Review: GALAXY ANGEL

 It's once again time for Old-School Manga Month!  Although some of you might object to the inclusion of today's title as "old-school" as some of y'all are old enough to remember when the franchise this came from was brand new.  Alas, I cannot stop the passage of time from coming for your bubble-era faves no more than I can stop myself from giving my own hot take on them.

GALAXY ANGEL (Gyarakushi Enjeru), based on the original concept by Broccoli with story and art by Kanan.  First published in 2001 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Deep in space, an intergalactic civil war rages to determine who will control the Transbaal Empire.  The wicked Prince Eonia has killed everyone else in the royal family save for his youngest brother, Prince Shiva.  The only thing that stands between Shiva and Eonia is the Angel Troupe, five young women with quirky personalities whose duty is to protect the prince...at least, when they're not getting distracted by food or exploring their own massive ship.  Their mission only becomes more chaotic when the space patrolman Takuto gets caught up in their schemes.  Charmed by their mission and good looks, he's determined to help the Angel Troupe bring peace back to the galaxy.

Review: DI GI CHARAT: DEJIKO'S ADVENTURE

Broccoli was a short-lived anime and manga publisher in the US, but during their short time they did their best to promote their most profitable, recognizable mascot with manga like this.

DI GI CHARAT: DEJIKO'S ADVENTURE (Dejiko Ado Be n-Cha), by Yuki Kiriga, based on the characters by Koge-Donbo.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Di Gi Charat is the cute cat-eared mascot for the Gamers! store chain.  Alongside her friends Rabi-en-Rose, Puchiko, Gema, and the store manager, Di Gi Charat tries to rebuild the store they accidentally destroyed.  To do this, they have to raise money by doing any kind of job available, be it working in a bakery, exorcising demons, or entering a beauty contest.  Along the way, they enjoy summer vacation, re-enact Journey To the West, engage in a little high-seas piracy, and a lot more.

Merry Month of Manga Review: PET ON DUTY

Another early and mostly forgotten BL publisher was Boysenberry, the BL spin-off of Broccoli Books.  With works like this to offer, it's easy to see how it was so easily forgotten.

PET ON DUTY (Pet Oshigotochuu), by Nase Yamato.  First published in and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Mizuki has just lost his job and he's far too independent to go back home for help.  His cousin offers him a solution: Mizuki can secretly stay at his office's dormitory until he can get on his feet.  Soon enough Mizuki becomes the pet of the fourth floor residents, cleaning and cooking for them while they coo over how comforting he is.  There's only one person who doesn't join in: the moody and distant Taro.  Mizuki soon discovers that Taro has a far softer side than he lets on, and he finds himself yearning to become not just the floor's pet, but Taro's in particular.

STORY:

Pet On Duty is fairly light and inoffensive as a BL work, but it's hindered by paper-thin characters, a weak romance, and a pet metaphor that gets positively pounded into the ground through sheer repetition.

Yamato leans a lot on telling us about her characters instead of showing us how they are.  We are told that Mizuki is proud and independent for his age, even though she conviently forgets this the moment Mizuki moves into the dorm.  It's not like he struggles with being dependent on others or being unable to safely leave the dorm floor.  No, that might have given him something of a character arc to follow.  Instead we're treated to scene after scene of Mizuki struggling to please everyone and passively accepting his situation.  It takes halfway through the book for Mizuki to remember that he can in fact do more than just secretly serve a bunch of businessmen, but by that point he's so smitten with Taro that his need for passive dependence upon others never really goes away. 

We are also told that Taro is meant to be cold and foreboding, forever brooding upon the wrongs of his past.  That sounds perfectly Byronic, but in practice he comes more aloof than anything else.  Even after he supposedly falls for Mizuki, he never seems to warm up very much.  Maybe I'm just biased because he spend a good portion of the book telling Mizuki that pets are meant to be seen and not heard.  The other guys do at least show some appreciation for Mizuki, even if they keep insisting on dehumanizing and patronizing Mizuki by referring to him as their 'kitten.'  With Taro, the patronizing qualities are more obvious and played for romance instead of comedy.  Honestly, I'm not sure which of those is worse.  Oh wait, I know what's worse!  What's worse is when Mizuki finds himself stuck as a waiter in a host club, where the cat simile is made much more literal with some goofy cosplay ears, paws, and bell on a collar.

You'd think that the story would mine the master and pet dynamic for all the kink it could get, but Pet On Duty is surprisingly chaste for BL.  In fact, it's so chaste that it becomes downright passionless, even in the middle of love scenes.  This is not helped by the fact that Yamato pushes the two into a relationship far too fast for anyone to care.  Mizuki and Taro are basically a couple one quarter of the way into the book, so all she can do is keep throwing misunderstandings and interruptions at them until it's time to wrap things up.  That means that in spite of being a couple, these two spend most of the book lingering on problems that could be solved with a few minutes of conversation.  If it weren't for Mizuki's cousin serving as an go-between for the two, I swear that they would have never resolved anything!  The resolution may be a happy one in the end, but it never feels well-earned because Mizuki, Taro, and the relationship between them is so underdeveloped that it fails to kindle the slightest bit of emotion in the reader.  Without that, all you're left with is a bunch of mild fluff and some weird and uncomfortable implications.

ART:

At least Pet On Duty can boast some rather attractive art.  The character designs are polished and handsome, even if Yamato is completely guilty of drawing the same face over and over.  It's a shame then that Yamato seemingly does her best to obscure them through some truly messy paneling and composition.  Her pages are practically scattershot in their layout, and she's determined to fill up her panels as much as possible with either giant close-ups or with just a barrage of stuff in-frame.  At least her approach to sex is much more tidy, mostly because she pretty much does everything in her power from drawing anything that would expose a penis.  That means you mostly get a few bits of heavy petting and even then they're over in just a page or two.  It hardly merits the large adult content sticker that was pasted over the cover by the publisher themselves.

RATING:

Despite the poor writing, handsomely drawn men and questionable cat analogies, Pet On Duty can only a muster a 'meh' out of me at most.  It's gentle, bland, but ultimately forgettable.

This book is currently published by Viz under their SuBLime imprint, and formerly by Broccoli Books and JManga.  The physical volume from Broccoli is out of print, but is currently available as an ebook through SuBLime.

Merry Month of Manga Review: MURDER PRINCESS

Well, let's keep things in the 'trying too hard' vein with a mostly forgotten title from a mostly forgotten company.

MURDER PRINCESS (Mada Purinsesu), by Sekihiko Inui.  First published in 2005, and first published in North America in 2007.

PLOT:

Forland is a land in revolt.  After the passing of King Xenos, the mad Professor Akamashi attempts a coup d'état with the help of his android servants Anna and Yuna.  Princess Alita manages to escape the castle in the hope that she can reach her brother, but she falls off a cliff.  Luckily, she manages to land on Falis, the rough, rude, and rowdy leader of a gang of bounty hunters.  Somehow their collision causes the two of them to switch bodies, so Falis has to try to pass as the princess while keeping Akamashi and his forces at bay until she can find a way to switch her and Alita back.

STORY:

It's kind of a shame that Murder Princess turned out the way it did.  The bodyswapping idea has potential, but it's hamstrung by adding a lot of stupid or pandering stuff that detracts and distracts from it.

As vague and silly as a magical bodyswapping can be, it's not a bad one and it can be used for the sake of good comedy.  It was quite enjoyable watching vulgar Falis try (and often fail) at playing the part of a genteel princess, and Alita adapts with shocking ease to pretending to being a servant.  I suspect that she's mostly glad to not have all this pressure on her shoulders any more, and Falis is more than willing to take on any pretenders to the throne.  While neither could have planned for it, they do make a surprisingly good and functional pair of partners, with Falis's gang of goons serving as support.

Of course, it's easy for them to defend against such goofy villains.  It's not that they are comedic, it's just that they are ridiculous and completely ineffective.  Akamashi barely says a word or lifts a finger, leaving all the hard work to his (*sigh*) twin loli battle androids, who are entirely annoying and completely incompetent.  It's never explained how or why this world still operates around kings in castles and knights in shining armor but also has enough tech to allow for battle androids and ballistics.  I'm guessing that Inui was simply operated on the Rule of Cool.  I also presume that's the same reason Falis can have a gang of shinigami and similar large, hulking creatures - he just threw in every idea he had and kept everything that stuck, whether it made sense or not. 

Murder Princess might have a slightly ridiculous title, but the core concept is solid.  It's just that the rest of the cast and the world around them isn't thought out nearly as well and that the villains are too ridiculous to take the least bit seriously, so everything else kind of falls apart around them.

ART:

Thankfully, the art style does make up to a degree for what the story lacks.  The characters are somewhat simple looking and cartoony, but there's plenty of variety of looks and expressions.  Falis-in-Alita's body likes to strike a lot of dashing, dramatic poses, her long hair and flowing dress serving as contrast to her expression of demonic glee as she slashes and hacks into her foes.  The action is drawn cleanly and crisply, with only the barest hint of speed lines used.  While the action scenes are kind of stiff, the poses from panel to panel are strong and dynamic and he uses a lot of low angles for dramatic effect, which helps to counter it.  Really the only thing the art lacks is a sense of setting, as backgrounds tend to be rarely seen and rather sparse even when they are.  Still, the artwork is definitely Murder Princess's saving grace.  It's not the most brilliant manga art you'll find, but it's skillful, simple, and well matched to the story.

RATING:

No one is going to mistake a manga called Murder Princess for anything meant to be deep or thoughtful, but it's got a decent heroine, a decent set-up, and some nice art, and sometimes that's enough to make the whole thing work well.

This series was published by Broccoli Books.  It is complete in Japan in 2 volumes.  Both volumes were published, and both are currently out of print.