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Review Archive

To see a list of reviews in alphabetical order, please see our review index.

Review: Love Is Like A Hurricane (Vol. 02)

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, November 20, 2007

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Manga-ka: Tokiya Shimazaki
Publisher: 801Media
Rating: Mature (18+)
Released: August 2007

Synopsis: “Gifted with intelligence and looks, student council president Azuma confessed his love to Mizuki, and with a little push, they “successfully” started dating. The entire school has even officially recognized their relationship. So you would expect things to be progressing smoothly… This is the second installment of the super popular series about Mizuki, with his gradually changing feelings, and Azuma, who is confident he can make Mizuki drunk on life and his love.”

Love is Like A Hurricane’s second volume continues right where the first left us. Mizuki continues with his exhaustive efforts to stop Azuma from overwhelming him but is constantly foiled, swept away in a torrent of love, sudden advances and envy-driven affections. Minor characters continue to add more to the plot and offer short breaks between Azuma and Mizuki’s emotional game of cat and mouse. A side story near the end continues the escapades of the brothers from the first volume as well.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: 801Media, Boys' Love/Yaoi

Review: Love Is Like A Hurricane (Vol. 01)

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, November 20, 2007

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Manga-ka: Tokiya Shimazaki
Publisher: 801Media
Rating: Mature (18+)
Released: May 2007

Synopsis: “Getting your breasts or butt grabbed on a train in Japan is a common experience for some women. So when Mizuki finds himself getting molested first thing in the morning on the way to school, he can’t believe it. Worse, the perpetrator isn’t a nasty old man but the school student council president, Azuma! … Can Azuma convince Mizuki that they are a match made in heaven?”

Love is Like A Hurricane’s title story begins with young high school student Mizuki on his morning commute to school when he suddenly finds himself the victim of a molesting pervert. It turns out that the pervert was none other than his school’s student council president, Azuma. Azuma has taken a strong liking to the spirited Mizuki and now it’s battle of wills, one which Mizuki seems unable to avoid and even less able to win.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: 801Media, Boys' Love/Yaoi

Review: Alive! (Vol. 01)

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, November 13, 2007

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Reviewer: Lissa Pattillo

Author: Kawashima Tadashi
Manga-ka: Adachi Toka
Publisher: DelRey
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Released: October 2007

Synopsis: “A strange virus is making its way around the globe, causing its victims to commit suicide. It less than a week, it’s a lethal pandemic. Now a group of Tokyo teens who have survived the outbreak are wondering why they are still alive.”

Life continues as usual for high school student Kano Taisuke until one day a mysterious rumbling in the sky acts as prelude to a worldwide pandemic of suicides. Thousands are dying around the world and some of those who survive are acting oddly, some exhibiting strange abilities and a lust for death. After witnessing first hand the peaceful face of another victim, Taisuke, finds himself in the middle of global chaos.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Del Rey

Review: Hate to Love You

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, November 4, 2007

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Manga-ka: Makoto Tateno
Publisher: Deux
Rating: Mature (18+)
Released: November 2007

Synopsis: “The Konoe and Kazuki families have been fighting like cats and dogs for generations. Masaya Konoe and Yuma Kazuki attend the same elite high school and are known to all as arch rivals, but do they really hate eachother? Masaya still cherishes a childhood memory of a time when Yuma shared a ‘treasure’ with him. Now they share a secret attraction. Can they control their passion? Burning desire has a way of erupting into flames!”

Hate To Love You is the premiere yaoi manga of Makoto Tateno, best known for her popular boys’ love series, Yellow. The story is a self-proclaimed Romeo and Juliet type story staring Masaya and Kazuki, future heirs to their family’s respective companies and next in a long line of rivalries between the two groups. The two shared a secret childhood friendship that’s grown to be something very different, but is it love or hate?

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, Deux Press, Makoto Tateno

Review: Truly Kindly

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, November 3, 2007

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Manga-ka: Fumi Yoshinaga
Publisher: BLU Manga
Rating: Mature (18+)
Released: August 2007

Synopsis: “From modern-day tales of romance in Seattle, to eerie stories from historical Japanese fantasy, to Yoshinaga’s further depiction of the class conflict before the French Revolution. The characters Claude and Antoine, a young aristocrat and his butler, are initially introduced in this volume; we see their further adventures in Lovers in the Night.”

Truly Kindly is a compilation of short stories by Fumi Yoshinaga, a follow up to her previous compilation, Lovers in the Night, and includes a return of its title characters. Ranging from surprise endings to the short and sweet, it’s a diverse collection of character driven stories for which its manga-ka is known.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: BLU, Boys' Love/Yaoi, Fumi Yoshinaga

Review: Takumi-kun (Vol. 01): June Pride

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, November 3, 2007

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Authour: Shinobu Gotoh
Manga-ka: Kazumi Ohya
Publisher: Tokyopop
Rating: Mature (18+)
Released: September 2007

Synopsis: “Takumi, a boy from humble origins, prepares to begin his second year at the school. Held back by psychological issues, Takumi’s indifferent attitude has garnered him no friends and the reputation as a cold fish. Then along comes Gui, a wealthy and charismatic student born in America. Gui is the only person who doesn’t see Takumi as odd, and the two become friends. But how will the two cope when Gui confesses his love to Takumi?”

The Takumi-kun series was originally a series of boys’ love novels by Shinobu Gotoh, adapted years later into a six-part manga series by Kazumi Ohya. With each manga volume of this series individually titled, June Pride, is the given title of volume one and here readers are first introduced to Takumi Hayama, the focus of the story. Taking place in an all boys’ school, readers follow Takumi and his peers through their years at the secluded and prestigious Shidou Academy.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: BLU, Boys' Love/Yaoi

Review: Aoi House In Love! (Vol. 01)

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, September 22, 2007

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Author: Adamn Arnold
Artist: Shiei
Publisher: SevenSeas
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Released: August 2007

Synopsis: “Alex, Sandy and panty-stealing pet hamster Echiboo have survived an entire semester of unspeakable tortures at the hands of five crazed yaoi fangirls. Now the whole gan is off to the anime convention Hatsu-Con where sparks fly as the Aoi House gang comes face-to-face with their bitter rivals: “They-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!”

Aoi House in Love! continues to follow the story of Alex, Sandy and their pet hamster who have made themselves residents at a live-in club at their college. However what they believed to an anime club turned out to actually be the infamous Yaoi House, its true nature hidden by the lacking letter y on their sign. Run by yaoi-crazed fan-girls, the three have been at their mercy ever since. With a well-written synopsis at the front of the book, people who have not read Aoi House will not be stopped from enjoying this book to its fullest. In this first volume of the two-part series, Alex, Sandy, ‘Echiboo’ and the five fan-members are off to an anime con.

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Categories: Reviews

Guest Review: Soul to Seoul

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, August 29, 2007

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Manga-ka: Kim Jea Eun
Publisher: Tokyopop
Rating: 13+
Released: January 2005 – March 2007
Volumes: 5

Synopsis: We follow the fast paced life of a young half-Korean, half-Caucasian boy named Kai on his journey through the streets of Harlem. With piercing blue eyes that put everyone around him under a spell, Kai finds himself learning how to kill before learning how to love.

When you open the book it feels like you can instantly tell what the story is about. There’s the classic love interest, in this case a Korean girl named Sunil, who happens to fall into this strange world by secretly following Kai down onto the dangerous streets of Harlem. Once discovered, Kai’s best and only friend, Spike, instantly falls in love with her. He asks Kai to hook them up, but instead of doing what he’s asked to Kai steals her away creating a rift in their friendship that lasts the entire series. So that’s what Soul to Seoul is about; just another stereotypical friend versus friend over a girl right? Not even close.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Manhwa, Tokyopop

Review: Bust A Move Bash!

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, August 18, 2007

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Company: Majesco
System: Nintendo Wii
Release Date: April 2007
Rating: E (Everyone)
Players: 1-8

Description: Launch colourful bubbles to make a match in more than 500 puzzles bursting with challenging fun! The ultimate 8 player bubble bursting bash!

Attempting to capitalize on the popularity of the Bust-A-Move franchise and integrate more of the Wii’s motion-sensitive capabilities into their sparse lineup, Majesco and Nintendo teamed up to give us this, Bust-A-Move Bash!

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Video Games

Review: Can’t Win With You! (Vol. 01)

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, August 11, 2007

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Author: Satosumi Takaguchi
Manga-ka: Yukine Honami
Publisher: DMP/June
Rating: Young Adults (16+)
Released: August 2007

Synopsis: “Yuuhi-kun planned to build a soccer field on the piece of mountain land that was his inheritance, but when his brother’s elite Shuuiku Academy needed a new campus, Yuuhi was forced to reconsider. Now he finds himself both the landlord, and a student at the school! Needless to say, the other students are none too happy about being shipped out to the boonies, so Yuuhi – AKA “chicken-head” – has become the object of their collective ire. But there’s something about the country bumpkin that has many students eyeing Yuuhi in a different way…a way that makes him very uncomfortable. Seems there’s a lot more than “book-learnin’” going on at this school, and Yuuhi’s about to get a whole ‘nuther kind of education!”

This schoolboy love story begins with Yuuhi, a young boy from the country who dreams of one day having a soccer field built where the mountain he’s inherited now stands. A problem with this arrives in the form of plans to have a school built there instead, but only with his permission. Two students, speaking for a party who don’t want to have their school dropped out in the middle of nowhere, approach Yuuhi in attempts to persuade him to refuse the deal. Unfortunately their choice to insult where he lives and their resulting vengeance for Yuuhi’s reaction, garners the opposite effect and the land is rented to the school.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, June