Weekly Recon, 4/2/08

The sheer quantity and variety of titles shipping this Wednesday list makes it nearly impossible to single out one or two as must-reads; there’s truly something for every taste, from Shakespearean manga to mermaid man-love. (The latter would be Selfish Mr. Mermaid, a DMP series that just begs to be read, if only for the title.) I’m going to let the list speak for itself and skip to the reviews. This week’s column examines two new shonen arrivals: Gun Blaze West (Viz), an oater by Rurouni Kenshin creator Nobuhiro Watsuki, and Mamotte Shugogetten (Tokyopop), a harem fantasy in the not-so-proud tradition of I Dream of Jeanie. Guess which one I liked better?

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:
Arcana, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Baby & Me, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Blazin Barrels, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Can’t Win With You, Vol. 3 (DMP)
Color of Love (DMP)
Dazzle, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Dragon Drive, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Dragon Head, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
EV (Tokyopop)
Eyeshield 21, Vol. 19 (Viz)
First Stage of Love (DMP)
Genju no Seiza, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Grenadier, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Gun Blaze West, Vol. 1 (Viz)
Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, Vol. 1 (Viz)
Heaven, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Hoshin Engi, Vol. 6 (Viz)
Hot Steamy Glasses (DMP)
Hotel Africa, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
I-Doll, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
I-O-N (Viz)
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Vol. 10 (Viz)
La Corda d’Oro, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Lagoon Engine, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Le Chevalier d’Eon, Vol. 4 (Del Rey)
Leader’s High, Vol. 1 (CMX)
Liling Po, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Love Lesson (DMP)
Mamotte Shugogetten, Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)
Missing: Kamikakushi no Monogatari, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Mobile Suit Gundam Ecole du Ciel, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Mujyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, Vol. 4 (Viz)
Necratoholic (DMP)
Nosatsu Junkie, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Oh! My Goddess, Vol. 8 (Dark Horse)
Path of the Assassin, Vol. 10 (Dark Horse)
Phantom, Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
Pick of the Litter, Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
Planet Blood, Vol. 8 (Tokyopop)
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure, Vol. 1 (Viz)
Pretty Face, Vol. 5 (Viz)
Reborn!, Vol. 7 (Viz)
Saver, Vol. 6 (Tokyopop)
Selfish Mr. Mermaid, Vol. 1 (DMP)
Shakespeare’s Hamlet: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Shakespeare’s Macbeth: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: The Manga Edition (John Wiley & Sons)
Sky Sharks, Vol. 1 (Antarctic Press)
Sorcerer Hunters, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Strawberry 100%, Vol. 4 (Viz)
Tail of the Moon, Vol. 10
Takumi-Kun Series, Vol. 3: Tales Out of Season (BLU Manga)
Tower of the Future, Vol. 10 (CMX)
Tsukoyumi Moon Phase, Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
Vampire Knight, Vol. 4 (Viz)

Gun Blaze West, Vol. 1

By Nobuhiro Watsuki
Viz, 186 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

Let me begin ths review with a disclaimer: Ken Burns would not approve of the historical liberties taken by Gun Blaze West creator Nobuhiro Watsuki. The dialogue, for example—the characters speak in a distinctly modern patois, filled with phrases never uttered by Sitting Bull or General Custer. The scenery, for another—verdant Eastern forests abut rugged desert canyons, even though the story begins in Illinois. (I particularly liked Watsuki’s rendering of Saint Louis as a kind of Budapest on the Mississippi. But I’m getting ahead of myself.) Even the saloon names feel a little off-kilter, as one group of outlaws patronize a joint called… Bella Donna. Such incongruities may offend Mr. Burns, but they’re just part of this boisterous series’ charm.

Gun Blaze West focuses on a brash young boy named Viu Bannes. Though he lives in a small Midwestern town, Viu dreams of visiting Gun Blaze West, a mythical city populated by the West’s greatest gunslingers. (On the map, it appears to be located in Seattle, making me wonder if Gun Blaze West is, in fact, populated by the West’s most caffeinated gunslingers.) Viu’s life is transformed by the arrival of Marcus Homer, a genial drifter with a checkered past. Marcus reluctantly agrees to show Viu the gunslinging ropes, and the two begin the kind of over-the-top training regimen that, as my colleague Ken pointed out in his recent review of Black Cat, is found only in the pages of Shonen Jump. Before Viu can complete his training, however, the notorious Kenbrown gang arrives in Winston Town, terrorizing the citizens and threatening Viu’s older sister. Viu and Marcus’s standoff with the Kenbrown gang ends with an unexpected turn of events—and one that sets the stage for Viu’s subsequent cross-country odyssey.

If you’re a fan of Buso Renkin or Rurouni Kenshin, you know what to expect from Watsuki’s art: crisp draftsmanship, dynamic fight scenes, villains with memorable mugs and nonstop sight gags. The art’s relentless, antic quality wears a little thin towards the end of volume one; I found myself wishing that Watsuki would pause to savor the landscape or linger at the sight of a lonely gunslinger’s tombstone. That said, Gun Blaze West is solid addition to the Shonen Jump lineup, promising plenty of laughs and gunplay in future volumes.

Volume one of Gun Blaze West will be available on April 2nd.

Mamotte Shugogetten, Vol. 1

By Minene Sakurano
Tokyopop, 440 pp.
Rating: Teen (13+)

I’ve always found I Dream of Jeanie a rather creepy show, and reading Mamotte Shugogetten helped me realize why: there’s something fundamentally disconcerting about a comedy in which an innocent young women is released from prolonged confinement, only to be enslaved by a loser fan boy. In the case of Mamotte Shugogetten, that LFB is Tasuke, a lonely teen whose globe-trotting dad leaves him for months at a time. (No word on what happened to mom, though my guess is that she ran off with the mailman.) While traveling in China, Tasuke’s father mails him a strange gift: a ring with a large black stone. Tasuke peers into the stone and pow! a beautiful young woman in an exotic costume appears, calls him “master,” and vows to protect him from harm. You don’t need to be a genius—or an astronaut, for that matter—to guess what happens over the next four hundred pages: Shaorin the shugogetten turns Tasuke’s world upside down with her kind-hearted but woefully misguided efforts to defend him from perceived threats and cheer him up, all while wearing an assortment of cosplay-friendly outfits. The scenarios are painfully predictable and unfunny, right down to the introduction of a second, trampier shugogetten who dresses like a distant cousin of Elvira, Mistress of the Night. Even the artwork feels tired; though Shaorin and her super-kawaii minions are drawn with loving attention to detail, the rest of the cast is not. Nor are the backgrounds, which are so hastily rendered that every scene appears to take place in the same location. Only the dialogue makes it clear that the characters are, in fact, going to the store or visiting a temple.

I’m not sure why Tokyopop felt this mediocre manga deserved the omnibus treatment (volume one collects the first two volumes of the Japanese edition), as the second half of the story isn’t any more engrossing than the first. If you’re an avid cosplayer, you might find Shaorin’s numerous outfits a source of inspiration for your next con outing. Readers in search of other things—great characters, nifty art, original plotlines—are advised to proceed with caution.

Volume one of Mamotte Shugogetten will be available on April 2nd.