We’ve got four titles on our agenda this week. Ken enjoys the sixth volume of Black God (Yen Press); Chloe tackles two volumes of soapy manhwa Chocolat (Yen Press); Connie sings the praises of volume nine of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse); and Michelle employs a bevy of uncomplimentary adjectives to describe volume one of The Loudest Whisper: Uwasa no Futari (BLU Manga).
Story by Dall-Young Lim, Art by Sung-Woo Park
Yen Press, 208 pp
Rating: Older Teen
The events that lead up the current troubles are at last revealed as we get a glimpse at Kuro’s life prior to her arrival on Earth. Meanwhile Steiner and Excel clash with the duo who just might be behind everything.
I’m running out of ways to praise this series. While I haven’t been reading it from the beginning, what I have read has been a consistently good and enjoyable read and this volume is no different. Half the volume is given over to detailing the events of Kuro’s life prior to the start of the series and offers us a glimpse into the world of the mototsumitama as well as the motivations of one of the major villains, Kuro’s older brother Reishi. Sadly, these motivations are a bit formulaic but the surprising relish and playfulness he displays later in the book would seem to hint at possibly darker underlying motives.
The artwork is as lovely as ever with the detailed artwork and backgrounds being complimented by smart and thoughtful usage of toning. The action sequence between Steiner, Excel and Reishi that dominates the second half of the book is clear and easy to follow without sacrificing any of the excitement that one would expect from a clash which virtually levels the top of an office building.
If all of the above wasn’t enough, we also get a side story focusing on Akina’s relationship with Keita set before the events of the series. Personally I wasn’t too keen on it–feels too much like a teen fantasy–but I suppose it does help elaborate on things a bit more.
All in all Black God continues to be a pleasant surprise and an enjoyable action adventure series, despite Kuro’s insistence on referring to herself in the third person.
Volume six of Black God is available now.
–Reviewed by Ken Haley
By Ji-Sang Shin & Geo
Yen Press, 192 pp.
Rating: 13+
Why bother with the love triangles when you can have polygons? Chocolat’s tangled romantic web is a straightforward exercise in missed signals, poor communication and emotionally dense teenagers with a side of star power for good measure. The “two boys, one girl” structure is as old as the hills, and the addition of two diametrically opposite personalities (icy and sunny) only heightens the sense that Chocolat is slim pickin’s when it comes to original material. Lanky yet competent art and the usual slightly spunky, decidedly average heroine round out the genre staples and will make for a familiar read for many.
Mediocrity aside, the celebrity aspect of Chocolat inadvertently functions as a bizarrely fascinating look at decidedly Asia-only fan behaviors, from overblown BBS postings to obsessively devoted fan squads (of which the heroine is a member, even.) This is the classic star-oriented manga from the flipside, with a hefty dose of fan’s eye view in place of the usual “climbing the celebrity ladder” protagonist. Fans who take their manga soapy will delight in the ensemble of boys with designs on the protagonist, and the inevitable romantic tension that ensues. (More grounded readers may find it a tad much for their tastes.) It’s a shame Yen seems to have put the series on hiatus—with its cliffhanger end, the seventh volume is sure to leave fans of the series scrabbling for more and facing an unpleasant surprise.
Volumes six and seven of Chocolat are available now.
–Reviewed by Chloe Ferguson
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 9
Story By Eiji Otsuka, Art By Housui Yamazaki
Dark Horse, 220 pp.
Rating: 18+
This volume covers a wide range of shorter stories, from an obnoxious pop idol being stalked by dolls cursed by a dead man, to the story of a man who developed a fiberoptic invisibility suit in order to peep in the women’s bathroom, to a story rooted in World War II about a group of children and a man with the ability to “hear” the future and how the ability is used in the modern day and from beyond the grave, and one final story about the tragic childhoods of Yata and Makino.
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is one of my absolute favorite current series, and this volume is a good example of why. The series mixes humor, horror, and a vast array of supernatural topics in oneshot cases that always manage to be entertaining. This volume covers serious-minded historical and political topics as well as the dead man whose last request is to prop him up on a top shelf in the ladies’ changing room. The latter manages to be less pervy than it sounds since this man also develops a perfect invisibility suit that he refuses to share with others since it would inevitably be applied in military strategy/evil rather than the fun/peeping that he had in mind.
This volume is also less character-focused than the others, aside from the last chapter. Usually there is at least one long, character-driven story, but this volume seems to have opted more for variety, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The Yata and Makino chapter was probably my favorite, though, since Yata’s explanation of where Kereellis, his hand puppet, comes from originally (before it was inhabited by an alien), is heartbreaking. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little baffled as to why both Yata and Makino had similar gristly family histories, but I couldn’t help but like it.
It would be wrong of me not to mention the volume notes in the back, which are always the first thing I read. They are extensive, entertaining, funny, and insightful–the best you will find in any English-language manga.
Volume nine of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is available now.
–Reviewed by Connie C.
The Loudest Whisper: Uwasa no Futari, Vol. 1
By Temari Matsumoto
BLU Manga, 192 pp.
Rating: Mature
The Loudest Whisper tells the wholly unremarkable tale of school friends Aoyama and Akabane as they experiment with acting like a couple (since rumors at school pair them up anyway). There’s nothing distinctive about the characters or the plot, resulting in a shallow and unsatisfying read.
Only 67 pages of this volume are devoted to the main series; the other two-thirds is occupied by unrelated short stories, which are all either bland, ridiculous, or icky. The only one that starts out semi-promisingly—“Cure for the Common Crush,” involving a business man who makes regular nightly stops at a pharmacy—derails into inanity when he accidentally receives aphrodisiacs instead of cold medicine.
The real problem with The Loudest Whisper, though, is the ick factor. In two linked stories, “First Stroll” and “First Help,” there are some story elements that I find disturbing, including an apparently significant age difference between the lead characters. Even “Cure for the Common Crush,” which contains a line that implies the pharmacist uke may actually be older than the seme, exagerrates his diminutive frame to such an extent as to invite misinterpretation.
Let’s recap all the adjectives used to describe this book: unremarkable, shallow, unsatisfying, bland, ridiculous, icky, inane, and disturbing. Need I say more?
Volume one of The Loudest Whisper: Uwasa no Futari will be available on July 14, 2009.
–Reviewed by Michelle Smith
I don’t care about the age of the characters as long as they’re not grade schoolers or appear very young. ^^
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