The Manga Test Drive

It's been too long since we've looked at a manga by Sanami Matoh. Let's fix that, shall we?

RA*I, by Sanami Matoh. First published in 1995 and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:

Al Foster was just another no-name private detective until the day Rai Spencer came through his door. Rai is a 13-year-old genius from a wealthy family with ESP, and he and his older sister Rei are concerned that their elder brother is trying to kill them. Al helps them solve their case, but what will happen when they decide to stick around and start solving crimes with him?

PLOT:

It's hard to read Ra*I and not think of FAKE. There are plenty of similar character types, concepts, and even a similar sort of sense of humor. It's not too surprising considering that this series would have been running at the same time as the early chapters of FAKE. Still, what it does borrow from that series are many of its best qualities and it does add enough of its own ideas to keep it from feeling completely redundant.

While Ra*I has plenty of crime-solving and telekinetic battles to offer, the real heart of the story is the dynamic between Al, Rai, and Rei. The broadly humorous tone to their interactions and the love-hate dynamic between the three of them are not all that far removed from that between Dee, Ryo, and Bikki in FAKE (albeit straighter). Luckily, this dynamic was one of the best parts of FAKE and Matoh maintains that particular, delightful brand of character chemistry here. She even gives Rai his own cute blonde love interest later on and ages them up for their own romance later after the main couple gets together.

The big difference between the two is Rai's psychic powers. I'm not fully convinced that it works here, or at least works well with the detective antics. Still, she manages to get a couple of good action pieces out of it, including the inevitable esper-on-esper battle complete with mental beams and forcefields. I also wish she had included more actual crimefighting, as it gets overshadowed by the romance as the book goes on. Yet I can't hate it because it's just so damn FUN, and that goes a long way towards putting it in my good graces.

ART:

Matoh made Ra*I at the height of her career, and so long as you're down with her particular art style, there's a lot to like here. Admittedly, her style was kind of retro even then, what with her cast having narrow eyes, heavy jaws, and big hair that were all the rage in the 80s. Still, she's able to turn those pretty faces into some hilarious grimaces of surprise and shock for great comic effect. Indeed, her art has a sort of effervescence that brings life to both the action and the comedy here. Even when her panels get busy with ESP nonsense, it never gets bogged down Just try to ignore the fact that Rai and his girlfriend Rathe are basically carbon copies of Bikki and Carol and just enjoy the ride.

PRESENTATION:

There's not much to say about the translation beyond the fact that it's one of the first by Adrienne Beck. These days she translates everything from The Ancient Magus's Bride to Food Wars, and you can see echoes of her modern work in the charming, excellent work she does here.

RATING:

Ra*I may be derivative, but it's got enough going for it to justify its existence. It might be a touch too old-fashioned for younger readers, but those nostalgic for old shoujo or those who are already fans of Matoh will likely enjoy it.

This book was published by Tokyopop. It is currently out of print.

I know that if I had a wish, then I would have wished that I would have never stumbled upon today's offering, an obscure little title from the Go!Comi library.

KING OF THE LAMP (Lamp no Ou-sama), by Takako Shigematsu. First published in 2004 and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Long ago, a raunchy king stole 1000 women to fill out his harem. As punishment for his crimes, he was turned into a genie who must fulfill the wishes of 1000 women before he can be freed. Thus, we watch him work his magic with a shy girl who wants her sempai to notice her, an older sister crushing on her baby brother's kindergarten teacher, and an awkward girl in love with her older sister's blind boyfriend. Also included are stories about a young woman with a pair of mysterious guardians and a medium and their guardian spirit trying to shake off an otaku with an eye for the supernatural.

PLOT:

King of the Lamp isn't so much a proper anthology as it is a grab-bag of stories. The main story, the one that's meant to tie together everything, ends after a few chapters with no resolution whatsoever. I guess they could instead be unified by a more generalized theme of women who need extraordinary circumstances to start communicating with the men they love, but it's not enough to make this short-story collection feel...well, collected.

It's a shame because the cursed genie concept was a strong one. It was quick to set up, allows for all sorts of magical shenanigans to happen, and it gives the series a definite (but not too close) goal. The problem is that Shigematsu shoots herself in the foot almost immediatately by starting the genie out less than twenty masters away from freedom. She compounds this error by taking broad time skips, to the point where the genie has less than 10 wishes to grant before the end. For a final touch, she never actually wraps the genie's story up. Why would she skip ahead so far if she never even bothered to conclude the whole thing? As we'll see, this is far from the last time she drops the ball with this anthology.

For what is meant to be a shoujo manga, there is an awful lot of sex going on. More precisely, there is a lot of attempted sexual assault going on. The genie's powers apparently work on a quid-pro-quo system, where every wish requires some degree of sexual contact. Weak ones require only a kiss, stronger ones require a bit of groping, and potent ones require actual sex. It would be one thing if the genie explained this upfront, but more often than not he doesn't explain this until his masters make their first wishes and it is always played as a (terrible) joke.

It doesn't end there, though! All three of the girls and women he helps end up being abused by the men in their lives at some point, and more than once they are threatened with rape. While these moments are mercifully brief, they are completely at odds with this collection's sweet, sentimental tone. What's weird is that immediately after these threats are dealt with, the main couples confess to whatever feelings they have been repressing and then immediate start having sex. It doesn't matter whether it's in the middle of an empty classroom, the roof of a hospital, or the same bed where another man handcuffed the heroine and burn her to death. There's no time for things like light conversation over coffee or a couple of dates when there's sex to be had!

You'll notice that I've not talked much about the heroines of these stories. That's because there's simply not much to say about them. They're all starry-eyed ingenues who are too timid to voice their feelings and are convinced that increasingly ridiculous tricks are needed to win the hearts of others. The unrelated side stories don't fare much better. The first of them flirts with incest, as a young woman falls for her kinda-sorta guardian (who also happens to be a kinda-sorta vampire). The other is so boring as to not merit mention. It's little more than filler for a book that's half-assed and needlessly tawdry.

ART:

Shigematsu doesn't fare much better as an artist. Her girls are vaguely cute with simple, vacuous faces. The men are not much different save for their ridiculous giraffe necks. They also all have these huge, blockly, crudely drawn hands that only get more distracting with each new chapter. The only character with any sort of visual charm is the genie, as his smarmy grin and slinky body language helps sell the reader on his lustiness. The backgrounds are mostly blank, only to explode into screentones once the sex scenes starts. This isn't a hard book to follow visually, but it's utterly lacking in elegance or talent.

RATING:

King of the Lamp is an unfocused collection of love stories with weird, unpleasant tone shifts, a wasted premise, and awkward artwork. I can't imagine anyone wishing for this to be licensed when it was new, and I definitely can't imagine anyone wishing to read it now.

This book was published by Go!Comi. It is currently out of print.

As much as I appreciate all the great shonen and shoujo Viz has brought us over the years, what I truly appreciate are the times they take a chance on thoughtful stories for older audiences like today's selection.

ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS (Ai Subeki Musume-tachi), by Fumi Yoshinaga. First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2010.

PLOT:

This anthology weaves together five stories from five different women and their various relationships: with their mothers, their sisters, their friends, their lovers, even their coworkers. This anthology covers all the joys, the difficulties, the hang-ups and the heartbreak that they endure.

STORY:

I’ve made no secret of my love of all things Yoshinaga. Whether it’s historical dramas, josei, or BL, her works tend to make a big impression on me. One thing she’s not known for is anthologies, so I was curious to see how her talent applied to shorter form work. It should be no surprise that in its own quiet, understated way, it’s totally brilliant.

I always prefer manga anthologies to be tied together by some sort of theme versus just a loose collection of stories, and All My Darling Daughters is tied together in a very solid yet subtle manner through their personal or familiar connections. It’s bookended by stories about three generations of the same family, but it branches out to involve friends and friends of friends until it loops around again. The connections are subtle, but they are there if you pay attention to the people on the sides and backgrounds. It’s a nice reward to the careful reader and gives a sense of continuity to something that wouldn’t really have it otherwise.

The stories are all universally good, although few of them could be dubbed ‘happy endings.’ They involve everything from difficult relationships between mothers and daughters, dating woes, reconnecting with distant friends, compromising one’s childhood ambitions and dreams, death in the family, remarriage, single parent households, issues with insecurity, and other equally complicated scenarios. This sounds like a parade of melodrama, but Yoshinaga takes a light hand with things, and many an emotional moment is capped not with a dramatic speech but instead a single expression and a quiet moment of understanding. Thus, while it’s sad or sometimes frustrating it never gets to the point where it becomes oppressive or false. If it feels like I’m being vague, it’s partially because I want to avoid spoiling the entire collection and partially because the impact works best when you experience it with fresh eyes.

While Yoshinaga has written all sorts of good stories about men, it’s rare that she gets to focus exclusively on women, and adult women at that. This truly is a collection of adult stories – not in the sense of being explicit in content (though sex is certainly involved in a few of them), but in the sense that it’s all about complex adult emotions and relationships, and things rarely end in a satisfactory or even a complete way. Nonetheless it’s an incredibly effective and touching collection of stories and I’m glad that Viz was willing to share them with an American audience.

ART:

Yoshinaga’s art is as beautiful as ever. The cast is made up of her usual sort of lightly inked, wispy haired, square-jawed, attractive and expressive adults with a wide variety of styles (even if she’s not entirely comfortable with aging some of them as much as she should and faces do tend to look rather alike). There’s also more color artwork than one usually sees in her releases, and it's beautiful, and delicately rendered. The backgrounds are actually less sparse than usual, but she still knows how to frame important close-ups with enough blank space to highlight the necessary emotion. The panels are also smaller than usual, but her composition is tidy and clean enough that it’s always easy to follow.

RATING:

All My Darling Daughters isn’t the sort of anthology you pick up for a good time, but instead if you’re looking for deeply affecting stories of womanhood that avoid the pratfalls of melodrama and look handsome to boot.

This book is published by Viz. It is currently in print.

When Kentaro Miura takes a break from working on Berserk, he can usually be found making other, shorter manga (well...when he's not playing Idolmaster).

GIGANTO MAXIA (Gigantomahkia), by Kentaro Miura. First published in 2014 and first published in North America in 2016.

PLOT:

In a far future world, the former gladiator Delos wanders the waste with a young, ethereal spirit named Prome. The two end up in the middle of the desert, where Delos is captured by a group of half-beetle people who force him to fight for his life. Delos wins both the fight and their favor, but soon they all find themselves under threat by a far-off empire with a towering, all-consuming colossus.

STORY:

Giganto Maxia is a very different creature than Berserk. Its version of fantasy isn't grim and Western-influenced, but instead hopeful, taking inspiration from far more modern and eclectic sources.

Delos and Prome are a simple pair with a familiar dynamic: a big dopey brawler led around by a smarter, smaller girl. Prome is the brains of the operation, able to analyze their situation in a detatched and bluntly logical manner. Meanwhile, Delos is the heart and the brawn in one person, able to defend him and fight for causes bigger than himself even if he can't fully understand or articulate them. This emotional core goes a long way towards anchoring this story, no matter what weird direction Miura might take it.

Make no mistake, Giganto Maxia goes some weird (and sometimes uncomfortable) directions. Our main pair end up in the middle of a desert tribe that are clearly inspired by African natives that are literally referred to as 'demi-human.' It may be literally true (they are part-beetle, complete with partial exoskeletons), but that combination has uncomfortable, even potentially racist implications. Worse still, they are ultimately saved from the Roman-in-everything-but-name empire that antagonizes them not by their own efforts, but by Delos the former Empire citizen. He's not stated to be explicitly white, but it still hues closely to old-fashioned ideas of white saviors coming in to save primitive cultures from others.

Those are far from the only problems, though. There's the weirdly kinky bits between Delos and Prome. Prome may be an ethereal sort of spirit creature, but that means she has the appearance of a pre-pubescent girl. That makes her watersports-themed method of nourishing Delos with "nectar" DEEPLY uncomfortable, for both Delos and the reader alike. Then there's the unusually blatant references to both Attack on Titan and Terraformars. Why else would there be half-bug men with uncomfortably racist implications? Why else would Delos and Prome be able to transform into a towering giant that fights with another giant? The most subtle Miura gets is with how Delos fights. Instead of fighting to the death as a traditional gladiator might, Delos consciously lets his opponents show off their moves before stopping them with suplexes and similar moves. In this way, he is able to defeat others while allowing both sides to retain their lives and their dignity. In other words, he invented professional wrestling.

Taken all together, Giganto Maxia is a weird mish-mash of ideas. In spite of all this, I can't say I hated it. It takes a little while for the story to get going, but once Delos enters the arena it finds its footing and doesn't let up until it ends with a supersonic finishing move. Its innate weirdness is compelling and awkward in equal turn. It's not brilliant, but at least it's never boring.

ART:

Not suprisingly, this book benefits greatly from Miura's incredible skill as an artist. The fantasy elements here don't take inspiration from Western sources as in Berserk, but instead from the natural world of both the past and present. It's a funky, organic sort of style that works well with Miura's attention to detail and makes it distinct from other fantasy manga. Miura handles the brawls well, conveying both a sense of raw physical power and dynamic motion regardless of scale. That's something else he handles well: the sheer size of the world of Giganto Maxia. The humans of this world are outsized by both the size and scale of this world. The wastelands and deserts stretch out to the horizons, the animal life is enormous (and occasionally man-eating), and the colossi tower like skyscrapers over everything.

RATING:

Giganto Maxia has weird and wonderful art, but the story cribs a little too obvious from pop culture and doesn't always think about the implications of some of its ideas. Fans of Miura and fantasy in general may find something to like here, but it would likely be too much of a hard sale for more casual readers.

This book is published by Dark Horse. It is currently in print.

Comedic BL stories are always in short supply, and that shortage is not helped by books like this one.

ALL NIPPON AIR LINE (Rakuen Sanman Feet - All Nippon Air Line), by Kei Azumaya. First published in 2002 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

There is no airline quite like All Nippon Air Line. It’s renowned for both its service and staff. Each crew member is more handsome than the last, and each one is irresistible to crew and customer alike. Their first class lounge is spacious and comfortable. Their pilots are some of the best in the industry. But mostly it’s renowned for the epic amounts of gay sex had by everyone in the company, from the director all the way down to the lowliest steward. They sleep with each other, with other pilots, with the customers. It seems no one can resist the alluring men of A.N.A.L.

STORY:

Comedic BL can be really hit or miss. Sadly, All Nippon Air Line is one of the misses. When it isn't drowning the reader in bad puns, it's trying to convince the reader that the concept of gay sex itself is a punchline.

First of all, you’ve probably already noticed that the airline’s name has an acronym of ANAL. This book presumes that joke is insanely hilarious. No man can resist the siren call of ANAL! ANAL will satisfy all of your needs! Nothing makes a flight better than a bit of ANAL! These jokes are ALL OVER this book, and they’re all just as lame as the ones I made up just above. Mind you, this is also the series that thinks that seducing a straight man into gay sex is hilarious, along with the fact that literally NO ONE can apparently resist anyone that works there. If you’re not gay when you start there, you will be by the time you fly, even if it means that you will be raped by the director, your interviewer, the company doctor, and so on. This book does not give the slightest of fucks about good taste.

I’ll grant it one compliment: this series knows to keep things short. No chapter extends longer than 10 pages, and most are much less. As such, each one introduces another gag, be it about one of the crew members of ANAL or one of the customers or new employees. Many of them center on a particular crew member having some particular skill or fetish, like the handsome young steward with a baldness fetish, the Chinese steward who will only sleep with any man who can defeat him, or the crew member with a voice that can make any man orgasm on the spot. Others are about customers who are converted to the ANAL way, like the ordinary guy who ends up on a sports-themed flight, or the first-class passenger who discovers just how spacious and attentive the first class accommodations are.

Some get truly ridiculous in concept, like the director sleeping with a government minister he rejected in order to get permission to open the company in the first place, or the hijacker who is freaked out by all the gay men and turns himself in. The short chapters also mean that there isn’t a lot of time for character development beyond someone’s particular gag. The series makes a big fuss about the so-called “Four Kings” of the company, the four most desirable men in the company, but it doesn’t go any further than anything else in this book. It’s just one lame gay joke on top of the other as the story screams “ANAL! Tee hee!” at the top of its lungs, and the only good taste it has is to not drag these jokes out even longer.

ART:

Azumiya’s style is bizarre. It’s mostly due to her heads – she cannot draw a normal looking human head to save her life. The heads are both weirdly wide and weirdly long, like they are wearing some thick mask over their normal face. Who knows, maybe they’re all actually lizard people wearing substandard masks, staring out at the reader with their fake, dead-eyed stares...

Anyway! The rest of their bodies are awkward and gangly, but sparsely drawn enough that they don’t look as weird as the heads. Sparse describes much of the artwork fairly well, although she’s certainly generous with the sparkles and flowers. She even uses the sparkles as censor bars for the wangs. Otherwise the cast are either drifting in limbo or drowning in screentones. Not even the clothes are well drawn, as she uses screentones to fill those in as well. The sex scenes are non-existent; the scene always cuts away before any actual action begins. It’s just a mess to look at, and while a bit of visual exaggeration often works for comedy, the art here does nothing for either comedy or fanservice.

RATING:

All Nippon Air Lines is a disaster on par with any plane crash. It's painfully unfunny and poorly drawn, a comedy that crashes and burns before it even has a chance to take off.

This book was published by Digital Manga Publishing. It is currently out of print.

In 2008, Aurora Publishing hoped to reach that ever-elusive josei audience with a few anthologies of their own.

If this was the best they had to offer, it's little wonder that they failed.

LOVE FOR DESSERT (Nosatsu Cream), by Hana Aoi. First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

This racy collection of short stories share the stories of a business woman who discovers her surly coworker loves her covered in whipped cream, another who finds her aimless boyfriend more alluring after he gets a suit, a high school girl who is disappointed to learn that her childhood sweetheart is far less princely than she remembered, a hostess whose virginal art school classmate offers to serve as her bodyguard, an unemployed woman whose fortune leads her to a tutoring gig and her new love, and a college girl who discovers that her spacey boyfriend may be more caring that she realized.

STORY:

Normally you'd think I would be eager to read a josei anthology, but this isn't the usual sort of josei manga I cover here. This collection is actually ladicomi, a demographic that could be described as josei's tawdry cousin. While both are targeted towards adult women, I've never been much of a fan of ladicomi. While both are meant to tell more mature stories, ladicomi's approach to that is more shallow and clumsy, like a teenager's idea of what it means to be sexy and adult.

None of these stories stand out. The heroines are virtually interchangeable and the guys they love come off as either feckless or mildly douchey. Aoi tries to make up for their lack of personality with silly quirks (Her mom dresses her in lolita dresses! She eats whipped cream for dinner!) but these end up only becoming bigger distractions. Most of the stories depend on these women not having any idea of what they want out of a relationship and/or both sides jumping to conclusions instead of talking to one another. Not that it matter either way as the end result is the same: they end up having sudden, disjointed, awkwardly timed sex.

Honestly, were it not for the (mildly) explicit sex scenes and the heroines being mostly out of their teens, this wouldn't be any different from bottom-of-the-barrel shoujo. It depends entirely on cutesy nonsense and endless misunderstandings to function and presumes that any man can be turned into the perfect boyfriend with kindness and perseverance. It's not fun, it's not sexy, and no amount of sex can make it truly adult.

ART:

The other thing that largely turns me off ladicomi like this is the crappy art. Hana Aoi's work here is no exception to his, as it is laughably amateur. She seemingly can only draw one male and one female face, yet all of them tend to be regularly drawn off-model. People's bodies are stiff and weirdly proportioned, something that only becomes more obvious when they start having sex. The sex scenes themselves are less censored than I expected; while we don't see any actual genitalia, we do see nipples on the regular and even the occasional bit of pubes. Still, it's not the least bit sexy because the sex itself is seemingly composed at random without the slightest concern for mood.

RATING:

Love For Dessert is lackluster and flavorless smut, neither spicy nor sweet enough to be worthy of anyone's time or attention. If you want ladicomi, go searching over at Renta! and leave this in the bargain bin.

This book was published by Aurora. It is currently out of print.

This review is not unlike my recent one for Time Killers. It's a collection of early short works from a noted creator, although in this case the creator is noted only by manga reviews willing to plumb the depths of Bookwalker.

PRESENT FOR ME (Present For Me - Ishiguro Masakazu Tenpenshu), by Masakazu Ishiguro. First published in 2000-2004 and first published in North America in 2015.

PLOT:

In this collection, we see a group of psychic kids try to survive on a desert island, a robot tries to guide a girl to his home in the distant future, an unemployed man finds new purpose as a lasso-wielding superhero, a group of film students hash out ideas for a film about the end of the world, a young man gets an unpleasantly magical new roommate, a biker tries to get a new helmet from a tinkerer, and a teen hero tries to find purpose in his life after his villain retires from evildoing.

STORY:

I adored Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, even if at times it feels like I'm the only person who does so. He's got a unique perspective and a knack for comedy that few can match. This collection demonstrates that he possessed these skills from the start. In these pages, he demonstrates not only his expert comic timing, but also a level of creativity seldom seen in these sorts of collection and even a bit of sincerity.

Present For Me won me over right from the start with "Forward, Psychic Teen Squad!" It opens with the explosion of a lab that is played for perfect deadpan humor. The rest of the story manages to tread the line between earnestly exploring its premise and undercutting it with sharp, character-driven humor that reminded me a lot of Lucifer & The Biscuit Hammer. I got a similar feeling from "Hero" as well, mostly because of its focus on superheroes, but it plays things a little more straightforward emotionally. There are a few others that come close to matching it ("Taizou's Helmet" in particular comes closest ), but none can quite match it for quality humor. The only one that doesn't work as comedy is "Barbara," a take on magical girlfriend stories that mostly suffers from aimlessness.

The rest of the book treads the line between comedy and pathos, while the title story is probably the most serious thing I've ever seen come from Ishiguro's pen. The only character that speaks in it is the robot, yet he manages to build a friendship between it and the mysterious girl entirely through body language and the robot's own wry sense of humor. The twist at the end should have been cheesy, yet it works because the build-up to it is so understated that you don't realize the twist is happening. It's also the only twist not played for comedy; while others like "Countdown" use theirs as a dark punchline, here it's quietly sad yet hopeful. It's certainly given me hope. After half a month of mostly mediocre short stories, this was the most pleasant surprise I've had yet.

ART:

Ishiguro's art is much like his humor: understated, yet more clever than it lets on. He doesn't lean as hard on physical comedy as a lot of other mangaka do, instead letting the characters' faces and timing carry the burden of the actual jokes. Still, this collection has a lot more than humor going for it visually. He gets to show off a little here with some nicely drawn backgrounds and even a few action set pieces. The visual highlight is easily the title story between its spartan backgrounds and the girl's beautifully subtle movements.

RATING:

I will never understand why more people aren't reading Ishiguro's works. Present For Me proves that he's always been an eminently talented mangaka. It's funny, heartwarming, and there's nary a dud to be found within its pages. It may be digital-only, but it should be in everyone's manga library.

This book is published digitally via Bookwalker. It is currently in print.

I've covered a bit of BL, so why not go for a change of pace by covering a yuri one-shot? After all, I'm always up for reading more Milk Morinaga manga.

SECRET OF THE PRINCESS (Ohime-sama no Himitsu), by Milk Morinaga. First published in 2014 and first published in North America in 2017.

PLOT:

Ever since she was a little girl, Miu's mother has drilled into her the importance of being cute and femme so that she can land the prince of her dreams someday. When Miu blackmails the school volleyball star Fujiwara into a relationship, she thinks of it as simply a way to practice romance until she meets an actual boy. As the two get closer, Miu's feelings start to change and the guilt of their secret relationship starts to get to her.

STORY:

Taken at face value, Secret of the Princess doesn't do anything all that different from Milk Morinaga's other manga. You have a cute, feminine short girl, a tall sporty androgynous girl, and they slowly and surely fall in love. What is different is how she confronts some of the Class S cliches through the story.

At the beginning, it feels like Miu and Fujiwara's romance is going to follow the traditional yuri formula right down to the letter, complete with the 'practice romance' excuse. As time passes, though, she starts to use their relationship as a way to poke at their classmates' hypocrisy when it comes to same-sex relationships. She doesn't get particularly deep or scathing about it, but it does bring a bit of verisimilitude to the usual all-girls' school scenario.

She also makes it pretty clear just how much Miu's severely heteronormative upbringing has messed with her head. She deals with a lot of guilt over the course of the book, and so much of it is because she feels compelled to live up to the impossible ideals of femininity that her mother has been teaching her since she was a grade schooler. It makes her overly anxious about what others think of her and it's this guilt that threatens to tear her and Fujiwara apart just as they start to actually figure out their feelings for one another.

As for the romance itself, it measures up to the high standards set by Morinaga's previous works. Miu and Fujiwara manage to be a bit more adorkable than usual thanks to Miu's awkwardness and Fujiwara's spaciness. There's a true sense of camaraderie between them, something which turns out to be more important to Fujiwara than anyone realized. It also makes the slow and subtle shift to romance all the more believable, even if it's realized in a more dramatic fashion than is the norm for Morinaga. Still, this blend of sweet romance and dramatic substance make Secret of the Princess a delight to read.

ART:

Everything I've said before about Morinaga's art applies here. It's cute and down to earth, full of blushes and quiet little gestures. The composition is a little busier than usual, but not to the point where it becomes unpleasant or chaotic. It's perfectly pretty, if predictable work.

RATING:

Secret of the Princess lives up to Milk Morinaga's high standards, delivering delicate lesbian romance with a side of social commentary in an easy-to-consume package.

This book is published by Seven Seas. It is currently in print.

It's time to take a look at some old-school supernatural shoujo short stories from the creator of Basara.

WILD COM. (Chounouryoko Roudoutai Wild Com), by Yumi Tamura. First published in 1999 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

In "Wild Com," a young woman discovers a secret gang of elemental espers who use their powers to save others and comes to terms with her own fire-based powers. In "The Beasts of June," an assassin and a kept woman come together, only to be torn apart by the man who connects their short, sad lives. In "The Eye of the Needle," an up-and-coming actor has his life destroyed by his callousness towards others.

STORY:

If you're coming into Wild Com. expecting anything like the sweeping epic action of Basara, you're bound to be disappointed. The title story comes the closest to this, but most of the stories here are dark, moody, and largely internalized.

You'd think that the title story would be more action driven, what with the squad of life-saving psychics and whatnot. Yet that part of the story ends up playing second fiddle to the emotional arc of its heroine, Michiru Ozeki. She's resentful and fearful of her powers because she believed they caused a bully's house to burn down, and she fights tooth and nail against Wild Com's attempts to make her use them. There is action in the form of rescue missions in the midst of a landslide and a forest fire, but what drives the story forward is Michiru's need to come to terms with her past. I guess there's also something of a romantic subplot between Michiru and an antagonistic water-bender, but it's never fully resolved and there's no real sense of affection or passion behind their fighting.

The sad thing is that's about as good and positive as things get in this book. It's all downward from here, as the stories get a lot messier on a narrative and emotional level. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "The Beasts of June." At time it feels almost impressionistic, as these two sad, damaged young people cross seemingly by chance, love strongly, and burn out quickly. The two are frequently compared to dragonflies, emerging from their repressive depressions as dragonflies nymphs emerge from the water and serving a metaphorical snakes as they do in myth. The problem is that Tamura loses herself so much in the emotions of her main cast that story details get a bit vague and hard to follow.

At least it ends on a comparatively stronger note with "The Eye of the Needle." It's technically a horror story, but it wisely lets the horror elements creep slowly into what seems like a romantic tragedy. It's only roughly halfway through that Uiko's selfish abandonment of his high-school sweetheart takes on a dark, suffocating tone that only grows as it goes on. The twist is somewhat obvious in retrospect, but damn if isn't satisfying to watch this asshole get his comeuppance for being an oblivious, callous asshole to everyone who crossed his path. After all, it wouldn't be shoujo horror if it wasn't ultimately a morality tale.

ART:

Nearly a decade separates Wild Com. from Basara, but artistically Tamura hadn't changed in the slightest. That's a bit of a problem considering her art style here is still very much stuck in the 80s. That means Dorito chins everywhere, eyes big enough to drown in, long and frequently poofy hair, and occasionally ridiculous fashion (particularly on the men). While this wouldn't have been completely out of place at the beginning of the 90s, it was positively archaic by the time this was released in 1999. The page composition is perfectly fine, but at times it can get a bit cluttered (which isn't helped by her sometimes chaotic use of screentone and texture). Still, it has moments of beauty. It's just a matter of whether the reader can get past her character style or not.

RATING:

Wild Com. is a moody but uneven trio of stories that do at least manage to demonstrate that Yumi Tamura was capable of more than just fantasy stories. It's interesting, but not quite strong enough to be worth hunting down.

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

Remember when Central Park Media released manga?

Yeah, I don't either. While they were the first English publisher to put out BL manga, most of their manga output was no-name nonsense like this.

OVER THE RAINBOW (Ame ni Nurete mo), by Keiko Honda. First published in 1997 and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT:

A day at the amusement parks leads a pair of two young lawyers, Arou and Keita, to an amnesiac woman nicknamed Key. They are charmed by her looks and sunny outlook, and to help her find her identity they start their own law firm. Together they work on everything from divorce to plagiarism cases while searching for Key's true identity, hoping to bring happiness to each and every client.

STORY:

Over the Rainbow wants to be sweet and life-affirming, but it's hamstrung by its weirdly loose sense of time, its bizarre vendetta against mothers, and its own attempts to tie everything up tidily in the end.

The book is meant to cover two years of time, but each chapter tends to skip forward multiple months at at a time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does cause some of the plot threads to lurch forward awkwardly. This is most obvious with the romance between Arou and Key, but most of the stories here feel awkwardly paced in general. That's not even getting into the ethical quagmire of a lawyer getting together with his mentally incapacitated client!

Over the Rainbow was marketed as shoujo, but it's actually a josei manga. That would explain why most of Arou and Keita's clients are parents, particularly a lot of single or divorced ones. What's strange is that while this is made for adult women, Honda tends to come down especially hard on the many mothers within this story. The few fathers we see are kindly but mostly absent from their family's lives, and the children are universally saintly (and doubly so for the one autistically-coded kid). Meanwhile, the mothers we see here are either complete bitches that are humbled by circumstance or victims of a world that scorns them for the terrible crime of raising children on their own. Regardless of whatever problem they start out with, the solution always seems to be a lot of long conversations and a buttload of deus-ex-machina to force a happy ending. That includes Key's amnesia, even if it throws in a fake fiancee and a lot of guilt in there in the process. None of these endings were particularly good, but by the end I was just glad they were over.

ART:

Over the Rainbow's art is mediocre 90s manga art personified. The character designs are pleasant enough, but they are also lifeless and generic. Honda doesn't bother with backgrounds most of the time, and when she does she tends to drown them in screentone. The only thing that visually distinguishes this book is Honda's utterly terrible page composition. She tends to pack the panels on the page in uncomfortable wedges or tumble them across the page as if they were dropped at random.

RATING:

Over the Rainbow is nowhere as pretty nor as hopeful as its title might suggest. It's just a half-baked collection of mid-tier josei that appealed to no one save for the poor dumb schmuck who picked out Central Park Media's manga licenses.

This book was licensed by Central Park Media. It is currently out of print.

Oh CJ Michalski. Your manga is always okay at best and you've got a disturbing fondness for shotacon, but I can never fully your work. WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU?!

THAT WAS GOOD (Gochisosama), by CJ Michalski. First published in 2008 and first published in North America in 2011.

PLOT:

Hiroto was just another nobody working in a convienence store. Then he managed to impress a curious (and hungry) little toddler with his homemade bento, and now he's the live-in housekeeper for the tall, handsome pilot Suguru. All seems to be going well until Suguru's younger brother throws him out. Will Suguru come back in time to save Hiroto from homelessness? Meanwhile, the promiscuous high-school student Youhei falls for the tiny, delicate otaku Takumi. To win him over, Youhei immerses himself into otaku culture and Takumi's favorite series in the hopes of winning him over. Finally, Riku decides to help his twin sister marry the man she loves by becoming the hostage of her fiance's controlling older brother, only for the two to fall in love in turn.

STORY:

I am totally down for BL that can be heartwarming and fun. There are moments where That Was Good achieves those happy qualities. Alas, they are all too fleeting because Michalski is all too ready to throw it out the window for smut and some more questionable story elements.

This books is definitely front-loaded when it comes to quality. The title story is the stronger of the two, although it falls apart in its second half. It's sweet enough to watch Hiroto and Suguru form a cozy little family unit, even if Michalski rushes through a lot of it. It's a shame then that she has to spoil it with a needless second-act break-up that is resolve through some decidedly creepy means. I mean, what says romance like "I slipped a GPS tracker into your stuff" or long bouts of rough, noisy sex? What makes sense like "my employer's brother can fire me for no good reason because of pissiness and off-screen homophobia?" Still, the moments that are just Hiroto making good food, being a good parent to Suguru's impossibly adorable, coherent toddler, and him and Suguru being casually couple-like (complete with dirty in-jokes!).

"I Love That Half of You" is weaker in many ways. There's not much sense of progress between Youhei and Takumi, and the gag is almost always the same every time: everything Takumi does makes Youhei instantly horny. While it's funny and even a little adorable to watch this tall, strapping young man swoon over this dorky little twink, what's less funny is that Youhei's reaction to these feelings is almost always "attempt to sexually assault Takumi." The second-act break-up here is even more random, and it leads up to a bit of cosplay sex at a Comiket bathroom (which is sexy in theory, but not so much in execution). It's a disappointing result for what could have been fun and playful, but Michalski can never quite let herself get away from those dumber, rapier BL cliches.

Those dumber, rapier cliches come to a head in "Even If I Must Sacrifice Myself," a story that is predicated around rape, mistaken identity, and a hearty helping of Stockholm Syndrome. While Riku's motivation has dramatic appeal, it's quickly forgotten for an extended montage of rape with a few minor kind gestures for good measure. Faster than you can say "problematic," Riku's captor proclaims his affection for no good reason and the two are swiftly married with no time to question what the hell just happened or how utterly psychotic this whole premise is. This story is the most frustrating of the lot, but they all are to some degree. I'll never understand why Michalski is so determined to keep pandering to her audience with some of the worst BL cliches when she's so much better with coming up with fun, light-hearted material.

ART:

Thankfully, Michalski's noted fondness for shotacon (or at least suspiciously young-looking ukes) is not present here! While Hiroto and Takumi are smaller and slighter than their blonder, beefier counterparts, they do at least look their ages. While her art has refined some over the years, there are still some moments of questionable anatomy and yaoi hands within these pages. At least the smutty bits are decently drawn, even if she throws them together in a way that feels hopelessly disjointed regardless of how consensual the act may be. She could stand to give her characters a little more space on the page, but otherwise her art is fine.

RATING:

That Was Good was mostly just OK. There are some good ideas here, but they're ruined by her bad impulses and a completely misguided final story.

This book was published by Digital Manga Publishing. It is currently out of print.

Once upon a time, Masamune Shirow could be relied on to churn out all sorts of interesting one-shot sci-fi stories. Most of them have been overshadowed by the massive success of Ghost in the Shell, and that's unfortunate. They weren't always masterpieces of transhumanism, but they were interesting in their own right.

DOMINION, by Masamune Shirow. First published in 1986 and first published in North America in 2000.

PLOT:

In the future, the skies are brimming with dangerous bacteria. Humanity has done everything to protect itself from the air, be it the strange pod-like beings they live in or the filter masks they wear outside. It's not enough to protect the people from everyday criminals like the thief Buaku and his catgirl henchwomen Annapuma and Unipuma. The only force capable of stopping them is the Tank Police, a hardscrabble group of cops dedicated to stopping crime (if not so much toward stopping collateral damage or pleasing their superiors).

STORY:

You know what people forget about Masamune Shirow manga? How funny they can be at times. This quality has mostly been lost thanks to Ghost In the Shell's overwhelmingly serious reputation and Shirow's own descent into overly oiled-up porn, but he was always good at combining sci-fi funkiness with a sometimes off-beat and sometimes dark sense of humor. Dominion is no exception to this.

For the longest time, I was convinced that this manga was either ripping off or parodying Patlabor. It's not hard to see where I would get that idea, considering this is a manga about a spunky red-headed lady cop surrounded by a bunch of misfits and weirdos who work together to police the city. Yet Dominion came out three years before the first OVA. Was Patlabor ripping off this instead? I'll leave that answer to those who know more about that franchise than I.

I will say that I do like our heroine, Leona. While the rest of the tank squad are based around a single gimmick, Leona has at least a few dimensions to her. She's brave and committed to her cause, and over the course of the story she becomes something of a gearhead where her tank is concerned. While there is a romantic subplot between her and one of her other squadmates, it's a very minor one and she remains mostly oblivious to his attentions.

It certainly does have a lot in common with most of Shirow's other works before and after its release. You've got a group of crime-fighters led by a strong, capable woman who use short, squat tanks with weirdly insect-like parts. While Shirow's vision of the future is an interesting fusion of Blade Runner-style noir with a funky, biological edge, it's also got an off-beat sense of humor that I find weirdly appealing. Maybe it's just because the villains' plans are themselves so ridiculous. When they're not stealing things like artifical plant beings or a bunch of babies, ,they're simply enacting petty revenge against the tank police. Most of the time, it comes off like a big dumb sci-fi blockbuster and I feel like that's the best way to approach Dominion.

ART:

Shirow's style here is a bit looser than what people associate with him from later works. The characters are fairly average (at least for him) with the exception of the bombshell proportions on the Puma sisters and the plant girl. True to form, he does manage to slip in some fanservice in the form of bare boobs and casual nudity. Still, you can tell how much fun he had drawing all the tanks and other mechanical designs, along with the big bug-eyed overreactions. He also gives the city a rough, dingy look, but he uses a lot of larger panels to give all that detail some space to breathe.

PRESENTATION:

I read this from the first, flipped edition. I'm not aware of any major differences between the two, but I did enjoy the additional notes from Shirow about his ideas for this story, the appeal of the tanks, and some concept art.

RATING:

Dominion is good old-school sci-fi action. It may not be exploring any deep thoughts on humanity or technology but it's enjoyable all the same. It's a prime example of what Shirow could do in his prime.

This book was published by Dark Horse. It is currently out of print.

Now it's time to take a look at a brilliant stand-alone work from SuBLime as well as one of my favorite BL mangaka ever.

TABLEAU NUMERO 20 (Sakuhin Number 20), by est em. First published in 2009 and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:

An art conversator finds a lost masterpiece, a work previously only known to exist in the form of a sketch. For years, the man obsessed over that sketch and the haunting eyes of the man in it. Imagine his shock, then, when he brings the painting home to work on it and finds the subject standing naked on his balcony. The man in question, Yves, turns out to be the key to the mystery of the artist’s works, and alongside the conservator Yves learns to let go of his lost love. Alongside them are other stories, ones about frustrated flamenco dancers, of a couple separated by time and the loss of memory with age, and a man struggling with his unspoken love for an old friend.

STORY:

Yep, it’s time for another est em anthology! I’ve long been a fan of her works, and was thrilled to learn that Viz’s SuBLime imprint was picking up yet another. It’s on par with a lot of her other anthology collections (meaning that, of course, it’s incredibly good and achingly emotional), but there are a couple of stories that really stand out.

The first is the title story. It’s the closest est em has ever gotten to magical realism. She makes no explanation as to HOW Yves came to life, but that’s really not the point to the story. It’s not about the how, but the why, and the why is hauntingly tragic. It’s the story of a talented young man and the troubled man he loved, and how that talent tore them apart, and it’s a real tragedy. Their love story is so powerful that the one between Yves and the conservator feels almost perfunctory, like it was just something added for the sake of the fujoshi. Est em is usually good about not simply inserting sex for the sake of titillation alone, so it’s an odd misstep for her. There’s also a sequel chapter at the end, but it too feels a bit perfunctory and it ends with a resounding ‘meh.’ In spite of all that, it’s a beautiful done story and easily the best of the lot.

The other standout story is "Raselgado", starring Jesus, a frustrated flamenco dancer. He’s tired of dancing for a bunch of ungrateful tourists, just as much as he’s tired of one-night stands full of blowjobs from some of those same tourists. His partner/guitarist wants him to move on to the big city, where a dancer of Jesus’s caliber could truly shine, but Jesus is hesitant. As pretentious as it sounds, when he lets loose, his dancing is no less than an extension of himself, of his heart and soul, and part of that same soul is tied to his partner’s guitar. It’s a familiar topic for est em, one about tortured artists and Spain and such, but the ending is peaceful and hopeful.

The remaining stories, while not as impactful, are just as good as the rest. "Not Just a Merry-Go-Round" is the weakest of the lot, since it mostly just chronicles one man’s unrequited love for his divorcee friend. "En El Parque" is soft and sweet, centering on two men who meet in a park – one old, one young. The young one is having relationship troubles; the old one is always waiting for his lover. The conclusion is sad and sweet and hopeful at once.

Tableau Numero 20 is yet another solid collection of stories from the mind of est em. All of them are good, but two of them are real gems, some of the best of her career. I’m glad that Viz is willing to take a chance of her works, considering that everything else of hers is long out of print.

ART:

est em’s art has only grown more refined with age, if Tableau has anything to show for it. Her linework has never been more confident and polished. The characters are as handsome and realistic as possible, and it goes a long way towards selling the reader on some of the stories. You can believe that someone could become obsessed with a drawing of Yves when she manages to make his pale eyes so piercing and lovely, framed with their long cherubic lashes, on the page. You can believe that Jesus is such a brilliant dancer when you see a montage of his as his feet fly across the page, his hair swinging in the air as his partner strums his guitar. Backgrounds come and go, although those present are nicely drawn. Even the color artwork is stunning, best exemplified by the stunning choice of cover art.

RATING:

Tableau Numero 20 is not only one of est em's best books, but easily one of the best books in SuBLime's library. It's beautiful, touching, and not to be missed.

This book is published by Viz via their SuBLime imprint. It is currently in print.

Idols! Lots of weebs love 'em! I...don't really like them.

At all.

God knows that this manga isn't making much of an argument to convince me otherwise.

DAYS OF COOL IDOLS! (Seikou Gakuen Idol-gumi!), by Mizuki Watanabe. First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Tsubasa Nagumo hoped that switching to the prestigious Seikou school would help him get away from his dark past. Before he has a moment to settle in, he's shanghaied into the school's Elite V class. These students live in luxury in trade for working hard as idols, and Tsubasa is being brought in to serve as a stand-in for the agency's top performer Yui Hoshino. Tsubasa has plenty of challenges before him: stalkers, jealous rivals, and his own crippling insecurities. Thankfully, he's got an band of boy idols ready and willing to support him at every turn.

STORY:

Days of Cool Idols! isn't very good. Part of that may just be personal on my part, as a story all about idol culture isn't all that interesting to me in the first place. The other part may be that what story is here is rote, dull, and shallow.

I pretty quickly got tired of Tsubasa's constant sadsack act. There's never any real explanation as to why he hates himself so much other than some vague implications of bullying and depression, so we're just expected to feel sad for him simply because he feels sad in a generalized sort of way. There's simply no pathos to this kid, and that becomes a problem fast because most of the plot is about others making Tsubasa feel sad and guilty while others boost him with vague platitudes of friendship and support. He's also incredibly passive, as he's dragged along at every point by the plot and by the actions of others, which doesn't help things either.

It's not like the reader can distract themselves from the limp dishrag that is the protagonist by paying attention to the other boys in Elite V. Most of them are interchangeable, and those who aren't are distinguished by such endearing quirks as "constantly tries to sexually assault Tsubasa when he's not wearing his glasses." We're meant to be touched by their concern for Tsubasa, but if I can't even tell them apart then there's no way I'm going to care about if they like someone or not. Their collective blandness manages to puncture any sort of drama this manga has to offer. Who cares about what happens to a bunch of boring nobodies, regardless if they're in a band or not?

Its final failing is one that's all too common to music-related manga: manga doesn't come with audio. Idol music's main appeal is in the (ostensibly) catchy, perky music and the singers' dance routines. Manga can't replicate either of these things well, so what's left to offer? All there seems to be is the particulars of the boys' arrangement with their school, but that only begs more questions than it answers. In addition to the usual contractual stipulations about their public behavior, they are treated like literal assets. No joke; their agency is apparently supported by a fund where investors invest in any given performer, and any drop in their popularity or poor performance makes their value drop like a failing stock certificate. This is kind of dehumanizing, but because Days of Cool Idols! is so poorly written it doesn't even stand out.

ART:

The cast and artwork are equally bland here. Watanabe's characters are distinguished only by their dull, glassy eyes and ludicrously tiny mouths. The female designs are passable, while the male ones are so similar that not even alternating hair colors does much to visually distinguish any of the idol boys from one another. The weird thing is that she seems to do her best to crowd them off the page with tiny panels and lots of word bubbles and flatten them by not giving them much shading. Not even the mangaka seems to care that much for her own art!

RATING:

Days of Cool Idols! doesn't have any glamour, coolness, or interest to offer the reader. It's just another no-name manga, just another bit of flotsam in the wreck of the 2000s manga bubble.

This book was licensed by Go!Comi. It is currently out of print.

With another summer full of blockbusters upon us, it's time to do what they do best and look at some manga sequels, prequels, and sequels. We'll start with a series that was sold as a prequel to a popular series, but in reality it's more like the popular series is a sequel to it.

GTO: THE EARLY YEARS - SHONAN JUNAI GUMI, by Tohru Fujisawa. First published in 1990 and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:

Eikichi and Ryuji are two of the baddest high-school hooligans in Hanagawa prefecture. Together they are Oni-Baki, a yankii duo infamous for their ability to beat down any and all comers. They're also a pair of doofy high-schoolers looking to lose their virginities and are willing to do ANYTHING to make it happen. Their latest efforts to pop their cherries at a summer resort nearly work...until they discover that their dates are also their homeroom teachers. Meanwhile, things get more complicated when a couple of girls set their eyes on the boys first out of revenge, then out of admiration.

STORY:

As a fan of Great Teacher Onizuka, I thought I knew what I was getting into with this series. If this was the prequel to GTO, then surely I'd just be in for a younger, dumber, more yankii-fied version of the same! What I wasn't expecting was for it to turn out to be a big, dumb, raunchy shonen rom-com. I also didn't expect to love it as much as I did.

If you're expecting the Eikichi and Ryuji here to be the same cool dudes they were in GTO, then you may be in for a disappointment. Eikichi may still be the outrageous one and Ryuji may be the more stable of the two, but in this story they are very much dumb, hot-headed, horny teenagers. That does mean that most of the chapters fall into the familiar rut of them trying to score and ending up denied by circumstance or ending with them getting into epic ass-whuppings, but the story never crosses the line into spiteful cruelty. We're meant to sympathize with the boys in their quest for vag and marvel at their sheer badassery and epic loyalty to one another in true, old-school shonen fashion.

So what of the rest of the cast? Honestly, the only two who show up often enough to be worth noting are the teachers-turned-love interests, Ayumi and Mariko. Ayumi gets the lion's share of backstory thanks to bad times with an ex-boyfriend, but most of the time she tends to be a dere-heavy variation of tsundere. Mariko tends to be more of a tag-along, always urging Ayumi to take a chance while snarking from the sidelines. Apparently this dynamic was so nice that Fujisawa wrote it twice, as the high-school girls Aina and Momoko share similar sort of personalities. They will feel like familiar sorts of characters to those who have read GTO: manipulative girls motivated by petty reasons until Eikichi comes along and straightens them out.

I wonder if publishing this series in omnibuses was the wisest choice, as after a while the seemingly endless shift between wacky rom-com antics and bombastic brawling. Still, Fujisawa injects it all with a loose, raunchy sense of humor that's only enhanced by Christopher North's translation, and that makes it an absolute delight to read over a quarter of a century after it started.

ART:

If you're familiar with Fujisawa's style, then you'll definitely have an idea of what you're in for here. The guys are ruggedly yet boyishly handsome (when they're not rough, ugly caricatures), and the girls all have the same generically cute face. The action tends to be a blur of motion and blood, which is good for getting across the power of a punch but doesn't lend itself to panels that flow smoothly from one another. That being said, Fujisawa absolutely lets loose when it comes to Oni-Baki's reactions. There are loads of kooky lizard-like grins, bug-eyed expressions of shock, and enormous, exaggerated boners complete with sound effects. It really reinforces the comedic bent of the story and while it's not as polished as his later material, it's a delight to look upon.

RATING:

While GTO fans will get a bit more out of this than newcomers, Shonan Junai Gumi does manage to stand up on its own as the sort of balls-to-the-wall action rom-com that have fallen out of fashion in shonen manga. It's a fun, raunchy ride, although I question how long it can keep this pace up before it gets too repetitive for its own good.

This series was published by Vertical, and previously by Tokyopop. This series is complete in Japan with 31 volumes available. All 31 volumes were published as 2-in-1 omnibuses and are currently out of print.

You would think that the only thing I would dread more than a manga adaptation of a light novel is a manga adaptation of a light novel spinoff. Yet this one actually turned to be kind of OK for once.

I guess there has to be an exception out there once in a while.

A CERTAIN SCIENTIFIC RAILGUN (Toaru Kagaku no Rerugan), based on the light novel by Kazumi Kamachi & art by Moto Fuyuawa. First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2011.

PLOT:

In Academy City, young children with extraordinary powers are gathered together so they can control and hone their skills. One of the most talented of the lot is Mikoto Misaka, a tomboy with such incredible electric powers that she’s been nicknamed ‘the Railgun.’ She finds herself caught up in the investigation of a rash of bombings around town, but the only mystery more compelling than the identity of the bomber is the identity of the weird guy who can block Misaka’s every attack.

STORY:

A Certain Scientific Railgun has a lot of the usual elements one would associate with light novels: a magic high school, a guy who is seemingly weak but actually has a super-special power, a bunch of cute girls doing cute girl things, even a bit of yuri fanservice. This all would have been intolerable if not for one thing: that the protagonist Mikoto is cool enough to rise above it all.

I was kind of surprised to discover how much I enjoyed Mikoto as a character. It certainly helps that her powers are just plain cool and that she gets plenty of opportunity to show them off. It also helps that her casual style and aloof attitude help to distinguish her from her more traditionally feminine (and more traditionally moe) friends. She doesn’t have a hero complex, in spite of her powers. She’s willing to help others when asked, but she’s not picking for a fight either. If anything, she’s rather unwittingly swept up into the larger plot thanks to her teleporting friend Kuroko. It’s nice that such a normal and down-to-earth kid can be found in this otherwise outrageous setting. She’s an audience stand-in done right, for once.

It’s good that Mikoto is so cool because everyone else around her is various degrees of annoying. First and foremost of that group is Kuroko. She’s the biggest source of said yuri fanservice in this series, as when she’s not fighting delinquents she’s doing her best to molest Mikoto and steal a kiss. Her obsessive crush on Mikoto is a gag that falls flat straight from the start and never gets any better in spite of its many, MANY repetitions. At least Kuroko is relevant to the plot, though, which is more than one can say for their other friend Uiharu. As far as I can tell, she’s there solely to be as moe as hell with her ever-present flower garland and her ability to…um….be mildly feverish at all times? By the end I started to wonder if that wasn’t in fact her superpower. Oh, and she also has a friend that serves no purpose beyond adding more yuri fanservice, just in case you missed it somehow.

Then there’s Kajima. His ability is the ability to negate any superpower, a fact that absolutely grinds Mikoto’s gears. Strictly speaking, he’s a crossover character from this manga’s sister series, A Certain Magical Index, and his role here is fairly minor. That’s a good thing as Kajima is pretty much the platonic ideal of a light novel hero. He’s a hapless schmuck with a hero complex, a secret super-special power, and the story plays up his rivalry with Mikoto as a potential romance. Considering that his presence starts to turn Mikoto into your standard tsundere, he’s pretty much the worst.

So what abot the plot itself? It tend to vacililate between slice-of-life fluff and superhero-style crime fighting. It’s only halfway through the volume that the bombing plot comes into play. I will concede that the bomber’s plot and Kajima’s introduction actually dovetail into one another nicely. Still, it’s prone to the occasional light-novel-style info drop, especially at the beginning. I swear these kids can’t get anywhere near a classroom without it turning into one long screed of exposition, right down to the “As you all know.” Weirdly enough, it never stops to explain the weirdness of this universe itself, such as why they need an entire city dedicated to this high school. I can’t tell whether this is laziness on the writer’s part or just something that requires reading the other manga/light novels in the franchise to understand.

For all of my complaints, I would consider A Certain Scientific Railgun one of the better light novel to manga adaptations I've come across. The superhero-style premise is one that’s a natural fit for a comic and Mikoto makes for a great, reliable heroine. It’s nowhere near as extraordinary as the powers on display, but it’s decent enough to be entertaining.

ART:

I’m not entirely sure if I like Fuyukawa’s artstyle or not, but it’s certainly lively enough to get a pass. The girls do tend to look the same around the face and everyone tends to be a bit bobble-headed, but they’re all wildly expressive and lively, and the same is true for the fight scenes. He does overuse the Dutch angles, but otherwise everything is easy to follow, even in mid-battle. If anything, he could stand to give the story some scale and breathing room by expanding the panels and giving Academy City some greater visual identity. As it is, it tends to be the same old shops, schoolrooms and interiors. It’s not bad by any means, but it never quite distinguishes itself enough to become truly good.

PRESENTATION:

Like a number of older Seven Seas titles, there’s a preview for another manga. Sometimes the previews make sense, and sometimes they’re like this instance, where the preview is for Toradora. Call me crazy, but you’d think that Seven Seas would use this spot to promote their own release of the Index manga.

RATING:

A Certain Scientific Railgun has a neat concept , a great heroine, and some occasionally lively art which do go a long way towards making the more stereotypically light novel elements more tolerable. It manages to stand on its own for the most part and it’s fun enough to be a diverting read.

This series is published by Seven Seas. This series is ongoing in Japan with 13 volumes available. All 13 have been released and are currently in print.

During Bandai's short time as a manga publisher, they put out a ridiculous number of Code Geass manga, including many anthologies and AU spinoffs. This one might be the most radical premise of the lot, but that only makes its mistakes all the more disappointing.

CODE GEASS: NIGHTMARE OF NUNNALLY, based on the original story by Ichirou Ohkouchi & Goro Takiguchi, with art by Tomomasa Takuma. First published in 2007 and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:

Despite the loss of her mother, her family's prestige, her sight, and her ability to walk, Nunnally vi Brittania takes faith and comfort in her life from her older brother Lelouch. When her brother disappears during an incident with Brittanian soldiers, Nunnally encounters a strange doll called Nemo that grants her wish for power to help herself, giving her the ability to temporarily move and see while encased in a bizarre mechanical suit. As the conflict between the armies of the Brittanian Empire and rebel forces within Japan escalate, Nunnally finds herself wondering if her new power is a gift or a curse...

STORY:

I wanted to like Nightmare of Nunnally. While I never finished Code Geass back in the day, I always found the concept interesting (if more than a little flawed). Manga is a perfect place to take such a premise and explore it from new angles, such as an AU where the protagonist is not the scheming, ambitious Lelouch, but his gentle, codependent, disabled little sister. It's a shame then that her story is all but drowned out by everything else going on.

In addition to Nunnally's storyline, there is:

Rehashed plot points from the show, hoping to get those who didn't watch the show caught up
Lelouch, who is somehow not dead from a very big explosion, has become Zero in the mean time, and teamed up with a group of Japanese rebel fighters
The thoughts and schemes of the various Brittanian nobles
Alice, Nunnally's random new best friend who also apparently has Geass powers because why the fuck not?

You might be able to juggle all these various plot threads on a TV show, but in manga form there's simply no space for any of it to breathe, much less flow in a coherent manner. That's a real shame because I liked the idea of Nunnally becoming an active figure in this universe and having to be confronted with a personification of the negative emotions she's been repressing. Yeah, it's not far from your standard Jekyl & Hyde set-up, but it's got the potential for real drama. Plus, this has the edge of Nunnally's transformation turning her into a manic mecha (which itself is something of a callback to Evangelion). I just wish Takuma was willing to fully commit to it instead of mostly pasting her into Lelouch's place in the original story.

ART:

Nightmare of Nunnally's art isn't nightmarish onto itself, but it's not great. Takuma takes CLAMP's original character designs and makes their faces a little broader and a lot less angular. I'm sure that made them easier to draw, but they all tend to lose something in translation. What's more distracting is his emphasis on fanservice. I'll bet he had all sorts of good excuses why Nunnally has to operate her suit naked and on all-fours inside her Knightmare frame, or why she (and to a lesser degree, her friend Alice) are the subject of multiple panty shots, or why Nemo's human form involves a skin-tight body suit full of cut-outs. He certain put more effort into them than into the battle. Nunnally's battles are clearly meant to be fierce and chaotic, but Takuma takes it too far. The fights are so disjointed that it's impossible to figure out who is fighting who and it all just falls apart on the page.

RATING:

Much like its parent series, Nightmare of Nunnally has interesting ideas but it stretches itself in too many different directions and gets distracted with weird, out-of-place fanservice. Because of this, I couldn't recommend it to anyone aside from the most die-hard, completionist Code Geass fans.

This series was published by Bandai. This series is complete in Japan with 5 volumes. All 5 were published and are currently out of print.

Let's wrap things up with the sequel to one of my favorite horror manga. Will this return to Count D's mysterious shop be just as wonderful as before, or contain horrors beyond imagination?

PET SHOP OF HORRORS: TOKYO (Shin Pettoshoppu obu Horazu), by Matsuri Akino. First published in 2005 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

After fleeing from Los Angeles (and the attentions of a particularly stubborn detective), Count D has established himself in Tokyo. He's ready to offer his exotic, shapeshifting pets to anyone who needs them, be they a yakuza henchman in love, a single mother running from her abusive ex, or a frustrated wanna-be novelist. Meanwhile, the landlord's son is deeply suspicious that Count D's business is not all that it seems...

STORY:

Let me reassure anyone who might have been wondering: if you enjoyed the original Pet Shop of Horrors, you will enjoy this series. Akino picks things up right where she left off and continues in very much the same vein. It's still more or less the same series of unconnected vignettes where sad or frustrated people find ways to connect with others through their pets. They're still connected by a plot thread between D and an intrusive investigator, although this version has D taking on a slightly more antagonistic (or at least needling) role and is far less homoerotic and comedic than the previous version.

I will say that this time around, there seems to be a lot more emphasis on tragedy than there is on horror. It's hard to tell whether this is simply due to Akino's whims or the shift to a new magazine, but there's a definitely a lot more romanticized deaths in this first volume and I'm not complete sure what I think about it. Expect a lot more noble sacrifices to save loved ones and not so many girls spewing rabbits from their stomachs.

This approach comes to a head in the side story included in the end. It focuses not on Count D, but his lookalike grandfather. The story whisks us back to 1930s Germany, where a desperate young woman wants a child to keep her powerful lover by her side. She receives a beautiful golden creature that the couple take in together, even as Europe is overtaken by war. As Berlin falls, her lover takes her as his bride at last, together forever in death.

Sounds romantic, doesn't it? Here's the twist: the desperate young woman is Eva Braun.

Yes, THAT Eva Braun.

Unless you are living under a rock or purposefully shutting out the daily news, then you'll be aware that Nazis and fascism have been something of a hot topic lately. There's been a lot of discussion about how previously hateful, unthinkable ideas have become normalized and how troubling that is. So you can imagine how I felt reading this, hoping for a momentary respite from an awful world, only to see Nazis LITERALLY ROMANTICIZED WITHIN ITS PAGES. Because of that, I couldn't even enjoy the

It's a shame this happened because aside from that, the volume is perfectly fine. While I question the shift away from horror, it's still good entertainment. Alas, all it takes is one poorly aged and culturally insensitive inclusion to spoil the entire experience.

ART:

The better part of a decade passed between the end of the original series and the start of this one, but you'd never guess it from looking at the art. Her characters (be they human or otherwise) are as beautiful as ever, and this is doubly true for the beautifully androgynous D and his many elaborately patterned robes. While her pages always have a lot going on upon them, she directs the eye subtly yet skillfully with well-placed staggered panels or poking her characters up through the frames to guide the reader. It's the work of a mangaka in her prime, confident and elegant.

RATING:

Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo should please fans of the previous series, as most of its best qualities are continued here...just so long as you skip that side story.

This series was published by Tokyopop. This series is complete in Japan with 12 volumes available. 8 volumes were published and are currently out of print.

As network TV dives deep into reruns and reality shows, it's time for us to look at some TV-to-manga adaptations. That's right, everything you'll see here is:

So let's start with one that started as a manga, became a TV show, and then became a manga again.

GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX (Kokaku Kidotai Sutando Aron Conpurekkusu), adapted from the series by Yu Kinutani. First published in 2009 and first published in North America in 2011.

PLOT:

In the futuristic world of New Port City, both bodies and minds can be digitized and mechanized at will. This is something that not only civilians take advantage of, but criminals as well. When such offenses are beyond the scope of the police, the shadowy government group known as Section 9 takes over. Under the leadership of Major Matoko Kusanagi, the Section 9 team must work together to save the prime minister and his staff from a hostage situation while finding the mastermind behind it.

STORY:

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (hereafter shortened to GITS: SAC) is considered by many to be the best iteration of the franchise. It strikes the perfect balance between the transhumanist themes of the original and thrilling police action. Even if you're not familiar with the original manga or Mamoru Oshii's film, this can still be enjoyed as a sci-fi take on a police procedural. I don't blame anyone taking this quality TV show and turning it into a manga. If there's any problem with it, it's that it literally is the TV show transcribed to the page.

That's right, this is the sort of TV-to-manga adaptation that copies its source material line for line and shot for shot. If you've ever seen the first episode of GITS:SAC, you've seen everything this volume has to offer. It's a story that serves as a decent introduction to Section 9 as a whole, but it's not so good for introducing its individual members. The only one who gets anything resembling a proper one is Togusa, the team newcomer who is notable only for his mullet and his lack of cybernetic alterations. Otherwise, it presumes that you already know most of them from the other version of Ghost in the Shell or that you'll stick around long enough to get to the character-driven episodes. Hell, we learn more about the Tachikomas, as this manga comes complete with its own version of Tachikoma Time! It's saying something when the sentient tank robots get more of a spotlight than the freaking Major!

That being said, it's still a really good storyline. It starts off as your standard hostage situation, but as the investigation shifts towards the conspiracy behind the kidnapping the intensity grows. It's perfectly paced, perfectly tense, and incorporates the sci-fi elements of this universe well. It's just simply kind of redundant if you're already a fan of this version, and I can't imagine anyone picking this up unless they were already a fan of the show in the first place.

ART:

Again, GITS:SAC managed to find a good balance between Shirow's original designs and more modern (well, modern for the mid-2000s) sensibilities. There are some minor things that I wish were changed (such as the Major's uniform, which is basically a one-piece swimsuit with thigh-highs and a leather jacket), but for the most part it's a look that's aged gracefully. Kinutani does try very hard to stick close to the show's aesthetic...maybe a little bit TOO hard. He tries so hard to keep everything on-model that even mid-assault the characters come off as stiff, like action figures acting out a fight. It's all perfectly fine on a technical level, but it lacks verve.

RATING:

The source material is great, but this adaptation doesn't add anything meaningful to it other than some mediocre art. Like too many TV-based manga, it will only appeal to those already familiar with the show without stopping to catch the rest of the audience up.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics. This series is ongoing in Japan with 5 volumes available. All 5 have been published and are currently in print.

Like last week's review, this is another adaptation of a beloved anime series from the 2000s (although it took a lot longer for this one to earn its acclaim). Unlike that review, this one isn't a simple rehash of the source material...it's just a major downgrade.

PRINCESS TUTU (Purinsesu Chuchu), based on the story by Ikuko Itoh & Jun-ichi Satoh & art by Mizuo Shinonome. First published in 2003 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Ahiru is a clumsy girl who wants nothing more than to impress Mytho, a boy who is as handsome and gifted at ballet as he is sad and distant. Edel, a local shop owner, gives Ahiru a pendant that allows her to transform into the magical Princess Tutu. As Tutu, Ahiru can not only dance beautifully, but also salvage shards of Mytho's heart from monstrous creatures. As Mytho's feelings return, Ahiru/Tutu finds herself in conflict with both Mytho's stern protector Fakir as well as the mysterious Princess Kraehe.

STORY:

Princess Tutu was a mistake.

Not the show, mind you - the show is one of my favorites. It's the manga version that shouldn't exist. Virtually everything about this manga is a mistake, right down to the choice of magazine to publish it in. What madman editor decided that the best place for a magical girl adaptation like this was a shonen magazine? It wasn't even one of those that purposefully courts more of a gender-balanced audience; it would be the same magazine that would later host fanservice-fests like The Qwasar of Stigmata and body horror like Franken Fran.

This version of Tutu loses most of its fairytale trappings, becoming more of a traditional magical girl story in the process. There is no Drosselmeyer, no animal people (save for Mr. Cat, which only just begs more questions), and Edel is not a puppet but instead just a human lady with big boobs. I suspect those fanciful elements were execised in the hopes of pleasing the male readership, but all it actually does is make Ahiru's adventures feel hollow and extremely repetitive. The core of the story is still there, but it's simply going through the motions.

It's also extremely condensed, so there's no time to develop anyone in the cast. At most, we get hints of a sinister conspiracy, but even these hints are half-hearted and thuddingly unsubtle. Even if I didn't have the show to compare it to, I couldn't imagine feeling the least bit invested in these dull characters. It's like the story itself has had its own heart stolen and scattered to the winds, but there is no magical ballerina waiting to save it.

ART:

That half-hearted feeling extends to the art. It's strange because it's not like Shinonome is a stranger to drawing cute girls, considering his best-known works is the yuri series First Love Sisters. Yet all the characters here are so flatly rendered with such feeble, dull-eyed faces. While his composition is fine most of the time, his attempts at drawing magical girl transformations and dance montages are muddled and graceless. Then there's the fact that he keeps trying to add fanservice, and every attempt to shove boobs and panty shots in feels more clumsy than the last. I can't imagine a worse match of mangaka and story than this.

PRESENTATION:

There's an afterword from both Junichi Sato (the show's director) and Nanae Kato (Ahiru's seiyuu). These feel like odd inclusions considering that both are in reference to the show. There's also an afterword from Shinonome (complete with a sketch of some of the anime versions of the cast, which look so much better than this own) as well as a few omake with Mr. Cat that are notable only for how unfunny and confusing they are.

On a final note, while Kay Bertrand's translation is perfectly serviceable, there were clearly a lot of people slacking off in ADV's editorial department. How else can you explain how a panel with a completely unaltered speech bubble got through to print?

RATING:

Like I said before, this version of Princess Tutu was a mistake. It takes everything charming and substantial about the source material and throws it away, leaving only this hollow shell. Do yourself a favor and stick with the (readily streaming, frequently cheap, and always enchanting) show instead.

This series was licensed by ADV. This series is complete in Japan with 2 volumes available. Both volumes were published and are currently out of print.

Merry Month of Manga Review: RA*I

Merry Month of Manga Review: KING OF THE LAMP

Merry Month of Manga Review: ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS

Merry Month of Manga Review: GIGANTO MAXIA

Merry Month of Manga Review: ALL NIPPON AIR LINE

Merry Month of Manga Review: LOVE FOR DESSERT

Merry Month of Manga Review: PRESENT FOR ME

Merry Month of Manga: SECRET OF THE PRINCESS

Merry Month of Manga Review: WILD COM.

Merry Month of Manga Review: OVER THE RAINBOW

Merry Month of Manga Review: THAT WAS GOOD

Merry Month of Manga Review: DOMINION

Merry Month of Manga Review: TABLEAU NUMERO 20

Merry Month of Manga Review: DAYS OF COOL IDOLS!

Review: GTO: THE EARLY YEARS

Review: A CERTAIN SCIENTIFIC RAILGUN

Review: CODE GEASS: NIGHTMARE OF NUNNALLY

Review: PET SHOP OF HORRORS: TOKYO

Review: GHOST IN THE SHELL - STAND ALONE COMPLEX

Review: PRINCESS TUTU