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Mini Manga Reviews and Links, 1/2/15

January 2, 2015 by

Did you receive an Amazon or RightStuf gift certificate this holiday? If so, this post is for you! Below, I’ve reviewed the first volumes of three series that debuted in 2014, offering a quick-and-dirty assessment of each. Already read Food Wars? Fear not—I’ve also rounded up reviews from around the web as well.

thumb-10857-FDW_01_webFood Wars, Vol. 1
Story by Yuto Tsukada, Art by Shun Saeki
Rated T+, for Older Teens
VIZ Manga, $9.99

Food Wars begins with an only-in-manga scenario: Soma Yukihira’s dad shutters the family’s greasy spoon restaurant and lights out for America, leaving his son behind. With no place to go, Soma enrolls at Totsuki Culinary Academy, a hoity-toity cooking school that prides itself on its wealthy alumnae, rigorous curriculum, and high attrition rate. Soma’s working-class background is a major handicap in this environment, but his can-do attitude and culinary instincts allow him to triumph in difficult situations, whether he’s salvaging an over-salted pot roast or wowing an unscrupulous developer with a simple potato dish.

In theory, I ought to hate Food Wars for its cartoonish characters and abundant cheesecake, two qualities I generally despise in a manga. But here’s the thing: it’s fun. Soma repeatedly shows up bullies and snobs with his ability to transform everyday dishes into haute cuisine, proving that good food doesn’t need to be fancy. Though Soma’s foes are stock types—the Busty Bitch, the Rich Mean Boy, the Teacher With Impossibly High Standards—Shun Sakei’s crisp caricatures make them seem like fresh creations. I wish I could say the same for Sakei’s abundant fanservice, which quickly wears out its welcome with porny images of women enjoying Soma’s cooking. These pin-up moments are supposed to be funny, I guess, but the heavy emphasis on heaving cleavage and bare skin seems more like a concession to teenage male taste than an organic part of the story.

The verdict: I can’t decide if Food Wars is a guilty pleasure or a hate read, but I’ve just purchased volumes 2-4.

Manga Dogs 1Manga Dogs, Vol. 1
By Ema Toyama
Rated T, for Teens
Kodansha Comics, $10.99

Manga Dogs has a terrific premise: a teenage artist decides to enroll in her school’s manga program, only to discover that her teacher is inept, and her classmates are pretty-boy otakus with no skill or work ethic. When Kanna’s classmates discover that she’s actually a published artist, Fumio, Fujio, and Shota glom onto her in hopes of breaking into the business—even though her debut series is on the verge of being cancelled.

With such a ripe set-up, it’s a pity that Manga Dogs is DOA. Part of the problem is that the script panders to the reader at every turn, whether it’s poking fun at reverse-harem tropes or saddling the characters with pun-tastic names inspired by famous manga creators. The author spends too much time patting the reader on the back for “getting” the jokes and not enough time writing genuinely funny scenarios or imbuing her characters with more than one personality trait each. The other issue is pacing: the story and artwork are both frenetic, with characters screaming, jumping, and flapping their arms on almost every page. By the end of the third chapter, I felt as if someone had beaten me up for my lunch money while asking me, “Do you think I’m funny? No? Now do you think I’m funny?”

The verdict: Just say no.

1421575906Yukarism, Vol. 1
By Chika Shiomi
Rated T, for Teen
VIZ Media, $9.99

Yukarism combines the supernatural elements of Rasetsu with the historical drama of Sakuran, then adds a dash of gender-bending weirdness for good measure. The story revolves around Yukari, a best-selling author whose novels explore the history of Edo’s red-light district. Though fans attribute the abundant details in his writing to research, Yukari has an even better strategy for learning about the past: he visits it! When he returns to the 1800s, however, Yukari becomes Yumurasaki, a top-earning oiran (or courtesan) enmeshed in a web of political intrigue, lust, and violence.

Given the complexity of the plot, it’s not surprising that the first volume of Yukarism is a bumpy ride. The tone see-saws between broad physical comedy and brooding melodrama, making it difficult to know if Yukari’s plight is being played for laughs or sniffles. The script, on the other hand, is too pointed; manga-ka Chika Shiomi is so intent on telling us what Yukari is thinking and seeing that she forgets the old dictum about showing, not telling. The same kind of editorial interventions result in at least one character waxing profusely about how handsome and cool Yukari is, just in case we haven’t realized that he’s supposed to be handsome and cool. Now that the basic parameters of the story have been established, however, Shiomi can dispense with the heavy-handed dialogue and do what she does best: write sudsy supernatural romances with beautiful characters in beautiful costumes.

The verdict: Volume two should be a pure guilty pleasure.

Reviews: Here at Manga Bookshelf, Michelle Smith, Sean Gaffney, and Anna N. post a fresh crop of mini-reviews. Further afield, Megan Purdy discusses est em’s Carmen, a swell-looking manga treatment of the Bizet opera.

Laura on vol. 1 of Ani-Imo (Heart of Manga)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 2 of Attack on Titan: No Regrets (The Fandom Post)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Barakamon (Manga Worth Reading)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 6 of A Bride’s Story (Manga Worth Reading)
Jenny Ertel on vols. 1-13 of Dorohedoro (No Flying No Tights)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 14 of Dorohedoro (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Drug & Drop (Manga Worth Reading)
Johanna Draper Carlson on The Garden of Words (Manga Worth Reading)
Matthew Alexander on vol. 25 of Higurashi: When They Cry (The Fandom Post)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of Milkyway Hitchhiking (ANN)
Kory Cerjak on vol. 1 of Prophecy (The Fandom Post)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1-6 of Strobe Edge (Good Comics for Kids)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 8 of Umineko: When They Cry (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Megan R. on vol. 1 of What Did You Eat Yesterday? (The Manga Test Drive)

Review: Assassination Classroom, Vol. 1

December 18, 2014 by

1421576074Assassination Classroom, Vol. 1
By Yusei Matsui
Rated T+, for Older Teens
VIZ Media, $9.99

Americans steadfastly believe that all students need to succeed are a few good teachers—think of how many movies you’ve seen about an unorthodox educator who helps a group of misfits, losers, or underachievers realize their full potential against all odds. Perhaps that’s why American publishers hesitated before licensing Assassination Classroom, a comedy that outwardly conforms to the tenets of the genre while poking fun at its hoariest cliches.

Assassination Classroom‘s star teacher is Koro-sensei, a super-powered alien who can wipe out an army with a swish of a tentacle. His students are class 3-E, the troublemakers and flunkies of Kunugigaoka Junior High School. Instead of studying calculus or Shakespeare, however, Koro-sensei’s charges are learning how to kill him and save Earth in the process—in other words, it’s To Sir With Lethal Force.

If the script isn’t quite as edgy as my summary suggests, Assassination Classroom scores points for the sheer ridiculousness of the premise. Koro-sensei’s relentless enthusiasm and high standards match those of other fictional educators—Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds, Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society—but are applied to such activities as shooting and stabbing. He gives the same kind of inspirational speeches that you’d find in those movies, too, reminding his charges that he specifically requested the job because he knows the students’ true potential.

In one scene, for example, timid student Okuda presents Koro-sensei with three deadly potions, imploring him to sample them. “I’m not good at surprise attacks!” she tells him. “But I love chemistry! And I really put my heart and soul into this!” Koro-sensei cheerfully obliges, offering to help Okuda “research a poison that can kill me.” When Okuda proves more skillful at mixing chemicals than persuading her target to drink them, Koro-sensei reminds her that “in order to kill someone, you need to understand how they feel,” skills that she can cultivate through—what else?—reading and writing.

The exchange between Okuda and Koro-sensei is complemented by some of the best visual gags in volume one. One of the poisons, for example, neutralizes Koro-sensei’s Cheshire grin into a flat line, prompting a student to exclaim, “You look like an emoticon!” Although Koro-sensei’s face is the essence of simplicity—a circle with pin-dot eyes and a toothy smile—this subtle tweak of his appearance yields a big pay-off laugh-wise.

At the same time, however, the poison episode illustrates Assassination Classroom‘s biggest flaw: Yusei Matsui wants to have his cake and eat it, too, soft-pedaling the humor with an uplifting, awwww-worthy moment in almost every chapter. Students unironically vow to do their best after Koro-sensei points out the flaws in their technique, saves them from harm, or gives them a pep talk. None of the students harbor a grudge against him—at least not for very long—or question the value of Koro-sensei’s lessons. (Makes you wonder: is Koro-sensei guilty of grade inflation?)

Still, I enjoyed volume one enough to continue with the series, even if Matsui’s efforts to express the Shonen Jump dictum of “friendship, effort, victory” sometimes blunt the edge of his satire.

Review: Barakamon, Vol. 1

November 19, 2014 by

Yoshino_Barakamon_V1_TPBarakamon, Vol. 1
By Satsuki Yoshino
Rated T, for Teens
Yen Press, $15.00

Barakamon is a textbook fish-out-of-water story: an impatient city slicker finds himself in the country where life is slower, folks are simpler, and meaningful lessons abound. Its hero, Seishuu Handa, is a calligrapher whose fiery temper and skillful but unimaginative work have made him a pariah in Tokyo. His foils are the farmers and fishermen of Gotou, a small island on the southwestern tip of Japan that’s inhabited by an assortment of eccentrics, codgers, and naifs.

If this all sounds a little too familiar, it is; you’ve seen variations on this story at the multiplex, on television, and yes, in manga. (I think I liked it better when it was called Cold Comfort Farm, and starred Kate Beckinsale and Rufus Sewell.) Satsuki Yoshino does her best to infuse the story with enough humor and warmth to camouflage its shopworn elements, throwing in jokes about internet pornography, dead frogs, and bad report cards whenever the story teeters on the brink of sentimentality. The mandates of the genre, however, demand that Handa endure humiliations and have epiphanies with astonishing regularity—1.5 times per chapter, by my calculations.

From time to time, however, Yoshino finds fresh ways to show us Handa’s slow and fitful progress towards redemption. The first chapter provides an instructive example: Handa angrily dismisses his six-year-old neighbor Naru when she declares his calligraphy “just like teachers write.” After seeing Naru’s wounded expression, Handa chastises himself for lashing out at a kid. Handa never musters an apology to Naru, but makes restitution by joining her for a series of small adventures. The experience of swimming in the ocean, scrambling over a wall, and watching a sunset prove liberating, leading Handa to an explosive outburst of creativity punctuated by a few high-flying kicks. (Now that’s what I call action painting.) The results are messy, but the message is clear: Handa has the potential to be a genuine artist if he can connect with his playful side.

Like the story, the artwork is serviceable if not particularly distinctive. Yoshino creates enough variety in her character designs that the reader can easily distinguish one islander from another—an important asset in a story with many supporting players. Yoshino’s grasp of anatomy, however, is less assured. When viewed from the side, for example, Handa’s Tokyo nemesis has a cranium like a gorilla’s and a chest to match; when viewed from above, however, the Director appears small and wizened. Other characters suffer from similar bodily distortions that exaggerate their necks, arms, and torsos, especially when Yoshino attempts to draw them from an unusual vantage point.

Yoshino is more successful at creating a sense of place. Through a few simple but evocative images of the harbor and coastline, she firmly establishes the seaside location. She also uses architectural details to suggest how old the village is; though locals enjoy such modern conveniences as television, their homes look otherwise untouched by modernity. Yoshino is less successful in creating a sense of space, however. It’s unclear, for example, if Naru lives a stone’s throw from Handa’s house—hence her frequent intrusions—or if she lives a mile down the road.

The dialogue, too, plays an important role in establishing the setting. Faced with the difficult task of rendering the Gotou dialect, translators Krista and Karie Shipley chose a broad Southern accent for the local population. That decision neatly illustrates the cultural divide between Handa and his neighbors, but at the cost of nuance; a few jokes that hinge on vocabulary simply can’t be conveyed by this particular adaptation strategy. (The Shipleys’ translation notes are helpful in demystifying these exchanges.) Most of the punchlines, however, need no such editorial interventions to enjoy; certain elements of city slicker/country bumpkin humor transcend culture.

My verdict: Barakamon has enough charm and energy to engage the reader, even if the story isn’t executed with enough precision or subtlety to transcend the basic requirements of the fish-out-of-water genre.

Review: Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, vols. 1 and 2

October 3, 2010 by

UGLYDUCK_1Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, vols. 1 and 2
By Yuuki Fujinari
Rated T, for Teens
Yen Press, $10.99

This story is based on a dating-sim game, which explains a lot—the lack of backstory, plot, and character development, for instance. It’s kind of like a boy-harem version of Aria, a pleasant slice-of-life book in which the characters interact cheerfully but nothing much actually happens.

The main character, Hitomi, is fat and unattractive, and the story makes no bones about that. It wasn’t until I read the Wikipedia entry on the original game (Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo!!) that I learned that she actually does have a backstory—she used to be a beauty queen, in fact, but she gave in to the temptations of junk food and put on a ton of weight. The story ignores all possible physical or psychological explanations for this—we’re here for good-natured fun, not complexity.

Hitomi goes to one of those high schools where the most popular boys have been chosen by some type of secret ballot, so we get introduced to them right away, in order. They fit the standard stereotypes: The alpha male, the hot misunderstood guy, the sporty guy (he doubles as the token shouta character), the yakuza heir who is trying to shake off his past, and the bookish, sickly guy. There’s also a doctor, of the type that pops up a lot in manga—young, hot, drinks and smokes a lot, and flirts outrageously with his patients. There are a couple of girls other than Hitomi but they might as well be cardboard cut-outs for all we see of them.

By an astounding coincidence, Hitomi and her brother (who is also quite cute and has a weird little-sister complex) live in the same residence as the doctor and the five hot guys. Hitomi’s brother is the apartment manager, and a number of their little adventures are centered around this building.

So what do they do? In the first chapter, the guys staple some papers for school orientation packets. Seriously, that’s the main action in the chapter. OK, it’s a way for us to get to know the characters and start getting a feel for the story, but really… In the next chapter, Hitomi can’t figure out a math problem and keeps asking everyone to help her, without success. It turns out (spoiler alert!) that she was mistakenly using a college study guide. In the third chapter, Hitomi and her friends make a special sitting area in their apartment building’s sunroom for the sickly, bookish character. And so it goes. My favorite chapter: When Hitomi is away at summer camp, the boys go shopping, eat candied apples, and win a bunch of plushies for her at a shooting gallery.

And that’s how it goes. Little stories about everyday life, played out by characters with very few neuroses or conflicts. It’s bubble-bath reading, blatant wish-fulfillment with little connection to everyday life.

At some point, Hitomi starts dieting. You would expect that there would have been some dramatic turn of events—she was rejected by a potential boyfriend because of her weight, or someone said something hurtful—but nope, she just starts dieting because it’s the right thing to do, and in one chapter she wins free tickets to a pool so she starts exercising there. Once the chapter is over, the pool never shows up again; continuity is not this story’s strong suit.

Hitomi’s character is drawn in a completely different style from the rest of the cast. The other characters are very much in a standard shoujo/bl style, willowy boys with fairly detailed faces, hair, and clothing. Hitomi is a set of simple curves, and her eyes are mere dots in her face. Presumably that is because she stands in for the reader, and too much detail would make that hard to achieve. There is one male character, Touru, who is chubby and bespectacled and is drawn in the same style; he seems to have a very small part, and according to Wikipedia he eventually goes to America and loses the weight and the glasses.

The one icky thing about this book is Hitomi’s brother, Takashi, who is beyond overprotective and well into stalker territory when it comes to his little sister. In the last chapter of volume 1, Hitomi and her friends dig up a mysterious box which turns out to contain Takashi’s diaries of his day-to-day observations of his sister. There is no explicitly sexual content, but it certainly is weird. Takashi takes this cheerfully in stride, although Hitomi is mildly embarrassed by the episode. And then she swoons in Takashi’s arms. Again, you could connect some dots regarding Takashi’s attitude and Hitomi’s weight, but this book certainly isn’t going to do it for you.

Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution is fine for what it is, a daydream world in which the boys are hot but still friendly with an unattractive girl (and with each other, for that matter). The art is quite competent and the dialogue isn’t bad, although more translator’s notes would be helpful. I imagine it would work even better in the format in which it originally appeared, as chapters in a weekly or monthly manga magazine; when those chapters are gathered together, the weaknesses are more apparent. If you’re looking for action, give this one a pass, but for simple stories, the manga equivalent of a cup of tea, a rocking chair, and a cat, this series will fill the bill nicely.

Review: Dystopia

July 3, 2010 by

dystopiaDystopia
by Judith Park
Rated OT, for Older Teens
Yen Press, $10.99

This book is a disappointment, with one-dimensional characters, an artificial setup, and weak art. The conversations seem weirdly stilted—do you hear teenagers say “That’s very commendable” to one another? Ever?

The story seems like it was thought up in a day, without much reflection; it lacks emotional resonance. Dionne’s older brother, Lyon, has a heart defect, so her parents favor him and pick on her. Lyon tries to compensate by being extra-nice to Dionne. Dionne’s best friend, Shikku, has a crush on Lyon, and we get to watch them go through the paces of their very ordinary romance for a while—there’s a bit of uncertainty and pulling back, and lots of dreamy introspection, but it’s not really very interesting.

And then, just when you’re ready to drop off to sleep, the story takes a bizarre and very manga-ish turn: Lyon is hit by a car and dies. While Dionne is still mourning him, her parents spring a new surprise on her: Because they feared that Lyon would die young because of his heart defect, they had him cloned, and now the clone, Gabriel, is coming to live with them. Where has Gabriel been for the past 16 years? That’s a plot hole you could drive a truck through, but everyone is too busy chewing the scenery to ask. Dionne hates Gabriel because her parents are using him as a replacement for Lyon, and because she feels they never loved her; Dionne’s parents are frustrated because in her anger, she shuts them out; Shikku sort of hopes things will work out with Gabriel; Gabriel resents his new place in their lives and wants to be his own person. More panels of introspection, and then the book winds up with an emotional denouement that doesn’t really solve the problems proposed by the plot but does leave everyone a little wiser.

The story revolves around Dionne and her emotions, and if it has a saving grace, it’s that the teenage girls who are likely to read it will identify with Dionne, as she is completely misunderstood by everyone. It’s hard for an older reader not to conclude that she’s being a brat; her resentment seems to be out of proportion to the way her parents treat her.

Park’s art seems amateurish—it’s a good example of why a lot of people don’t like global manga. She puts emphasis on style at the expense of structure. The characters don’t quite hang together, and the anatomy and foreshortening are way off. She makes a lot of newbie mistakes, focusing on faces but getting the shape of the head wrong. On the other hand, some pages hang together really well. This is the first of her books that I have seen, but I gather from reviews that her other work is stronger.

I am not the audience for this book, that’s for sure. I think it has serious structural defects, but I can see a teenage reader enjoying it nonetheless, simply because the main character is someone they can relate to.

This review is based on a review copy provided by the publisher.

Guest Review: Hissing, vols. 1-6

June 26, 2010 by

hissing1Hissing, vols. 1-6
By Kang EunYoung
Rated T, for Teens
Yen Press $10.99

Review by Melinda Beasi.

High school freshman Da-Eh is an aspiring manhwa artist who carefully ignores constant cries for attention from her doting younger brother. Fellow freshman Sun-Nam, the youngest of three boys, is bound and determined to become a “bad guy.” Finally, senior Ta-Jun, the school hottie, finds himself drawn to the one girl who can’t stand him, Da-Eh. If this is where the story stopped, there would be nothing at all remarkable about it, and over the course of the first volume or so, that’s seemingly where things stand. Fortunately, both the story and Kang’s method of telling it soon become more complex.

As the three teens’ lives become further entwined, the truth of each of their circumstances begins to be revealed. It is soon apparent that Da-Eh’s coldness toward her little brother is due to her inability to forgive him for being the product of her dead mother’s affair. Similarly, Sun-Nam’s desire to be “bad” is symptomatic of his oppressive guilt over having wished his unfaithful father dead on the very day he died. Meanwhile, Ta-Jun’s infatuation with Da-Eh is little more than an escape from the much more complicated love he’s carried around in his heart for years.

The series is technically a high school romance, and as such contains plenty of the usual clichés. The “mean girl” love rival, for instance, makes a number of tiresome appearances, as do the ever-present love confessions, and even a jealous best friend. But Kang renders all of this insignificant by the middle of the fifth volume by pulling off a fantastic act of authorial self-insertion that alters the tone of the entire series.

One of the series’ most notable aspects early on is its resistance to establishing a single main character. By using a wandering POV that shifts not only between the three teens, but also to each of their family members and quite a number of their schoolmates, Kang prevents any one character from becoming the focus of the series. Then in volume four, as Da-Eh struggles to come up with something “different” for an upcoming manhwa contest, she hits upon the idea of creating a story in which every character is treated as the main character. She’s pretty excited about the idea, until Ta-Jun pipes in to complain, “But if you do that, there’s no center.”

After this, the story quickly becomes much more chaotic, finally exploding in the middle of the fifth volume, where Da-Eh discovers the true center of her world (and the world of the series as a whole) as it is thrust upon her in the wake of a single event. The result is quite moving, and not something that would have been expected based on the series’ first couple of volumes.

This is not the series’ only strength. It’s primary romance between two loners, Da-Eh and Sun-Nam, is just stilted and awkward enough to help its flowery moments read as charming rather than clichéd. And speaking of flowers, Kang’s running gag featuring a magically-appearing background of Japanese shojo-style flowers that randomly surrounds Ta-Jun serves as a clever wink to a romance-weary audience. Da-Eh, too, is refreshing as a romantic heroine whose personal interest in romance is mainly as something to be studied as a subject for her work.

Kang’s artwork is nothing special, and her male characters frequently look confusingly alike. Fortunately, she has a greater gift for drawing distinctive females. She shows her greatest strengths in the series’ later volumes, where her use of paneling genuinely shines during the story’s most dramatic moments.

Though likely unintentional, Kang’s real message for readers here is, “Good things come to those who wait.” While the series undeniably gets off to a slow start, the payoff for those willing to commit to all six volumes is significant. Patient fans of romantic manhwa would do well to check out Hissing.

Read more from Melinda Beasi at her blog, Manga Bookshelf.

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