Case Closed 3 by Gosho Aoyama: B+

May 7, 2009 by 1 Comment

From the back cover:
Jimmy, Rachel and Richard take a vacation aboard a cruise ship, but little do they know that the patriarch of the wealthy Hatamoto family is about to be murdered. With the perpetrator still aboard, can you figure out whodunit before Conan does!?

Review:
I actually quite liked both cases in this volume, which is good, because as the first chapter started out I was feeling rather blah about it all and wondering whether it was time to give up the series.

The first case happens not aboard a cruise ship, as the back cover claims, but upon a charter boat hired by a wealthy family who has celebrated a wedding upon their private island. The family patriarch hates everyone but his granddaughter, and everyone but her hates him, so there are plenty of suspects for his sudden death. Conan, of course, puts it all together. What I liked about this case is that it didn’t involve a needlessly and ludicrously elaborate killing method. The victims are stabbed and, in one case, bludgeoned. The clues instead involved things like locked doors, missing murder weapons, et cetera. Perhaps that’s why this is also the first case where I actually had guessed the correct culprit!

The second case involves a surgeon who has received an old toy and a million yen each month going on two years. The best part of this case is that Rachel starts to realize just how much Conan is leading her father through important deductions. She confronts him a few times about his being Jimmy, but he manages to weasel out of it in the end by having Dr. Agasa call and use the voice modulator thingie to simulate Jimmy’s teenaged voice. Having read some volumes in the upper twenties, I know that Rachel still doesn’t know the truth, but I still really enjoyed her suspicions and how she isn’t fooled by some of the stupid things Conan tries to throw her off his trail.

Filed Under: Manga, Mystery, Shounen Tagged With:

ZE 1-2 by Yuki Shimizu: B-

May 6, 2009 by Leave a Comment

When Raizou’s beloved grandmother dies, he leaves the country home where they had lived and moves to the city, where he enrolls in culinary school and takes a job as a live-in housekeeper at a mansion. There, he meets the members of the Mitou family, who wield the word-based power of kotodama, and their kami-sama, human-like creations made from paper who heal the wounds caused by using kotodama. We are told that relationships between kami-sama and their masters must be homosexual and that healing requires contact with a mucous membrane of some sort. This results in all sorts of lusty shenanigans, as one might expect.

Among those living in the house is Kon, a kami-sama without a master, since the Mitou for whom he was originally created died before they could meet. Typically, a kami-sama in such a situation would be destroyed, but Waki, Kon’s maker, keeps him around and uses him to heal paying “guests” (read: pimps him out). Kon doesn’t object, though, since he doesn’t see any purpose to his existence other than being useful. When big, kind-hearted Raizou arrives, he is immediately captivated by Kon and, as he is further exposed to Kon’s sorrow and detachment, falls in love with him.

There are some things ZE does very well, but guiding readers gently into its complicated world isn’t among them. Seven characters are introduced in the first chapter alone, and two more follow by the end of the first volume. That’s a lot of names to try to remember! Many of these characters are one-note, like Kotoha Mitou, who is happy and likes sweets, or Benio, the kami who cosplays and flashes her boobs a lot. The focus is primarily on the relationships, but there are also some hints of things to come, like a trunk of which Waki is fiercely protective and some mysterious spectral attacks that come out of nowhere. This is definitely more plot that I’m accustomed to in a boys’ love series, and I credit it with being both intriguing and ambitious, but also found it to be pretty confusing at times.

The best thing about the series is the relationship between its lead characters. Raizou has nothing but good memories of living with his grandmother, which ground him in a healthy place and provide a contrast to the world Kon has known thus far. To help relieve Kon of his feeling of uselessness, he pledges to become his kotodamashi, an arrangement that’s accepted by the rest of the family. True, Raizou doesn’t possess a magical power of words, but the warm and loving things he says reach Kon anyway and effect a change within him. The intimate scenes between the two of them, filled with eagerness and awkwardness in equal measure, are absolutely fantastic; Yuki Shimizu could give lessons on how to make such moments entirely about the characters and not merely “insert tab A into slot B.”

Shimizu’s artistic style may not be distinctive, but it is at least clean and attractive. Despite the surfeit of characters, I never had any trouble telling them apart. There are a couple of things about the way sexy moments are drawn that amuse me, like inordinately slobbery kisses and the ridiculously huge cone of light representing Raizou’s manly bits, but I positively adore the cover to the second volume. If you look at most boys’ love covers, the two leads are usually clutching each other passionately. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another that looks so genuinely loving.

While ZE has its flaws, I ultimately found it to be enjoyable and thought it improved in the second volume. Shimizu is well known for crafting long series of quality (her Love Mode, published by BLU, clocks in at eleven volumes), so I look forward to seeing where the story goes from here.

ZE is published in English by Digital Manga Publishing; they’ve released two volumes so far. In Japan, seven volumes have been released so far. The series is still ongoing.

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

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

Click 4 by Youngran Lee: B-

May 4, 2009 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
Carefree player and rich kid Taehyun knows that he feels something for Joonha whether he’s a boy or a girl. But he hasn’t reckoned on the arrival of music star Jinhoo, Joonha’s friend from childhood, who’s back in Seoul to stay. That’s because Joonha seems ready to pick up right where he and his old pal left off. But can a close friendship remain just friendship when one of the boys is now a girl?

Good-natured and oblivious, Jinhoo seems to take it all in stride—that is, until Heewon, the trash-talking crazy girl, confronts him with a devastating revelation…

Review:
There’s not much I can say about this series that I haven’t already. I’m not terribly fond of any of the characters, and yet I find it pretty engrossing. I think it helps that the art is so clean and easy on the eyes and the layouts so simple—it makes it easy to just focus on the emotions and dialogue and zip right on through.

Most of the action in this volume is pretty boring. Taehyun is in love with Joonha, even though he’s unsure of her gender, and she admits to him that she lived for a guy as sixteen years. Taehyun’s minion is inexplicably in love with the violent Heewoon, and does her bidding a few times. Joonha bickers with Jinhoo’s girlfriend. The good stuff is in the interactions between Joonha and Jinhoo, especially a moment they share toward the end where Jinhoo confesses he’s still nervous that Joonha will spontaneously disappear again.

Also, despite the faults of this series, it seriously delivers come cliffhanger time. I think practically every volume has ended with a new step toward Jinhoo’s eventual discovery of Joonha’s secret. This time, I don’t know how can possibly avoid realizing that his old friend is now a girl, but we shall see.

Filed Under: Gender Hijinks, Manhwa Tagged With: ,

A.I. Revolution 5 by Yuu Asami: B-

May 4, 2009 by 1 Comment

Sui Makihara’s father makes robots and has brought his two most advanced creations, Vermillion and Kira, home to learn about humanity from his daughter. Inspired by Makihara’s achievements, but far less scrupulous, his former colleague Sakaki has created AT-6, a robot who lacks the programming that makes it taboo for him to kill humans, to eliminate those people who get in his way.

In volume five, Kira is hired as a bodyguard for a journalist who is investigating a series of killings that he recognizes as AT-6’s handiwork. He ends up confronting Sakaki and nearly killing kim—the penalty for which would be disassembly—but is prevented from doing so by the timely arrival of Vermillion. Other chapters involve the (boring) kidnapping of a visiting foreigner’s daughter, a new scientist at Makihara’s company who thinks Kira is his dream girl, and an unrelated bonus story that’s a tweak on “Cinderella.”

A.I. Revolution is an episodic series, not unlike InuYasha in that most of the nefarious doings can be traced back to the same culprit. Some recurring characters have been introduced and their histories revealed, which is all well and good, but the story seems to be drifting farther and farther away from its original focus. When the series started, Sui was clearly the protagonist. Now she’s been overshadowed by the robots to such an extent that we know more about AT-6 than we know about her. No longer does she impart any lessons about humanity to the two robots; instead, they mostly appear in solo adventures foiling terrorists and kidnappers. It’s pretty disappointing, really.

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

Filed Under: Manga, Sci-Fi, Shoujo Tagged With:

A.I. Revolution 4 by Yuu Asami: B

May 3, 2009 by 3 Comments

From the back cover:
Another robot has been created, but this one is designed to kill! That’s not the only complication—can Vermillion and his friends stop a programmed assassin, restore a widow’s memory and mend a broken family?

Review:
Take a good look at that blurb. They’re not even pretending that Sui is the main character anymore. Seriously, in one chapter, she literally does nothing but eat some cake.

Instead of being strictly episodic, the series now has some recurring characters and, in recent volumes, has been including flashbacks of backstory. This volume introduces AT-6, another robot created by the villainous Sakaki, who lacks the programming that makes it taboo for robots to kill humans. He’s envious of Kira, to whom Sakaki constantly compares him, and seeks to destroy him. Kira ends up removing one part the programming that forces AT-6 to obey Sakaki, but this doesn’t stop the latter from trying to please his creator. We get a glimpse of the possible goodness within him—courtesy of that old manga cliché of saving a child who’s about to get hit by a car—but he’s not redeemed just yet.

The flashback chapter deals with the first test run of Vermillion and the problems that were encountered. Sui’s dad had originally suggested that early on, Vermillion had a habit of coming on to men that necessitated some reprogramming, but this story reveals that it was actually his lack of understanding regarding the difference between living and nonliving creatures that was the real problem. This throws the “kitten rescuing” escapade from volume one into a whole new light. And, by the way, I love that the cat in question has stuck around and shows up, fully-grown, now and then.

Nothing in this volume really excited or amused me, and the less said about the last chapter, wherein someone’s mom (Gasp! A mom!) suffers a head injury and believes she’s eighteen again, the better.

Filed Under: Manga, Sci-Fi, Shoujo Tagged With:

A.I. Revolution 3 by Yuu Asami: B

May 3, 2009 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
A trip to America turns dangerous when the plane is hijacked! Luckily, everyone’s favorite robots are on board to help out, and they make it to their destination unhindered. All is well until Sui decides to vacation in Hawaii… leaving her robot friends behind!

Review:
Now that I’ve read three volumes of A.I. Revolution, I’ve begun to notice some patterns. First is a prevalence of sickly teenagers. So far, three chapters have featured such characters, from a girl in need of a heart transplant to a teen genius with five years to live to a boy whose father had genetically experimented upon him. The second trend, more all-encompassing than the first, is a glut of motherless teens. I haven’t counted, but maybe six or seven different teen characters have been introduced so far, and though we’ve seen a smattering of dads accompanying them, no mothers have been seen at all. I’m not sure what to make of that.

The stories in this volume are entertaining enough, though I wouldn’t say I loved any of them. I thought it was weird that Sui, the nominal protagonist, played such an insignificant role, though. She appears a little in the first and last chapters, but only long enough to get her purse stolen (leading Vermillion to fall into the trap of a thief) or suffer from a fever while on vacation (leading Vermillion to go on the fritz and make many zany mistakes), and is completely absent from the middle two. Probably this is because Asami, the mangaka, realizes that the robots are far more interesting and compelling characters than Sui is, but it’s worrisome nonetheless. I’d rather the main character receive some development than read about the backstory of the thief who swiped her purse!

A bonus story, “Make-Believe Reality,” is also included in this volume. In it, an arcade owner, tortured by dreams of his suicidal father’s attempts to kill his family, takes an enthusiastic patron, the son of the man responsible for his father’s business failure, hostage in the belief that by exacting revenge, his nightmares will stop. The story is full of metaphors between video games and real life like, “Once you do something irreversible you can’t ever hit the reset button.” Unsurprisingly, it really isn’t very good.

Filed Under: Manga, Sci-Fi, Shoujo Tagged With:

A.I. Revolution 2 by Yuu Asami: B+

May 3, 2009 by 1 Comment

From the back cover:
Explosions, rescues, time machines, mistaken identities and former loves all come together to complicate Sui’s efforts to teach Vermillion—and now Kira—about being human. Not that Sui has much time for the two hot robots, with her bad-tempered friend Aoi wreaking havoc on the city…

Review:
There’s something about this series that reminds me a little of Silver Diamond. You’ve got the gentle human, Sui, teaching two newcomers about humanity, and everyone becoming a sort of family. I can’t help but think that if the casts of these two series got together, they’d all get on fabulously.

The episodic nature of the series continues in this volume, with chapters about a teenage genius in astrophysics, a surly adolescent hacker, et cetera. These stories also deal with some deeper issues, though, like the fact that robots, no matter how much like humans they may seem or how much Sui may like them, are designed to do the things humans don’t want to or can’t do. When Sui protests that Kira and Vermillion are sent into a building wired with multiple bombs, her dad answers, “That’s what they’re for.”

Also like Silver Diamond, this series has a certain quirky sense of humor that I adore. In the story the about astrophysics genius, some of Kira’s long hair gets shot off while he’s protecting her from thugs who want the wormhole research she’d been conducting. He sports a shorter style for a couple of chapters until Sui’s dad, who is responsible for Kira’s bishounen looks, concocts a beverage that causes spontaneous hair growth in robots. After it works on Kira, Vermillion has to try it, too, and when he asks Sui how he looks, she shakes her head in mute horror. He and Kira then shuffle off, dragging their new tresses behind them. I don’t often giggle aloud, but even the memory of that panel is making me grin in retrospect.

Filed Under: Manga, Sci-Fi, Shoujo Tagged With:

A.I. Revolution 1 by Yuu Asami: B

May 2, 2009 by Leave a Comment

I reviewed the first volume of this Go! Comi series—about a girl tasked with teaching a robot prototype all about being human—for Comics Should Be Good. You can find that review here.

A.I. Revolution is a bit of an older series with seventeen volumes total. Five volumes have been released in English so far.

Filed Under: Manga, Sci-Fi, Shoujo Tagged With:

InuYasha 36-37 by Rumiko Takahashi: B

April 29, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Centuries ago, a dog-like half-demon named Inuyasha attempted to steal a powerful gem known as the “Shikon jewel” from a village, but was thwarted by a beautiful priestess, Kikyo, whose enchanted arrow pinned him to a tree. There he remains for fifty years until Kagome—a modern-day high school girl transplanted to the past by means of an enchanted well—frees him because he’s the only being in the village capable of defeating the monster currently threatening it. Kagome is revealed to be the reincarnation of Kikyo when the Shikon jewel, carried by Kikyo into her funeral pyre, emerges from a cut in her body.

When the jewel is later shattered, scattering slivers of its power across the land, Inuyasha and Kagome team up to hunt for the shards. They’re joined in their travels by a young fox demon (Shippo), a lecherous monk (Miroku), and a demon slayer (Sango). A cast of recurring characters includes Inuyasha’s full-demon brother (Sesshomaru), a brash wolf demon who fancies Kagome (Koga), and the resurrected Kikyo, for whom Inuyasha had romantic feelings back in the day and whose occasional reappearances cause him angst and prevent any progress in his nascent relationship with Kagome.

InuYasha is rather notorious for the repetitiveness of its plot. Over and over, the group will encounter a village that is being menaced by some kind of supernatural threat, be it a horde of self-replicating rats or a band of undead assassins. They will generally discover that a Shikon shard is in use and that Naraku, the chief antagonist of the series, is responsible. They will track Naraku down and Inuyasha will fight and nearly defeat him, but he will escape, even if all that’s left of him is his head and shoulders, and eventually return, due to his regenerative powers.

Volume 36 adheres closely to this pattern in its outcome, though the beginning stages vary somewhat, as Inuyasha and friends are now in search of Naraku’s heart, hidden in the body of an infant, which is what enables him to defy death so frequently. They receive some assistance from a surprising source—Kagura, one of Naraku’s creations, has been angling for a while to be free of his control, and so leads the good guys to a cave where the infant has lately been hidden.

In volume 37, things are a little different, though not substantively. Half-demons change into human forms on the night of the new moon, and Inuyasha is in that weakened state when Moryomaru, a demon created by one of Naraku’s minions, comes after the last Shikon shard in Kagome’s possession. Sesshomaru arrives to save the day and a rather uninspiring battle ensues, ending with Moryomaru’s disembodied head escaping, sure to return, et cetera. The volume does end with some great infighting amongst Naraku’s cohorts, though.

I long ago stopped feeling any investment in these encounters with Naraku and no longer expect anything but another reiteration of the pattern. Knowing that there are nineteen more volumes to follow these ensures that I won’t feel genuinely excited until we are much nearer to the end. Given this lack of forward momentum, then, why do I find the series so endearing?

The answer lies in the series’ characters. Like any good sitcom, InuYasha boasts a cast of likable leads. Everyone has their own subplot—Miroku is cursed with a “wind tunnel” in his hand that is slowly killing him, Sango’s late brother has been reanimated by a Shikon shard and forced to serve Naraku—and genuinely cares for the others. For every storyline that pans out exactly as one expects, there are nice scenes like the one near the end of volume 36, where Kagome and Inuyasha share a quiet, peaceful moment in a tree, musing upon how happy they are to have the other by their side.

Also, despite occasional gore and an inordinate number of severed heads, the story has a gentle sort of humor that I appreciate. I don’t find Miroku’s pervy antics to be that amusing, but other things are cute, like Shippo’s shape-changing abilities and the shorter tales that don’t tie in with the main narrative, like one about a handsome traveling medicine man who wishes only to return to his original form… a mosquito.

Takahashi’s art is up to the challenge of handling all of the story’s diverse elements. Her style is distinctive, and a little bit retro, and I’m a big fan of it. She doesn’t skimp on backgrounds and uses tone judiciously—daylight scenes are usually bright and clean while tone is chiefly used to provide gloom as needed. The biggest complaint I could make is that the art has been flipped. Thankfully, volume 37 marks the end of that era, as Viz recently announced that beginning with volume 38 in July, InuYasha will be released in English with unflipped art for the first time. The upcoming VIZBIG editions will also read right-to-left.

InuYasha is a manga institution for good reason. It may meander at times, but I don’t regret a single moment I’ve spent reading it.

Review copy for volume 37 provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

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

InuYasha 35 by Rumiko Takahashi: B-

April 28, 2009 by 4 Comments

From the back cover:
A new crop of demons is plaguing the land. The more demons are killed, the more humanlike they become. This progression culminates in a battle between the gang and Moryomaru, Hakudoshi’s new and fearsome creation. Can Koga and Inuyasha stop their infighting long enough to battle a common enemy?

Review:
In volume 34, which I reread before starting this one, Inuyasha and pals pledged to help a living mountain regain his “nulling stone,” stolen by Naraku, which hid his demonic power and let him pretend to be a normal mountain so he could live peacefully and undisturbed. I mention this because the story shifts so abruptly into fighting this new batch of demons created from other demons—or “hodge podge demons” as I dubbed them—that I completely forgot about their quest. Eventually, Naraku’s minion, Hakudoshi, swipes some nulling stone-detecting crystals from Miroku, at which point I went, “Ohhhh! Riiiiight.”

That kind of gives you an indication of how blah these plots were. Hodge podge demons rampage, Inuyasha and the gang kill them. Hakudoshi appears with a more advanced demon. Teamwork prevails and the bad guys flee, etc. After that, there are a few chapters about a girl who Miroku had apparently pledged to marry two years ago who is now due to wed a catfishy lake spirit. The saving of her is not interesting, but I enjoyed Sango’s reaction. I wish she would’ve stayed pissed a bit longer, though, since Miroku’s sleazy ways do not amuse me.

I also liked seeing more signs of dissension within Naraku’s ranks, as Kagura visits Sesshomaru with one of the stone-detecting crystals, which will enable him to find the location of Naraku’s heart—it being kept separate from his body is supposedly what’s allowing him to regenerate so often—and destroy it. It occurs to me that I’d really love to see a chapter or two that tells the story from the bad guys’ perspective—A Day in the Life of Kagura or something like that.

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