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Arata Volumes 7 and 8

It took seven volumes, but I am finally starting to warm up to Arata. I always thought it was well-executed because Yuu Watase is such a pro, but I wasn’t feeling as much of a connection to this series just because I tend to prefer her shoujo work. But these two volumes were packed with adventure and I found myself enjoying Arata’s quest more because the emotional stakes for Arata were raised in a variety of ways.

Arata Volume 7

I skipped volume 6, but the recently introduced complication that seems like a slightly recycled plot from Fushigi Yugi is that Arata’s school enemy in Japan, Kadowaki has now journeyed into Amawakumi and has become a Sho himself in opposition to Arata. The volume opens with Arata traveling to Lord Yorunami’s land, where Kotoha promptly gets kidnapped and placed into a watery death trap. Arata’s struggle with Yorunami ends up being more of an internal and emotional struggle than a violent fight, and when Arata helps Yorunami with his mother issues the Sho promptly surrenders because he is newly at peace. While Arata is able to fight one battle without using violence, he gets some disturbing news from the Original Arata who has taken his place in Japan. He finds out that Kadowaki has jumped into his adoped world, and the Sho Harunawa has killed Arata’s friend Suguru. Harunawa has vowed that for every Sho that submits to Arata, he will find a way to kill someone precious to Arata on the other side. Original Arata vows to protect Arata’s family so Arata can continue his mission. Arata picks up a new companion, the pretty but harsh warrior Mikusa, who has a secret that is tied to his prettiness.

Arata’s commitment to achieving his quest through non-violence is a nice contrast to all the fighting shonen manga out there. His strength comes mostly from resoluteness of character. Even though he does fight with other Sho to make them submit, the battles are won due to Arata’s internal strength as opposed to an outward show of power.

Arata Volume 8

Arata and his companions travel to Lord Kugura’s area of the country where they make some disheartening discoveries. The water is stagnant, land barren, and the regular people are starving. Girls are taken to the palace as “tribute,” but they are actually hostages. Mikusa challenges Arata’s approach to his quest, calling him naive, saying “Evil must be destroyed. If you are not the one capable of destroying it, then you are the one who will be killed.” Arata loses a strong ally when Kanate finds out that the gang that he used to belong to is in the hills. His reunion doesn’t go as planned, and when he has the opportunity to become powerful himself by inheriting the weapon of a Sho, he takes it. Kanate’s response to power shows the true destructive power of a Sho, which stands in contrast to Arata’s measured actions. Arata still maintains his friendship with Kanate after he disappears, saying “I still believe in him!”

Lord Kugura’s predilection for young women of course results in some cross-dressing hijinks, as Arata and his group decide they have to pretend to be female in order to enter the palace. The tone of this episode was definitely on the lighter side, which balanced out the earlier adventures that had more emotional heft. Overall, I’m finding myself enjoying Arata much more than I was in the earlier volumes. I’m finding the way Arata is literally carrying the souls and powers of his former enemies along with him, asking them for help when he has to fight an interesting contrast to the more typical shonen hero. It almost seems like Watase is writing an anti-shonen shonen adventure, with non-violence and the bonds friendship emphasized over physical fighting. I’m more intrigued with this series than I was when I first started reading it, so I’m looking forward to the next volume.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

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Itsuwaribito Volumes 2 and 3

I feel a little bit divided about Itsuwaribito. In theory I really like the idea of a shonen manga hero who gets by with cleverness instead of devoting himself to fighting and mystical power-ups. In practice, the stories that rely on Utsuho’s lying sometimes seem a bit artificial. Still, this ends up being one of the more entertaining new shonen series from Viz.

Itsuwaribito Volume 2 by Yuuki Iinuma

The second volume of this series shows Utsuho doing what most shonen heroes do after the first volume – start putting together a team. He parts ways with the acerbic medicine man Yakuma, each of them vowing never to cross paths again, only for them to run across each other one panel later. A demonic man who hates liars is stacking up bodies in a nearby forest. Yakuma thinks he hears a cry for help, but Utsuho is determined not to get involved. Venturing into the forest forces a confrontation with the mass murderer. The character design of the bad guy was genuinely creepy, as he has a rough triangle for a mouth and a grid of teeth. Utsuho is forced into a confrontation when Yakuma is cornered. They then turn to a different type of quest, visiting an island that is a place of exile for liars like Utsuho.

When they arrive on the island, it is clear that it is full of traps and trickery. They get attacked before they even reach the shore. Yakuma’s medicine chest gets stolen and they meet a faction of people on the island lead by a young girl named Neya, who promises to fetch the missing chest and comes right back. As the minutes tick by Yakuma dares to speculate that Utsuho might have gotten tricked by a girl, provoking frantic denials at the thought that the master liar was lied to.

Itsuwaribito Volume 3 Yuuki Iinuma

The third volume focuses on different types of families. Accomplished female liar Neya is actually the main caretaker for a small village of people trapped in exile on the island, defending themselves from rival gangs. If she has the opportunity to leave will she build a new life for herself and pave the way for the people she cares for, or will her sense of obligation compel her to stay in exile? The main menace in this volume comes from a man with a bandaged face who seems to be particularly interested in Utsuho’s animal sidekick Pochi and determined to bring misery to all the humans he sees. For all of Utsuho’s crafty lying and cool exterior, when one of his companions is in trouble he doesn’t hesitate to defend them.

Although I confess I had a few moments of internal eye-rolling when Utsuho ended up on an island of liars, in general I’m finding Itsuwaribito entertaining. It blends humor with the occasional poignant moment about the value of friendship, and while the general structure of the plot with Utsuho picking up a motley crew of companions on his journeys is pretty typical of shonen manga I’m still enjoying the series so far. I’m looking forward to see what happens with Neya, as she provides Utsuho with a counterpart that is equally adept at lying to react to.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

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Story of Saiunkoku Volume 5

Story of Saiunkoku Volume 5 by Sai Yukino and Kairi Yura

This continues to be one of my favorite current shoujo series because it is just so well crafted. It manages to juggle a large cast of handsome men with distinct personalities, and the main character Shurei is one of those rare shoujo girls that inspires total sympathy in the reader. The first story in this volume was hilarious as it provided a nice twist on the somewhat stale plot point of the heroine getting incapacitated by a cold and needing someone to nurse her back to health. Shurei is stuck in bed, with older adopted brother Seiran looking after her. This is necessary, because her father’s attempts at nursing involve burying her beneath over a dozen blankets, and brewing his horrific “special recipe ginger broth.” Shurei’s house soon becomes host to a parade of visitors as Ran and Koyu shows up and Seiran orders them to make something for Shurei to eat before her father destroys the kitchen. Minister Ko and Shurei’s secret uncle Reishin lurk outside and even the Emperor manages to sneak into her room to check up on her, with unfortunate results.

A new cast member is introduced when a young scholar comes to town and seems to be a target for a gang. Unfortunately for the gang the boy manifests an entirely different personality when he drinks and handily bests them at gambling and fighting only to lose an important tablet in the process. He wakes up in the most notorious brothel in town, where Shurei just happens to be wrapping up a part-time job. One of the things I love about this manga is the unconventional ways the characters act. Shurei gets a job as an assistant bookkeeper in the red light district and is anxious about hiding her job from her father and Seiran. Unbeknownst to her, her father visits the madam Kocho to ask her to give Shurei the benefit of feminine advice that she’d lack because she’s growing up without a mother, and Seiran makes a similar visit as well. The madam just happens to also be one of the leaders of the criminal syndicate that rules the underworld in the city, and she’s not happy to see that young scholars in town for the civil service exams are getting targeted. The young victim Eigetsu ends up becoming friends with Shurei.

I enjoy the way humor is interlaced with character development in Story of Saiunkoku. In this volume Shurei’s ignorance of her father’s past as a government assassin is played for laughs as she’s utterly confused as to why threatening men near her suddenly fall down or why a table where a couple of misogynists are sitting collapses abruptly. There’s an element of warm humor that is present to some degree in all of the stories, and the way Shurei manages to surround herself with people who care about and support her makes Story of Saiunkoku enjoyable to read.

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Dengeki Daisy Volume 7

Dengeki Daisy Volume 7 by Kyousuke Motomi

The cover design of this volume perfectly represents the odd combination of plot lines that end up getting featured in Dengeki Daisy. Kurosaki is tenderly kissing a tearful Teru’s hand on the front cover, and the back cover features the deranged Akira with a maniacal grin and a creepy red eye. The warm and fluffy part of this volume occurs when Teru and Kurosaki A mysterious man keeps popping up near Teru and she and Kurosaki gradually realize that it is the elusive and dangerous attacker Akira.

The first part of the book shows Teru and Kurosaki fighting off a manageable foe – one of the teachers at the school has decided that Kurosaki is a bad influence on Teru and is determined to separate them. Teru vows to prove that her grades won’t suffer because of the time she spends helping out with janitorial tasks and makes an impulsive bet involving her class standings and Kurosaki’s hair, only to abruptly fall ill the night before the exam. A boy Teru saw at the bus stop and was curious about because he reminded her of her brother abruptly kisses her, and she’s devastated. Kurosaki as Daisy sends her an emotional text, then quickly backs away. It is fairly typical of the dance that these characters do, as they grow closer but still maintain the polite fiction that separates them. The kissing bandit is of course Akira, and he engineers a situation that results in Teru learning a new piece in the puzzle about her brother’s death.

Despite the fact that the central mystery behind Teru’s brother hasn’t been fully explained and the series is now up to volume seven, I’m still interested in seeing what happens next in this manga. The relationship between Teru and Kurosaki is one of the more original pairings in shoujo manga, and despite the gulf in their ages and personalities I can’t help but hope they get together in the end. I’m perfectly happy reading an almost indefinite number of volumes before that ending appears.

Review copy provided by the publisher

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Manga Reviews

Urameshiya Volume 1

Urameshiya Volume 1 by Makiko

Available online at Jmanga.com

I was hoping to cover more scary manga for the month of October and the horror themed Manga Moveable feast, but life got in the way and the only new spooky title I’ve managed to read recently is Urameshiya from jmanga.com. This is a historical variation on what I tend to call “spooky shop” manga, where a person with spiritual powers has to intervene in the lives of people who are affected by ghosts. It is a snowy night in Edo era Japan, and an attractive woman named Oyou has used up her welcome and the sake supply at a local tavern. The owner apologies and says that he has to ask her not to come anymore because she’s scaring the other guests. She leaves with the advice that he should throw some salt at the ghost that is standing in a corner and heads out into the night. A handsome man who turns out to be a not overly bright pickpocket stumbles against her. She catches him in the act and tells him that he has to buy her sake to make it up to her. Saji decides that he’ll put a different spin on things by taking her to his house and getting her drunk.

As they travel they cross a bridge with a lonely female ghost. Oyou prevents Saji from getting trapped and they end up spending the night together, but one of Saji’s neighbors turns up frozen to death after listening to the spirit. Saji asks Oyou for help getting back at the ghost that killed his friend. What follows are three long episodes where Oyou and Saji form an incongruous ghost-busting team. Oyou is mysterious and a bit snarky, never confirming her feelings for Saji. In contrast, he’s quietly smitten. He decides to move in with her into the spooky tenement that seems to be inhabited only by freaks of nature. They deal with a case of wronged love, a rapacious rich girl cursed with vagina dentata, and have an unfortunate run-in with a young fox spirit. I really enjoyed the art style in Urameshiya, which is old fashioned and stylized in a way that highlights the historical setting. Oyou and Saji both have glossy black hair, long flowing robes, and angular faces with gigantic eyes. Saji provides Oyou with a bit of a grounding influence, tying her to the real world. For all that Oyou protests that she cares nothing for the young thief, she’s actually incredibly protective of him if he’s threatened. Having only three chapters in a single volume seemed to give the author the room to more thoroughly set the scene for each episode. I enjoyed the relationship between Oyou and Saji, the space given to each monster of the week, and the historical setting of Urameshiya. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for the next volume in this series.