Gakuen Alice 1 by Tachibana Higuchi: B-

May 23, 2009 by 2 Comments

gakuen1From the back cover:
Young Mikan runs away to Tokyo following her best friend, Hotaru, who has been enrolled in an exclusive, secretive private school for geniuses. But it turns out that Alice Acdemy is a lot more than meets the eye. Whether it’s Hotaru’s gift for inventing gadgets, the cranky Natsume’s firecasting ability, or Professor Narumi’s control of human pheromones, everyone at the school has some sort of special talent. But what ability, if any, does Mikan possess? Mikan is going to have to rely on her courage and spunk if she’s going to stay in school, or even stay alive!

Review:
I watched a little bit of the Gakuen Alice anime several years ago, so was familiar with the general premise as well as the events that take place in this volume. I’m not sure why I didn’t go farther with the anime, but I think I might’ve had difficulty with some hurdles that also present themselves in the manga: unlikable characters and too many gags.

Our main character, Mikan, is spazzy and selfish. I might’ve liked her more to start with if Higuchi had resisted the temptation to draw many outlandish reaction gags as Mikan learns more about the Alice Academy and its peculiar occupants. In the second half of the book, while traversing a dangerous patch of woods on campus, Hotaru finally tells Mikan that she needs to stop behaving so childishly. Probably I was supposed to sympathize with the heroine there, but really all I could think was, “Thank you, Hotaru!” Thankfully, Mikan does get more tolerable around that point, as well.

Hotaru has some problems with likability at first, too. We are told that she agreed to go to Alice Academy in exchange for money that she then used to keep the school where she met Mikan financially afloat. She also was cold to Mikan on her last day in an attempt to cause Mikan to forget about her rather than nurture sad memories. That’s well and good, but the problem is that we are told these things and not shown them. It’s not until the second half of the volume that Hotaru actually exhibits some real warmth towards Mikan, even deigning to smile a little when Mikan’s Alice is finally revealed. So far, though, she does seem friendlier in the manga version.

Something that I didn’t pick up on very much in the anime is the hint of something more sinister going on at the school. Natsume is being caused agony by something, though whether it’s the dangerous nature of his powers or something else is not yet revealed, and both he and his friend Luca seem to sport mysterious scars. This is definitely the most intriguing aspect of the story right now.

Gakuen Alice is published in English by TOKYOPOP and seven volumes have been released so far. The series is still ongoing in Japan and eighteen collected volumes have been released as of March 2009.

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

A Distant Neighborhood 1 by Jiro Taniguchi: A

May 22, 2009 by 1 Comment

distant-125Forty-eight-year-old Hiroshi Nakahara is a businessman with a love of alcohol and little time for his family. One day, in 1998, as he is returning home (hungover) from a business trip to Kyoko, he accidentally boards the wrong train and ends up traveling to Kurayoshi, the town in which he grew up and which he hasn’t visited for many years. With some time to kill before the next train to Tokyo, he wanders around, checking out the building that used to be his family’s shop and paying a visit to his mother’s grave. As he’s asking his mother, “Were you happy?” something mysterious occurs and Hiroshi wakes to discover that he’s back in his fourteen-year-old body but with all of his adult knowledge and wisdom intact. Not only that, the family shop and neighborhood has returned to its previous condition, his deceased mother and grandmother are alive, and the date is still four months before his father’s sudden disappearance.

At first, Hiroshi acts merely as an observer, attending classes and making mental notes on the eventual fates of some of the friends he encounters there. In time, he begins to feel a zeal for learning and exercise that he’d not possessed the first time through his adolescence and relishes a feeling of liberation from his various adult responsibilities. His accomplishments in sports and academics attract the notice of Tomoko Nagase, the prettiest girl in his class, another difference from his past. Nagase has big dreams and it’s in deciding to help her that Hiroshi begins to take a more active part in this second chance he’s been given, resolving too to prevent his father’s disappearance.

Hiroshi doesn’t have an easy time passing as a fourteen-year-old. Aside from his drastic scholastic improvement, he’s singularly unimpressed by some things adolescent boys tend to be keen on (like nudie mags and cigarettes), occasionally lets slip details that he shouldn’t yet know, and demonstrates far more perceptiveness about the adults in his family than he originally did, as we can see in flashbacks of his oblivious past self. His emotional reaction to being scolded by his mother again is very touching and there’s also a particularly nice scene toward the end of the volume where Hiroshi is given the opportunity to ask his grandmother how his parents met, information he’d evidently never thought to inquire about before.

It also seems as if Hiroshi’s experiences reliving his past are going to help him become a better person in the future. When Nagase confesses her feelings for him, he accepts, but it’s abundantly clear that he sees her as a daughter and is still thinking only of how he might help her. After their first date, during which they see a movie involving Men Having Grand Adventures, he insists that women can do the same, and reassures her that a time will soon come when women can be “wonderfully independent.” This is in marked contrast to his treatment of his real daughters; in one of the odd moments where Hiroshi experiences a disembodied glimpse of what’s going on in 1998, his sees his wife and eldest daughter, Ayako, discussing a boyfriend he knows nothing about and declaring that Hiroshi will never consent to let Ayako move into an apartment. “Obviously! A single girl your age can’t go living alone!” he thinks.

Jiro Taniguchi’s art is never anything short of gorgeous, and A Distant Neighborhood is like his other works in that it offers plenty of beautiful landscapes, detailed illustrations of buildings, and a middle-aged protagonist (at least at first). Facial expressions can be a little stiff at times, but I felt that emotion was better conveyed here than in The Quest for the Missing Girl.

The overall feel of the story is initially similar to The Walking Man in that Hiroshi is merely taking in his surroundings without interacting much. Eventually, though, it becomes the most emotional work by Taniguchi that I’ve read. It’s also seriously engrossing; I could’ve read another 200 pages easily.

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

Filed Under: Manga, Seinen Tagged With: ,

One Piece 9 by Eiichiro Oda: B+

May 21, 2009 by 3 Comments

onepiece9I enjoyed being unspoiled on this, so if you want to be unspoiled too, go no further.

From the back cover:
Luffy and crew must contend with “Saw-Tooth” Arlong and his nasty Fish Man pirates, who specialize in using mafia tactics to squeeze the lifeblood from innocent villagers. Needless to say, it comes as a big surprise to everyone that pirate-hating Nami is actually a member of Arlong’s crew!

Review:
This volume’s all about Nami and her background and, though some parts of it work out as one might expect, I still found the final pages to be unexpectedly moving. Essentially, Nami’s working for Arlong because of a deal they struck in which she might be able to buy the freedom of her village for a hefty price. She’s sacrificed a lot for this goal, and the arrival of Luffy and the others to “rescue” her doesn’t actually endear them to her, as it causes her to have to prove her loyalty to Arlong. The scene where she fights (and apparently stabs) Usopp is pretty awesome, though I never had any doubt that she had somehow managed not to really wound him.

What’s even better is how this situation affects the others on the team. Usopp’s pretty convinced Nami’s evil, but Luffy refuses to consider it or even to hear the details of her past that her step-sister, Nojiko, relates to the others. Nami has a pretty tragic backstory, not unlike those of Luffy and Sanji in that an adult made a sacrifice to protect her life and she feels bound to repay that and protect their dream. In Nami’s case, this manifests as a foster mother named Belle-Mère and a close-knit village, respectively. Nami had thought everyone in the village hated her for becoming a member of Arlong’s crew, and was okay with that if it meant being able to protect them, but they secretly always knew what she was about and want to protect her just as much.

When Arlong betrays Nami by stealing the money she’s accumulated thus far, the villagers have had enough and are set on taking up arms against their oppressors, which will surely get them killed. The absolute best scene I’ve seen in this series so far occurs when Nami, desperate to stop them, tearfully turns to Luffy and says, “Help?” I’ve got geekbumps just thinking about it, actually. After this, Nami’s boys, each a badass in their own way, head to Arlong’s lair to take care of the situation. I kind of love them for it.

Filed Under: Manga, Shounen Tagged With: ,

One Piece 8 by Eiichiro Oda: B

May 20, 2009 by 2 Comments

onepiece8From the back cover:
If Luffy wants to get out of a year’s worth of chore-boy duty on the oceangoing restaurant Baratie, he’s got to rid the seas of the evil Don Krieg. Unfortunately, Krieg’s armed to the teeth and aided by his “Demon Man,” Commander Gin. The battle takes a surprising turn as Krieg reveals his increasingly deadly military might!

Meanwhile, Nami has sailed off on the Merry Go with treasure in tow, and she’s headed to Arlong Park, home of creepy Captain Arlong and his Fish-Man Pirates. What business does Nami have at Arlong Park, anyway? Something fishy is going on and Luffy’s crew just may be in over their heads!

Review:
The first half of this volume reminds me of the theme to The Itchy and Scratchy Show. You know, the one that goes:

They fight and bite
They fight and fight and bite
Fight, fight, fight, bite, bite, bite

Okay, maybe there isn’t actually any biting, but there sure is a ton of fighting. It’s pretty cool, though, with Luffy being fearlessly determined to win against Don Krieg, like any good Gryffindor shounen hero, and earning the admiration of the Baratie pirate-cooks in the process. I was amused that, after he endured bomb blasts and being stabbed by a few stakes, all he seemed to require was a couple of bandaids.

While Oda does well at illustrating the fights so that one can tell what’s going on, I was left with the urge to see this animated. A lot of the fight takes place while Luffy and Krieg are standing on floating chunks of a destroyed deck, which would probably be more impressive if in color, et cetera. Also, I’m not sure if this is new or not, but I really noticed some panels with interesting perspectives in this volume. Instead of always focusing on Luffy, they’d sometimes focus on the weapon about to hit him or the effect of his kick while the rest of him is in the background. It’s pretty neat.

Because of Luffy’s determination to follow his foolish dream to sail the Grand Line, Sanji decides to follow his own dream—to find a mythical patch of ocean called the “All Blue,” where every species of fish in the world can be found, conveniently located somewhere around the Grand Line—and accepts the offer to join Luffy’s crew as cook. Though he tries to be tough about his departure from the Baratie, there’s a pretty awesome goodbye scene and then they’re off in a vessel belonging to Sanji, following Nami’s trail.

As they sail, they (and we) learn more about the dangers awaiting them in the Grand Line, including the existence of three great powers that rule those waters. I assume that each group will have to be defeated in turn, which is a pretty appealing prospect, I must say. Even cooler, though, are some unexpected revelations about Nami’s background. I’m glad I’ve managed to remain spoiler-free for this series!

Filed Under: Manga, Shounen Tagged With: ,

One Piece 7 by Eiichiro Oda: B

May 19, 2009 by 3 Comments

onepiece7From the back cover:
Don Krieg’s evil pirate armada attempts to hijack the oceangoing restaurant Baratie, but the pirate-cooks put up a fierce resistance—until Krieg reveals one of the greatest secret weapons in his arsenal: Invincible Pearl!

When sous-chef Sanji steps into the fray, it turns out that he and Chef Zeff have some unfinished business concerning the loss of the latter’s leg! Will their differences come between them, or make the Baratie stronger? Either way, unfortunately for Luffy, it turns out that Don Krieg harbors an even deadlier weapon: Gin, the very man whose life Sanji once saved with a square meal!

Review:
While nearly the entirety of this volume is occupied by the fight for the Baratie—with Luffy assisting Sanji and the cooks in their efforts to fend off Don Krieg and his pirates—there are still some nice bits of storytelling that elevate this beyond your typical shounen fare.

I was wrong that Sanji is the son of Chef Zeff, but their backstory together is revealed here and it’s kind of horrible, in a way. Suffice it to say that Sanji feels responsible for the end of Zeff’s pirate career and so will fiercly protect Zeff’s new dream, the oceangoing restaurant, and gets up time after time (after enduring injuries that should’ve killed him about six times over) so that it can exist for even a moment longer. What I really loved was that Luffy completely understood and we get a little snippet of the scene in which Shanks lost an arm protecting Luffy to really show the parallels between his and Sanji’s situations.

What I didn’t love was Invincible Pearl, possibly the most ludicrous opponent yet, but I couldn’t help kind of admiring how absolutely absurd he is.

Filed Under: Manga, Shounen Tagged With: ,

CUT by Toko Kawai: A

May 18, 2009 by 1 Comment

“Life is kind of a pain,” thinks Chiaki Sakaguchi at the outset of this exceptional one-shot. Chiaki is bored with school; it seems so trivial compared to the painful secret guilt he carries over his father’s death. In an attempt to dull that pain, Chiaki seeks out new pain, getting involved in an abusive incestuous relationship with his stepfather and resorting to cutting himself as a way to relieve his anxiety. When he meets Eiji Yukimura, a young man with his own dark secret, he finally has found someone who might understand.

CUT is a moving story of two very broken people connecting and finding, through each other, the strength to move forward. There are some disturbing elements involving incest and masochism, but such scenes are not played for titillation, since it’s clear Chiaki is merely doing these things in an attempt to forget his unbearable pain. Later on, when Chiaki turns his stepfather away and tells him, “You made me forget something horrible by doing something worse,” it’s truly a moment of triumph.

The relationship between Chiaki and Eiji is both sweet and sad and made me teary a few times (I never knew a knee nudge could be so poignant!). By the end, neither is completely healed, but they’ve both come to a place where they’re able to live with their wounds and trust that, with time and love, they will fade.

You don’t have to be a boys’ love fan to appreciate CUT. Like the works of est em, I think what it has to offer could appeal to anyone.

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

Filed Under: Boys' Love, Manga Tagged With: , ,

Otomen 2 by Aya Kanno: B

May 16, 2009 by 3 Comments

otomen2-125This volume presents three episodic tales, two of which focus on Asuka’s challenge to be true to himself despite the expectations of others. In the first of these stories, he acquires an apprentice who wants to use him as a reference on how to be cool and masculine, requiring Asuka to suppress his girly tendencies, and in the other, his mother attempts to set him up in an arranged marriage and manipulates him by warning that her health will suffer if he should thwart her or betray any sort of preference for feminine things. This last story is insanely kooky, but it gives Ryo the opportunity to ride in on a white horse and rescue the about-to-be-wed Asuka, so I can’t fault it too much.

Kanno’s art is very attractive in general, but I was especially impressed by it in this volume because she was able to adopt a completely different style—one reminiscent of ’70s shoujo—to depict the parents of Asuka’s fiancée. What’s more, there are scenes where they are sitting at a table with Asuka’s mom, and seeing the two very different artistic techniques juxtaposed in the same panel is pretty awesome.

The other story in the volume is more of a romantic one. Asuka finds out that Ryo has never celebrated Christmas before, and so plans the perfect Christmas party for her. It’s a nice chapter overall, but the best part is Asuka’s inexplicable fixation upon a yule log as the essential ingredient for the event. I often find straightforward comedies unfunny, but the absurdity of Otomen gets me every time.

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

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo Tagged With: , ,

Beauty Pop 10 by Kiyoko Arai: B-

May 16, 2009 by Leave a Comment

beautypop10Narumi’s father has goaded him into entering the Scissors Project into the All-Japan Beauty Tournament in order to prove he’s serious about forming his own salon with his schoolmates rather than inherit the family salon. In this final volume, the outcome of both the tournament and the love triangle between Narumi, his friend Ochiai, and protagonist Kiri, is revealed.

I was pretty disappointed in this conclusion. Kiri is sidelined for most of the first half for an incredibly contrived reason—she catches a cold by going out in the rain to forgive the rival hairstylist (I lost count, but I believe he’s the fifth or sixth to appear in the ten-volume series) who stole her special scissors but who we are supposed to care about because he is a sad orphan—and a lot of the romantic momentum built up in the previous volume is squandered. The outcome of the tournament is treated as an afterthought and while we do, courtesy of a comedic bonus story set ten years in the future, ultimately learn which boy Kiri ends up with, we never see her admit any feeling for either of them or witness any reaction from the boy not chosen.

Ultimately, Beauty Pop is a silly and cute tale that shows occasional glimmers of a more satisfying story but fails to deliver in the end. In some ways, I am reminded of the conclusion to Hana-Kimi, which had similar issues involving the unsatisfying resolution to a romantic triangle. How one felt about the final volume of that series would be a good indicator of what to expect from this one.

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

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo Tagged With: ,

Beauty Pop 9 by Kiyoko Arai: B

May 15, 2009 by 1 Comment

bp9From the back cover:
After kissing Kiri accidentally, Narumi struggles to keep his composure during the All-Japan Beauty Tournament. With everything on the line, can the Scissors Project even make it through the preliminaries?

Review:
Sometimes the overall feel of a volume is so cute that I can’t help but like it, even though it also contains myriad things at which I roll my eyes.

We start with the continuation of the All-Japan Beauty Tournament. At the end of volume eight, Narumi and Kiri accidentally bumped lips when they were tripped by a scheming competitor. We resume with both of them sitting, dazed, and realizing just in time that they should get a move on if they don’t want to be eliminated in the first round. Round two involves taming a brat of a kid, which Kiri awesomely does by giving him the haircut of his favorite TV hero, though why she waits 45 minutes into the 60-minute round to actually talk to the kid, I couldn’t say.

The competition adjourns for a week, leaving time for romance drama to ensue! I like that Kiri is pretty nonchalant about the accidental smooch, saying, “I didn’t hate it,” while Narumi is the one who flees and freaks out. When Kiri’s dad is conveniently whisked off to America, extracting a promise from Narumi to look after Kiri, the two spend some time alone wherein Kiri acts clingy because she’s afraid of cockroaches and Narumi valiantly vanquishes one on her behalf. By various means, Ochiai finds out about that, Narumi finds out about Ochiai’s feelings, Ochiai declares that he won’t hold back any longer, and it’s a whole big tangle of cute drama, pretty much.

Now that the focus is on Kiri and the two boys who like her, the annoying side characters are left far in the background and I don’t miss them at all. Arai’s art, delicate and perfect for drawing hair, also excels at more romantic scenes, and there are many panels in which Ochiai’s and Narumi’s softened expressions really catch the eye. Too, I like the gradual way Arai has built up the possibility that Narumi and Kiri could actually feel something for one another; it certainly didn’t seem possible earlier in the series.

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo Tagged With: ,

Beauty Pop 8 by Kiyoko Arai: B-

May 14, 2009 by 1 Comment

bp8From the back cover:
Just as the Scissors Project is getting stronger than ever, forces are at work to discredit Kiri and disband the club. What’s even more surprising is the person who is behind it all…

Review:
Most of what happens in this volume is pretty dumb. There’s a rival stylist, hired by a mysterious boss, whose tasks are to get the Scissors Project to disband and to retrieve a pair of special golden scissors that were given to Kiri a few volumes ago. The rival causes the rest of the students to suspect Kiri of trashing the S.P. club room, but is eventually unveiled in a highly unlikely fashion. His boss then tells Narumi that he can prove he’s serious about the S.P. by entering and winning a tournament.

It’s all incredibly contrived, but this silly plot does serve to provide some good moments. When Narumi catches some girls planning to pull a nasty prank on Kiri, he gives them an earful, not realizing she’s nearby and has overheard. In fact, ever since their talk about why they want to be beauticians, relations have thawed some between them. In this volume, they’re giving each other thank you gifts, we get to see Kiri laugh, and I feel, for the first time, a romantic vibe. Ochiai’s not to be outdone, of course, and tries in his way to protect Kiri, too.

Overall, it’s not a very good volume, but it leaves off just as the tournament’s getting underway, and I expect I shall enjoy that.

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo Tagged With: ,
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