Love for Dessert by Hana Aoi: C+

November 4, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Published under Aurora’s LuvLuv imprint, Love for Dessert is a compilation of six stories, each of which culminates in a steamy situation. The stories range widely in terms of quality, though nearly all start out decently enough. Some even try to incorporate plot elements other than sex, like parental relationship problems or learning not to change oneself just to suit a guy. The problem usually occurs in the transition to a physical relationship; in some of the stories, it’s just completely out of the blue.

For example, in the story called “Bubblegum Princess,” the heroine has chopped off one of her ponytails after a jealous rival got vengeful with some gum. The hero, himself a stylist, has given her a haircut to even things out. On one page, the heroine is admiring her new ’do, and seven panels later, they’re suddenly going at it! Something similar happens in the title story, too, prompting the protagonist there to actually wonder, “How did this happen?”

More affecting are the stories where the love scenes actually grow out of what has happened between the couple. My favorite story in the volume, “Puppy Chow,” is about a college student who breaks up with her quirky boyfriend because he always asks her what she wants instead of taking the lead. After a brief reunion with a controlling ex, she realizes the good thing she had, and returns to the considerate guy. When they later sleep together, it’s sweet and also meaningful because she’s chosen a healthy relationship.

I’m not one for smut for its own sake, so several of these stories were simply too shallow for me. Several did offer more depth, however, so this collection isn’t wholly without merit.

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

Filed Under: Josei, Manga, Short Stories Tagged With: ,

Short Program 2 by Mitsuru Adachi: B+

September 23, 2008 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
Love and life are programmed in
* Is the life of a cute, young private detective on the line?
* Can love be found only half-way down the line?
* Will life change in a coffee shop?
* How can an earthquake shake up a relationship?
* Is destiny all it’s cracked up to be for a baseball loser?
* Will a playwright balance loyalty against love?
* Was it really that great in the good ole’ days?
* Can a manga artist watch baseball and meet deadlines?

Review:
Eee! I got to read this without spending $60+ on it! Thank you WorldCat!

I didn’t enjoy this collection quite as much as the first. I think the primary reasons were that many of the stories were really short and also that many of them featured baseball. I know Adachi is a big fan, but it kind of got to the point where I’d groan inwardly if the title page for the next story featured a kid in a baseball cap.

My two favorite stories had nothing to do with baseball. The first, “Spring Passes,” tells the story of a guy who had been persuaded to give a friend a lift on his motorcycle and then had a wreck. There was more to it than that, and though it was kind of predictable, I still liked its melancholy feel.

The other I particularly liked was called “The Road Home” and was told in two parts, each featuring a little boy that found himself whisked to another time, one forward and one back. I especially liked that the first half had no real resolution, and I think that’s kind of what I liked most about “Spring Passes,” too. The romantic comedy ones were cute with their nice endings, but the ones that really stood out did not take such well-trod paths.

Ultimately, I would like to own a copy of this for myself, but now that I’ve read it I will be able to hold out for the reasonable price that surely will present itself one of these days.

Filed Under: Josei, Manga, Seinen, Short Stories, Shounen Tagged With: ,

Short Program by Mitsuru Adachi: A-

September 21, 2008 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
The comic-book short story is one of the most difficult areas of storytelling, but Adachi handles the challenge with deceptive ease. His low-key approach belies the power of the emotions his characters portray. The resolution of Adachi’s stories are logical, dramatic, true-to-life, and completely unpredictable.

Span the range of human relationships in eight acts!
* Who’s the little guy who’s always getting into scraps?
* Is there a reason the track star is setting the bar higher?
* Is the nice guy across the way as nice as he seems?
* Will the detective track down his dream girl?
* She passes him every day on the street. Can he meet her?
* It’s the school reunion—are the old flames dead?
* How does the repairman compare to the heartthrob?
* Is the solution to gang rivalries worse than the problem?

Review:
This was my first time reading any Mitsuru Adachi, and I enjoyed the experience. I liked every story in the collection, though some more than others. Most had to do with romance in some fashion, some in a straightforward way where a couple got together at the end, and others in ways that subverted the reader’s expectations. I tended to prefer the latter variety.

My favorite story was one that seemed like it was involving romance—a boy and girl were out on a date at an amusement park and were having a conversation while on various rides. Their apartments faced each other across the street, and she thanked him for a few occasions where he was able to help her due to looking out of his window at just the right time. It totally did not end how I expected it to, and was quite awesome.

Another favorite was a story about a track star who kept setting her high jump goal higher to correspond with the height of the guy she liked. Instead of the story being told from her perspective, it featured said guy and his friend sitting in an apartment watching her in a televised event and figuring out how she felt about him.

About the only thing I didn’t like was the tendency of the stories to break the fourth wall. Adachi appeared in a couple of stories to make random comments, his name was mentioned by a character once, and a couple of other characters referenced the fact that they were in a manga. I really don’t find that kind of thing cute or funny.

Through the majesty of interlibrary loans, I have managed to acquire a copy of the elusive Short Program 2, which I’ll be reviewing in the next couple of days. Though a third compilation was released in Japan, it has, alas, never been licensed for North American distribution.

Filed Under: Manga, Seinen, Short Stories, Shoujo, Shounen Tagged With: ,

Seduce Me After the Show by est em: A

July 11, 2008 by 6 Comments

From the back cover:
A stylish, tempestuous dance of anguish and passion. Seduce Me After the Show contains seven short stories which take place within the artistic worlds of dance, painting, and music. Overall themes focus on the dichotomy of hope and despair as well as the relationship between pleasure and longing. In the title story, devastated by the death of his world famous dancer mother, Theo Gallardo abandons his own dancing career to become an actor and co-stars in a film with popular Hollywood idol Darren Fergus. What should have been a joking kiss shared between them takes a sudden turn when Darren asks, “So what now?” Theo answers, “That depends on the script.” As lustful passions boil over, will Theo be able to regain the fire that he once possessed and return to the dancing world?

Review:
The back of this book is doing a lot of my (self-appointed) job for me! Though, to be honest, I probably never would’ve written about the “dichotomy of hope and despair” anyway.

Right up until I read the last story, I thought my favorite tale would end up being the two-parter starring Theo and Darren (details above). It’s wonderfully told, with an ending I adore even as I wish there were more to read about these two. The final story has a similar feel and tells the story of a man returning to Kyoto after a long absence. He’s come back to attend a festival and, while there, asks about an old friend of his. Gradually, the details of their parting are revealed and, I swear, the final page makes me sniffly.

I really like the art—the use of screentone and backgrounds is minimal, resulting in a largely black and white style. Some of the character designs are quite original, too. Theo looks more like Severus Snape than he does a typical manga character. One of the couples includes a guy in his fifties, and when’s the last time you saw that happen in this genre? Lastly, I appreciate that est em takes the “artistically suggestive” route with the pair of love scenes; depicting things in exacting detail would detract from the emotional element.

Usually, I don’t notice things like paper or print quality, but the production values from Deux (the yaoi imprint of Aurora Publishing, a fairly new player on the American manga scene) are good enough to attract my notice. The translated dialogue seems natural and though I had trouble a couple of times working out exactly what Theo meant, I think that’s just a facet of his character. There was one fairly glaring grammatical error, though. “You’re work has really matured.” Nails on a chalkboard, that one.

My only real complaint is the surfeit of ambiguity. There are times when it isn’t easy to determine which character spoke a line, whether two characters actually slept together, or how one really feels about the other. I’m sure all of this is intentional, but to quote Davy Keith from Anne of Green Gables (‘cos where better to do that than in a yaoi review?), “I want to know!”

Seduce Me After the Show is a character-driven collection featuring grown-up men dealing with their feelings for each other. There’s no blushing or glomping here, and though the stories may be short, they’re also original, thoughtful, and memorable. If you buy one yaoi title this year, buy this one. There’s another book by est em due in December, though, so maybe make it two.

A slightly different version of this review was also published at Manga Recon.

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

Four Shōjo Stories by Keiko Nishi, Moto Hagio, and Shio Sato: B+

June 26, 2008 by 1 Comment

From the back cover:
An unprecedented collection of stories by the greatest shōjo manga (girls’ comics) artists of our time!

In shōjo manga, a uniquely literary genre of Japanese comics, the relationships between characters are as meticulously crafted as the story’s action. Shōjo artists are renowned for their visual innovations, as well. Experimenting with page layouts, panel placement, the interplay of text and image, and expressionistic background effects, the three female manga artists of Four Shōjo Stories create a uniquely absorbing reading experience!

Review:
It would be impossible to write a review of Four Shōjo Stories without referencing its unique history. Who better to shed light on its origins than Matt Thorn, the original translator and author of the book’s introduction. Here’s a post he made on MangaBlog in March 2007. Suffice it to say that, although this wasn’t cheap, I am pleased to’ve found a copy significantly below the price range stated in Matt’s comments.

Of the four stories, two are sci-fi works by shoujo creators and the other two are by josei artist Keiko Nishi. I liked those by Nishi least, though they weren’t bad. The second one in particular had a melancholy vibe that I liked, but none of the characters were sympathetic.

I’d expected to like Moto Hagio’s “They Were Eleven,” since I’ve seen it praised before. I wasn’t disappointed. It seemed to drag a little initially (at 120 pp, it was by far the longest story in the collection) but picked up steam and by the end it was clear that all the stuff that happened at the outset had served a purpose. Fans of sci-fi in general but also fans of shoujo series that feature what I call “gender hijinks” would probably enjoy this story.

The surprise for me was Shio Sato’s “The Changeling.” I’d never heard of Sato before, but I liked her story just about as much as Hagio’s. In it, a competent and boyish female space pilot received a signal from a previously uncontacted planet and went to investigate. Her opinions on the inhabitants she encountered were thoughtful and different than I’d expected. The story stuck in my head after I had finished and made me wish something else by Sato would get licensed. It also had a cute final panel.

While the contents of Four Shōjo Stories might not be uniformly stellar, they’re still enjoyable. It’s too bad they probably won’t see the light of day in a readily accessible, $8.99 sort of package any time soon.

Filed Under: Josei, Manga, Short Stories, Shoujo Tagged With: ,

Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers: B

June 7, 2008 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
In this delightful collection of Wimsey exploits, Dorothy L. Sayers reveals a gruesome, grotesque, but absolutely bewitching side rarely shown in Lord Peter’s full-length adventures.

Lord Peter views the body in twelve tantalizing and bizarre ways in this outstanding collection. He deals with such marvels as the man with copper fingers, Uncle Meleager’s missing will, the cat in the bag, the footsteps that ran, the stolen stomach, the man without a face… and with such clues as cyanide, jewels, a roast chicken, and a classic crossword puzzle.

These stories contain twelve disturbing deaths, twelve perplexing puzzles—and twelve inimitable Wimsey solutions!

Review:
I had varying reactions to the twelve stories included in this collection. Some of them seemed fairly anticlimactic and pointless, like “The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker.” In it, a lady’s jewels are stolen. She comes to Wimsey with one suspect. Wimsey engages the suspect in a game of cards, frames him for cheating, and blackmails him into returning the jewels. The end.

Others were fun primarily for their characters, or for Peter’s interactions with same. The best example in this type is “The Learned Adventure of the Dragon’s Head,” featuring Peter’s nephew, nicknamed Gherkins. I adored seeing Peter in an avuncular role, especially how he treated Gherkins with respect, and would love to see more of this duo in future.

There was only one that really surprised me, though I reckon it might’ve been obvious to others from the start. “The Bibulous Business of the Matter of Taste” involved two men presenting themselves as Lord Peter Wimsey—and one claiming to be his relation—to a Frenchman who was offering a poison gas formula to the English government. A wine-tasting contest ensued to determine which was the real Lord Peter. This was easily my favorite in the book.

There were a couple of recurring motifs, as well. In several stories, Peter was visiting someone away from home. Three stories involved Peter solving a hitherto baffling puzzle in a will, twice benefiting medical research as a result. Possibly the best known of these is “The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager’s Will,” which featured a full crossword puzzle and its solution. I’d been looking forward to this one, but it turned out that reading all of the esoteric clues was kind of tedious.

All in all, I enjoyed this collection more than I thought I would, but I still prefer the Wimsey novels.

Filed Under: Mystery, Short Stories Tagged With:

Shinobu Kokoro by Temari Matsumoto: B-

April 8, 2007 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
The Ninja: A stealth fighter expertly trained in ancient Japanese martial arts. With great acumen and guile, his is a fiery combination of sheer force and devastating proficiency. No man can resist his skill—until now!

Follow the sessions with a young ninja-in-training as his master teaches him the secret methods of the clan.. with a little extra instruction! Meanwhile, two experienced shinobi take their relationship to new heights when a tragic separation leaves one of them caught between a rock and a hard place.

Review:
Shinobu Kokoro consists of six short stories about three couples.

Couple #1 are Subaru, rookie ninja, and Yuuzuki, ninja master. These are the stories the volume is titled after and, frankly, I didn’t much like them. Yuuzuki is pretty creepy.

Couple #2 consists of Asagi and Hiiragi. They’re ninja partners, with Asagi the leader and Hiiragi with “a personality like a big dog—simple and loyal.” Their two stories were the best in the collection, though the second one was really short.

Couple #3 are Futaba, random teen, and Mizuki, a snow spirit. Futaba falls into a snow drift and is saved by Mizuki, who has been watching for his safety for quite some time. Mizuki was kind of bland, but Futaba was cute.

With such limited space for each pair, there isn’t much plot or character development, but it was still a fun read, especially since I just finished another ninja-related manga today. I’d be interested to see more about Asagi and Hiiragi someday.

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

Pretty Guardian Sailormoon Short Stories 2 (Japanese) by Naoko Takeuchi: C+

September 9, 2006 by 2 Comments

Book description:
This volume compiles the final three side stories associated with Sailormoon: “Parallel Sailor Moon,” “Casablanca Memory,” and “The Lover of Princess Kaguya,” the basis for the Sailor Moon S Movie.

“Parallel Sailor Moon” originally appeared in an artbook and follows the adventures of Tsukino Kousagi, the second daughter of Usagi in an alternate reality. “Casablanca Memory” (featuring Rei) and “Princess Kaguya” (featuring Luna) formed the original volume 11 in the first edition of the series.

Review:
While “The Lover of Princess Kaguya” is a decent story, there are some things about it that bug me. I know readers must accept the notion of magical girls with powers, guardian planets, et cetera. Fine. But even if those things do exist, that doesn’t mean that regular people must cease behaving like regular people. So, like, doctors shouldn’t be allowing random cats into hospital rooms, and astronauts shouldn’t be “ho-hum, that cat just showed me her name by pointing to a picture of a lunar rover in a magazine.”

I didn’t really much care for “Casablanca Memory” or “Parallel Sailor Moon.” The former is alright, showing a glimpse of Rei’s relationship with her dad, but it just had to include an enemy. It probably would’ve been better without it. “Parallel Sailor Moon” includes some eventual offspring of the senshi, and they are wholly bratty and unpleasant. Only the plethora of cats made this one even remotely cute.

Filed Under: Manga, Short Stories, Shoujo Tagged With:

Pretty Guardian Sailormoon Short Stories 1 (Japanese) by Naoko Takeuchi: B-

August 26, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Book description:
This volume compiles the “Chibi-Usa Picture Diaries” and the “Exam Battle”s. These were all little side stories published throughout the series in its first incarnation, and left out and published separately for the second edition.

Review:
I’m not sure separating out these side stories was such a good idea. None of those included in this volume are particularly strong, though it might make more sense for volume two of the short stories, which includes “The Lover of Princess Kaguya.”

Some of these stories I was familiar with, as they’d been animated for episodes or specials, though a few were new. None of these are really wonderful, though if one has gotten this far, one’s enough of a Sailormoon fan that disliking them utterly probably isn’t in the cards.

Of the offerings here, I probably least enjoyed Makoto’s exam battle story. Its plot was no worse than the others, but the character was just spouting the same old trope about cooking and cleaning and pretty things and it grew tiresome. To me, the best was the last of the exam battle stories, where Minako pays a visit to Rei’s exclusive girls’ school. Minako’s typically spazzy, but there are a couple of glances of another side of Rei that make it worthwhile. Plus, it’s a little slashy! 🙂

Filed Under: Manga, Short Stories, Shoujo Tagged With:
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