March Manga Madness Reviews

Dramacon, Vol. 2

By Svetlana Chmakova
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: 13+

In the days since I reviewed Dramacon volume one, it’s won awards and been touted as the one good OEL title from Tokyopop that’s on the market. I’m not saying it isn’t, but I am still looking forward to Chmakova’s next series, one which will hopefully not be a self-referential tale about fandom. It will also be fun to read something from Yen Press.

Dramacon 2 is a compelling read, but at times it comes off more like an internet forum discussion than an actual volume of manga. At one point, all action in the narrative stops for a 12-year-old boy to start shouting about what is and isn’t manga, because:

“…because she’s not Japanese! Manga is a Japanese art form!”

The discussion that follows has taken place all over the internet, and in Artist’s Alley at American conventions for years. I can totally imagine Chmakova having to defend her art over and over again on her book tour for volume one.

Even though it’s totally appropriate and necessary to have this discussion, and the context of the Dramacon story is a good frame to discuss it in, the story grinds to a halt while we sit here and discuss it. Chmakova covers the scene very well, but as a reader I’m taken completely out of the story and jarred back to reality. I’m no longer enjoying a comic book - I’m back to reading a lengthy internet discussion about anime/manga fandom.

The bulk of the story is about protagonists Christie and Matt’s relationship. They live on opposite sides of the country and haven’t seen each other since last year’s con. Matt has a new girlfriend who is not Christie. Christie is predictably upset by this. In the meantime Christie has a new artist for her comics, Bethany. Bethany is a great artist, but she’s in a pre-med major in college because there’s no way that her mother would let her become a starving artist.

Bethany’s story is one that needs to be told, and Dramacon is the right forum to tell it in. However, once again, I am taken totally out of the narrative as veteran “manga” artists and editors give Bethany career advice.

I suppose I enjoy Genshiken more than Dramacon because although Genshiken is about fandom, it’s about a foreign fandom that I am not actually a part of. I live American anime fandom every day, and I didn’t learn anything new or exotic about it by reading Dramacon. The exciting part about Genshiken is the fannish part, but the exiting party about Dramacon is the actual drama.

Flower of Life, Vol. 1

By Fumi Yoshinaga
DMP, 200 pp.
Rating: 16+

Goddamnit this is a charming and likable title! Where’s my thesaurus?!

Flower of Life is an inexplicable, yet extremely charming new title by Fumi Yoshinaga, author of Antique Bakery. Because it’s a DMP title, I assumed at first it might be yaoi, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is not. Well, at least it wasn’t in this volume.

Protagonist Harutaro has started high school one month late after a bout with cancer. He joins the manga club at school, which consist of adorable pudgy Shota, whom Harutaro likes (as a friend), and grating otaku Majima, whom Harutaro doesn’t like, but is willing to put up with in order to hang out with Shota. The story is dominated in the second half when Shota sleeps over at Harutaro’s house and meets his family. I want to say his “wacky” or “off-beat” family, but those are cliche descriptions - Harutaro’s family is unusual, original, and likeable, just like Flower of Life. They deserve to be described in non-cliched terms.

Majima’s otaku hobbies and the manga club activities take up a good portion of the book, but otakudom isn’t exactly celebrated as it is in Genshiken. The otaku portions of the book are more like a nod to the otaku world, and Majima is annoying nerd in a realistic way. I can identify very strongly with Harutaro’s reluctant tolerance of Majima. I have had many friendships with people who’s friends that I did not like.

The highlight of the book is Harutaro’s parents’ unusual occupations. I don’t want to spoil it for me, but I will say that his parents’ jobs are so funny that I closed the book and laughed for several minutes, and made Noah read the last chapter as well.

I’m not sure what the point of Flower of Life is. I can’t figure out what demographic should be reading it. Girls? Boys? Both? Do boys want to read a book with the word “Flower” in the title?* Flower of Life is just so charming and likable that I’d recommend it to everyone. It’s difficult to categorize or describe. It doesn’t fall into in hard and fast genre like most manga. This is a charming, comedic story, with dramatic bits. I’m not sure where Yoshinaga is going with this. Antique Bakery was also somewhat hard to define in terms of genre. It wasn’t really a food title, especially by volume four. It is just as difficult to predict where Flower of Life is going.

If I wasn’t convinced by Antique Bakery, then Flower of Life has sealed the deal. I am now a Fumi Yoshinaga fan, and I look forward to reading more of her work. I’m also looking forward to watching the Antique Bakery live action drama after I post this review.

* Perhaps guys would enjoy reading a book called “Flower of Death,” but would they still read it if the cover featured two cute guys and a bunch of sunflowers?

High School Girls, Vol. 7

By Towa Ohshima
DrMaster, 208 pp.
Rating: Mature

High School Girls returns, with a re-designed cover, four color pages in the front, and cover flaps. It now resembles something from a Japanese publisher. This is a 100% improvement from the previously gaudy American covers.

Normally I wouldn’t waste my time on reviewing volume seven of anything. No new reader is going to pick up a series in the middle. However, High School Girls might be the exception. The story itself changed magazines in Japan at the opening of volume seven, and the characters are re-introduced at the beginning of this book. If you’ve never read High School Girls before, you could start with volume seven and still be OK.

For long-time readers of High School Girls (are there any besides myself, my boyfriend, Ed Chavez, and that Irish podcaster whom I convinced to read this?) volume seven gives us more of the same: The Moron Group continues to try to make themselves more attractive to guys in misguided ways; Eriko thinks she’s getting dumber; Kouda tries on insanely ridiculous bathing suits; The Moron Group faces a possible break-up, and the school trip to Okinawa begins, wherein Eriko and Kouda are mortified with embarrassment before they even step off the plane.

The highlight of the book is definitely Himeji’s story. A TV show she’s watching announces:

“Here’s a test for your man to see how much he loves you! Try telling your boyfriend you’re pregnant. By his response, you can tell his love percentage. If he says ‘Let’s have it!’ that’s 100%. If he says ‘Let’s abort it!’…then, too bad, it’s 50%.”

Himeji calls up her boyfriend to give him the test. His response:

“Huh!? Who’s is it?”

…earns him 0%, and Himeji breaks up with him. (She also smashes her television in the process.

High School Girls is one of my “Trust me, read this!” titles, with the reservation that it is for mature readers. The anime, recently licensed by Media Blasters, is not great, but it probably will be enjoyable to fans of the manga. My boyfriend and I find both the anime and the manga absolutely hilarious.

Key Princess Story: Eternal Alice Rondo, Col. 1

By Kaishaku
DrMaster, 192 pp.
Rating: 15+

Wow, this wasn’t a story “for” me. I knew I was in trouble from the second scene, which contained lines like:

“Brother! You’ll take a bath with me!”
“I can feel her breasts on me.” Sound effect: Press
“Let’s wash each other’s backs next. We’re just a brother a sister all alone.”

It took a lot of willpower to keep reading after those first 10 pages.

Besides implied moe incest, Eternal Alice Rondo is also the story of magical pointy-breasted bunny girls. When protagonist Aruto Kirihara isn’t being sexually harassed by his orphaned sister in the bathtub, he’s reading the “Alice” books, which are not Alice in Wonderland at all (in the manga, in the anime version apparently it is Lewis Caroll’s book). Not unlike the anime series Gakuen Alice, everyone’s internal magic power is referred to as his or her “Alice”. Kirihara meets several girls who have the ability to magically transform into large-breasted bunny girls for the purposes of battle. As is typical in some magical girl stories, at least one character has the ability to magically transform from a pre-adolescent into a sexually mature female.

There’s also some nonsense about finding the lost third book in the Alice series by unlocking the story in people’s hearts - pages literally fly out of the characters’ chests… and it probably kills them. For being essentially soft-core pornography, Eternal Alice Rondo has a complicated magic system, strict combat rules, and a plot with intricate details that I couldn’t really force myself to care about.

It’s rated “Ages 15+”, whereas High School Girls (another DrMaster title) is rated “Mature”. There is way more nudity in Eternal Alice Rondo.

One might want to find out what Ed Chavez or Jack of the MangaCast thought of this title. Jack really enjoyed Pastel, which I hated, and Ed is more of an otaku. Unfortunately Eternal Alice Rondo is strictly for a male audience, so I couldn’t appreciate it. There is also a 13 episode anime series which aired in 2006 - but I won’t be watching it anytime soon.

Ohikkoshi

By Hiroaki Samura
Dark Horse, 248 pp.
Rating: 16+

Fans of Blade of the Immortal won’t want to miss this upbeat collection of funny short stories also by Hiroaki Samura. If you’ve never read Blade of the Immortal, your experience reading Ohikkoshi
will be entirely different.

Ohikkoshi is a collection of short stories which feature a lot of Blade of the Immortal character designs, except, unlike Blade of the Immortal, a gruesome and bloody revenge tale set during the mid-Tokugawa era, the stories in Ohikkoshi are light hearted romantic comedies set in modern day Japan. It’s bizarre to see Manji, the immortal tough guy now cast as a lovesick college student. It’s as if Christopher Walken starred as the romantic lead in one of his earlier, funnier, films.

Some of the stories in Ohikkoshi are so realistic and true-to-life that it raises a lot of questions about the author. Are the tales in Ohikkoshi true stories about Samura’s college friends? Are the characters in Blade of the Immortal modeled on his college friends? If so, I hope my friends eventually draw me into their manga as a blind, dual-blade wielding assassin!

Even if you’ve never read Blade of the Immortal, you should still check out Ohikkoshi. Samura’s art style sets a great example to show your friends that not all manga is about girls with giant eyes and small chins. The stories are very funny and appealing and the art is fantastic. It’s only one volume long. Can you really ask for more from a comic?

The only jarring thing about Ohikkoshi is the length of the stories. Some are only two pages, while others take up a third of the book. That’s my only complaint. This is a worthwhile addition to anyone’s library, and a good title to loan to non-manga reading friends.

Princess Princess, Vols. 1-2

By Mikoyo Tsuda
Published by DMP
Rating: 13+

Not to be confused with Princess Prince or Real/Fake Princess, DMP’s Princess Princess is a bizarre title. Don’t let it fool you - even though the word “princess” is in the title twice, and it’s put out by DMP who’s line-up is 90% yaoi, and just because there’s a cute guy on the cover, all that doesn’t mean that Princess Princess is just for girls. In fact, despite the cute guys and cross-dressing and frilly gothic lolita costumes, Princess Princess is aimed at both genders. Tsuda explains in the author’s note that this started off as a boy’s love title, and then she dropped the boy’s love aspects.

There is an anime series of Princess Princess that was recently acquired by Media Blasters. I tried watching the first three episodes, but the production values were too low, even for my lax standards. The manga held my interest a little bit longer, but I really had to force myself to focus to finish volume two. A ten episode live-action drama series aired in 2006 - I’m much more interested in that, as many j-dramas based on manga that I’ve seen were extremely charming. I particularly enjoyed the drama series of Hana Yori Dango, Nodame Cantabile, Hana Yori Dango and Densha Otoko.

Princess Princess is the story of Kouno, a transfer student to an elite all-boys school, who learns that by dressing like a princess he can get free food and tuition. Two other boys in the school, both freshmen, are also chosen to dress as princesses. They live in a special dorm and are treated like celebrities in school. These “princesses” attend sports practices and games, and their presence boosts moral enough to make the school’s teams win.

And yet somehow, it’s not gay.

Everyone I’ve talked to about this title, including guys, have a hard time accepting the premise. It’s difficult to believe that just because it’s all-boys school, it’s a moral booster to have cross-dressers around… and that they’re like idols within the school. Not that most manga have believable, realistic, premises…

The other problem with the story is that one of the princesses, Mikoto, is unbearably annoying. Mikoto is freaked out about dressing like a chick, which is totally appropriate and believable - however, it makes his character incredibly grating. The author even admits in the back that she created Mikoto for another story and re-used him here. No wonder his characterization is weak! Fortunately Mikoto leaves for vacation in volume two and the story shifts to focus on Shihoudani and Kouno’s friendship. (Their totally heterosexual and normal friendship.)

I really like the way Tsuda draws eyes, but overall, the characters could stand to be cuter. It’s amazing that for an outrageous premise, nothing else in the story goes far enough. For a comedy, it’s not funny enough. For drama, it’s not dramatic enough. For a story about hot guys, the guys are not hot enough. The costumes designs are not outrageous or memorable enough. The characters’ back-stories are not really tragic enough. Princess Princess fails to go far enough in any one direction and sinks into a sea of mediocrity.

Furthermore, it’s pretty light on the backgrounds, and sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s speaking. That’s why I’m looking forward to watching the live-action drama of the title. Hot guys on actual backgrounds!