Category: Manga Reviews

Categories
Manga Reviews REVIEWS

What Did You Eat Yesterday, Vol. 1

What Did You Eat Yesterday? Vol 1 by Fumi Yoshinaga

What Did You Eat Yesterday? is one of those holy grail manga that I thought would be tough to get here in America in translated form, so you can imagine my delight when Vertical announced that they would be publishing it. No one does slice of life foodie manga like Yoshinaga, so I was looking forward to this series about a gay couple and the food they eat.

Shiro Kekei is a lawyer for his day job, determined to take on boring cases that will allow him to leave work by 6 every day. He doesn’t share much about his personal life at work, seeming very aloof. Shiro’s enthusiasm comes out when he’s shopping for and preparing food for his outgoing boyfriend Kenji who works at a salon. Ordinarily reading someone’s thoughts as they scan the supermarket for bargains and contemplate the nuances of the seasoned rice that they are cooking wouldn’t be all that exciting, but Yoshinaga’s wit and humor makes these every day occurrences fascinating. What Did You Eat Yesterday? is all about food, but Yoshinaga also includes details of character interaction that make you want to spend more time with the people she introduces. Shiro’s mother calls him and browbeats him about not being out at work, yelling over the phone “Proclaim it loud and proud! Being homosexual is nothing to be ashamed of!” Shiro zealously guards his privacy, while Kenji brags about his hot lawyer boyfriend at work while he’s cutting hair.

Shiro has another close friend outside of work, an older housewife who he bonds with over their shared love of cooking, and they meet in an amusing way. Seeing the contrast between Shiro’s job as a lawyer and the hobby that takes up so much of his interior life is interesting, as well as the way the different personalities Shiro and Kenji complement each other. There are a few recipes in the book, and for the dishes that Shiro prepares that aren’t as fully described, it would be easy to track down a recipe online. I did find myself wondering towards the end of the book if I could start using my rice cooker more creatively. This was a pleasure to read, from the opening scenes to the next volume preview that includes a list of all the foods the reader can expect to see in volume 2.

Categories
Manga Reviews REVIEWS

One Punch Man, Vol 1

I make no secret of my affection for shoujo manga, but occasionally even I want to read shonen manga featuring kicking or punching, preferably both. One Punch Man, as one might suspect, is centered on punching. This is available on the Viz Digital site for your various devices! One Punch Man provides an amusing twist on the typical shonen manga plot about a young protagonist who has to work hard to develop his extraordinary abilities. In this case the hero of the manga, formerly unemployed salaryman turned hero Saitama has already train to develop his powers with such intensity that all his hair has fallen out. He is called “One Punch Man” because he is so strong he can easily defeat any opponent with just one punch, and as a result is incredibly bored.

In One Punch Man, Saitama’s town seems to be an unfortunate focus of giant villains or monsters with satirical origin stories. One Punch Man punches Vaccine Man, who exists due to pollution, a crustacean made angry by graffiti, and a group of subterraneans. Throughout the manga, One Punch Man is vainly hoping for a non-boring battle, only to be disappointed every time. As drawn by Yusuke Murata, One Punch Man often resembles a slightly perturbed superhero with an egg-like head, which only serves to highlight the ridiculousness of his opponents. Towards the end of middle of the volume One Punch Man even takes on a sidekick Genos, “a lone cyborg fighting for justice.”

I found One Punch Man‘s send up of superhero conventions amusing, the art was well executed, and it perfectly fit in my desire to read goofy fighting shonen manga. The send-ups of villains and heroic origin stories mixed in with some spectacular punches made this manga fun to read, and I hope it does well for Viz as a digital first release. I’d buy the next volume, for sure.

Categories
Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Phantom Thief Jeanne, Vol 1

Phantom Thief Jeanne Volume 1 by Arina Tanemura

Phantom Thief Jeanne is by far my favorite Arina Tanemura series. It is also one of her earlier ones, since it came out in 1998. It might be less polished than her more recent series, but I have always found it amusing because it has a certain magical girl “throw the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks” approach to plotting that I find amusing. It also has one of the most bonkers ending volumes I’ve experienced in shoujo manga. I already own the full set of this series from the CMX edition that came out in 2005, but this reissue from viz is based on what I assume are the Bunkoban volumes in Japan, so instead of a seven volume set, this edition will be 5 longer length volumes. There’s a new translation, a color page, and a couple extra sketches in the back.


The Jeanne in the title is in real life the ordinary high school student Maron Kusakabe, who is in the rhythmic gymnastics club at her school. At night, she magically transforms into Phantom Thief Jeanne, who fights for the forces of good in the universe by detecting demons hidden inside masterworks of art and exorcising them. The demonic possession will also extend to the owner of the piece of art, leading Maron to have plenty of encounters with oddly acting art collectors. Maron is aided in her holy quest by her helper, the tiny angel Finn. Maron’s phantom thief name is due to the fact that she’s the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, so she is extra skilled at being a art thief warrior for God. As the volume begins, Maron attempts to deflect her friend Miyako’s interest in her secret alter ego and she’s made a bit nervous by Chiaki, the flirty new boy who just moved in next door in her apartment building.

Maron has a frustrating day and heads out for her typical night out phantom thieving. Her best friend Miyako, who’s father is a police detective, is on the scene determined to capture Jeanne. Like any good phantom thief, Jeanne tends to leave warning notes with clues about where she intends to strike. Jeanne has one of the best magical girl introductions, as she proclaims “I am the Phantom Thief Jeanne…sent down before you by God!” It is hard to argue with the power of the Almighty. When she seals the demon inside the painting, she yells “Checkmate!” and a white chess piece appears. The painting changes into a depiction of an angel, and usually the owner of the painting is so happy at the quality of the new work of art and the lack of danger to their immortal soul that they don’t tend to mind Jeanne’s intervention.

Jeanne is bounding along in the night, trailing ribbons when an enemy appears! It is Phantom Thief Sinbad and he announces his intention to challenge her! Maron goes through her regular school activities, fending off Chiaki by day and dealing with Sinbad’s sudden appearance near all the works of art that she’s targeting at night. It is amazing how Sinbad basically looks just like Chiaki but with a headband and a cloth covering the lower half of his face. Sinbad has similar powers as Jeanne, but he can turn captured demons into black chess pieces and has a dark angel helper as a counterpart to Jeanne’s angel Finn. As a shoujo manga heroine, Maron is both exuberant and kind. Chiaki clearly starts developing feelings for her as he spends more time with her. Maron is also desperately lonely, because her parents went away and haven’t been in touch with her. Maron has a great deal of difficulty trusting people, but she starts opening up to Chiaki a little bit. As Jeanne’s missions continue, Sinbad acts as more of a helper than a rival, but he seems very conflicted about it.

The art in Phantom Thief Jeanne is exactly what you would expect from a Tanemura title, but maybe a tiny bit less detailed than her later works. I enjoyed having a chance to read the manga again in a new edition. I thought that the new Shojo Beat translation was a bit more subtle and smooth than the CMX editions. I also preferred the lettering in the Shojo Beat edition. The CMX version tended to use a great deal of variation in font size and font weight to convey emotional aspects of the dialog, and while that can be an interesting approach, when I was reading a few pages from each edition side by side, I thought that the CMX edition was a bit more choppy in terms of reading experience. Since this is a reissue, I almost wish that the edition had been a bit more deluxe, with a few more color pages or some other extras. I did like the new edition very much, I’m not sure I’d recommend that everyone who already has the CMX version rush out and buy it right away but it has been so long since the first edition of Phantom Thief Jeanne came out there’s a whole new group of readers that can experience this title for the first time!

Categories
Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Harlequin Manga: The Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress and Her Sheikh Boss

The Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress by Maya Banks and Nanao Hidaka

tycoon

The Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress manages to hit some sort of Harlequin manga trifecta, because the pregnant mistress in question gets cast off, kidnapped, and develops amnesia in the first 30 pages! The woman with the eventful life is Marley, and her boss is a slightly dimwitted Greek tycoon named Chrysander. Marley finds out that she’s pregnant and attempts to have a meaningful talk about their relationship with Chrysander, only to be shut down and promptly kicked out when Chrysander discovers top secret business documents in Marley’s handbag only minutes after his extremely suspicious secretary pays him a visit at their home. While he might be successful in business, Chrysander has very little insight into human nature, as he kicks Marley out onto the street, where she is immediately scooped up by kidnappers, appearing four months later in an advanced stage of pregnancy!

Chrysander is very suspicious of his pregnant former mistress who has amnesia, but he is determined to Do the Right Thing and decides that he’s going to take care of her and her child. Marley attempts to get her memories back, all the while being slightly bewildered by the continued presence of Chrysander’s skanky secretary and his distant nature. The art for this title is about average for a Harlequin manga, it is attractive despite some slightly odd proportions, and while it doesn’t have the lush 80s retro vibe that I tend to love the most in these manga adaptations, everyone’s hair is glossy and there is a profusion of brooding greek tycoons.

Her Sheikh Boss by Carol Culver and Earithen

hsb

The story for this manga is fairly predictable, but I really enjoyed the art for this title, which had a loose sophisticated style that reminded me a bit of Walkin’ Butterfly. Claudia is a highly efficient secretary working in the United States for Samir, the prince of a country in the Middle East. She’s indispensible for his business, and he decides to take her along when he goes home to his country. Samir tends to view Claudia as an efficient piece of furniture, and when Claudia goes on her trip she is profoundly dismayed to find out that her boss his traveling back to his family in order to get engaged!

Claudia has developed a secret crush on her boss, and she struggles with her feelings as his family regards her with suspicion. As Claudia visits Samir’s country he begins to see her as a woman for the first time, as she throws herself into new experiences with enthusiasm. His fiancee seems very unenthusiastic, perhaps due to the handsome male servant that follows her about wherever she goes. The art captures Claudia’s transformations and shifts in moods easily and there’s plenty of billowing hair and the occasional camel. While the illustrations aren’t necessarily very detailed, there’s more variation with the paneling and I found myself just as entertained by the art as the story. The complications that keep Samir and Claudia are resolved nicely, and overall I found myself pleasantly entertained.

Categories
Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden, Vol 12



Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden, Vol 12 by Yuu Watase

I’m sure it sounds odd, but I was actually a bit nervous about picking up the final volume of this series that I’ve been enjoying so much, simply because I’ve been a bit frightened of the ending. I knew that plenty of deaths would be occurring. This is no big secret, since the heroine Takiko has been dying of tuberculosis throughout the series, and the presence of a couple ghostly Genbu Celestial Warriors in the first Fushigi Yuugi series gave enough hints towards inevitable tragedy that a certain air of melancholy has hung over this manga, giving it an additional theme that has offset all the fantasy adventure I’d expect from a Yuu Watase series.

When I put this volume down, I realized I was wrong to be nervous, because the ending was the best one possible given the set of circumstances the characters found themselves in. The final confrontation with the Qu-Dong army has arrived, and even though Takiko has married the Uruki, now Emperor of Bei-Jia, all the efforts of her Celestial Warriors aren’t going to fend off the eternal winter that is going to threaten all the people of Bei-Jia. The Celestial Warriors fight gallantly, but Takiko is determined to see her destiny as a priestess fulfilled, even if she ends up being consumed by the god that she summons. There are plenty of quiet moments between the characters mixed in with the battles, and each Celestial Warrior gets a bit of a sendoff. Tomite teases Takiko one last time. Hatsui is courageous in battle. Inami deflects volleys of arrows with her hair, arranged in a giant web. Naname undergoes an unexpected and meaningful last transformation.

Throughout everything that happens in this final volume, the connection between Takiko and Uruki remains strong and supportive. As a heroine, Takiko’s quiet and unwavering determination really sets her apart, and I thought that this series exhibited more maturity in storytelling than the first Fushigi Yugi series. This is one of my favorite Yuu Watase series, and that’s saying a lot since I’ve read and enjoyed most of her manga. I’ve read all the volumes of this series as soon as I’ve been able to get my hands on them, and the only thing that has marred the reading experience is the long wait between volumes! I really want to set aside some time and read the whole series again in a shorter span of time, to see what I think about it without having to wait months and years between volumes. Overall though, I don’t hesitate to recommend Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden to anyone who enjoys fantasy and adventure shoujo.