This month’s Manga Minis column has enough high-fallutin’ cultural references to please even Harold Bloom. Whether or not he’d cotton to the actual manga reviewed—which include the eleventh volume of Claymore (Viz), the eighth volume of Nana (Viz), the first volume of Vampire Hunter D (DMP), Y Square (Yen Press), and the second volume of Zombie Loan (Yen Press)—remains to be seen. Our February feature is notable also for its contributors. Joining me and Erin are Chloe Ferguson, the newest member of the Manga Recon team, and Ninja Consultant Noah, Erin’s podcasting partner-in-crime (and life). Welcome, Chloe and Noah!

Claymore, Vol. 11

By Norihiro Yagi
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Pity the poor, medieval villagers of Claymore. Their town is infiltrated by shape-shifting yoma, they have no choice but to hire mercenary warrior women toting enormous swords—who are themselves half-demons—from a shadowy Organization, and pray that should the whole thing go south, they aren’t left with something infinitely worse on their hands. “Battle not with monsters,” warns Nietzsche, “lest ye become one.” It’s a lesson these “silver-eyed witches” know all too well; for if a Claymore pushes her supernatural powers too far, the yoma within overtakes her soul and she transforms into a creature far more powerful and hideous than a yoma: an Awakened One.

Volumes 1 - 10 of Claymore chart the progress of Clare, a tenacious but low-ranking member of the Claymore order, who adopts the orphaned boy Raki after a yoma she is sent to kill first devours his parents. As a child, Clare herself was taken under the wing of a Claymore, whose death at the hands of a colleague-turned-Awakened One has led Clare to swear vengeance, and often requires her to tackle foes far beyond her weight class. This leads to her partial Awakening, and results in an uneasy relationship with the Organization, whose inclination, it seems, is to eliminate any of their agents they deem on the verge of losing control and going rogue.

Volume 11 finds Clare fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with her fellow Claymores against a large contingent of Awakened Ones in the frozen northern town of Pieta. Normally solitary, the creatures have joined together for unclear reasons and are grinding their way through the female warriors with blood-drenched abandon. Clare takes on Rigaldo, the Silver Eyed Lion King (!), who proves to be more than she can possibly handle without far exceeding her limit. The Awakened Ones fall upon the remaining fighters, and Raki, now unknowingly in the company of the monster who slew Clare’s foster mother, is hundreds of miles away.

The body count is so high, and speed lines drawn with such reckless abandon it can sometimes be difficult to follow the action; not to mention that each Claymore is more or less identical but for a slightly different hairstyle. There is much meat to this volume however, and very little dead air. When the fighting is over, the action immediately gives way to intrigue as the machinations of the Organization and the ambitions of the most powerful Awakened Ones are revealed.

If you’re not a fan of this series, no amount of oversized sword-swinging or spontaneous dismemberment contained herein will make you one; but if you are a fan, you will certainly not want to wait until July 2008 for the next volume.

–Reviewed by Ninja Consultant Noah F.

Nana, Vol. 8

By Ai Yazawa
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Mature

A soap opera is only as good as its most recent plot twist, and in volume eight of Nana, Ai Yazawa uncorks a doozy: Hachi discovers she’s pregnant. Forced to accept the consequences of her boy-crazy behavior, Hachi must decide whether to remain with new love Nobu or return to Trapnest hottie Takumi. (I just love typing that phrase—kudos to the copy editor who coined it.) Yazawa does an excellent job of evoking Hachi’s loneliness and fear, using spare, stripped-down layouts that make Hachi look small and overwhelmed by her surroundings. When Yazawa puts words into Hachi and Nana’s mouths, however, the results are less effective, reading more like an earnest public service announcement about birth control than real-life drama. Though these exchanges have a didactic quality to them, they do serve an important role, reminding us that Hachi has reached a crucial moment in her adult life: she can no longer afford to be the sweetly feckless groupie who avoids responsibility through her bed-hopping and job-hopping. What she decides to do next, and whether Nana will support her choice, should provide plenty of dramatic grist for at least five or six volumes.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Vampire Hunter D, Vol. 1

By Saiko Takaki
DMP, 250 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Vampire Hunter D is Saiko Takaki’s debut manga, commissioned by DMP in America. Takaki writes about his experiences drawing the book in the author’s notes - DMP gave almost no editorial feedback, only artistic notes, as poor Takaki stumbled in the dark, writing the entire book in one go and balding from stress. The road to editing manga is a long one, and although DMP and Tokyopop have taken their first steps into the field, they still have a lot to learn.

I can’t remember if the manga closely follows the plot of the movie and I’ve never read the novel series. There is considerably less evil-dinosaur and random-demon fighting in this manga version of the story, but rest assured it still takes place in 12,090 AD with plenty of cybernetic horses. For an analysis of Adam Smith’s invisible hand theory as it relates to the vampiric aristocracy, be sure to check out this podcast.

The plot is obviously like a Western: the mysterious dhampir D rides into town and offers to protect the orphaned Doris and her younger brother. Doris has been bitten by the vampire Count Lee, who has an eye to marry her—if the townfolk don’t kill Doris with torches and pitchforks first. Doris’s little brother is a stereotype and the love story is painstakingly predictable.

The artwork uses a lot of heavy lines, giving the book a dark look and feel. The figure drawing is very accomplished, and Doris’s breasts are very, very accomplished. She appears naked at least twice, and occasionally a sound effect appears near her bust. Whether it was intentionally comedic or not is up for debate. The story reads like a rough draft of a much better story. The chapter divisions seemed clunky as the book plodded on. The dialog read very smoothly and I enjoyed the purple-edged pages, but otherwise, I’d recommend reading the original novels and seeing the films instead.

Reviewed by Erin F.

Y Square

By Judith Park
Yen Press, 184 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Judith Park takes a stock manga premise—boy-crazy teen seeks love coach—and turns it on its head. Her protagonist, Yoshitaka Kogirei, isn’t a ditzy, love-starved girl, but a wannabe ladies’ man whose cheesy pick up lines, lecherous behavior, and crude language send his classmates running for the exits. Enter Yagate, a new student who’s an immediate hit with the girls. After watching Yoshitaka offend yet another prospective date, Yagate agrees to mentor Yoshitaka until he can make a love connection on his own.

From a tonal perspective, Y Square reads like a shonen romance with a healthy dose of fan service, including a textbook example of the I-saw-you-naked scene. The artwork, however, has a distinctly shojo feel. If Park’s style were more polished, this hybrid aesthetic might seem innovative instead of incongruous. But her indiscriminate use of screentone and her frequent juxtaposition of crude sight gags with girly, floral backgrounds make for a visually chaotic layout. The other major drawback to Y Square is its lead character. Though Yagate insists that underneath Yoshitaka’s “tough shell” is a “heart full of charm and romance,” Park does a poor job of showing the reader that Yoshitaka is, in fact, a decent guy who just doesn’t know how to talk to girls. (He behaves like a boor throughout the entire volume, insulting girls who rebuff him and announcing that “watching porn” is one of his hobbies.) Still, Y Square does have some genuinely funny moments as Yagate tries to smooth out his protege’s rough edges with advice pilfered from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy: The Fab 5’s Guide to Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better, and Living Better. Too bad it didn’t seem to sink in.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Zombie Loan, Vol. 2

By Peach-Pit
Yen Press, 194 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Now into its second volume, I’d love to say that that Zombie Loan took the potential fun parts of volume one and ran with them. Regrettably, this is not the case, and creative collective Peach-Pit sells its title short by busting out clichés en masse while attempting to wrangle with a convoluted central plot. Protagonist Michiru’s acquisition of a backbone is a welcome change, but there’s not much movement on any character front throughout the book particularly those of equally important zombie hunters Shito and Chika. Instead, Peach-Pit shunts two new characters into the fray in the form of an… erm, overly friendly female dorm mate of Michiru’s and Shiba, an old friend of Chika’s who serve little purpose other than to stir up some superficial controversy. The title’s obligatory dose of creepy is supplied by a maniacal serial killer named “The Butterfly” who engages in everything from cult killings to illicit zombie manufacture. Of course, it’s up to our young protagonists to track down and eliminate the aforementioned killer, whose Raskolnikov-esque street wandering tendencies keep him popping up all over the book. Now if only Peach-Pit would stop impeding their progress with boatloads of tired clichés, the protagonists might actually be able to spot him…

–Reviewed by Chloe Ferguson