13 Jul, 2009
Manga Minis, 7/13/09
By: Connie C., Melinda Beasi, Sam Kusek, Grant Goodman and Isaac Hale
We’ve got a lovely batch of minis in this week’s column! Isaac starts us off with a review of volumes one and two of Clan of the Nakagamis (DMP); Grant checks in with his takes on volume twelve of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs and volume eight of Rosario + Vampire (both from Viz); Melinda finds volume four of Kamichama Karin Chu (Del Rey) to be frilly and fun; Connie reviews volume eight of Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey); and Sam has also got a pair of Viz reviews for us—volume four of Ral Grad and volume twelve of Reborn!. Enjoy!
Clan of the Nakagamis, Vols. 1-2
By Homerun Ken
Digital Manga Publishing, 200 pp.
Rating: Young Adults (16+)
Despite all the good things I keep hearing about this series, Clan of the Nakagamis has failed to impress me. The plot basically follows an adult-looking eighteen-year-old student who becomes involved with his 26-year-old teacher and the wacky hijinks involving the teacher’s zany family. The good news? This isn’t near as bad as it sounds. The teacher looks sixteen, and there’s no real power differential between the two, which significantly mitigates the skeeziness of the whole situation. Building on this premise is a comedy manga taking place on a sexually charged bishonen playground. What could possibly go wrong?
For starters, the core relationship in this book between Haruka (the student) and Tokio (the teacher) strains credibility and the reader’s interest to the breaking point. Their relationship goes nowhere. By the end of the second volume, subtitled “The Devil Cometh,” the nature of their relationship is essentially unchanged from the premise of volume one, a dangerous position for a romantic comedy. To make matters even more mediocre, the ensemble cast and “wacky family hijinks” are rarely contributors to the series’ humor: more often they are tools to further the “plot” or to serve as eye candy.
This being said, I’m being too hard on the series. It has lovely art. Though Tokio is annoyingly effeminate and a stereotypical boys’ love uke, the vast majority of the men in the manga are quite attractive and much less grating. The series also admittedly has its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments. If you’re looking for a truly great combo of boys’ love and humor, try From Eroica with Love. Hopefully a much-improved third volume of Clan of the Nakagamis will show itself by the time you finish.
Volumes one and two of Clan of the Nakagamis are available now.
–Reviewed by Isaac Hale
Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, Vol. 12
By Yukiya Sakuragi
Viz, 216 pp.
Rating: Older Teen
This volume of Inubaka opens with Suguri and Lupin performing in a dog and owner dance competition. Since the “K-9 Freestyle” event is being televised, the Woofles pet store is competing against a representative from Wan Kaw, hoping that national exposure will bring more business to their stores. Suguri finds herself pitted against two very strong competitors: Yasmin, the “sexy-cute” (the translator’s words, not mine) dancer for Wan Kaw and Chitose, a blind girl. The competition arc is fun and heartwarming, depicting the many different ways a dog and a person can share an intensely close bond.
The closing chapters find Suguri and Lupin filling in for a team member in a “fly ball” competition. Owners train their dogs to bolt down a field covered in hurdles, pick up a ball, and run back. (Lupin is the third runner, a clever touch!) When Suguri finds out that she was asked to be a one-time team member in order to help the team reach the finals, she harbors more than a little anger against Kanako and her pomeranian. It quickly turns into a “be careful what you wish for” story, highlighting just how fragile a dog’s health is.
Sakuragi’s love for drawing animals is blatant: even though a dog may appear for only one panel, it’s drawn with astonishing anatomical accuracy. Human characters are not ignored, though, as Sakuragi constantly plays dress-up with them. Suguri appears in her standard work attire on several occasions, but is depicted wearing all sorts of different tops, jackets, and accessories.
Volume twelve is a very well-rounded collection of story arcs, showing an abundance of character development for both the dogs and their owners.
Volume twelve of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs is available now.
–Reviewed by Grant Goodman
By Koge-Donbo
Del Rey, 192 pp.
Rating: T (13+)
In volume three, Karin had a dream that showed her a vision of the future featuring the horrible deaths of those she loves most. As this volume begins, she struggles to carry on with daily life while holding on to this painful truth that she believes she must keep to herself. After a blow to her head gives everyone a scare, Karin finally confesses the details of her dream to Kazune and he determines that together they must find a way to change it. Unfortunately things go rapidly downhill from this point on. After hearing about Karin’s dream, Micchi decides to give up his position as a god for good; Himeka, Kazune’s cousin who has just returned to them, is kidnapped by a mysterious and sinister girl; and new, shocking truths about their idol friend, Jin Kuga, are revealed.
Though this series is impossibly complicated and almost disturbingly cute, it’s hard not to be compelled by the overblown emotional drama and layers of supernatural intrigue. Time travelers, reincarnation, cloning, and magical girl-gods are the stuff of fantastic shojo, and if this series doesn’t quite come together like the best shojo fantasies, it is certainly fantastic in the most basic sense of the word. This volume’s drama is particularly thick with everyone fighting against their own fated deaths, but the over-the-top whimsy keeps things from ever becoming too heavy and the prevailing mood is oddly fun. A little romance never hurts either.
Dramatic, frilly, and a little bit trippy, the fourth volume of Kamichama Karin Chu provides a colorful mix of shojo staples in a super-cute package.
Volume four of Kamichama Karin Chu is available now.
–Reviewed by Melinda Beasi
My Heavenly Hockey Club, Vol. 8
By Ai Morinaga
Del Rey, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen
This volume was all about revisiting old themes. In the first story, the Ayuhara twins fall in love with the same girl and spend the entire chapter trying to one-up each other. In the next story, a pair of inn owners from earlier in the series return and make life hard for Izumi and Hana. Next, in a reversal of an older story, Izumi is possessed by the spirit of a nice boy and Hana struggles with which personality she prefers. The final story is new, with a plot involving the hockey club escorting a prince around the country in an effort to show him things to love about Japan.
One of the things that bothers me about reading new volumes of this series is that the plot never moves forward. That’s true in this volume, and what’s worse, a lot of stories and gags are recycled. But to tell you the truth, I didn’t even think about the plot not budging until I was nearly finished reading, and I didn’t even realize the stories were so heavily recycled until I started writing this review. Once again, Ai Morinaga manages to keep me laughing with the two things at which she excels: a perfect sense of comic timing and art that truly does suit whatever it is she’s drawing. It’s why I read this series, and as long as it keeps being funny, I’ve got no problems coming back for more every time.
In particular, the inn owner story and the prince story are pretty hilarious. The former had quite a number of things that got me laughing, including the strange style Morinaga uses to draw the elderly people (this is used much more effectively/terrifyingly in the next story, which periodically features an older woman wandering around topless), a perfectly-timed gag where Itoigawa is caught buying Izumi’s underwear off an internet auction, and the strange and persistent money-making schemes the elderly couple keep coming up with. The prince story won me over when the prince was mistakenly thought to be looking at an erotic figure and the members of the club offer reasons why that’s totally okay with them.
Volume eight of My Heavenly Hockey Club is available now.
–Reviewed by Connie C.
By Tsuneo Takano & Takeshi Obata
VIZ, 160 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Volume four marks the end of Ral Grad and to be honest, I am a bit let down. Thought it offered the same intense amount of action and gratuitous fan service, I really wanted this series to be drawn out a bit more and not end so quickly. I feel like the ending fight with Bira, or Lady Opscuria, was essentially the biggest let down of the volume. Lady Bira throughout the series was portrayed as a very powerful and devious character, but she really wasn’t much in a fight at the end of the book. Same thing goes for the Black Rhinoceros: Tsuneo Takano built up a story that encompasses Chinese folklore (I am referring to the four symbols of China or the four cardinal directions) but ended up dropping the ball at the end. The bout with the Phoenix made up for it though, offering the kind of intense dialogue and character development I was hoping for.
In addition to the disappointing fights, Tsuneo Takano raised a lot of possible interesting plot points and questions throughout the course of the series but I felt that he only really scratched the surface. For example, Mio receives a shadow in the last twenty or so pages of the book but there is no story behind it at all. All in all, I would still recommend this series despite my qualms. It offers a new and utterly ridiculous face to the world of shonen and what better artist than Takeshi Obata to take us on that ride!
Volume four of Ral Grad is available now.
–Reviewed by Sam Kusek
By Akira Amano
VIZ, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
The twelfth volume of Reborn! jumps into an enticing story arc following Tsunayoshi Sawada and his family as they square off again the Vaira in a battle to control the Vongola Rings. This book encompasses three of the fights, wrapping up the bout between the Lighting Guardians, showcasing the entire Storm Guardians brawl and finally kicking off the Rain Guardians. All the fights are well paced, allowing the action to really seep in. Amano’s panels are easy on the eyes, especially some of the fantastic close-up shots of Gokudera and Belphagor. Both characters are well designed and elicit the psychotic emotion that should be felt, particularly the knife-wielding Bel. Gokudera and Bel are more similar than either of them would like to let on and this seems to be a running theme between the “Family” and the Varia.
While I think the Amano’s art is grand, I wasn’t that impressed with the writing. Gokudera’s fight is very interesting in the way that it is set up, in a school that houses machines that create intensive winds. The ending (don’t worry, I won’t ruin it) kills the creativity, though. I felt the same way about a lot of the humor and of the rest of the story and characters. Tsunayoshi was a cute lead at the beginning when the series was focusing more on comedy. Now that it has taken an action stance, his boyish good looks just aren’t cutting it.
Volume twelve of Reborn! is available now.
–Reviewed by Sam Kusek
By Akihisa Ikeda
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen
Rosario + Vampire has quickly become a guilty pleasure of mine. Maybe it is because it has echoes of the Harry Potter series: a world hidden from humans, a campus of magic users, and a headmaster who is supposed to be amazingly powerful yet uses his students to do all the work and winds up being totally useless in times of need.
All of these elements play out nicely in volume eight, as the monstrel threat to tear the school apart continues to grow. Tsukune joins the student council to fish out the anti-schooler monstrels, the girls work together to plan for the school festival, and panty shots are kept to a bare minimum. (Oh, that is a terrible pun.) In fact, it makes for a respectable read.
In an effort to reveal the monster world to humans, the anti-schoolers seek to destroy the headmaster’s magic barrier over campus. Predictably, Tsukune winds up being the one who has to disarm the threat. Meanwhile, Moka is kidnapped and forced to take a desperate gamble to help a battered and beaten Tsukune.
Action sequences continue to be Ikeda’s weak point, although this volume shows some improvement. Battles are often over in a few panels or take place without being seen. When a monstrel declares that he broke Tsukune’s neck, it would have added quite a bit of suspense by actually illustrating it. Of course, the reader will know that the main character isn’t dead, but it would be a momentary shock, nonetheless.
Art flaws aside, it is a solid volume that advances the plot and gives the characters time to shine.
Volume eight of Rosario + Vampire will be available on August 4, 2009.
–Reviewed by Grant Goodman
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