Review: HE IS MY MASTER

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.  I've reviewed many a bad manga in this last year or so, but today review joins the ranks of one of the worst I've read.

HE IS MY MASTER (Kore ga Watashi no Goshujin-sama), written by Mattsu and drawn by Asu Tsubaki.  First published in 2002, and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:
Izumi and Matsuki are two teenage sisters who have run away from home.  They are looking for a job to support themselves, and they just so happen to find a listing for live-in maids outside of a large mansion.  That mansion belongs to one Nakabayashi Yoshitaka, an orphaned 14 year old who has inherited a vast fortune and possesses nothing resembling restraint or dignity.  He hires the sisters on the spot not so much for their domestic skills as much as their ability to fill out the skimpy uniforms he provides for them.  Matsuki is perfectly content with this new situation, but Izumi is less so, since she so often has to violently fend off Yoshitaka's peeping and perversions.  Worse still, she also has to fend off Matsuki's pet alligator Pochi, who loves to chomp off Izumi's clothes.  Then Izumi has to fend off the advances of Anna, a classmate who starts with a misguided crush on Yoshitaka and ends up with an equally misguided one on her.  Worst of all, it seems everyone (including her family) wants Izumi to get together with Yoshitaka!

STORY:
I was not expecting great things from this title.  After all, it's a harem series based around a maid fetish, so the bar for "not completely terrible" was set mighty low to start.  Surely, it couldn't be THAT bad, could it?

Oh, how very, very wrong I was about this manga.  He Is My Master is that bad.  In fact it is nothing but pure, pandering, irritating PAIN.

Let's start with the cast.  I guess I should be glad that unlike so many male leads in harem series, Yoshitaka isn't a spineless nebbish - the kid does actually have a personality.  The problem is that said personality is awful.  He's a brat with no notion of restraint or control where girls are concerned.  He's not the sort to get neurotic over seeing a girl's boobs; indeed, he's quite the opposite.  He will go out of his way to sneak a peek at naked girls or their underwear.  He purposesly dresses the girls in uniforms that are only a step or two removed from novelty lingerie.  Even at school he forces the girls to serve him in secret and exploits this every chance he gets.  I was actually relieved to learn that in-story Yoshitaka's classmates regarded him as a pervert and a weirdo, because it meant that at last someone other than myself and Izumi thought of him as horrible. 

Poor Izumi doesn't fare much better, though, as a character onto herself.  She's stuck in the role of the straightman, always the butt of the joke, always reacting to the plot instead of moving it forward.  Thus, she's stuck on the violent, overreacting end of the Tsundere scale instead of getting to develop anything resembling a personality or character arc.  Mitsuki is just a mystery, and I don't mean that in a good way.  She never seems to question the girls' situation, and for god knows what reason she likes Yoshitaka.  She seems to have a fondness for overly complex games and contests, which mostly serve as the jumping points for plot lines or a way for the writers to pull a solution for one out of their butts.  Finally, there is Anna, who mostly fits the yamato nadeshiko trope save for her own perverted streak. 

The perversion doesn't stop when you look towards the supporting cast, be it the gang of schoolboys who serve as Matsuki's fanboys, the girls' father who has the wrong sort of fascination with his OWN FREAKING DAUGHTERS EW EW EW, or the girls' mother who is way too calm about everything.  At times, you wonder if the perviness will ever stop long enough to actually have the girls do actual maid work instead of getting them involved in wacky schemes or putting them in the bath. 

I also can't say I'm the hugest fan of the translation, which found to be shockingly lazy at points.  I'm usually not one to harp on leaving honorifics in the text, but the constant use of 'oneechan' bugged me.  Unlike a lot of honorifics, that phrase does have a perfectly good English equivalent, and no deep cultural context would be lost by using 'big sister' instead.  Weirder still, the girls' mother breaks out a 'fu fu fu' laugh, which may sound like laughter in Japanese but which is just bizarre when left untranslated.

He Is My Master is a story that never leaves the gutter. It just lingers there, giggling over boobs and panties no matter how many times it sees them or how crassly they are introduced.  Worse still, it thinks it's being funny simply by the merit of being wacky and out-there, and it's all so forced, false, and pandering that it left me actively irritated.  There is not one redeeming thing to be found in the story of He Is My Master.

ART:
One might hope that the artwork might be competent enough to redeem something from the piss-poor story, along the lines of something like Tenjo Tenghe. You'd be wrong, though - the artwork is just as bad as the story.

The character designs are heavily moefied, simplified to the point where they're barely above the quality of an elementary schoolchild's drawings.  Weirder still, everyone is blushing all the time, like everyone is suffering from a low-grade fever.  All that detail is saved instead for the costumes, which are rendered right down to each ruffle on the maid dresses or the finest stich on the panties.  The artist (who oddly enough is a woman, and the writer's now ex-wife in fact!) clearly knows what its audience is truly here for: fanservice, and plenty of it.  Not a single chapter passes without some opportunity to have the girls flash some taint, squish a boob, or have some article of clothing torn off, and it's done from the lowest, most zoomed-in creeper angle possible.

The forced franticness of the story is also reflected in the art, which crams the panels as full as possible with stuff.  These panels are then crammed onto the page atop one another wily-nily.  Since the art is so focused on the foreground and the jiggly bits within, the backgrounds are nonexistent.  Instead, the character seem to drift through blank white limbo. 

He Is My Master is a story where you can in fact judge it by its cover, at least where the art is concerned.  It's pandering, ugly, and lazy, which only magnifies the faults of the writing.

PRESENTATION:
There's a brief and deeply unfunny omake, along with a couple of profiles about Izumi and Matsuki.  There's also an honorifics guide and some translation notes.

RATING:
This manga was just a perfect storm of awfulness, one where it failed at every level.  He Is My Master is a series which has joined the short of list of Brainchild's Worst Manga Ever, and I cannot dissuade people from reading it enough.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  All 5 volumes have been published, and all are currently in print.

Review: MAID-SAMA!

Oh, if only every series this month were as good as Emma.  Sadly, while today's series is more popular than that, it's nowhere near as good.

MAID-SAMA! (Kaicho wa Maid-sama!), by Hiro Fujiwara.  First published in 2005, and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:
Misaki is the hard-assed, quick-tempered student council president of Seika High, a boys' school which recently went coed.  She is determined to correct the slovenly, chauvinistic behavior of her fellow classmates and turn the school into somewhere safe for students of both sexes.  Misaki also has a secret: to support her single-parent family, she works part-time as a waitress at a maid café.  Misaki's troubles begin when Usui, the resident prince of Seika High, discovers her side job.  Misaki is afraid he will reveal her secret to the student body, but Usui is more interested in learning about Misaki and protecting her from trouble, even from the trouble she brings upon herself.

STORY:
It is taking some control to not launch into an incoherent rant about this stupid series.  I have to try to focus on its good points.

If there's anything resembling a good point, it's Misaki herself.  I found myself liking her a lot, in spite of her faults.  Yes, she's stubborn as a mule and too quick to anger, but she's physically strong, wants to protect those around her, and is incredibly determined and focused.  I do wish we had gotten a chance to see her family, since they are the only reason she's doing this side job in the first place.  Still, Misaki is the closest thing we have to a strong, independent woman...or she would be, if not for Usui.

Oh Usui, how I loathed you, let me count the ways.  First of all, he's your bog standard princely shoujo love interest, the kind of guy that only exists in the minds of 13 year old girls who have no idea how guys or relationships work. He's smart, athletic, noble, adored by every girl in school, but he's sooooo nice that he always lets the girls down gently.  How do we know this?  Because there seems to be some sort of Greek chorus that follows him around singing his praises for the audience because Fujiwara is too lazy to actually SHOW him excelling at these things.  Someone clearly never learned about "show, don't tell."  They also never told him that perfect characters aren't interesting.  

The worst thing about Usui, though, is that he's so freaking perfect that he's always right.  No matter what Misaki does or says, he's always the one in the right, and he's always the one who has to save Misaki or help her change her ways.  You know things are bad when they pull out the Rape card in the FIRST.  FREAKING.  CHAPTER, all so Usui can charge into the situation like a goddamn white knight.   Worse still, they threaten Misaki with rape AGAIN in a later chapter, and the only difference there is that Misaki saves herself; had Usui saved her again, I would have been throwing the book towards the wall at warp speed.  Of course, afterwards Usui ends up saying something suggestive to or kissing Misaki.  God knows it's so romantic for a guy to force his affections on someone who has made her disinterest in him plain.  I hate that Fujiwara clearly things Usui is the best thing ever and wants the reader to love him like everyone else does, because I found him both a ridiculous fantasy and an ass.

The plot, when not threatening rape, is heavily episodic.  Misaki has a problem either at school or work, Usui suggests a solution, Misaki rejects it, trouble occurs, and Usui saves the day.  Very little progression is made as far as the storyline or character building, and that only added to my frustration with Maid-Sama.  I just can't believe this series is supposed to be so popular.  What few good qualities it does have are greatly overshadowed by the awfulness of the love interest and the pointlessness of the plot.

ART:
The character designs are typical for modern shoujo, meaning that they are flat, pointy and generic.  Of course, it's hard to tell that from under their goofy, overly styled, and pointy hair.  Panels are busy as hell, packed to the brim with conversation and characters.  Of course, things always expand once Usui is on screen, because we just have to soak in the majestic beauty of his overly pointy features, the straw pile of hair on his head, and dark, cat-like eyes.  Also typical of modern shoujo, backgrounds are almost non existent.  Instead, Fujiwara abuses the effects, flowers, and screen tones like nobody's business.  The pages are also equally busy, because those overly busy panels are packed onto the page. 

PRESENTATION:
There's a side story where a shy, quiet girl learns to open up to others after finally making friends with her crush, the twist being that she can only do so because he died and she is one of the few people who can see him.  It's a trifle of a story, and the lead spends most of her time being a spineless jellyfish of a girl.  It didn't offend me in the way the main story did, but neither did it really endear itself to me.

RATING:
No one needs to be served by this patronizing piece of crap.

This series was published by Tokyopop.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 16 volumes currently available.  10 volumes were published, and all are currently out of print.

Review: EMMA

So yeah...things have been a little quiet on the Test Drive.  Well, the truth of the matter is that I got burnt out.  Life happened and I got so far behind on the Merry Month of Manga that I felt there was no point in trying to get caught up.  I haven't given up on the whole thing, though.  Things will go back to normal, with a review every week.  This week we'll be looking at one of the classics of otaku fetish bait stereotypes - maids!  Today I'll kick things off with what is in my highly subjective opinion the best maid manga on the market.  Considering I've declared my love for the mangaka's work more than once, you all have probably been expecting this one for a while.

EMMA (Ema), by Kaoru Mori.  First published in 2002, and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:
In 1890s London lives Emma, the quiet, pretty housemaid of former governess Kelly Stowner.  One day Kelly receives an unexpected visit from her former pupil, William Jones.  Practically from the moment he collides with her, William is smitten with Emma, and through happenstance the two keep meeting and remeeting, and a romance begins to bloom between the two.  This romance is not without its challenges.  William is the son of a wealthy merchant who seeks to marry William into nobility to maintain their lifestyle while enhancing their social status, something that can't be done by marrying a mere chambermaid.  Worse still, William's Indian friend Hakim comes for a visit, and he too falls for Emma.  Emma, on the other hand, is very conscious of the social divide between her and William, even if her employer quietly supports her cause.  Can William and Emma's love survive in a time and place where social standing means everything?

STORY:
Once again, I must state the following: I FREAKING LOVE KAORU MORI.  SHE IS MY VERY FAVORITE MANGAKA.  I ADMIRE HER AND HER WORKS TO A NEAR EMBARASSING DEGREE.  ALSO, *SQUEE*!

As always, I do have to get that off my chest so I can focus on the analysis without falling into a fit of squees.

While it's the romance between William and Emma that drives the plot, it often feels more like a slice-of-life story.  Each chapter focuses on a different character, and it fills in either some portion of backstory or establishes their main conflict.  Emma is not a terribly talkative work, and most of what is said is polite and formal.  In this story, far more is said in expressions, small gestures, and in the way one looks at another.  It takes a good storyteller to say so much with little but physicality, and Mori accomplishes it beautifully. 

The characters are all fascinating in their own ways, but there's one thing about them that bothers me: why practically everyone on the block (William and Hakim included) is trying to court Emma?  Sure, we the reader have quite a bit of insight into her because we get to see the casual, almost daughter-like relationship she has with Mrs. Stowner.  We even see a flashback to her childhood that explains how she got her glasses (something that was quite the luxury for a servant girl in the Victorian era).  That doesn't explain why she is so seemingly irrestistable.  Yes, she is pretty and genteel, not to mention modest enough to turn down William's offer of a gift of new glasses, instead asking only for a lace handerchief, but that somehow doesn't seem quite enough. 

At least we do get a very good sense of who William is, someone who is at once shy, awkward, but also wears his emotions on his sleeve.  We also clearly see that his personality clashes with the leadership role his steely, class-conscious father is trying to press him towards.  Hakim's personality is also well sketched, despite his relatively short screen time, as someone who is impetuous, curious, and highly romantic.  We even get a good sense of who Mrs. Stowner is, through the flashback to her own early marriage, her sly, period-appropriate level of snark, and the gentility in her relationships with both Willliam and Emma, treating them both almost like her own children.  Mori creates such wonderful characters for Emma that even the mild conundrum of Emma's desirability cannot spoil the story as a whole.

ART:
Mori's signature character designs are in place here, with their highly similar, flat, doe-eyed faces that are always so wonderfully, subtly expressive.  Her attention to detail is also on full display, especially in the costumes and backgrounds.  Her backgrounds are so beautifully drawn and textured that you could almost feel the texture of the stones on the buildings, and she spends the same amount of effort on every little frill and fold of every piece of clothing.  Mori's panel and page composition are quite plain, even conservative, but she uses every bit of space that she can.  She also sometimes slips in clever little tricks, such an early sequence where the panels follow William's gaze as he look upon Emma.  Emma's artwork is as subtle and detailed as its writing, and the two complement one another perfectly.

PRESENTATION:
There's a brief bio on Mori, along with an omake about her research for Emma.  I've often remarked on how much I like Mori's omakes, because there's a wonderfully manic energy to them.  You get a real sense of her enthusiasm for her work and for history, and as a fellow history nut I really appreciate her effort.

RATING:

Did you expect anything less?  This is an absolute gem of a series, and I desperately wish it was still in print because it is worth every penny.

This series was published by CMX.  All 10 volumes were published, and all are now out of print. 

Review: THE PALETTE OF 12 SECRET COLORS

THE PALETTE OF 12 SECRET COLORS (Juni Hisoku no Palette), by Nari Kusakawa.  First published in 2004, and first published in North America in 2007. 

PLOT:
Cello lives on the remote South Seas island of Opal.  Opal is renowned for its beautiful native birds and for its 'palettes.'  Palettes are magic user who can extract the color from those birds and transfer them to other materials, turning plain cloth into brilliant brocades and ordinary rocks into colorful gemstones.  Unfortunately, Cello is the worst palette on the island, to the point where she is being held back a year at palette school.  Her failures often mean that she has to be sent to the school doctor, Dr. Guell, to bring everything back to normal.  Still, she strives to pass her training, especially once she learns that she can wield colors over long distances and even write with them.  Cello often finds herself putting these skills to the test, whether it's to foil bird thieves or bring snow to a tropical island.

STORY:
This story is so bland that it practically erases itself from your memory the moment you put the volume down.  Nobody in it is terribly distinctive, save maybe Dr Guell.  He at least has a touch of snarkiness, along with his longing to return to his snowy northern home.  Mind you, they never do explain how a 21 year old gets enough teaching and training to become a doctor, much less what a snowbird like him is doing in a place like Opal.  Even the villians are spectacularly weak and dull.  The one distinctive thing is how goofy the character names are, names like Cello, Guell, and Mousseline.  Really, reading this is like eating cotton candy.  It's sweet, light, and inoffensive, but ultimately without any substance.  It spurs neither love nor hate, but instead a mere 'meh.'

ART:
There's a touch of Arina Tanemura to Kusakawa's character designs, with their oversized eyes, but that's where the resemblance ends. Kusakawa's designs are much more flat and simplified, which makes distinguishing ages on characters nigh impossible.  The backgrounds are simple but handdrawn, sometimes concealed with screen tones.  I will say that this is one of the few times where a manga has suffered for NOT being printed in color.  After all, this is a story about magicians who can wield color like water, and we're often told how bright and beautiful these colors are.  The only place we get to see those colors are on the watercolored cover.  The rest is nothing but shades of gray, and that more than the plainness hurts the artwork. 

PRESENTATION:
There are some author's notes in the back, including an amusing little omake presented as a poll between the characters and their companion birds. 

RATING:

There is nothing of substance here worth noting, much less worth reading. 

This series was published by CMX.  All 6 volumes were released, and all are now out of print.

Review: GRAVITATION

GRAVITATION (Gurabiteshon), by Maki Murakami. First published in 1996, and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:
Shuichi Shindou is a hyperactive high school student who has formed the band Bad Luck along with his much more mellow friend Hiro.  It's a rather apt name, as when the story starts Shuichi's computer crashes and he's forced to come up with new lyrics in a hurry.  As he finishes up his latest song late one night in the park, the lyrics fly out of Shuichi's hands and towards a severely rude blond man by the name of Eiri Yuki.  He harshly criticizes Shuichi's lyrics, then leaves.  So naturally Shuichi becomes obsessed with finding this man to prove what a good musician he is.  Thanks to his sister's reading habits, Shuichi learns that Eiri is in fact a popular romance novelist and finally tracks him down.  Eiri continues to be rude, insulting Shuichi left and right.  Things come to a head and Shuichi all but dares Eiri to come to their debut concert.  Bad Luck manage to score a record deal, and Shuichi returns to Eiri to boast.  Instead, they end up making out.  Now the poor kid is in love with Eiri, and the wackiness has only begun.

STORY:
So this is one of the great classics of shonen-ai, one of the first of the genre to be published here and one of the pioneers of the yaoi genre in the US.  I have to say that at best, I'm mildly amused by Gravitation.

I don't mind the mostly comedic take on the plot, with the heavy emphasis on Shuichi's homelife and work on his band.  Sure, Shuichi is hyper to the point of annoying but he's so earnest and emotionally open, and he wants to succeed so badly that you can't help but feel for the kid a little.  It's when things take a turn for the romantic that the story stumbles.  While there is plenty of tension in this part, none of it is the sexual variety.  There is utterly no chemistry between Shuichi and Eiri, mostly because of the fact that Eiri is one of the biggest douchebags to ever grace the pages of  manga.  He barely has a kind word for anyone, be it Shuichi, his editor, even his own sister.  He even uses said sister to manipulate Shuichi into coming back to him.  I cannot figure out why on earth I should be rooting for these two to get together.  It's doubly baffling when you consider that could have made the love interest Hiro, who is already present, not a psycho, and has already confessed to being gay.  Ok, so history has shown us time and again that it's a bad idea for bandmates to sleep together, but for Shuichi it would honestly be the better alternative.

I do have to briefly note the translation here.  Tokyopop tended to favor translations that were more casual and colloquial, ones that sacrified accuracy for readability.  While Gravitation's translation is no exception to this, there are a lot of pop culture references (mostly musical) that are thrown in too.  I have my doubts as to whether they were present in the original, but for once I don't mind because they are additions that are relevant.  I dare say that they're kind of a nice touch.

Gravitation's story falls short because it asks the reader to invest itself in what is already an unbalanced and even somewhat abusive relationship.  While it gives us a good grasp on who Shuichi is, it fails to give us any sort of understanding as to why he would fall for Eiri other than 'the plot demands it.'

ART:
The artwork is very typical for its time and genre, with everyone being long, lanky, and pointy.  I was a little amused by the heavily dated fashions and hairstyles.  I swear every guy's hair was overly long, tousled, and moussed, as if every man has an endless supply of hair product but not a single brush can be found.  When it is not dated and point, the art tends to be flat and superdeformed.  Backgrounds are minimal, tending towards screetones and effects (in particular, a weird flowery one that looks like a lace doily halo behind the character).  Page composition is pretty free and easy, and the characters are often bursting from the confines of their panels. 

PRESENTATION:
The only extra is a brief profile of Shuichi.

RATING:
Were this 2003, I might have let this slide into the yellow light range, when yaoi was novel and where it might have provided the fix for those craving a bit of yaoi that was a little silly or with a lot of belligerent sexual tension.  Time has not been kind to Gravitation, though, and now you can get that same sort of fix from actual yaoi stories without the dated look, better characters, and more balanced relationships.

This series was published by Tokyopop.  All 12 volumes were released, along with two tie-in novels.  It is currently out of print.

Review: SWAN

SWAN, by Ariyoshi Kyoko.  First published in 1976, and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:
Masumi is a teenage ballet student from rural Hokkaido who wants nothing more than to be a professional dancer.  She trains hard at her ballet school, but often gets distracted by having to babysit the younger students or chasing out the odd farm animal out of the studio.  Her life is changed forever when she attends a performance of Swan Lake by the Bolshoi Ballet company in Tokyo.  She barges her way backstage to meet the principle dancers, and the only way she can express her joy and admiration for them is to perform an impromptu imitation of their performance.  This impulsive act impresses them so much that they recommend her to a national ballet competition, where students from all over Japan are competing to be trained and taught by professional dancers and staff from around the world.  There Masumi makes friends with a trio of fellow students: class clown Aoi, along with the popular and highly talented duo of Hisio Kusakabe and Sayoko Kyogoku.  Masumi passes the first round, but loses the second one and departs for Hokkaiko heartbroken.  She gets another chance to compete, but now must work hard under the tutelage of Russian dancer Alexei Sergeiev.  Will Masumi survive her training and get one step closer to her dream?

STORY:
You know, it's odd to think that for all its shoujo trappings, Swan is more tonally similar with shonen tournament fare.  Odder still is the fact that this is no way hurts the story.  It's kind of nice to find a shoujo where the drama doesn't come from love and relationships, but from competition where only one's innate skill and hard work determines if they will succeed.  Unlike shonen tournament series, though, Masumi doesn't succeed because she is the best dancer EVER, but because she is emotive and works hard at her art.

The characters are surprisingly strong as well, although the heroine is probably the weakest of the lot.  Masumi's enthusiasm for dance is palpable, and we do get a good sense of the natural lightness of her movement and the emotion she puts behind it, but she's also kind of immature.  She's very insecure, always comparing herself to others, and she cries at the slightest obstacle or offense.  She is likeable, but one can't help but hope that she will develop some self-confidence with time. 

Masumi's friends are also very likeable.  I do like that while Sayoko is an older and more technically proficient dancer, she is never a bitch or snob to Masumi.  She helps Masumi with her training, and even when Sayoko realizes that Masumi could become a true rival she never changes her behavior towards Masumi nor try to sabotage her.  I also like that Masumi truly is only friends with Hisio and Aoi; in any other shoujo story they would be her love interests and would end up in a heated rivalry for her hand.  Here, though, their only focus is on the competition, and their friendship is strong enough that they can celebrate one another's successes.  Even Sergeiev, who is the closest thing this story has to a villain, isn't all that bad.  Yes, he's very strict with Masumi, but he does it not out of cruelty but out of a desire to turn into a truly great dancer, even if that means taking down all that she knew before and rebuilding her skills from the basics. 

It's clear that Kyoko truly loves ballet and knows her stuff.  The story is LOADED with trivia and jargon about famous ballets, dancers, and techniques.  You need not fear that she bogs down the story with infodumping, though.  She weaves it into the story as it enfolds, so you learn as the cast does and thus can understand and appreciate what they do, right down to the translation notes for the position names in the margins.

Swan is something truly unique.  It's a shoujo series that is structurally and tonally closer to shonen, but it is wise enough to avoid many of the clichés of both.  Its cast is surprisingly well-rounded (or at least well-adjusted), and their victories are not a given thing, something which gives their struggles some actual stakes.  It is infused with the mangaka's love of ballet, and she is able to educate the reader on the art without losing story momentum.  Best of all, despite being written over 30 years ago, Swan's story isn't the least bit dated.  Its enthusiasm and maturity is as enthralling now as it was when the story was first published.

ART:
While Swan's story may not be dated, its artwork is another matter.  The character designs practically scream '1970s' with their dark, moist eyes., loooooong long legs, and occasionally dated hairstyles and fashions, right down to their leisure suits and the Fawcett-esque wings on the men.  Everyone, man and woman alike, are ridiculously pretty, but we do get some variety to the designs.  For example, the European characters tend to have larger, more aquiline noses with bigger, more squared jawlines. 

Kyoko takes an interesting approach towards drawing dances.  Instead of using speed lines to communicate motion, she superimposes a few selected poses in a splash panel or breaks down the moment in the manner of stop-motion photography.  She also makes some other interesting visual choices, like superimposing silhouettes over the characters at extreme angles or whiting out the character's eyes during moments of stress.  That last one took me a long time to get used to, and I still can't help but think that it makes them look kind of ghoulish.  Overall the composition is quite dramatic, with characters often bursting out of their panels.  There also plenty of large, sometimes page-spanning splash panels for the dances.  The artwork can occasionally verge upon the melodramatic and is sometimes a bit dated.  Nonetheless, once the characters start dancing the artwork truly shines.

PRESENTATION:
Aside from those plentiful translation notes in the margins, this volume is barebones.

RATING:

I'm really glad that CMX brought this over, even if it never sold well for them.  It may look old-fashioned, but the story is both timeless and surprisingly mature for its genre.

This series was published by CMX.  The series is complete with 21 volumes, but only 15 volumes were published, and all are currently out of print.

Review: BLACK BUTLER

BLACK BUTLER (Kuroshitsuji), by Yana Toboso.  First published in 2006, and first published in North America in 2010. 

PLOT:
Ciel Phantomhive is a 12 year old orphan, an earl, and the head of a toy and confectionary company.  He's also a member of a secret organization that protects jolly old England from foreign criminals in the name of Queen and country.  He is not alone, though - he is aided by his butler, Sebastian Michaelis.  Most of the time, Sebastian is simply trying to wrangle the comically incompetent servants of the Phantomhive home, but when aiding his master he is a fighter of incomparable speed and strength.  How is that possible?  Well, as Sebastian would put it himself, he is simply one hell of a butler.

STORY:
Black Butler is one tonally mixed-up sort of manga.  It doesn't know whether it wants to be a wacky version of Upstairs/Downstairs or a supernaturally tinged shonen-style drama.  Now some manga can make this sort of duality work for them, but here it mixes as well as oil and water.

I admit that I kind of liked the darker, more dramatic parts of the story, if simply because I wanted to know more about Ciel and Sebastian.  Why is Ciel an orphan?  How did such a young boy get wrapped up in secret societies and international affairs?  Just how did Sebastian end up in Ciel's service?  All we get are tantalizing hints at answers for these and similar questions.  What I didn't want was more of the lame comedy with the rest of the Phantomhive servants.  There are four of them: Finnigan, the overly excitable gardener; Mey-Rin, the clumsy bespectacled housemaid; Baldroy, the fire-happy chef; and Tanaka, the silent steward who is often found doing silly things in the background.  They're all too broad and annoying to be of interest, and all of the time spent on them verges on painful.  The same goes for Ciel's fiancée Elizabeth, who is obsessed with all things cute, pink, and frilly. 

At least Ciel and Sebastian are tolerable.  Ciel struggles between his duties as an agent and as a Phantomhive and being a mildly sulky preteen.  Sebastian, on the other hand, is nothing but smooth and cool at all times, with a solution and genteel phrase for every situation.  Honestly, their relationship is so interesting that it honestly doesn't need the moments of fujoshi bait that Tobono throws in to keep the fangirls' interest.  What, you thought there was a plot-related reason that Sebastian has to waltz with Ciel?  Anyway, Black Butler is at its best when it's focused on its greatest strength - its two leads.  Now if only they would create a plot and supporting cast that could stand equally with them.

ART:
The character designs are clearly geared towards the shoujo crowd.  It's not the sort of style where everyone looks 13 and their eyes are threatening to eat their face - here, the kids look like kids, the adults look like adults, and everyone is distinct looking.  Still, all the young men have a case of bishies, and Sebastian's artfully tousled hair, cryptic smile, and dark, elegant uniform ensure from the first panel that this is a character destined for a million pervy pictures on DeviantArt, with or without Ciel. 

Now, in a historical setting like this it's crucial to get the details right.  Things like costume and backgrounds are important towards selling the time and place to the reader, and if something anachronistic slips through, the illusion is broken.  Black Butler succeeds pretty well on this front until the end, when we see both Ye Olde Cellulare Phone and facial piercings on an Italian thug.  These are such glaring, obvious mistakes, and it's clear that even before the first volume's end Toboso couldn't be bothered to think about it.  The backgrounds are nicely drawn when present, as they tend to share half their time with a lot of screen tone and effects.  The panels and pages aren't terribly remarkable, save for the fact that Sebastian gets more of the larger, showier panels.  Black Butler's art is overally quite confident and polished.  While it get some of the details shockingly wrong, the art suits the story well and sometimes verges on attractive.

PRESENTATION:
There are a couple of color pages in the front, and in the back there are some omakes about the creation of the manga (surprise surprise, Toboso got overwhelmed with research materials) and translation notes.

RATING:

Black Butler is at once a solid supernatural drama and a lame household comedy.  Hopefully future volumes focus on the former than the latter, because it's the former that gives the story its most interesting hooks and focuses on its best characters.

This series is published by Yen Press.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 16 volumes available.  15 volumes have been published so far, and all are currently in print.

Review: PRINCESS PRINCESS

PRINCESS PRINCESS (Purinsesu Purinsesu), by Mikiyo Tsuda.  First published in 2002, and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:
Kuono is the new kid at a private, all-male high school.  Right away, he can't help but feel that something is off about the place.  It starts when he gets an overly friendly welcome from his teachers.  It continues when he enters his classroom and everyone is all atwitter over him.  Things only get more confusing when he's seated next to the exceedingly feminine-looking Shihoudani, and it turns out he and a select few boys are practically worshipped by the student body.  Once at the student dorms, Shihoudani tells him the truth: to give the student body a sort of substitute for girls, a select few boys are chosen to become 'princesses.'  These boys are dressed in drag for school events to boost morale, and even out of costume are expected to support and cheer on their fellow students.  Those that accept the role get financial and academic benefits; those that reject it lose class units by school mandate.  Tempted by the prospect of free board and spending cash, Kuono agrees to become a princess.

Now Kuono joins Shihoudani, and the extremely reluctant and insecure Yuu in the world of the 'princesses.'  Bit by bit, Kuono learns to accept his strange new school life and try to bond with his fellow 'princesses.'

STORY:
Why was I not surprised to learn that this manga started life as a boy's love story?  It's pretty blatant, given all the bishie-laded cast, the crossdressing angle, and the fact that the story is about a select few pretty boys who are worshipped and adored by other boys.  Apparently the only reason that it wasn't a BL story was that it was published in a major shoujo magazine, and they did not want a BL story in their magazine.

Nonetheless, while this is clearly meant to pander to the fujoshi crowd, this story is neither drama nor romance, but instead a comedy based on getting the boys in drag in socially awkward situations and the differing reactions from the boys, with Shihoudani being the complacent one, Yuu being the angry one, and Kuono falling somewhere in the middle and often snarking on the situation through the fourth wall.  Those bits of meta humor were an unexpected touch, and sometimes were even enough to help save an otherwise weak concept.

It's not that the boys' situation doesn't have the potential to be humorous, it's just that said humor never really worked for me.  There's not much to it other than "They're boys in drag!  But they don't want to be in drag! And they have to appear in public like this!  Isn't that HILARIOUS?!"  Maybe the premise works better in Japan, but to this American 'guys in drag' isn't a terribly funny thing onto itself.

So, if the main comedic concept doesn't work, what (if anything) does?  I guess there's the burgeoning friendship between the boys, but of the three only Kuono has something approaching a personality.  The other two are much less complex, as Shihoudani is always calm and princely while Yuu just keeps rehashing the same "But I don't wanna be a giiiiirl!" joke.  The rest of the cast is not that notable, save for Natashou, the exceedingly fey president of the costume club.  He's the one who creates the costumes for the 'princesses,' and he clearly loves his job. 

So, neither the comedy nor the male bonding elements work  in Princess Princess because they're half-hearteded presented.  The only thing that does seem to work is the yaoi-flavored pandering, and ultimately if you want that, why not just read some actual yaoi?

ART:
The artstyle is very typical for shoujo, in that it's nothing but well-drawn bishonen as far as the eye can see.  The real detail for the artwork is save for the boys' costumes, particularly the gothloli dresses they debut in.  She clearly enjoyed drawing all the fancy, frilly, and fetish things the boys wear.  Backgrounds are rare, as Tsuda prefers to use lots of screen tones and effects.  In particular she seems fond of one that looks like lace doilies are exploding behind the boys.  Even the cover art isn't all that great.  Sure, those Art Nouveau style frames are meant to evoke the works of Alphonse Mucha, but there's no effort to make Kuono fit that style or pose him like one of Mucha's models.  Beyond that, there's not much to say for the art.  There's very little flair or personality to it beyond those costumes. 

PRESENTATION:
This is published in the thin, oversize volumes typical for older DMP works.  There are a couple of omakes after the story, one about the creation of the series and the other being a set of 4-koma strips where we learn that the mangaka is friends with notorious yaoi mangaka Eiki Eiki. 

RATING:
What few touches of cleverness or effort are present are sadly not enough to save this fujoshi fangirl fantasy from falling down flat on its face.

This series was published by Digital Manga Press.  All 5 volumes were released, and all are currently in print.

Review: HERO TALES

HERO TALES (Jushin Enbu), written by Huang Jin Zhou, and drawn by Hiromu Arakawa.  First published in 2006, and first published in North America in 2009.

PLOT:
Long ago in some vaguely China-esque land, a wicked emperor rules over the land with an iron fist.  Mind you, that doesn't affect Taito all that much.  He's simply a headstrong kid living with his sister Laila in the local temple, trying his hardest to pass his initiation into manhood.  Upon doing so, he is given an ancient sword, which an Imperial operative tries to steal.  While fighting off the agent, Taito discovers that he possesses a strange power, and that he may in fact be one of 7 prophesized warriors who will take down the wicked emperor.  Now Taito and his sister must search the world to find his fellow warriors and save the country.

STORY:
This story is a familiar one, in that it's the same, Campbellian hero's journey that fantasy stories have been using since half past forever.  That onto itself wouldn't necessarily be a fault if the character were well developed, but Hero Tales has a story as generic as its title.

You've seen this cast before in every other shonen story.  You have the ultra-powerful, brash young man, the sweet yet bratty sibling, the snarky second banana who has a rocky and reluctant friendship with the lead, the blatantly evil villain and his equally evil and sneaky minions, and so on and so forth.  Everyone's personality is as deep as a puddle and never breaks from a moment from their given role.  As mentioned before, the plot is also very predictable, hitting all the usual 'hero's journey' stops along the way, and as such was extremely dull.  When combined with the shallow, stereotypical characters, the end result is a boring, distant story that is impossible to become invested in.  Such criticism alone is damning enough, but there's also a degree of disappointment in the writer himself...or should I say themselves?

You see, "Huang Jin Zhou" is merely an alias for a production crew, including two animation studios and the artist, one Hiromu Arakawa.  You've probably heard of her previous series, a wee little shonen series known as Fullmetal Alchemist.  In fact, she was working on that series simultaneously with this one, and it's not hard to see which of the two got the lion's share of her creativity and involvement.  You can see some of her touches here and there - there's plenty of her signature style of humor, for example - but what you don't see is her own brand of subtle, well-planned storytelling, character building, or world building.  It's a story and setting that has all the surface details of China, but none of the history behind it.  As such, it doesn't feel like an Arakawa work, but instead like the corporate creation that it is, something that has been boiled down to its simplest and blandest components.  Simple and bland make work fine for an anime production committee, but it does not make for good reading.

ART:
While Arakawa feels very absent from the story, her touches are all over the artwork.  The only problem with that is that it's all touches ripped off from Fullmetal Alchemist.

You don't have to look too far to figure out that there are a lot of similarities between the character designs here and those in FMA.  Taito and Laila are pretty much just dark-haired copies of Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell, Ryoukou is a long-haired Roy Mustang, the evil emperor is a carbon copy of Fuhrer Bradley, and so on and so forth.  Now, it's one thing to have recognizable character designs, and yet another to reuse said designs (after all, some people *coughLeijiMatsomotocough* have done so successfully for decades).  But in regards to Hero Tales, I suspect one of three theories on why the character designs are so similar to those of FMA:

     1.  FMA was/is a very popular and profitable series, therefore if the committee creates characters
          that look like FMA's characters, then their series in turn will be popular and profitable.

     2.  Since Arakawa was working on this series and FMA simultaneous, she saved herself time and
          effort by reusing character designs from her other work so she could just get it done.

    3.   Both 1 and 2.

As for the rest of the visuals, the backgrounds are a mixed bag.  The vistas are nicely drawn, but backgrounds are nigh nonexistent in closer shots.  The action's nicely drawn too, as Arakawa knows well how to draw action in a clean, crisp manner that maintain a lively sense of energy thanks to low panel angles and a touch of layering. 

PRESENTATION:
There is one of Arakawa's signature goofy omakes, where she discusses her research trip to China.  There are also translation notes and an honorifics guide in the back.

RATING:
While the artwork lives up to Arakawa's usual high standard, the story is weak and there is far too much in the story and art that is too derivative of other fantasy works, of other shonen works, or of Arakawa's other manga.

This series was published by Yen Press.  All 5 volumes were released, and all are currently in print.

Review: CLUB 9

CLUB 9 (Heba! Heero-Chan), by Makoto Kobayashi.  First published in 1992, and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:
Haruo Hattori is a klutzy but sweet farm girl whose heart is as big as the great outdoors.  She's off to Tokyo to attend college, but the combination of the cost of big-city life and supernatural events lead her to move in with a couple of classmates.  They in turn urge to join them in a part-time job at Club 9, one of the most popular hostess clubs in its district.  How will a country girl like Haruo adapt to her glamourous new hostess lifestyle?

STORY:
Club 9 is a fun little series, one that balances its sauciness with sweetness and ultimately (and unexpectedly) is as innocent and good-natured as its heroine.

It's impossible to not love Haruo.  Sure, she's naïve and kind of a klutz, but she's shown to be a very loving person, and nowhere near as dumb as her thick rural accent (an affectation of the translation to try and get across how her particular accent would sound in Japanese) would suggest.  Admittedly, the klutziness is mostly there to lead up to moments of fanservice, but it's all played in such a light, even silly manner that it's hard to be offended.  You can only just shake you head as Haruo picks herself up and moves one.  There's also just a lot of great sources of humor in this manga, be it from Haruo's family (with her oh-so-serious father and her mother who is mid-midlife crisis) or from the contrast between her country ways and those of her friends, coworkers, and clients.  Her natural charm and unaffected kindness shines through the whole volume, and it makes her personality just as attractive as her figure does.

The story is casually paced, giving us plenty of time to get to know Haruo and her world before she moves to Tokyo, her time at college, as well as some oddly placed incidents with the ghost of an otaku that haunts Haruo's dorm.  They don't gel with the rest of the story at all, but it's mostly there just as a device to get Haruo off the campus and to steer towards becoming a hostess.  Once there, we see her struggle comically with her new job and yet still charm her clients (including a mangaka who is a self insert for Kobayashi himself) and make some new friends.  It's all just so charming and innocent, two words that I would not expect to use in an ecchi story about a hostess club. 

ART:
Club 9's art is as charming as Haruo as well, with a compelling mix of realism, fanservice, and rubbery cartoon.  There's a great variety of faces - long, short, square, fat, etc. - and while there's a touch of caricature to them (particularly with the men), they still manage to be rooted in reality.  The bodies are also rather rooted in reality, in that the ladies are much more voluptuous than what one usually sees in manga.  The aforementioned cartoony qualities don't come so much from the character designs, but from their expressions.  There's a lot of humor that comes solely from Haruo's big awkward smiles, guffawing laughter, or big surprised gasps.  There is also some degree of fanservice-based humor, but Kobayashi actually puts some effort into them, instead of falling into the "boy falls into boobs" sort of rut.  Here you have things like the running gag of Haruo falling into holes while getting someone's attention or the family dog pulling off her skirt before she leaves, and it's rare for the gag to lead to anything more racy than a panty shot.  It's both unusual and pleasing to see comedy based fanservice where the fanservice isn't the point of the joke, but merely a side effect.

Kobayashi puts a lot of detail into his art, be it the varied hairstyles and wardrobes of the hostesses or the well-traced backgrounds.  There's also some moments where there's a wonderful fluidity to the art - when the girls strut down the street, you can almost see the swish of their hips in real time.  I wish more ecchi-based works got this sort of effort put into them, because the artwork not only works well with the story, it adds to its charms.

PRESENTATION:
This is an older Dark Horse release, so like older Viz releases this manga was flipped.

RATING:
This is the kind of ecchi I can get behind, the kind that takes its time, centers itself around a charming lead, and one that uses fanservice as garnish for its humor and not simply as an attention-grabbing gimmick.

This series was published by Dark Horse.  5 volumes were released in Japan, but only 3 of those volumes were published.  All are currently out of print.