Category: Manga Reviews

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Manga Reviews

Blue Exorcist Volumes 1 and 2

When I start to read this I realized that I was going to sample the first two volumes of this series on two different platforms. I bought the first volume on the Viz iPad app when it was on sale, then I was sent a print review copy for the second volume. I expect as I transition more to reading things on my iPad that my physical and virtual bookshelves will fragment even more, with volumes of the same series scattered between them.


Blue Exorcist Volume 1 by Kato Kazue

I tend to skim rather than read closely reviews of series that I might later end up reviewing myself, but my general impression of the response to this first volume is that most manga bloggers thought it started out sort of rocky and then stabilized a bit in the final chapters. This was pretty much my response to the first volume as well. The intriguing elements of this manga for me initially were the character designs and art. The story seemed poorly paced, with too many elements and twists introduced in so few pages it was hard to keep track of what was going on. Rin is a troubled young man who lives in a monastery with his guardian/priest and his seemingly timid younger twin brother Yukio. In the first few chapters it is revealed that Rin’s guardian is a powerful exorcist, Rin is the son of Satan and thus demonic, and evil demons walk the earth that must be battled. Rin gets a magic key and a special sword, Rin’s guardian is possessed by Satan, there’s a terrible fight, a headmaster who enjoys wearing knickers and a top hat tells Rin he has to enroll in a special school for exorcist, Rin goes to boarding school and finds out that his younger brother has been hiding his identity as a gifted student of exorcism all along. All of this happens in roughly the first chapter. That is a lot of plot to wade through in order to set up what is essentially a Harry Potter like situation of a young, not very gifted boy suddenly enrolling in exorcism boarding school.

Once Rin is at school, things settled down a bit and I was able to enjoy the manga a bit more. The visual design of Blue Exorcist is appealing. The characters are all wearing gothy punked out clothes that would serve as good inspiration for a cosplayer. I was really interested in the few glimpses of Blue Exorcist’s setting. True Cross Academy is shown as a mini city full of buildings with different architectural styles stacked up in a hill, with multi-level roads running through it. There seems to be a system of different keys acting as dimensional portals, and Rin soon finds out that school is going to be challenging, as he has to hide his identity as Satan’s son while attempting to study for the first time in his life. Rin’s slight fangs and sloppiness contrast with Yukio’s buttoned up personality and glasses. Rin finds out that the little brother he always thought he had to protect is more competent at demon fighting than him.

Blue Exorcist Volume 2 by Kato Kazue

Like most shonen manga, after the inital set-up, Rin starts gathering a team of allies around him. The first is a gentle girl named Shiemi, who is devoted to gardening and traditional clothing. When Rin helps save her, she promptly decides to enroll in exorcism school too. The second volume focuses on the rocky relationships between the characters. Rin keeps falling asleep in class and is shunned by the other students. Shiemi is bullied by her female classmates. Rin’s classmate Suguro hates Rin because it seems like he’s not taking school very seriously. The confrontation between Suguro and Rin soon becomes physical as they take risks during their demon fighting lessons. The students begin to explore their powers. Shiemi’s affinity for plants allows her to summon a familiar that can produce healing herbs on command.

Kazue’s character designs are very distinct, so it was easy to keep track of Rin’s classmates. The second volume mixed classroom action with the students getting to know each other. It seemed a lot more consistent, and even though “students train to develop super powers” isn’t a particularly innovative concept to build a manga around, so far I’m enjoying the way it is executed in Blue Exorcist. If the third volume continues the upswing in story quality, I’ll likely be hooked on this series. Blue Exorcist is certainly one of the more stylish shonen manga to come out recently, and it seems like the author is improving. I’d recommend reading the first two volumes at once, because the first volume isn’t really enough to give a reader a full picture of what the series is going to be like.


Review copy of volume 2 provided by the publisher

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Manga Reviews

Harlequin Manga: Ridge: The Avenger, Codename Prince, and An Officer and a Princess

Ridge: The Avenger by Leanne Banks and Keiko Kishimoto

I tend to like Harlequin manga the most when the art is ridiculously old fashioned. If the adaptation has art that looks a little bit like a throwback to the 80s, I tend to enjoy the goofy storylines of these books even more. Kishimoto has a lush style, featuring bee-stung lips. In some scenes I was reminded a tiny bit of Yumi Tamura’s Basara, especially with the angular proportions of the hero’s face. The hero in question is bodyguard Ridge, assigned to protect the goddaughter of a presidential candidate. He thinks Dara is spoiled and silly. Ridge has an ulterior motive in being assigned as Dara’s protector. What could it be? He is out for REVENGE! Ridge’s tortured past (this must be why he seems to be pouting so much) has led him to want to destroy Dara’s godfather and his political future.

Ridge and Dara bond with each other over assassination attempts and their horrible fashion choices when rollerblading. While they fall in love, Ridge is still out for REVENGE and he might destroy Dara’s life! But he loves her! The art in this title is really much better done than most Harlequin manga. There were interesting panel layouts, perspective shifts, and the character designs were attractive in an old fashioned way. This was a fun read.

Codename: Prince by Megumi Toda and Carla Cassidy

Codename Prince is the third book in the Stanbury Crown series. Royal cousin and military man Ben is posing as his cousin Prince Nicholas in order to get himself kidnapped and collect intelligence on the group who has kidnapped the King of Edinburg. His captor is the attractive woman Megan who has been blackmailed into helping her brother with his nefarious schemes. Megan has a young daughter who the kidnappers threaten to hurt if she doesn’t help them. The story opens with Ben tied up on a bed with a teddybear placed next to him, slowly developing a hopeless crush on Megan. Codename Prince is very short, and doesn’t really contain the type of spying shenanigans I was hoping for based on the title. The art is simple and fluid, without some of the stiffness that seems to plague many of these quick romance novel adaptations.

An Officer and a Princess by Megumi Toda and Carla Cassidy
This series wraps up with the final volume, where the princess of the family decides to go undercover with her crush to unravel the mystery behind her father the king’s disappearance. Isabel had to give up her dream of serving in the military for her princessy duties, and her good friend and fellow officer Adam tends to view her only as a princess and not as a woman. When they pose as man and wife, will their love finally blossom?

By the end of the series, I think I liked the concept of linked books with overlapping characters a little more than the actual execution of it. The King certainly managed to stay kidnapped for a long time, as four royal couples managed to get married off while he was missing. A certain level of sameness started to settle in with the plots of this series, so while these manga weren’t the worst Harlequin manga ever, they ended up not being all that great either. These were still perfectly serviceable for someone wanting a quick summer read.

Access to electronic copies provided by the publisher.

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Manga Reviews

Kaze Hikaru 15-18

Some series I find immediately appealing and others grow on me over time. In the case of Kaze Hikaru, I liked it well enough when I read the first volume but it wasn’t until I was able to check out a bunch of volumes from the library at once that I was completely won over and decided to slowly collect the entire series. I worry a bit about this series, because I get the impression that it isn’t a very strong seller and it is 29+ volumes in Japan. Kaze Hikaru is a meticulously researched romantic adventure about a girl named Tominaga Sei who decides to disguise herself as a boy with the alias Kamiya Seizaburo and enter the ranks of the Shinsengumi (shogunate special police) to avenge the deaths of her family. She quickly falls in love with her mentor Okita Soji who knows her true identity but remains willfully oblivious to his own feelings for her.

In the 15th volume Kamiya struggles with the idea of undergoing the male coming of age ceremony called Genpuku. She’d have to shave off her bangs, and then she’d lose the ability to occasionally dress as a woman by rearranging her hair. Everything gets thrown into even more confusion when a visiting doctor shows up who used to train with Kamiya’s father. Soji and Kamiya struggle to protect her identity, sending her into town when the doctor announces that he’s going to give everybody at the compound a physical in order to improve the health of all the men. Kamiya accidentally blurts out “Uncle Droopy Eyes” when she sees the doctor, and wonders if he’s recognized her from when he saw her before as a little girl.

Doctor Matsumoto ends up finding out Kamiya’s secret through some trickery by suggesting to Soji that she’s sick. Soji runs off to find her and rushes her to the doctor, not realizing that his extreme anxiety is due to the fact that he loves her. The doctor promptly starts trying to arrange her marriage to Soji. She says that she’s content to stay by his side to support him as a colleague. Matsumoto quickly diagnoses with the terrible disease of “feminitus,” which causes regular men to grow feminine characteristics, and her colleagues are instructed to support her manly efforts and avoid mentioning her girlish looks. This has the fortunate effect of throwing off the suspicions of some of Kamiya’s colleagues, at least for a little while.

Matsumoto appears again in the next volume, this time to give Kamiya perspective on her lost family. When she was a little girl she almost never saw her father because he spent so much time away pursuing his medical training. Kamiya still feels betrayed and resentful, and her closeness to her older brother was largely due to her father’s absense. Matsumoto points out that Kamiya’s father and Soji share similar characteristics. Both have entirely dedicated themselves to their studies, leaving little time for personal attachments even though they both feel deeply. Other romantic entanglements are highlighted, as Sanosuke wishes to make a merchant’s daughter his bride and a woman is coming to Soji with a marriage proposal. Kamiya is filled with anxiety. Soji’s attitude towards meeting a woman is that he’ll do it if it is a direct order from his superiors. In keeping with his continued obliviousness, he speculates to Kamiya that it might be better for him to marry a woman that he doesn’t love, because it won’t get in the way of his duties.

It was nice seeing Kamiya’s relationship with Matsumoto continue. She doesn’t really have any confidants so it was good to see that she finally had someone she could go to to talk with, even though his general reaction to her situation and decisions is disbelief that such a stubborn girl could exist.

The next two volumes move away from romantic angst towards political issues with the Shinsengumi. In Kyoto a troop captain is managing to alienate the locals with his policies, and his extremely suspicious nature is damaging towards morale. When Kamiya goes to visit him along with Soji and Kondo, Sanjuro promptly fixates on Kamiya as a possible spy since she seems so friendly to men in different troops. Sanjuro tasks his younger brother to spy on her, and Kamiya yet again faces her secret being revealed. Soji comes to the rescue, but Kamiya decides she has to figure out what on earth is wrong with Sanjuro to cause him to act in such an extreme way.

It seems like factions among the Shinsengumi are being set up as an even bigger problem, as the sneaky Ito has decided to set himself up to subvert the leadership of the troop by recruiting the men to his side. We see Kamiya training on firing a gun, and the philosophical differences between those who prefer the way of the sword to gunpowder and bullets are explored. Soji tries to help the woman he has a long-term relationship with. Kohana served as a cover for his vow of celibacy, he visited her and used his time to take naps. He explores the possibility of setting her up in a house with her daughter, but she’s come to have feelings for him and refuses. Kohana doesn’t want to be with Soji due to his sense of duty, if he doesn’t actually see her as a woman. Kamiya finds out what’s going on, but as usual the unarticulated feelings between her and Soji mean that their relationship will continue to function mainly as mentor and mentee. While Soji is trying to look out for Kohana, he also commissions a special lightweight sword for Kamiya. The next problem everybody will face is the love of the Captain for a mysterious woman. Kamiya is tasked by the Vice Captain with finding out about her true nature, as the Captain suffers in silence.

I think Kaze Hikaru is best read in multiple volumes like this. The story unfolds at a measured pace, and even though plenty of things happen, it doesn’t usually have any real end of volume cliffhangers to incite anxiety in the reader. I always enjoy Watanabe’s notes at the end, where she’ll clarify some of the historical information and point out where she took artistic license with known people and historic practices. Except for a few stray volumes, I’m all caught up with the English release for this series! Kaze Hikaru might not be the flashiest series out there, but the rich historical detail and slow building romance reward the patient reader.

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Manga Reviews

Shojo Beat Quick Takes – Sakura Hime and Sand Chronicles

Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura Volume 2

I found it very amusing that in one of the author notes for this volume, Tanemura wrote that she’d been holding herself back from using very much screentone in this volume and thus was worried that it looked unfinished. To my eyes it doesn’t look like Tanemura’s trademark excess of screentone has been curbed very much, but I should probably dig up some of her other series and compare. This volume continues with the antagonistic relationship between Sakura and Aoba, her fiance who sometimes likes her and sometimes wants to kill her. Now there are a couple of additional men vying for Sakura’s attention, as Aoba’s older brother Fujimurasaki seems more than willing to step in to help her out. There’s also the handsome Lord Enju who seems determined to send assassins to kill Aoba because he doesn’t want Sakura to be touched by “dirty humans”. Sakura decides to save Aoba despite his professed hatred of her in a gesture of senseless self-sacrifice that is fairly typical of Tanemura’s heroines, and the reader sees that Aoba’s feelings are wavering. The plotting is a tad incoherent, and I’m having trouble keeping some of the supporting cast straight. I still enjoy Tanemura’s illustrations and I’m looking forward to seeing Sakura grow stronger and confront her fate.

Sand Chronicles Volume 10

Sand Chronicles is one of my favorite dramatic shoujo series, and this volume provides a nice coda for the series. I really wish the concluding volumes had contained more Fuji. There’s just a couple glimpses of him here, and I would have liked a chapter or two just devoted to him. This volume is extremely Daigo-centric, as it shows him all grown up, married to Ann, and fully engaged in teaching Elementary school. Daigo’s relationship with an influential teacher from his past is explored, as his class gathers together to dig up a time capsule they buried 20 years ago. Ann and Daigo face a difficult issue with strength, and it is nice to see their marriage functioning so well as a support system for them both. Daigo is wrestling with becoming the type of teacher he wants for his students, and the idea that he may have an indelible effect on such young minds. He deals with the personalities in his class with compassion, spending extra time with the students of his that need more attention. After spending so much of the series seeing things from Ann’s point of view, it was nice to read a volume focused on Daigo. I felt like at last the characters were all going to be ok, and after so many turbulent twists and turns earlier on it was nice to see them fully engaged in daily life without much drama.

Review copy of Sakura Hime provided by the publisher.

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Manga Reviews

Cross Game Volume 3

I was so happy that Cross Game was selected to be featured in the May Moveable Feast. It is very rare to come across anything that is so well executed that it immediately wins me over, but that was my reaction to the first and second omnibus volumes. In broad strokes, a battle for the soul of baseball has been set up over the first few volumes, and the third volume (which contains the Japanese volumes 6 and 7) shows the ultimate confrontation between the corrupt new coach’s handpicked team of elites vs Ko’s natural talent and the enthusiasm of the second tier Portable team. I love the cover for this volume, which shoes Ko and Aoba standing shoulder to shoulder and snarling at each other. It serves as an excellent illustration for the way their relationship is simultaneously close and antagonistic.

The portable team’s game against the main team also becomes a battle for the main coaching position. The Seishu coach Daimon continues to be blind in his pursuit of success. He and the interim principal don’t realize that the scruffy old man hanging out at the baseball field is actually the chairman of the board. Daimon assumes that the portable team’s losing streak means that they’ll be easy to beat. Seishu team start Azuma has been observing his teammates leave and Daimon’s complete unconcern for the health of his players. He announces that he isn’t going to be playing in the game, slamming his hand into the wall and saying that he’s too injured to play. Azuma only wants to play baseball with the best team, and if the Seishu team can only win with him, he knows where he really be should be.

Aoba is recruited to play with Ko’s team and objects to being assigned to play center because she wants to pitch. Akaishi comments that she hasn’t faced off against Ko in a long time. Ko pitches to her, and Akaishi confirms that center is now ok with her. The match starts, and the score remains tied at 0-0 for a long time. Azuma keeps making pointed comments at Daimon, wondering if he even knows the names of the teams the portable team lost to. It turns out that they were practicing against elite teams, and Ko was deliberately allowing hits for most of the game in order to give everybody fielding practice. The game progresses and the look of dawning horror on Daimon’s face is quite enjoyable.

One thing I liked about this volume is it gave increased insights into Azuma’s personality and motivations. He’s always seemed a bit like a grim warrior of baseball, but now I can finally understand why he’s so driven. Azuma’s older brother Junpei appears and starts trying to chat up the oldest Wakaba sister, Ichiyo. On the surface Junpei seems goofy and laid back, but when he comes across his brother training Junpei picks up a baseball with a practiced grip. Azuma tells his brother that he promises that he’ll get to Koshien. Junpei just replies that Azuma should have more fun with baseball and walks away, leaving the ball on a chair. Junpei was an athletic star, but his dream was derailed when he was injured.

After the long buildup to the confrontation between the coaches and baseball teams, it was a relief to see that the rest of the volume was focused on shorter slice of life stories. It felt to me like the characters finally had a bit of breathing room. Azuma moves in with Ko’s family when the dorms are shut down. Aoba is getting hit on all the time. Memories of Wakaba continue to cascade through Aoba and Ko’s lives. This volume felt like the conclusion of the first major story arc of the series. I’m still loving the combination of action, romance, humor, and drama. It is rare to find a series that functions well on so many levels. I’m eager to see the next chapters that show Ko working to get to the ultimate baseball tournament at Koshien.