Welcome to another installment of On the Shojo Beat! This month, Michelle starts us off with a look at volume ten of The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross and also weighs in on volume nineteen of Skip Beat!, a personal favorite. Next up, Jennifer Dunbar makes her PCS debut with a review of volume six of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time. Melinda rounds out the quartet with her take on the second volume of Rasetsu. Enjoy!

The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross, Vol. 10

By Arina Tanemura
VIZ, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

After resolving some convoluted-sounding subplots involving Haine’s family—featuring maternal amnesia, uncertain paternity, and mansions afire—The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross moves into the home stretch as Haine is pressed to finally choose between the identical twins with whom she is in love. Alas, just when she finally grasps the idea that the nice twin (Takanari) is probably a better choice than the scheming git (Shizumasa), he’s captured by his brother’s minions and imprisoned. Like any self-respecting shojo heroine, Haine vows to rescue him.

Being the penultimate volume of the series, volume ten offers a variety of dramatic moments and revelations, including arranged marriages, envelopes with surprising contents, and a tale of childhood betrayal that explains the current animosity between the twins. My favorite, though, is the surprise leukemia.

The end product of all these dire events tumbling one atop the other can be described as little else than a mess, and I was much more compelled to snicker at the ridiculous developments than sympathize with anyone involved. Still, I was pretty impressed by how easy it was to jump in and follow the story at this point and ended up liking Takanari, too, though I must question his taste in girls.

Volume ten of The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Vol. 6

By Tohko Mizuno
VIZ, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

The sixth volume of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time opens with flurries of activity around the court: major general Tachibana no Tomomasa has been missing for four days, and only now have the main characters begun to show much concern. After discussion and frantic running about, Akane is taken to the entwined Tree of Wisdom by Yasuaki, who as a sorceror has the power to speak to trees. What follows is a flashback of convenient plot device, twisting in aspects of Ran’s continued bitterness at her inability to perform as Priestess of the Dragon God and her jealousy of Akane. All of this culminates in Ran manipulating Tomomasa to visit a haunted cherry tree, where he spends five days, bound to the tree and enduring continual marriage proposals from a female ghost until Inori frees him.

Once everything is tied up, we get some character development for Shimon, finding out among other things that he’s one-quarter French, which obviously explains why he has blond hair and blue eyes. I don’t think genetics works that way. Then the volume inexplicably jumps a hundred years, discarding the entire cast and bringing in the characters from the second game. As if this isn’t bad enough, we end with some tiresome omake involving Akane as a kindergarten teacher and the eight guardians (plus Ran) as her unruly students.

As shojo fantasies go, Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time peaks at mediocre. The characters are dull, the plotlines cliché, and while the art is quite nice, it’s not good enough to overcome the series’ weaknesses.

Volume six of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time will be available on November 3, 2009.

–Reviewed by Jennifer Dunbar

Rasetsu, Vol. 2

By Chika Shiomi
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: T+ (Older Teen)

Marked by a demon as a young teen, tough eighteen-year-old Rasetsu Hyuga has two years left of her life before the demon claims her as his own, unless she is able to meet her own true love before her time is up. She is also a gifted exorcist who was taken in and nurtured by the head of the Hiichiro Amakawa Agency (a man referred to mainly as “Chief”), a company that offers exorcisms for a fee. Rasetsu is joined in her work by Kuryu, a master of koto dama, the power of words, and eventually by Yako, a former librarian with his own spiritual powers who was manipulated into joining the agency in the first volume. In volume two, Rasetsu’s terror of her fate shines through in a rare moment of vulnerability, prompting Yako to promise to be there for her on the fated day. Later, Kuryu plays around with his ability in an unusually insensitive way while also unintentionally revealing to Yako that he is much more powerful than he pretends to be.

Though the premise of this series is fairly unoriginal and its character development even less so, there is a certain comfort to watching its familiar scenarios play out that lends a particular charm and with the first volume’s exposition out of the way, Rasetsu is able to relax right into the task. It seems obvious that Yako is intended to be Rasetsu’s “true love” (Rasetsu even resembles his first love, guardian spirit Yurara from the series of the same name) and there are traces of this emerging already in volume two, at least on Rasetsu’s side. Kuryu, with his harmless, puppy-dog front hiding a potentially sinister power, is reminiscent of Tokyo Babylon’s murderous veterinarian, Seishiro, casting a suspicious light on him immediately, especially after this volume in which he accidentally shows his hand. The series’ other characters, mysterious chief Hiichiro and cheerful office boy Aoi, are shojo staples as well, but quite fun and appealingly rendered, skipping off to enjoy rides at an amusement park while everyone else is working.

Fans of supernatural romance may not find anything new in Rasetsu, but tried-and-true formulas are alive, well, and downright agreeable here in its second volume.

Volume two of Rasetsu is available now.

–Reviewed by Melinda Beasi

Skip Beat!, Vol. 19

By Yoshiki Nakamura
VIZ, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen

The famous Japanese native turned Hollywood actor, Koo Hizuri, is in town and Kyoko has been assigned to wait on him throughout his stay. He’d originally planned to treat her cruelly in order to elicit a rise from Ren, but can’t fight the temptation to polish the “uncut diamond” of Kyoko’s talent. As a result, he ends up giving her an assignment—create and enact the role of his son, Kuon—and develops a paternal bond with her while helping her to discover her main weakness.

Readers are aware that Kuon is actually Ren, and when Ren runs into Kyoko-as-Kuon, it’s not long before he requests a meeting with the father he hasn’t spoken to in five years to demand an explanation. Ren’s past has been a mystery throughout the series, and it’s a delight to finally get more details. We come to understand Ren better, past and present, and though there’s clearly more yet to be disclosed, what we get here is still satisfying.

Lastly, I appreciate that Koo isn’t portrayed as a self-aggrandizing stereotype but is actually kind and likable. He joins Lory, the president of the talent agency, and Sawara, Kyoko’s manager, in the roster of fun middle-aged men in the cast. That’s just one of the many quirks that make Skip Beat! so unique and worth reading!

Volume nineteen of Skip Beat! is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith