The Manga Test Drive

I've been focusing so much on Viz and a handful of old publishers that I've been neglecting some of the other, modern publishers who are putting out shoujo, starting with the behemoth that is Yen Press.

LOVE AT FOURTEEN (14-sai no Koi), by Fuka Mizutani. First published in 2010 and first published in North America in 2014.

PLOT:

Kanata Tanaka and Kazuki Yoshikawa are both seen by their classmates as cool and mature. None of them would suspect that the two are old friends who revert to giddier, more childish versions of themselves when alone. Lately, though, the two can’t help but notice how attractive the other has gotten. As the two start to fall in love, they find themselves straining even harder to keep up their cool facades while finding opportunities to enjoy some quiet, tender moments together.

STORY:

Love At Fourteen is a very down-to-earth sort of shoujo romance. That’s both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. There are a lot of little moments between these two that feel very true to life, but when taken as a whole it lacks any sort of drama or forward moment.

One of the big conceits is that both Kanata and Kazuki feel compelled to hide not only their relationship, but any facet of their personality beyond cool and composed yet Mizutani never really gives us a reason WHY they do this. They seem to be fairly popular and respected, save for the weird kid in the back who briefly tries (and fails) to blackmail them after catching them kissing. I don’t think any of them would think less of the two for dating or even just goofing around. Is it just stupid teenage pride? Regardless, it’s a poor substitute for actual conflict.

Compared to your average shoujo leads, these two are decidedly ordinary. Neither of them are particularly talented, attractive, or extraordinarily popular. While this makes them a little more relatable to the average reader, it also makes them kind of boring. There’s nothing particularly compelling about these two other than this big façade they keep putting on and that’s not a good quality for a leading couple to have. It’s hard to get invested in a romance between Whats-Her-Face and That Other Guy. It also doesn’t help that as far as the plot goes, it’s very much by-the-book. It covers a lot of the same old schoolroom scenarios that countless other shoujo series have done to more memorable effect. The most memorable bit of story doesn't involve them at all, but instead the creepy kid who catches them. He ends up in trouble with a very persistent music teacher and the results are satisfying and even a little funny. I just wish Mizutani brought that same flare to the rest of the story because it DESPERATELY needs it.

ART:

Mizutani's art is just as lowkey as her storytelling. There's not a lot of goofy anime hairstyles or ridiculously convoluted school uniforms. If anything, the characters are kind of wonky looking because she draws very awkward, flat faces. The rest of their bodies are fine, but the faces are always perpetually off. It almost doesn't matter, though, because what she lacks in character design she more than makes up for in montage. There are loads of quiet, sparse little montages of our leads looking at one another or going through some motion that are lovely in their simplicity and elegance. It helps to reinforce the sort of emotion she's going for in the story and in some ways her montages are more effective at it than the dialogue.

RATING:

Love At Fourteen has moments of simple romantic elegance, but at times it's almost too ordinary to really hold a reader's attention. Those looking for something less dramatic may find this charming, but it's not a must-read for shoujo fans.

This series is published by Yen Press. This series is ongoing with 6 volumes available. All 6 have been published and are currently in print. This series is also available digitally through Yen Press.

Can you believe that it's been five years and I still haven't covered a single Kaori Yuki manga? That's kind of remarkable considering she's got just as many works in print here as someone like Arina Tanemura. She's certainly worthy of discussion...it's just a shame I have to start with this one.

GRAND GUIGNOL ORCHESTRA (Guignol Kyutei Gakudan), by Kaori Yuki. First published in 2008 and first published in North America in 2010.

PLOT:

Across the realm of Queen Gemsilica, a dread plague runs rampant. It turns people into Guignols, foul beings that are like a cross between zombies and porcelain dolls. The only thing that can defeat the Guignols are the royal orchestras, as their music stops the Guignols in their tracks and even work some miracles. There are two orchestras in the land, one official and one unofficial. Our story concerns the unofficial one and its leader Lucille. Through the eyes of their newest member, Enes, we learn some of the secrets behind the orchestras and the Guignols.

STORY:

I swear, Kaori Yuki's storytelling just keeps getting sloppier with the years. Angel Sanctuary was pretentious but densely plotted. Godchild was shallow and melodramatic, but that mood suited the pulpy anthology style and vaguely Victorian setting. Grand Guignol Orchestra is something else, though. It's little more than a mishmash of fantasy tropes, Victoriana, and gem-themed names.

There's not much to the members of the orchestra: one's pissy! One's quiet! There are some others but they're not all that interesting! The most interesting character is Lucille, who is basically this universe's equivalent of a castrato. Here, being a castrato is less about chopping off your junk and more about harnessing voice magic and possessing a magic book which is TOTALLY not The Book of Deus Ex Machina. The only one who gets anything resembling a character arc is Enes, and that mostly involves a dead brother, a hidden identity, a giant conspiracy, and a buttload of aaaaaaaannnngst. What's weird is that Enes spends the first half of the volume being depressed and the second half being the one espousing the power of friendship against a chauvinist with delusions of grandeur. I will take that over the jokes made at Lucille's expense about their gender during that part because I will happily take The Power of Friendship over trap jokes.

Grand Guignol Orchestra is just all over the place both narratively and tonally and because of that I can't take it seriously. The cast are little more than one-joke notes or melodramatically angsty and the mythos is a mess. Worst of all, it's all dragged out just long enough to make you wish it would just end already.

ART:

Yuki's art skills have also gotten sloppier over the years. There's much less of the dark and rich linework that defines her early work and a lot more flat, generically cute faces. The wardrobes and hairstyles alike are still frilly and fussy as hell and the backgrounds are packed. She certainly gave herself a challenge when it came to visualizing the notion of sound and the quality of music. Does she succeed? Oh god, no. At best, she slaps on some vague screentones and calls it a day. I guess she felt she needed to lighten up on something because as always, her panels and pages are overstuff. It's just a chaotic pile of faces, layers, flashbacks and hair and as a whole it's just tacky.

RATING:

Grand Guignol Orchestra is anything but grand. It's a hackneyed, dull mess with art that only occasionally echoes Yuki's earlier days. This is for completionists only.

This series is published by Viz. This series is complete in Japan with 5 volumes available. All 5 have been published and are currently in print. This series is also available digitally through Viz.

Most isekai-style shoujo stories are about girls getting sucked into alternate fantasy worlds. Far less common are ones about time-travel, and rarer still are ones about guys. This might be the only one I've seen that combines the two.

YUKARISM, by Chiaki Shiomi. First published in 2010 and first published in North America in 2014.

PLOT:

Yukari Kobayashi is a bestselling author of historical fiction at the tender age of 17. When his classmate and super-fan Makoto comes to his home to deliver some assignments, she discovers the secret to Yukari's success. Yukari's books are so lifelike because he's drawing from his own past memories as a Edo-era oiran. The more Yukari draws on his past, the more the boundaries between the present and past blur. Stranger still, Yukari starts recognizing other figures from his current life in the past, and they all seem to be connected to a mysterious fire that killed his past self hundreds of years ago.

STORY:

I think what makes Yukarism truly effective is not in how it combines shoujo tropes to create a new story, but in how Shiomi creates and maintains this wonderfully understated, dreamy tone. It goes a long way towards selling the reader on this fantastical concept and keeping them captivated.

Yukari is something of a cipher, but for once it's on purpose and not because of poor writing. As someone who can drift readily between the past and the present, it makes sense for him to be so spacey from it that he ends up skipping school for days at a time and barely speaks to anyone unless forced to. It also makes him a good foil to Makoto, who tends to be the anxious sort even when she's not face-to-face with her crush. It also makes him a good contrast to his past self, Yumurasaki, who is herself smooth, seductive, and witty. The closest this series gets to comedy is when Yukari astrally projects himself into Yumurasaki and has to come to grips with moving and behaving like a woman. Luckily, Yukari is a quick study and doesn't object in the slightest to his time-travelling genderswap so we don't see any cheap jokes about having a woman's body or exploiting his past self for the sake of fanservice. He's largely content to let the forces that be take control of his consciousness and simply see what happens.

That's not to say that the story is nothing but wacky hijinxs in ye olde Edo. Just as Yukari is ready to write off Makoto as just another fan, he spots a burn-like birthmark on her arm and he starts to make connections between the people in his past and present lives. From this point on, he starts to engage with the present world actively. He starts exploring the mysteries of Yumurasaki's death and find others that are seemingly reincarnated from her time. He's even able to use his powers of observation to help a stranger get over the anxieties carried over from her time as Yumurasaki's serving girl. The irony of this situation is not lost on the reader: the more that Yukari finds himself drawn into the past, the more reason he has to engage with the present.

That's all well said and good, but what ties these altogether is the atmosphere Shiomi cultivates. Like Yukari himself, the story feels like it too is drifting somewhere in time. It's never laid on too thick, but it helps to immerse the reader and experience the story much as Yukari does. It's the perfect finishing touch for what is shaping up to a be an excellent start to an intriguing story.

ART:

Shiomi's art is much more conventional here than her storytelling. The characters are all handsome, lanky, and angular, although their most distinguishing feature are their weirdly square eyes. Interestingly, there's not a super-strong physical resemblance between Yukari and Yumurasaki so Shiomi sells the idea of their being connected through their movements and expressions. It's not a flashy touch, but it's enough to subconsciously sell the reader on the idea. She lends a fair bit of beauty to Yumurasaki's world, so much so that the modern one seems plainer in comparison. Even the expressions of others seem more muted in the modern day and I wonder if this was done on purpose or merely by happy accident. She even helps reinforce the off-kilter mood of the story through a lot of floaty, diagonal angles in the panels.

RATING:

Yukarism is a atmospheric little shoujo story with an interesting story and above-average art. I'm genuinely curious to see how this blend of past and present will end and I highly encourage others to get lost within its pages.

This series is published by Viz. This series is complete in Japan with 4 volumes available. All 4 have been published and are currently in print.

I can't let this month pass without covering at least one magical girl series. After all, shoujo as a whole in the US got its start thanks to the likes of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura. That being said, the genre has never really been able to reclaim those heights ever since and I can't help but wonder if mediocre works like today's offering are part of the reason for that.

SHUGO CHARA! (Shugo Kyara!), by Peach Pit. First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Amu has a reputation for being a cool, badass sort of girl, but Amu has no idea where it came from. She doesn't see herself as cool and aloof, but instead as painfully shy. She wants to be more assertive with people, particularly where the handsome class president Hotori Tadase is concerned. Her salvation comes in the form of three magical eggs, with each containing a doll-like creature known as a Guardian Character. Under their influence, Amu finds she can do anything and discovers that she is not the only one to possess Guardian Characters. She also soon learns that there are others who covet the Characters and their powers for themselves and that she must fight to protect them from these mysterious (and sometimes cat-eared) figures.

STORY:

It's weird to think that the same guys that brought us the gross Chobits knock-off that was DearS would end up making a magical girl series. Did the time and genre change improve their writing for the better? Eh...maybe.

Amu's not bad as far as magical girls go, even if her complaints feel a little hollow. Yes, you poor thing, you're forced to wear a wardrobe that wouldn't look out of place at Hot Topic by your mother and everyone thinks you're a cool kid. Surely her lot in life is heavy. Still, she's not dumb, selfish, or completely spineless so it's not too hard to root for her. I do like that the popular kids around her are not opponents trying to keep our heroine from her love interest but instead serve as her allies in life and love and frequently help her out with heaping helpings of exposition. It's a novel twist and I'll take any of them that I can get.

Of course, despite all of her friends turning out to have Characters of their own, Amu is the most special snowflake of them all by virtue of possessing three of them instead of one. She's also able to transform into a (surprisingly sporty) magical girl with a special, sparkly padlock. Once she does, though, the plot starts going completely to hell. That's when you start getting things like a cat-eared opponent/secondary love interest and a shadowy group of people chasing something called 'the embryo.' Whatever it may be, it turns out that Amu does not possess it, but they keep chasing after because otherwise there would not be a plot. It seems that while Peach Pit had a perfectly decent idea for a magical girl series, they didn't think about the plot too far in advance.

So, what about the Characters themselves? Well, each ascribes to a certain skill that Amu wants to improve. You could almost think of them as her personal good fairies, there to give her a stat boost as needed. It is strange that as Amu gains more of them, their skills gets more and more specific. The first boosts her confidence, the second helps her art skills, and the third makes her a better cook. Mostly they exist as cutesy little mascots who can pull whatever plot solution Amu needs out of their butts while yelling "Get confident, stupid!" Since their gifts are not permanent or even all that hard-earned makes this part of the plot feel kind of insincere and lazy.

Being better than DearS is not a high bar to clear, but Shugo Chara makes it clear that they're still relying on a lot of genre tropes and half-baked ideas than anything truly creative and compelling. It's just that this version is a lot more pink and sparkly.

ART:

The artwork is certainly a vast improvement. They still tend to draw dark, dense, and weirdly wide-spaced eyes, but the faces and forms are more pleasingly round. They definitely had fun drawing the costumes, be it Amu's mall-goth casual clothes, the student council's ridiculous uniforms (complete with capelets and far too much plaid), or the magical girl outfit that makes Amu look like she's about to play a round of tennis than anything else. Sadly, the costume design cannot make up for the fact that they are damn near drowned out by the heavily patterned backgrounds and the heavily layered panels.

RATING:

Shugo Chara doesn't add much to the world of magical girls, but it does at least represent a modicum of progress for its creators. That's not enough to make it good, but it's sweet and inoffensive enough to entertain for a bit.

This series was published by Kodansha Comics, formerly Del Ray. This series is complete in Japan with 11 volumes available. All 11 have been published and are currently in print. This series is also available digitally from Kodansha.

Kodansha has been a licensing spree lately, adding all sorts of digital-only shoujo titles to their collection. I figured that since I had enjoyed the josei titles they had picked up so much, surely I would have just as much luck with their new shoujo titles!

Oh how wrong I was.

PEACH HEAVEN (Momoiro Heaven!), by Mari Yoshino. First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2017.

PLOT:

Ever since her father died, Momoko Shino has had to help support her family by taking up her father's penname and writing erotic romance novels in his stead. None of her classmates have any idea that "George Aihara" is just unassuming (if somewhat exhausted) girl...that is, until she stumbles upon class idol Ranmaru Inui having sex with their English teacher. She uses the encounter for her next book and Ranmaru finds out her secret. He eventually agrees to keep it on one condition: that Momoka become his slave. After all, how can a teenage girl who has never so much as kissed a boy write good erotica unless someone teaches her the ways of romance?

STORY:

I'm not surprised to learn that Peach Heaven is a decade old because it certainly leans on a lot of old-fashioned (and frankly disturbing) romance tropes used in the name of cheap drama.

Right from the start, Yoshino just piles on the melodrama. It's not enough that Momoko is forced into her late father's job, she also has to be the only breadwinner for her little brother and her perpetually, vaguely ill mother because her late father was a wasteful, philandering idiot. It's meant to evoke maximum drama, but if you're an experience shoujo reader it'll evoke nothing but eyerolls. Aside from that, Momoko is an OK character. She's a fairly down-to-earth girl, even if she's more than a little repressed in all sorts of way. The only thing about her that's not repressed is her imagination, and the most delightful parts of the manga are the ones where she works out new story ideas in her mind. It's even written in a way that evokes the lurid purple prose of a proper romance novel.

Alas, any delight I could take in her ends when he crosses paths with Ranmaru. In many ways, he's not all that different from a lot of other shoujo love interests. He's a handsome blond model, adored by every girl that crosses his path save for our heroine, the illegitimate son of a wealthy yet neglectful family, alluring enough to tease and tempt the heroine with the promise of sex yet too noble to simply force himself upon her, and slowly but surely falling for the heroine's innocent charms. He's also a giant asshole like so many of them, if the fact that he's willing to blackmail a fellow classmate into personal slavery wasn't a dead giveaway.

Thankfully, his notion of 'slavery' doesn't extend beyond making her make him lunch and tagging along on some of his jobs, but the fact that he thinks blackmail is a good idea in the first place makes him downright despicable. Then there's the fact that he's got a major double standard when it comes to sex. For lack of a better phrase, Ranmaru is a slut. He sleeps with multiple girls and women indiscriminately, yet he constantly guilt trips Momoka over the fact that she's a virgin. Of course, he also takes it upon himself to 'correct' this by forcing the equivalents of heavy make-out sessions upon her. We, like Momoka herself, are meant to simply take this in stride because he's just sooooo handsome, but instead I would rather see him punted into the stratosphere.

Once the contract is made, the story devolves into more predictable scenarios. There are impromptu modeling sessions, health scares, drinking parties, attempted date rapes, most of which are set-ups for Ranmaru to do something nice or say something nice about Momoka when she's not around. None of these so-called tender moments were enough to counter all the shit that happened before. Reading this is like reading the second coming of Mayu Shinjo, and that's just about the last mangaka I want to be reminded of.

ART:

At least Yoshiro's art doesn't make me want to scream. It's actually quite nice. Her character designs are a lot more round and plain than your average shoujo artist. I especially like Momoko's scruffy mop of hair. It's a little thing, but it works well at visually communicating her constant sense of exhaustion. For all that we're told of Ranmaru's irresistable beauty, he's mostly just arms and an overly long torso than anything else. Maybe that's because he's not terrible expressive; no one in the book is in particular.

Yoshiro keeps things mostly tasteful when it comes to the saucier stuff. Momoko's imaginings are mostly covered in roses and text, while her hot-and-heavy moments with Ranmaru remain mostly clothed. She also tends to lean a lot of screentones for backgrounds, but she uses them well. They never overtake the action or emotion and she tends to use shadow-like ones to suggest the everyday scenery of your average street front.

RATING:

Peach Heaven is about as far from heavenly as you can get. It leans far too heavily on tired, exploitative cliches and I don't know what was more chilling: the premise or the love interest. Surely Kodansha can find far better shoujo manga to bring over, even if it's digital only.

This series is published by Kodansha. This series is complete in Japan with 12 volumes available. 3 volumes have been published digitally and are currently in print.

PS: Just go read The Full-Time Escapist's Wife instead, or Tokyo Tarareba Girls. You'll have a far better time doing so.

Once again, we're looking at another oddball shoujo title from CMX. This one is a bit more divisive for me. In some ways, it's much better than Two Flowers For the Dragon, but it's worse in some ways.

THE EMPTY EMPIRE (Kara no Teikoku), by Naoe Kita. First published in 1993 and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:

The Emperor Idea once ruled the world through a combination of incredible powers and indominatable charisma. Then the emperor suddenly died and the world was thrown into chaos. In the midst of this chaos, a stray duke and a whip-wielding girl from the streets find a boy that looks just like the late emperor. He's a rejected clone that was left without any memories and bearing a rose-shaped scar on his forehead. They bring him to the palace to teach the boy what he needs to know to survive, but there are many people who both adored and despised Idea and are determined to dispose of this doppelganger by any means.

STORY:

The Empty Empire is a hard series to pin down. Much like its leading man, it's lacking a sense of identity. Without it, what good ideas it has to offer are obscured and the plot as a whole feels aimless and lost.

It's a real shame it turned out that way because the core concept is quite strong. Rose (the name the clone adopts for himself) is struggling not only against countless enemies, but against the needs and expectations of an entire nation. In many ways, Rose is treated less like a person and more of...well, an idea. With every cry of "I'm not Idea!," he pushes back against those expectations and the call for him to become Idea Version 2.0 so he can find the space he needs to forge an identity all his own. He's basically having a (lack of) identity crisis and it's quite compelling, but at times it feels like it's being drowned out by the rest of the cast.

There are a handful of supporting characters here, all with stories of their own as well. They all had different experiences with the original Idea and different notions of what to do with Rose. Some want him to be the new emperor, others believe him to be the previous one come back to life, and yet others would sooner see him dead for being an abomination. The problem is that all of these stories are competing for panel space with Rose's and there's simply too many to keep track of. Kito seemingly just tosses older ones on the garbage heap even as it adds new ones.

If there are any stand-outs within the supporting cast, it would have to be the pair of Eiri (the duke) and Ririka (the street kid). Eiri exists mostly to give exposition while Ririka mostly exists to give Rose attitude and wield a mighty fine whip. Still, they're the closest thing he has to allies and it's honestly kind of cute to see how attached he gets to the tossed-off nickname Ririka gives to him. The rest of the cast is either too underdeveloped at this point to care or nothing but one-note villains to be swept aside as needed.

Just as Rose is lack identity, so too is the world he lives in. There are god-emperors, flying ships, psychic powers, cloning, fancy castles, and impoverish slums, but there's little in the way of history or culture to tie it all together. I was never sure if this was meant to be a future world, another planet altogther, or something else entirely. I'm not asking for Kito to have plotted out the entire world like it was the Dune series, but a better defined world would have helped to keep Rose's world from feeling detached from both the story and the reader.

ART:

It's not hard to believe that this is from 1993, as the character designs are a dead giveaway. They have the saucer-eyed, poofy-haired bobbleheaded that was all the rage in early 90s shoujo. That being said, their giant shoulder pads, oversized capes and moussed-up hair make even more of a throwback to the post-apocalypic works of the 80s. Kita's linework is fine, but she can be a bit vague with her backgrounds which only adds to the story's lack of identity. The only one she draws in any particular detail is the interior of Idea's castle, which is positively rococo in style. Her composition is little better, as her panels tend to be small and cramped and her pages get kind of messy during the more emotional or action-filled moments.

RATING:

The Empty Empire is an all-too-apt name for this series, as it feels more than a little empty and driftless itself. If it had a more definite setting and far fewer cast members, than perhaps it could find an identity alongside Rose and let its good qualities shine.

This series was published by CMX. This series is complete in Japan with 7 volumes available. All 7 were published and are currently out of print.

After all the drama I've had to read this month, it's nice to come back to a simple shoujo story. The sort of story that's just about a girl and a boy and a chronic lack of communication.

KIMI NI TODOKE ("Reaching You"), by Karuho Shiina. First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Sawako Kuronuma is a sweet and painfully shy young woman, but to her classmates she comes off as creepy. It's bad enough that her awkwardness and long black hair have earned her the nickname "Sadako," after the character from The Ring. The only person who is willing to give Sawako a chance is Kazehiya, a class representative and all-around nice guy. Sawako is utterly smitten with him, even if she's completely oblivious to the nature of her feelings. With his encouragement, she starts reaching out to her classmates and making some friends, even as their own burgeoning friendship is slowly but surely turning into a burgeoning romance.

STORY:

I've covered lots of schoolroom shoujo romances on this site and most of them could only aspire to mere mediocrity. By all accounts, Kimi ni Todoke should be just another of them but instead it's one of my personal favorites. How is that possible? The key lies with its handling of Sadako and its complete sincerity.

It would be easy to write off Sawako as yet another oblivious ingenue, the kind of girl who falls in love without even understand what on earth love is. I've even seen some speculate that Sawako is meant to portray someone on the autism spectrum, although that is understandably very much up for debate. Still, Shiina takes care to make the story just as much about Sawako learning to make friends as it about her learning to love. The most prominent storyline thus far isn't her relationship with Kazehiya, but about her getting to know the tomboyish Yoshida and stylish Yona. While these two do come to love Sawako and defend her from others, they're not just there to be Sawako's cheerleaders. They get to be characters in their own right with their own personalities and issues to work through. I'm always a fan of shoujo series that savor the joys of friendship as much (if not more) than young love, so that went a long way with me.

That's not to say that there isn't any romance to be found here. After all, it's Kazehiya's gentle encouragement and emotional openness that inspires Sawako in the first place. That being said, I'm not quite as in love with him as Sawako is. I do like the fact that he isn't some moody jackass or a playboy meant to be reformed through a maiden's love because those archetypes are beyond overdone. It's nice to find a series where the girl falls in love with a genuinely nice, responsible, well-adjusted person. Still, he's almost TOO good and perfect, like the platonic ideal of teenaged popularity. It's hard to believe that he wouldn't have even the slightest bit of insecurity or drama to work through himself or that there wouldn't be at least one kid who didn't like him. This leaves him feeling a little dull. It also doesn't help that he's just as shy and naive about love as Sawako, which means anyone who reads this series better prepare to spend volumes at a time waiting for these two to realize the obvious. It's almost just as unbelievable that it took 15 years for someone to simply talk to Sawako and realize that she's always been a sweetheart.

Yet I'm perfectly willing to overlook those points because Shiina writes it all with a quiet sense of sincerity. She doesn't aim for high melodrama but instead lets the quiet moments of bonding wash over the reader like a warm bath. Everything in this story radiates warmth and gentility and it would take a far harder person than I to resist those good feelings. It's not everyday that you find a shoujo series that genuinely makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, after all.

ART:

Shiina's art is just as gentle and dewy-eyed as her story. Her characters are fairly simply looking, as they are mostly defined by their big, clear, expressive eyes. She clearly has fun drawing Sawako, be it her unintentionally scary moments (complete with dark, ominous lighting and low angles) as well as the moments where she bursts into a genuine and beautiful smile. If that wasn't cute enough, she adds a puppy midway through for Sawako and Kazehiya to bond over. It's practically a marshmallow in dog form, and while it may be a rather blatant play for the heartstrings it's also too cute to resist.

RATING:

Sawako and Kazehiya may be too good and sweet to be true, but Kimi ni Todoke is not. It's steeped in good feelings from cover to cover and its sincerity goes a long way towards smoothing out whatever issues I might have with it.

This series is published by Viz. This series is ongoing in Japan with 27 volumes available. 26 volumes have been published and all are currently in print. This series is also available digitally through Viz.

Last month I ranted about how awful Maria Holic is. What I didn't know at the time is that there was another variation on the same idea that was done more in a shoujo vein, and that it was just as unlikable as that previous series.

TENSHI JA NAI!! (I'm No Angel), by Takako Shigematsu. First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT:

Hikaru just wants to be left alone. She modeled briefly as a child and all she got out of it was a lot of attention from bullies. Ever since, Hikaru has done her best to coast through her school years without attracting any sort of attention. Her plans go to hell when her new all-girls' school decides to have her room with Izumi Kido, a popular actress and idol singer. Hikaru soon learns Izumi's secret: he's a man who only poses as a woman. Both Izumi and his manager Yasukuni are determined to keep this secret at any cost, and they are not above blackmailing Hikaru to achieve this. It seems that between this, jealous classmates, and some family secrets of her own, Hikaru is going to need to make some all-new plans if she's going to survive.

STORY:

I really hate that I have to keep saying this, but it apparently needs saying again: Guys dressing like women is not funny, and blackmail is ESPECIALLY not funny. Just because this take on it doesn't involve making fun of a lesbian doesn't make it any better.

Hikaru is OK as far as heroines go. She's very loyal towards the few people who supported her during her bullying, but her experiences made her more than a little paranoid and learning the truth about Izumi only aggravates those tendencies. She's got a matter-of-fact tone that reminds me of Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club. Sadly, she's the ONLY likeable character to be found within the entire volume. Everyone else either blends into the background or is actively hateful.

My biggest problem with Tenshi Ja Nai!! was this: why does Izumi have to present himself as a woman to succeed? It's not a matter of being trans or a transvestite as he doesn't seem to take any pleasure or comfort from doing so and never says anything to even suggest as much. There's no ostensible reason that he couldn't succeed as a male actor and idol singer. So why does he bother with the big charade? There is literally no reason he NEEDS to do this, and without that reason the plot just falls apart.

Even if he had a reason, he's still an irredeemable bastard who literally threatens to share naked pictures of Hikaru unless she plays along with his plans. Shigematsu at least tries to redeem the manager with a storyline about him rebelling against his rich family and having our leads come to his defense, but these attempts at sympathy are far too late and far too little to smooth over the fact that the plot operates on blackmail. That's a storytelling choice that you can't simply walk back without a lot of effort and Tenshi Ja Nai!! is not interested in making that effort.

ART:

The artwork here is nothing special. Shigematsu seems to prefer drawing very stiff, lanky, giraffe-necked, pointy, and heavily androgynous characters. They're not terribly good looking but it certainly works in Izumi's favor. Beyond that, everything else about her art is as boring and straightforward as shoujo manga can be.

RATING:

Tenshi Ja Nai!! is no angel, but it's also not fun, not pretty, and not worth reading.

This series was published by Go!Comi. This series is complete in Japan with 8 volumes available. All 8 have been published and are currently out of print.

I'm beginning to think that the taste of Yuu Watase fans is not to be trusted. They still believe Fushigi Yuugi is a classic and today's selection is one of her worst. I've made my thoughts plain on Fushigi Yuugi, while this series thus is...OK, I guess?

ABSOLUTE BOYFRIEND (Zettai Kareshi), by Yuu Watase. First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:

Riiko Izawa wants a boyfriend more than anything. So far, every boy she's asked out has turned her down. The only consistent guy in her life is her next-door neighbor/childhood friend Soshi, and he spends his time taking care of her in lieu of her parents or fighting with her. While lamenting her latest strike-out, Riiko meets a strange man with an even stranger offer: a website where she can order the man of her dreams. Riiko expects to be nothing but a scam, but soon enough there's a package on her doorstep containing a life-sized, attractive, and extremely nude android boy ready to fulfill her every need. Of course, there's always a catch. If she doesn't return her new boytoy after the trial period, she'll be stuck with a seven-figure bill. It turns out that the perfect man may sound like a great deal on paper, but maintaining one is a lot more work than Riiko expected.

STORY:

I went into this review knowing only two things:

It was basically like a gender-flipped version of Chobits
It was widely regarded as Yuu Watase's worst series.

I was intrigued by the first statement and baffled by the second. How could it be worse than Fushigi Yuugi? Still, I enjoyed Chobits and I've generally liked every other licensed Watase manga I've read, so I was willing to give it a shot. It must get worse further down the line because thus far it falls squarely in the middle as far as quality goes.

Riiko is fairly standard as far as Watase heroines go. She's not too bright, she's not all that socially adept, but she's cute and spunky enough to get by. Also like many of her heroines, Riika's got a snarky guy at the sidelines who all but has "love interest" stamped on his forehead. Truth be told, I found Soshi to be the more compelling of the two, even if he's mostly defined by his frustration at his absent family and his deeply repressed desire for Riiko. Maybe this is merely relative as anyone would look like a force of personality compared to Riiko's android, Night. Some of this is by design, literally. After all, he's meant to be a blank slate upon which his owner can project all her horny teenage dreams. Still, he doesn't seem to progress that far by volume's end save for learning what jealousy is.

Maybe Watase is doing this on purpose, though. Maybe the point is that perfection will never be as interesting as a real, complicated relationship. If so, then she keeps muddying that message by having Night perform some superhuman feat of strength against some random masher to keep the romantic rivalry going. She also keeps hinting that the salesman has an agenda of his own, but it's not followed up far enough to make much of an impact. Mostly it just feels like Riiko is nothing but a third wheel in her own story. So much is going on around her but she's so far removed from it that virtually anyone could have filled that role. It's far from the worst beginning for a Watase work that I've read, but it's hardly the most promising either.

ART:

Watase is a fairly dependable artist and Absolute Boyfriend is no exception to this. She still has a hell of a time drawing guys who don't look like Tamahome, and no amount of hair color changes or glasses can hide that. The biggest difference between this manga and her other works is the sheer amount of nudity. She's often thrown in a bit of cheesecake in her other manga, but here she exploits Night's frequent nakedness for all she can. She milks a lot of humor out of the fact that Night is shipped in the nude and tends to strip at lightning speed whenever he tries to seduce Riiko.

RATING:

Absolute Boyfriend isn't great by any stretch, but it's nowhere near as bad as its reputation suggests. It's pretty derivative and not all that progressive, but when compared to both shoujo manga as a whole and the collective works of Yuu Watase it's fairly mediocre.

This series is published by Viz. This series is complete in Japan with 5 volumes available. All 5 have been published and are currently in print.

How do you combine family drama, ninjas, time travel and romance in a way that isn't completely ridiculous? Well, I don't know if today's selection is the perfect way to do so, but it's certainly a good start.

SHINOBI LIFE (Shinobi Raifu), by Shoko Conami. First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

Hundreds of years ago, Kagetora was a loyal ninja serving Princess Beni. During an attack on her home, the two are separated by an explosion and Kagetora finds himself flung through time and right onto another, modern day Beni. She's a rich girl with a seething hatred of her greedy stepfather and she sees Kagetora as a new way to spite him. Soon enough, she comes to care for him, but helping Kagetora won't be as simple as just taking him back to his time.

STORY:

You know, for as much as ninjas are associated with Japanese pop culture it's hard to find good manga that feature them. I fully expected Shinobi Life to simply blend in with the rest of that thoroughly mediocre pile of books. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that it had a few nifty tricks up its sleeves.

The interplay between Kagetora and Beni reminds me a lot of Sousuke and Kanami from Full Metal Panic!. It's not a perfect comparison, mind you, as Kagetora's obliviousness isn't played for comedy and Beni's anger come not from being your standard tsundere but instead is fueled by paranoia and regret that she uses to lash out at everyone. Still, there's a lot more give and take between the two than merely bodyguard and client right from the start and it doesn't take long before the two of them start to drop their guards a little. This make the eventual shift towards romance feel natural and well-earned.

The rest of the plot is kind of all over the place. At first it seems like the story is going to be Kagetora and Beni against the world...or at least, against her skeezy dad who may or may not be hiding the truth behind her mother's death and is most certainly trying to set her up his very creepy advisor. Then Beni figures out how the wormhole that brought Kagetora to her works and they end up jumping back and forth from his time to hers trying to straighten things out. I'm glad they don't milk the situation for fish-out-of-water jokes, but it seems like Conami didn't plan things out very far. It's fun thus far, but if she just making things up from chapter to chapter then it's hard to say how long those good qualities will win out.

ART:

Much like the story, there's some interesting stuff going on just below the otherwise mundane facade. The character designs are nothing - if anything, they're a little gangly - but Conami makes them look better through some smart framing, subtle expression, and the occasionally artful pose. Maybe they stand out more because the backgrounds are pretty vague. On the other hand, she tends to pack the panels on the page pretty tight, so busier scenes tend to devolve into visual chaos.

PRESENTATION:

It's not often I have cause to compliment a Tokyopop translation, but it's also not often I recognize someone in the credits. In this case, it's Ysabet McFarlane, a translator who these days does a lot of work for Seven Seas on books like The Ancient Magus' Bride and The Girl From the Other Side. Her adaptation lends Beni's dialogue a lot of bite and gives Kagetora's speech just the right amount of old-fashioned formality without going the full Rurouni Kenshin route.

RATING:

Shinobi Life is a bit of a mess plot-wise but it's saved by a decently written romance, some decent art skills, and a translation that lends it charm.

This series was published by Tokyopop. This series is complete in Japan with 13 volumes available. 8 volumes were published and are currently out of print.

Well, at long last we reach the end of the month. After all of these books, I want to end things on a high note. As such, I decided to go back to the early days of shoujo itself for something special.

ANDROMEDA STORIES (Andoromeda Sutorizu), written by Ryu Mitsuse and art by Keiko Takemiya. First published in 1980 and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Deep within the Andromeda Galaxy on the planet of Astralis, the people are celebrating the marriage of Princess Lilia of Ayodoyo and Prince Ithaca of Cosmoralia. All seems joyous on their world until a bright star appears in an unfavorable position that soon falls upon Astralis and brings doom upon the royal house. In the midst of this disaster, another ill omen occurs: the queen gives birth to twin boys. The queen's nurse spirits one of the children away to be cared for by a gruff gladiator, unaware that this child may just be in fact the savior of prophecy who will save Astralis.

STORY:

This is some straight-up, old-school, Joseph Campbell style, sci-fi tinged fantasy. That's not all too shocking considering who the author is. Ryu Mitsuse is not a name that would be known to most manga fans, but in the world of Japanese sci-fi fiction he is a notable figure. Learning this went a long way towards explaining why Andromeda Stories feels a lot like pulpy old sci-fi, for better and for worse.

There's a lot of stories going on here. There's a lot of backstory and side stories to go along with the main one and some of come off as a bit perfunctory. Still, it's all incorporated in a way that feels organic and even the less consequential ones lend the story a sense of atmosphere. The characters aren't all that deep either, as they tend to stick to a lot of well-worn character types: the wilting princess, the evil king, the bluff soldier, the mysterious ninja-type warrior, the old sage, the prophesied hero and so on. They're not complex either, but they get the job done. What really carries the story is the atmosphere and interesting philosophy going on just under the story. Through this conflict between a mysterious technological force and this pseudo-medieval civilization, Mitsuse explores the conflict between technology, nature, and spirituality. It's hardly subtle, but it's still compelling. It carries the story all the way up to the cliffhanger ending, and it goes to prove how even a story largely be built on trope and cliche but still end up with something good.

ART:

Amazingly, this was not the first time a Mitsuse story was adapted by a Showa 29 artist, as another story was turned into a manga by Takemiya's old roommate Moto Hagio. Still, Takemiya is a perfect fit for this sort of pulp fiction considering her own history with dramatic sci-fi stories like To Terra. While this manga might date from 1980, the art style is still firmly stuck in the world of 1970s shoujo. That means a lot of pretty people, glittering dark eyes, dramatic angles and occasional moments of breathtaking beauty, such as the prologue where the creation of the universe is covered in a way that masterfully blends hard science and elegant metaphor. It's one of the few moments that feels like one of her ideas instead of Mitsuse, and I wish there were more moments like it.

PRESENTATION:

This comes from the early days of Vertical, so the presentation does leave things a bit wanting. The only extra is a character guide. That would be a fine thing on its own as there are a lot of cast members, but it's far too short and shoved awkwardly onto the back cover.

RATING:

Andromeda Stories is held back a bit by its very archetypical story, but its fusion of old-school sci-fi and shoujo beauty still makes it worth a look.

This series was published by Vertical. This series is complete in Japan with 3 volumes available. All 3 were published and are currently out of print.

With con season in full swing, it's time to once again take a look at manga that are all about fandom, otaku-dom, and all things nerdy. Of course, these days the focus is less on the traditional male otaku and more on their pervy sisters in slashiness, the fujoshi.

FUJOSHI RUMI (Mousou shoujo otaku kei), by Natsumi Konjoh. First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

Rumi was simply content to spend her days squeeing over her favorite shows, her favorite man-on-man ships, and especially her own vivid fantasies about class hunk Chiba and his best friend Takahito hooking up. Then Takahito accepted an invitation to model for her in art club and instead found himself falling head over heels for Rumi. He might not understand what she's talking about half the time, but he's determined to make his feelings for her known even if he must compete with both his best friend and Rumi's newest fujoshi friend for her time and attention.

STORY:

I always get kind of wary whenever I see anime or manga that are specifically about fujoshi. Far too often, the story leans on the same old tired jokes about fujoshi being literally unable to comprehend the world outside of BL terminology. Fujoshi Rumi is not entirely innocent of this, but it's helped out a lot by a strong supporting cast and the total sincerity that Konjoh brings to Takahito and Rumi's nascent romance.

Like most fujoshi characters in manga, Rumi is defined by the sharp divide between her fujoshi fixations and her shoujo-esque naivite about everything else. If anything, she helped to codify this as a stereotype of fujoshi characters as a whole. At least she gets to avoid some of the more unpleasant signifiers of fujoshis, like being fat, slovenly, and generally anti-social. She may be an otaku, but outside of her obsession with her favorite shows and her dirty mind, she's an otherwise functional and sociable young lady. It's easy to see why an ordinary guy like Takahito would be drawn to her, even if his freakouts over her interests are all too predictable. He's completely sincere in his pursuit of her, and that's a big part of what lends Fujoshi Rumi some charm.

What really makes the story, though, are Chiba and Matsui. It would have been easy to write him as an oblivious (and unintentionally homoerotic) playboy and write her as just another mean girl bully. Instead, Chiba is shown to be largely disinterested, even cynical about romance and his interactions with Takahito have the sort of joking, lived-in sort of camaderie that feels true to life. Still, that's nothing compared to what happens with Matsui. She goes from no-name extra to potential antagonist to something between Rumi's best friend, a potential love interest, and a snarky foil in much the same way Chiba is. Those two not only fun characters onto themselves, but they play off one another and the main couple in a way that is incredibly enjoyable. It's thanks to this combination that a manga that could have been just one long fujo joke turns into something genuinely enjoyable.

ART:

You'd never think that this series was seinen from looking at it. The character designs are pure shoujo: cute girls, handsome bishonen, a lot of brightly patterned screentones for wackier scenes, and sparkles and flowers for the romantic moments. Of course, it's used just as much for comedy purposes as it is for sincere moments, usually whenever Rumi's mind goes into full-out fujoshi mode. Still, Konjoh has a real knack for poses and her bodies have a sense of dimension that's seldom seen in this style of art.

PRESENTATION:

Between Rumi and Matsui, there are just as many references to actual anime quotes, real-world shows, and even actual big-name seiyuu. It's a good thing then that there's a thorough translation guide explaining them all. There's also a lot of references to Gundam, which makes a lot more sense after you read the omake where Konjoh reconnects with an old school friend (and inspiration for Rumi) and the two end up comparing the charms of Char Aznable versus Athrun Zola.

RATING:

Fujoshi Rumi manages to avoid a lot of cheap jokes at the expense of its heroine to instead create a charming romantic comedy. It's a shame that we never got all of this because if we had (or if it had been released by a better publisher), it might have become something of a classic.

This series was published by Media Blasters. This series is complete in Japan with 7 volumes available. 3 volumes were released and are currently out of print.

With E3 having come and gone, it feels appropriate to look at a manga about games. Alas, like a bad E3 trailer this one promises one thing and offers something else (and something worse) entirely.

POPO CAN, by Masakazu Iwasaki. First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

Yasuharu Koizumi was only looking for a weird new video game to play. What he got was the game's heroine, Popomi, popping out of his TV on a vague quest. In the mean time, she's content to hang around Yasuharu's house, eat his food, get fawned over by his grandfather, mess with Yasuharu's childhood friend Miko, and generally sow chaos wherever she goes. That's not even counting the robot housekeeper and the ineffectual villainess that follows after Popomi!

STORY:

Iwasaki has a lot of mistaken notions when it comes to comedy. He thinks that 'loud and abrasive' makes for a good joke. He thinks that pelting the audience with gags like a Gatling gun is a good idea. He thinks that a vague premise and a lot of random nonsense is good enough for a story. He is deeply mistaken.

The initial premise was clearly meant to be a video-game themed take on Video Girl Ai, but in short succession he abandons what little plot there and from that point onward the only point is for Popomi to be as annoying as possible. To Iwasaki's slight credit, he clearly means for Popomi to be as aggressive, vain, and random as possible. The problem is that he also thinks that these qualities are absolutely hilarious. There's no real point to Popomi's awfulness other than to make Yasuharu uncomfortable and without a point it simply doesn't work as a joke.

It's not like her awfulness is balanced out by anyone else in the cast. Most of them are paper-thin nobodies who have a single gag (at best) to their name. The only character with any real comedic potential is Hiropon the villainess. Her intro is probably the funniest portion of the entire book, as her attempt to sneak up on Popomi and instead is given a welcoming party in her honor. It's not only a pleasantly unexpected swerve, it's delivered with great timing and without a lot of loud nonsense. If the entire book could have been this good, it would have been a delight. Hell, even if it had stuck to the 'video game characters come to life' premise more frequently, it might have felt more focused. Instead it's nothing but a lot of loud obnoxiousness pretending to be humor.

ART:

Iwasaki's art is well-suited for comedy. He favors big broad expressions, lively poses, and heavily chibified characters. It's almost a little nostalgic to see all these short, squat, and pleasantly thick proportioned people. He makes the most of them through some well-framed bits of flailing and action. Normally this sort of comedy is just as chaotic visually as the jokes are, but Iwasaki is good at keeping all the events clear and easy to follow. It's just a shame that it's all in service to such terrible material.

RATING:

Popo Can's Game Over happened right from the very first page. Its comedy is forced, irritating and pointless and it's a disservice to the competent and lively chibi art.

This series was published by Infinity Studios. This series is complete in Japan with 3 volumes. One volume was released and is currently out of print.

Well well well...look who flaked out last month?

Yeah, thanks to a lot of real-world projects and general household stuff, I was not able to finish up last month's theme month. That just means I have to double down and make sure I get this month's content going. With the return of another summer comes another month of manga sequels, prequels, & spin-offs. To kick things off and to make up for lack of content last month, let's start with the return to everyone's favorite otaku college club.

GENSHIKEN SECOND SEASON (Genshiken Nidaime), by Shimoku Kio. First published in 2011 and first published in North America in 2012.

PLOT:

While the original club members have mostly graduated, Genshiken lives on (even if the members are largely female and their focus is largely on fujoshi matters). The club is thrown for a loop when a lovely young lady named Hato walks through their door, only to Hato to be revealed as a boy in drag. While some members have a harder time than others grasping Hato's situation, they all soon bond over their mutual love of manga and man-love. Meanwhile, former Genshiken president Madarame is having a hard time coping with transiting to the working world. He finds himself drawn back into club affairs when his place turns out to be the most convenient place for Hato to change, but will it be enough for him to get over the one who got away?

STORY:

It's always a tough feat for any mangaka to return to their biggest hit and produce a sequel that can hope to rival it. At this point, it's hard to say if Kio will pull it off, but there's enough of a new dynamic and new ideas to make Second Season feel like something more than just a retread of the original.

Of course, Kio couldn't deny the fact that in the decade since he started Genshiken, the otaku dynamic has shifted. While there are still plenty of obsessive dudes downloading hentai games, these days there are just as many (if not more) fujoshi discussing their favorite ships and making art for them. Naturally, Genshiken would reflect these changes as well and that is the big reason for the cast change. Well, that and unlike some others he's not going to ignore the fact that eventually these kids have to graduate.

If there's anything holding this series back, it's the fact that it's not quite sure who the protagonist is meant to be. With the original, that was easy: it was everyday nerd Sasahara. It seems like at first the story will follow Oguie, one of the few returning cast members and current club president. She's too wrapped up in her burgeoning manga career, though, and the rest of the newer members don't work for those purposes. Most of the new kids are nice enough...save for two. First is Sue, who I'm not sure is meant to be a critique of weird, obsessive weeaboos or merely a feral cat in human form who lives only to stalk Oguie and spout Monogatari quotes. Her brand of weirdness is seemingly too weird for anyone to tolerate, although she's a gem compared to the creepy and downright off-putting Kuchiki. Between his need to be the center of attention and his constant creeping on all the girls, you'd think they would come to their sense and kick the bastard out.

Thankfully, Kio starts to find the heart of his story in the second half thanks to one new character and one returning one. The new one is Hato, whose fudanshi perspective and unconventional gender presentation gives this first chapter a lot of good material to work with. A lot of these chapters are about the club coming to understand Hato's situation and coming to terms with it. Luckily, most of the club members accept him readily and those who don't do come to realize they are being assholes about it and apologize (well...except for Kuchiki, who is gross and treats the whole thing like a fetish and why on earth have they not kicked this creep out of the club?!)

Hato not only bonds with the new club members, but also with the best of the returning characters, Madarame. He's gone from a pompous, know-it-all otaku to an everyday salaryman, but the way he lingers around the campus and keeps in touch with both the former and the current club members indicates that he's not quite ready to move on from college. More importantly and even more obviously to everyone who knew him before, he's really not ready to move past getting turned down by Saki. While his and Hato's acquaintance starts largely out of convenience, it swiftly turns into one of the most tender ones, even if it throws both of their orientations for a loop.

It's still hard to say just who (if anyone) will fill that protagonist role. It's still hard to say if the club will ever start talking about more than just BL and making manga. What I can say with some degree of certainty is that Kio does manage to create a sequel that successfully creates its own story and vibe without completely abandoning the emotions and people that made it what it was in the first place.

ART:

His artwork hasn't changed either, although it shows a degree of refinement that can only come from spending the better part of a decade on a single series. The old characters largely look the same, and the new ones are pleasantly diverse and mostly pretty cute. Again, the standout is Hato (and he should be, considering how much time he spends on his beauty routine to successfully pass as a girl). The backgrounds are still nicely detailed yet lived-in, as an ordinary apartment or college club room should. There aren't a lot of jokes here, but what few are there work well since it relies on holding an expression at just the right time for just the right length. It's a rather understated approach, but very effective.

PRESENTATION:

Not surprisingly, there's a fairly big translation guide to explain all the pop culture references.

RATING:

Genshiken Second Season isn't a quick cash-in on its predecessor but instead a worthy successor that explores modern otaku culture through the eyes of an endearing and (mostly) interesting cast.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics. This series is complete with 12 volumes available. 10 volumes have been published and are currently in print. This series is also available digitally.

Normally I would be saving this for a future Gundam-themed month, but I'm currently just shy of the midway point of Gundam Wing thanks to a groupwatch with some of the Wave Motion Cannon boys and I'm ready for a good rant so this prequel will have to do.

GUNDAM WING: EPISODE ZERO (Shin Kido Senki Gundam W EPISODE ZERO), written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa & art by Akira Kanbe, based on the Mobile Suit Gundam series created by Yoshiyuki Tomino & Hajime Yatate. First published in 1997 and first published in North America in 2002.

PLOT:

Before AC 195 and the events of Operation Meteor, there are still stories to tell. There are the stories of five young boys each suffering through their own personal tragedies, as well as that of a lost princess. Their pasts not only shaped their appearances and minds, but led to chance encounters with other notable figures from their future and eventually to the Gundams they would someday pilot.

STORY:

Unlike the last time, now I have seen quite a bit of Gundam Wing, and unless it somehow straightens up in the second half I can say with some confidence that it honestly kind of sucks. I'm personally baffled as to how so many of my peers could fall in love with this messy, baffling, overstuffed plot and a cast that seems mostly comprised of assholes. No amount of novelty and (admittedly rather good) production design could make up for it!

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about Gundam Wing itself, but this collection of non-canonical prequel stories. Like most prequels, it doesn't really work as a stand-alone piece. Without knowing who these characters are or what the deal with this setting is, these stories won't have the least bit of impact. Hell, I know who these kids are and I still couldn't care about most of these stories,and only 60% of the time was it due to the character in question being an insufferable, emotionless asshole. In most cases, it just confirmed that these characters were always awful. The only satisfaction I got out of it was seeing that not even Wufei's precious wife couldn't stand him, and that's only because Wufei is the worst goddamn character in the entire series.

The problems don't end there. These stories also rely a lot on dramatic convenience and cameos from most of the supporting cast. At best, they stretch credulity; at worst, they outright break canon. Like with the main cast, unless you know who these characters are and care about their stories, these appearances mean nothing. They also try to answer a lot of question that I can't imagine anyone but the most obsessive Gundam Wing fangirls were wondering. Why does Duo Maxwell wear his hair in a braid? Why does Quatre wear goggles all the time? Where did Heero Yuy's name come from? How did Treize meet his wife? WHO THE HELL CARES?

It all concludes in that same vein with an extremely brief side story set after the events of Endless Waltz. Having never seen it, I had no idea what was going on. Based on what I've seen here, though, I'm sure that even if I had it would have been pointless and dull. You'd be better off searching for old Gundam Wing fanfic than to dig this relic up.

ART:

Well, it's certainly an improvement over the last Wing manga I looked at. Everyone is generally on model, althought the faces tend to be a little rounder than their animated counterparts. That's pretty much all the compliments I have for it, though. The faces are stiff and virtually copy-pasted and what brief moments of action can be found aren't handled any better. Backgrounds are largely avoided and the page composition is frequently cluttered. Then as the final insult to injury, this book is flipped.

PRESENTATION:

There's a full time of the AC continuity, postscripts from both the writer and artist, and a brief collection of character sketches.

RATING:

Episode Zero is just that: a big, fat, boring, pointless, mildly ugly zero. Unless the upcoming rerelease has you desperate for every bit of Gundam Wing backstory that can be found, this is best avoided.

This volume was published by Viz. It is currently out of print.

A decade ago, the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise was the biggest thing around. Not surprisingly, its popularity led to a number of spinoffs getting licensed with today's selection being the most recent. Does it manage to capture some of the original's off-beat charm or is it just a pale copy?

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF NAGATO YUKI-CHAN (Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoshitsu), by Puyo, based on the light novel series by Nagaru Tanigawa and character designs by Noizi Ito. First published in 2009 and first published in North America in 2012.

PLOT:

Yuki Nagato is a painfully shy, insecure high school who spends her days getting boss around by her friend Asakura, hanging out in the literature club room, and pining from afar for her classmate Kyon. She gets her chance to finally confess her feelings when they decide to throw a Christmas party. Will Yuki summon up her courage in time or just die of embarassment yet again?

STORY:

I have to be completely honest: I've never quite understood what the big deal with Haruhi Suzumiya was. I tried to watch the TV series back in the early days of my anime fandom, but it never quite clicked with me and I gave up after 3 or 4 episodes. I certainly never read the original light novels, nor did I watch the movie adaptation of one of those novels that this particular manga takes inspiration from. As such, I'm judging it more as a stand-alone work than I am as to how well it does or does not work with the rest of the franchise. That's a problem because this manga leans entirely on the reader being familiar with these characters from elsewhere.

There's only a cursory amount of character building here because Puyo presumes that you already know what they're like normally. At most they get a trait or two; others get nothing at all other than 'vague niceness.' The most obvious example of the former is the title character herself. She's meant to be sympathetic with how shy, insecure, and lovesick she is, but it's taken to such extremes that she comes off like a dopey, moe Eeyore. Kyon is a great example of the latter. The snark that defines his character normally is gone, and all the reader is left with is dull, vague kindness. Much like Evangelion, a lot of what defines the cast and story of Haruhi Suzumiya is their eccentricity and the sci-fi hoo-doo around them. Without those qualities, the cast here feels like nothing but pale shadows.

It also means that there's not much of a plot to follow. Most of the volume concerns Yuki and her friends trying to keep their club together and preparing for a Christmas party. It's pure slice-of-life material but it's not the least bit enjoyable because it's delivered in the sleepiest, most sluggish manner possible. It's hard to feel your heartstrings tug when you would get more excitement from watching the clouds roll by on any given day. Again, the only reason anyone would care about this series of non-events is because they were already familiar with the source material or the franchise in general. There's nothing here for people who don't already know it, and without that emotional investment there's nothing left to get out from it.

ART:

The artist, Puyo, is a veteran of the franchise. Sadly, that's because he was the mastermind behind the Haruhi-chan manga, the comedy 4-koma spinoff that's mostly remembered for memes about smoked cheese. It certainly shows, as while this is meant to be a serious work the character still retain a lot of the simplified chibi style he used there. He certainly tries to make them emote and to build some cozy atmosphere, but it's all so dull visually that it's hard to care.

RATING:

I don't think anyone who already wasn't a Haruhi fan would care about The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan. Even if they were attached to these characters or this ship, they would do far better to watch the film that preceded this or even the TV show adapted from it than to bother with this dull snooze of a manga.

This series is published by Yen Press. This series is complete in Japan with 10 volumes available. 9 volumes have been released and are currently in print.

It's not shocking that there would be a flood of spinoffs in the wake of Attack on Titan's massive success. It's not shocking that one of those spinoffs would be about Levi, the fangirl favorite of the cast. What is shocking is how little I care about it.

ATTACK ON TITAN: NO REGRETS (Shingeki no Kyojin Kui Naki Sentaku), based on the manga series by Hayate Isayama. Written by Gun Snark & art by Hikaru Suruga. First published in 2013 and first published in North America in 2014.

PLOT:

Years before Eren Jager and his friends would join the Survey Corps, Levi Ackerman was simply doing his best to survive in the dark, run-down ruins below the Royal Sector alongside his friends Isabel and Furlan. Survey Corp commander Erwin Smith sees great potential in them and brings them into his squad, depsite the misgivings of both his fellow soldiers and his new recruits. They are all put to the test when Erwin tries out a new troop technique beyond the walls, only to end up luring out an abnormal titan.

STORY:

I've never gotten what the big deal over Levi Ackerman is. According to what others tell me, they see him as the implacable badass that Eren never quite turned out to be and swoon over his dark, sallow good looks. Personally, I've always found him too cold and robotic to get all that invested in him as a character, especially when there are already so many stand-outs in that cast. That being said, I'm not against the notion of a prequel exploring his back story. If anything, I welcome it; maybe a little backstory would help to humanize him. Alas, No Regrets does nothing of the sort.

There's a real missed opportunity in not further exploring the underground city or the time Levi and company spent growing up within it. I get that the writers have to be mindful of Isayama's canon, but the notion of an underground city full of ne'er-do-well has plenty of story openings that are largely dodged so we can get to the point where Levi meets Erwin. Thus, all we ever learn is that the underground is sketchy and Levi and his friends somehow managed to steal some vertical manoevering gear and got really good at it from bouncing around the caverns for years.

Most of the story is taken up with Erwin's own schemes to keep the Survey Corp solvent and the inevitable titan battle. The former is dry, political fare that will largely drift over your head. The former is relatively thrilling, but it lacks the stakes that you get from the main series because you barely have any time to get to know the other soldiers and those we do know aren't that interesting. Levi's friends certainly aren't, serving mostly as scrappier, more cheerful antidotes to him. They're little more than tag-alongs in his story, and since they don't appear in the main series it's pretty easy to guess their ultimate fate.

This story started out as a visual novel, which goes a long way towards explaining why there is so much talk but so little depth or action. It doesn't clash with the main Attack on Titan storyline, but it doesn't do much to enhance it or the character it's meant to spotlight either.

ART:

It's easy enough to joke that just about anyone can improve on Isayama's own, somewhat limited art, but Suruga does a good job at staying true to Isayama's great character designs while giving them a far greater sense of motion. Considering how much of this volume is spent in manoevering gear, that's a good thing. Otherwise it looks for all the world like just another volume of Attack on Titan which helps this side-story to blend in with that universe smoothly.

PRESENTATION:

There's a brief prologue chapter along with a few character model sketches along with notes from both the original writer and artist.

RATING:

I don't regret reading Attack on Titan: No Regrets, but it didn't do much to improve my opinion of Levi or add all that much to the world of Attack on Titan. It's a perfectly competent story, but unless you are a super-fan of Levi, Erwin, or Attack on Titan in general it is not essential reading.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics. This series is complete in Japan with 2 volumes available. Both volumes have been published and are currently in print.

It's August, which means it's time for yet another Old-School Month! This time we're going to kick things off with an old-school Shonen Jump favorite that somehow is still running, even today!

HUNTER X HUNTER (Hanta Hanta), by Yoshihiro Togashi. First published in 1998 and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT:

Gon wants nothing more in the world than to become a Hunter. To be a Hunter means to seek the wildest, most exotic, most profitable, and most magical things in the entire world, and the Hunters who discover them can gain fame and wealth beyond their dreams. Gon, meanwhile, simply wants the chance to follow in his father's footsteps.

Simply getting to the first Hunter examination site is an adventure onto itself, but Gon manages that with ease thanks to the help of his new friends Kurapika and Leorio. The next step for them is to survive the Hunter tests, and sometimes the applicants are more dangerous than the tests themselves.

STORY:

Even by the standards of shonen manga, Hunter x Hunter has an almost ludicrously simple, even vague premise. Yet somehow Togashi manages to craft it into something truly memorable and more substantial than its parts would be alone.

While the very concept of the Hunter is vague, it's also brilliant in its narrative flexibility. Most shonen series are about some kid who wants to be the very best [insert profession here] there ever was, so why not make that goal be a license to basically explore the world and do whatever you want? Right from the start, Togashi made it so that he can take this story in literally any direction he wants and have it still be on-topic. He will never want for plot material because virtually anything could become the plot! I almost have to stand up and salute him for such a clever move.

It's a good thing he gave himself such flexibility because so far Hunter x Hunter is not a terribly personality-driven one. Gon's a good kid, but he's not a terribly complex one. He's something of a naturalist savant, able to detect all sorts of sights and smells that others cannot. Still, he's an incredibly focused young boy, quick to learn and good with people, so already he's got a bit of edge over your average blockheaded shonen lead. Kurapika and Leorio aren't much more complex than Gon, but they do have tragic motivations of their own (even if Leorio tries to hide his behind a smartmouthed, greedy facade). They make good foils for Gon and the trio feel like a team almost instantly.

Of course, friend and foe alike are dwarfed by the size and the danger of the world around them. Right from the start, Togashi establishes that this is a world where danger could be lurking in any woody spot, usually in the form of something big and furry with many nasty, pointy bits. He also establishes that survival relies just as much on endurance and luck as it does on skill and strength, which means the outcomes are a little bit less predictable than usual. The world here perhaps is not quite as fanciful as we would see in later Shonen Jump works like One Piece or Toriko, but there's more than enough here to stimulate the imagination.

All of these elements on their own would be fine if not all that impressive. What makes them (and Hunter x Hunter as a whole) work so well is that they're put together in a way that highlights all their strengths: simple yet endearing characters to get attached to right away, exotic locales full of crazy beasts, and a premise loaded with promise and freedom. Togashi weaves them together in a fashion that makes them feel just as fresh now as they would have back in 1998.

ART:

Togashi's art is much like his writing: simple, but elegant in its efficiency and slightly off-beat charm. The character designs here are slender and straightforward for the most part, although some of the less scrupulous Hunter candidates can get rather wacky looking. He does a great job at capturing the scale and wonder of Gon's world. The backgrounds are beautiful, vast, and more than a little bit dangerous, be they a churning ocean, a misty wasteland, or a sprawling cityscape. Yet even at his most expansive, Togashi tends to keep things fairly compact. Even the biggest spread only covers half of a couple of pages. As such, he keeps the visual nonsense to a minimum and every action is rendered in a clean, crisp, and easy-to-follow fashion.

RATING:

Hunter x Hunter feels unique amongst old-school shonen series. It doesn't aim for the moon in either story or tone, but instead takes a lot of elementary elements and skillfully assembles them into an attractive and intriguing whole right from the start. It's a feat that was remarkable then and remains so even now.

This series is published by Viz. This series is ongoing in Japan with 34 volumes available. 33 have been published and are currently in print. This series is also available digitally.

Of course, Hunter x Hunter is still quite well-known for an old-school shonen series. Today's review covers something that's quite a bit more obscure these days.

3 X 3 EYES (Sazan Aizu), by Yuzo Takada. First published in 1987 and first published in North America in 1995.

PLOT:

Yakumo was on his way to work one day when he came across a young woman getting beat up by thugs. He fends them off, only to discover the woman, Pai, was looking for him in the first place. She delivers a skull and letter from Yakumo's father, explaining that Pai is the last of a supernatural race of people and it is up to Yakumo to keep his promise to make her human. Yakumo is skeptical at first, but after a harpy attack the two are off to Hong Kong to begin their quest.

STORY:

3x3 Eyes doesn't have much in the way of originality beyond its use of Chinese mythology, but it's still competent and entertaining enough to hold up even today.

Well...maybe not everything holds up. For example, Pai comes off as something of a crude stereotype of a Chinese person right down to the pidgin English she speaks. In comparison, Yakumo is as blandly heroic as they come. What does work is the story hook itself. The story begins with Pai's quest to become human, and Yakumo's stake in her quest becomes a lot more personal after an incident with a harpy that leaves him in a less-than-human state and dependent on Pai's safety for his own. Sadly, that's the highlight of the volume, as it quickly settles into a globe-hopping take on the monster-of-the-week format interrupted only by a nosy, exposition-spouting tabloid report named...*sigh* Li Ling-Ling. The fights aren't bad, as they rely a lot more on physical grappling than the sort of mystic beams and other sorts of magic you might expect. It's just not quite enough to keep 3x3 Eyes engaging.

ART:

Takada's art is pretty obviously influenced by Rumiko Takahashi. While his characters aren't quite as bobbleheaded as her and his faces a little more varied and lively than hers, they share the same short, long-legged proportions and blobby black hair. He also has a more visceral approach to violence, as the fights here are big, messy, and chock full of speedlines and gore. His art is also fairly tame for the time, as what few bits of fanservice can be found are largely confined to the chapter splash pages. I normally don't have much to say about font choices, but I will say that I do like the thick, calligraphy-like one Dark Horse used for the possession scenes, as it adds to the ominousness of the words being said.

PRESENTATION:

Like most older Dark Horse books, this series is flipped. It's also had the sound effects translated and redrawn, but it's been done so skillfully that it would be hard for the average reader to notice.

RATING:

3x3 Eyes isn't quite compelling enough to declare it a classic, but fans of old-school seinen may find its exotic trappings and bloody fights worth a look.

This series was published by Dark Horse. This series is complete in Japan with 40 volumes available. 9 volumes were published and are currently out of print.

Of course, I can't let an Old School Month pass without some old shoujo, and there's no better source for mostly forgotten 90s shoujo than good ol' CMX. Alas, they can't all be gems like Swan and Eroica; most of them are middling dramas like today's offering.

TOWER OF THE FUTURE (Mirai no Utena), by Saki Hiwatari. First published in 1994 and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT:

Takeru's life was for a while not all that different from that of any other 14 year old boy. He's struggling with his choice of high school and a newfound crush and his desire to be a fantasy novelist often leaves him lost in his own imagination. That all changes the day Takeru's mother dies and reveals that Takeru has an illegitimate half-sister in England. This revelation shocks Takeru to his core and his reactions threaten to tear apart what is left of his family.

STORY:

I don't know why CMX classified this series as a fantasy. While Takeru's half-baked D&D fantasies do appear early on, the story is mostly a soapy melodrama that will test the reader's tolerance for teenage hissy-fits.

While it's not unheard of to have a male lead in a shoujo series, it is unusual to see one that is portrayed as so emotional. It's not only far more true to real-life than most teen boys in shoujo comics, but it's nice to see that he isn't shamed for expressing them. On the flip side, this also means that Takeru can get downright tedious at times when those same strong emotions lead him to make some very childish, selfish decisions. For most of the book, I wanted the adults in his life to stop indulging his grief-fueled tantrums and to start exercising some control and parental authority. Otherwise I fear that Takeru will become downright insufferable for the rest of the series.

I have to wonder if Hiwatari planned on killing Takeru's mother from the start considering she set up all sorts of story hooks early on that are mostly dropped after that point. The most obvious one is Takeru's dreams of writing and his many flights of fancy. Honestly I was kind of glad these were dropped considering that the Great Work he was writing was from all appearances nothing more than your bog-standard generic fantasy work. Again, it's realistic that a teenage boy's writings would be mediocre at best, but at times those early chapters seemed to be taken up more with his imagination than the actual story.

Others aren't picked back up at all until the very end, such as Takeru's crush on a random girl. The one that doesn't get dropped is the strangest of all. All throughout this volume, there's a bizarrely well-spoken little boy who hangs around Takeru's house and ends up becoming something of a confidant. Why does this happen? Who is this little boy? What does he have to do with anything? I don't know, as Hiwatari never drops so much as a hint! That's not even getting into the brief glimpse we see of Takeru's long-lost half-sister, who by all appearances will be bringing her own share of melodrama with her. This lack of narrative focus combined with Takeru's sympathetic yet frustrating choices are what really hold back Tower of the Future from becoming something truly worthwhile.

ART:

While Hiwatari's art is nothing special compared to other shoujo artists of the time, I can't help but feel a little nostalgic about the artwork here. I know that technically her character designs are generic, although their bodies are a lot more sturdy than the usual, spindly sorts that tend to be found at this time. I know that her faces tend to be a bit stiff, although the way she slightly squares off the character's eyes helps to keep them from being obnoxiously cute. I know that her paneling is all over the place and she rarely bothers with backgrounds and that frankly it's all pretty mediocre and yet I can't entirely hate it. There's just something about the shoujo aesthetic of the 90s that just speaks to me on a personal level.

RATING:

Tower of the Future is nothing special to look at and narratively is kind of a mess, but it's the sort of emotion-fueled melodrama that occasionally manages to find some emotional truth. If it tones down Takeru's mood swings in later volumesand sticks with him learning to process his grief and the truth about his family, it might manage to turn itself into something special. As it is, it's not quite strong enough to recommend to anyone outside of old-school shoujo junkies.

This series was published by CMX. This series is complete in Japan with 11 volumes available. All 11 were published and are currently out of print.

Merry Month of Manga Review: LOVE AT FOURTEEN

Merry Month of Manga Review: GRAND GUIGNOL ORCHESTRA

Merry Month of Manga Review: YUKARISM

Merry Month of Manga: SHUGO CHARA!

Merry Month of Manga Review: PEACH HEAVEN

Merry Month of Manga Review: THE EMPTY EMPIRE

Merry Month of Manga Review: KIMI NI TODOKE

Merry Month of Manga Review: TENSHI JA NAI!!

Merry Month of Manga Review: ABSOLUTE BOYFRIEND

Merry Month of Manga Review: SHINOBI LIFE

Merry Month of Manga Review: ANDROMEDA STORIES

Review: FUJOSHI RUMI

Review: POPO CAN

Review: GENSHIKEN SECOND SEASON

Review: GUNDAM WING: EPISODE ZERO

Review: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF NAGATO YUKI-CHAN

Review: ATTACK ON TITAN: NO REGRETS

Review: HUNTER X HUNTER

Review: 3 X 3 EYES

Review: TOWER OF THE FUTURE