Natsume’s Book of Friends 1 by Yuki Midorikawa: B+

January 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment

natsume'sbook1Takashi Natsume has been able to see yokai ever since he was little, an oddity that resulted in the boy being shuffled from one relative to the next after the death of his parents. Lately, though, the yokai are getting more insistent, mistaking Natsume for his grandmother, Reiko, and pestering him relentlessly. After an encounter with a yokai residing in a ceramic cat, Natsume learns that his grandmother bound many yokai to her by capturing their names in a Book of Friends—which he has inherited—and vows to return their names to them. The cat, hereafter referred to as Nyanko-sensei, agrees to help with the stipulation that should Natsume get eaten by an angry and powerful yokai, possession of the book will fall to him, enabling him to rule over his brethren.

The first volume consists of four stand-alone chapters in which Natsume returns some names, gets to know a diminishing dew god and his one remaining worshiper, fields a request from some yokai to get rid of a meddlesome human, and helps the spirit of a swallow catch a glimpse of a man who was kind to her and cured her of bitter feelings towards humanity. The tales are each entertaining, though it’s the last, referred to in the Afterward as “The Swallow Underwater,” that is my favorite. It’s both moving and lovely and admirably showcases the true potential of this series.

On the surface, Natsume’s Book of Friends may appear to be simply an episodic series of stories about yokai, but it works on several additional levels as well. Because of his experiences in the past, Natsume has been regarded as strange and never made any close friendships. And yet, we see through the course of this first volume that he’s partly to blame for this. He gets so wrapped up in his supernatural endeavors that he fails to see the friendly overtures some of his classmates are making towards him. It’s only when he gets the chance to meet another person who can see spirits that he takes any initiative to get to know a human and, after that point, spends a bit of time with his other classmates, as well.

His feelings towards yokai evolve throughout the book, too. As he interacts with them, he begins to recognize that many are lonely, just like he is. Gradually, his feelings towards them change from dislike to “I don’t mind lending a hand” to, finally, risking danger to himself in order to give the swallow spirit the best possible gift he could. His outlook on a childhood interaction with a yokai also undergoes a metamorphosis; what he once saw as a betrayal he can now view as an act of kindness. Natsume isn’t a very expressive character, but he is extremely kind. Though his trusting nature might come to cost him later—even Nyanko-sensei is occasionally tempted to eat him—his ability to have faith in and sympathize with yokai makes him extremely sympathetic in return.

Midorikawa’s sketchy art matches the tone of the story well. It reminds me a little bit of Chica Umino, actually, though much calmer. Natsume and his classmates have pretty average character designs, but a lot of creativity shows in the designs for the yokai, from the tiny, Noh-masked dew god to the powerful spirit forced to dwell inside a tubby ceramic cat to all sorts of one-eyed, animal-faced creatures in between.

In the end, Natsume’s Book of Friends is a very unique title among the Shojo Beat line. I’m extremely eager to see where the story will go from here.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo, Supernatural Tagged With: ,

Monkey High! 8 by Shouko Akira: B

January 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment

monkeyhigh8Beginning with volume seven, the age rating of Monkey High! was changed from Teen to Older Teen to reflect the leads’ growing interest in consummating their relationship. They finally achieve their goal in the first chapter of this final volume, but thereafter are kept busy with studying for exams and preparing for their final school festival.

An irksome last-minute rival pops up in the form of Gotoda, Haruna’s father’s secretary and his choice for her fiancé. Because her father, recuperating from an illness, and Gotoda are working from home constantly, Haruna accepts Macharu’s offer to stay with him for a while. Gotoda’s a scheming sort, though, and Haruna unfortunately allows herself to be swayed by his assertion that one day she’ll be a burden to Macharu. Happily, by the end of the volume she has found the confidence to believe that if such a time ever comes, they’ll work through it together.

The things that’ve been kind of annoying about Monkey High! all along are still annoying at the end: the reliance on shojo clichés and the occasionally intrusive antics of the supporting cast. Against the zany backdrop of a maid and butler café, for example, Haruna and her father have an important conversation. It’s a big moment, but is hampered by the shenanigans going on around it.

Still, despite its faults, the conclusion of this series made me sniffly and, really, isn’t that the best possible outcome for a Shojo Beat title?

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo Tagged With: , ,

Monkey High! 7 by Shouko Akira: B

January 17, 2010 by 3 Comments

monkeyhigh7From the back cover:
Different classes, college preparations, and a disapproving father all make it hard for Macharu and Haruna to be together. So when they win tickets for an overnight stay at a resort, it seems like a great chance for them to take their relationship to the next level…

Review:
Although I liked this volume of Monkey High! somewhat less than the others, it certainly has its share of positives. Macharu and Haruna, sent by their class to fetch a wedding gift for their teacher, spontaneously enter a raffle and win tickets to “Mouse World,” including an overnight stay at a resort hotel. Haruna is anxious and Macharu, who frankly admits he wants to have sex with her but is not the least bit pushy about it, realizes that the situation is troubling her and so gives the tickets to the teacher. This moment of genuine sweetness works to quell Haruna’s doubts and, when the trip won’t fit in with the newlyweds’ itinerary, it’s Haruna who now advocates going.

The resulting date is wonderfully awkward. Both are so concerned with making it a special day that every time something goes wrong, it’s a crushing blow. It’s a bit painful to read, but it’s a situation with which most people can likely sympathize. I also like how a couple chapters later, when Macharu suddenly gets gung ho about working to get into college, it’s Haruna who feels that she’s being left behind even though she’s the one with better academic prospects. She has several goals that she’s been pursuing independent of Macharu, but it’s only now that she realizes he’s going to be experiencing things without her, as well.

On the negative side… the whole resort plotline reminds me of something I just read in High School Debut and of course the two leads are interrupted (by the collapse of Haruna’s father) before they can consummate their relationship. It’s not that I’m all pro-teen sex or anything, but because they don’t go through with it, we’ll probably be in for more angst about whether they should. At least the interruption puts Macharu in contact with Haruna’s dad, who says nasty things about his lack of prospects and inspires all that hard work that has Haruna fretting.

Also, it feels like the whole volume centers on the question of closeness for the couple. How close are we? Are we less close now? It feels like we’re more close now. Oh, wait, now we’re less close again. Now we’ve had a poignant conversation and we’re close again. I still like the characters a lot, and these moments provide opportunities for Haruna to show her vulnerable side and Macharu his more mature side, but it does get a bit repetitive.

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo Tagged With: , ,

The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer: B-

January 15, 2010 by 6 Comments

masqueradersFrom the back cover:
Temporarily abandoned by their scapegrace father, Prudence and Robin Lacey are forced to masquerade as the opposite sex to avoid capture by their political enemies.

Prue makes a devilishly handsome young man and her brother Robin is equally beguiling as her “sister.”

This, however, makes for some dangerous entanglements when Prue, as Mr. Merriot, falls in love with Sir Anthony, and her brother, posing as Miss Merriot, finds his heart struck by the lovely heiress, Letty Grayson…

Review:
Long have I nurtured a desire to read the works of Georgette Heyer, and what better place to start than the one with all the cross-dressing!

The Masqueraders is best described as a romantic farce. Siblings Prudence and Robin Lacey are the children of an exceedingly clever father who repeatedly gets them both involved in his schemes. Most recently, this involved being part of the Jacobite rebellion, causing them to go into hiding garbed as members of the opposite sex. Their father sends them to stay with a family friend where they are introduced into society as Peter and Kate Merriot.

Prudence, in the guise of Peter, begins to develop affection for the large and observant Sir Anthony Fanshawe while Robin, as Kate, comes to feel for a young heiress called Letty Grayson. To top it off, their father soon arrives, claiming to be Tremaine of Barham, heir to a Viscounty. Because he is an infuriatingly circumspect fellow, he won’t give them a straight answer as to whether he really is this person or if it’s just another of his masquerades, and both children have their doubts. Insert into this narrative blooming romance, a surly rival for Letty’s affections, a masked ball, a second claimant, a duel avoided, a duel provoked, a rescue, a death, an arrest, a subsequent rescue, and a pleasant though predictable ending and one gets an idea of the nature of this lighthearted tale.

While I did enjoy reading The Masqueraders, it never succeeded in surprising me any. Too, I found the siblings’ father to be quite tiresome—especially his tendency to proclaim himself a great man—and never did see what Robin liked so much about Letty other than her looks; her head is full of thoughts of romance and little else. More to my liking was the pairing of Prudence and Sir Anthony. Stolid and wry, he’s a likable fellow and also admires Prudence for the best of reasons, citing that he has never once seen her betray fear or lose her head.

All in all, this is a frothy confection that amuses without offering much substance. Still, I definitely liked it will enough to persevere in my goal of reading all of Heyer’s works. I know her fans are many, so if anyone has any particular recommendations of what I ought to read next, I’d be happy to receive them.

Filed Under: Books, Gender Hijinks, Historical Fiction, Romance Tagged With:

Adolf 1: A Tale of the Twentieth Century by Osamu Tezuka: A

January 15, 2010 by 4 Comments

adolf1From the back cover:
On the eve of World War II, the destinies of three men named “Adolf”—including the infamous dictator of Germany’s Third Reich—became inexorably intertwined…

Review:
I had already requested Adolf via interlibrary loan when Connie posted her excellent review of the series at Manga Recon. You can see what she has to say about it here.

In this later work, serialized between 1983 and 1985, Tezuka masterfully intertwines the stories of three men (though two are technically boys) named Adolf. The story begins in the summer of 1936, when Japanese journalist Sohei Toge is in Berlin covering the Olympics. His brother, Isao, is enrolled at the university there and when a suspenseful competition keeps Sohei from making it to a prearranged meeting with his brother, he arrives a couple of hours late to find his Isao’s body in a tree with what seems to be plaster dust under his nails, a clue that reminds Toge of the murder of a geisha he reported on back in Japan. Some policemen promptly show up and carry the body off, but when Toge makes his own way to the precinct they claimed to be from, nobody knows anything about the incident.

Thus begins Toge’s quest to find out what happened, aided by some initials Isao left behind on a scrap of paper, anonymous phone calls, and a woman named Rita who claims she was in love with Isao until he became obsessed with some radical groups on campus. In a riveting sequence, Toge is captured by Nazis just as he locates his brother’s body in a shallow grave and is tortured because, it is revealed later, Isao didn’t have what they were looking for and they believe he managed to pass it on to his brother. Toge’s story comes to a pause in 1936 after he brutally beats and, it is implied, rapes Rita after discovering her true allegiances. Probably we are supposed to excuse this because of all of his anger, fear, and frustration, but it (and the aftermath) is really quite horrible.

Next, the setting shifts to Japan where we encounter two boys named Adolf living in the city of Kobe. Adolf Kaufmann is the son of a German father and Japanese mother. His dad is a staunch Nazi supporter and forbids his son from befriending Adolf Kamil, a Jewish boy whose family runs a bakery. Kauffman can’t understand why it isn’t okay to play with Adolf, since he’s German too, and some poignant moments ensue when people attempt to essentially destroy his innocence with their views of Jews as an inferior race. Kamil’s parents aren’t keen on his friendship with Kaufmann, either. The boys’ story intertwines with that of Toge because Kaufmann’s dad is involved both with the murder of the geisha as well as the search for the information Isao was supposedly in possession of, and when, in 1938, the boys stumble upon this revolutionary bit of information, the fallout isn’t pleasant and ultimately results in Kaufmann being reluctantly shipped off to Germany to attend a school for Hitler youth.

As Connie attested in her review, Adolf is quite amazing. Tezuka’s storytelling is supremely skilled, combining passages of narration with an economical and cinematic visual flow that sweeps one along quite effortlessly. There are no awkward moments, nothing unnecessary, and though one might wish for a little more time spent on, say, the anguish of Adolf Kaufmann’s mother as her world falls apart, the fact remains that she is but a small part of this epic tale. In this grim world, only the children are truly innocent, but one wonders how long that will last; although the boys plan to reunite and remain friends, Kaufmann will undoubtedly be changed by his experiences in Germany while the security of Kamil’s parents in Kobe might be in peril.

By reading only the first volume, I feel I’ve just barely scratched the surface on what will surely develop to be an incredible series. Some awful things occur here, and some awful things are set in motion, and yet reading Adolf ultimately is a pleasurable experience simply because it is so very well done. Rest assured that, even before I finished this volume, my ILL request for volume two was submitted.

Filed Under: Historical Fiction, Manga, Seinen Tagged With: ,

The Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir: B+

January 11, 2010 by 4 Comments

princesintowerFrom the front flap:
Despite five centuries of investigation by historians, the sinister deaths of the boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, remain one of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. Did Richard III really kill “the Princes in the Tower,” as is commonly believed, or was the murderer someone else entirely? In this utterly absorbing and meticulously researched book, English writer Alison Weir, an authority on the history of the British royal family, at last provides a conclusive solution to this age-old puzzle.

Review:
There are two schools of thought on Richard III. One group, dubbed “revisionists,” believes that Richard’s unsavory reputation is undeserved and that he did not do the awful things attributed to him. The second, “traditionalists,” hold that Richard was tyrannical and ambitious and certainly did commit many terrible acts. Alison Weir is firmly in the traditionalist camp and, after reading her work, I must (reluctantly) conclude that Richard probably was behind the deaths of his nephews.

The way Weir organizes her information is interesting. After devoting the entire first chapter to an introduction and evaluation of her sources, especially contemporary ones, she proceeds to tell the story by citing many of the sources in turn. These do not always agree, and when they don’t, she points it out and explains which, in her opinion, is likely the most accurate account. The result is a narrative that feels thorough and yet not unnecessarily bogged down by detours into conjecture. While I lament the passing of my romanticized view of Richard III, Weir ultimately did compile enough irrefutable evidence to convince me of his villainy.

Some things about the way the information is presented rankle a bit, however. It’s clear from pretty early on that Weir, despite claiming that she approached the question of Richard’s guilt with an open mind, is completely dismissive of the revisionist view, saying “the majority of serious historians have rejected it.” Too, she often seems to base her arguments on behavioral assumptions like (paraphrased) “Surely a man of such integrity would verify his facts” or “This was published during a time when many people who knew Richard III were still alive and would spot inaccuracies.” Okay, sure, but in a political climate where beheadings occur frequently—and when the monarch (Henry VII) in power wants to avoid attention being called to the House of York, as Weir points out herself—are these people really going to feel free to defend him? It’s not that I dispute her conclusions based on the evidence, and I’m by no means a historian myself, but I do have to wonder whether this is how research is normally conducted and presented.

In any case, Weir’s account of Richard’s life, deeds, and legacy is a fascinating and, ultimately, convincing read, even to someone like me who has enjoyed (and likely will continue to enjoy) reading historical fiction in which Richard is presented in a positive light.

Filed Under: Books, Crime, History, Nonfiction Tagged With:

Blue Sheep Reverie 1-2 by Makoto Tateno: B-

January 11, 2010 by 2 Comments

bluesheep2When Kai’s lover, Maria, is murdered, he sets out to find her killer. His one clue is that the ring Maria always wore—a man-made blue jewel resembling the eye of a sheep—is missing, and he thinks he’s found it on the hand of Lahti Bara, a bigwig in Sarte, one of the gangs ruling the gritty city of Akatsuki. To get close to Lahti and check out his ring, Kai makes a bid to be his bodyguard and later consents to be his lover. It turns out that Lahti isn’t Maria’s murderer, but Kai has already grown fascinated by the powerful and enigmatic leader and gets embroiled in a bunch of gang politics involving a rival gang, an elite group within Sarte called the Four Kings, a renegade Sarte member attempting to bring them down, and a power struggle over gang leadership.

While I very heartily applaud any BL series for having as much plot as this one does, I must regretfully admit that I found most of the gang-related action dull and repetitive. Nearly every time something bad happens, the aforementioned renegade is the culprit but never seems to get caught. Kai isn’t a very strong character, either, but I do think his relationship with Lahti is an interesting one. It definitely isn’t love, as Lahti occasionally keeps Kai on door guard duty while he’s bedding other men, but Kai realizes that it’s not love and kindness he craves, but rather the strength to be worthy to stand at Lahti’s side, to be necessary to him.

So, is this good? Well, almost. It’s one of those cases where I like it despite its faults. I actually struggled a lot with whether to give it a B, since Tateno-sensei bothered to create such an intricate plot, but I just couldn’t do it.

Review copy for volume two provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Boys' Love, Manga, Sci-Fi Tagged With: , ,

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers: A+

January 9, 2010 by 3 Comments

gaudynightFrom the back cover:
When Harriet Vane attends her Oxford reunion, known as the “Gaudy,” the prim academic setting is haunted by a rash of bizarre pranks: scrawled obscenities, burnt effigies, and poison-pen letters—including one that says, “Ask your boyfriend with the title if he likes arsenic in his soup.” Some of the notes threaten murder; all are perfectly ghastly; yet in spite of their scurrilous nature, all are perfectly worded. And Harriet finds herself ensnared in a nightmare of romance and terror, with only the tiniest shreds of clues to challenge her powers of detection, and those of her paramour, Lord Peter Wimsey.

Review:
I’m trying to recall precisely when I first heard of Gaudy Night. It must’ve been somewhere around 2001 or 2002, because my first attempt to read the Wimsey series (I couldn’t just jump straight to the penultimate novel, after all!) occurred early in 2002. In any case, here is a book I’ve been waiting to read for at least eight years and, unlike so much else in life, it completely lived up to (and even exceeded) my expectations.

Because I blindly accepted the accounts of this book’s excellence, I didn’t read much about it before its time came. Therefore, it was an exceedingly pleasant surprise that the narrative is told from the point of view of Harriet Vane, a mystery novelist and long-time object of Wimsey’s affections. After discovering a couple of disturbing messages when attending her Oxford reunion, Harriet is later called back to the college to conduct a discreet investigation. While investigating the origins of poison-pen letters, foiling pranks, and settling into the academic life once more, Harriet also engages in many conversations with the members of the Senior Common Room on the virtues of a life devoted to scholarship as opposed to the traditional womanly duties, and uses the experience of her former schoolmates to help form conclusions about whether marriage is worth it. The overall message is an unapologetically feminist one, though some characters do persist in advocating for stereotypical gender roles.

Of course, this isn’t the first book to present Harriet’s point of view. Have His Carcase is similar, but it’s more breezy and amusing. This time, it feels like we really get to know Harriet inside and out and understand exactly what it is that keeps her from accepting Peter’s marriage proposals: her belief that she has so thoroughly messed up attempts at love (Peter first meets her in Strong Poison when she is on trial for killing her lover) that she had better give up, and, most strongly, the pesky feelings of gratitude toward Peter that would forever keep them on unequal footing. As fond as she is of Peter, she can’t really believe he would be happy with her or treat her as an equal, and it’s in this novel that he finally, finally manages to convince her that both are true.

Eventually, Harriet reaches a point in the case where it’s necessary to call for Peter’s assistance and it’s here that she begins to compare the kind of marriage he would offer as opposed to the variety more normally encountered. For example, Peter doesn’t want a sweet, uncritical, and dependent spouse: he wants an honest and independent one. “Anybody can have the harmony,” he says, giving voice to a lovely musical metaphor, “if they will leave us the counterpoint.” It takes a little bit for this to sink in, however. Instead of trying to dissuade Harriet from continuing the investigation when her life is in jeopardy, for example, Peter teaches her self-defense moves. He basically encourages all the independence she could ask for and more, giving her the freedom to risk the life she still believes she owes to him. Lastly, he reveals more of his own weaknesses, showing that he’s flawed and human, too. At last she realizes that he truly means to accept her as she is and when Peter proposes one last time, she accepts.

While the disturbances on campus and Harriet’s investigation are truly fascinating—I’m thinking particularly of the fabulous scene where the culprit is dashing about removing fuses from all of the buildings and casting everyone into darkness—it really is the relationship between these two that shines most brightly. In terms of intelligence and independence, Harriet and Peter perhaps the closest thing 20th century literature has to a couple like Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Without them, Gaudy Night would’ve earned a solid A, which is nothing to sneer at.

Reiterating that Gaudy Night is highly recommended is unnecessary at this point, but I do advise reading at least the Wimsey novels that have been linked to here before tackling it so as to have a better idea as to the origins of Harriet and Peter’s relationship and how they’ve circled around one another for the last five years. That’ll make the novel’s conclusion all the more satisfying.

Filed Under: Books, Mystery Tagged With:

Cheeky Angel 1-10 by Hiroyuki Nishimori: B

January 8, 2010 by 1 Comment

cheekyangel1These first ten volumes of Cheeky Angel have been sitting around my house gathering dust for several years. There’s nothing like agreeing to a manga trade, however, to inspire one to finally read something before it’s gone. I’m glad I did because I ended up enjoying them a good bit.

When rambunctious nine-year-old Megumi Amatsuka and his female pal Miki defend a mysterious wizard from some other kids, Megumi receives a magic book as a reward. From the book emerges a genie and Megumi promptly wishes to be the manliest of men. Instead, the genie turns him into the womanliest of women and tries to extort ten years of Megumi’s life to undo the change. An irate Megumi hurls the book into the river and has been a girl ever since. All records and memories of Megumi ever having been a boy were altered; only Miki remembers the way things used to be.

The story picks up again six years later when Megumi and Miki, steered by the counsel of a psychic, enroll at the neighborhood high school that will theoretically lead them to the book so that the transformation can be undone. Megumi (played in my brain by Summer Glau) has grown outwardly very feminine, but still possesses some masculine attitudes, namely a certain degree of rash fearlessness. Throughout the first few volumes, her looks attract a motley crew of admirers: Genzo the former thug, Ichiro the average guy, Hitomoji the wannabe samurai, and Yasuda the geeky pervert. Although the guys really would prefer for Meg to remain a girl, they nonetheless lend their assistance to her efforts to become a guy again.

cheekyangel4I haven’t read many series that were originally published in Shonen Sunday, but Cheeky Angel does share common attributes with two that I have read—Case Closed and Inuyasha. In all three series, there is a larger plot that is touched on from time to time, but most of the story is made up of the episodic adventures (with a dash of comedy) of a likable ensemble of characters. In these ten volumes, Megumi encounters the genie twice more (on the first occasion it places a curse on her and on the second it informs her that the magic will eventually wear off of its own accord), and it’s definitely interesting each time, but more time is spent on foiling the murderous plans of some yakuza, preventing Miki from going through with an arranged marriage, et cetera. Just as no one believes anything fruitful will come of Inuyasha’s encounters with Naraku until the very end, there’s no real chance Megumi will suddenly become a boy again in the middle of this 20-volume series.

Sometimes I’m not a fan of episodic storylines, but Cheeky Angel pulls it off because Nishimori-sensei never loses sight of the most important aspect of the story: Megumi’s struggle to choose between accepting her current femininity and finding a way to return to what she once was. Even during the whole yakuza encounter, this dilemma is at the forefront of Meg’s mind and keeps the series focused even while silliness occasionally ensues. Because of her beauty, guys are continually showing their worst sides around her—coming off as horndogs, chiefly—which makes her question whether she really wants to be one, but then at other times her friends will come through for her in a big way and earn her admiration, reinforcing her “it’s cool to be a guy” belief while simultaneously inspiring some confusing semi-romantic feelings.

cheekyangel7While Megumi’s internal indecision is probably the most compelling aspect of the series, her relationships with the other characters are also rewarding. Miki is a very interesting character in her own right, the voice of reason who wants Megumi to stay a girl, but yet questions her own reasons for doing so. Although Miki claims she never thought of the male Megumi in a romantic light, there are hints from time to time that the two of them might’ve had something if Megumi had stayed a guy. Megumi’s effect on her male friends is also nice to see: Genzo makes obvious progress in thinking things through more clearly and restraining his impulses to glomp Meg, and Ichiro surprises himself by displaying courage in some dangerous situations. I also like how their perception of Meg changes from lust object to valued and respected friend, with the possible exception of terminally pervy Yasuda.

On the negative side, the biggest problem Cheeky Angel has is its repetitiveness. I cannot begin to tell you how many times Megumi encounters a couple of lecherous thugs while out in public and kicks them into submission: it happens many, many, many times. And while I completely get that her feelings for Genzo, the forerunner for her affections, would vacillate, depending on how accepting she’s feeling of her feminine side, the cycle of progress followed by backsliding (usually prompted by him doing something moronic) does get a little frustrating. In addition, some of the episodic plots are pretty lame and Meg’s family—a dad who wants to see his own daughter naked and a mother who encourages Meg to let him indulge his curiosity—is profoundly creepy. Thank goodness they appear so rarely.

cheekyangel10Artistically, Nishimori is to be commended on a few points. Yes, at first, his characters do occasionally appear to be vaguely cross-eyed, but he also employs a variety of character designs (except for the thugs) that all look Asian. Also of note: there is no fanservice at all in this series! For a manga about a hot chick who might possibly have feelings for her pretty friend, one might reasonably expect there to be something, but there never is. Megumi and Miki generally wear their school uniforms, but on casual outings are dressed either conservatively or in baggy clothing. VIZ’s production doesn’t earn as much praise, however, as there are several terms that could’ve used liner notes and a smattering of occasions where dialogue appears in the incorrect bubble.

Ultimately, Cheeky Angel is a shounen ensemble comedy with a good deal to offer. I read these ten volumes pretty much back-to-back and I could’ve gone on reading more if I’d actually owned them.

Filed Under: Gender Hijinks, Manga, Shounen Tagged With:

Love Hurts: Aishiatteru Futari by Suzuki Tanaka: A-

January 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

lovehurtsFrom the creator of Menkui! comes this collection of intriguing (and chaste!) boys’ love stories.

“The Fate of a Crime Fighter’s Love” features childhood friends Seigo and Touma, who hail from a village where everyone has super powers. Some seek to do evil with their abilities, while others work to stop them. This story has a fairly comedic tone, but the characters are likeable and their relationship evolves into love pretty organically. “Kanako’s Story” is actually not BL at all, but fits in with the others because it’s all about a boy’s feelings of love for his “stupid and weird… but cute” childhood friend and classmate, Kana. She’s been telling him her whole life that she converses with an alien, but he’d only nodded politely until it turns out that it was all true.

While the sci-fi tales are both enjoyable, the real standouts are the first two stories, “Unforgivable” and “Two in Love.” In the former, Koji has just discovered the corpse of his lover. While he’s still in shock, a guy named Kohaku arrives and, after talking to him and a mysterious stranger, Koji ends up declaring that he’s the killer. In “Two in Love,” we follow Kohaku and his lover, Kimihara, who share a violent relationship. On top of this, Kimihara is pestered by a psychotic student where he teaches who likes to confess her misdeeds to him. This time, she admits to killing a person. The link between these two stories is very interesting and my one real complaint about Love Hurts is that there’s no follow-through here.

All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised by how good and unique these stories are. Definitely recommended.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Boys' Love, Manga, Sci-Fi, Short Stories Tagged With:
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