Manga-ka: Yoshiki Nakamura
Publisher: viz Media
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: April 2011

Synopsis: “Chiori’s rage threatens the whole production when she lashes out and hurts Kyoko. Kyoko is used to overcoming obstacles, and she uses her injury as an excuse to push Chiori into exploring her acting. But Chiori has a traumatic past. Will focusing on the dark side of her character bring it all rushing back?!”

My favourite parts of Skip Beat are when the characters talk about acting and examine their craft. Unfortunately, this volume takes that aspect too far. There’s long stretches of the book where the characters just go on and on, explaining their machinations and motivations. At certain points it seems more like a volume of Death Note than Skip Beat.

Kyoko has finally figured out how to play her new role, but now she has to get everyone else on board with her vision. In this volume we see Kyoko’s ability not only to act, but to direct others as well. Using her acting skills she’s able to manipulate her co-stars into giving performances they wouldn’t be capable of otherwise. It’s a new and interesting aspect to Kyoko and really gives layers to the scenes where Kyoko and the others are shooting scenes for their TV show.

While Kyoko’s manoeuvres are exciting to watch, hearing her explain her actions saps a lot of fun out of it. There are one too many heart-to-heart talks in this volume, and they drag on. Yet despite the rambling monologues, this volume manages to give a satisfying end to the rivalry between Kyoko and Chiori.

This volume also introduces a lot of plot threads for future arcs, such as Reino, the lead singer of the band Vie Ghoul showing up in Kyoko’s life again. I hope that it’s just a cameo, as I really don’t like that character. Not because he’s a bad guy, but because he’s boring. Skip Beat has some great, complicated antagonists, such as Chiori or Sho, but Reino doesn’t measure up. He’s just a cardboard baddie who seems to enjoy being evil for evil’s sake. Not that that can’t be fun, but in a series that usually goes a little deeper than that with its characters, Reino’s flatness stands out. But the manga-ka has surprised me before: maybe in the next story arc she’ll flesh out Reino’s character some more.

Nakamura is getting better with her character designs. Earlier on in the series all her teenage girls looked alike, but now they’re starting to look more like individuals. She’s started using different facial features and body types for their designs, and giving them distinct body language that reflects their personalities. This is especially important since Kyoko’s show is set in a high school and the cast is full of teenage girls.

There are times when the layouts seem a little cluttered, but that fits with the manic charm of the series. Nakamura uses just enough backgrounds to establish the settings, but they’re clear and clean.

Skip Beat volume twenty-three is a little self-indulgent, but I still found it interesting. The set-up for the next story-arc looks a little bit conventional (Kyoko’s forgotten about Ren’s birthday! Oh-no!) but I trust the manga-ka to take it somewhere interesting.

Review written April 13, 2011 by Shannon Fay
Book provided by Viz Media for review purposes

Manga-ka: Fumi Yoshinaga
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: December 2010

Synopsis: “There is a Japanese saying that goes, “Hana yori dango,” or “dumplings over flowers.” And no one is more of an advocate of this adage than mangaka Y-naga, a woman whose life revolves around her intense work and equally intense sleep schedule. The only thing that can rouse her out of this infernal cycle of deadlines and being dead to the world? Food. As Y-naga and her friends visit restaurants around Tokyo to satisfy their appetites, their individual approaches to food add an extra dimension to their witty and comical interactions.”

Manga about food is similar to manga about music – they have to convey things through a visual medium that are pretty much impossible to capture visually. For music manga, it’s the sound of an instrument or a beautiful voice singing out, while for food manga it’s that taste of a delicious meal. But while you can’t substitute one sense for another, many manga-ka have risen to the challenge and found fun ways to convey different sensations through images. Fumi Yoshinaga only manages to make it halfway. While Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! is a fun read, it didn’t leave me hungry, a bad sign in a manga about food.

The manga follows a manga-ka called Y-naga. Y-naga is unlucky in love but totally in love with food. She knows all the best restaurants in Tokyo and is continually dragging her friends out to dinner. Y-naga is also a cellophane thin-avatar for Fumi Yoshinaga, the actual manga-ka behind the story. Whether all the characters in the story are based on real people is up in the air, but all of them are lifelike enough that they could be.

Each chapter has a similar format: Y-naga and friends go out to a swanky restaurant and talk about their lives in between bites of food. In a way each chapter functions as a restaurant review as all of the places that the characters go to are in fact actual restaurants (at the end of each chapter there’s even a page of notes on how to get to the featured restaurant). However, as reviews they kind of fail since everything is always fantastic. When the conversation turns to food, it usually amounts to character A saying something like “Wow, this is so good!” and Y-naga responding with “I know, right!?” and then explaining the intricacies of the dish. After a few chapters it gets a little old.

There are a lot of characters who only show up for a chapter or two, and yet through their interactions with Y-naga we get a fully formed picture of them. Yoshinaga’s always been great at getting at the basis of what makes a character tick, and she’s able to use that skill here to capture the many different characters’ personalities.

Y-naga herself is a great character, which is a weird thing to write since she’s based on the manga-ka herself. Yoshinaga doesn’t hold back or try to make herself look good by proxy through her avatar. In fact, Y-naga is the most buffoonish character in the story, spilling food and drinks down her shirt, coming home and passing out in the front hall, shamelessly flirting with guys who are totally creeped out by her advances, and on top of it all not really caring about any of it. Y-naga is one of the best female characters I’ve seen in a manga recently, which once again is a weird thing to write.

I mentioned before that though this is a food-centric manga, it didn’t leave me hungry. I think in part that’s because I don’t eat meat, so all the lavish descriptions of the meat entrees really didn’t do anything for me. However, I also think that Yoshinaga doesn’t do a great job of making the food look all that good to begin with. Not that her illustrations are bad, but if you’re going to do a food about manga, well, you need to draw that stir-fry with the same care and detail that you would use to draw a drool-worthy bishounen.

Even if it the manga didn’t leave me hungry, I was still satisfied thanks to the delightful characters. While it’s not as engrossing as some of her other series such as ‘Flower of Life’ or Antique Bakery,’ it’s still fun, a nice light snack instead of a full meal.

Review written March 28, 2011 by Shannon Fay
Book bought from Strange Adventures

Manga-ka: Souya Himawari
Publisher: June
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: February 2011

Synopsis: “At the war’s height, Takakage and Mizuo once again cross paths. The two embrace, profess their unending love for each other, and swear mutual oaths…but there is talk of Takakage getting married. With their personal crisis and the war ripping apart the nation, how will the two men be able to stay connected?”

Right Here, Right Now is a very enjoyable time travel romance. In this volume the main character Mizuo has to decide between staying in the past with Takakage, a local lord he’s fallen for, or return to his life in the present. While it’s not the most unique dilemma (if you’ve read even a chapter of Fushigi Yugi you’ve seen Miaki sweat over the exact same problem), it’s still well done here.

One thing I liked about this volume is that it mines the differences between the past and modern day for drama. Mizuo is still getting used to life in Japan in the warring states period, but what’s even harder is getting used to being in a relationship with Takakage. Just when they’re getting the hang of it, Takakage receives a marriage proposal from a princess from an enemy clan. Mizuo knows that the marriage will bring peace to the two countries, and so he convinces himself that it would be better if he returned to his own time. Takakage however, doesn’t agree, and must convince Mizuo that he belongs in the past.

While I really like Right Here, Right Now, it never reaches the heights that other time-travel shojo series do, like Red River and the previously mentioned Fushigi Yugi. Those two series were epics, sprawling tales of war and magic with the weight of history bearing down on the characters. Right Here, Right Now, on the other hand is a much smaller affair. For one, it’s only two volumes, and there’s a much smaller cast and focus. Even though I like the series, I think it made a big mistake in not going big. Time travel manga are by their very premise dramatic: the main couple are usually two people who have been brought together through impossible odds over a vast chasm of time and space. It’s a little bigger than your average romance. Add in the fact that the characters are usually in the middle of a war and your set for some grand, Gone With the Wind/Titantic/whatever love story.

Right Here, Right Now never hits those high notes. I think that may be because as a yaoi manga the focus is pretty tightly reigned in to centre on the main couple. Which is fine, because as a yaoi it works really well. Mizuo and Takakage aren’t particularly exciting, but they are cute together. It’s nice to see the progression of their relationship (the manga-ka draws a great, tastefully done sex scene between them early on in the volume). So while the series centres around them and their relationship, that’s not a bad thing in itself.

While the series does come to a satisfying conclusion, it’s clear there were some places the manga-ka wanted to go but didn’t have a chance to. There’s one character in particular that gets the short end of the stick: there’re hints about him having an interesting back story and a crush on Mizuo, but it never goes anywhere. In the author’s notes she admits that she developed a liking for this character, and it shows. It’s just too bad he didn’t get an arc of his own.
The art for the series is very solid. I like the touches of detail in the setting, always an important factor when doing a manga set in another time period. While the artwork doesn’t particularly stand out, it’s by no means bad. It gets the job done even if it doesn’t leave much of an impression beyond that.

Right Here, Right Now is a fun series. It might not be the love story to end all love stories, but its light and entertaining and a cute boys’ love manga.

Review written February 23, 2011 by Shannon Fay
Digital copy provided by Digital Manga for review purposes

Manga-ka: Hinako Ashihara
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: January 2011

Synopsis: “Daigo digs up the time capsule he buried twenty years ago when he was only ten. What message did Daigo leave for his future self? And what does it take to live life fully and without regret?”

There are some manga that continue even after the main plotline has resolved itself, where the series keeps going even after the main conflict is finished. An example of that can be seen here with the final volume of Sand Chronicles. At this point Ann has pretty much worked through her issues and the love triangle between her and her two childhood friends, Daigo and Fuji, has straightened itself out. But while this volume may be superfluous to the main storyline, it still delivers a bittersweet and touching story.

Just as a heads up, with this being a review of the final volume there will spoilers for the series. Though really, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that Ann ends up with Daigo. In this volume they’re married and settled down. Daigo is working as an elementary school teacher and loving every minute of it. One day he decides to get back in touch with the teacher who inspired him, Mrs. Koda. Even though it’s been over twenty years since he last saw her, Mrs. Koda is the same as Daigo remembers, cheerful and outgoing. But Ann isn’t so sure that everything is as it seems. She knows form personal experience that just because someone seems happy it doesn’t mean that everything’s okay. When she discovers a secret about Mrs. Koda’s past, Ann has to choose between keeping quiet or telling Daigo and ruining his image of Mrs. Koda.

This volume works really well as a stand-alone story. There’s enough alluded to here that you don’t need to have read the previous nine volumes to follow what’s going on: even if you don’t know the specifics of Ann’s history, seeing the scars on her wrists are enough to show that she’s had a rough time in the past.

For fans of the series, this volume is a nice way to cap things off. I’ve always had a soft spot for Fuji, and it’s nice to see him get some kind of resolution. The poor guy spent most of the manga being the short end of the love triangle, so I was happy to see him finally getting some happiness of his own. I actually would have liked to have spent more time with him, as Fuji’s story mostly unfolds behind the scenes, but like I said, I’m kind of biased towards him.

One thing that I’ve always liked about this manga is that it never trivializes the characters’ feelings. Their worries and fears are given equal weight no matter where they are in their life. Just as the manga didn’t idealize childhood back in its early volumes, it also doesn’t suggest that everything is easy-peasy once you’re an adult. Ann and Daigo may have worked out most of their own issues, but there’s always going to be trouble and challenges in life. Still, the manga makes it clear that they are now people who can deal with those things as they come. After following Ann through her many ups and downs, it’s hard to ask for a better ending than that.

The art is cute, especially since there are so many little kids in this volume. Ashihara’s layouts are kind of cluttered, with a lot of panels crammed onto one page. They’re usually still easy to follow, but it gives the page an overall crowded look. Her panels usually have just the right of detail in them though, setting a good balance between achieving a certain mood while still grounding the story.

You can read this tenth volume of Sand Chronicles without reading the previous volumes, but since it’s one of the best recent shojo dramas, I highly recommend tracking down the whole series. I’m a little torn about the series ending. On one hand, it’s become one of my favourite shojo manga, right up there with Kare Kano. On the other hand, the ending is true to the characters and story so it’s hard not to be pleased with it. Ann may be a fictional character, but after being so involved with her story for so long it’s a relief to finally see her happy.

Review written February 9, 2011 by Shannon Fay
Book provided by Viz Media for review purposes

Manga-ka: Mitsuba Takanshi
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: November 2010

Synopsis: “In an attempt to stop the vicious rumors spreading at Crimson Field High School, Nobara ended her relationship with the boys’ team captain Yushin. But when she runs into Haibuki, a talented boys’ team player who mysteriously left school when he found out about Nobara and Yushin’s romance, Yushin is the first person she calls. Can Nobara and Yushin convince their heartbroken teammate to return to Crimson Field?”

A good sports manga makes it so that the game scenes and character development go hand in hand. As the characters play they are growing and changing and finding out about themselves and others through how they play the game. In this volume of Crimson Hero, the balance is a little off. There’s a lot of the characters interacting, but not enough of them playing volleyball. While character development is never a bad thing, Crimson Hero has always worked best for me when the characters work things out on the court. Any scene where they’re just hanging out slows down the manga.

Since volume one there has been a love triangle between Nobara and two of the best players on the boys’ volleyball team, Yushin and Haibuki. Thirteen volumes later the situation has gotten even more sticky, and Haibuki takes off when he learns that Nobara and Yushin are dating. The Crimson High boy volleyball team is really hurting without Haibuki, so Nobara and Yushin separately decide to track him down and convince him to come back.

Nobara and Yushin have very different methods for trying to bring Haibuki back. Nobara tries (unsuccessfully) to talk him into coming back. Yushin on the other hand decides to convince Haibuki to come back…through the power of volleyball! He basically goes to Haibuki’s new school and plays a one man game of volleyball with Haibuki as the prize.

The scene between Nobara and Haibuki is really well done, but it also stretches on too long. There are lots of nice character moments throughout this book, but often times they drag down the pacing. It’s nice that the characters have other stuff in their lives besides volleyball, but this is a series about playing volleyball and that’s sadly lacking in this volume.

This is why I liked the scene where Yushin goes to Haibuki’s new team and plays his heart out in order to win him back. In it you see just how complex the relationship between the two of them is. They don’t like each other and have never been friends, but they respect each other’s skills and value each other as teammates. It’s great watching Haibuki’s reaction as he realizes just how far Yushin is willing to push himself for his sake. It’s a great scene that manages to marry the sports aspect with the overall plot. I wish there were more like it in this volume, and hopefully future issues will put volleyball back into the front and centre.

Mitsuba Takanshi’s art is good, but just good. Her anatomy is fantastic, which is always important when drawing a story where the characters are athletes. But there’s also a stiffness to her drawings, both in posture and in expression. It’s not as though she has a limited set of expressions, but more like each character has the same set. Nobody has any expressions that are really unique to them, making everyone look kind of bland. In the back of the book there’s a page of fan art from a manga-ka called Noriko Otani (who as far as I can tell doesn’t have any work out in English) and in her one page of fanart she manages to give the characters more physical personality than their original manga-ka ever does.

I do love Takanshi’s character design for Nobara though. Nobara is one of the most butch shojo heroines in a translated manga. She’s not just a tomboy but downright boyish. It’s a nice change of pace to see a heroine who is doesn’t fit the usual feminine model.

While I found this volume to be rather slow, I’m still a big fan of Crimson Hero. I like the characters and I don’t mind spending time with them, I just wish they would get back on the court already.

Review written January 11, 2011 by Shannon Fay
Book provided by Viz Media for review purposes

Manga-ka: Yun Kouga
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: November 2010

Synopsis: “Rima begins to question her feelings for Ikeshiba after the night he kissed her. Finding herself shocked that it wasn’t what she imagined it would be like, her thoughts turn to Hisayoshi. But Hisayoshi, frustrated with Rima’s constant rejection, has gone missing. Will his absence finally make Rima realize how much he means to her?!”

Crown of Love is a shojo manga about an ordinary teenager who decides to become a superstar in order to impress a certain someone. In this past month alone I’ve read two manga with the very same plot (Honey Hunt & Skip Beat) but while those series manage do something new and different with the idea, Crown of Love plays it straight, delivering a clichéd story with very few surprises.

From volume one, Kumi has been in love with Rima, a popular pop-star his age. He falls for her so hard that he decides to become a pop-star himself in order to be worthy of her attention. While the two have gotten to know each other through working together, their relationship itself has been frustratingly inert. Even more frustrating, there’s been very little character development as well. Rima is still aloof and Kumi still acts like a mix between a lost puppy and a creepy stalker. In this volume Kumi finally grows a spin and gives Rima an ultimatum: if she really hates him, he will leave her alone forever. But if she loves him, now is the time to admit it.

It’s nice to see some actual drama in this series, especially when it comes from the characters’ actions and not some outside force. However, there’s still a lot of nothing crammed into this book: pages of the teenage characters ruminating on love, characters rehashing old conversations and dreams. There’s long stretches where nothing of real importance happens. That could be forgivable if the characters were people worth spending time with, but they’re not. Both of the main characters are vague and shallow, and the memorable traits that they do have aren’t good ones: Rima is whiny and temperamental while Kumi has all the personality of a houseplant. The best thing I can say for them is that with their self-centered, vacillating natures they’re like a lot of typical teenagers, though I really doubt that’s what the manga-ka was going for.

Like the story, the art is mediocre. The character designs aren’t bad, but they’re bland. Yun Kouga also seems to have trouble keeping them consistent, with Kumi looking different ages throughout the book. Now and then a background makes an appearance but for the most part the characters live in a void, a white space filled with a chair here or there so they can sit down.

It’s hard to hate Crown of Love since there’s so little in it that actually inspires any emotions, good or bad. It’s an easy enough manga to while away the time with, but when there’s so many better, similar offerings out there (like the previously mentioned Skip Beat and Honey Hunt) it’s hard to recommend this one.

Review written December 22, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Book provided by Viz Media for review purposes

Manga-ka: Kou Yoneda
Publisher: June
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: November 2010

Synopsis: “On his very first day at a brand-new job, shy Shima is trapped in the elevator with a hungover mess of a guy…who turns out to be his boss! Togawa’s prickly exterior definitely puts the rookie recruit on-edge, but it doesn’t take long before Shima’s every waking thought is invaded by his overbearing yet totally thoughtful superior. Will Shima put aside a history of disappointment in order to take a chance on a complicated relationship?”

From the summary No Touching At All sounds like plenty of other workplace yaoi where an overbearing boss harasses his shy subordinate into some after-hours hanky-panky. But No Touching At All is a less a sordid office scandal and more of a laid-back love story. The slow pacing really helps sell the realism of the characters and the world. If you’re looking for a yaoi where the characters are going at it from page one, this isn’t it. The characters spend more time working at their cubicles than they do making out (another touch of realism).

The story does start with the characters in bed together, one sleeping while the other watches. The first few pages are beautifully laid out with amazing toning. It’s a nice little prelude before getting thrown into the actual story, going back a few months to when the characters first met. Shima is starting a new job at a computer company. On his first day he gets off on the wrong foot with Togawa, his boss. Togawa is an outgoing guy who sometimes goes too far with his teasing, while Shima is a surly, sensitive quiet guy who often takes things the wrong way. In other words, not a good combination.

As the two work together, Togawa learns to hold back on his caustic comments and Shima slowly comes out of his shell. As they grow closer Shima starts to fall for his straight superior, and Togawa starts to fall in love with a guy for the first time. But even once they admit their feelings, they still have to deal with their pasts as well as their uncertain future.

It’s a simple story, but what makes it work is that the manga-ka doesn’t try to turn it into a wrung out melodrama. Even the more extreme, angsty parts of the story are revealed in a low-key way. Both Shima and Togawa have tragic pasts, but the subtle way the manga-ka reveals them keeps things from going over the top. One way the manga-ka does this is by having the characters react to the things in realistic ways, such as in the scene where Togawa tells Shima about his family. In a more cliché yaoi, the uke would listen to Togawa’s tragic story and then tearfully launch himself at him, telling him that he doesn’t have to worry, they’ll always have each other. But in this manga Shima acts differently. Instead of comforting Togawa, Shima acts like a selfish jerk. It’s not a nice response, but it’s one that rings true to the character and to real life.

The pacing is both the series greatest strength and weakness. The slow pace makes the Shima and Togawa’s relationship believable, but at times it almost seems like too much build-up. However the manga-ka does use the time to develop the characters and set up plot points for later, so it’s not as though there’s much filler.

The art is beautiful throughout. Yoneda has a very solid, clear style. Even inanimate objects look like they have texture and weight to them, and the backgrounds look like places where people actually live and work rather than just a setting for a story. But the real highlight is the characters. There’s no denying that both Togawa and Shima are pretty boys, but they’re not super-beautiful or extremely feminine. They just look like a couple of normal guys who are slightly more good looking than people in real life. Their different personalities shine through in their body language, and there are some great moments in the manga where the characters figure things out just from observing each other.

No Touching At All is a great drama that would appeal to anyone who likes a good story with interesting characters and fantastic art. As the story drew closer to the end I thought for sure the manga-ka was going to take the easy way out and go for a conventional ending. Instead she stays true to her work by having Togawa and Shima make a choice that is both grounded in reality and in character. I’m very excited to see future work from such a mature story-teller.

Review written December 22, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Digital copy provided by Digital Manga for review purposes

Manga-ka: Miki Aihara
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: December 2010

Synopsis: “With Yura and Q-ta’s relationship now revealed to the public, Mizorogi will need to decide whether or not to interfere. What will Haruka do when he has the chance to tell Yura his true feelings? And when Q-ta visits Yura at her house, the two of them end up in the bedroom all alone…”

This volume of Honey Hunt focuses on the love triangle between main character Yura and brothers Q-ta and Haruka. It’s a complicated situation only made worse by the fact that all three are celebrities and have to juggle their professional and personal lives. Yet, even though they’re famous, the characters themselves are relatively grounded, with no one emerging outright as the obvious choice or bad guy.

A moment of silence for the dearly departed Shojo Beat. While I still enjoy reading Shonen Jump every month, I miss my monthly dose of shojo sweetness. Since Shojo Beat went under I’ve been pretty negligent about keeping up with the series that ran in its pages. This is the first time I’ve read Honey Hunt since the magazine went belly up, but I still found the events in this volume easy to follow and understand.

Honey Hunt was never my favourite of the Shojo Beat line-up, not when great manga like Sand Chronicles, Honey and Clover, and Nana graced the pages. But Honey Hunt was always a kind of guiltily pleasure, a slick and shallow shojo romance that went down easy and was easily forgotten afterwards. Reading it in book format hasn’t really changed my opinion. It’s still pretty and vapid, but that’s not necessarily a knock against it. Honey Hunt may have more sparkles than substance, but sometimes that’s what you need.

And Honey Hunt isn’t all fluff. The love triangle that the characters are engaged in is a believable one that seems more natural than contrived. Yura and Q-ta may be going out, but they still have problems and fights. Whenever that happens, Haruka, Q-ta’s brother, is torn between comforting Yura and confessing his feelings for her. Usually he messes things up by doing a mix of both. Haruka is probably my favourite character in the manga and the manga-ka draws out his dilemma in a way that is both funny and sympathetic.

The other characters have their own shades of grey as well. Q-ta is a nice guy, but he often does things that hurt Yura without realizing how much pain he’s causing her, making her hurt even more. But he also has his moments of extreme kindness and consideration, making it hard to dislike him.

Yura is probably the weakest point in the love triangle. She’s a pretty passive character, letting most of the other characters decide things for her (even when she makes her own decisions, it’s usually a case of her agreeing to another character’s idea). Her passivity allows her manager, Mizorogi, to pull strings behind the scenes, manipulating not only Yura’s career but her private life as well. Mizorogi tells himself that he is doing it with Yura’s future in mind, but as this volume shows his intentions may not be as kind-hearted as he thinks they are.

Miki Aihara’s character designs are really eye-catching. Her characters are simply cool, from their haircuts to their clothes to the phones they use. I’ve always liked her character designs in that they manage to look very shojo while still modern. However, there are plenty of times when a good-looking character is ruined by an awful perspective. It’s kind of boggling how a professional manga-ka as big as Miki Aihara can’t draw a face proportionally if it’s tilted slightly in any direction. The slants of the eyes go all wonky and the mouth never seems to be in the right place. There’s also other anatomy issues, such as hands almost as big as a character’s face (there’s an example of this right on the cover).

Something Aihara has a better eye for is page layouts. The panels are always laid out clearly and help move the story along. There’s a seen early in the volume where Yura and Q-ta get intimate, and while it quickly fades to black it’s one of the better sex scenes I’ve seen in a shojo manga recently.

Honey Hunt is a fun manga marred by the occasional quirk in the art. Even though the monster hands and skewed faces jarred me, I still enjoyed reading this volume.

Review written December 19, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Book provided by Viz Media for review purposes

Manga-ka: Kiyohiko Azuma
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: December 2009

Synopsis: “This four-panel comedy chronicles the everyday lives of six very quirky high school girls. Meet the child prodigy Chiyo, the animal-loving Sakaki, the spacey out-of-towner Osaka, the straight-laced Yomi and her best friend Tomo, and the sports-loving Kagura throughout their high school lives.”

Azumanga Daioh’s anime is a rare case where the original pales in comparison to the adaptation. While the manga is cute and funny, it’s hard to recommend it knowing that the funnier anime version exists. However, the manga is still charming in its own right. Having the whole series collected in one big volume is dangerous, as the stripes get more and more addicting as the book goes on.

The story follows a group of high school girls from the start of their high school career to graduation. For the most part they are normal teenagers with the major exception of Chiyo-chan, a ten-year-old genius who skipped middle school because of her above-average intelligence. Aside from being really smart, Chiyo-chan is also really, really cute. In fact, cuteness is a major theme in the manga, from the girls running a stuffed animal cafe to one character’s obsession with cats and other cute things. Luckily the manga doesn’t try to coast by on cuteness alone (though Chiyo is so cute that it could).

The humour in Azumanga Daioh is really all over the place, from slapstick gags, observational humour, bizarre musings, weird dream sequences, and just funny scenes from the girls’ lives. The one thing they all have in common is that everything has a very light, innocent tone to it. How much you enjoy the manga will depend on whether you like the characters and want to spend time watching them goof off. While they characters aren’t that deep they reminded me eerily of people I know in real life, making the jokes that much funnier.

Yen Press is the second company to release Azumanga Daioh in English, the first company being ADV Manga. There are some definite improvements with this new release. I like how they translated Osaka’s accent. Osaka is a character who transfers to the school from Osaka (hence the nickname) and has a very distinct accent. The Yen Press adaption gives her an accent that fits Osaka’s character while not being in your face. It certainly works better than ADV’s attempt to give her a New York accent.

However, there were some things that Yen Press did that took me out of the manga, such as giving Chiyo a different font from the other characters. I know it was probably meant to show that Chiyo-chan talks differently from everyone else, but the font looks too formal and fancy to be ‘cute.’ Plus, when four different characters are talking and only one of them has a different font, it tends to stick out like a sore thumb.

Yen Press’ translation of the dialogue seems more faithful to the original Japanese than the ADV edition was, but I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. There were a few times where the ADV changed a joke in order for North American audiences to get it, i.e. removing an obscure Japanese reference and replacing it with a more well-known English one. Personally I preferred the slight changes the ADV made, as even when they changed the reference the spirit of the joke stayed the same and the humour remained intact. Also, there are some parts where the dialogue in the Yen Press edition just seems a little stiff. For example, there’s a strip where Yuakari, the girls’ homeroom teacher, is musing over the fact that her three stupidest students have all been accepted to university. In the ADV edition, her reaction is to laugh, and then say ‘Weird.’ In the Yen Press edition she laughs and then says ‘Is so odd.’ It just throws off the timing of the joke, ruining the pacing with its odd phrasing.

Still, even with these nitpicks the Yen Press release is still a beautiful book, with lots of color pages, notes, and even an index to help you find your favourite strips. The format makes it hard to put the book down. Each four panel strip is like a potato chip: you keep telling yourself that this will be the last one, but you can’t help but have another. The manga is cute and sweet and while not every joke hits its mark, most do. However, the anime version takes the basic ideas presented in the manga and fleshes them out, giving the characters a manic energy that they lack in the comic. I usually always prefer manga to anime, so it’s rare for me to recommend the anime over the original. But, if you were going to check out just one version of Azumanga Daioh, I’d go with the animated version. But there’s no rule that says you can’t do both, and the omnibus is a great way to read the manga in one sitting (though make sure you have food and water handy).

Review written December 10, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Book provided by Yen Press for review purposes

Manga-ka: Mitsuru Adachi
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: October 2010

Synopsis: “Cross Game is a moving drama that is heartfelt and true, yet in the brilliant hands of manga artist Mitsuru Adachi, delightfully flows with a light and amusing touch. The series centers around a boy named Ko, the family of four sisters who live down the street and the game of baseball. This poignant coming-of-age story will change your perception of what shonen manga can be.”

I have always been a huge fan of Mitsuru Adachi. When I was just a budding manga fan I happened to pick up a copy of Short Program, a collection of short stories by him published by Viz. That book not only got me into manga, but comics at large as well. While I got more into his stuff as I got older, I never really thought his work would ever catch on in North America. Adachi specializes in a mix of sports manga and slice-of-live stories, neither of which are exactly heavy hitters in the English comics world. So I was both surprised and ecstatic when I saw that Viz had picked up Cross Game, a baseball series from Adachi.

I was also really happy while reading the book, as it brought back all the reasons I love Adachi’s work in the first place. He’s able to move the story along at a leisurely pace that feels realistic rather than languid. His characters are complicated but still likeable and believable. I’d even say that some things, like his layouts, have gotten even better than when I first read his stuff years ago.

The story starts with the main characters in elementary school. Ko is a young boy whose father owns a sporting goods store. His family is close friends with the Tsukishimas, a family that runs the local batting cage. Even though Ko isn’t all that interested in sports, he still likes going to the batting cage to practice his swing.

The Tsukishima family has four daughters: high schooler Ichiyo, youngest daughter Momiji, Wakaba who is in the same class as Ko, and Aoba, who is a year younger. While Wakaba is clearly crazy about Ko, Aoba is crazy about baseball. She’s not the only one. It seems that everyone from Ko’s friend Nakanishi to the school thug, Akaishi, want to play. They want Ko to play too, as aside from being great at bat he has an amazingly fast pitch.

Over the course of the volume the characters age, going from elementary school to middle school and finally to high school. As they get older the stakes get higher. It’s one thing to play a game of sandlot baseball when you’re a little kid, but things aren’t so simple when they join the high school baseball team. The upper year students lord over the first years, and their couch is a corrupt, ruthless jerk. Ko, Nakanishi and Akaishi decide to team up and change the team for the better, even if it means going up against their own couch and teammates.

The relationships between the characters also get more complex as they go from kids to teenagers. Adachi doesn’t go for crazy, sordid love triangles, but takes a more realistic approach. He’s able to forge these deep connections between the characters through just a few words and interactions. It always feels natural, never forced.

So the slice of life aspect part of the manga works, but what about the sports part? I have to confess that I hate baseball. I don’t play it, watch it, or follow it, but Adachi’s love for the sport makes me forget all that. The baseball segments are staged so well and actually pretty gripping. Like how a good action manga reveals character through how a character fights, Adachi shows us who his characters are by how they play. For example, Aoba loves to pitch and can strike out just about anyone. However, she works best when she has a catcher she can trust and rely on, like Nakanishi. By having these two paired up like this, it fills in a lot of the blanks in their relationship without having to spell things out.

It feels weird to say that Adachi’s art is simple, because there’s still a lot going on: detailed backgrounds, action scenes, lots of panels. But his art is still very clear and clean. His character designs are pretty basic but they’re still very expressive and serve the story well.

I love that Viz put this volume out as an omnibus edition, with all three volumes in one package. What I don’t love is the price discrepancy between the American and Canadian store price. The dollar and the loonie are just about par nowadays, with the loonie regularly beating out the dollar. There’s no reason why a book should cost $19.99 US and $27 Canadian. Thankfully my local comic bookstore sells manga at the US price (go Strange Adventures!) but it still bugs me.

All right, currency rant over. Having a big block of manga is still nice (and honestly, still a deal even at $27), especially when it’s as addicting as Cross Game. Of course, I may not be the best person to review this, as I have literally been waiting years for more Mitsuru Adachi works to be brought to North America. Others may find the art too cartoony or the story too slow, but if you want an engaging drama with some sports managa mixed in, you should give Cross Game a try.

Review written November 15, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Book bought from Strange Adventures

Author: Yumi Hotta
Manga-ka: Takeshi Obata
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: All Ages
Release Date: October 2010

Synopsis: “The Hokuto Cup, a new tournament for young players from Japan, China and Korea, is looming, and Hikaru’s rival Akira has already secured one of the coveted three places on Japan’s team. While Hikaru battles his way to one of the two remaining spots, Akira’s father baffles the go world with his unexpected retirement!”

As Hikaru No Go draws near to the end it remains as entertaining as ever, though the dynamics and relationships have changed radically from how they were in the beginning. Hikaru and Akira are no longer rivals but team mates gearing up for a cross-Asia Go tournament. While it’s cute to see them spend time together as friends (and bicker like an old married couple) it feels a little weird considering their rivalry that was the main thrust of the series for so long.

This twenty-first volume begins with the end of the qualifying rounds which decide who will be on team Japan. Aside from long standing characters like Waya and Ochi taking part, there’s a new kid from Kansai who threatens to outplay them all.

The qualifying rounds take up only a small part of this volume, but they manage to pack in a lot of character moments. Ochi is a character I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with. On one hand, he is an obnoxious, arrogant little punk. On the other hand, he has the skill and courage to back his words up. In this volume Ochi makes a choice that I didn’t see coming but totally fits with his character. It was a move that made me hate him a little less and even had me rooting for the little jerk.

Waya gets a lot less time in the spotlight, but Obata and Hotta make the most of it. In just two panels we learn so much about Waya as it dawns on him that not only are his friends more skilled at Go than him, he also lacks their fearless ambition. Hikaru No Go is good for setting up things for later story arcs, so even though Waya doesn’t get much page time here I have my fingers crossed that Waya’s revelation will pay-off in later volumes.

In the rest of the book the members of team Japan hunker down and do some serious training, which means all-night Go playing at Akira’s house. While the main characters are squirreled away, the minor characters are running wild. The manga manages to juggle a dozen characters all across Asia, with subplots not only in Japan but in Korea and China. To try and list all of the plots touched on in this volume would take half the review, but the manga manages to do it all gracefully.

The art is great, as always. I personally think that Takeshi Obata is one of the best manga-ka working today. His characters are distinct and attractive without being too pretty (well, except maybe Ko Yang Ha, who I suspect was purposely designed to fill the ‘too-pretty-to-be-a-guy’ slot left open left by Sai). It has been pointed out by others how well Obata is able to age the characters. Hikaru and Akira no longer look like the kids they were at the start of the series, but young men. However, what struck me in this volume was how Obata is also able to age the adults. This volume made me realize how much older Akira’s father has gotten over the course of the series, and he was no spring chicken when the manga began.

Hikaru no Go is a great series that really lives up to the label ‘all ages.’ It’s not just a manga that kids can read and enjoy, but anybody. It’s a manga that encourages readers to follow their dream while still stressing that getting to where you want to be takes a lot of hard work. While a manga about a board game may not sound like the most exciting thing, the art, story and characters make it riveting. Also, with twenty-one volumes released so far in English it’s yet to have a drop in quality. While I’m sad that there are only a few more volumes left in the series, few manga can claim to have such a consistent run.

Review written November 12, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Book bought from Strange Adventures

Manga-ka: Toru Yamazaki
Publisher: Dark Horse
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: April 2006

Synopsis: “Teenage monsters lose their hearts and heads in a relentlessly gory collection of dark humor and horror! Carving a comical niche in modern horror manga, Toru Yamazaki’s Octopus Girl serves up the most disgusting dishes of heartbreak and revenge found on land or at sea. Have a side order of nervous laughter with your main course of bloodcurdling fear, some gore with your teen angst, and some killer instincts with your kawaii!”

Octopus Girl is a horror-comedy with a sense of humour as black as a smoker’s lung. It is gross, disgusting, and morbid – the manga equivalent of a thousand dead baby jokes. But it is also alternately hilarious and horrifying, playing the different elements against each other in a way that enhances it all.

Trying to describe the plot seems like a sure fire path to insanity, but here it goes: Takako is a good girl who gets relentlessly bullied at school. One day her attackers go too far, shoving an octopus into her mouth even after she protests that she’s allergic. Luckily she doesn’t seem to have too adverse of an reaction, until later that night when she awakes to find that she’s become a half-girl, half-octopus creature (if I seem to be implying that there’s some correlation between Takako’s allergy to octopus and her partial transformation into one, it is purely unintentional. There are next to no ‘correlations’ in this manga. Random and weird stuff just happens).

Takako gets over it pretty quickly and blames her tormentors for her new state. She goes after them and one by one and dishes out some mollusc style justice. In the rest of the book she falls in love, meets a half-human/half-eel girl, a vampire, and generally just ends up in one weird and fantastic situation and another.

It’s very clear from the first few pages that this is going to be a nasty manga, in every sense of the word. Within the first seven pages the heroine throws-up four times (and that’s on top of other bodily secretions). While early on the manga relies mostly on gross-out moments for humour and horror, eventually a kind of sly wit emerges that makes fun of both shojo and horror manga tropes. One of my favourite gags is from a later chapter that makes fun of shojo romances, where Takako, commenting on how cute she is, also comments on the pattern of flowers behind her: “It’s like my face is making all the flowers bloom in the background!”. Of course, there is still relentless gore and grossness throughout, but once it became paired with a satirical edge I found I could stomach it better.

The satirical nature extends to the art as well. The manga-ka cites Kazuo Umezu as an influence, and it’s easy to see Umezuo’s style in everything from the character designs to the layouts and settings. Octopus Girl looks much older than it actually is. While the art seems like something out of the 1970s, it premiered in Japan in the mid-1990s. However, the sense of humour seems more with the times. The other manga-ka that Toru Yamazaki cites as an inspiration is Hideshi Hino, a horror manga known for his bizarre and disgusting horror manga. While art wise Yamazaki may be more influenced by Umezuo, it’s clear that in terms of content it’s Hino’s lead he follows.

Dark Horse did a really nice job with this book. Aside from nice production values, the script is really funny. Usually I don’t like using swearing as a way to sell a joke. Not that I have anything against swearing, I just think that using it as a punch line comes off as weak. However, the liberal use of swear words is actually really funny. For example, when sweet and innocent Takako wakes up to find that she is half-octopus, her first instinct is to swear a blue streak a mile long. Also, the dialogue is really clever and plays on a lot of common terms and phrases seen in shojo manga.

It’s hard to know who to recommend this book to, as I feel like I could end up horribly insulting someone if I ever suggested that they were the type of person who would enjoy a manga as depraved as Octopus Girl. However, I’m sure there are people out there who would enjoy it, and deep down they know who they are. Myself, I could only read a little bit of the manga at a time, and when I laughed I felt really bad about it afterwards. But I also think that was probably the manga-ka’s intention.

Review written October 15, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Book bought from Strange Adventures

Manga-ka: Minoru Murao
Publisher: Digital Manga
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: August 2010

Synopsis: “In this second instalment of the exciting medieval tale, Mist’s lady-friend Nina goes missing, while dark memories from his tortured past are brought to the surface. Unexpected help comes from a former adversary, and the self-confessed “true” witch Euphemia is always by Mist’s side, but will they be help enough for Mist to overcome a new assault from the Saints and win the battle within himself?”

Knights isn’t going to change the way you look at manga. It will never be a huge juggernaut like One Piece or Naruto. But what it is, is a solid, fun shounen manga with likable characters and an interesting plot. While for the most part it’s your standard action adventure, the way it deals with things like sex and race sets it apart from other hack-and-slash fantasy stories.

Volume one of Knights did a great job of establishing the characters and putting them in position for some interesting interactions. In one group there’s the main character, Mist, and his witch sidekick, Euphemia, as they continue their quest to help woman who have been accused of witchcraft. Meanwhile, a secondary group of characters have banded together in order to travel to the capital. They include Nina, a young noble girl who Mist rescued in the first volume, a knight who Mist defeated around the same time, and a warrior nun who is a powerful member of the church. What the tiny group doesn’t realize is that they are all travelling to the city for the same reason: each of them wants to find Mist. But while all three of them are looking for the same guy, they each have very different reasons for wanting to find him. Nina is after Mist because she’s in love with him and just wants to see him again. The knight, Leonardo Scott, seeks to restore his honour. The nun meanwhile, is one of the fourteen Saints, the muscle behind the church. She wants to find Mist in order to not only wipe him out, but the entire order of knights Mist belongs to.

It’s nice to see the manga living up to the title of ‘Knights.’ In volume one the focus was mainly on Mist, making it seem like the manga should have been called ‘Knight.’ But in volume two the cast expands to include more fighters, making the title start to fit the manga better. It’s especially nice to meet more of the order that Mist is a part of. In volume one there were only brief allusions to the fact that Mist wasn’t alone in his crusade. In this volume we get to see that Mist isn’t just one guy waging an impossible war, he’s actually part of a large, secret organisation fighting to bring down the church.

Volume two does a great job of developing the supporting characters, and it does it in the best way possible by having them interact with each other. When two characters meet and change because of the meeting, it’s like developing two characters for the price of one. One character who comes very close to stealing the manga is Leonardo Scott. Though nicknamed ‘The knight of the carpet’ because he prefers to stand around flirting with the ladies rather than fighting, Leo is still a formidable swordsman. Meeting Mist makes Leo rethink his place as a knight who serves the church. Does he really want to be a part of an organisation that kills innocent women?

Leo quickly becomes the manga’s comic relief, but luckily he doesn’t lose the other qualities that made him interesting in the first place: he’s still a smart guy and good fighter. It’s nice to see a manga where a character can be humorous but still kick ass when the time calls for it. Also, he travels with a cute black kitty-cat, which when added to his already considerable bishounen factor just makes him almost too adorable.

Euphemia and Nina also go through some interesting development. The entire volume Nina is chasing after Mist, and just when she is close to reuniting with him, she stumbles instead upon Euphemia having an orgy with a bunch of enemy soldiers. Euphemia is quite literally the ‘make love not war’ kind of fighter and instead of fighting her opponents physically (though she is capable of doing so) she prefers to use her magic to make all the men in the vicinity want to have sex with her. In volume one Euphemia’s nymphomaniac side was treated more like a joke than anything. It’s only in this volume that things take one a darker tone. Nina, being a sheltered, pure-hearted young girl, is shocked and disgusted when she sees Euphemia going at it with a large group of men. Nina’s reaction casts Euphemia in a different light than before and brings up questions about the morality of Euphemia’s actions. Euphemia’s reaction to Nina’s disgust is interesting and hints at a different side to the witch than before. It also leads to Euphemia doing something which, while not a huge cliff-hanger, could lead to big trouble down the road for the characters.

The sexual element to the story feels out of place though. You just don’t expect a magical gangbang to be a big plot point in a sword and sorcery manga. While nothing is shown explicitly, it still comes across very clearly (in the sex scene everyone is merely silhouetted, but it’s still clear exactly who is doing what). It’s not like the manga hasn’t gone to some dark places before. In volume one there were plenty of allusions to torture and sex (where once again most of it is implied rather than directly shown), but it’s taken further here.

While the other characters seemed to get their time to shine, the main character doesn’t quite get as much attention. He does get some moments, like when he enters a tournament near the end, and we do get some hints at his back story, but it looks like the manga-ka is mostly setting up for some reveals in volume three.

The art is nice, one of those styles that straddles the line between shounen and shoujo. There’s a marked improvement with the layouts since volume one. The layouts in the first volume were fine, but it’s only in this volume that the manga-ka really goes for bigger panels, making the action flow better.

Knights is a fun adventure manga. The plot is just twisty enough to stay interesting while simple enough to keep the action going. The characters are not exactly deep, but they are entertaining and make interesting decisions, driving the manga onward much more than the plot itself actually does. If you’re looking for a good sword-and-sorcery story, you could do a lot worse.

Review written September 24, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Digital copy provided by Digital Manga for review purposes

Manga-ka: Kuku Hayate
Publisher: June
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: September 2010

Synopsis: “The Shrine Inari is protected by two divine-being foxes – Unka and Aura. Unka, a red fox, is the serious one and born into a lower social class. Aura, pure-bred white fox, is the reckless and irresponsible one. Can opposites attract?”

Your Love Sickness is a yaoi anthology where every single one of the stories is good. There are some stories were I would have happily read a whole volume or series based on the characters. As it is, the short stories are crafted so well that even when I wanted more, I was still satisfied with what I got.

The first story, the one summarized on the back, is the longest one in the book. Unka and A’ura are guardians of a shrine, which means they spend part of their time in the form of fox statues guarding the entrance. However, they spend a lot more time in their half-human, half-fox form, getting frisky.

This drives Unka crazy. He’s a red fox, meaning that in the spirit fox hierarchy he is part of the lowest class of foxes. Despite his low-birth (or maybe because of it) he takes his work as a shrine guardian very seriously. A’ura on the other hand, is a white fox who was born into a high family. The only thing he likes about being a guardian is it means he gets to spend time with Unka.

The conflict in the stories featuring Unka and A’ura are pretty basic. In almost all of the stories, Unka feels inferior because of his low-birth, even though A’ura repeatedly tells him that it doesn’t matter to him. In the last story featuring them, A’ura expands too much energy while sending a lost spirit into the next world. Unka knows how to save him, but to do so will go against divine law.

That last part sounds pretty dramatic but it’s wrapped up pretty quickly and without too much fuss. While there’s not too much to the stories plot wise, they’re still fun to read. There are lots of flashbacks to Unka and A’ura’s childhood, and those sections are some of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. The boys may be hot when they’re all grown-up, but when they’re kids they are adorable.

The next story, ‘Disappearing into the Dew,’ is focused on a romance between a human and a demon. A demon falls in love when a young man who wanders into his neck of the woods. After one night of love-making, the demon returns the human to his hometown. But the young man quickly realizes he doesn’t want their relationship to be just a one-night stand and seeks out the demon again.

I said there are no bad stories in this book, and while that’s true some of them are more memorable than others. ‘Disappearing into the Dew’ is one of the less memorable stories. While the other stories in this manga have good stories and beautiful art, this one has a pretty forgettable story and beautiful art. Luckily for it the art is so good that it alone makes the story worth it.

The next story is about a young model named Rick. At a photo shoot Rick stumbles and ends-up breaking his foot. While he’s healing up, his manager arranges it so that the owner of Rick’s favourite restaurant brings him food every day. Oshii, the restaurant owner, is a good-looking quiet guy, who not only brings Rick food but puts it together at his apartment and sticks around to eat with him. Rick has long had a crush on Oshii (it’s part of the reason he started going to that restaurant in the first place) but will he take this chance to tell Oshii how he feels?

This story, ‘Cheeping!,’ was probably one of the more down-to-earth stories in this collection. The way the relationship progressed was gradual and believable. I was impressed with how the manga-ka drew the sex scenes. She uses a lot more panels than usually seen in yaoi sex scenes, but it works really well.

The last story, ‘Cross My Heart’ is a two-part story about two men who were childhood friends and meet again as adults. However, things are a lot more complicated than when they were kids: Kaoru grew up to be a cop while Mickey became a high-ranking yakuza. The fact that they are on opposite sides of the law doesn’t stop Mickey from trying to rekindle their friendship, and while Kaoru knows he should stay away he can’t help but fall for Mickey.

Out of all the stories in the book, this is the one that I’d like to see more of. There’s real potential for future storylines concerning these two as they try to navigate their professional and personal lives. As it stands, the two chapters we get of them are a lot of fun. Mickey is like a big, friendly dog, jumping over Kaoru at any opportunity. His character design is a nice contrast to his personality: it’s funny to see such a big guy with a huge scar acting so friendly. Kaoru’s look is a bit plainer (he looks very much like a pretty uke) but he’s still attractive.

In fact, all of the guys in the manga are hot. Hayate’s men are all cute while still being masculine. The designs are fresh and original, every detail attractive from the hair to their outfits. It’s obvious a lot of thought and originality went into each character. At the end of each chapter there’s a little segment where she draws the characters in chibi form and talks about how she came to conceive the characters and story. It’s a nice little extra that actually gives some insight into the manga-ka’s mind (plus, her chibis are freaking adorable). The manga-ka also does a nice job drawing the backgrounds, though it’s hard to really pay too much attention to the setting when her characters are such eye-candy.

When I finished reading this book, I went straight to Amazon to see what other manga was available from Kuku Hayate. I was disappointed to see that this is her only work for sale in English. If there had been something else of hers out, I would have bought it in a second. It’s very rare for a manga to impress me so much to make me an instant fan, but Your Love Sickness is just that good.

Review written September 19, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Digital copy provided by eManga for review purposes

Manga-ka: Tooko Miyagi
Publisher: Digital Manga
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: September 2010

Synopsis: “In a small quiet village – There is a folk story of a beautiful female demon; nobody knows who she is but the locals calls her “Oni.” The story has it that she killed people and collected parts of their body to make a perfect human figure. A young man named Sho, is spending his summer with his grandmother and meets Oni while he’s taking a walk in the woods. Blinded by his beauty, he is lured into Oni’s house… nobody can hear him crying for help…”

Tale of a White Night is a collection of short stories: four horror tales and one fantasy story. It’s a strange collection in that the fantasy story sticks out like a sore thumb. Not only is it a different genre from the rest of the book, its tone is totally different and the style so dissimilar from the other chapters that I wondered if the same manga-ka actually drew it. It’s not a bad story, but it’s just strange to cap off a series of horror shorts with a high fantasy piece.

The first story in the collection is the one detailed in the back page summary, though there are a few more twists to the tale than the summary suggests. Sho has dropped out of high school because he finds it all boring. For lack of anything better to do he goes to live with his grandmother in the mountains. There he spends his days riding his bike through the forest. One day he meets an ethereally beautiful girl (the manga’s cover-girl) and goes with her to her home. She seems equally taken with him, especially with his legs. Could she be the oni that his grandmother warned him about, the one who steal body parts from beautiful young boys and girls?

Like I said, there are a lot of twists, though some of them only work in a kind of twisted dream logic (or maybe nightmare logic would be the more appropriate term). The next story is another example of a plot that hinges on strange twists. The story is centred on Kazumi, a high school student. Recently a childhood friend of his died, making people mutter that the boy was cursed. Ten years ago Kajiwara (the dead boy) and two friends of his used to play at an old storehouse. Eventually it was revealed that the kids were playing some pretty bloody ‘games,’ killing cats and other animals. Now, ten years later, two of the three boys are dead and the third one is crazy. Kazumi is curious about what really went on at the storehouse, and becomes determined to find out what evil force is behind it all.

This story was very spooky and atmospheric, and I liked how through each reveal things just got worse and worse. But the final reveal of who was behind it all (while a spooky image and surprising at first) is a big letdown. The story has to do back flips just to explain it, and the blasé way the characters accept it makes it seems like the manga-ka is trying to convince the readers (“See? The characters buy it. Why don’t you?”)

The next story is actually pretty funny in a morbid way. A young girl finds herself in the mountains with no clue of how she got there. She runs into some fox spirits, who try to explain to her that she’s dead. Unfortunately, not only is the girl too clueless to get it, but the fox spirits aren’t too bright themselves, getting distracted by food or anything too complex. The interaction between the girl and the fox spirits is amusing largely because of the girl’s spacey personality. But just because the story has some darkly funny undercurrents, it doesn’t stop things from ending on a terrifying note. In fact, though ‘The Fall’ has more light-hearted moments than the other horror tales that doesn’t stop it from having the scariest ending.

The next story revolves around a good-old fashioned curse. Ever since Tohru was a child, he could see a white hand in the woods by his parent’s house, beckoning him over. The only other person who could see it was Fukiko, his older cousin. She warned Tohru not to ever follow the hand, but apparently she did not take her own advice as she soon went missing. Ten years after her disappearance, Tohru returns to his parent’s house. The white hand is still there urging him into the woods, and this time Tohru has no choice but to follow.

I really liked this story because while it has its own weird ghost-story logic, it holds up. It reminded me a lot of ‘The Ring’, in that there is a curse that just continues on and on like a chain, drawing in anyone who gets too close.

And then we have the fantasy story, ‘The East of the Sun, The West of the Moon.’ Jildora is a remulus, a race of people who were driven out of their homes by the Tiberians after losing a war. Jildora lost everything in the war and has only revenge left. She wants to track down the Remulan who betrayed her people to Tiberia. To help her she goes to Bishop Raul Helvim, a powerful young man who might know where to find the man she’s looking for. Jildora is touched by how kind Raul is, and falls for him. But is she willing to put aside revenge for love?

It’s not a bad fantasy story by any stretch, it’s just so out of left field. It’s really weird to read a string of spooky stories and then suddenly a fantasy. It’s a tonal shift that is really hard to get over (it would be the same if the fantasy story came first and the horror stories afterwards). Plus, it’s long. While the horror stories are all about twenty to twenty-five pages, the fantasy story is 71 pages, making it by far the longest story in the book. It just seems odd that this series, which is being marketed as a horror manga, has such a large chunk of it dedicated to fantasy.

The art used for the two genres reflects the divide between them. The horror stories are drawn in a very shiny, shojo style, like a more moody version of Ai Yazawa’s art. The art in the fantasy story is a bit plainer, looking very much like a sword and sorcery anime from the 90s. The layouts in the horrors stories are interesting and often more abstract than liner, giving the proceedings a surreal atmosphere. The layouts in the fantasy segment are much more straightforward, empathising the action.

Despite it only being about 2/3 a horror manga, I would recommend this to anyone who likes spooky stories. Some of them rely on solutions that are a little out there, but even when the plot falls through the art and atmosphere is satisfying. I wouldn’t recommend it to fantasy fans though, as while the fantasy story is good, it’s not great (and it’s definitely not as good as the horror shorts). Though I guess I should admit that I am much more of a horror fan than a fantasy fan, and if you prefer the latter to the former you might have a very different opinion of the book than me.

Review written September 17, 2010 by Shannon Fay
Digital copy provided by eManga for review purposes