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Skip Beat Volume 26

Skip Beat! Volume 26 by Yoshiki Nakamura

I’ve been in a bit of a post holiday blogging malaise, what with going on vacation, getting sick, coming back from vacation, still being sick, and just dealing with work. But there isn’t any better way to snap yourself out of a manga blogging funk than to pick up a fresh volume of Skip Beat! The plot arc introduced in this volume looks like it will be really fun, and this volume would be a good jumping on point for anyone who has read a few volumes of the series but hasn’t kept up with recent developments.

One of the ways Nakamura excels as a manga artist is that she’s great at drawing someone in the grip of absolute rage. We get treated to several panels of anger in the early section of the drama, where Kyoko and her fellow LoveMe Section members are dealing with the emotional fallout from their Valentine’s Days. The president of LME Lory asks how everybody’s day went and a dark cloud descends over Kyoko and Moko. Kyoko yells “It was a nightmareish evil day that threatened my peace and quiet!” Moko fiercely proclaims “It was a day that polluted society…a day that made idiots even more stupid!” Lory is disappointed in everybody’s progress and hands out new assignments with the word describing Kyoko’s as “Dangerous.”

Kyoko is told that she has to pick up a new actor named Cain Heel who apparently resembles a member of the yakuza. When she sees a man dressed in dark clothes, radiating such a hostile aura that all the other people in his vicinity are stepping away and staring at him, she walks up and says “Mr Tsuruga?” The man stands up without saying anything, Kyoko falls to the ground and he stalks off, stepping over her. Kyoko is mystified because she thought that the man was Ren based on his proportions. As she’s walking down the street trying to process her experience, a long dark arm snakes out from an alley and pats her on the head. It is Ren after all, and he’s portraying a new actor in order to further his career. Lory announces that Kyoko is going to be Cain Heel’s lucky charm, his treasured sister Setsuka. Kyoko gets a gothy-makover and the Heel siblings are ready to launch Cain’s new career. This means that Kyoko and Ren are going to be forced to be in close quarters, with plenty of agonizing moments and crazy fashion to look forward to. What more could any fan of Skip Beat! want?

Lory speculates that forcing his two actors together will result in great things, and he takes particular note of the fact that Kyoko must have been observing Ren very closely in order to penetrate his disguise. Kyoko gets to work thinking through the character of Setsuka, hoping that her acting will get Ren’s approval. In the meantime Ren is being tortured by the mini-skirts Kyoko has to wear as Setsuka. Skip Beat! is always entertaining, but I’m really excited to see what Ren and Kyoko will get up to as the Heel siblings.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

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Manga Reviews

Dengeki Daisy Volume 8

Dengeki Daisy Volume 8

This volume contains a good dose of back story, as Teru finally learns how her brother Soichiro and Kurosaki met. She also learns why Kurosaki is filled with guilt over her brother’s death. After the events in the last volume, Kurosaki has decided to absent himself from Teru’s life. She’s depressed after hearing Kurosaki’s confession that he killed her brother, and devastated about the hostile text message that Akira sent in her place. In true Dengeki Daisy fashion the thing that snaps Teru out of her funk is a fist to her stomach, delivered by her friend Kiyoshi. He yells at her, “Stop acting like a victim looking for sympathy. Turning your back on him just because getting involved takes committment…that’s just plain horrible. You don’t do that to someone dear to you.” After a long lecture, Teru delivers a fierce uppercut to Kiyoshi and says with a smile through her tears that she feels better.

Teru decides to dedicate herself to finding out the truth behind Daisy/Kurosaki’s “sin”, and to do that she decides to fully inquire into his past. She gathers together all of Kurosaki’s old co-workers and protectors and begins to learn the truth behind Kurosaki’s development of a classified encryption program called “Jack Frost” and the people at Soichiro’s company who worked for the government. Kurosaki is now hunting down “Jack Frost” on his own, in an attempt to protect Teru. This volume was a little heavy on the exposition side of things, but I found I didn’t mind that so much because after 8 volumes, I’m really invested in finding out what will happen to these characters. It was also nice to see Kurosaki and Soichiro together in simpler times. Even thought the mystery of Kurosaki’s past is cleared up somewhat, there’s still plenty left to explore in the present as it is unclear who all the players are in the current hunt for Jack Frost and what they’ll do to get their hands on it. Dengeki Daisy is always fun to read, but I hope that Teru and Kurosaki get back together in the next volume!
Review copy provided by the publisher.

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Manga Reviews

Oresama Teacher Volume 6

Oresama Teacher Volume 6 by Izumi Tsubaki

Oresama Teacher is rapidly becoming one of my favorite shoujo comedy series. Sometimes pure comedy manga end up getting into repetitive plot lines where the same jokes are recycled over and over again, but Oresama Teacher continues to easily maintain my interest. One of the reasons why I enjoy this manga so much is due to the face-punching tendencies of the heroine Mafuyu. Perhaps it is my own violent tendencies that make me immediately sympathetic to stories about socially clueless juvenile delinquents, but the situations Tsubaki engineers for her heroine are so wacky I am usually surprised and amused whenever I crack open a new volume of Oresama Teacher.

The opening scenario of this volume was pretty hilarious as Shinobu, the evil ninja sidekick to the equally evil student president announces that he’s going to fight Mafuyu despite the fact that she’s a girl, saying “I fight fair and square and I believe in gender equality.” He basically implys that Mafuyu is a bad feminist if she doesn’t accept his challenge. She has no problem with fighting, but since she’s supposed to be leaving her juvenile delinquent ways behind her she says that Shinobu must fight her extremely poorly disguised alter ego Super Bun first. She goes to Takaomi for advice and he asks her why she’s really fighting. She challenges him saying “Aren’t you just like me?” He comments that he used to be. Mafuyu manages to defeat her opponent using a variety of ridiculous yet effective rabbit-like fighting techniques.

The rest of the volume centers around Mafuyu and her friends investigating the mystery behind their school. Mafuyu also has a moment of realization when she attempts to fulfill her dream of being a normal high school girl only to temporarily lose her friendship with Hayasaka in the process. The last part of the novel takes a turn towards the serious, as Takaomi’s mysterious past is filled in a bit and the reader begins to piece together some of the reasons why he decided to turn to teaching after a successful career as a juvenile delinquent. Overall, this was a very satisfying volume of Oresama Teacher, due to the way Tsubaki mixed comedic insanity with more poignant moments.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

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Manga Reviews

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

Skip Beat 25 and Seiho Boys' High School 8

Skip Beat Volume 25 by Yoshiki Nakamura

Skip Beat is so great. For all the gangly limbs and oddly proportioned characters that Nakamura draws she is an absolute master at nuanced facial expressions, as evidenced in a series of confrontational scenes in this volume of Skip Beat!. I was happy to see some events happen to propel the slowly developing relationship between Ren and Kyoko forward at last. Sho, the evil pop idol and former target of Kyoko’s obsession and revenge shows up with an elaborate bouquet and engineers a dramatic kiss right in front of Ren and some of Kyoko’s co-workers. Since Sho is a spoiled brat who can’t abide not being the focus of Kyoko’s attention, he has decided to steal her first kiss and act obnoxious in the hopes that she’ll start thinking about him again. Ren goes from amazed, to annoyed, to dangerously furious as he watches this scene play out. Kyoko is left in hysterics about not getting her first kiss back and Ren chooses to deal with the situation in the best way possible; he appeals to her professionalism. When he notices her unglued he points out that it isn’t anything to get wrapped up over and that “What feels like your first kiss counts as your real first kiss.” He can’t maintain his impartial facade for long and warns her that he doesn’t want to see a repeat of the situation and Kyoko’s response is “I shall risk my life to preserve my purity!”

Kyoko and Ren dance around their emotions, not willing to admit anything to each other yet. Ren’s reactions and the way he behaves towards Kyoko are carefully calculated, not because he’s manipulative but because he doesn’t want to cause her any more emotional damage. His measured approach and awareness of her emotional fragility stands in stark contrast to Sho, whose innate selfishness ensures that he’s never going to be a good match for her. Kyoko has Ren on such a high pedestal, that she isn’t capable of entertaining the thought that he has feelings for her. It is a rare series that manages to rack up so many volumes and still keep me entertained when the romantic protagonists have barely kissed, but Skip Beat always manages to be both fun and interesting in the way the relationships between the characters continue to play out.

Seiho Boys’ High School Volume 8 by Kaneyoshi Izumi

This was a not-so-guilty-pleasure series for me, because it was much better than I expected a shoujo manga set in an all boys high school to be. The romantic issues of the main characters get a certain amount of resolution in this final volume, but the well worn plot device of misunderstandings serving to drive some of the couples apart makes me glad that the series stopped when it did. Maki is hearing that his girlfriend Takano has been hanging out with school heartthrob Kamiki. At first he resolutely denies the possibility, but then runs into Takano and Kamiki on the beach. Kamiki and Takano are only talking. She’s going through some changes in her life that she’s hiding from Maki and Kamiki warns her “Once you figure out that I can’t make you less lonely, talk to Maki.” Maki sees them together and abruptly breaks up, but Takano was hiding the fact that she’s headed overseas from him. Maki and Takano manage to get a little bit of resolution, but Kamiki is left to deal with his own problems.

Kamiki’s white knight tendencies are coming in the way of him actually getting to develop a real relationship with Miaji. She calls him out on this personality trait, saying “I don’t want your pity, I want your love.” She rejects his help and enters into a stressful project – taking care of a stray dog with Maki. Kamiki ends up helping anyway, saying “I wanted an excuse to talk to you, Miaji. Pretty sneaky of me, huh?” The series ends with the general sense that the main characters are all going to be ok. Having a shoujo series with a more male centric point of view was refreshing, and Izumi’s art has an element of clarity that ensures it is easy to read. The one thing that threw off my enjoyment of this manga was the back-up story called “Reverse Guilt” that has an extremely icky twist ending that contrasted with the more peaceful conclusions of the main story.

Review copies provided by the publisher.