- Last OnlineJul 21, 2013 12:03 AM
- GenderMale
- BirthdayOct 31, 1975
- JoinedJan 28, 2008
RSS Feeds
|
![]()
May 10, 2008
Mangaka: Takano Masayuki
Serialized in: Dengeki Comics (Media Works)
Genre: seinen, supernatural, romance, slice of life, mystery
N. American license: Infinity Studios
Rating: 13+
Blood Alone revolves around a shoujo vampire (13+ years old) named Misaki, and the man she lives with, Kuroe. His age is indeterminate so far, but he’s clearly past school age, a writer and part-time private eye. Despite this May to December situation, their relationship is a chaste one, even though they sleep in one bed together. Compounding the oddness of their arrangement, she has not made him into a will-less slave, a “Renfield” — which makes them unique in this milieu.
There is a lot more
...
to Kuroe than meets the eye, however. Mysteries in his past and regarding his abilities are revealed slowly throughout the chapters. Although Misaki is “newly-turned”, a young vampire, she is protected by Higure, another child-vampire but one who is extremely old and powerful. Sainome, a police pathologist, is an old friend of Kuroe’s who sometimes asks him for help with odd or difficult cases.
This story is fun because it doesn’t focus solely on the action, nor does it sacrifice the action and mystery for the love story. Both are used effectively, sometimes one side in one chapter, sometimes the other, and a couple of times both are wound together in the plot. Volume three is almost totally about relationships and almost nothing to do with vampires or action, but volume four brings back the intrigue in spades.
Takano’s artwork is obviously influenced by shoujo style, but unlike some shoujo it is graphically clean, both when it confines itself to panels with borders and when it shifts to border-less pages. I thought this shifting quite innovative. Too often in shoujo manga, I find some scenes — especially action scenes — drawn too densely to see clearly what is happening. This is not a problem here. Misaki is always shown with a hint of her fangs, never letting the reader forget what she is. I would likely continue with this manga for the art alone, even if the story weren’t interesting.
Infinity’s production of the book is quite good, with no typesetting problems that I could see and the binding is top-rate — they didn’t skimp on the binding glue! I also appreciate that Infinity took the trouble to make a dust cover like the Japanese tankoubon have. The full-color cover and frontispiece add delightful touches. Blood Alone employs one break with manga tradition: black background borders do not indicate the past or flashbacks, but rather nighttime. Those borders fade from white to grey to black as the sun sets and vice versa in the morning, highlighting the danger to Misaki when she is inevitably caught outdoors.
I recommend Blood Alone highly. If I have any complaint, it’s perhaps that the 13+ rating might be a bit young — not due to violence or sex, but simply the subtlety itself. This runs in a seinen magazine, after all — a college-age men’s publication. The story is delicate and most issues are handled subtly. Despite the lolicon situation, it is not played up at all, with zero use of fanservice whatsoever, which I appreciated. The action is actually exciting and Misaki is completely adorable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Nice
 0
Love it
 0
Funny
 0
Confusing
 0
Well-written
 0
Creative
 0Show all
![]()
Feb 8, 2008
Written by: Fuyumi Ono
Published by: Tokyopop
English translation by Alexander O. Smith
Yoko is a high school girl with flaming red hair, going through life trying to please everyone, but inevitably failing. She is timid, deceitful, even cruel sometimes and she just wants to be liked and stay out of the spotlight. Unfortunately, living this way has the effect of making no real friends, and her red hair makes her teachers think she is a party girl who goes out at night. But suddenly, a strange man arrives with numerous monstrous creatures, turning her life upside-down and yanking her off to a strange place, and then promptly
...
disappears. Yoko is left with a strange sword to fight for her survival in a world that mostly wants her dead. She is forced to deal with people without being able to hide behind social conventions, and as if that weren’t enough, a strange, blue, demonic monkey keeps appearing and playing on her fears and her despair.
The incredible richness of the fantasy world Yoko is thrown into draws in equal parts from modern realism, Japanese and Chinese mythology, and history. Yoko receives a sword with a jewel that functions also as a mirror, tying into the three treasures of Japanese mythology. Chinese mythology brings the story the Mandate of Heaven and the general cosmography.
Japanese writing in translation is typically a bit spare compared to the lavish descriptions Westerners are used to. This is largely due to the use of kanji, which convey a range of meanings, as opposed to the English language, which focuses on one right word out of many. However, Ono’s work here manages to give enough of the detail the reader wants so that the rich world of The Twelve Kingdoms comes quite alive. Few of the characters or plot points lose any of their expected vividness, and I often really did feel like I was there in the novel. The anime was routinely criticized for the confusing amount of terms that Ono made up for her world, but Tokyopop’s localization managed to balance the vocabulary well, so that when the reader is lost in the names, it is because Yoko herself is lost as well. In fact, the novel manages to remain accessible for both readers who don’t care about the Japanese language and readers who do by including kanji when a character is explaining something unfamiliar. I’m not so sure about TP’s decision to release this as a hardbound book since it might not “cross over” to regular young adult fiction like they think it might.
You don’t get the sense, fortunately, that Ono is trying to criticize modern life or government by proposing some pie-eyed return to a simpler time. This is not an allegory or even a rant against today’s society. If Ono has a point to make, it has more to do with how to live life on a personal level, that, as Shoryu says, one must first be master of one’s self before being a king…or indeed before being anything in life. Due to the blue monkey, Yoko frequently ponders moral issues and even religion’s influence on people at one point. If there is one obvious weakness in the novel, it is that the ending might seem slightly anti-climactic. Keep in mind: this is due to the fact that this is only the first book out of at least 6 that are planned by Tokyopop.
Comparisons with the anime will be unavoidable, and I certainly could not keep the images of the TV series out of my head completely, and the OST imposed itself frequently while I read. Much has been said about how the character of Asano is not expanded on in the novel, and how Sugimoto is a very minor character in the beginning, never seen again. This has the effect of increasing Yoko’s isolation and therefore increasing the dramatic impact of what she goes through. There are few other differences, however, making the question for the anime’s fans not “What happens next?” but rather, “How will Ono take us there?” Personally, I found the journey delightful.
I think that whether you are a fan of the anime or have never seen it and don’t want to, you will still enjoy this book enormously. The fact that the protagonist is a girl doesn’t, in my opinion, lessen the appeal this story would have to readers of both genders.
[Read this and other reviews at http://www.manganews.net/forums/index.php !]
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Feb 1, 2008
Title: Hourou Musuko (”The Transient Son” / 放浪息子)
Mangaka: Takako Shimura / 志村貴子
Originally Serialized in: Comic Beam (Enter Brain)
Scanlated by: Kotonoha
Nitori has always been a bit of a girly kind of boy. He likes to cook, he’s sensative and has little in common with the other 5th-grade boys. He’s even cuter than his older sister, Maho, who wants to be a model. Saori Chiba is a classmate who seems to understand him, but mostly just likes dressing him up. He strikes up a friendship with Takatsuki, a tall girl who is very much a tomboy and who everyone calls “Takatsuki-kun”. They meet and befriend a gorgeous
...
woman, Yuki, who is actually a transsexual. All the while, Nitori is discovering how good he looks as a girl, and how much he likes it.
Hourou Musuko centers around elementary- and middle-school children, but is a seinen manga, targeted at college-age readers. Although the look back at school days relies heavily on nostalgia, the issues the characters are wrestling with are very adult. Nitori isn’t gay in the sense that he has no real idea of, or interest in, sexuality or romance. He is more interested in having friends, and likes acting and dressing as a girl. For both him and Takatsuki, their friends and families are loving and supportive, but there is some tension with the schoolmates acting in proscribed manners.
Things move slowly in this manga, focused on social situations and the feelings of the characters. It almost makes you think it’s sort of shoujo, but there’s little in the way of overwrought interior dialogue (or screentone, either). It’s a slice-of-life story and despite the sexually liminal nature of the plot, it still manages to capture the reader with distinct and heartwarming characterizations. The crossdressing makes me think of sexual roles versus sexual gender…and those two versus sexuality. Hourou Musuko is much more concerned with sexual roles in society than with mere titillation, which I liked very much.
Shimura employs a very clean style, but somehow manages to retain a sketchbook sort of look, making it look as if she had simply sat down and effortlessly sketched her perfectly cute faces–impossible, as those of you who do art well know. Art this effective is always the result of hard work, and it certainly shows here. Most of her panels leave out the background of any kind, once she has set up the scene. She is an obviously very accomplished artist, since her figure studies are realistic and foreshortening of limbs or bodies (a sure giveaway of an artist’s skill) is very well-done.
Kotonoha’s scanlation is typically of high-quality for them, the whites are white and the blacks are clean black. The typesetting is well-suited to the style of the manga, while being easy to read. I highly recommend downloading this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
![]()
Feb 1, 2008
Serialized in: Comic Blade (Mag Garden) & Stencil (Square Enix)
Genre: Sci-fi, Slice-of-life, Drama, Comedy
Publisher: Tokyopop
Rating: T (13+)
Akari Mizunashi is traveling to Aqua (Mars) from Manhome (Earth) to become an undine, one of the famous female gondoliers of Neo-Venezia (a replica of Venice). Akari knows nothing about Mars, which is now called Aqua since terraforming released tremendous amounts of water that now cover 90% of the surface. She also knows next to nothing about undines, only that she wants to be one. Slowly, day by day, she meets all kinds of new people and practices hard to become a good undine and adapts to the slow
...
pace of life on Aqua.
Akari is our main character and often narrator, since she frequently writes to a mysterious someone back on Manhome. Her total innocence reflects the reader’s and she encounters new things in the same way that we do, making her reactions to them our guide to this futuristic world. I say “futuristic”, but in fact there’s a delightful mix of sci-fi, ‘magic’ and nostalgic old ways in this story. For instance, despite the availability of computers, people on Aqua prefer to send letters, which are collected by a mailman in a gondola, no less. We are never shown Manhome, but Akari refers often to how the weather is regulated and everything is “convenient” there — in contrast to Aqua where it’s not as convenient to have to go out to shop, or to travel in boats to do anything. An undine, by the way, is a water-spirit, an elemental, as recorded by Paracelcus.
I’m describing all this because in a slice-of-life story, this is a staple of its charm. It’s nostalgic for slower, simpler times or at least it is a reaction against the insane, dehumanizing pace of modern living. There are often panels showing little more than scenery and setting, showing tiny moments of time that have little to do with hurrying the plot along. In this way, Amano is in strict control of the pace of the story and the reader can find him/herself skipping panels to get to the “happenings”. This is a mistake, however — the reader ought to let Amano have her pacing. (Which I was finally able to do after the third reading ^^;;; )
Fans of the series in both its forms might be surprised how few characters there are in this first volume. Akari meets President Aria, a “Martian cat” who is as smart as a human and very large too, but can’t talk. He’s a fatty, and the hardest thing to get used to in this manga. My own reaction to him was, “that blob is supposed to be a cat??” Alicia is Akari’s boss, mentor and idol all in one. She is very kind and gentle and takes an immediate liking to Akari, not really affectionate, but mothering her nevertheless. Aria Company is very small, only Alicia and Akari for employees, but she’s nevertheless famous and highly-sought as an undine. Aika is another trainee from a rival company, an abrupt, totally practical girl, who is constantly bringing the dreamy Akari down to earth and completely idolizes Alicia for some reason. She and Akari strike up an immediate friendship and often practice together .
Some of Amano-sensei’s earlier works were pretty bland and mediocre (Crescent Noise, Ohi-sama Egao). With this series, she is breaking free of shoujo or shounen standard style, although she brings some of those details with her, too. The style is very clean and graphical, with little sketch-like approach at all. And although the characters are well-drawn and likeable, it’s the backgrounds that are breathtakingly spectacular. It’s pretty clear that Amano traveled to Venice at some point, and probably took hundreds of pictures for reference, or at least is using photos from somewhere. On nearly every page, there’s something that is quite clearly drawn “from life”, whether it’s famous St. Mark’s Square or just a dilapidated building, losing its plaster over the bricks.
This manga, whatever other charms it has (and it has a lot), is a love letter to Venice. And the famous landmarks are not highlighted in such a way as to make one think that they’re the point. No, they’re simply there, in the background, like the little throwaway details that Sudio Ghibli animates in their films, as Ebert noted in his Totoro review. Akari struggles to control her gondola…under the Bridge of Sighs or through the Grand Canal, without calling attention to it. It’s fabulous. I have to admit that it’s a little “orientalist” too. A futuristic, sci-fi setting and it’s in a replica of Venice down to the last brick? It’s as if Amano is saying that Venice is so weird, it might as well be the moon — or, well, mars. But of course, it allows her to do what she wishes with the story, make it as lovely as Venice should be, not to mention have gondoliers who are beautiful girls, not sweaty, hairy men.
Many of you already know that ADV, for reasons that pass understanding, already started to publish this series, but skipping to the sequel, Aria. The license was acquired by Tokyopop and they’re starting from the beginning this time. Aqua is only two volumes, and Aria is on it’s 11th volume and still continuing in Japan, so I’m hoping Tokyopop stays with it. Tokyopop is doing their usual job on this manga; the printing is consistent, very little of the tops and bottoms of pages are cut off (none of the dialogue or art is lost, don’t worry), and the translation is, so far as I checked, fairly good. They have not “localized” it too much, as they euphemize the horrible treatments publishers give some manga. However, I have to take exception to the cover. Why change the stately, widely-spaced roman title from the Japanese version to this logo-ed, sci-fi title font? Nitpicky, I know, but this shows the level of regard TP has for this manga, I think. They took the time to redesign a title, but for no good reason. Also, as usual, there are no colour pages in the interior at all. I used to dismiss this as cost-saving, since colour printing is prohibitive and would likely make manga jump from $10 to $12. However, Infinity manages to do it. They also manage to have dust covers, like the Japanese tankoubon have.
In the interest of full disclosure, yes: I am a fanboy of this series in all its forms. But I have to say that it took me FOUR tries to like it. I didn’t at first. But I would say that it’s well worth trying out. It’s hard to say who would like this manga, it’s so outside of the usual thing. Give it a go.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
|
