Yaoi… this week’s yield is low indeed. Several new DMP titles—mostly of the boys’ love variety—arrive on shelves this week, as do the newest issues of Shojo Beat and Wizard Anime Insider. Your best bets: the first volume of Heroes Are Extinct, a new (non-yaoi) comedy from DMP about an alien who arrives on Earth spoiling for a fight with Superman or Green Lantern; volume 9 of CLAMP’s gorgeously illustrated supernatural drama xxxHolic (Del Rey); and the third volume of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Flower of Life, a comedy about a group of misfit high school students. Think Freaks and Geeks with cultural festivals and manga clubs instead of dodge ball games and deep conversations about Rush, and you have some idea of what the series is all about. Erin F. gave volumes one and two glowing reviews in her Manga Recon column, and urged readers to give it a try—a recommendation that I heartily second.

REVIEWED THIS WEEK:

• Hellsing, Vol. 8 (Dark Horse)
• Samurai Commando: Mission 1549, Vol. 1 (CMX)
• To Terra, Vol. 3 (Vertical, Inc.)

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:

• Canon, Vol. 2 (CMX; click here for a review of Volume 1)
• Don’t Say Anymore, Darling (DMP)
• E’S, Vol. 3 (Broccoli Books)
• Flower of Life, Vol. 3 (DMP)
• Gold Digger II Pocket Manga, Vol. 1 (Antarctic Press)
• Heroes Are Extinct, Vol. 1 (DMP)
• Not Enough Time (DMP)
• Recipe for Gertrude, Vol. 6 (CMX)
• Shojo Beat, August 2007
• Space Pinchy (Dark Horse)
• Witchblade Takeru Manga, No. 6 (Top Cow/Image)
• Wizard Anime Insider, #47
• xxxHolic, Vol. 9 (Del Rey)

Hellsing, Vol. 8

By Kohta Hirano
Dark Horse, 208 pp.
Rating: 13+ (violence, mild language)

The plot of volume eight could be summarized in a single sentence:

As Nazi soldiers lay siege to London from the sky and on the ground, Alucard comes face to face with one of his most powerful enemies.

While that sentence is a fair summary of what happens, it doesn’t begin to capture the sheer absurdity of what happens. Major/SS-Sturmbannführer Montana Max sipping hot cocoa while watching London burn from the safety of a zeppelin. White-hooded Vatican soldiers engaging in hand-to-hand combat with vampires on the steps of St. Paul’s. (Nazi vampires, to be exact.) Father Anderson turning into the world’s most menacing-looking rosebush. Alucard rockin’ a ‘stache and dodging the business end of Christendom’s least-known relic, the Holy Nail of Helena. Silly? Natürlich. Confusing? Jawohl. But Hirano’s bold visuals, insane plot twists, and extended action sequences make for an entertaining read, even when the plot makes absolutely no sense at all.

Volume 8 of Hellsing is available now.

Samurai Commando: Mission 1549, Vol. 1

Original Concept by Ryo Hanmura; Written by Harutoshi Fukui; Illustrated by Ark Performance
CMX, 176 pp.
Rating: Teen Plus (violence)

File this under Lessons Learned While Reading Manga: time travel can wreck havoc with history. The Japanese military learns this lesson the hard way when an elite squad goes AWOL in feudal Japan. In the six years that the team has been stranded in the Warring States period, their modern weaponry and scientific know-how have had a profound effect not only on the sixteenth century but also on the present day, causing small tears in the space-time continuum to appear all over Japan. (The fact that Colonel Matoba, the squad’s leader, has murdered Oda Nobunaga doesn’t help matters, either.) Enter Kashima, a standard-issue wise guy/action hero, former member of Group F, and one-time protégé of Colonel Matoba. The military recruits him for a special mission: to travel back to 1549 and prevent Matoba from altering the course of Japanese history without eliminating too many innocent villagers (or stepping on any butterflies) in the process.

This rather generic set-up might have yielded some glorious battle sequences. Think arrows vs. Uzis, horses vs. Humvees, bitchin’ samurai armor vs. modern military camouflage. Though the final pages of volume one deliver some of the samurai vs. commando action promised by the title, there simply isn’t enough of a payoff for the paint-by-numbers exposition that precedes it. Everything about the initial chapters induces déjà vu, from the obligatory “scientific” explanation of time travel’s dangers to Kashima’s foul-mouthed wisecracks. The artwork, too, is unremarkable. Most of the backgrounds look like clip-and-paste jobs, and the character designs—though competent—barely register. Not recommended unless you felt that Timeline should have unfolded in 16th-century Japan instead of 14th-century France.

Volume one of Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 is available now. The second and final volume will be released on October 31st.

To Terra, Vol. 3

By Keiko Takemiya
Vertical, Inc., 332 pp.
No rating

To Terra unfolds in a distant future characterized by environmental devastation. To salvage their dying planet, humans have evacuated Terra (Earth) and, with the aid of a supercomputer named Mother, formed a new government to restore Terra and its people to health. The most striking feature of this era of Superior Domination (S.D.) is the segregation of children from adults. Born in laboratories, raised by foster parents on Ataraxia, a planet far from Terra, children are groomed from infancy to become model citizens. At the age of 14, Mother subjects each child to a grueling battery of psychological tests euphemistically called Maturity Checks. Those who pass are sorted by intelligence, then dispatched to various corners of the galaxy for further training; those who fail are removed from society.

The real purpose of these checks is to weed out an unwanted by-product of S.D.-era genetic engineering: the Mu, a race of telepathic mutants. After decades of persecution, the Mu fled Terra, seeking refuge beneath the surface of Ataraxia. Under the leadership of Soldier Blue, they escaped detection by humans. But Soldier Blue is frail and dying (though he has chosen to project a youthful, sparkly-eyed appearance), and seeks a successor in Jomy, a 14-year-old who possesses both the telepathic ability of a Mu and the hardier constitution of a human. As the series unfolds, we watch Jomy develop into a formidable leader, capable of inspiring passion, loyalty, and sacrifice among the Mu as they struggle to return to their homeworld. Running in counterpoint to Jomy’s story is that of Keith Anyan, an elite solider-in-training and future Terran leader. Keith enjoys a privileged position in human society. Yet he is plagued by doubt: why doesn’t he remember his childhood? Or his foster parents? And why does Mother refuse to eradicate the Mu when the state has deemed them a threat to mankind?

What makes this unabashedly Romantic mash-up of Star Trek, Star Wars, and 2001 both entertaining and moving is the richness of Keiko Takemiya’s universe. On the surface, To Terra is a beautifully illustrated soap opera, the kind of manga in which the heroes have terrific hair, wear smart jumpsuits, and keep psychic squirrels as pets. But To Terra can also be read a cautionary tale about mankind’s poor custodianship of the Earth; a scathing critique of eugenics and social engineering; a meditation on the relationship between memory and identity; and, most significantly, a critique of adult hypocrisy. It’s this multivalent quality that elevates To Terra from a mere allegory to an epic space opera as engaging, beautiful, and thought-provoking as Tezuka’s best work. If you haven’t yet explored the ground-breaking manga of the Magnificent 49ers, Vertical’s superb presentation of To Terra makes an excellent jumping off point for your survey.

PS: Vertical will be bringing more Keiko Takemiya goodness to bookshelves this fall with yet another space opera, the three-volume Andromeda Stories.

Volume three of To Terra is available now.