Categories
Manga Reviews

Ai Ore Volume 1

Ai Ore Volume 1 by Mayu Shinjo

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged much about Mayu Shinjo’s series Sensual Phrase, mostly because I wrote about it for Library Journal’s Xpress Reviews online a long long time ago. If you scroll down this page you can see my review of the final volume. Sensual Phrase was pure trashy soapy fun, as you might expect from a series about a virginal (but not for long) girl who inexplicably becomes recruited to be the lyricist of a popular rock band. Shinju’s series fill a niche that isn’t often explored here for translated manga – more mature shoujo. We’ve got some other examples like Butterflies, Flowers (which I consider to be josei masquerading as shoujo) but not much else.

Ai Ore deals with superficially swapping traditional gender roles and romance in a teen rock band saga format. An androgynous band named Blaue Rosen is faced with the loss of their lead singer. All the pretty boys in the band are actually girls who attend the same all female high school. A cute girl named Akira asks to audition for the part, but the stoic lead guitarist Mizuki doesn’t want anyone else singing her songs. Of course Akira turns out to be a boy, and a romance between the tall and rangy Mizuki and the short and cute Akira begins. Mizuki’s handsomeness cause her to be treated as a major crush object by all the girls at her school, and Akira’s feminine charms have given him the title of his school’s “princess”. When Mizuki and Akira are together, misunderstandings abound as Mizuki’s classmates don’t understand why she is favoring a single girl with her attention and the boys at Akira’s school are disappointed that a handsome boy is monopolizing the attention of their princess. Shenanigans!

Unfortunately the switch in outward appearances doesn’t mean that Shinjo’s characters personalities are switched as well. For all his girlish features, Akira is a fairly typical alpha male, relentlessly pursuing his goal of dating Mizuki and joining her band despite her not very convincing protestations. While Mizuki professes to hate men, and is committed to maintaining her princely outward appearance, her inexplicable feelings for Akira turn her timorous. She doesn’t project the self-confidence and cool that she’s able to maintain as part of her stage performance. Shinjo’s romantic plot devices have a striking similarity to many of the tropes that pop up in old school romance novels. Threats of rape and sexual assault are common, and I was a little bummed out yet unsurprised that the end of this volume focused on several scenarios of this type. I am generally a big fan of cross dressing manga but Ai Ore didn’t totally win me over, despite plenty of over the top pronouncements like Akira saying “Instead of singing about love, drown yourself in me!” It was a little hard for me to believe that Akira is more physically dominating than Mizuki when he’s drawn to be around a foot shorter than her.

Existing Mayu Shinjo fans will find a lot to like about Ai Ore. It is an oversized edition of 300 pages, with color pages in the front and a character gallery in the back. Even though I’m not finding this manga as immediately addicting as Sensual Phrase, I’ll want to check out the second volume.

Review copy provided by the publisher

Categories
Giveaway

Tokyopop Giveaway Winner

According to random.org, the winner of the Tokyopop Trio Giveaway is comment #9 from Alex Hoffman of Manga Widget. He wrote that he would miss the josei series Suppli the most, which is also one of the series that I’m going to miss.

Other unfinished series that are causing manga fans to mourn are listed below. I am starting to feel a little depressed again, but am taking comfort in the fact I am sharing the manga love by sending a package to Alex!

Maid Sama
Shinobi Life (me too!)
Your and My Secret (me too!)
Pet Shop of Horrors
Genju no Seiza
tactics (I have a few stray volumes of this, haven’t read it yet)
Aria (I think this is a candidate for a license rescue, as it does seem to have a devoted fanbase)
Demon Sacred (me too)
Trinity Blood
Wild Adapter
Saiyuki
Vassalord
Togainu no Chi
Zone-00
Dot Hacks
Gundam
Fake
Cyborg 009

Categories
Manga Reviews

Viz Signature Quick Takes – Used Books, Charisma, and Leaves

Kingyo Used Books Volume 3

Reading this series can sometimes be a little bit painful. All the loving descriptions of classic manga that will never be released in English make me pine for what I’m unable to read. This volume might be a little more fun for American manga fans because much of the manga profiled in this volume will be familiar. The third volume starts off when a scardey cat meets a beautiful woman who is obsessed with Umezu horror manga. He tries to read the manga as a superficial way of connecting with his pick-up target, and ends up appreciating the horror genre much more than he thought he would because “Every one of his characters goes full-throttle at everything.” In “Makeup” a woman struggling with her career finds the strength to continue when she revisits her childhood love of Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon serves as a cultural touchstone for all the women she randomly encounters during her day. They share memories, with one of them asking “Don’t you think dressing up feels like going into battle mode?”

The other stories in Kingyo Used Books feature stories about cooking manga, romance between employees, and the lengths someone will go to in order to track down an unreturned book. The notes in the back provide some interesting historical context about the status of manga lending libraries in Japan. It occurs to me that between Kingyo Used Books, with its overview of classic series and focus on the connections that readers make with manga and Bakuman’s feverish statistic-laced overview of the act of manga creation, it is possible to build up a good if idiosyncratic portrait of the manga industry in Japan.

Afterschool Charisma Volume 2

I’m not always great about remembering to go over to check the Sigikki site for online chapters (although I am very thankful the site exists), so I’m making a mental note to go over there this week and get caught up on Afterschool Charisma. I was familiar with most of the chapters in this volume due to one of my infrequent Sigikki binges, but it was nice to sit down with the print edition and revisit this series about a normal high school boy trapped in a school filled with the clones of famous historic figures. The clones are getting ready for their annual talent day. Glimmerings of a new religion begin to manifest when small groups of clones start carrying around tiny sheep and referring to the “Almighty Dolly”. Shiro has to deal with a couple stressful situations – he’s tasked with babysitting a suicidal Mozart, and the school’s feckless director swoops in along with an ominously familiar looking little girl named Pandora. The school director latches on to Shiro and forces him to play tennis and other sports while all the clones are studying. Shiro starts getting caught up in the clones new religion, along with his new companion Hitler. I continue to be an unabashed Freud fangirl, because it is just hilarious seeing teenage Freud skulk around with his pageboy haircut uncovering evil secret organizations, and then acting incredibly neurotic the minute anyone asks him what he’s doing. This volume ends with a big surprise, so I’ve got to get over to the online chapters and find out what is going to happen!

House of Five Leaves Volume 3

Every time I pick up a volume of this manga, I’m struck by the unique atmosphere that Ono creates. The blend of Edo period slice of life pacing and the underworld setting creates an undercurrent of tension. I’m always on edge thinking that the moment is going to come when hapless ronin Masa is going to get caught up in violence but he always manages to drift along on the edges of life, surviving despite himself. In this volume the spy/thief of the House of Five Leaves gets caught stealing, and Masa takes advantage of his new charismatic acquaintance Yagi to gain a side job at the house where his companion is being held captive. Yaichi is suspicious of Masa’s new friendship with Yagi, but is he anxious not to see someone else take on his pet ronin or is something else going on? Masa’s sister abruptly visits Masa in order to get some help extracting herself from a marriage offer, and it is funny seeing how the gang of hardened criminals acts around her. Everybody remarks that she eats just like Masa, and seeing Masa take on the role of scolding older brother shows a different aspect of his personality. For all of Masa’s supposed ineffectiveness, he does manage to aid his comrades but in doing so he gives the outsider Yagi more information than what might be prudent. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next between the odd triangle of Masa, Yaichi, and Yagi.

Review copies of Kingyo Used books and House of Five leaves provided by the publisher.

Categories
Anime

Hanasakeru Seishonen – Helping me through Demon Sacred withdrawal

One of the unfinished series from Tokyopop that I’ll miss the most is Demon Sacred. It had a total commitment to shoujo insanity, and I’m sad that I won’t be able to see the end of this story about trans-dimensional unicorns, teen idol doppelganger demons, and reverse aging teens. Michelle pointed out to me that Crunchyroll is streaming Hanasakeru Seishonen, an anime based on another Natsumi Itsuki manga. After watching the first few episodes, it seems like Hanasakeru Seishonen isn’t quite as crazy as Demon Sacred (I’m not sure what could be) but the reverse harem scenario and off the wall plot elements will serve as compensation for the lack of new Itsuki manga in my life.

I’ve only watched the first four episodes of this thirty-nine episode series, so I’m sure there are some long-running plot elements that haven’t been introduced yet. But I thought I’d give a brief overview of the series for other manga fans that might be experiencing Demon Sacred withdrawal. Kajika is a mysterious girl who has spent most of her childhood on an isolated tropical island. The first episode of Hanasakeru Seishonen shows her enrolling in a normal Japanese high school and starting to blend in with her classmates. The focus on Japanese high school life is quickly diverted as Kajika’s incredibly rich father orders her to return to him in order to play a “marriage game” where she has to somehow identify, woo, and decide who she wants to marry among the three potential son-in-laws he has picked out. Along for the journey are Kajika’s baby-faced bodyguard Toranosuke and her companion Lee-Leng, who just happens to be the heir of a rich Chinese family. While the set-up appears to be a straightforward game of mystery date, Itsuki has a way of making things more interesting than you might expect from what initially seems to be a simple reverse harem scenario.

The first candidate for Kajika’s affections is Eugene Volkan, a man with unique coloring that reminds Kajika of her long-lost leopard companion Mustafa. Kajika decides that Eugene is carrying Mustafa’s spirit and immediately is drawn to him. Little does she know that the Volkan family has a complicated history involving insanity, artificial insemination, and suicide. Eugene himself is a stone cold womanizer who seems to set up a parade of woman who fall in love with him and then decide to kill themselves when he doesn’t return their affections. Kajika immediately latches onto Eugene and starts telling him stories about his previous life as a leopard. Lee-Leng is supposed to be overseeing Kajika’s progress in the “marriage game” and he views Eugene as an entirely unsuitable candidate, I suspect because he secretly wants to marry her himself.

There was plenty of drama in the first four episodes of Hanasakeru Seishonen. While it didn’t feature the endless parade of delightfully improbable plot elements that I found fascinating in the Demon Sacred manga, I’m expecting that the story will grow more and more complex, as Itsuki tends to touch on different areas when building her characters’ worlds. I’ll be watching the next few episodes, because I figure in a series as long as this it will grow more complex and interesting as it progresses.

Categories
Manga Reviews

Gatcha Gacha Volumes 7 and 8

I’ve procrastinated writing about the last couple volumes of Gatcha Gacha because I didn’t really want this series to end. In a world filled with cookie cutter shoujo, this series is genuinely weird, somewhat endearing, and occasionally disturbing. I’m assuming that based on the long stretches of time between the series debut and the translation of the final volume that this series didn’t do so well in the sales arena, so kudos for Tokyopop for finishing it. While I’m unhappy about so many series being unfinished with Tokyopop shutting down, I’m trying to comfort myself with the idea that at least Gatcha Gacha was finished. There are plenty of spoilers ahead, so be warned.

Gatcha Gacha Volume 7 by Yutaka Tachibana

The seventh volume was the first one where I felt like Tachibana was stalling for time before the end of the series. Instead of focusing on the relationships between the main characters, we get an extended flashback of what happened between Motoko and a girl from her past named Sae. Motoko gets involved in Sae’s life, and while Sae thinks that she’s using Motoko, it is clear that everyone’s favorite tough girl has her own motivations for intervening. The next story arc in this Motokocentric volume touches on the possibility that she has a different family background than everybody previously assumed. It is interesting to see the agony Yuri goes through when confronted with the idea that Motoko might be disappearing from her life. Motoko ends up solving the issue with her customary directness, and it reminded me how much I enjoy reading a manga that features a character that just says whatever she wants without fear. In another series, the situation probably wouldn’t have been taken care of in half a volume, because everyone would sill be sneaking around without saying anything.

Gatcha Gacha Volume 8 by Yutaka Tachibana

The final volume confirms that the great love affair in this manga wasn’t between Yuri and Yabe or Yuri and Hirao, but Yuri and Motoko. Someone with a better background in gender studies than I would probably have a field day with Gatcha Gacha. It certainly shows a quirky yet positive proto-lesbian relationship between Yuri and Motoko, but it also uses gay characters and situations as fodder for soap opera sleaze of the highest order, as the cute girl who has been stalking Hirao is revealed to be a guy with an overprotective brother/gang leader who makes his displeasure known when the male objects of his cross dressing brothers affection reject his advances. The image of Yuri being menaced by a gang member in full gimp costume is one of the most incongruous things I’ve seen in mainstream shoujo, and one of the reasons why I love Gatcha Gacha is that it can be both surprising and weird.

The ending is one of those open-ended conclusions that often seem to plague manga. The characters are all a little different thanks to knowing each other, but all of the ongoing relationship issues are hinted at instead of given a clear resolution. Hirao is still enamored of Yuri, but even as she tries to give their relationship a chance and acts jealous if other girls give him attention, she’s probably slotted him into a non-romantic category in her mind. His emotional sensitivity and generosity has her thinking of him as princess she wants to protect. In contrast, when Yuri needs someone to rescue her, the person she calls for is Motoko. Motoko sweeps in, ready to fight for Yuri. When I first put the volume down I felt a little cheated because the end of the manga didn’t totally feel like a static conclusion. After reflecting a bit, I realized that even though there might not be major changes, the personalities of all of the characters have shifted a little bit just from their interaction over time. Motoko really views friendship with Yuri as something precious. Yuri is able to stand up for herself a little bit. Hirao is still going after Yuri, but he’s aware that it may already be too late. One of the funniest bits in this volume came with the omake at the back where the characters react to the lack of an ending, and Hirao is complaining that everything’s come back to where it started, only to be answered with the comment that “the girls have all grown into strong, sensitive men.” Gatcha Gacha has been one of the quirkiest shoujo manga that I’ve read, and I’ll horde these precious volumes until I die since they’ll be going out of print. I’m already looking forward to rereading the series next year.

Thanks so much to Sean Gaffney for sending me his extra copy of Volume 8!