Year: 2012

Categories
Manga Reviews

Cardcaptor Sakura Omnibus Volume 3 by CLAMP

This volume starts the second major story arc for Cardcaptor Sakura, and since I had only collected a few of the early Tokyopop volumes it was all new material for me. Since in structure Sakura’s main mission was ended when she collected all the Clow cards, I was curious to see how CLAMP was going to move on to the next phase of the series. For as light and fluffy a series as Cardcaptor Sakura is, there are some hints of darkness and suffering that make it a bit more sophisticated than one would think of a manga geared towards the younger set. Syaoran is struggling with the feelings he now realizes he has for Sakura, and things are complicated further with the sudden arrival of a new transfer student, Eriol Hiiragizawa. Sakura immediately thinks that Eriol looks familiar. With his glasses, polite nature, and gentle smile, the boy reminds her of her father. But it turns out that Eriol is actually Sakura’s mysterious antagonist who seems to be Clow Reed reborn in younger form. Most of this manga concerns Sakura’s investigations of the strange phenomena that occur after Eriol’s arrival. While she has the cards and can use them, now her own innate magic is changing their forms. Unfortunately Sakura’s lack of magic is starting to cause problems for her guardians. Yue in his human disguise of Yukito grows progressively more and more fatigued, and as Toya attempts to have a serious talk with him over and over he gets interrupted by one of Eriol’s interfering familiars.

Fans of the earlier volumes of this series will find plenty to enjoy here. Sakura is gradually becoming more self-reliant, although she still treasures the help of her friends. There’s a little bit of resolution to the tension between her father and great-grandfather, and seeing Syaoran struggling with first love inspires both comic relief and sympathy. I really enjoy CLAMP’s art in this series. It is just ornate and girly enough to satisfy my inner 12-year-old, without being overly decorated or difficult to follow. CLAMP is good at developing ambiguous villains, and since Eriol’s plans and motivations aren’t entirely clear there is plenty of dramatic tension as the events unfold. As always, the battle scenes are balanced with the school life and hijinks of Sakura’s friends. Cardcaptor Sakura is such a feel-good manga. I always put it down feeling a little better after immersing myself in plenty of flowers, friends, and sparkles. Dark Horse’s manga omnibus volumes are always the best in terms of production quality and extras, and there are plenty of color illustrations here to appeal to any CLAMP fan.

Categories
Manga Reviews

Legal Drug by Clamp

Legal Drug Volumes 1-3 by Clamp

I was happy to see that Manga Bookshelf was hosting a Manga Moveable Feast on Clamp, because X/1999 was one of the titles that cemented my status as a fan when I started reading manga again. I also like Clover, and I delight in the new omnibus editions of Cardcaptor Sakura. At the same time, I’m experiencing a bit of fatigue when it comes to Clamp’s newer series. I experienced volume and crossover fatigue with xxxHOLiC and Tsubasa and gave up collecting them midway through the series. I thought the first volume of Kobato was dire and wasn’t able to summon the enthusiasm for Gate 7. I’ve actually had Legal Drug on my shelves for a long time and never read it, so this feast was a perfect excuse to give the series a try. This three volume series was originally published by Tokyopop, and is incomplete, but the continuing series Drug and Drop started up in Japan recently.

Legal Drug is a story about a group of men who work at a drug store who have mysterious powers and often experience angst about how pretty they all are. Rikuo finds Kazehaya almost frozen to death in a park and takes him home like a stray cat. The tall, solidly built Rikuo and the whispy Kazehaya find themselves as a shonen-ai odd couple, turning into bickering roommates who go on odd missions for their bosses at the Green Drugstore. While they do normal things like helping customers and stocking shelves, the mysterious boss of the drugstore Kakei sends the young men on side jobs that require a certain amount of psychic power. Kakei and his belligerent companion Saiga seem like a more grown up version of Kazehaya and Rikuo in appearance at times.

Kazehaya can pick up impressions of objects after touching them, and he and Rikuo are sent off to recover a mysterious book. Rikuo’s power is to break things, which comes in handy when they need to get through a locked door. Kazehaya finds a backyard garden filled with fish swimming through the air and the spirit of a vengeful woman embodied by a fig tree. The tone of this story and some of the visual imagery reminded me strongly of xxxHOLiC, making me wonder if Legal Drug was a bit of a trial run for some of the themes explored in the later series. Kazehaya and Rikuo continue their bickering relationship as they go on other missions, but Kazehaya’s powers have him picking up on mysterious incidents from Rikuo’s past. Both boys are haunted by different events in their lives, which causes a element of mysterious tragedy to carry through the more episodic missions involving spirits or the shadows of invisible fireflies.

The second volume fills in more details about the different women that haunt Kazehaya and Rikuo, as Kazehaya indulges in childhood memories of his sister Kei and Rikuo fiercely vows to track down a powerful woman named Tsukiko without the help of Kakei’s precognitive powers. The boys have to run after a mischevious magical kitten, they track down a vase who gives them a hard time, and poor Kazehaya is forced to cross-dress in order to help a female spirit live out her wish of the last day of school. There’s a brief cameo from the protagonists of Suki: A Like Story. Overall, this second volume cemented the usual plot points that the reader would expect after the first volume. Kazehaya and Rikuo fight, but there’s a bit of an unspoken friendship developing due to their extreme familiarity with each other. Rikuo realizes that Kazehaya might be useful with his quest for Tsukiko, if the psychic is able to pick up on memories that he can’t access himself. Rikuo acts as a protector when Kazehaya gets in over his head during missions. Saiga serves as a bit of comic relief when he isn’t busy groping Kakei as they discuss the boys’ missions while remaining mysterious and aloof.

The third volume deviates from the episodic structure of the earlier volumes as Kazehaya and Rikuo are sent undercover to find a ring at a boys only school where the students live in dorm. They meet their classmates and Kazehaya in particular befriends a boy named Nayki. Rikuo is told to wear glasses while he poses as a student, and he strongly resembles the student body president Mukofujiwara. Nayuki seems cheerful in a forced way, and the presence of a spirit running around the school shows that something supernatural is going on. As with all boys only schools in manga, there is also a cross dressing contest.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Legal Drug. The art duties for this series were handled by Mick Nekoi, who’s more unadorned style for this series provides a bit of visual relief if you are more used to the ornamented stylings of usual Clamp artist Mokona. I would really be interested in reading the sequel series for Legal Drug if it is translated here, since so many things were hinted at but not followed up on in this series. Still, Kazehaya’s and Rikuo’s missions and the dynamics between all four of the characters were plenty engaging even without a clear conclusion. I generally tend to steer clear of unfinished series, but reading this manga was a satisfying experience and it reminded me again why I enjoy reading works by Clamp.

Categories
Manga News

Reading Wishlist on Jmanga

When Jmanga first started out, one of the things I was hoping for was more romance and josei manga. While it took a little bit of time for these genres to take off on the site, I have really been happy with the pace that they’ve been adding new volumes. My only wish now is for more multi-volume series, but I suspect that there will be plenty of those to binge on in the upcoming months. It is actually getting a bit tricky for me to keep track of what I want to read on the site, so I thought I’d share some of the series that are on my radar, so I’d be able to remember what I want to read when I have more points.

Dousei Ai by Setona Mizushiro. I was excited when I saw that Jmanga would be releasing this series, since Mizushiro’s series After School Nightmare is loved by many manga bloggers. I only tried a couple volumes of that series, but it was definitely interesting and a change of pace, so I want to check this out.

The Twelve Hour Ruler – This is a fantasy series from Ohzora publishing and two volumes are available! Here’s the series description:

One day, Koyuki, a girl who works at a tavern in the port city of Salim, is saved from the advances of a feudal lord by a pair of twin princes, the cool and collected older brother Eleven and the free-spirited younger brother Twelve. After they invite her to the palace, Koyuki begins to learn the truth and destiny of the Empire. A royal fantasy revolving around the myths of the desert empire Orchis!!

Evil feudal lords and twin princes sound fun 🙂

Pippira Note – One day, a young woman named Kimiko meets a little lost bird named Pippira. Living with the little bird becomes a series of surprises and discoveries. Before long this little happiness becomes, to Kimiko, an irreplaceable treasure in her day to day life. – This looks almost unbearably cute. I think it is great that Jmanga is putting out so much work by Fumiyo Kouno, author of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms.

SEREILA OF SILVER -The Kidnapped Princess Falls In Love With The Falcon King – I was lukewarm about the other Rin Koudouki titles I’d tried, but I’m curious to see if the story develops a little more depth in the sequel.

Tale of the Crescent Moon Dragon – The art in this historical seinen title looks stylin’. Also features a hero with an eyepatch, which can only be a good thing.

Odds GP! – I think this is a sports manga about bicycle racing!

More Harlequin/Romance Titles:

Passionate Fantasy – I want to read this for the sole reason that the hero’s name is “Darius Speed.”

Jack and the Princess – I will always read romance manga about princesses.

In the SAND DUNES where the black feathers dance – This initially caught my eye because the title is almost long enough to be a Fiona Apple album, but the creator Hashimoto adapted one of my favorite Harlequin manga To Marry a Stranger, which was also notable because the hero had an eye patch.

Prisoner of the Tower – I will also always read romance manga about towers.

Keeping Luke’s Secret – “Leonie is drawn to his cold green eyes…” of course she is!

What series on Jmanga look good to you?

Categories
Manga Reviews

Jiu Jiu Volume 1 by Touya Tobina

Jiu Jiu Volume 1 by Touya Tobina

I’m always curious when a new title is added to the Shojo Beat imprint, since Shojo Beat titles make up a majority of my reading list. I’m also happy to see that in Jiu Jiu we have a title with a quirky heroine, a general trend I am happy to see reflected in many of the recently translated manga series. Jiu Jiu looks like a promising shoujo twist on the monster hunting manga genre.

Takamichi is born into a family of Dark Hunters. When her twin brother is killed, she’s the sole heir. For companionship, she’s given a pair of Jiu Jiu – familiars who can switch form from wolf to human. In human form, Snow and Night are handsome teenage boys, but they’re really only three years old. Takamichi’s life becomes even more complicated when Snow and Night decide that they are going to start attending school with their mistress. As a heroine, Takamichi is harsh and guilt-ridden. She’s haunted by her brother’s death and often deals harshly with Snow and Night because she doesn’t want to get close to anybody. Takamichi also has a strong sense of duty, fulfuling her duties as a monster hunter while not wanting her Jiu Jiu to come along with her because she doesn’t want them to get hurt. This is the source of the main tension in the book, because Snow and Night want to be with their mistress at all times. Their names reflect their appearance and personalities, with Snow being pale with a bright and playful personality, while Night has a darker complexion and is more reserved and intuitive.

Visually, Jiu Jiu is dense with sometimes little transitions between scenes. It required more of my concentration to read than usual, and might have benefited from being a tad more sparse. The art style made me wonder if Tobina was somehow a Frankenstein mangaka created from mashing together Arina Tanemura and Hakase Mizuki. It was an interesting contrast reading Kaze Hikaru right after Jiu Jiu, because the two manga couldn’t be more different in terms of the art. One of the things I always appreciate in manga is an artist with an individualistic style, and Tobina’s thin line and the stylized spindly limbs of her characters emphasizes the animalistic nature of the Jiu Jiu. She switches back and forth between kawaii howling wolf pups and the demons that Takamichi faces. The first volume of Tobina’s other manga, Clean Freak Fully-Equipped had a similar focus on a protagonist with psychological issues. The combination of haunted heroine, stylized art, and a potentially interesting twist on monster hunting manga has me looking forward to the next volume.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Categories
Manga Reviews

Kaze Hikaru Volume 20 by Taeko Watanabe

A new volume of Kaze Hikaru is always refreshing, so I was happy to see what happens next for cross-dressing Kamiya and her adventures in the Shinsengumi. Kamiya and Okita endangered her not very convincing masculine disguise when they were photographed together as a man and a woman. Kamiya wants to destroy the photograph and Okita tells his pupil not to because she looked “so cute.” When Okita looks at the photo he remembers his impulse in having it taken in the first place – that it might be a keepsake for one of them and it would be nice to leave something behind. Okita suddenly realizes that the photo looks like a portrait of a young married couple and he’s suddenly embarrassed. They decide to hide the photo for protection at Yamanami’s grave, but the vice-captain finds it and concludes that Kamiya’s convincing feminine appearance will make him the perfect spy to detect an assassin as a woman! So Kamiya is in the unenviable position so immortalized in the movie Victor Victoria, where she is a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.

Kamiya sees this mission as a confirmation of her manliness in a way, since she is finally being sent on a mission like a real Shinsengumi. Okita is worried that he won’t be able to protect her when she’s on her mission. Kamiya manages to integrate herself into the group of people that run the inn where the suspected assassin Sakamoto Ryoma is staying, but is the odd man with glasses that hangs out with the family actually a cold-blooded killer? Kamiya is able to observe more of the interpersonal relationships between men and women at the inn, and that causes her to reflect a bit on her own life. The tension grows as Kamiya is unable to signal her backup contact and Okita grows more and more anxious, causing the vice-captain to question his feelings for Kamiya. As always, the romance in this manga is moving forward very slowly, but the rich historical detail and crisp illustrations always make Kaze Hikaru a pleasure to read. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next, because if Kamiya and Okita are separated, they are going to have a more difficult time maintaining Kamiya’s secret.

Review copy provided by the publisher.