For this column I got to read two books by publishers I haven’t read much from: Go! Comi and Yen Press. It occurred to me later that King of the Lamp is kind of the girl’s equivalent of Sundome. It’s just a theory… Without further ado, here’s Heroes Are Extinct!!, Vol. 3, King of the Lamp, and Sundome, Vol. 1

Heroes Are Extinct!!, Vol. 3

By Ryoji Hido
DMP, 200 pp.
Rating: 13+

This tokusatsu parody manga wraps up in volume three, released on January 15th.

Katherine and I have reviewed the previous two volumes here and here and a little bit here.

I found volumes one and two had good moments, but the simplistic, hastily-done, anime-style art really bothered me. For most of the team working on the manga, this was their first professional work. The original concept was intended as a pitch for an anime series. I think I would have liked this as an anime OVA rather than a manga series. By volume three the art improved greatly, but I never found the character designs appealing.

In volume three the Bazue Empire attacks earth for real–unlike in volumes one and two where aliens Cassiel and Jude faked an invasion to play Power Rangers with earthlings. We learned in volume two that Cassie is actually from Earth. It’s a cute twist, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that is totally racist. Cassiel would have been a more interesting character if he really was an alien bent on creating heroes to protect earth based on a love of Japanese television.

I really couldn’t get into the Bazue Army political drama which opens volume three. I couldn’t remember the various generals from the other volumes, and I even confused Jude and Aster! Had I read the entire series at once, or followed it in a weekly magazine, I might have had an easier time of it.

I was more interested in the Earth Terra Force characters than the Bazue military royalty. Unfortunately, Terra Force gets very little face-time in this volume.

The conclusion is satisfying and over-the-top, and fits well with the rest of the story. Despite the bad art, Hido’s love for the characters and the genre flow out the pages. In some ways, it’s similar to watching the original Doctor Who series: the writer’s love pours through in the best episode, despite the extremely poor special effects.

Nevertheless, I can’t imagine why anyone other than Mike Dent, the tokusatsu podcaster, would buy this series, especially at a higher-than-average cover price of $12.95. Statistically, there may be many Mike Dents in the world, but I’m not confident the real Mike Dent will like the series. I plan on sending it to him as soon as this review is posted.

King of the Lamp

By Takako Shigematsu
Go! Comi, 200 pp.
Rating: 16+ (Older Teen)

I haven’t read much by Go! Comi! A.I. Revolution and Love Master A fell a little flat. I was pleasantly surprised to find King of the Lamp to be a light-hearted and bizarre anthology of smut. Unfortunately it’s more fun to summarize than to actually read, since the over-toned art really drags the book down.

Rather than a traditional genie, a king is sentenced to live in a lamp as punishment for having a harem of 1,000 stolen women. Instead of granting wishes outright, the King demands payment; a kiss for small wishes, and second base for larger favors. In each chapter the King grants the wishes of a different client/girl/victim.

The King must help out 1,000 girls to free himself from the lamp. He helps three in this volume, leaving only 986 girls to go. The rest of the book is padded out with a short story about a girl who is adopted by a pair of un-aging male incubi. The girl falls in love with one of them after coming of age. (WTF SRSLY: “You are my adopted daughter but since you’re 18 now let’s get it on.”)

Takako Shigematsu, who is also the author of Tenshi Ja Nai!! (I’m No Angel), adequately portrays the King’s character as a prankster without delving too deep. The bulk of the girl cast is not terribly interesting. At first I expected monkey’s paw endings to each girls’ wish. Every chapter could easily become “comeuppance theater” but it doesn’t. For example, in one chapter a girl is jealous of her sister’s boyfriend. When the boy goes blind temporarily because of an accident, the girl wishes for her sister’s voice so she can care for her crush in the hospital. In comeuppance theater the boy might marry the girl’s sister after regaining his sight, but in King of the Lamp, the boy realizes he has fallen in love with the other sister. They then have sex, which is how every chapter ends.

The paneling is not terribly adept - in one scene a girl drops a tray of hospital food which is abruptly cleaned up by the next page. The action wasn’t clear and I read the sequence twice to understand it. Many pages look crowded or cluttered. The high point of the art is the King’s character design. He’s a hottie, but his tanned skin ultimately adds to the over-toned look of the book.

The make-out scenes are surprisingly graphic compared to the manga I usually read. Nothing ridiculously explicit happens and for the most part the sex is off-camera, but holy crow, his face is in her crotch there…! Instead of anyone learning a lesson, each story ends with the happy [teenage] couple getting it on.

Slightly amusing but ultimately forgettable, smutty but not pornographic, King of the Lamp could have a sequel, but stops just short of the King reaching his goal.

Sundome, Vol. 1

By Kazuto Okada
Yen Press, 208 pp.
Rating: M (Mature)

When I first started reviewing for Manga Recon in 2005, I hadn’t read much manga. My early reviews dwelled on the different methods of handling sound effects–I used to enjoy Del Rey’s best, but now I like Viz’s full translation for faster reading. This is my first Yen Press title. Yen translates sound effects in teeny-tiny letters in the gutters between panels, beginning each translation with “SFX:”. I found this distracting, it slowed me down as I read the “SFX” acronym aloud in my head.

Some of the dialog was printed too close to the binding, and I couldn’t open the book wide enough to read it. This would be a bigger problem if I were reading the book standing on the subway, however, since Sundome is explicit I didn’t take chances. My decision was justified: The book features drawing after drawing of erections (in jeans) and… let’s just say “c_m_l t___s”.

Hideo Aiba is a member of the “Roman” club in his high school. Roman in this instance means “Romance,” therefore, the club “researches” ghosts, aliens, and mysteries. Virginity is required for membership, so all the members are total losers, and all males, until Kurumi Sahana transfers in.

The attractive (although frankly creepy) and popular Sahana attaches herself to the Roman Club, and specifically Aiba. Sahana kicks off a bizarre relationship with Aiba, whom vows never to sleep with, however, she promises to torture Aiba to the point of near-ejaculation. Sundome, in Japanese, literally means “stopping the moment before,” as explained in the useful translator’s notes.

Sahana coerces Aiba into a number of extremely physically painful situations–sticking a nail in his penis, being crushed by a member of the judo club–and then rewards him with a semi-sexual favors, like untying the side of her side-tying underwear. Aiba decides this is better than being rejected, and despite the genital bleeding, he misses Sahana desperately the first day of summer vacation.

I found the book neither funny nor titillating. Everything is toned too dark, and the characters designs are unappealing. Sundome seems to (ironically?) stop at the point just before it would be truly ugly or cute or sexy or funny. The front cover is kind of sexy, but the pin-up chapter break drawings of Sahana wearing transparent underwear just get weirder and grosser as the book proceeds.

Although I’m not the target audience for this, I do enjoy bawdy sexual humor, like Golden Boy, Ping Pong Club, High School Girls, Beavis and Butthead, Superbad, and most Adult Swim shows, but I’m not sure who would want to pay $12.99 for this. At least DMP’s $13 books have dust jackets.

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