Review: METEOR PRINCE

2015 was a pretty good and diverse year for shoujo.  It certainly got off to a good start with this charming little series.

METEOR PRINCE (Otome no Meteo), by Meca Tanaka.  First published in 2013 and first published in North America in 2015. 

PLOT:

Hana Natsuno is cursed with bad luck.  Everywhere she goes, something around her manages to break, fall, or attempt to hurt her somehow.  Things are so bad for her that the only people willing to be her friends are the kids in the occult club.  They at least will look out for her while they try to find some ritual to reverse Hana's luck.  It's during one of these rituals that a strange naked blond boy named Io appears.  He's an intergalactic prince in search of a mate and he insists on mating with Hana immediately.  Hana and her friends eventually convince him on the importance of love before such things on Earth, so Io is determined in turn to make Hana fall in love with him.  Has Hana's luck turned around at long last or will Io just bring more chaos in his wake?

STORY:

You know, I wouldn't blame anyone for being a little freaked out by Meteor Prince's opening considering that it starts out with a strange boy demanding sex from a hapless girl.  Amazingly, it manages to turn things around and becomes an incredibly innocent and oddly charming series.

Much of Meteor Prince's charm comes from Io himself. He's just a giant puppy-dog of a young man.  He's always eager to learn, eager for approval, and loyal to a fault to those he loves.  That makes it all the more shocking when Io shows off that he can transform his body into all sorts of sharp, pointy things and will use them at will at anyone who dares to threaten Hana.  In that sense, Io is a variation on the perfect fantasy boyfriend - completely nonthreatening and darling around you, but will willing cut anyone who looks at you funny.  That not to say that Hana is a slouch in the personality department, either.  She may be more sedate than Io, she balances out the generic sort of kindness that comes with being a shoujo heroine with a tinge of sadness, regret, and even resignation at her lot.  It's never explicitly noted but it's clear from her behavior that she's had to adapt her life to minimize the damage from her unluckiness and that she still feels regret over the relationships her bad luck have cost her.  Thus it's pretty easy to see why someone like her would open up to a giddy boy like Io.  He reaches out to her without any concern for her luck, opens up to her, and tries to help her and cheer her up.  What girl wouldn't fall for someone like that?

Even the Occult Club kids are charming in their own way.  None of them are deep in any fashion and they're mostly there to be overprotective of Hana and to spout off crazy stuff about UFOs and the like.  Still, their unwavering support of Hana is endearing, and a couple of them have their own little romance going on in the background.  Plotwise, the story starts to lose its way midway through as it devolves into your standard seasonal landmarks: summer at the beach, the local festival, that sort of thing.  The plot doesn't come back into play until the very end of the volume, and honestly it felt more like Tanaka was trying to wrap things up entirely.  Truth be told, it wouldn't have been a bad ending, as Io and Hana had reached enough of an understanding amongst themselves to satisfy the audience.  Then it pull a character out of nowhere to end on a cliffhanger.  It's kind of a cheap move, but then I guess it does mean that there will be more adventures with these charming kids and their alien friend, and that might be Meteor Prince's greatest achievement.  It's not revolutionary or deep, but it is enjoyable and charming on its own terms and sometimes that alone is enough.

ART:

Meca Tanaka's art is just as unaffected and charming as the story it tells.  The characters are on the cartoony side with cute, simple faces and enormous eyes.  I will admit that I was totally charmed by the fact that Io literally has stars in his eyes.  It's not only a nice way to reinforce his unearthliness, but it's also a rather nice reflection of his own bright and shiny outlook.  That same simplicity can be found all over the book.  The framing is simple and focused mostly on our leading couple, and the backgrounds are simple with sparing use of screentones.  It's just a very clean yet adorable look that fits the story perfectly.

RATING:

Meteor Prince is a short, sweet and simple shoujo story that overcomes its slightly sketchy opening and becomes something perfectly enjoyable.  Those looking for a quick and fun shoujo fix would do well to give this one a look.

This series is published by Viz.  This series is complete in Japan with two volumes available.  Both volumes have been published and all are currently in print

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Review: PANDORA IN THE CRIMSON SHELL: GHOST URN

Speaking of older mangaka, this one features not one but two classic creators teaming up for a single story.  Why wouldn't anyone be excited to see what the creators of Ghost In the Shell and Excel Saga would dream up together?  Well, they won't be once they see just what the result was.

PANDORA IN THE CRIMSON SHELL: GHOST URN (Kokaku no Pandora), written by Masamune Shirow with art by Rikudou Koushi.  First published in 2013 and first published in North America in 2015. 



PLOT:

Nene Nanakorobi is a congenial young cyborg girl who is looking forward to staying with her aunt on scenic Cenancle Island.  Then she runs into conniving scientist Delilah Uzal and her cyborg companion Clarion.  Nene is so bowled over by Clarion's cuteness that she unwittingly ends up getting roped into Uzal's schemes to save the island from a problem of her own creation.  If they're going to succeed, though, Nene is going to need to tap into her untapped potential, and Clarion is the key to unlocking her power.

STORY:

Goddamn it Shirow, why?  You've spent the better part of the last couple of decades hiding away drawing one porn-laden artbook after another while resting on your giant pile of Ghost In the Shell residuals, but you come back for this?  You would have done far better to just stay a recluse and keep drawing smut.

In all fairness, he doesn't deserve ALL the blame.  Rikudou Koushi may be credited only as the artist, but it's clear that he bears at least some responsibility for some of the story elements as well.  Some of them are more obvious than others (like the rather Excel-like reporter who serves as the story's only functional running gag), but this feels more akin to his previous work than it does to Shirow's.  Really the only thing that feels like something from a Shirow manga is the fact that there are female cyborgs, and not only does that feel rather derivative (after all, Major Kusanagi also was converted into a full-body cyborg at a young age) but it serves little purpose beyond giving Nene's newfound magical girl powers a technological source instead of a supernatural one.

Oh, did I forget to mention that this is technically a magical girl series?  It's certainly light and (relatively) fluffy enough to fit, and Nene's transformation naturally comes with an utterly ridiculous costume that serves no other purpose than to satisfy Uzal's seeming fondness for dressing up underlings in cosplay.  Mind you, no one's costume can out-ridiculous Clarion's cat-eared maid get-up.  It's easy to forget in part because the story jumps off and on the rails so frequently for the sake of a joke, but that's not the only reason.  There's also the fact that this is easily the most lolicon-friendly series since Dance In the Vampire Bund.  Yeah, it seems that when you combine two old, notoriously pervy mangaka, you get weird and skeevy scenes like Nene transforming by essentially fingering Clarion to download programs.  Oh, they can try to sidestep the implications by throwing in a bunch of technobabble, but these guys know damn well what they're doing with this naked bit of queerbaiting, and they clearly are amused by it, if not more.  Worse still, it taints everything else in the story by association.  After all, it's hard to laugh at something when you're afraid Chris Hanson is going to start peeking over your shoulder at any moment. 

Pandora In the Crimson Shell is so many things at once.  It's awkward, pervy, lame, but more than anything it's a disappointment.  Once upon a time it felt like Shirow actually gave a damn about his manga, even the lesser works.  If this is anything to go by, though, he stops caring ages ago and is instead content to just throw whatever dumb ideas he and his friend can come up with on the page and call it a day.

ART:

Min you, I shouldn have been surprised about the lolicon content when I saw that cover art.  It's a shame because Koushi is not a bad artist.  The character designs strike a nice balance between moe-moe cuteness and something goofier and more expressive.  There's plenty of fine detail in the tech and the backgrounds.  It's just hard to enjoy it a lot of the time because the panels are packed so tightly with STUFF and sometimes it's framed kind of strangely.  Even the so-called fanservice is drowned out by the sheer volume of STUFF in-frame, and it's clear that action is simply not his forte.  Again, seeing his skills put to use here feels like nothing more than a waste of talent.

RATING:

Shirow should have just let this idea die.  In his author's note he explains that this was based on a failed TV series premise from 2008, a fact that's all the more ironic considering that the manga version is now being adapted into a series.  It's just awkward and weird and gross and not terribly funny.  Don't encourage these two to keep rolling around the gutter by purchasing this book.  You'll be doing the world a favor.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 6 volumes available.  2 volumes have been published and all are currently in print.

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Review: JUNJI ITO'S CAT DIARY

This was a year where we started to see some newer works from some older creators, and one of the strangest and most unexpected of the lot is today's one volume wonder.

JUNJI ITO'S CAT DIARY: YON AND MU (Itou Junji no Neko Nikki: Yon and Mu), by Junji Ito.  First published in 2009 and first published in North America in 2015.

PLOT:

J-kun is happy to be moving into a new house with his fiancée A-ko, but that happiness is all too short-lived.  A-ko insists on bringing Yon with her, a odd looking and spooky cat called Yon.  Soon enough she brings in another cat, a fluffy Norwegian Forest Cat called Mu.  J-kun isn't exactly thrilled about the cats at first, but soon enough he learns just how much owning a cat can change a person, for better and for worse.

STORY:

So what happens when one of Japan's foremost horror mangaka tries his hand at a cute and cuddly cat manga?  The result is a manga that's a little odd at times, but also one that will feel very familiar to cat owners and gives a bit of insight into Ito himself.

Ito is fairly upfront about this manga being only a slightly exaggerated version of his own experiences, and if that's true than Ito must be kind of a weird guy in real life.  J-kun generally seems like a mild-mannered guy, albeit one that's prone to exaggeration and a bit spooky in general.  It's just that as his interest in the cats grows, he starts to get a bit manic about capturing the cats' attention and even entering into a bit of an informal rivalry with A-ko for their affections.  While he's prone to exaggerating his own qualities, he does not exaggerate his cats' behavior.  Yon and Mu do behave as real cats do.  That means that they don't just do all the usual cute cat stuff, but also the weird, indifferent, sneaky, and sometimes gross things they do as well.  Thus we gets stories about cat puke, cats escaping and hiding in odd places, and just how fickle a cat can be about playing favorites.  It's still amusing to read, but those used to cute and fluffy offerings like Chi's Sweet Home might be in for a little bit of shock.  For me, though, it's that very juxtaposition of the surreal and the all-too-real that makes Junji Ito's Cat Diary so appealing to me.  You get this combination of Ito's vivid imagination with the humorous realities of cat ownership that makes for a very engaging manga to read.  Well, it's that or the fact that I truly am just a sucker for anything that features cute kitties, but I get the feeling that even Ito himself would understand that.

ART:

What makes Junji Ito's Cat Diary rather odd is that you have this perfectly domestic story drawn in Ito's signature style.  That means you get lovingly detailed drawings of the cats and J-kun and A-ko's home, but you also get weird, ghoulish looking overreactions and rictus grins from them as well, all drawn with these heavily etched lines and dark, hatch-like shading.  Sometimes Ito lets himself get a little surreal, like when a fit of exhaustion leads him to imagine Yon as a slug, a snake, and even an old man watching TV.  Still, he's very good at capturing the subtle slinky movements of cats, as well as some darn good likenesses of the real Yon and Mu.  Still, I wouldn't expect any less from Ito, from the quality to the creepiness.

PRESENTATION:

There's a lot of extra content here for such a slim little book.  There are brief Q&As after each chapter, a montage of pictures of the real Yon and Mu midway through, and an afterword from both Ito and his wife.  A lot of their comments relate to the fact that the real Yon died in 2011, shortly before the Tohoku earthquake, and it's a rather sobering conclusion to what is otherwise a fairly lighthearted manga.

RATING:

Junji Ito's Cat Diary is an interesting antidote to your standard cat manga thanks to Ito's artwork and its choice to focus more on the mundane and gross than on the cuteness.  There is plenty of room on this side of the Pacific for more cat manga, and I'm glad we were finally able to get this one.

This book is published by Kodansha.  It is currently in print.

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Review: ONE PUNCH MAN

Well, let's kick things off with a bang (or should I say a punch?) with one of the most anticipated shonen titles of the year.

ONE PUNCH MAN (Wanpanman), by Yusuke Murata and adapted from the webcomic by ONE.  First published in 2012 and first published in North America in 2015.

PLOT:

Saitama wanted to be a superhero.  He wanted to be one so badly that he spent years training, honing his physical strength to the point where he went completely bald.  Now he's achieved his dream, but now Saitama is so strong that he can take out almost every enemy with just a single punch.  There's simply no thrill left in his life...well, until Saitama meets up with a cyborg with a thirst for revenge and a menagerie of genetically-modified animal-themed supervillains and the shadowy group of scientists that control them.

STORY:

It takes a lot for a shonen manga to impress me, particularly when it comes to Shonen Jump.  While there are plenty of classics that have come from that magazine over the years, there are also plenty of B- and C-list titles that serve little more than as filler as they ape whatever trends and ideas the editors can suggest.  It's hard to turn a promising idea into a great manga when you have to contend with editorial dictate and the ever-looming threat of popularity polls.  That's what makes stories like One Punch Man all the more extraordinary.  It's a combination of a great premise, a lot of room for humor and character, and right from the first chapter it's consistently entertaining.

Now in all fairness, Murata cannot take all of the credit.  This manga is in fact a remake of a webcomic by ONE back in 2009.  While it was a rather crude-looking work, it gained a surprisingly large fandom, including Eyeshield 21 artist Yusuke Murata.  It was he who proposed the remake for Shonen Jump's digital comic spinoff, and it's clear that Murata is committed to making the most of ONE's original premise.  He starts things off simply with a lot of simple one-shot villains, establishing the relative monotony of Saitama's days as well as showing off a lot of wild and occasionally wacky supervillian premises.  While things do start to coalesce once Genos the cyborg and all the animal-themed supervillains start showing up, the plot remains fairly loose and light, if a bit vague at this point.

Since the plot is kind of loose in structure, it gives Murata plenty of room to fill that space with little character moments here and there. No one in particular gets terribly deep development, but many get at least one amusing moment, such as Genos' backstory going on so long that it takes up the entire panel or a crab-man angry that a random kid drew nipples on his carapace. The only character that really stands out is Saitama himself, and even then he mostly stands out for his nonchalance.  He's generally a very mild-mannered person even when staring down villains that's punctuated with a bit of dry, understated humor.  The only time he shows any sort of strong emotion is during a proper fight, and those moments are few and far between.  It sounds like a gag that would get old quick, but credit to Murata for finding new ways to show off Saitama's nonchalance and near boredom at what should be extraordinary situations and it's a weirdly refreshing take on being a superhero.  Genos is the next to come close, but he's quickly shuffled off to the sidekick position and he more or less ends up becoming the audience stand-in, the guy who is there so Saitama has someone to talk to and explain things to. 

Much like its titular hero, One Punch Man takes something simple and hones it to its peak potential.  It strikes the perfect balance between superhero satire and shonen adventure, and it's just a delightful book to read.

ART:

The artwork is where One Punch Man truly shines.  Yusuke Murata is clearly firing on all cylinders artistically and every page is glorious to behold.  I can't recall the last time I saw a shonen manga that had this much fluidity and energy in it.  Every movement and every blow has weight and impact and a brilliant sense of motion and life to them.  There are loads of low, dynamic angles during the fights that are angled just so that it truly emphasizes each punch and blow, as if the fists could fly off the page.  He even manages to incorporate some digital effects every once in a while, using them to simulate the shift to a deeper focal point or the blur of motion.  The characters themselves can be wild and weird, but the mains tend to be drawn in a more handsome and shaded style.  There are also plenty of visual gags both big and small, ranging from a kid in a "School Child" hoodie to Murata taking every opportunity to draw Saitama's head in ONE's style.  It truly is just a marvel to behold and it's little wonder that this manga inspired such a good looking animated series.

RATING:

One Punch Man is one of the best shonen manga I've read in years.  It's got a great premise that starts strong straight from the beginning and looks great to boot.  Anyone who wants a proper superhero comedy or a genuinely great shonen manga need not look any further.

This series is published by Viz.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 10 volumes currently available.  3 volumes have been published so far and all are currently in print.  It is also currently available in e-book form through Viz.com and anthologized in Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha.

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IIIIIIIT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!

Well, more accurately it's December, which means that it's time for another month full of reviews of some of the latest, greatest (and not-so-greatest) manga titles of 2015.  That also means that it's time for yet Holiday Giveaway!  Once again, the prize is a $25 gift certificate to RightStuf, enough to buy yourself a volume or two of some of the better manga I'll be talking about this month.  As always, to enter all you have to do is leave a comment talking about the best manga you read this year.  Long or short, new or old, it doesn't matter so long as it was new to you.   The giveaway ends at midnight on Christmas Day, so don't delay too long in leaving a comment!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to playing Fallout 4...er, I mean, writing more reviews!