokai manga are the monster character designs, and Shiibashi comes up with some whimsical supporting characters. I was fond of the spiral-eyed Yuki-Onna, and the neckless Kubinashi, whose head floats above his torso. The first volume of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan just seems to be setting up many of the story elements. Rikuo is unaware of his stronger Yokai side. His classmates are fascinated with ghost busting. A powerful girl exorcist transfers into Rikuo’s class. These events are pretty familiar to anyone who has read a lot of Yokai manga, but the positioning of the Nura clan as a powerful Yokai family and their interactions with Yokai from other clans was much more interesting. These elements reminded me a bit of The Godfather, if the mafia families in question were all ancient Japanese spirits. Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan does seem like a promising shonen series and I’m going to read the next volume to see if the more interesting aspects of the first volume continue to be developed.

Beast Master Volume 1

March 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment



Beast Master Volume 1 by Kyousuke Motomi

Motomi’s Dengeki Daisy is one of my favorite new shoujo series, so I thought I’d check out the earlier series Beast Master. I think often mangaka’s earlier series tend to suffer in comparison when compared with the manga that become hits. But while Beast Master doesn’t have the more stylish illustrations and emotional depth that Dengeki Daisy does, it does share the same quirky sensibility that makes it stand out from more run-of-the mill shoujo series.

Yuiko is a typical teen girl with a passion for animals. Unfortunately she has an uncontrollable tendency to smother any animal she meets with too much affection, causing them to flee from her. Leo is an animalistic boy whose demonic eyes and strange mannerisms cause him to be misunderstood by everybody he meets. Leo transfers into Yuiko’s school, and she is the first and only person to make friends with him. She treats him a little bit like a stray pet at first, but as they get to know each other a real friendship develops. Where Beast Master stands out is in its depiction of Leo. While he is handsome, his animal-like rage is contrasted with a playful mode where he’s drawn to look a little bit like a playful giant cat. It is unusual to see the male lead of the series being portrayed in an unhandsome way so many times. Although there’s a little bit of a Jane taming Tarzan dynamic in Yuiko and Leo’s relationship, seeing how she was gradually able to integrate him into school life was fun. Leo’s tendency to watch over Yuiko saves her from some sticky situations. I’m not feeling as invested in this story as I am with Dengeki Daisy, but since there’s only one more volume in this series, I’m going to finish reading Beast Master. After trying both of Motomi’s series that are available in English, I’m hoping that more from this creator gets released over here.

iPad Manga Review: Captive Hearts Volume 1

March 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

When it comes to my iPad and buying digital content, I tend to spend the most money buying ebooks. While it is great that Viz is one of the few companies to put multiple manga series on the iPad, the initial offerings were either series that I wasn’t that interested in or manga that I’d already collected in print format like Death Note or Kenshin. But the month of March is Manga Madness Month and ALL VOLUME ONES ARE .99 cents in the VIZ MANGA APP(picture me saying that in the voice of a crazy car salesman). Viz has also added a few series that I haven’t already read, and at .99 cents it is very cheap to sample the first volume of a manga I might find interesting.

Captive Hearts Volume 1 by Matsuri Hino

Captive Hearts is the first series by Vampire Knight powerhouse Matsuri Hino. I’ve read the first few volumes of Vampire Knights, traded them away, regretted it, and am slowly building up my print collection again. I’ve also read Hino’s frothy fantasy MeruPuri. Captive Hearts is very cute, but the first volume shows very little traces of Hino’s detailed art style and the story is fairly predictable. Megumi is the son of the butler to a rich family. He grows up in an empty mansion because the Kogami family went missing on a trip to China, and the late master’s will (written before the birth of his daughter) left his fortune split between his wife and his butler. Megumi’s lesiurly life as a student is interrupted when his father announces that the Kogami family has been found. The long-lost daughter Suzuka has been found. Megumi’s father makes dark pronouncements about Megumi finding out about his fate and a family curse, and when Megumi meets Suzuka the curse takes effect.

As soon as Megumi sees the new mistress of the house something is triggered in his brain, and he becomes the perfect servant. He finds himself saying “Welcome home, Princess” and kissing her hand while on the inside his thoughts are protesting. It turns out that one of Megumi’s ancestors tried to steal from the Kogami family and a guardian god appeared to place a hundred generation curse on Megumi’s family, forcing them to become the perfect servants. Megumi spends his time helping Suzuka adjust to life in Japan, and his tendency to have random attacks of subservience hinders their relationship. Does he care about her because of the curse? What would happen if the curse was broken? Suzuka seems to like Megumi, but she’s extremely distressed about the effect she has on him and just wants to spend time with him normally the way they did as children.

There are faint suggestions of Hino’s eventual drawing style, which features plenty of detail and characters that all seem to be wearing a healthy coating of eyeliner, but Captive Hearts isn’t nearly that refined. As a first volume, I would expect that the art gets a lot better as the series progresses. Hino’s later facility with extreme angst isn’t really on display here either. Instead there are plenty of sweet and humorous moments between Megumi and Suzuka as they strike up a friendship in between his uncontrollable servant attacks. For .99 cents, I was happy to have the chance to try out this series. Even though there were quite a few cute moments it didn’t really draw me in, partially because I think that while Hino’s other series might be less funny they are executed much more competently. Although after seeing the sense of humor on display in Captive Hearts, I am tempted to reread Vampire Knight again as paranormal romance parody.

I had no problems downloading and reading this manga on the iPad, and the pages looked very clean and crisp. Even though I wasn’t hooked by this first volume, I wouldn’t hesitate recommending it for anyone who wants to sample some insanely cheap shoujo manga during this March promotion.

Shojo Beat Quick Takes – Rasetsu and Butterflies Flowers

March 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment



Rasetsu Volume 8 by Chika Shiomi

I generally enjoy Chika Shiomi series. She has a predilection for creating male leads that are both attractive and somehow possessed by demons, which causes her heroines to be tormented by their love for these ultimate bad boys. I tried the first 4 volumes or so of Rasetsu and then stopped getting the series. While I enjoyed it, I wasn’t feeling as much of an emotional connection to the story as I did with Yurara, the series it was spun off from. But dipping back into it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this volume. The more episodic monster-hunting plot elements are cast aside in favor of the ongoing dilemma of Rasetsu’s love life. If she doesn’t find true love by the age of eighteen, a demon is going to come to claim her. Rasetsu and Yako’s attraction has been growing, but she doesn’t want to use him to escape her curse. Kyuru has always been Shiomi’s prototypical bad boy, and the reader finally gets an explanation as to his true nature. The series finally seems to be heading towards a final confrontation between Rasetsu and the demon who cursed her, and I’m curious to see what happens next. I am team Yako all the way, if he doesn’t get the girl at the end of Rasetsu after his heartbreak at the end of Yurara I am going to be very disappointed.

Butterflies, Flowers Volume 6 by Yuki Yoshihara

After six volumes Butterflies, Flowers isn’t exactly heading into new territory as it details the odd relationship between “Lady” turned office worker Choko and servant turned boss Masayuki, but each volume of this series usually has at least one incident that really makes me laugh. The panel in this volume that I thought was hilarious was Masayuki’s crestfallen expression when he realizes that Choko has been stolen away from him and he realizes that he has neglected to place his customary tracking bug in her underwear.

There’s plenty of the usual office hijinks as the staff travel to a hot springs for a vacation and Masayuki tries to protect Choko from potentially lecherous coworkers. Choko shows her tougher side when she faces down a bunch of thieves to protect Otaki, a strict new boss who transfers in to her company. Unfortunately seeing Choko in action causes Otaki to develop a strong crush on her and Masayuki is faced with more trouble ahead when his ex-girlfriend returns to work with him again. I’m actually impressed that the evil ex hasn’t made an appearance in this series until the sixth volume. For all the machinations and problems that get thrown in Choko’s and Masayuki’s path, they still seem to have a strong foundation as a couple. I’m still enjoying this manga’s combination of heartfelt proclamations of love and bizarre sex comedy.

Viz Signature Quick Takes – House of Five Leaves and Biomega

February 14, 2011 by 2 Comments

On the surface House of Five Leaves and Biomega don’t seem to have much in common aside from both of them being published by Viz’s Signature imprint. But both titles rely on distinctive art to create stories that rely more on mood than plot. While House of Five Leaves continues to explore a samurai falling further into a den of thieves in a meandering slice of life style, Biomega’s dystopic world grows even more stylized but still features plenty of decapitations.

House of Five Leaves Volume 2

Hapless samurai grows even more hapless when he’s stricken by illness and starts to lose sensation in his legs. He isn’t adjusting well to living in a brothel with the charismatic House of Five Leaves gang leader Yaichi either. Masa goes to live with Goinkyo in an attempt to recover and begins to learn more about the origins of the group of people he seems to have fallen in with. Very much like Natsume Ono’s series, revelations are made through people talking to each other, sitting in the same room watching the day go by, or sharing a meal. Masa still seems to retain a measure of dangerous naivete as he thinks of his new friends as kind. Goinkyo warns him that his new acquaintances are all criminals and Masa says “those whom you do wish to involve yourself with…those friends and companions with whom you wish to share feelings and experiences…I believe they just are as precious as family.” I’m not sure if the House of Five Leaves feels as deeply towards Masa as he feels towards them.

Even while absolutely debilitated, Masa still attempts to defend Goinkyo when a gang member from his past shows up to his house. But when Masa is feeling better and accidentally bumps into a local tough guy, he starts shaking and runs from battle. Masa’s skill is overpowered by his anxiety, and his weakness makes him an interesting character when thrown into the criminal underworld. Masa encounters a possible mentor, but I think it’ll be a long time before he’s able to summon up the confidence within himself that he admires in Yaichi so much. I think I enjoy this series a little more than Ono’s restaurant centric books like Gente and Ristorante Paradiso, because I enjoy the contrast between Ono’s modern art style and the historic setting. I have more patience for most of the story being expressed through the characters just talking to each other, because the backgrounds and period details like the type of malnutrition that Masa is suffering are a little more interesting to me than her more modern works.

Biomega Volume 5

It wouldn’t be another volume of Biomega without some striking visuals and absolutely insane moments. The visual aspect of this volume that blew me away was the new setting of the cord world. With the organic tendrils and insect-like carapaces covering everything, the background illustrations looked like Nihei’s take on Miyazaki’s ruined world in Nausicaa. The crazy moment came when a disembodied womb gave birth to a tiny doll-like girl named Funipero, who is the heir of evil matriarch Niarudi. So action hero Zoichi is now wandering around yet another alien landscape accompanied by two tiny females his artificial intelligence avatar Fuyu and scarily intelligent Funipero, who seems to be eating a lot and exhibiting strange powers. I always put down Biomega feeling simultaneously bewildered and transported. I might not always understand what’s going on, but it is always interesting to visit the strange world that Nihei creates. There’s probably only one slot in my reading list for “post-apocalyptic insane yet strangely beautiful seinen manga”, but Biomega fills that spot very well.

Review copy provided by the publisher

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