Vampire Knight 9 by Matsuri Hino: C+

February 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment

After the revelations in volume eight, the world of Vampire Knight goes—please pardon my indelicacy, but this is really the only way to put it—batshit crazy.

Pureblood vampire Rido Kuran (our villain) completes his resurrection and summons his followers to him. Said followers feel no compunction about snacking on the day class students of Cross Academy, so the noble vampires of the night class must protect them. Kaname challenges the vampire senate, Zero gains thorny super powers along with some self-control, Yuki squares off against Rido, and the Hunters Association arrives to exterminate the night class, but is held off by Headmaster Cross and his hunter pal, Toga.

This synopsis might make it seem as if the volume is action-packed, but “incoherent” is actually closer to the truth. I honestly have no idea why half of this stuff is going on. Perhaps it’s because it’s been three months since I read volume eight, but that just goes to show how little of this series is actually memorable beyond its main characters and its prettiness. Zero’s evolution is genuinely interesting, though, and makes for some cool moments near the end of the volume.

The art of this series is usually its best asset, but Hino’s style is far more suited for depicting pretty, angsty vampires than scenes of battle. Many times, I was left puzzled by what was happening—“‘Shunk?!’ What just went ‘Shunk?!’”—and kept confusing Rido and Toga, since they both have wavy shoulder-length black hair and an unruly forelock.

I am left to conclude that Vampire Knight is like a morsel of dark chocolate: its bittersweet taste lingers on your tongue while you’re consuming it, but its impact doesn’t last much beyond that moment.

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

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

New Shojo Beat Licenses?

February 16, 2010 by 9 Comments

These VIZ licenses may not be new to some, but they were to me!

This evening, while perusing the Amazon listings for Beast Master, by Kyousuke Motomi, my friend and fellow manga blogger Jennifer Dunbar noticed a listing for Dengeki Daisy by the same creator with a July 2010 release date. I checked the Simon & Schuster site, and sure enough, there it is!


Dengeki Daisy
From the site: One day at school, Teru accidentally breaks a window and agrees to pay for it by helping Kurosaki with chores around school. Kurosaki is an impossible taskmaster though, and he also seems to be hiding something important from Teru…

This inspired me to check for other new prospective Shojo Beat titles on Amazon, and I struck gold with a listing for Seiho Boys’ High School! by Kaneyoshi Izumi, mangaka of Doubt!!, with an August 2010 release date.

Seiho Boys’ High School
From the site: Remote, lonely and surrounded by the ocean. This isn’t Alcatraz we’re talking about, it’s Seiho Boys’ High School, where the student body is rife with sexually frustrated hunks! How can these young men get girlfriends when they’re stuck in the middle of nowhere? These are the stories of the students of Seiho High and the trouble they get into as they awkwardly pursue all girls who cross their paths.

I’m not sure that Seiho will really appeal to me, but I’ll probably give it a shot. I’m really happy to see more from Kyousuke Motomi, though, since Beast Master is adorable. Looks like this is a slightly longer series, as well.

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: ,

Kaze Hikaru 9-11 by Taeko Watanabe: A-

February 15, 2010 by 9 Comments

Beware: spoilers ahead.

I have come to the conclusion that Kaze Hikaru is not only worth owning—as opposed to borrowing it from the library, which is what I’ve been doing up until now—but is also pure evil (in the very best way, of course).

Volume nine begins with a reorganization of the Shinsengumi that sees Sei reassigned from active patrolling to a position taking care of the headquarters. This is arranged by Yamanami, who is the second member of the troop to learn her secret and who wants to keep her out of harm’s way. Okita fully approves of this arrangement, though Sei does not. The first half of the volume is fairly lighthearted, featuring a bunch of guys who see Sei and Okita’s separation as an opportunity to vie for Sei’s affections. Saito and Okita intervene, which gives Sei ample opportunity to thoroughly misunderstand the intentions of each.

Problems begin to percolate near the end of volume nine, as Sei learns one of the troops is planning to lodge a complaint against the captain. Inter-troop tensions continue into volumes ten and eleven, when Todo returns with a bevy of new recruits, including a bigshot named Ito Kashitaro who promptly ruffles a bunch of feathers. Ito’s arrival is played for comedy for several chapters—because he’s a lover of beautiful things, he outrageously pines for both Hijitaka and Sei—but abruptly gets more serious when he invites Yamanami into his confidence and puts him in a position where he’s caught between the complicated and conflicting ideologies of Ito (for whom he feels loyalty because they’re from the same sword school) and Captain Kondo.

Throughout these volumes, Sei and Okita’s relationship continues to subtly evolve in minute yet important ways. We also learn more about the supporting cast, most notably the incredibly sympathetic Yamanami. He’s a really sweet guy who tries to nudge Sei and Okita together and gives her some really good advice. Here’s a particularly lovely exchange:

Sei: Okita-sensei’s like the wind… there’s nothing to hold on to. I’m merely a blade of grass who is always swayed by doubt and unable to catch up with the free-spirited wind.

Yamanami: Without grass even the wind would lose sight of itself. So you have to sway more and show the wind that ‘this is your home.’

These words really stick with her and are shown to be true later on when she is restored to patrol duty and Okita muses that he doesn’t feel as free to sacrifice his life with her around.

I should’ve known, therefore, that just when we’re made to love Yamanami very much, something awful would happen. He is still haunted by atrocities he witnessed at the prison, and when further news of bakufu brutality reaches him, he can no longer continue to serve them and deserts the troop. He knows full well what the penalty will be, but accepts it without complaint, refusing too to state his reasons, knowing that it might throw his comrades into chaos. It’s all the more terrible because he didn’t fail the cause—the cause failed him!

I can’t remember the last time a manga made me cry like this. And so, that is why Kaze Hikaru is simultaneously marvelous and evil. It lulls you into a false sense of homey security and then suddenly reminds you that you’re dealing with a lot of passionately idealistic men with a strict (and bloody) code of honor. You can love them as individuals, but be warned—their story will break your heart.

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

Sexy Voice and Robo by Iou Kuroda: A-

February 12, 2010 by 3 Comments

From the back cover:
Working part-time as a telephone-dating operator, Nico Hayashi has plenty of clients eager to engage her in titillating conversation. But what her customers don’t know is this: the person they’re flirting with is really a fourteen-year-old junior high school girl with a secret agenda.

On the phone she’s known as Sexy Voice. But, really, she’s more than a professional flirt. Secretly, she wants to change the world and maybe become a spy and fortuneteller, too.

Along for the ride is her friend Iichiro Sudo. He’s an underemployed twentysomething hipster with an obsession for collecting toy robots. Together they are Sexy Voice and Robo… two people doing their best to bring some hope into this crazy world.

Review:
Fourteen-year-old Nico Hayashi is an observer of human nature. She loves talking to strangers and has a part-time job working for a tele-club, through which she lures lonely men out for meetings and observes their behavior from a distance as they wait for her to arrive. One day, as she’s doing this, she meets an old man who, noting her expertise at matching character traits to voices, enlists her help in analyzing a recording of a kidnapper. Nico, who harbors dreams of being either a spy or a fortune-teller, goes one step further and tries to find the culprit. Once she does, she pursues him, thinking, “If I lose him, that’s it…. I have no idea where this kid is, but right now I’m the only one in the universe who can save him.”

Nico’s success leads to further assignments from the old man, including checking on the welfare of a runaway, investigating flaws in a company’s new product, and locating a kid who stole a bunch of money from a gambling parlor. She uses one of her tele-club contacts, Iichiro Sudo (whom she nicknames Robo since he collects robotic toys), to do her bidding throughout, and generally has a pretty good time of things until she meets Mr. Forgetful.

Mr. Forgetful seems kind and benevolent, but forgets everything after three days. Nico evidently knows him, though, and suggests that perhaps she’s his daughter. They spend a few days together, shopping and eating unagi, but Mr. Forgetful eventually receives a mysterious assignment. It’s unclear at first just how much Nico knows, but eventually we learn that Mr. Forgetful is an assassin sent to target the old man and that she’s been trying to prevent it. Nico wants to save them both, and convinces Mr. Forgetful not to carry out his assignment, a failure for which he is later killed.

Nico plays with people. She enjoys leading them around and having them under her control, but it’s a devastating blow when she learns that her actions ultimately led to Mr. Forgetful’s death. For a while, she tries to shift the blame onto the old man, but can’t escape the implications of what she’s done. While a career as a spy or a fortune-teller sounded ideal only a short time ago, Nico now reflects that controlling someone’s secrets or fate is not what she wants to do. Instead, she wants to bring hope. This impression is reinforced when she meets an elderly retired spy who did the job because she was the best one for it (just like Nico, thinking “I’m the only one in the universe who can!”) and who has no regrets about the “unhappy endings” where others ended up getting hurt. Nico isn’t sure what she wants to be, but she knows she wants a happy ending.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see much of what happens after Nico processes this information, as there are only two more chapters to the series. In these, though, she’s far less controlling, allowing herself to be led along by a string of mysterious notes left in love hotels and even attempting to set Robo up with a lady friend. Perhaps that’s her way of following through with the goal to bring hope, even though her plan backfires when said lady friend ends up being mentally disturbed. I’d love to see this series continued someday and see Nico using her observational skills and cleverness in a more selfless way.

I really admire how Kuroda-sensei tells the story, because he doesn’t feed one the conclusions about Nico’s revelation on a spoon; all the clues are there, but one must make one’s own connections. Visual elements also help show Nico’s state of mind, as we often see her observing the city from a lofty perch, looking down on everyone from a distance while ruminating on how it’s easier to talk to strangers. When she’s on assignment, though, we get more of a street view as she’s down amongst the world and its people, trying to accomplish her objective. I began to wonder whether Nico had any friends, but by the end we’ve seen a classmate of hers a couple of times and she also begins treating Robo more as a person than a minion. Perhaps there’s hope for her yet to make the meaningful human connections that the elderly spy suggested she would never have since she’s “too busy fishing to get hooked.”

Ultimately, Sexy Voice and Robo is a multi-layered work that gives readers a lot to consider. I reviewed it as part of the Manga Moveable Feast, and can definitely see why it was chosen, since there are so many aspects one could talk about. Please visit David Welsh’s blog, Manga Curmudgeon, and check out the contributions of the other participants!

Filed Under: Manga, MMF, Seinen Tagged With:

Slam Dunk 8 by Takehiko Inoue: B+

February 8, 2010 by 2 Comments

slamdunk8After an admirable performance in an exhibition game against a tough rival, the Shohoku High basketball team is ready to get back to practice, but a gang of thugs with a grudge against team member Ryota Miyagi makes that impossible. They invade the court with the intent of starting a brawl that’ll get the Shohoku team disqualified from competition. Just when the thugs have been beaten back, with help from Hanamichi’s pals, assistant captain Kogure reveals that the lead punk, Mitsui, was once a promising member of the team.

What follows is a multi-chapter tale of hubris, wounded knees, and wasted potential, and it might perhaps seem rather pointless if not for all the heartfelt emotion on display and the certainty that Mitsui will once again rejoin the team. Kogure, typically very mild in manner, shows he’s tougher than he looks while Mitsui does the opposite when confronted by Coach Anzai, whom he dearly loves and respects.

All in all, there’s very little actual basketball in this volume but there is a lot of team building, which makes for a very enjoyable reading experience.

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

Filed Under: Manga, Shounen Tagged With: , ,

Slam Dunk 3-7 by Takehiko Inoue: B

February 6, 2010 by 3 Comments

slamdunk3How did I let myself get a whole year behind on Slam Dunk?! Of course, the upside to such a monumental lapse is having half a dozen volumes to gobble up back-to-back!

At the end of the second volume, hot-headed protagonist Hanamichi Sakuragi impressed team captain Akagi by declaring himself “a basketball man” in answer to pressure to join the judo team. As a reward, Akagi decides that Hanamichi (who has been learning the fundamentals of dribbling, passing, et cetera) is now ready to learn to shoot. To Hanamichi, of course, this means the slam dunk, but what Akagi has in mind is a more common shot, the layup. Even though Hanamichi practices a good deal on his own, he’s just not getting it until Haruko, the object of Hanamichi’s affections, gives him some pointers. Meanwhile, the Shohoku High team prepares for an exhibition game against Ryonan, a school with an incredible team.

slamdunk5The game against Ryonan—which spans all of volumes four and five and the first third of volume six—is nothing short of riveting, even though Hanamichi is incredibly, incredibly obnoxious throughout. His cockiness wouldn’t grate so much if, like Ryoma in Prince of Tennis, he actually had the skill to back up his claims. Still, his overwhelming confidence does help the team in a few crucial moments and they hold their own extremely well. One of the things I love about sports manga is how the mangaka can quickly create interesting opponents for our team, and Inoue does so here with Ryonan’s ace, Sendoh, who must work much harder against Shohoku than he ever anticipated and enjoys himself much more as a result.

After the exhibition game, Shohoku sets their sights on the district preliminaries and the road to nationals. At the same time, Ryota Miyagi, a second-year student who’d been hospitalized after being injured in a fight, returns to the team. He and Hanamichi butt heads at first until they discover a shared lack of success with the ladies and quickly become buddies. Alas, some thugs have a grudge against Ryota and the basketball team, and a brawl on the court ensues that could disqualify them from competition.

slamdunk7I’m hopeful that the introduction of Ryota marks the start of a Hanamichi I’ll be able to like. Somehow, Hanamichi doesn’t feel the need to exert his prowess over Ryota and is able to receive instruction from him without being a moron about it. It’s extremely gratifying! And even if I find Hanamichi annoying, there are plenty of other characters for me to like. My favorite is Kogure, the mild-mannered assistant captain, but I’m also fond of Yohei Mito, Hanamichi’s right-hand henchman, who is sweetly protective of his friend’s newfound passion and unforgiving of those who would spoil it for him.

Inoue’s art may not be very pretty in Slam Dunk, but it’s extremely easy to follow where games are concerned. I never once had a question about who had passed to whom, or even whether the ball bounced before someone caught it; it must be hard to depict movement so gracefully, but Inoue really excels at it. The “bonus NBA content,” which I assume is provided by VIZ, has also proven to be more interesting than I thought it would be. I admit that I skip the player profile in each volume, but the second page includes all kinds of tips about strategy, and I find it both educational and entertaining. I never actually knew, for example, that the point guard was the fastest member of the team.

If you’re looking for a completely fun and addictive sports manga, Slam Dunk will definitely fit that bill. I’d like it more if Hanamichi weren’t so irritating, but I have hopes that he’ll gradually mature and, in the meantime, there are a lot of other positives to keep me reading!

Review copies for volumes 5-7 provided by the publisher.

Filed Under: Manga, Shounen Tagged With: , ,

Sand Land by Akira Toriyama: A-

January 31, 2010 by 4 Comments

sandlandFrom the back cover:
In the far future, war has destroyed the entire Earth, leaving only a barren wasteland where the supply of water is controlled by the greedy king. In search of a long-lost lake, sheriff Rao asked the king of the demons for help… and got the king’s son, Beelzebub, and his assistant, Thief. Together, the unlikely trio sets off across the desert, facing dragons, bandits, and the deadliest foe of all… the King’s Army itself! It’s travel adventure and tank action in this new story from Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball Z!

Review:
After enjoying Toriyama’s COWA! so much last October, I decided to read more of his works. Sand Land, one of the first batch of titles to be serialized in the American Shonen Jump magazine, is another single-volume series about humans and demons working together on a quest, though this time it’s water they’re after and not medicine.

The follies of man and natural disasters have combined to reduce the habitable part of the world to one particular desert, with a further blow falling when the single river flowing through the land suddenly stopped. Some water is available—sold by the king for an exorbitant price—but many can’t afford it. One day, a war veteran named Sheriff Rao turns up at the village of the demons with a request. He has deduced, from the presence of a certain kind of bird, that there must be a lake to the south somewhere, but to cross the dangerous desert he’ll need demonic protection. The demon king (who appears for all of one page and is totally awesome) grants his assent and sends along his son, Beelzebub, who picks an older, knowledgable demon named Thief for the third member of their party.

The trio sets out in Rao’s car, but quickly encounters obstacles. When the car is rendered undrivable, Rao manages to steal a tank using nothing more than a can of hairspray, and they proceed on their way. The tank belongs to the king’s army and when they get wind of the theft, a chase ensues, during which Rao’s real identity is revealed, the chief general launches a smear campaign against him in the media, Rao retaliates with some unsavory secrets, and, ultimately, an extremely satisfying conclusion is reached.

Throughout all of this, Rao realizes that the demons have been sorely underestimated by humans and, in fact, are far more innocent of wrongdoing than humans are, themselves. Even though the basic plot is fun and extremely well paced, it really is this fledgling trust between races that is the best part of the story. Although it moves briskly and there’s not a lot of time for character development, there’s still enough for the story to resonate emotionally when it should.

Toriyama’s skill in paneling is extremely impressive; I always love it when reading manga feels like watching a movie. I did notice one disappointing and odd thing, though: one panel depicting an evil general is very obviously reused in a later chapter. Maybe there’s a good reason for it—could it have been VIZ’s doing?—but Toriyama did gripe at the outside about how hard the series (and especially the tank, which looks great) was to draw, so it seems possible this could’ve been a very random shortcut.

In any case, I really liked Sand Land a lot. It shares a lot of common elements with COWA!, but since I liked those elements, I really can’t complain about an overabundance of similarity.

Sand Land was published in English by VIZ and is complete in one volume.

Filed Under: Manga, Sci-Fi, Shounen, Supernatural Tagged With: ,

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee 2 by Hiroyuki Asada: C

January 30, 2010 by 3 Comments

tegamibachi2From the back cover:
Amberground is locked in darkness. A man-made star casts only a dim light over the land. The pitch-blade wilderness is infested with Gaichuu—colossal insects with metal exoskeletons. The Gaichuu make travel between the cities of Amberground extremely dangerous. But thankfully the Letter Bees, a brave corps of messengers, risk their lives in order to keep the hearts of Amberground connected.

Lag is close to becoming a Letter Bee! On the way to his final interview at the National Postal Service, he found a dingo: Niche, a feral young girl with shocking strength and hair made of golden swords. Now, as they approach the bridge to the middle-class district, they stop to rest in Kyrie, a desperado town. They meet Nelli, a friendly young man who shows them to an inn. Nelli’s so helpful that they never notice him steal Lag’s crossing pass!

Review:
Volume two of Tegami Bachi demonstrates what happens when a flawed but intriguing series picks the less interesting of the two characters introduced in its first chapter for a protagonist. Without Gauche Suede, the experienced letter carrier who inspired Lag Seeing to want to follow in his footsteps, the volume flounders for the first half as Lag and his “dingo,” Niche, make their way to his Letter Bee interview in Yuusari, a nicer part of Amberground than the area in which Lag grew up.

A lot of the problem here is Niche, an acutely uncivilized girl with hair that can turn into swords, and her antics. She apparently views her pledge to wear underwear as a symbol of her contract with Lag, so when he suggests she might be safer staying with his aunt than being his dingo, she ditches her bloomers and then nags him for dozens of pages to accept her as his dingo again. This is incredibly annoying. Also, she seems to have acquired a pet/emergency food source (think Menchi in Excel Saga) called Steak, who is a source for some regrettable pee and fart gags.

Once Lag makes it to his interview, though, things start looking up. The European-inspired architecture in Yuusari makes for some lovely backgrounds, and the other/older Letter Bees are pretty cool. Lag also does extremely well on his letter-delivery test, almost as well as Gauche, about whom he learns some surprising information.

Some of these merits are also flaws, however, since practically everything is more interesting than Lag and Niche, and looks better, too. I’d much rather read a story starring Largo Lloyd, the director of “The Beehive,” for example, and the only thing that inclines me to read the third volume is that we might learn more about Gauche. About the main duo I care practically nothing. It’s almost as if Asada wants to make his story more sophisticated, but is shackled by some Shonen Jump mandate concerning adolescent humor. Whatever the case, I’m going to give this series one more chance to win me over, but I’m not feeling too optimistic.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

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

All My Darling Daughters by Fumi Yoshinaga: A

January 28, 2010 by Leave a Comment

allmydarling“A mother is an imperfect woman.”

So thinks Yukiko Kisaragi, the central hub around which the collection of stories in All My Darling Daughters revolves. As the story begins, Yukiko’s mother, Mari, has just undergone a successful cancer operation and decides that, from now on, she’s going to live her life the way she wants. To Yukiko’s dismay, this involves getting remarried to an aspiring actor and much younger man, Ken Ohashi, whom she met at a host club. At first, Yukiko is convinced it’s a con, and maintains a guarded demeanor around Ohashi, but once he proves his love for Mari really is genuine, she breaks down. “She’s always belonged entirely to me,” she sobs.

From there, stories focus on those Yukiko knows. The second chapter is about a strange student named Maiko who forces herself on Izumi, a lecturer friend of Ohashi’s; the third features Sayako, a pretty friend of Yukiko who has decided to investigate arranged marriage; the fourth is about middle school friends of Yukiko and how their career plans went awry; and the final chapter focuses on Yukiko’s grandmother and her relationship with Mari. Meanwhile, we catch glimpses of how Yukiko’s life is evolving through a series of revelations about what has occurred “off-camera.”

At first I had a hard time understanding how some of these stories related to each other. Sayako’s story, for example, is incredibly touching and sad, but her mother does not play much of a role. The story of the forceful student seemed entirely out of place. But then the common thread hit me: this book is not just about mothers and daughters. It’s about the relationship between any caregiver and a child, and how something that might seem inconsequential to one could affect the other for the rest of their lives.

Sayako is crippled in love because her well-meaning grandfather told her, “You mustn’t discriminate among people.” Maiko has a warped view of relationships because someone indoctrinated her with a servile disposition—even though Izumi repeatedly says, “Who told you that?” it’s a perception she is unable and even unwilling to shake. Yukiko’s middle school friend is unable to fulfill her lofty goal of being a trailblazer for women in the workplace because an abusive father forces her to leave home early and quit school. Even Mari’s not immune, since her mother’s denigrating comments (made with good intentions, we later learn) about her appearance gave her a lifetime complex about her looks.

By the end of the volume, it’s apparent that Yukiko really is living a charmed life. Mari may be an imperfect mother, but she’s honest about her foibles and the two share an incredible relationship. Yukiko even achieves a sense of peace about her new step-dad, realizing “this strange boy is necessary for my mom.” Yukiko’s husband, Jun, is sweet yet equally imperfect, and a casual remark near the end of the volume reveals they’ve made headway in conquering a problem of equality in their marriage. Career-wise, Yukiko is the most successful of her group of middle school friends, prompting former chum Saeki to think, “At least one of us fulfilled her modest dreams.” And who is it whose fierce yet loving care enabled Yukiko’s life to turn out so well? I’ll give you one guess.

In addition to all of this thoughtful, integrated writing, Yoshinaga also employs her distinctive artistic style in the service of the story. True, the bulk of the panels contain talking heads in white space, but sometimes these headshots are exactly what one needs to get the point across. The most effective example of this occurs in the third chapter, when a two-page spread of close-ups is used to convey how Sayako and a prospective husband, Mr. Fuwa, have instantly achieved a content companionship. And if you don’t get sniffly when this technique is used again in the final two pages, you might just be a robot.

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

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

RIN-NE 2 by Rumiko Takahashi: B

January 26, 2010 by 3 Comments

rinne2From the back cover:
After a mysterious encounter in her childhood, Sakura Mamiya gained the power to see ghosts. Now a teenager, she just wishes the ghosts would leave her alone! Then one day she meets Rinne Rokudo, a boy who is far more than what he seems.

Sakura and Rinne deal with the ghosts of an ancient warrior and a girl who drowned in the school swimming pool, but that’s just a warm-up! A wandering spirit leads them to a surprising confrontation, one that takes Sakura and Rinne on an even more amazing chase!

Review:
When RIN-NE first debuted, I used to read the chapters on The Rumic World faithfully, but after a while my interest waned. I had, therefore, already read the first few chapters of this second volume—those pertaining to the ancient warrior and the ghost of the drowned girl—and found them just as uninspiring on a second read.

The portion that I hadn’t read previously fared a little better, though. It’s the story of a high school boy named Reiji who’s traveling on his motorcycle to deliver a birthday present to his girlfriend when he runs into a telephone pole. He’s not dead yet, but his spirit has left his body and is thus vulnerable to Masato, a devil with a grudge against Rinne and the ability to corrupt Reiji into a vengeful spirit. Although Masato is unfortunately rather incompetent—the gags involving the traps he sets for Rinne are woefully unfunny—this story is still the most interesting of the volume and also provides Sakura with the opportunity to do some investigating on her own. She’s so essential, in fact, that Rinne compliments her awesomeness quite genuinely, which is kind of rare for him.

Although this volume is a quick and generally pleasant read, I’m a little disappointed that the story isn’t showing any signs of going anywhere. I know this is an unreasonable expectation: this is Rumiko Takahashi, after all, and I really shouldn’t expect movement for thirty more volumes or so. I like the characters, I like Sakura’s increased motivation to get involved, but in general, stories about helping ghosts pass on will get old after a while. A peek at forthcoming chapters shows that a new character will arrive in volume three, however, so perhaps the plot will perk up a bit then.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

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