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 hooligans under the spell of two charismatic host club owners. And what a pimp-tastic pair they are: 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 between these two groups to a point of almost unbearable tension. Though Fujisawa 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 an 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 suitably creepy, faintly erotic story told from the perspective of one of their conquests. None of the subsequent chapters live up to the promise of the first, however. Manga-ka Makoto Tateno reduces Mika and Eru from actual participants in the stories to passive observers of other vampires’ tortured (but not very interesting) relationships. The final chapter 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.

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

Another short shipping list, another week of solvency… My top picks for this week:

I, Otaku: Struggle in Akihabara, Vol. 2 (Seven Seas): As one might guess from the title, I, Otaku is a meta-manga about fandom in all its various permutations: anime fanatics, figurine collectors, fujoshi. Though the slapstick and obsessive behavior need no editorial intervention to comprehend, the dialogue is peppered with references to singers, actors, and other figures in the Japanese public eye. Not to worry—translator/adaptor Ed “MangaCast” Chavez has provided copious notes to let the uninitiated in on the jokes. At last year’s New York Anime Fest, Ed assured me that volume two will be even funnier than volume one as Sota and Kenji take a gig at a magazine called Boys’ Heaven. Sounds like a perfect chaser for the first two installments of Fujoshi Rumi (Media Blasters) to me.

My Heavenly Hockey Club, Vol. 5 (Del Rey): Saying My Heavenly Hockey Club isn’t my favorite Ai Morinaga title is a bit like saying Great Expectations isn’t my favorite David Lean movie—it’s still a fun series, even if it isn’t quite on par with her best work. My chief criticism of Hockey Club is its repetitiousness: midway through volume one, Morinaga fell into a predictable routine of road trips, forfeited games, and wacky hijinks, even as she sent her team of misfits to increasingly exotic locations. Still, the artwork is a big step up from Duck Prince and Your and My Secret, and Morinaga’s try-anything-for-a-laugh approach hits the bull’s eye more often than not—though I’m wondering if she’s jumped the bear shark in volume five with an abominable snowman sighting. I’ll just have to wait and see…

The Palette of 12 Secret Colors, Vol. 3 (CMX): Thanks to routine abuse by Gene Shalit and Michael Medved, words like “gentle,” “sweet,” and “charming” pack all the critical punch of “nice” and “good.” Yet this all-ages adventure story about a female palette (i.e., magician who manipulates color) is gentle, sweet, and charming without being twee or preachy. True, Palette would have been more effective in color—a point manga-ka Nari Kusakawa freely concedes—but the stylish art and appealing cast help offset this obvious limitation of the storytelling. Highly recommended whether you’re a shojo fanatic, a shonen junkie, or a parent in search of an all-ages title that will entertain your tween without offending your sensibilities. (Continued)

Orfina, Vol. 1

By Kitsune Tennouji
CMX, 162 pp.
Rating: M (Mature)

Orfina is a fantasy series about two women, Princess Orfina and Fana, who happen to look exactly alike. Fana’s country is under attack from the neighboring country of Granze. Granze’s forces are rolling across the landscape, conquering other countries in incredibly short amounts of time with the aid of a mysterious power that grants them modern weaponry (like firearms) and monsters such as fire dragons. After one battle, Fana washes ashore in Orfina’s country. Orfina rescues her, bringing her to live with the royal family. Fana decides to help and defend Orfina no matter what.

Despite its fairly common-sounding premise, Orfina is surprisingly good. Also, despite being the titular character, Orfina doesn’t really get a whole lot of screen time here. Instead, Fana gets the most fleshing out of the entire cast. She’s a bit of tomboy and is shown to be a completely capable warrior. While her relationship with Orfina comes across as a believable sibling one, it does develop a bit quickly for my tastes. They bond almost immediately and the entire royal family welcomes her with open arms just as quickly. At any rate, Fana is certainly a likeable and capable protagonist and her self-reliance and physical and mental prowess are a nice contrast to the pampered Orfina’s behavior. She’s not exactly spoiled, just really girly. The reason for Granze’s sudden invasion, the source of their technology and dragons, not to mention Granze’s strange connection to a figure from Orfina’s family’s past–these are questions that are left unanswered in the first volume, providing several hooks for folks to come back and see how it’s all playing out.

Tennouji’s art is fairly well detailed. The characters’ clothes, armor, and weaponry all look fantastic. While the backgrounds tend to be a bit sparse, the amount of detail given to each character more than makes up for it. Plus when Tennouji does include a background, it’s elaborate and well done. The action sequences aren’t exactly amazing and sometimes the overly detailed character designs get in the way of the action, but it’s generally fairly easy to follow and a couple are quite neat. The inclusion of modern weaponry allows Tennouji to bounce between close-quarter sword duels to run-and-shoot scenes at will. The massive attack at the end was quite nice as well, as is the heavily armored depiction of the fire dragons. If there’s any complaint with the art, it’s really that most of the female characters look fairly interchangeable. With Orfina and Fana this is to be expected, but the maids and Queen all tend to look fairly similar. Thankfully the armor and clothes that they all wear tend to be so detailed that you can tell them apart.

Tennouji spent a lot of time developing this world and it’s fairly obvious. The back of the book includes several pages of unused designs and settings, including a full map of the castle and various motifs that designate rank and order for some of the knights. Most of this information doesn’t actually appear in the story itself, something that Tennouji laments in the accompanying notes. It’s still nice to see though and it helps give the world a bit more weight, though a map of the area with countries and borders probably would have been helpful as well.

Orfina is a strong series that’s scratching an itch for swords and sorcery fantasy that I’ve had lately. It certainly shows some promise, both in the artwork and the story, and I’ll definitely give the second volume a look if I stumble across it at the store.

Volume 1 of Orfina is available now.

Manhwa maniacs, rejoice—the newest volumes of two long-suspended ICE Kunion titles—11th Cat and Heavenly Executioner Chiwoo—have finally arrived in stores, courtesy of a new publisher: Yen Press. UDON Entertainment also hops the Korean comic bandwagon with the first installment of The Daring Students Association, a supernatural comedy about a high school club that resorts to ghostbusting to raise a little cash. (Did they try selling M&Ms first? That seems a lot easier to me.) Other new arrivals this week include Haridama: Magic Cram School (Del Rey), a comedy about two inept sorcerers-in-training, and Two Flowers for the Dragon (CMX), a shojo adventure about a spunky young princess who must choose between two suitors… with assistance from magical tattoos. (Is that what folks did before eHarmony? Sounds… painful.)

My top picks for this week:

The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry-Chan, Vol. 1 (Media Blasters): The Strawberry-Chan of the title is a much-abused talking frog whose owner attends an all-boys boarding school. Could this be a “Frog Prince” parody with a yaoi twist? One can only hope. But even if Ai Morinaga plays it straight (so to speak), readers will be treated to a healthy dose of slapstick and gender-bending weirdness that should keep the story fizzy and fun.

Kekkaishi, Vol. 13 (Viz): From the Viz website: “The fate of the dreaded Kokuboro ayakashi lies in Yoshimori’s hands as he and his allies fight to get out of Kokuboro Castle alive! By comparison, his formerly hair-raising nightly patrols of the Karasumori Site seem like a walk in the park. But if he survives and returns home as the conquering hero, does an even greater evil lie in wait…?” Translation: NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME! READ THIS MANGA NOW!

Swan, Vol. 13 (CMX): Our Senior Ninja Consultant Erin Finnegan has promised to write a lengthy review explaining why everyone should read this seventies shojo classic. Until she does, however, I’m happy to beat the drum for Swan, possibly the best tournament series ever written. Yes, the story focuses on an aspiring ballerina, and yes, the artwork practically sparkles with estrogen, but don’t be fooled: its dreamy heroine Masumi is just a tutu-clad variation on Hanamichi Sakuragi (Slam Dunk), Kazuma Azuma (Yakitate!! Japan), and Naruse Tohru (Harlem Beat), athletes who entertain similarly grandiose ambitions to be The Best. Kyoko Ariyoshi’s character designs may look dated to twenty-first century audiences, but her draftsmanship is superb; you can practically hum along to the Firebird’s Grand pas as you watch it unfurl across the page. And for Slavophiles like me, the cameo appearances by Bolshoi principles and frequent references to Tchaikovsky make Swan just that much more heavenly.

By the way, if you’ve been curious about Manga Sutra Futari H but were too embarrassed to flip through a copy at Barnes and Noble, visit the Tokyopop website, where you’ll find a new chapter every day from now until June 12th. Not eighteen? Tokyopop is also posting volumes one through six of The Tarot Café online; click here to view the schedule. (Each volume will be available for a few days only.)

(Continued)

What manga will you be reading one year from now? Viz, Del Rey, Yen Press, DMP, Dark Horse, and CMX unveiled the titles they hope you’ll purchase, from adaptations of popular anime series to works by established masters. Below is a run-down of the day’s big licensing news.
(Continued)

Zombie Fairy, Vol. 1

By Daisuke Torii
CMX, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen

While taking a mysterious Chinese coffin to be appraised on a TV show, Aoto’s life takes a turn for the weird. The appraisers open the coffin to reveal a young girl inside. Unfortunately for everyone, she wakes up in a less-than-happy mood. Chaos ensues, the studio is thrashed, and the next thing you know she’s living with Aoto and his family! And things just get more complicated from there…

It’s a cute and fairly silly story. How many people let complete strangers live with them without paying rent, let alone one that you find inside an ancient Chinese coffin and who periodically tries to kill you? Still, there’s something oddly enjoyable and endearing about the whole thing. Most of the story focuses on the mystery of Chun Ai, how she got into that coffin, who she is, and why she has no memory. Thankfully, shortly after she moves in with the Aoto’s family, the Hozukis, a very old friend of hers, Lin Fa, arrives to help fill in some of the blanks.

One of the big surprises for me was the lack of perversion on Aoto’s part. I’ve just gotten so used to the male leads in shonen series being lecherous that encountering one that wasn’t felt like a breath of fresh air. No, the resident perv in this book is played by his elderly grandfather, and it really only happens once. I still would have liked to have seen the grandmother smack him for it, but hey. Just about all of the characters are one-note; there’s not a whole lot of fleshing out going on here: grandpa’s a perv, Aoto’s dad is kind of sensible, etc. Even the three main characters, Aoto, Chun Ai, and Lin Fa, are rather direct and uncomplicated. It is a short single volume so there’s not a whole lot of room for fleshing them out, plus it’s kind of nice to have some clear cut motivations and characters for once. The lack of angst or moral posturing was fantastic as well; there’s too much of that going around right now.

The artwork is a bit difficult to describe. It’s not quite as polished or slick looking as most of the manga out there, but it’s still pretty good and fits perfectly with the light hearted story. It’s not a flash heavy style, and it’s not the most ornate or beautiful artwork I’ve seen, but when the story calls for more elaborate designs and moments of flash it works quite nicely. The panel-to-panel flow is very easy to follow which means the few action sequences we get are clearly told. All in all, it’s a solid looking book.

The story ends in a rather open-ended fashion. It’s to be expected I suppose, and there’s a short note from the Daisuke at the end mentioning that whether it continues is dependent on the fan response. Judging from the short introduction on the inside cover, it would appear that it never did. Still, Zombie Fairy is a light, enjoyable single-volume read.

Volume one of Zombie Fairy is available now.

When I first posted a “Manga Minis” column in March 2007, I envisioned it as a kind of dead letter office where older titles and later volumes of previously reviewed manga would see the light in the form of brief reviews. As the column has evolved, however, it’s become something altogether different: a showcase for the talented and ever-growing Manga Recon crew. I confess that I like the newer incarnation of the column better than the older, as it allows our readers to enjoy a variety of writing styles and critical perspectives in a sitting—not unlike a Whitman’s sampler, or a Kellogg’s Variety Pak. To celebrate the column’s one-year anniversary, Chloe, Isaac, Ken, and I look at four very different titles: volume four of Vampire Knight (Viz ), volume one of Fever (Tokyopop), volume thirteen of Black Cat (Viz), and volume one of Crayon Shinchan (CMX).

Black Cat, Vol. 13

By Kentaro Yabuki
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

I seem to be lucking out with Shonen Jump mangas lately. Volume twenty-eight of Naruto was a fairly good jumping on-point for that long-running series, and that seems to be the case with this volume of Black Cat as well. Most of the volume is a flashback explaining the events that led to the titular character’s decision to leave the criminal organization Chronos and become a bounty hunter. The rest of the volume is spent kicking off what seems to be a new arc with Train Heartnet and his allies preparing to track down Creed Diskenth, a man with whom Train has a long history. Their preparations range from information gathering to dodging cannonballs for practice. Despite the contemporary feel of the setting, the guns, and Heartnet’s former career as an assassin, Black Cat is still a Shonen Jump title, so these kind of over-the-top training sessions are to be expected. On the upside, there’s a fairly cool sequence towards the end where a new character punches a bullet out of the air.

The art didn’t really blow me away, but it got the job done. The character designs are a mixed bag, but none of them jumped out at me as being amazingly cool or eye-catching, though Train’s design left me wondering why he has four doughnuts attached to his shirt. The action scenes are slick and easy to follow, and full of characters demonstrating some crazy abilities or skills. Writing and characterization-wise, well, it’s more or less your standard shonen fare: the heroes are shocked at how cruel and heartless villains can be, people have dark pasts they must overcome, duels are fought in exchange for information simply because one person wants to test himself against the other. Nothing really new here. At any rate, I wasn’t really in love with the title, but at the same time I’d have a hard time saying anything particularly negative about it. The contemporary setting is a nice change of pace from the fantasy worlds that many shonen series take place in, so that earned it a few points and helped make it a bit more palatable. Overall, it’s a decent shonen title and is worth a look for, well, fans of shonen books.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

Crayon Shinchan, Vol. 1

By Yoshito Usui
CMX, 122 pp.
Rating: Mature

Move over, Eric Cartman—there’s a ruder, cruder, more poorly drawn little boy vying for our attention: Shinnosuke Nohara, a.k.a. Crayon Shinchan. Like South Park’s flatulent, foul-mouthed connoisseur of Cheezy Poofs, Shinchan craves junk food (his preferred treat: Chocobees), obsesses over bodily functions, and treats his mother with complete disdain, making her life a living hell with his destructive antics, inappropriate comments, and penchant for dropping trou at the slightest provocation. His offenses run the gamut from the innocent—trying to pay for a hamburger with play money—to the obscene—peeking up his mother’s skirt in public.

Whether or not you find Crayon Shinchan funny depends on where your sympathy lies. My inner feminist pitied Shinchan’s long-suffering mom too much to find humor in most of these scenarios, which usually result in Mitzi’s abject humiliation. I also found the jokes too repetitive; almost every gag felt like a variation on the same basic gross-out theme. A few chapters, however, stood out for their sheer inventiveness. Early in the volume, for example, Shinchan visits the adult magazine section of a book store, prompting a hilarious “conversation” in hand signals between the manager and a clerk that wouldn’t be out of place at a major league baseball game. And there are a few inspired scenes towards the end of the volume, when Shinchan finally meets a sparring partner equal to the task: the principal of his kindergarten, a kindly man with a face so terrifying everyone assumes he’s a reformed yakuza. Adaptor Sheldon Drzka made the wise decision to substitute American cultural references for Japanese, resulting in a script that’s fluid and funny, and avoids sending readers scrambling to an appendix for a gloss on the jokes. All in all, a mixed bag—not unlike the very first season of South Park.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey

Fever, Vol. 1

By Hee Jung Park
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

After reading about Hee Jung Park’s Hotel Africa, and now actually reading her newly released in the US manhwa Fever, I totally understand why Tokyopop is trying to turn her into a name brand (though why they tout it as “from the creator of Hotel Africa, a not-yet published title, I don’t quite understand). Admittedly, that didn’t work to well with the Erica Sakurazawa manga, which I liked, but it looks like Tokyopop is ready to push the fold again with Hee Jung Park. With the vast quantity of “safe” and relatively tame shoujo manga coming out of every pore of the manga industry right now, it’s awesome to see a title like Fever that reminds me why the Tokyopop logo still gives me the warm fuzzies.

In its first volume we are introduced to two concurrent and ultimately intersecting storylines. In the first arc we meet Hyung-In, a high school girl torn apart by her friend’s recent suicide. Racked with guilt and seeking direction in her now lonely life, Hyung-In meets a stranger on the bus, Kang-Dae who comforts who and directs her to a mysterious place known only as “Fever”. At an another high school, orphan Ji-Jun never seems to have any luck with the ladies, though not due to lack of trying. His best friend Ah-In supports him through each foolhardy romantic enterprise, even though it hurts him more and more each time. Throughout this section we are supplied with hints that Ah-In’s feelings for Ji-Jun , and I’m pleased to say that this is the classiest and most believable homosexual tension I’ve seen in comics in a long time. When Ah-In’s sister, Ah-Rip gets involved, the potential for disaster is palpable, and begins to loom over the scene like a cloud. Eventually, the stories converge as Hyung-In seeks out Fever and reunites with Kang-Dae, who is connected to Ji-Jun through the still mysterious entity of Fever.

The art is enjoyable, and a clean break from stereotypical manhwa stylization. The landscapes are beautiful, and the character designs for Hyung-In and Ji-Jun are particularly attractive. The only thing that would make me drop this series like a rock is if Ah-Hin “sees the light” and just lets go of his attraction to Ji-Jun. Happens way too often in shoujo (ahem, Please Save My Earth). All in all, I’m stoked to get my greedy paws on more Hee Jung Park ASAP, and urge you to do the same! Highly recommended.

–Reviewed by Isaac Hale

Vampire Knight, Vol. 4

By Matsuri Hino
Viz, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

The mysterious maneuverings of transfer student Maria Kurenai has set the scene abuzz as Vampire Knight plods onward into fourth volume territory. This volume is primarily Zero’s scene, as the complicated bit of angsty backstory leading up to his present day status is explained through flashbacks and healthy doses of monologuing-in-empty-rooms. Character development is measured at best; Yuki and Zero descend deeper into their strange little symbiotic relationship while Kaname remains an unlikable block of ice, albeit with Anton Chigurh-esque inclinations to show up, moralize a bit and then kill. It all feels a bit over the top, with everything from memory loss to long-lost brothers to body swapping, all coated with plenty of blood and angst. (Matsuri Hino, just a hint: chess metaphors automatically lend an air of cheese to supposedly serious scenes.) The art, however, remains as sharp as ever, and it’s hard to argue with Hino’s striking gothic-shoujo sensibilites. Her side characters could use a bit of differentiation though; with a crew as big as Vampire Knight’s, it’s hard to keep things straight if every member of the Night Dorm is the obligatory tall, attractive light haired bishounen. The teenage girl crowd will love it; others may find themselves looking for a little less melodrama and a little more grounding.

–Reviewed by Chloe Ferguson

Teru Teru x Shonen, Vol. 1

By Shigeru Takao
CMX, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen

Shinobu Oshiro may be queen of the high school, but her ice-cold demeanor is anything but royal. Raised as the daughter of a prominent family, she spends her days being guarded by the family’s biggest secret investment: ninjas. The arrival of childhood friend and bodyguard Saizou is quickly followed by a puzzling series of death threats and attempts on Shinobu’s life. It’s up to Saizou to unravel the mystery–and try dealing with his growing feelings for Shinobu!

Quick! What do you get when you try to mesh watery teen hijinks with ninjas? In the case of CMX, it’s a rare misstep in the form of Shigeru Takao’s Teru Teru x Shonen. The summary alone oozes cliché; the final product is, simply put, a mess. Takao’s characterizations are as flat as the paper they occupy, with just about the entire cast able to be reduced into single sentence archetypes like “the snotty rich girl who maybe cares” or “the reluctant fighter” and “the shy geek in love.” To boot, everyone is introduced within the first two pages, with little development to change your first impressions. It’s difficult to convey just how painful an exercise Teru Teru x Shonen is–imagine poor characters run through a weak, clichéd plot strung together primarily by episodic hijinks. The narrative never follows anyone too closely, making it hard to endear yourself to any one character, let alone care about Saizou’s subtle angsting about his feelings for Shinobu. The “I’m in love with my childhood friend, but lack the courage to tell her” line is as old as the hills, and Teru Teru x Shonen does little to breathe new life into it.

What little semblance of a plot there is doesn’t go very far towards ameliorating the many problems. To summarize what was learned in this volume about the nefarious attempt to kill Shinobu: someone is trying to kill Shinobu. Possibly using ninja skills. Which most readers will figure out five pages in, at the part where, y’know, she receives the foreboding letter. The plot is primarily an exercise to advance the “character development” of the two central protagonists, although, frankly, there’s little development to be seen by the time this volume winds down.

Takao evidently has the artistic skills to draw some decent shoujo; it’s a bit of a mystery why she never seems to use them to their fullest extent. The art has the standard shoujo proportions and angles, but seemingly remains stuck somewhere between storyboard and final form. Tone usage is kept to the barest of minimums, and when it does appear, it’s usually as print-block black. Many scenes–including some crucial ones–seem overly sketchy or light, and the result is a book that has the looks of a decent artistic beginning without the follow-up effort required to put the final polish on. That’s a shame, since even a nice gloss on a bad product can occasionally salvage a few points here and there. The bottom line? Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Volume one of Teru Teru x Shonen is available now.

The last few weeks have found me in tough grader mode, as I’ve doled out my share of Cs and Ds to new manga that underwhelmed me with their confusing plots and muddled art. To dispel lingering rumors that I am, in fact, a distant relative of Oscar the Grouch, I’ve dedicated this week’s column to three books I’d recommend to anyone: volume one of Blood+ (Dark Horse), volume three of Gon (CMX), and volume seven of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Viz). And if dogs and dinos aren’t your bag, you’ll find plenty of other great books on the new arrival rack, from the third volume of critically acclaimed Mushishi (Del Rey) to the twelfth volume of Kekkaishi (Viz), a series I never tire of championing. Need persuading? Then consider Shaenon Garrity’s glowing endorsement of this totally engrossing shonen series:

The premise sounds like something that could be developed into a pulse-pounding adventure/horror series, but that’s not the way the manga plays out. It’s a little quieter, a little quirkier, and, at least to my mind, a lot more interesting… What I like about Kekkaishi is that the whole defending-the-sacred-site plot quickly falls out of focus and becomes a backdrop for all kinds of episodic, mostly character-driven adventures: funny stories, creepy stories, tragic stories. The characters have unexpected quirks and undiscovered layers.

Let’s hope Viz has the good sense to license the anime… soon. I’m jonesing for a Tokine lunchbox.

SHIPPING THIS WEEK
Alive: The Final Evolution, Vol. 3 (Del Rey)
Apothecarius Argentum, Vol. 4 (CMX)
Be With You (Viz)
The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 10 (Viz)
Everlasting Love (DMP)
Golgo 13, Vol. 13 (Viz)
Hana-Kimi, Vol. 22 (Viz)
Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Kekkaishi, Vol. 12 (Viz)
Kitchen Princess, Vol. 5 (Del Rey)
Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 6 (Dark Horse)
Mushishi, Vol. 3 (Del Rey)
Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, Vol. 13 (Viz)
NOW, Vol. 3 (Infinity Studios)
The Palette of 12 Secret Colors, Vol. 2 (CMX)
Path of the Assassin, Vol. 9 (Dark Horse)
Rod Espinosa’s New Alice in Wonderland (Antarctic Press)

Blood+, Vol. 1

By Asuka Katsura
Dark Horse, 208 pp.
Rating: 14+

The received wisdom among otaku is that anime based on manga may, in fact, be as good if not better than the original source material, while manga based on anime are often hastily conceived, poorly executed products designed to capitalize on a franchise’s popularity. I’m happy to report that Blood+ is a stellar exception to the rule, proving that even the most faithful adaptation can be as satisfying—if not more—than the original.

For those unfamiliar with the Blood+ franchise (or Blood: The Last Vampire, a series of manga, anime, and movies that relate an earlier chapter in the saga), the story goes something like this: Saya, a seemingly ordinary high school student, lives with a foster family on Okinawa. Though her general disposition is cheerful—even ditzy—Saya can’t shake the feeling that her persistent amnesia is, in fact, protecting her from memories of a terrifying experience, a feeling exacerbated by sudden, incomprehensible flashbacks to jungle combat. With monsters. (Actually, hematophagous monsters, according to the Wikipedia.) A passionate kiss from a sexy, cello-playing stranger unlocks Saya’s memories, revealing that she is actually a sword-wielding crusader with the unique ability to slay these blood-sucking creatures. Saya must then decide if she will team up with the “tall and flawlessly handsome” Hagi to fight chiropterans, or if she will remain with her adoptive family in the hopes of leading a normal life.

If the story’s premise evokes hundreds of other manga about average janes who manifest world-saving powers, its political subtext and crisp artwork leave a powerful impression. Blood+’s treatment of US-Japanese relations is about as subtle as MW’s, positing that American military forces have been conducting sinister genetic experiments on Okinawan soil. Yet this conspiracy adds a much-needed element of interest to a very tired plot, giving voice to Japanese ambivalence about America’s continued military presence. The artwork, like the multi-layered plot, enhances the series’ appeal. Asuka Katsura captures the look and feel of the anime—from its tropical setting to its elongated, stylized character designs—without slavishly reproducing the early episodes cell by cell. Her fight scenes are a model of clarity and economy, suggesting the intensity of combat without excessive reliance on speed lines.

But what I like best about Blood+—and where I think the manga improves on the original anime—is its unapologetic mixture of balls-to-the-wall action, family drama, and romanticism. All of these elements are present in the anime, but its languid pace and tin-eared voice acting often pulled me out of the story. The manga, however, moves more briskly, with Atsura achieving a better balance between domestic drama and chiropteran slaying. The manga’s other great advantage over the anime is that Hagi seems mysterious and sexy instead of a preposterous, cello-playing conceit (a characterization reinforced by Crispin Freeman’s arch, bored line readings). My only question: how does Hagi bow with that bandage-wrapped hand?

Volume one of Blood+ is available now.

Gon, Vol. 3

By Masashi Tanaka
CMX, 140 pp.
Rating: Teen (Violence)

The latest volume of this wordless series features three of my favorite stories: “Gon Goes Down the Big River,” a travelogue documenting Gon’s encounters with Amazon dwellers fierce and friendly; “Gon Goes Mushroom Hunting,” an amusing tale in which Gon consumes vast quantities of toadstools, with predictably psychedelic results; and “Gon Fights With Wolf Brothers,” a poignant story that pits a litter of orphaned pups against a tiger. Masashi Tanaka’s artwork is old school in the best sense, employing cross-hatching and delicate lines in lieu of screentone to create volume and depth. His panels are astonishingly detailed yet never fussy or poorly composed—if anything, Tanaka’s technique yields sharper images than the contemporary practice of mixing computer-generated fill with hand-drawn lines. Though Tanaka endows his creatures with unusually expressive faces, he resists the urge to fully anthropomorphize them; their behavior seem species-appropriate. (The elephants don’t wear spats or drive automobiles, the dogs don’t pretend to be World War I flying aces.) His restraint inoculates Gon against a terminal case of the cutes, resulting in a sometimes funny, sometimes violent look at various animal habitats through the eyes of a Jurassic auslander.

Volume three of Gon is available now.

Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, Vol. 7

By Yukiya Sakuragi
Viz, 222 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Each volume of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs follows a similar formula, mixing a few chapters of comic relief with longer story arcs dramatizing a Serious Problem (e.g. puppy mills) or showing us how a Woofles pup finds the perfect home. Volume seven opens with a textbook example of the latter, a shamelessly manipulative story of a bereaved little girl who forms a sudden attachment to a dachshund puppy. This story epitomizes what’s good—and bad—about Inubaka. On the plus side, the artwork is clean and cute, emphasizing the vulnerability of kid and dog; we want this sad little girl to find solace in canine company. On the minus side, Yukiya Sakuragi packs this brief episode with enough melodrama for a Victorian potboiler: was it really necessary for the girl’s brother to have been run over by a school bus right before the mother’s eyes? Or for the girl to believe the dachshund is the reincarnation of her brother? Great merciful heavens—Dickens never tugged so shamelessly on the heartstrings, and he trafficked in orphans! Still, it’s hard to dislike a series that manages to educate and entertain at the same time, especially when the basic curriculum promotes the dog-tested, Cesar Milan-approved formula of discipline, exercise, and love in equal measure.

Volume seven of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs is available now.

Bust out those number two pencils, folks, because it’s time for a brief quiz. Complete the following analogy:

SHOJO MANGA :: VALENTINE’S DAY

(a) Tokyo :: Godzilla
(b) Fireworks :: Independence Day
(c) Green beer :: St. Patrick’s Day
(d) Bichons :: Westminster Dog Show
(e) Slasher flick :: Halloween

If you picked e, you’re right—Valentine’s Day chocolate exchanges appear almost as frequently in shojo manga as Halloween-obsessed slashers appear in horror flicks. Given the strong shojo-Valentine’s Day connection, one might have assumed that this week’s list would be heavy on romantic comedies and light on action-oriented titles. But in a quirky bit of counter-programming, Tokyopop has chosen this week to release some of its bloodiest action titles, from volume two of Battle Royale: Ultimate Edition to volume one of Dark Metro, a spooky thriller set in the Tokyo subway system. Your best bet is Matsuri Akino’s Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo. Don’t let the fact that this series is (a) a sequel and (b) set in a wish-granting (or, more accurately, careful-what-you-wish-for) emporium deter you from trying it. Hino is a skillful storyteller, weaving elements of horror, folklore, and history into her soap opera about a Chinese count who sells unusual pets.

For those of you seeking an alternative to roses, diamonds, or bonbons, why not consider giving your sweetie a sexy manga? The fujoshi in your life is sure to appreciate one of this week’s new yaoi titles (three of which helpfully contain the word “love” in the title), while your favorite otaku might find Manga Sutra: Futari H the most amusing how-to book since Dr. Ruth Westheimer published her Guide for Married Lovers in 1986. And for those of us who take a dimmer view of Valentine’s Day, there are plenty of other great titles to choose from: volume eighteen of Blade of the Immortal (Dark Horse), volume ten of CLAMP no Kiseki (Tokyopop), volume three of Translucent (Dark Horse), volume three of “>Uzumaki (Viz), and volume two of Yagyu Ninja Scrolls: Revenge of the Hori Clan (Del Rey).

REVIEWED LAST WEEK
The Guin Saga, Book One: The Leopard Mask (Vertical, Inc.); Now You’re One of Us (Vertical, Inc.); Shinjuku Shark (Vertical, Inc.); Welcome to the NHK (Tokyopop)

REVIEWED THIS WEEK
Canon, Vol. 4 (CMX); Dark Metro, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop); Doors of Chaos, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop); Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)

SHIPPING THIS WEEK
.hack//GU, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Air Gear, Vol. 7 (Del Rey)
Archlord, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
Basara, Vol. 26 (Viz)
Battle Royale Ultimate Edition HC, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Beowulf Color Manga, Vol. 1
Blade of the Immortal, Vol. 18 (Dark Horse)
Boys Over Flowers, Vol. 28 (Viz)
Camera Camera Camera, Vol. 2
Chibi Vampire, Vol. 7 (Tokyopop)
CLAMP no Kiseki, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Dark Metro, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop; reviewed below)
Demon Prince Children of Gaia, Vol. 1
Dokkoida, Vol. 1 (CMX)
Dominion Conflict, Vol. 1: No More Noise (Dark Horse)
Doors of Chaos, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop; reviewed below)
Eiken, Vol. 8 (Bandai)
Enchanter, Vol. 7 (CMX)
Family Complex (DMP)
Flame of Recca, Vol. 26 (Viz)
Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition HC, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 6 (Viz)
I Shall Never Return, Vol. 2 (Aurora/Deux)
In the End, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
InuYasha Ani-Manga, Vol. 25 (Viz)
Kami-Kaze, Vol. 7 (Tokyopop)
Law of Ueki, Vol. 10 (Viz)
Love Mode, Vol. 8 (BLU Manga)
Love Pistols, Vol. 4 (BLU Manga)
Love Training (DMP)
No Need for Tenchi, Vol. 12 (Viz)
O-Parts Hunter, Vol. 8 (Viz)
Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Prince Charming, Vol. 2 (DMP)
Rose Hip Zero, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Shin Megami Tensei Kahn, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Shinsoku Kiss, Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
Shugo Chara, Vol. 3 (Del Rey)
Translucent, Vol. 3 (Dark Horse)
Trinity Blood, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, Vol. 16 (Del Rey)
Uzumaki, Vol. 3 (Viz; click here for Ken’s review)
Vanilla, Vol. 2 (DMP)
Venus in Love, Vol. 2 (CMX)
Wild Adapter, Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
Yagyu Ninja Scrolls: Revenge of the Hori Clan, Vol. 2 (Del Rey)
Zatch Bell, Vol. 17 (Viz)

Canon, Vol. 4

By Chika Shiomi
CMX, pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

The fourth and final volume of Canon should have been the dramatic culmination of the double-crosses, confessions, and new alliances forged in volume three. Instead, it left me feeling confused and cheated—confused, because most of the finale’s hundred pages were devoted to a battle fought by characters who looked so much alike I couldn’t distinguish the bad guy (Glenn) from the good (Sakaki) and cheated, because Shiomi wouldn’t commit to a tragic ending for her angsty tale of vampire love, resorting to a third-act resurrection scene that sapped the story’s tension. What redeems this installment are the two bonus stories. The first, “Tatsumi,” is billed as a “Canon side story,” and explores the relationship between Sakaki and the half-vampire who rescued him from his parents’ executioners, while the second, “From the City of Sin,” is a stand-alone story about a college student who begins to suspect that her parents’ new lodger is, in fact, a suspect in a murder. Both showcase what Shiomi does best: create flawed but appealing characters that audiences will root for. And if they look like refugees from a Duran Duran video, so much the better. I hear shoulder pads are staging a comeback.

Volume four of Canon is available now.

Dark Metro, Vol. 1

Story by Tokyo Calen, Art by Yoshiken
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

If, like me, you’ve ever relied on the New York City subway system for transportation, you’ve probably accumulated a few horror stories of your own involving muggers, rats, rude MTA employees, or buskers with more lungpower than talent. I always thought the Tokyo subway was the antithesis of New York’s, with its immaculate stations, state-of-the-art trains, and functioning PA systems. But now, courtesy of Dark Metro, I learned that Tokyo’s tunnels harbor something far more sinister than the Dianetics pollsters who haunt Times Square: the portal to hell.

The five stories that comprise Dark Metro follow a time-honored B-movie formula in which angry ghosts menace attractive young men and women in dark, gloomy, isolated places… like subway stations! Though every story follows the same basic formula, each has a slightly different rhythm: the second, for example, is a classic example of comeuppance theater in which three boys pay the price for running an unsavory scheme (ok, pimping), while the third story is an exercise in psychological terror in which a new conductor faces every driver’s worst nightmare: a track jumper. Linking the five stories together is Seiya, a brooding bishonen tasked with policing the boundary between life and death. In the first four stories, he functions primarily as a deus ex machina, designed to rescue sympathetic victims from unsavory fates. By the end of volume one, however, he begins to evolve from plot device to character as we learn more about his past. In less capable hands, this material would be horribly dull or laughably familiar, yet Tokyo Calen and Yoshiken manage to produce a surprisingly tight, entertaining package with briskly paced stories and clean, unfussy layouts that strike a good balance between atmosphere and ick.

Volume one of Dark Metro will be available on February 13th.

Doors of Chaos, Vol. 1

By Ryoko Mitsuki
Tokyopop, 190 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Doors of Chaos wins this year’s Truth in Advertising Award for Most Apt Title: it’s one seriously confusing manga. The problems begin in the very first chapter, as we’re introduced to the series’ principal characters, Clarissa and Mizeria Rezelput. The twins are “harmonizers,” blessed with the ability to open and close four portals between the Diurnal and Nocturnal Worlds. At the twins’ coming-of-age ceremony, their handsome guardian Rikhter kidnaps Clarissa, escaping through one of the portals and unleashing hordes of bloodthirsty demons into the Diurnal World. At least, I think that’s what happened. The story seems to have been written by someone with an acute case of ADD, abruptly cutting from one character to another without properly explaining their relationship to the main trio or where, exactly, they fit into the Diurnal World. The layout does little to clarify matters; many of the action sequences seem to be missing critical panels that would show how events progressed from one moment to the next. But the biggest disappointment of Doors of Chaos is the artwork. Ryoko Mitsuki lavishes considerable attention on her heroines’ Gothic costumes—petticoats, corsets, bonnets, lace-up boots—but has difficulty rendering their faces in profile or three-quarter view. Her bishonen characters look too much alike, differentiated only by hair color and preferred outerwear (frock coat vs. hooded cape), and her monsters—though drawn with flair—borrow too heavily from Miyazaki’s Spirited Away to make a fresh impression. Unless you’re a glutton for punishment or a Lolita fetishist, I strongly advise you leave these Doors closed.

Volume one of Doors of Chaos will be available on January 13th.

Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo, Vol. 1

By Matsuri Akino
Tokyopop, 208 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Whether you’re a Twilight Zone buff or a CLAMP devotee, the basic premise of Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo is a familiar one. Count D, a rather androgynous, ageless figure, operates a pet store. You won’t mistake his emporium for PETCO or PetSmart, however—the animals he sells are, in fact, demons, demi-gods, and shape-shifters who assume various guises, from dogs to kirins. (One of the series’ running jokes is that some pets take human form, arousing the landlord’s suspicions that Count D actually runs a brothel.) The count selects a pet for each customer, choosing an animal that will help its owner realize a long-repressed dream. In the second story, for example, an angry, withdrawn young woman demands that Count D find her a “really grotesque” pet, “something that will give everyone else the creeps… that weird pet you can’t ever seem to get rid of… something that is scarred or old.” He then presents her with a cicada larva, whose transformation from monstrosity to insect will be mirrored in Reiko’s journey from bitter obscurity—she’s a failed fantasy novelist—to commercial success.

Of course, Count D’s services don’t come cheap, and his clientele pays dearly for their wishes. And it’s here, in the denouements of each story, that Matsuri Akino distinguishes herself from hundreds of other storytellers working in this genre. Akino’s characters and their plights elicit pathos; though we want the characters to find happiness, we can see that their own wishes are sometimes selfish or unwise. The sacrifices they make truly reflect what’s at stake in their situations, whether it’s a young mother who fears her murderous ex-husband or a low-level yakuza soldier who falls in love with the head honcho’s moll. The only story that flunks the compassion test is the final one. Set in Berlin in 1938, this convoluted mess purports to show how Eva Braun became Hitler’s mistress—with the aid of Count D’s pet shop. Akino tosses in a pair of vampires and an imaginary creature for good measure, but her gloss on the Third Reich’s philosophy of racial and cultural hegemony results in a dangerously superficial story. (My suggestion: read the first four and skip the final one.)

As the title indicates, Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo is a sequel to Hino’s ten-volume series Pet Shop of Horrors (1995-98). Those unfamiliar with the first series needn’t worry; volume one of Tokyo opens with a simple, one-page prologue that will provide adequate context for newcomers. The only caveat I offer (besides my recommendation about the final story) is that Akino is a better storyteller than artist; her layouts are often too fussy, with too many overlapping panels and clashing patterns. Her character designs, too, are a little clumsy; all of her characters have unusually large foreheads that make them look vaguely Cro-Magnon. Yet somehow it works, perhaps because Akino devotes as much attention to facial expression and body language as she does to fabric and hair, or perhaps because she demonstrates a talent for drawing animals. So if you can overlook a few riotously busy pages and stiffly posed bodies, you’re in for a rare treat: an intelligent example of monkey paw theater.

Volume one of Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo will be available on February 13th.