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Manga Reviews

Beast Master Volume 1



Beast Master Volume 1 by Kyousuke Motomi

Motomi’s Dengeki Daisy is one of my favorite new shoujo series, so I thought I’d check out the earlier series Beast Master. I think often mangaka’s earlier series tend to suffer in comparison when compared with the manga that become hits. But while Beast Master doesn’t have the more stylish illustrations and emotional depth that Dengeki Daisy does, it does share the same quirky sensibility that makes it stand out from more run-of-the mill shoujo series.

Yuiko is a typical teen girl with a passion for animals. Unfortunately she has an uncontrollable tendency to smother any animal she meets with too much affection, causing them to flee from her. Leo is an animalistic boy whose demonic eyes and strange mannerisms cause him to be misunderstood by everybody he meets. Leo transfers into Yuiko’s school, and she is the first and only person to make friends with him. She treats him a little bit like a stray pet at first, but as they get to know each other a real friendship develops. Where Beast Master stands out is in its depiction of Leo. While he is handsome, his animal-like rage is contrasted with a playful mode where he’s drawn to look a little bit like a playful giant cat. It is unusual to see the male lead of the series being portrayed in an unhandsome way so many times. Although there’s a little bit of a Jane taming Tarzan dynamic in Yuiko and Leo’s relationship, seeing how she was gradually able to integrate him into school life was fun. Leo’s tendency to watch over Yuiko saves her from some sticky situations. I’m not feeling as invested in this story as I am with Dengeki Daisy, but since there’s only one more volume in this series, I’m going to finish reading Beast Master. After trying both of Motomi’s series that are available in English, I’m hoping that more from this creator gets released over here.

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Manga Reviews

iPad Manga Review: Claymore Volume 1

Claymore Volume 1 by Norihiro Yagi

Claymore is one of those series that’s been on my radar for awhile because I remember reading several online reviews that pointed out it was a shonen manga series with some potentially interesting gender dynamics. So I was happy to spend .99 cents on the iPad version of Claymore volume one. This manga seems like a fairly standard fantasy action story, made much more interesting by the fact that the ultimate bad ass warriors in Yagi’s world are all women. Demons called yoma prey on hapless pseudo medieval villagers, and their only recourse is to hire claymores, women who have become part-demon themselves in order to be able to fight the yoma. The world of Claymore is introduced through the standard shonen set piece of having a young boy discover how claymores protect the world. Raki is orphaned, and he meets the claymore Clare when she is hired to protect his village. Clare is everything you might expect from a shonen action hero. She’s terse, business-like, and doesn’t hesitate to dismember a yoma by hacking off limbs before splitting it in half with her giant sword. Clare doesn’t even deal with the mercenary details of payment for her services. When the head of the town offers to give her money before she heads out on her killing mission, she tells him to wait and pay after she’s done with her job, “If I get killed…there’ll be no reason to pay.” Clare is followed from job to job by Rubel, a mysterious man who collects the money for her services.

Raki ends up following Clare and she agrees that he can tag along as her cook, telling him that he can stay with her until he finds another town he would like to live in. Clare isn’t one to sit around and talk about her feelings, but it is heavily implied that she’s taking on Raki as a sidekick because his companionship might be a way to help her regain some of her humanity. When the claymores transform themselves into human/yoma hybrids, they’ve started a process where they will eventually lose their human qualities and become yoma. A claymore who senses that she’s about to transform sends a black card to the next member of the organization requesting that she be killed.

Overall, I found this manga very intriguing. It is unusual to find a shonen manga that features a female main character that doesn’t feel exploitative. There were a couple scenes of Clare changing clothes taking a bath to wash the blood off of her self after battle, but these didn’t feel very gratuitous to me. Clare’s characterization is strong and forceful, and I’m curious to see what happens in the rest of her journey. I really liked the bleak tone of Claymore as well. It has been some time since I’ve read a grim fighting manga, so I actually found it a bit refreshing. Yagi’s art falls into the category of serviceable but not spectacular. I can see how it will probably improve over time, but Claymore doesn’t display the insane composition of something like Bleach that would prompt me to pick up several volumes for the action scenes alone. I’m very interested to see what’s going to happen with Claymore’s group of hybrid women/demon yoma hunters.

One of the things I like about reading manga on the iPad is that when reading it in the portrait or single page orientation, the art is automatically blown up to omnibus edition size. Also, being able to magnify individual panels is fun. The only thing that is making me a little hesitant about picking up this series is that it is so long! I will try to at least check out the second volume to see if I’m still interested. Can anyone whose read more Claymore let me know what they think about it? Does it get stronger as it goes along?

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Manga Reviews

iPad Manga Review: Captive Hearts Volume 1

When it comes to my iPad and buying digital content, I tend to spend the most money buying ebooks. While it is great that Viz is one of the few companies to put multiple manga series on the iPad, the initial offerings were either series that I wasn’t that interested in or manga that I’d already collected in print format like Death Note or Kenshin. But the month of March is Manga Madness Month and ALL VOLUME ONES ARE .99 cents in the VIZ MANGA APP(picture me saying that in the voice of a crazy car salesman). Viz has also added a few series that I haven’t already read, and at .99 cents it is very cheap to sample the first volume of a manga I might find interesting.

Captive Hearts Volume 1 by Matsuri Hino

Captive Hearts is the first series by Vampire Knight powerhouse Matsuri Hino. I’ve read the first few volumes of Vampire Knights, traded them away, regretted it, and am slowly building up my print collection again. I’ve also read Hino’s frothy fantasy MeruPuri. Captive Hearts is very cute, but the first volume shows very little traces of Hino’s detailed art style and the story is fairly predictable. Megumi is the son of the butler to a rich family. He grows up in an empty mansion because the Kogami family went missing on a trip to China, and the late master’s will (written before the birth of his daughter) left his fortune split between his wife and his butler. Megumi’s lesiurly life as a student is interrupted when his father announces that the Kogami family has been found. The long-lost daughter Suzuka has been found. Megumi’s father makes dark pronouncements about Megumi finding out about his fate and a family curse, and when Megumi meets Suzuka the curse takes effect.

As soon as Megumi sees the new mistress of the house something is triggered in his brain, and he becomes the perfect servant. He finds himself saying “Welcome home, Princess” and kissing her hand while on the inside his thoughts are protesting. It turns out that one of Megumi’s ancestors tried to steal from the Kogami family and a guardian god appeared to place a hundred generation curse on Megumi’s family, forcing them to become the perfect servants. Megumi spends his time helping Suzuka adjust to life in Japan, and his tendency to have random attacks of subservience hinders their relationship. Does he care about her because of the curse? What would happen if the curse was broken? Suzuka seems to like Megumi, but she’s extremely distressed about the effect she has on him and just wants to spend time with him normally the way they did as children.

There are faint suggestions of Hino’s eventual drawing style, which features plenty of detail and characters that all seem to be wearing a healthy coating of eyeliner, but Captive Hearts isn’t nearly that refined. As a first volume, I would expect that the art gets a lot better as the series progresses. Hino’s later facility with extreme angst isn’t really on display here either. Instead there are plenty of sweet and humorous moments between Megumi and Suzuka as they strike up a friendship in between his uncontrollable servant attacks. For .99 cents, I was happy to have the chance to try out this series. Even though there were quite a few cute moments it didn’t really draw me in, partially because I think that while Hino’s other series might be less funny they are executed much more competently. Although after seeing the sense of humor on display in Captive Hearts, I am tempted to reread Vampire Knight again as paranormal romance parody.

I had no problems downloading and reading this manga on the iPad, and the pages looked very clean and crisp. Even though I wasn’t hooked by this first volume, I wouldn’t hesitate recommending it for anyone who wants to sample some insanely cheap shoujo manga during this March promotion.

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Manga Reviews

Shojo Beat Quick Takes – Rasetsu and Butterflies Flowers



Rasetsu Volume 8 by Chika Shiomi

I generally enjoy Chika Shiomi series. She has a predilection for creating male leads that are both attractive and somehow possessed by demons, which causes her heroines to be tormented by their love for these ultimate bad boys. I tried the first 4 volumes or so of Rasetsu and then stopped getting the series. While I enjoyed it, I wasn’t feeling as much of an emotional connection to the story as I did with Yurara, the series it was spun off from. But dipping back into it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this volume. The more episodic monster-hunting plot elements are cast aside in favor of the ongoing dilemma of Rasetsu’s love life. If she doesn’t find true love by the age of eighteen, a demon is going to come to claim her. Rasetsu and Yako’s attraction has been growing, but she doesn’t want to use him to escape her curse. Kyuru has always been Shiomi’s prototypical bad boy, and the reader finally gets an explanation as to his true nature. The series finally seems to be heading towards a final confrontation between Rasetsu and the demon who cursed her, and I’m curious to see what happens next. I am team Yako all the way, if he doesn’t get the girl at the end of Rasetsu after his heartbreak at the end of Yurara I am going to be very disappointed.

Butterflies, Flowers Volume 6 by Yuki Yoshihara

After six volumes Butterflies, Flowers isn’t exactly heading into new territory as it details the odd relationship between “Lady” turned office worker Choko and servant turned boss Masayuki, but each volume of this series usually has at least one incident that really makes me laugh. The panel in this volume that I thought was hilarious was Masayuki’s crestfallen expression when he realizes that Choko has been stolen away from him and he realizes that he has neglected to place his customary tracking bug in her underwear.

There’s plenty of the usual office hijinks as the staff travel to a hot springs for a vacation and Masayuki tries to protect Choko from potentially lecherous coworkers. Choko shows her tougher side when she faces down a bunch of thieves to protect Otaki, a strict new boss who transfers in to her company. Unfortunately seeing Choko in action causes Otaki to develop a strong crush on her and Masayuki is faced with more trouble ahead when his ex-girlfriend returns to work with him again. I’m actually impressed that the evil ex hasn’t made an appearance in this series until the sixth volume. For all the machinations and problems that get thrown in Choko’s and Masayuki’s path, they still seem to have a strong foundation as a couple. I’m still enjoying this manga’s combination of heartfelt proclamations of love and bizarre sex comedy.

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Manga Reviews

Dragon Girl Volume 2

Dragon Girl Volume 2 by Toru Fujieda

I think it was a good decision for Yen Press to go with the omnibus format for this five volume series. I enjoyed this series very much, but if I was reading it spaced out over five volumes my interest might have started to wane a little bit. Being able to sit down and devour huge hunks of shoujo goodness with this slightly quirky manga made me enjoy it even more. Even though many of the plot elements in Dragon Girl evoke typical shoujo cliches, I am still amused by the odd and humorous elements Fujieda inserts in her story. For example, the hottie on the cover that heroine Rinna is embracing isn’t a high school boy who has a crush on her – it is her long lost father Sakuya, the globe trotting former traditional cheerleader captain/anthropologist. I think Sakuya, with his long hair, creative accessorizing, and breezy attitude would easily take the title in a coolest manga Dad contest.

Rinna and her friends in the cheering group struggle with getting their club officially reinstated and dealing with their rival high school. Rinna confesses her crush on childhood love Subaru, but finds out that a romance with him is impossible. Yatome and Rinna grow even closer but it seems like cheering captain Hasekura might finally get up the nerve to tell Rinna how he feels. There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about this title, but it is great comfort reading. I challenge anyone not to enjoy a manga where the heroine’s response to rumors being spread about her is to stand outside the school with a megaphone yelling her side of the story in order to set the record straight. Even thought the ending of Dragon Girl was predictable, I enjoyed seeing Hasekura’s reaction when he was finally able to meet Sakuya, his cheering idol. Also, when Hasekura finally changes his “manly” look, the response of the female students to actually being able to see his shaven face was hilarious. Even the evil scheming student council president doesn’t turn out to be so bad after all. Dragon Girl lets the reader momentarily escape into a world filled with camaraderie and costumed high school students yelling their hearts out. I finished this manga with a smile on my face.