Demons who snack on dreams… vampires who suffer from split personalities… cougars who run major corporations. These are just a few of the characters you’ll encounter in this month’s column, as Chloe Ferguson and I post a fresh crop of shojo and seinen reviews that includes volume two of Metro Survive (DrMaster), volume two of Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun (Viz), volume one of Red Angel (DMP), volume one of Two Flowers for the Dragon (CMX), and volume one of Ultimate Venus (Go! Comi).

Metro Survive, Vol. 2

By Yuki Fujisawa
DrMaster, 208 pp.
Rating: 15+

The second volume of this balls-to-the-wall disaster drama pits Mishima and his ragtag band of fellow survivors against a posse of club kids and wrestlers under the spell of two pimp-tastic host club owners. (One sports a fur that would be the envy of Joe Namath, the other a white suit pilfered from the Superfly prop trailer. Both look freshly pressed, despite the rivers of gasoline, sewage, and blood flooding the basement levels of Exopolis.) Artist Yuki Fujisawa doesn’t waste a panel as he steadily escalates the conflict to a point of almost unbearable tension. Though he attempts a few curveballs, the basic plot is fairly predictable, with expendables meeting gruesome ends while principals take turns demonstrating hidden reserves of selflessness and courage. Fujisawa wisely brings the story to a close at the end of volume two with a final act that will please—if not surprise—readers. As I noted in my review of volume one, the big drawback to Metro Survive is the art. Frankly, it’s ugly, with too many speedlines, too many muddy backgrounds, and too many characters drawn in a cartoonish manner. If you’re not a stickler for pretty pictures, however, you could do a lot worse than this brutally efficient two-volume thriller, which reads like a Quentin Tarantino remake of Earthquake.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun, Vol. 2

By Shin Mashiba
Viz, 184 pp.
Rating: 13+

Nightmare Inspector is an exceptionally good retread, filled with lush visuals. The premise—a tea house with a resident baku, or dream eater, that will attend to customers’ supernatural needs at a price—calls to mind obvious comparisons to xxxHolic, but the series’ artistic tone strikes a different note. Fans of the latter may identify similar story strengths and weaknesses with the former, namely in the dark, one-shot nature of each anecdote and the generally cynical take on human nature. The stories are small, deliciously well-done tales of human viciousness and supernatural personification, in which everyone from the dead to ordinary household objects may show up with a request. That said, Nightmare Inspector’s dogged adherence to single, thirty-page tales must ultimately diversify if the series wishes to sustain readers’ interest beyond a single volume.

Even if the plot setup doesn’t compel you to pick up a copy, the art alone should prove enticing. Striking an Art Nouveau balance between Far East and Victorian West, the swirling colors and dreamy screentones create an ambiguous world in which menace hides behind the fantastic. Manga-ka Shin Mashiba turns mediums and styles into key story elements, generally to impressive ends. A middle story in which charcoal drawings play a key role is one of most ingenious uses of art to further story seen in quite a long time. Nightmare Inspector’s formula may have been done before, but this stylish series still manages to prove its shelf-worthiness several times over.

–Reviewed by Chloe Ferguson

Red Angel, Vol. 1

By Makoto Tateno
DMP, 176 pp.
Rating: YA (Young Adult, 16+)

Mika and Eru are twin vampires with a most unusual arrangement: the two share a body, variously manifesting themselves as a comely girl (Mika) or an androgynously beautiful boy (Eru). The two use their good looks to lure victims into their web—or at least, that’s how the volume begins, with a story told from the perspective of one of their conquests. None of the subsequent chapters live up to the promise of the first, as manga-ka Makoto Tateno reduces Mika and Eru from agents of destruction to passive observers of other vampires’ tortured relationships. The final plot twist takes the cake for sheer absurdity, suggesting that Tateno should spend less time trawling New Age sites for angel lore and more time actually consulting a Bible for the low-down on Satan’s heavenly exile. Though some reviewers have praised the art, I found it paradoxically busy and plain, with too much attention lavished on costumes and hair and not enough on backgrounds, faces, or basic anatomy. (All of the characters have the kind of razor-sharp chins and beanstalk necks I associate with CLAMP’s debut work.) I give Tateno credit for trying to put her own stamp on the gothic vampire romance—her vamps have beautiful red wings, for example—but wish she’d spent more time developing Mika and Eru into genuine characters instead of allowing them to remain blood-sucking ciphers.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Two Flowers for the Dragon, Vol. 1

By Nari Kusakawa
CMX, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen

Shakuya, the plucky protagonist of Two Flowers for the Dragon, belongs to a powerful clan boasting both human and dragon bloodlines. As a child, her parents selected a fiancé for her. When he went AWOL, Shakuya cast her lot with a new suitor, only to have her original husband-to-be resurface with no memory of his past. You don’t need to be a folklorist to guess where this old-as-the-hills story is headed: Shakuya announces a contest to determine which of her two beaus will become her husband, using a pair of magical tattoos to gauge her feelings for each.

The plot mechanics are a little creaky, especially the contrast between Shakuya’s amnesiac fiancé—a dashing rogue with flowing locks and the kind of cocky demeanor that rankles and intrigues at the same time—and her new man—a Dudley Do-Right who can be as stiff as Al Gore on the 2000 campaign trail. The art, too, is so-so. Readers of The Recipe for Gertrude and The Palette of 12 Secret Colors will quickly discover that Nari Kusakawa has a limited repertoire of character designs in her arsenal. Yet Two Flowers of the Dragon leaves a fresh, vibrant impression. Part of the story’s appeal is attributable to Shakuya, who’s smarter and more self-possessed than most shojo heroines; one of the series’ running jokes is that she’s actually more powerful than either Lucien or Kuwan. (She can transform into a badass dragon, capable of smoking anyone in her path.) The series’ other great strength is the way Kusakawa uses slapstick and supernatural intrigue to reveal her characters’ true emotional states. Even a gambit as shameless as introducing two button-cute tiger cubs serves a genuine dramatic purpose, showing us how protective and solicitous Shakuya really is. The bottom line: Two Flowers for the Dragon surprises and delights, even when it follows shojo formula to the letter.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Ultimate Venus, Vol. 1

By Takako Shigematsu
Go! Comi, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Sometimes promotional copy can be misleading. After reading the back cover of Ultimate Venus, for example, I concluded that Takako Shigematsu had updated Pygmalion for the shojo set by making the Henry Higgins figure young and sexy, rather than fussy and middle-aged:

Poor Yuzu is an orphan who’s too clumsy to hold a job. She’s reduced to living in a playground—until a handsome stranger named Hassaku informs her that she’s the heir to a fortune, and whisks her into world of wealth, power, and more hot suitors than she can shake a scepter at! But there’s a catch: Hassaku must turn this klutz into a lady of refinement, or Yuzu will lose everything!

While the blurb is an accurate summary of the volume’s first thirty pages, the story takes an abrupt detour from the “Street Where You Live” to Knot’s Landing, as Yuzu discovers her extended family will stop at nothing to prevent her from inheriting her grandmother’s corporate empire. Hassaku morphs from etiquette coach to bodyguard, trailing Yuzu everywhere she goes to prevent an unscrupulous aunt or cousin from nabbing her. Making his task more difficult is Yuzu herself; earnest and naïve, she’s quick to judge and even quicker to fall in love, traits that guarantee she’ll need rescuing at the end of every chapter.

If the main story line is strictly paint-by-numbers, the subplot involving Yuzu’s grandmother is not. Shigematsu portrays her as a sexy business woman in her forties, the kind of sleek, powerful character that Barbara Stanwyck or Ellen Barkin was born to play. Throughout the volume, Shigematsu dangles the possibility that Hassaku and Yuzu’s grandmother have a more intimate bond than employee/employer—a pairing that’s supposed to make the target audience feel sympathy for Yuzu. For those of us entering cougar territory, however, the scenes with Yuzu’s grandmother are a blast of fresh air: funny, outrageous, and a potent reminder that confidence is much more sexy than fumbling, self-effacing naivete. If Shigematsu ever does a spin-off project featuring Yuzu’s grandmother, I’ll be the first to buy it.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Junk: Record of the Last Hero, Vols. 3-6

By Kia Asamiya
Published by DrMaster
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

What are we to make of Junk? Is it the story of a young man whose journey into adulthood is complicated by a device granting him great power? That appeared to be the case in Junk volumes one and two, but in volumes three through six, more super-humans and subsidiary characters are introduced, resulting in a muddled story. The next volume promises to either tie up some loose ends, or make readers ponder further why they continue picking up the series.

Summarizing volumes three through six: Ryoko, the secret crush of Junk’s main protagonist Hiro, gets kidnapped. He uses the Black Junk to rescue her, but not everything goes as planned. Afterward, Ryoko, who had been treated as an important part of writer/artist Kia Asamiya’s overall story, gets written out along with Mr. Tsujidou, the counselor Hiro’s parents hired. They are subsequently replaced by a hot-blooded blonde who beds Hiro immediately, and a cute high schooler named Ayo.

Other new characters include a female anchorwoman, two additional Junks, and a cult seeking the government’s overthrow. The cult’s scheme involves recruiting and brainwashing high school students, who will get their parents to join, leading to the adults’ recruitment and brainwashing. No, Mr. Evil Mastermind, there’s nothing wrong with your plan, because if the average teenager is anything, it’s communicative towards their parents.

The previous paragraph may sound like griping, but it illustrates my main problem with Junk: there seems to be a lot haphazardly tossed in and only half thought out, as if Asamiya were making up the story as he went along. To be fair, he apparently suffered an illness shortly after volume three, delaying volume four’s release and possibly allowing him time to rethink the plot. How else to explain the long stretches in which Hiro barely changes into the Black Junk, or the constant deus ex machinas moving the story along artificially?

For example, in volume four of Junk, Asamiya sets up a potentially-interesting scenario: Hiro, enraged after the media publishes dirt on his kidnapped girlfriend’s home life – specifically, his affair with Ryoko’s mother – wages a campaign of destruction against them as the Black Junk. It satisfies his sense of payback, but leads to Hiro being interrogated by police, who have been trying to crack the case of all the various Junks.

Instead of figuring out how Hiro could get himself out of this predicament, or actually having the cops arrest him for his crimes (now THAT would have been interesting), Asamiya introduces a new Black Junk, which immediately gives Hiro an alibi. In fact, an annoying trend of Junk is to bring in more super-humans whenever Asamiya paints himself into a corner. Volume four introduces the Red Junk, which is even more advanced than Black or White Junk, and worn by a psychopath who hires himself out as an assassin.

How to stop him? Will Black and White Junk team up, proving two version 2.0 Junks trump one version 3.0 model? Asamiya could have done that, but instead, he introduces the even more powerful Blue Junk to resolve matters. At this point, I’m junked out, but half-anticipating the Gold Junk, who can level Japan’s major cities with one punch.

On the bright side, the art keeps getting better with each successive volume, and Asamiya clearly knows how to entertain his male audience, providing many shots of attractive eyes, lips and legs, and well-endowed female forms viewed from flattering angles. Hiro probably shouldn’t be getting lucky as often as he does, and he, like the series, is starting to show fatigue from all the action.

Volumes three through six of Junk are available now.

Junk: Record of the Last Hero, Vols. 1-2

By Kia Asamiya
Published by Dr Master
Rating: Older Teen (15+)

As someone who reads superhero comics, I can find some value in Junk. The cover jacket says volume one is supposed to tell the main character’s origin, while volume two is where the main plot takes off. However, having read the first two volumes, as far as I can tell, the story of how the main character ends up as a vigilante hero with a powerful suit of armor remains ongoing – that is, if he indeed becomes a hero. As of volume three, he remains a mostly-obnoxious character whose moral compass has yet to be pointed in the right direction.

Hiro is your average teenage male, consumed by anger, resentment towards his parents, sexual urges and materialism. One day, Hiro receives a package in the mail, which resembles a cell phone, only it can be installed in his computer. After registering the device, called Junk, on the internet, he finds himself fitted with a fancy black suit, which grants him enhanced strength, agility, and other powers (and which resembles what the heroes in the latter episodes of Robotech wore).

Like Spiderman’s alter ego Peter Parker, Hiro initially decides to use Junk to live out power fantasies, such as getting revenge on bullies. On his first night with the suit, he also beats up some robbers, but one gets the impression he is joyriding as opposed to being fueled by the drive to do good.

There is inevitably some great tragedy, which Hiro may have unwittingly caused. Afterward, his life seemingly changed forever, he finds himself face-to-face with a woman wearing a white, but otherwise identical-looking Junk suit. This Junk, who appears to be a hero, wants to know if Hiro will use his newfound powers to become “a devil… or a god?”

The wit of Kia Asamiya’s Junk – which otherwise lives up to its name – is even after this pivotal moment, when Hiro should have realized that with great power comes great responsibility, he chooses not to follow the virtuous path. Instead, he tells the other Junk he’s going to be a devil, serving only himself. This means using the suit to terrorize whoever ticks him off. However, there is the faintest glimpse of redemption: helping protect a pop diva named Manami, whom Hiro is obsessed with, and whose public events tend to draw bomb threats.

Considering at least four more volumes of this series are out there, it’s too early to say if Hiro will end up a hero or a villain. But I don’t think it’s too early to say this series could have been executed better. The main problem is the art; Asamiya employs lots of different panel shapes and angles, but the result is storytelling that is hard to follow at times. There also seems to be lots of unnecessary word balloons, which is a shame since Asamiya’s renderings of people and backdrops are, on the whole, not bad. But they would pack more punch if given greater room to breathe.

On the bright side, the second volume ends with a decent twist, so I will keep reading to see where the story goes. Also, I find myself in awe of Asamiya’s pandering to the series’ male, fifteen-and-older target demographic: sleek metal suits; lots of stuff blowing up; gratuitous female nudity. There’s even a sexual scenario that flares up somewhere between the two volumes, which although unexpected, fits within the internal logic of this series.

Volumes one and two of Junk: Record of the Last Hero are available now.

SAN JOSE, CA – April, 2008 – DrMaster Publications proudly announces the production of the highly anticipated picture book by internationally acclaimed video game designer Yasushi Suzuki (a.k.a. – D-Suzuki), Goths Cage (previously titled Phantoms).

Goths Cage is an enchanting manga-esque picture book anthology of three short stories with a malicious twist of love and romance. It is based on Yasushi Suzuki’s art series that was previously released online in Japan under the name Phantoms KADAN. Suzuki-san re-adapts his art series and transforms it into a bewitching picture book with entrancing grace and charm. Each of his gothic tales is exquisitely crafted with elegant detailed illustrations that transport readers into an enchanted world of gothic glory.

In his first story, Glass Magic, Suzuki-san does a twisted take on the classic Cinderella tale. An ugly corpse-like servant girl wishes to fall in love with a prince and become a beautiful princess. Then a sinister old witch offers her a magic potion that can grant her heart’s desires, but in order for the magic to work she must abandon her soul. She gets rid of her memories, her face, and her master to become a cruelly beautiful glass princess.

In another of Suzuki’s splendidly dark tales, the shop keeper of an enchanted barbershop attends to his beautiful victim under the moonlight. He snips away at her thoughts and memories, mystically cutting away all her painful memories that scar her heart. However, because she is sapped of her thoughts and memories, all that is left is her pitiful empty body.

Prepare to be mesmerized by Yasushi Suzuki’s spine-chilling tales of love and entrancement this Fall 2008, because this enchanting collection of spellbinding illustrations and twisted tales is a must-have!

About the Creator:
Yasushi Suzuki is a world renowned video game conceptual designer and animator. His work on IKARUGA (Sega), Sin & Punishment (Nintendo), Radiant Silver Gun (Sega), and so many other games, mainly under the gaming development giant TREASURE GAMES, has earned him a following few other conceptual designers can match. He has also meticulously compiled a stunning cache of his own work history in an art book – The Art of Yasushi Suzuki, which showcases nearly 100 images, some of which were designed specifically for the collection, including art from the video games Ikaruga (Sega), and Sin & Punishment (Nintendo), as well as cover art from the Japanese language version of George R.R. Martin’s New York Times bestselling novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire.

Availability
Goths Cage will be available October 2008, and will be priced at $12.95. All 32 pages of the hardcover book will be printed in full-color.

About DrMaster Publications Inc.:
DrMaster Publications Inc. is a uniquely quirky publishing company that was started in 2004. Specializing in bringing interesting graphic novels from Japan and China, across the Pacific for American audiences, DrMaster Publications offers a myriad of titles to cater to its various niche readers. The company is what some may call a boutique publisher, which tailors each its titles to suit every reader’s unique desires. Ranging from side-splitting comedies and heart-wrenching dramas to explosive action adventures and enchanting fantasies, DrMaster books provide a glimpse into a new realm as seen through the eyes of the authors and artists. You don’t just read a DrMaster book-it jolts you to life, as you are propelled through the pages.

Please visit www.drmasterbooks.com for information on our current and upcoming titles. And feel free to tour the site. Regular updates will follow as our line of “masterful” comic series expands.

About DGN Productions International:
DGN Productions (Digital Graphic Novel Productions) is a newly-formed production company and studio made up of industry veterans within the comics and video game industries. Through strategic licensing of key comic book titles and the use of recognized industry professionals within the fields of animation and video game development, DGN Pro. Intl. is dedicated to producing cutting-edge video games, comics and animated features adapted from some the biggest and brightest in Hong Kong, Japanese and Korean comic book properties. DGN Productions Intl. was founded June 2004 and is based in Fremont, California.

Purgatory Kabuki, Vol. 1

By Yasushi Suzuki
DrMaster, 144 pages
Rating: 15 +

Imanoturugi is a dead samurai who roams the after life, in particular the Great Gojou Bridge, killing other dead warriors and taking their swords. After collecting 100 swords he encounters a headless ogre who, upon being slain, releases a tenma (Devil King/Heavenly Devil) from its corpse. The tenma makes Imanoturugi a deal: collect 1000 swords and help it return to heaven in exchange for a new body superior to his old one. The deal is struck and the two set about… killing dead people and demons.

Purgatory Kabuki–what to say about this book? It’s confusing, for one thing. The dialogue is sparse and the action is fast and frantic and virtually non-stop. Why does Imanoturugi want to collect 100 swords in the first place? Why is this tenma hiding in an ogre’s body? No idea. Maybe those questions will be answered later on in the series but honestly, I’m not holding my breath. The writing sits there like a lump–a barely noticeable lump, since there’s barely any kind of coherent story to tie together the muddled action sequences, just brief lines of dialogue or captions explaining that the gate is guarded by eight demons, or that below the bridge is Naraku. But exactly what any of this means or signifies or why we should care are never explained. (Some cultural notes would have been useful.) At times, this “throw them in head first” approach can work, but there still needs to be an interesting story and a likeable character. Imanoturugi is a blank slate. He’s a warrior that’s collecting swords. The end.

Art-wise, Kabuki Purgatory is a really tough nut to crack. At times the artwork looks fantastic with amazing amount of detail, delicate line work, interesting designs, and shots. These stand-out images were interspersed with panels that are almost completely indecipherable, with squiggles, tons of toning blotting out what’s happening on the page, and weird lines that might be speed lines. The setting, the bridge, isn’t really depicted and things seem to happen in a void of gray tone or empty space. Suzuki’s artwork definitely feels more suited to pin-ups, covers, posters and the like, rather than a piece of sequential art. It’s a shame that the book is so inconsistent, because the first few pages have some nice shots of Imanoturugi looking cool as hell with swords floating around him. Just about everything afterwards becomes a muddled, indecipherable mess.

When it comes right down to it, Purgatory Kabuki feels like a collection of interesting or cool ideas that were tossed together without a whole lot of thought given to story or plot. The few beautiful moments within the artwork are all that’s saving this from being a complete waste of time and money. Then again, there’s apparently an Yasushi Suzuki art book out, so you could get your fill of his lovely art and save yourself the pain of trying to make sense of Purgatory Kabuki.

Volume one of Purgatory Kabuki is available now.

For those of us who aren’t breathlessly anticipating the nineteenth volume of Fruits Basket—and I count myself among that tiny number—there are a few choice titles competing for space in your LCS’s new arrival rack. My top pick: volume twelve of Phoenix (Viz). Written shortly after he completed Princess Knight, these early Phoenix stories have a kinder, gentler feel than the rest of the series, betraying a strong Disney influence in both the character designs and the characters themselves; the heroine boasts a posse of talking animals reminiscent of Cinderella’s own rat pack. Other noteworthy arrivals include the final volume of ES: Eternal Sabbath (Del Rey), a psychological thriller in the truest sense; volume ten of Moonchild (CMX), a vintage shojo title with enough gender-bending weirdness for three Moto Hagio manga; volume four of My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey), a comedy best described as a mash-up of The Bad News Bears and Ouran High School Host Club; and volume two of With the Light (Yen Press), a josei series documenting one family’s struggle to raise their autistic son.

In the review queue this week are volume one of Metro Survive (DrMaster), yet another tale from the Tokyo subway system, and the final volume of Phoenix. For additional perspective on Phoenix, I encourage you to visit MangaCast, where PCS reviewer and Ninja Consultant Erin F. has posted her ten cents on volume twelve.

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:
Alice on Deadlines, Vol. 2 (Yen Press)
Blood Alone, Vol. 4 (Infinity Studios)
Case Closed, Vol. 22 (Viz)
ES: Eternal Sabbath, Vol. 8 (Del Rey)
Fruits Basket, Vol. 19 (Tokyopop)
Full Metal Alchemist, Vol. 16 (Viz)
Gacha Gacha: The Next Revolution, Vol. 6 (Del Rey)
Gakuen Alice, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Moon Child, Vol. 10 (CMX)
Musashi #9, Vol. 14 (CMX)
My Heavenly Hockey Club, Vol. 4 (Del Rey)
Ninin Ga Shinobuden, Vol. 3 (Infinity Studios)
Nodame Cantabile, Vol. 12 (Del Rey)
Phoenix, Vol. 12 (Viz; reviewed below)
Psycho Busters, Vol. 2 (Del Rey)
Suzuka, Vol. 7 (Del Rey)
Vagabond, Vol. 27 (Viz)
With the Light, Vol. 2 (Yen Press)
Young Magician, Vol. 11 (CMX)

Metro Survive, Vol. 1

By Yuki Fujisawa
DrMaster Publications, 206 pp.
Rating: 15+

Shogo Mishima works hard for the money—unfortunately, no one treats him right. His boss is a cigar-chomping slave driver, his wife is a harridan, and his clients are white-collar stiffs who blame him and his fellow maintenance men for the shoddy construction at Exopolis, the huge office tower/shopping complex where he works. While returning home from a grueling overtime assignment, a magnitude seven earthquake traps Mishima and nine other passengers in a subway car. Though they free themselves from the wreckage, they discover their escape routes have been cut off, trapping them in the bowels of the now-collapsed Exopolis. Mishima proves adept at surmounting a few early obstacles, but as the situation becomes dire—and the group stumbles across a more ruthless, mercenary band of survivors who have ensconced themselves in an underground convenience store—his leadership skills are sorely tested.

What I liked best about Metro Survive was its seventies disaster-movie vibe. In the proud tradition of Earthquake, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Towering Inferno (and, I’m assuming, dozens of similar Japanese flicks), manga-ka Yuki Fujisawa assembles a motley cast that includes yuppies, college students, club kids, salarymen, bouncers, and retirees. (And these are no ordinary retirees, I might add; they demonstrate uncommon strength and serious cajones in the face of adversity. Shelly Winters would be beaming her approval!) The conflicts that play out among them—like the conflicts that erupt among the Poseidon’s passengers or the inferno’s survivors—are meant to underscore A Big Thesis; in this case, Fujisawa is intent on revealing just how cutthroat and soulless a place Tokyo has become, a place where making a yen outweighs all other concerns. It’s not exactly a profound insight, but the class-based tension that fuels these exchanges adds an interesting dimension to a very familiar story.

The artwork is serviceable, if not elegant. Fujisawa creates a distinctive look for each character, lavishing considerable detail on body type, facial features, clothing, and posture. If anything, he relies too heavily on the art to convey personality, rendering the most repellent characters as sweaty, grotesque figures with comically exaggerated mouths and piggy little eyes; it’s as if he pinned small “kick me” signs to their shirts to remind the reader that our sympathies should lie with Mishima. Some of the text has been superimposed on heavily toned panels, making it hard to read; the thick, bold font only compounds the problem. My biggest complaint, however, is the book’s strange odor. I’d like to think this petroleum smell was a deliberate attempt to bring Odorama to the printed page, to help the reader experience the horror of being trapped in an underground parking garage or subway station, and not an accident of the printing process. Whatever the cause, I hope future volumes are a little less pungent, as this efficient, B-movie of a manga shows considerable promise.

Volume one of Metro Survive is available now.

Phoenix, Vol. 12: Early Works

By Osamu Tezuka
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Perhaps a better subtitle for volume twelve of Phoenix would be I Lost It At the Movies, as these four stories reveal just how passionately Osamu Tezuka loved American cinema. These early works date to the late 1950s, shortly after he completed work on Princess Knight. As Tezuka explained in a 1980 essay, watching “American big-screen spectacle movies such as Helen of Troy and Land of the Pharaohs… made me want to create a similar sort of romantic epic for young girls’ comics.” He continued:

When I had the opportunity to serialize Phoenix, I first thought of creating an epic involving European history, but then I came up with the idea of doing a grand romance in the style of American cinema. And this lead me to create the “Egypt-Greece” volume of Phoenix for girls. From the start, I was very conscious of the young female fans of my Princess Knight series, and that is the reason that this Phoenix is so different from the stories I drew in young boys’ comics and so much sweeter and more romantic.

Looking at this collection, the sword-and-sandal influence manifests itself in almost every aspect of Tezuka’s storytelling, from the costumes and settings to the grand pageants that unfold in almost every chapter. The principal characters declaim their thoughts in the manner of Charlton Heston or Kirk Douglas, uttering every line as if it were of Biblical consequence. What makes this 1950s Hollywood pomposity bearable—even charming—is the other major influence on these early Phoenix stories: Walt Disney. The character designs reveal an obvious debt to Disney’s earliest films (especially Snow White), while the supporting cast of talking critters (including the Phoenix herself) could easily belong to Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty’s entourage of animal friends. Tezuka even borrows one of Disney’s most time-honored tropes—the heroine with a singing voice so pure she can tame animals—and incorporates it into several scenes.

Anyone looking for the moral complexity of later Phoenix stories—especially the powerful, multi-volume Civil War and Sun—will be disappointed in these early tales, as Tezuka, like Disney, creates cartoonishly villainous villains and chastely noble heroes. If one approaches this collection in the spirit of, say, a musicologist flipping through Beethoven’s pre-Eroica manuscripts or a film historian reviewing an early Hitchcock thriller, however, the rewards are more palpable. In these early stories we see Tezuka developing his comedic chops with pop culture references and physical slapstick; we see him experimenting with layout, as he renders the battlefields of Troy and Rome in sweeping, full-page panels; and we see him creating his first cycle of interconnected stories, introducing some of the themes that will unify the most disparate elements of the Phoenix saga. In short, we see Tezuka’s first attempts to find his own voice as he pays tribute to the artists who influenced his own style, learning more about his exuberant, unique artistry in the process.

Volume twelve of Phoenix will be available on March 19th.

I had typed and discarded about a dozen different opening gambits for our year-end feature when Ken Haley sent me his “best of” list, complete with a snappy intro that put mine to shame. So I’m going to turn the floor over to Ken here to get our article off on the right foot:

It’s that time of the year again. The nights are long, the temperatures low, and the snow banks high. So clearly it must be time to roll out the year-end wrap ups, where we look back at 2007 and admire the bountiful new manga series that have grabbed our hearts, minds, throats and, with my penchant for horror series, torn them out in an overly elaborate two-page spread that would put Hiroaki Samura to shame.

Here are our votes for the best (and worst) manga of 2007.

Best Manga of 2007: Erin’s Picks

TEKKONKINKREET: BLACK AND WHITE (Taiyo Matsumoto, Viz)
Tekkonkinkreet’s artwork looks like an underground comic and its plot is like a Hollywood film. I knew I’d never be the same after watching A Clockwork Orange, and Tekkonkinkreet gave me the same feeling. I watched the Tekkon movie first, then researched director Michael Arias for an article - this is practically the only manga Arias has ever read, but it affected him so much he spent over ten years adapting a movie. I haven’t re-read much manga, but I know I’ll re-read Tekkon again and again. As soon as I put the book down I set out to collect everything else by Matsumoto.

Click here to read Erin’s review; click here to preview pages at the Overlooked Manga Festival.

SWAN, Vols. 9-11 (Kiyoko Ariyoshi, CMX)
Swan is rapidly becoming one of my favorite series of all time. It’s an obvious choice for libraries, since there’s nothing objectionable in it - it’s about ballet, after all! I can picture the unsuspecting teenage Naruto fan picking up Swan and then having her mind totally blown by the hardcore 1970’s shojo within. Swan is so girly it goes all the way around the circle and into the realm of manliness. If Dark Horse had a ballet title, it would Swan. The paneling is an experiment from the ’70’s and the SD moments are a throwback to Phil Foglio’s Buck Godot comics. Swan is like some kind of life-preserver of seventies awesomeness thrown into the present by CMX.

Click here to view preview pages at the Overlooked Manga Festival.

GENSHIKEN, Vols. 8-9 (Kio Shimoku, Del Rey)
American fans are blissfully unaware of the strange coincidence that makes Genshiken a huge hit here; in Japan, colleges usually have separate anime, manga, and gaming clubs. Genshiken rolls all three together, which happily makes the college club resemble most American anime clubs, where fans of anime are by de facto fans of manga and video games from Japan. The last half of the Genshiken series turns the club over to girls as the series explores cosplay and yaoi. Ogiue starts off as an insane psychopath but is slowly characterized until she is everyone’s favorite character in the final volume. I wanted to hug her at the end of each chapter.

Click here for Erin’s review of volume nine.

FLOWER OF LIFE, Vols. 1-3 (Fumi Yoshinaga, DMP)
Either this year has been HUGE for Fumi Yoshinaga in the U.S., or I have coincidentally read a bunch of her works in 2007. I had a hard time getting into Antique Bakery and took a break between volumes two and three, but with Flower of Life I read each new volume immediately and with fannish rigor. I keep recommending it to people, including guys, but I have a hard time convincing them there’s no yaoi involved. Two of the characters are otaku, so as with Genshiken, I’m showing favoritism towards otaku-centric titles. I can’t explain what the title means, except as a reference to the protagonist, who struggled with cancer but enters high school healthy and filled with the enthusiasm of youth… This is a title about happiness.

Click here for Erin’s review of volume one; click here for her review of volume two; click here to preview pages at the Overlooked Manga Festival.

IRON WOK JAN, Vols. 13-27 (Shinji Saijyo, DrMaster)
Frequently overlooked, Iron Wok Jan is as crazy as manga can get. We need to import more food manga like Oishinbo the Gourmet (it’s only over a hundred volumes long!). I started watching the Iron Chef because of the crazy foods and ingredients I’d never heard of, and I love comics as a medium because they pull off insane logic leaps that wouldn’t work in film or prose. I love the foreignness of manga - manga doesn’t have the boundaries of domestic comics. Iron Wok Jan combines all three loves - the love of crazy Asian food, crazy-as-hell comic logic, and the anything-goes factor of manga weirdness.

Click here for Erin’s review of volume 26; click here to preview pages at the Overlooked Manga Festival.

Best Manga of 2007: Ken’s Picks

MPD PSYCHO, Vols. 1-3 (Eiji Otsuka and Sho-U Tajima, Dark Horse)
For me, this was easily the most anticipated release of 2007. Eiji Otsuka and Sho-U Tajima have created a wonderfully dark world full of serial killers, bizarre conspiracies, eyeball tattoos and more. Each volume adds a new layers and twists to the over all story, causing it to become increasingly complex as the series progresses. You’ll need a score card to keep track of all of Detective Amamiya’s personalities alone! Tajima’s art work is slick, stylish, and he doesn’t flinch when it comes to depicting the nastier aspects of the subject matter.

Click here for Ken’s review of volume three.

TANPENSHU, Vols. 1-2 (Hiroki Endo, Dark Horse)
This two volume series from Hiroki Endo helped reignite my interest in Eden: It’s An Endless World. Short tales of broken people trying to make sense of their worlds, trapped by birth or circumstance is situations they despise. While no one is going to mistake this anthology as the feel-good read of the year, I don’t think anyone could possibly deny the quality of both Endo’s writing and artwork.

PARASYTE, Vols. 1-2 (Hitosi Iwaaki, Del Rey)
It’s John Carpenters The Thing crossed with a buddy flick! What’s not to love about that? The plain jane artwork belies the hand of a master at work. What the series may lack in flash, it more than makes up for in substance. The characters are fleshed out wonderfully and Hitoshi Iwaaki blends humor, action, and philosophical pondering’s in a wonderfully entertaining way. It might not exactly be a new series, but I for one am extremely grateful for the new editions from Del Rey.

Click here for Ken’s review of volumes one and two.

GON, Vols. 1-2 (Masashi Tanaka, CMX)
A golden oldie being re-released for the first time in its original format. The series follows the adventures of a little orange dinosaur wandering the wilds of prehistoric earth. The short, silent tales are often cute and humorous, and the character of Gon comes across loud and clear despite absence of dialogue or sound effect. Masashi Tanaka’s art work is detailed and lush to a degree rarely seen in the world of manga. Sometimes the bully, sometimes the good guy, Gon and his adventures never fail to entertain. Whether he’s riding a lion while chasing after his prey, or hunting in the mouth of a shark, Gon is a series that’s bound to please.

Click here for Ken’s review of volume one.

Best Manga of 2007: Kate’s Picks

TOWN OF EVENING CALM, COUNTRY OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS (Fumiyo Kouno, Last Gasp)
If Barefoot Gen shows readers what it was like to live through the Hiroshima bombing and its horrific aftermath, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms shows readers what it was like to live with the memories of that day ten, twenty, and forty years later. Fumiyo Kouno’s book is divided into two stories. The first, “Town of Evening Calm,” is set in 1955, and focuses on one young woman’s attempt to preserve the remnants of her family, while the second, “Country of Cherry Blossoms,” is set in the 1990s, and focuses on the strained relationship between a survivor and his adult daughter. Both stories are simply but beautifully illustrated, avoiding the kind of visual tropes (big eyes, tiny noses, super-cute deformations) that many Western readers find jarring when reading Serious Manga. A haunting, uplifting book that will remind you how powerful sequential art can be.

Click here to read Kate’s review.

TO TERRA, Vols. 1-3 (Keiko Takemiya, Vertical, Inc.)
If Richard Wagner wrote operas set in deep space instead of Valhalla, he might have composed something akin to Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra. Set in the distant future, the story focuses on a race of telepathic mutants who have been exiled from their homeworld. Under the leadership of the powerful and charismatic Jomy Marcus Shin, the Mu embark on a grueling voyage back to Terra to be reunited with their human creators. Their principle foe: an evil supercomputer named Mother, who makes HAL look like a pansy. Takemiya’s richly detailed artwork and deft manipulation of panels make To Terra an almost cinematic experience; many pages will remind you of iconic scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. But don’t be fooled by those blinking computers and blazing starships: To Terra is an unabashedly Romantic saga about two übermensch locked in a struggle of cosmic proportions. No doubt Richard would approve.

Click here to read Kate’s review of volume three.

LOVE*COM, Vols. 1-3 (Aya Nakahara, Viz)
Ladies, please complete the following brief questionnaire: (a) Have you ever worn flats to avoid towering over your gentleman friend? (b) Do you slouch to avoid appearing “too tall”? (c) Do you wish that you were two or three inches shorter? If you’ve answered “yes” to two or more of these questions, have I got the manga for you: Love*Com, a delightful comedy about a very tall girl and very short boy who’d make a terrific couple… if they didn’t feel so self-conscious about the size difference. With great artwork, memorable characters, and plotlines grounded in reality, Love*Com may just be the best new shojo title of 2007.

Click here to read Kate’s review of volume one; click here to read her review of volume two.

TRANSLUCENT, Vols. 1-2 (Kazuhiro Okamoto, Dark Horse)
Shizuka, the heroine of Translucent, has a medical condition that many of us can identify with (even if we’ve never actually suffered from it): whenever she feels anxious, sad, lonely, or premenstrual, she becomes invisible to others. Her condition is the perfect metaphor for how most of us felt in high school, as we vacillated between wanting to be noticed by a cute guy, the varsity coach, or a campus V.I.P. and wishing we could simply disappear, escaping unwanted scrutiny from bullies, teachers, and parents. The slightly awkward character designs suit the characters’ ages and personalities, giving this series a refreshingly naturalistic look. Sometimes humorous, sometimes bittersweet, this lovely coming-of-age story is a shoo-in for YALSA’s 2007 List of Great Graphic Novels for Teens—even if, as some commentators have pointed out, the story was originally written for grown men who like to read about high school girls.

Click here to read Kate’s review of volume two.

FLOWER OF LIFE, Vols. 1-3 (Fumi Yoshinga, DMP)
Fumi Yoshinaga’s geek-centric comedy focuses on a group of teens who invite their new classmate to join the manga club. Not much actually happens in Flower of Life; most chapters consist of passionate conversations between club members about—what else?—manga. Yoshinaga has a wonderful time poking fun at otakudom (including her usual bailiwick, boy’s love) while respecting the intensity and sincerity of her characters’ feelings. The result is both moving and laugh-out-loud funny. You’ve never seen a cultural festival storyline quite like the one in volume two… trust me on this one.

Worst Manga of 2007: Erin’s Pick

PRINCESS PRINCESS, Vols. 2-5 (Mikiyo Tsuda, DMP)
I gave Princess Princess a chance. I read three volumes of the manga and watched an episode of the anime, and even an episode of the live action series. Princess Princess is just as bad in any medium. The anime was a low-budget, corner-cutting affair (more so than regular anime), and so was the live action show (mostly shot in a single white room). The manga made Jason Thompson’s bottom ten (at #6), and deservedly so. Although the cross-dressing premise promises hijinks will ensue, hijinks are totally absent, replaced by long blocks of uninteresting text as the characters discuss their angsty feelings.

Click here for Erin’s review of volumes one and two; click here for Jason Thompson’s review at the Overlooked Manga Festival.

Worst Manga of 2007: Kate’s Pick

POP JAPAN TRAVEL: ESSENTIAL OTAKU GUIDE (Makoto Nakajima, DMP)
A better title for this ill-conceived project might have been Gaijin Do the Stupidest Things. Although the artwork is crisply executed, the characters are a veritable catalog of ugly American stereotypes. My guess is that the manga-ka had no idea that his creation might rub Americans the wrong way. DMP’s editorial staff, however, really fell down on the job: they should have worked harder to ensure that the story and characters steered clear of racist caricature, especially if their goal was to promote DMP’s Pop Japan Tours.

Click here for Kate’s review.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

San Jose, CA, April 2007. Manga publisher DrMaster Publications has announced the release of Stray Little Devil, volume 4, an ongoing manga adventure series centered on Pam, a young devil-in-training trapped in a fantasy world where humans are mere myth.

Hilarious, compelling, fast-paced with eye-popping artistic production, Stray Little Devil is sure to hit on all cylinders with manga fans. Prepare to enter a world where all the boys and girls are either sassy and angelic, or sassy and demonic.

Pam Akumachi is a curious, energetic 13-year-old junior-high student. One day, when Pam and her friends try to summon the “benign devil” her grandmother used to talk about, the magic circle goes out of control and Pam is sucked into it and transported to a strange parallel world where angels and devils coexist with no humans in sight. There, she meets a mysterious figure, one who promises to show her the way back to her world, but only if she becomes a bona fide devil. And the only way to do so is by training under a master devil as a devil’s apprentice. So under the watchful eye of Master Devil Lizyerra, and her other apprentices, Raim and Vine, Pam begins to learn what it takes to be a devil, which is far from a cakewalk. The precepts governing the tense and uneasy peace between Devils and Angels are strict and unwavering. Watch Pam as she catches and enters into contract with her very first spirit familiar, En Zu, learns about “Conservation Law of Fortune,” and meets the “Successor of Aureole,” an angel named Linfa, who is the spitting image of her best friend Rinka in the human world.

Praise for Stray Little Devil:

“How often can you read a book that looks fuzzy, reads fuzzy and makes you feel fuzzy in the end and yet be kinda mature. Today I like fuzzy and I like these cute little devils.”—animedondvd.com

“Sometimes you go to a movie with low expectations, and that movie turns you on your ear and blows you away. That’s the way Stray Little Devil works. You’re expecting one story, but before you know it, you’re getting another, and it’s a really good one. Granted, if you don’t like the cute-girl motif in your manga, you might give this one a pass. Then again, it’s not my cup of tea either, and I absolutely loved this book and recommend it for anyone. Whether artistically, thematically or plot-wise, you’re not going to get what you’re expected, and that’s a very good thing in the growing manga market, where many titles tread the same ground.”—IGN.com

Kotaro Mori is one of the few manga artists who uses his real name as his pen name. He has just finished the serialization of Stray Little Devil in monthly magazine Dengeki Gao! from Media Works. His new serialization will start on the 4/27 issue of the same magazine and featuring the comic version of the TV anime Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, produced by GAINAX.

Availability:
Stray Little Devil, volumes 1-4 are available NOW with volume 5 shipping in June 2007 for $9.95. Visit www.drmasterbooks.com for more detailed series information.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

San Jose, CA, April 2007. DrMaster Publications Inc. has just announced the publication of Junk, volume 2, by acclaimed author Kia Asamiya, creator of works such as Silent Möbius, Martian Successor Nadesico, Steam Detectives and Dark Angel.

Hiro is a high-school student who refuses to go to school after a traumatic run-in with the local bullies. But his feeble life is forever changed when, one day, he applies online for a new gadget called JUNK. Once the mysterious package arrives, he activates the gadget and finds himself encased within a powered-armor JUNK suit. Apparently, the clothes do indeed make the man as Hiro is granted abilities far beyond anything the muscle-bound jocks at his school could ever dream. Soon after, he embarks on nightly rampages, bent on getting back at the bullies who tormented him until he discovers that there is another with a unit nearly identical to his own. The owner of the other JUNK is a woman who isn’t all pleased with Hiro’s abuse of his newfound powers, and expresses her displeasure with a beat-down! In the ensuing fracas, he destroys his own home and takes out his parents! Whoops! Now, this social pariah must learn how to use his powers wisely and how to tread the thin line between good and evil.

“Different, refreshing and fast-paced.”—manganews.net

“If you want something a little different and like the idea of a really flawed ‘hero’ then ‘Junk’ is for you.”—animeondvd.com

Kia Asamiya debuted in 1986 and started serializing Silent Möbius in 1988, gradually increasing in popularity because of his unique art and style. His successes did not stop there, as his works were made into CDs, movies, novel series and games. His name became widely known in the comic world and he started drawing cover illustrations for magazines and cine-manga. Some of his major works include Steam Detectives, EVIL-kun, Corrector Yui, Martian Successor Nadesico, and Dark Angel. He has worked on comic version of Star Wars: Episode 1 by George Lucas. He was the first Japanese artist to work on Uncanny X-MEN from Marvel Comics. He has also worked on BATMAN: Child of Dreams from DC Comics, Phoenix Resurrection: Dark Angel from Image Comics, STAR WARS TALES from Dark Horse, and in 2005, was asked by Marvel Comics to work on a short story for X-MEN: Age of Apocalypse 2. He has just completed JUNK, which ended at vol.7.

Availability:
Junk, volumes 1-2 are available NOW with volume #3 shipping in June 2007 for $9.95. Visit www.drmasterbooks.com for more detailed series information.

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!