With the Light 2 by Keiko Tobe: B+

January 12, 2009 by Leave a Comment

With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child is the story of the Azuma family. Eldest son Hikaru has autism, and the series chronicles the struggles and satisfactions that his parents and teachers experience as Hikaru gradually learns to function in the world. This chunky volume from Yen Press, equivalent to volumes three and four of the original Japanese release, focuses on Hikaru’s fourth and fifth grade years and features many different challenging situations in the school setting as well as in broader society.

Though attention is certainly paid to the misunderstandings and problems that result from Hikaru’s lack of understanding of social nuances and situations, the series also takes care to show things that Hikaru is exceptionally good at because of his disability, like putting puzzles together with all of the pieces upside down (since he was never relying on the image to begin with), and mixing paints to perfectly match colors occurring in nature. Seeing Hikaru succeed is very rewarding, and is the aspect of this series that I enjoy most.

As was pointed out in the review of volume one, the series falters in the resolution of complex issues or conflicts. Cruel students and angry shopkeepers are likely to experience swift changes of heart, and a mother who had previously been at a loss on how to handle her autistic daughter has dialogue like, “Wow, she’s learning things faster now than with me yelling at her.” It just doesn’t seem genuine.

One last thing I wish to point out is that Yen Press has clearly taken steps to make this series approachable for readers new to manga. The size of each volume is equivalent to a large paperback book and the Readings Tips section tackles matters from a first-time manga reader’s perspective. I’d be interested to learn how many such readers there are.

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

Filed Under: Josei, Manga Tagged With:

FreshMen by Yuuya: C+

January 12, 2009 by Leave a Comment

In the title story, Takeyuki Saito and Hitoshi Sato are both studying art at the same university. At the entrance ceremony, Saito, who’d been up drinking the night before, momentarily slumps into Sato’s arms, giving the impression that he’s weak and needs looking after. In the weeks that follow, Saito takes advantage of Sato’s kindness to some degree, and eventually realizes that Sato has feelings for him.

“FreshMen” surprised me in a couple of ways. First, take a look at the cover image up there. Which one is the uke? In nearly every other yaoi manga, it’d be the smaller-looking blond. “FreshMen” switches things around by having Saito, the younger and shorter of the pair, be the seme while serious, dark-haired Sato is the uke. Second, Sato really struggles with his homosexuality, expressing the desire to just be “normal” and worrying a lot about exposure. There are some plot points I’m not fond of, but these atypical traits put me in a kindly frame of mind toward “FreshMen.”

The latter half of the volume is made up of three short stories featuring Chomaru and Shiina—characters from Yuuya’s doujinshi—which I don’t like nearly as well. Particularly distasteful is a story called “memory of,” which recounts the story of how, after Chomaru has been living with Shiina rent free for six months, the latter comes home drunk and extorts the former into exchanging sex for rent. This particular episode is a flashback, but the rest of their relationship is also kinda cold and weird.

Speaking of weird, the art also has its strange moments. Each couple has its blond and its brunette and the blonds (Saito and Chomaru) look very much alike. Mouths are also drawn oddly at times, with very red, poofy lips. I amused myself by imagining the characters sneaking sips of Kool-Aid between panels.

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

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

Her Majesty’s Dog 1 by Mick Takeuchi: B+

January 11, 2009 by 5 Comments

From the back cover:
Amane’s not like other girls. With her ice queen demeanor and naiveté, she’s become quite the misfit on campus. Even more unusual is her relationship with fellow transfer student Hyoue Inugami, the hottest guy in school. But the truth is that Amane is a powerful psychic and Hyoue is her guardian demon-dog, whose powers are fueled by her kiss! And when Amane lets her “dog” off his leash, no vengeful spirit is safe!

Review:
I’ve been hoarding this series since Go! Comi first started releasing it, and since the last volume is finally coming out this month, it seemed the time to get reading. I’ve not read much by Go! Comi before, so I never noticed that they state “absolutely no artwork or dialogue has been censored” on their credits page. Interesting.

The story of Her Majesty’s Dog is pretty good so far. I like Amane, who is mostly reserved and competent. Somehow, her lapses in knowledge, due to her isolated upbringing in a country village, don’t look like ditziness coming from her unsmiling face. Hyoue is okay, too, though he spazzes out a little too often for my taste, and the antagonistic relationship he has with Amane’s cousin (who wants her to return to the village) doesn’t really interest me, either.

Amane’s power is the ability to use names to exert control, and I like how that’s portrayed in the scenes where she has to use it. The first couple of chapters are my favorite, where Amane and Hyoue deal with a ghost of a student in the gym storage room (lots of manga I’ve been reading lately have involved gym storage rooms, it seems) and then a vengeful dog spirit. The chapter about the dog is actually kind of dark and features a beheaded canine. I like, too, that Amane gets her first real friend and uses her powers to aid said friend, even compelling Hyoue to help out, as well.

The other three chapters aren’t as good, really. There’s the one where the cousin shows up, one with a boy who has a crush on Amane, and one where Amane gets mad at Hyoue and tries to deal with some spirits on her own. The mangaka’s notes talk about how surprised she was at the series’ popularity and even that it had been collected into a tankoubon. At some point, I assume she will realize it will have an extended run and a longer plot will arise. I’m looking forward to seeing how the series develops.

Filed Under: Manga, Shoujo, Supernatural Tagged With:

Red Blinds the Foolish by est em: A-

January 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
Rafita is the young, rising star of the bullfighting world known as “The Red Matador.” He has never feared facing a bull since his first kill at the age of twelve. But when he falls in love with Mauro, a butcher who rends the bulls that Rafita kills, his confidence begins to waver. In the matador’s dreams, Mauro (who, like a bull, is colorblind) is, alternately, the bull he faces in the ring and the butcher who carves up his own skewered corpse. Beautifully observed and drawn by est em, the author of Seduce Me After the Show, with a depth of style and passion, Red Blinds the Foolish depicts a complex relationship, and a cultural form, in a place where the sublime and the savage meet.

Review:
Red Blinds the Foolish includes the title story, told in three chapters, and four additional stories, one of which deals with one of the characters from “Red Blinds the Foolish” as a younger man.

The title story is definitely my favorite of the volume. I like the languid mood, the unique setting of Madrid, and the incorporation of some Spanish bullfighting terms. There are some things that transpire between them that I don’t really get, like some things Mauro says to Rafita that apparently drive away his bad dreams and enable him to be a success in the ring again, but on the whole I really like this story. One of the things est em does best is show the guys having intelligent conversations that don’t in any way revolve around romance or their relationship. Like with Seduce Me After the Show, these are grown, professional men with ambitions and skills, and I enjoy when they talk about such things with their lovers.

Three of the remaining short stories are good, but not great. “Corpse of the Round Table” explains the origin of a scar Mauro has as well as how he ended up a butcher. “Baby, Stamp Your Foot” is about a shoemaker who gets aroused when his lovers wear shoes he has made for them. “Tiempos Extra” is about a rabid soccer fan and the stadium security guard who fancies him.

The last story, “Lumiere,” is another that I liked a lot. An old, bedridden man is dictating a story to a younger man. The story is about a choreographer who encounters a phenomenal male dancer, which resonates with the younger man because he, too, is in love with a dancer. Not a lot happens in this story, but it, too, has the languid mood that seems to be what all my favorite est em stories have in common.

Ultimately, I liked Seduce Me After the Show a little more, but this is a very close second.

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

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight 3 by Drew Goddard: C

January 5, 2009 by 4 Comments

From the back cover:
A team of Japanese vampires who can transform into wolves, panthers, and fog attack the Slayer compound in the highlands of Scotland, stealing Buffy’s mystical scythe—the weapon that transformed thousands of young women into Slayers. Unable to fight these mysterious new foes, Buffy sends Xander to see his old friend—the only vampire known to possess these incredible powers—Dracula.

Review:
I really disliked the “Wolves at the Gate” arc when it was coming out, but it works a little better when read all in one sitting, and with the stand-alone issue “A Beautiful Sunset” as an introduction. “A Beautiful Sunset” itself is quite good. In it, Buffy warns Satsu about the dangers of being in love with her, and has an encounter with the Big Bad, Twilight. I love that Twilight asks Buffy whether all of these additional Slayers have actually helped her in any way, and she can offer no response.

“Wolves at the Gate” spans issues twelve to fifteen, and it’s here where things start to get kind of annoying. How so? I’ll bust out the bullet points. Warning: full of spoilers.

* The Buffy/Satsu publicity buzz. Even though Joss insists that Buffy’s hook-up with a fellow Slayer was not a publicity stunt, you could’ve fooled me. There were reports of comic shops being told to stock up in advance on this one because it would be popular, and all kinds of interviews and stuff being given. I also don’t like that we never see how the two of them got to that point. Without that, I just can’t buy Buffy being attracted to a girl.

* Dracula. I am so tired of Season Eight bringing back random characters from the show. Please focus on the core group! Oh, and he supposedly lost his powers to this bunch of Japanese vampires by gambling.

* Andrew’s lecture on Dracula, during the course of which he says that Xander and Dracula have been letter-writing pals and that, after Anya died, Xander went to live with Dracula for a while. Um, what the hell?! This is stupid and retconny and entirely only there so that “Antique,” a short story Goddard contributed to the non-canon graphic novel Tales of the Vampires and which features Buffy coming to Dracula’s castle to retrieve Xander after this period of cohabitation, can become canon. I cry foul. (Note: Not that Andrew is at all a reliable source, but his comments are not contradicted.)

* Renee’s fate. Okay, yes, I never see these things coming, but jeez. Enough is enough. A happy ending for a couple would be more surprising these days.

* Mecha Dawn. Quite possibly the dumbest thing in this series yet. Why on earth would the Japanese vampires take the time to construct a Dawn mecha? What’s more, they have programmed it to say things like, “I cry a lot.” So they’ve, like, also taken the time to try to learn things about Dawn and her life? Probably this is supposed to be funny, but I think it’s incredibly stupid.

On the plus side, there is some good dialogue. When I first read these issues, I was peeved that Willow wasn’t mad at Buffy for taking advantage of Satsu’s feelings, but now their conversation on the subject works a bit better for me. There’s also lots of good Xander dialogue plus liberal use of the hand gestures Nicholas Brendon always employed. Too, I love Buffy’s reaction at the end of the fight upon hearing that the vampires are fleeing: “So chase them. No prisoners. Seal off the streets. Cut them down as they flee. Kill every single one of them.” Now that’s good continuity with Season Seven Buffy.

So, no, Wolves at the Gate is not a good arc. It has some good moments, but far too much of it is irksome. On its own, it earns a C-; the score for the volume is a bit higher because of “A Beautiful Sunset.”

Filed Under: Comics, Media Tie-In, Supernatural Tagged With: ,

Monster 18 by Naoki Urasawa: A

January 5, 2009 by Leave a Comment

After eighteen action-packed volumes of murders, secret organizations, suppressed memories, and the most exciting book donation ceremony known to man, Naoki Urasawa’s Monster has come to a close. With its multitudes of well-developed characters, unique setting, expressive art, and interwoven plot threads, the tale of Dr. Kenzo Tenma, a gifted surgeon who is out to stop a murderer whose life he saved in the operating room, has been a rich and rewarding reading experience. It can be hard to have faith that such an ambitious undertaking will hold together, however, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who had put off reading it until they’d heard whether all of the lingering questions had been satisfactorily answered in the end.

Well, the answer to that question is “mostly.” Throughout the course of the series, various people have played a part in the creation of the monster that is Johan. Unfortunately, anyone expecting the final volume to provide a conclusive explanation for exactly how he turned out the way he did will be disappointed. Some additional insights are revealed, though, which at least will give readers a basis upon which to come to their own conclusions.

On the positive side, several of my other questions were unambiguously addressed. On the whole, I found the conclusion of the series to be a satisfying one. In a volume full of important scenes, my favorite moments were those between Tenma and his pursuer, Inspector Lunge, who’s quite the fascinating character. The penultimate chapter also catches up with a few characters who haven’t been seen in a while; I can’t think of anyone whose fate was left to dangle.

While Monster is not without flaws, they are far outnumbered by its virtues. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this series to anyone.

Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Manga, Seinen, Suspense Tagged With: , ,

Monster 17 by Naoki Urasawa: A-

January 4, 2009 by 2 Comments

From the back cover:
In the little mountain town of Ruhenheim, life is simple and peaceful. Neighbors greet each other on the street, and the biggest case the local authorities have to worry about is a lost dog. But this bucolic splendor is about to change. Will Tenma, Grimmer, and Inspector Lunge be able to prevent the massacre Johan is planning for this sleepy village and its unknowing inhabitants? Or will the cobbled streets of Ruhenheim soon run red with innocent blood?

Review:
Of the unanswered questions listed in the review for volume sixteen, only the fifth is answered. The identity of the child who was taken to Red Rose Mansion and what they experienced is, indeed, cleared up.

Plotwise, we get one of those situations where some characters seem to know where to go and what Johan’s planning without the audience having any idea how. Eventually, some explanations are given, but I think my confusion over that kind of hampered my enjoyment of the malevolent happenings going on in a secluded mountain town. It’s fairly interesting, but not nearly as good as the previous half a dozen volumes or so have been, even if Grimmer and Lunge are awesomely working together.

At this point, it’s kind of hard to say anything that isn’t a spoiler of some kind. If it’s not evident by now, Monster is not a series without flaws, but it’s got an exciting story full of twists, turns, and random awesomeness.

Oh, and I still love Dieter.

Filed Under: Manga, Seinen, Suspense Tagged With: , ,

Monster 16 by Naoki Urasawa: A

January 4, 2009 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
Tenma is lying low, but his brief respite is doomed to be short-lived. Milan, one of Tenma’s new friends, is planning to assassinate a man with deep ties to “Red Rose Mansion.” Can Tenma dissuade him from this drastic line of action? Also, a seemingly unrelated string of murders by various serial killers hints at a sinister connection with Johan. How many more people need to die before the monster’s work is complete?

Review:
A tremendous lot of stuff happens in this volume, but I shall resist the temptation to summarize. Instead, I have a new list.

Answered Questions:
1. What is the story of the twins’ parents and birth?
2. Who are the last two people running the organization in Frankfurt?
3. What’s the story on the “devil’s apprentice”?

Kind Of Anwered Questions:
1. What’s Johan’s agenda?

Unanswered questions:
1. How are the recitals at the Red Rose Mansion inducing the kids into violence? What, really, is the experiment?
2. Who was the guy who came to the Lieberts’ house the night they were killed?
3. Whatever happened to the other Lieberts pretending to be Johan’s parents?
4. What about the MPD theory?
5. What’s the deal with Nina’s memory of welcoming herself home? “The man in glasses” made a possibly telling remark, then Johan seemed to swing it one way, then the final panel threw all into a muddle again.

I also want to take this time to praise Urasawa’s chapter beginnings. They’re always interesting, unique, and immediately engaging. Too, I applaud the two strong female characters that kick some butt in this volume, and once again, am kind of surprised I am cheering for Eva. Taking a bitchy person, making her even more unlikable, and then suddenly turning her into someone sympathetic is quite an achievement!

Filed Under: Manga, Seinen, Suspense Tagged With: , ,

Monster 15 by Naoki Urasawa: A

January 4, 2009 by 5 Comments

From the back cover:
Dangerous men of influence hoping to exploit Johan’s frightening mind for their own shadowy purposes are also hot on the “monster’s” trail, and they’re willing to use Eva, Tenam’s ex-fiancée, to identify him. But what will happen to Eva when her assistance is no longer required? Will her only chance for salvation rest on the shoulders of the very man who’s been hired to kill her?!

Review:
It’s late and I’m tired, so it’s definitely a list this time.

Awesome Things:
Nina goes back to Munich and enlists the aid of Doctors Reichwein and Gillen to recover her latent memories. The resultant session with Gillen is terrifically creepy.

Super Awesome Things:
There are two perfect chapters in this volume, and both feature Eva, believe it or not. In the first, Martin defies his boss’s orders to kill her and faces the consequences, and in the second, Eva and Tenma share a somber conversation over coffee. I adore Martin, and I really hope Eva’s on the path to redemption this time.

Confusing Things:
I still have no idea what’s up with a particular scrap of memory Nina keeps remembering, but I’m sure it isn’t good. I just hope that we don’t get some utterly kooky explanation that makes no sense.

Filed Under: Manga, Seinen, Suspense Tagged With: , ,

Monster 14 by Naoki Urasawa: A

January 3, 2009 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
Tenma’s long quest for justice, Johan and Nina’s search for identity—all roads converge on the mysterious “Red Rose Mansion.” Is Nina prepared to confront the dark memories this cursed house will awaken in her subconscious? If Tenma gets there in time, will he find a clue that will help him save the life of his ex-fiancée Eva? Or will Johan, as always, remain several steps ahead of everyone?

Review:
These books really are quick reads. I think it’s because there’s nothing extranneous in the panels. The art is fabulous, to be sure, but there’s nothing like shrinky-dink text or frenzied panel layouts that might detract from the story. Back to a list this time!

Awesome Things:
1. Someone—it isn’t clear who—recalls some events from Nina and Johan’s childhood, including when they were initially found near the Czech border, a photo op with the Lieberts after they made it to West Germany, and the night Johan asked Nina to shoot him. It’s good to finally get some detail on this, and I love how it’s internally consistent with what has been previously established.

2. We see a few more of the stories by the picture book author, as creepy as the first.

3. I actually kind of love the last chapter, told from the point of view of a thug assigned to guard Eva. He hates taking jobs involving women, and she drives him crazy, but he eventually feels the urge to protect her and ends up getting shot. I’m not a fan of hers, but his reaction to her is great.

Confusing Things:
1. Some guy arrives at the Liebert’s house before Nina finds them all shot. Who was that?

2. When Nina and Johan are near the border, she calls him Johan and asks him to say her name. He replies that they have no names. Later, General Wolf says, “They didn’t have names when I named him Johan.” So, is Johan really his name or what?

A Note:
Sometimes, with this series, one just has to give up asking, “Now, how did he know that, again?”

Filed Under: Manga, Seinen, Suspense Tagged With: , ,
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