I’m fresh out of snappy intros, so I’ll cut to the chase: the centerpiece of this week’s column is Melinda’s thoughtful review of the latest Fruits Basket (Tokyopop). If you’re not a Furuba fan, you’ll also find reviews of Mao-Chan (Del Rey), a new sci-fi comedy from the creator of Negima!, and Hanky Panky (Aurora/Deux), a steamy one-shot about… well, hanky panky.
Fruits Basket, Vol. 21
By Natsuki Takaya
Tokyopop, 196 pp.
Rating: Teen (13+)
With only two volumes yet to go, the English language release of Fruits Basket is nearing its close, and as the story races forward, emotions run high all around. At the end of volume 20, Tohru attempted to confess her love to Kyo, but was cut off by Kyo’s stunning confession that he felt responsible for the death of her mother. She finally gets to voice her feelings in the opening chapter of this volume, but not before Kyo finishes his own painful story, ultimately leaving her in tears. Things continue to go horribly wrong, leading to an ugly confrontation between Akito and Tohru, and another later between Yuki and Kyo.
If you’re like me, you’ll need a box of tissues handy to make it through the first few chapters, in which even a raving, knife-wielding Akito manages to somehow evoke sympathy. The most touching scene, though, may be in the final chapter when after all the noisy drama of the rest of the volume, Yuki finds a cozy resting spot on his own personal journey with quiet student council secretary Machi.
Mangaka Natsuki Takaya’s practice of using only the most subtle visual cues (if any) to indicate who is speaking can be irritating, but in this case, forcing the reader to deliberate carefully over each fragment of text only encourages a deeper read, allowing for greater absorption of this volume’s intense emotional content. Each panel is rich with complex history and feeling between characters, presented in the deceptively simple manner that characterizes this series overall. As always, much of Takaya’s ability to make palatable the selfishness and cruelty her characters often display can be credited to the refreshingly genuine quality of her protagonist. Few of us can claim to see the world through eyes as open, joyful, and compassionate as Tohru Honda’s, but the great appeal of Fruits Basket is in that it manages to make us believe we can, at least for an hour or so.
Volume 21 of Fruits Basket is available now.
Hanky Panky
By Koreaki Kamuro
Deux Press, 176 pp.
Rating: Mature (18+)
Koreaki Kamuro’s Hanky Panky is a collection of short boys’ love stories, each with the sole purpose of putting good-looking characters in bed with each other. The scenarios created to get them there run from unmemorable to unbelievable. In the first story, for which the volume is named, nerdy college student Manaka runs a host club after hours, and finds himself in a predicament when one of his classmates, Doi, applies for a job as a host. In this case, the plot relies entirely on the reader’s ability to believe that Doi does not recognize Manaka at the club only because Manaka isn’t wearing his glasses. Sorry, but this really only works for Superman.
Other scenarios include a man who runs into the soccer coach he crushed on in his youth, and a romance at an employment agency (entitled, “One Sweet Position”). There are a few touching moments between characters here and there, but overall, things like plot and character development are shunted aside in the rush toward the stories’ true objective: sex.
Even the sex, however, is not particularly well-written or well-
drawn. The sex scenes are all short and very similar. The art, which
is serviceable at best throughout the volume, becomes downright vague during these scenes, and in some of the panels that depict only pieces of the characters’ anatomy, it can be difficult to tell for
sure what’s going on. On the upside, all the sex is consensual, and
the relationships portrayed are mostly healthy and often loving.
The character designs are generally as unremarkable as the stories themselves. All the men are pretty, but generic, and though the stories are completely unrelated to each other, the characters are drawn so much alike, at first it is difficult to tell.
Ultimately, though Hanky Panky fails both as fiction and as pornography, it is too bland to be offensive on either count.
Hanky Panky is available now.
Mao-Chan, Vol. 1
Story by Ken Akamatsu, Art by Ran
Del Rey, 396 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
What do you do when you’re confronted with an enemy so cute that the public opposes all attempts to subdue it? That’s the question bedeviling the Japanese military in the opening pages of Mao-Chan, when a super-kawaii race of aliens begin attacking prominent Tokyo landmarks. Military senior brass hit on a novel strategy for responding to the crisis, deputizing a trio of eight-year-old girls to run the army, navy, and air force. (In other words, fighting cute with cute.) Of course, grade schoolers aren’t the most reliable soldiers, as they get easily distracted by yummy snacks, furry animals, and petty rivalries, so the military appoints a slightly older, calmer person to supervise and direct them on the battlefield.
Sounds like a great set-up for a comedy, no? Alas, Ken Akamatsu can’t decide if he’s writing satire or moe fodder, often tacking between the two poles in the same scene. Akamatsu elicits some genuine laughs with his commentary on the Japanese obsession with all things kawaii; in one chapter, for example, enterprising merchandisers develop a line of plush toys based on the aliens. (And why not? The aliens resemble stuffed animals: cats, dolphins, hamsters…) At the same time, however, Mao-Chan abounds in images of adorable young girls wearing bathing suits, gym clothes, and uniforms with napkin-sized skirts, images that may strike some readers as totally innocent and others as kind of creepy. (I’m not sure I want to know where Mao-Chan was originally serialized…)
Maybe the super-cute aliens are clouding my judgment, but I’m not quite ready to give up on Mao-Chan. I think the series has the potential to be quite funny, especially if Akamatsu focuses more on the kids-vs-aliens combat and less on the moe-inducing moments.
Volume one of Mao-Chan is available now.
–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey
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