Review: SWEET REIN

Well, once again The 12 Reviews of Christmas comes to an end, and there was only one natural choice for the final review.  After all, how often do we get a Christmas-themed manga?

SWEET REIN (Yoroshiku Master), by Sakura Tsukuba.  First published in 2005, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Kurumi is often lonely at the holidays.  Her family is busy at work, and her friends are all spending their time with family and boyfriends.  While walking around lost in her thoughts, she bumps into a handsome young man.  At once, a magical rein appears between them and the young man, Kaito, declares her to be his master, his Santa Claus.  It turns out that Kaito is the latest in a long line of human who can shapeshift into magical reindeer.  Each reindeer is bound to a single person who serves as Santa Claus for as long as they both live, and each reindeer must obey the commands of their chosen Santa.  Sakura is understandably skeptical, but Kaito's enthusiasm eventually wins her over.  Of course, just because Christmas is over doesn't mean that Kaito goes away, and Sakura learns not only how to use her powers for other good deeds, but just how much she means to Kaito.

STORY:
Sweet Rein is built on some rather kinky ideas for what is ostensibly a Christmas-themed story.  It's centered on a master-servant relationship after all, complete with magical bondage and shapeshifting boys.  What's truly strange is that in spite of this, Sweet Rein is still incredibly adorable.

I suspect much of this is due to Kaito's pure, unbridled enthusiasm for everything.  He's happy to have both a Santa and a purpose, and he's smitten with Sakura almost on sight.  He's something of a simple boy, but he's surrounded by a loving and understanding family (who also serve as providers of exposition).  For Sakura, this is positively foreign, as while she puts up a good front she's clearly lonely and depressed.  It's also bizarre, but once a boy turns into a reindeer at your command, you become a little more willing to believe anything (well, once you wake up from fainting).  Afterwards, their relationship tends to built around Kaito being silly and enthusiastic and Sakura commanding or punching him away Team-Rocket style (at least as far as the rein will let him go).

Of course, this makes for a cute little holiday-themed chapter, but what do you do with these characters after the holidays?  It mostly alternates between giving Sakura and Kaito other good deeds to use their powers for others (such as a child with cancer) or building their relationship and slowly, subtly developing as people.  For Sakura, it's more about opening herself to others and to the possibility that Kaito loves her as a person and not just as his Santa.  For Kaito, it's coming to understand the depth of his love for Sakura.  Overlooking the whole magical master/servant element, it's a nice, understated little romance. 

If' you went solely by a plot description, Sweet Rein would come off as positively weird, even for a Christmas-themed manga.  Despite that, it totally works, and is incredibly sweet and gentle to boot.  But then, I would expect no less from the same mangaka who made "teenage psychics become friends" work in a very similar manner in Land of the Blindfolded.

ART:
While Tsukuba's art is nothing extraordinary on the surface, its simplicity belies its quality.  The character designs are generic and cute, but they've got a good range of emotions and they're all drawn in a delicate manner.  There's a genuine lightness to the more magical elements, where Kaito literally flies or floats in on his rein or the times where he and Sakura take flight.  Panels are small, often irregular in size, and packed in as tight as mosaic tiles.  In spite of that, the action usually flows well.  Because of their size, backgrounds are rare, but the characters are drawn so nicely that this loss is not felt. 

PRESENTATION:
There's a side story with a vampire who finds a young girl at his door, claiming to be his daughter.  This as well turns out to be surprisingly sweet...at least until the ending.  I didn't dislike enough to spoil it, but there's no way to regard it as anything but creepy, even though Tsukuba clearly didn't intend it to be. 

RATING:
Sweet Rein is a sweet surprise, one whose gimmicky concept belies the sweetness of its romance.  This could be enjoyed any time of the year, not just at Christmas.

This series is published by Viz.  This series is complete in 3 volumes.  The first volume has been published, and is currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: DEMON LOVE SPELL

I can't say I was looking forward to a new title from Mayu Shinjo.  Her works tend to be...well, kind of rapey and irritating.  Still, I saw a lot of reviews saying that THIS series was different.  Will this be something new and interesting or is it just Shinjo harping on the same clichés?

DEMON LOVE SPELL (Ayakashi Koi Emaki), by Mayu Shinjo.  First published in 2008, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Miko is the only daughter of a long line of shrine keepers.  Her family is renowned for demon exorcisms.  Miko is enthusiastic about fighting demons, but unfortunately for her she's kind of lousy at it.  Unlike her parents, she can't actually see the demons and has trouble remembering which spell seals away what demon.  One day she gets lucky when she hears about a boy who keeps cheating on his girlfriend, and seals away what turns out to be the incubus Kagura in a convenient doll-sized form.

Kagura only wants to get back to normal size, but Miko isn't sure quite how to do so.  Still, he needs female contact to live, so he's content to hide on her person and occasionally try to sex Miko up in her dreams.  Miko puts up with it because his presence allows her to sense and see other demons, although soon enough she begins to questions whether her feelings are truly professional.

STORY:
Shinjo's stories tend to play things along the same shoujo romance plot structure that we've been reading for decades.  The most notable thing she tends to add is a greater emphasis on sex and sensuality, generally painting her male leads as the sexiest things to grace the pages of manga and making liberal use of the Rape card.  It's safe to say that I'm not a fan of hers.  While I can't say that Demon Love Spell completely sold me on her and her works, I can say with confidence that it IS a step forward.  She's made a few little changes to her formula, and it's vastly to this work's benefit.

Miko is very much your generic shoujo heroine.  She's spunky, good natured, and completely innocent when it comes to boys and sex so that she can stretch the drama out further with the old "why is my heart beating so fast?" act.  Kagura, on the other hand, is a little different.  Personality-wise he's very much your typical Shinjo love interest - dark-haired, leering, sleezy.  Once he's chibified, though, Shinjo gets a lot of comedy out of his situation.  He's forced to wear cutesy doll clothes.  He has to conceal himself as things like a purse charm or even as a hamster.  And worst of all for him, he's now completely dependent on Miko for the affection and touching he needs to sustain himself.  It's this power reversal which makes this story so enjoyable.  Miko is the one who holds the reins in this relationship, and while Kagura does his best to win her over through sexytimes in dreamspace, she's mostly resistant to his charms.  He can't seduce her, so their relationship has to be built up gradually as a proper partnership, and that's where the greatest charm of this story is found.

I'd never thought I would find a Mayu Shinjo work that was so funny.  I'd also never though I would find one that didn't have an exploitative, one-sided relationship.  Nonetheless, Demon Love Spell possesses both, and it's easily her best work.

ART:
Shinjo's art is kind of old-fashioned for shoujo.  Her male characters are still very much stuck in the 90s, with needle-sharp chins, gangly proportions, and messy, pointy hair.  The girls are generically cute, as is Chibi!Kagura.  There's a lot of big, broad reactions, which makes sense considering the greater emphasis on comedy.  Nothing's heavily detailed, save for the screen-toned prints used for the demons' kimonos.  Backgrounds are shockingly blank, filled instead with a variety of screentones and textures.  Her artwork is ultimately nothing special and even a little behind-the-times, but it does what it needs to do.

PRESENTATION:
Nothing to see here.

RATING:

It's nothing revolutionary, but I gladly welcome any changes to Shinjo's formula, and this work is easily her funniest and most accessible.

This series is published by Viz.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 6 volumes available so far.  5 volumes have been published, and all are currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: KNIGHTS OF SIDONIA

Argh, nothing like the holidays to get a girl off schedule.  So, I had better start getting caught up!  So, the first of tonight's reviews is another selection from Vertical - a mecha series this time, from a surprising source.

KNIGHTS OF SIDONIA (Shidonia no Kishi), by Tsutomu Nihei.  First published in 2009, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Nagate Tanikaze has spent his whole life living within the depths of a massive spaceship.  He is unaware of anything beyond his hand-to-mouth existence.  His only companion is his grandfather.  His days are spent searching for food or practicing in a flight simulator.  When his grandfather dies and the food runs out, Nagate wanders out into the larger world and is caught.

Now he's surrounded by humans...of a sort.  Humanity and science have advanced so much that people can clone themselves, or alter their bodies into that of animals or even photosynthesize.  Humanity is not alone in space, though, and they are often in conflict with strange alien beings.  Nagate's time in the simulator makes him a natural choice to pilot one of the ship's fighting robots, and Nagate begins to learn that the universe is bigger, stranger, and more dangerous than he could have ever imagined.

STORY:
This may be the most mainstream story Nihei's ever done.  Sure it's science-fiction, just like everything else he's done, but this is not the bizarre cybernetic dystopias of Blame! or Biomega.  It's not a huge stretch for him to turn his fascination of combining men and machine into a mecha series, it is a stretch for him to create something that often verges on pleasant slice-of-life.

I really like the way Nihei gradually expands Nagate's world, as he ventures out from his little room into the heart of the ship (and humanity) at large, and in turn it expands out into space.  The pacing is as gradual and steady as a river, and the tone is surprisingly quiet and toned-down, even in the middle of the mecha battles.  I also appreciate Nihei's ability to do so much of his world building with little to no dialogue, expository or otherwise.  He trusts the reader to put things together on their own, and the silence on the page only enhances the quietness of the tone. 

Because he says so little, Nagate remains something of a cipher as a character.  He's mostly there as the reader stand-in, to marvel at and react to the new world around him.  Mind you, nobody gets much in the way of deep characterization, and only a few stick around long enough to start bonding with Nagate. These are the parts that make the story feel like a slice-of-life series at times - one chapter is simply Nagate going to a party with some of his shipmates in a simulated wilderness, and there's a delicate sort of loveliness about it which serves as contrast to the battles which shortly follow.

It's during the mecha battles that this manga starts to feel like more like Nihei's previous works.  The Gaura - the alien forces humanity is battling - are strange, gross, tentacle-laden, oddly fetal, disturbing things.  The battles are brief and brutal, as ships and mecha are torn apart like tissue paper.  Nihei also gets into the after-effects of surviving such a battle, as we see Nagate suffering from depression, bad dreams, and nausea afterwards. 

 Knights of Sidonia  looks rather light and unusual on the surface, but close reading shows that a lot of Nihei's familiar touches are present, along with his masterful control of tone and pacing.  It's different from much of the mecha manga out there, and I for one am thankful for such a difference.

ART:
The artwork is also rather drastically different from Nihei's previous works.  These are not the harsh, gaunt figures of his past works, drawn in crude, harsh lines.  Here the characters are drawn in a more rounded, plainer, flatter, and overall more conventional style.  They are beautifully and subtly expressive, though, which helps the reader to fill in the blanks that most others would fill with dialogue.  The only exception to this are the Gaura, and to a lesser degree the different layers of the ship.  There's clearly some degree of socioeconomic stratification going on even in the future, because some characters live in areas which look like a cross between a Japanese back-alley and an industrial warehouses while other areas are slick, clean, and streamlined.  The mecha designs are nothing special.  These are blocky, practical machines, more for utility than for flair.  Space itself is mostly just a inky black void - here, the wonders are found inside the ship, not outside. 

PRESENTATION:
There are color pages in the front, but true to form it's rather minimally colored in shades of black, white, and red. 

RATING:
Knights of Sidonia isn't as visually strange and distinct as most of Nihei's work, but it's still a fascinatingly quiet, moodly little bit of sci-fi, one that is more of an exercise in world-building than epic mecha battles.

This series is published by Vertical.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 11 volumes available so far.  6 volumes have been published so far, and all are currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: ANOTHER

Reviewing a horror title so close to Christmas time feels a little odd, but it was a big release for Yen Press (in more ways than one), so naturally it merited some attention.

Also, while I do as much as possible to avoid specific spoilers, to discuss the latter half of this manga, some vague spoilers are needed.  If you're determined to read this series, I would skip ahead to the Art section and rating, because this is the sort of story that works best when going in completely blind.  That being said, on with the review!

ANOTHER (Anaza), adapted from the novel by Yukito Ayatsuji and art by Hiro Kiyohara.  First published in 2010, and first published in North America in 2013. 

PLOT:
It's the summer of 1998, and Koichi Sakakibara is transferring to the town of Yomiyama, his late mother's hometown.  He's meant to be starting school, but a chronic collapsing lung keeps him in the hospital for a while.  While there, he meets a mysterious young girl speaking cryptically, walking towards the morgue.  Once he gets to school, he discovers that same mysterious girl is there, and his classmates seem weirdly defensive and disconnected from the rest of the school.  Koichi discovers rumors of a curse on his class, one with a long history, deadly results, and the mystery girl, and the truth is far stranger than any rumor. 

STORY:
Horror manga tends to live and die on the quality of the writing.  Another has some advantages in that it was adapted from a light novel series - the plot and structure were already in place.  So, was that story good enough to justify that length?  Well...yes and no.

So let's discuss what does work with the writing.  The story does take its time to build the tension and the mystery.  The setting, the cast, the conflict, all are well-established.  I'll admit that the Big Twist (because stories like this always have a Big Twist) worked really well.  Without getting into massive spoilers, I'm glad the twist wasn't supernatural in nature (where she was a ghost all alooooong, spoooooky!), because quite frankly that would have been lame.  The actual twist is much more down to earth, and even to some degree believable as it's built more around mass hysteria than ghosts and goblins.  The reaction of Koichi and Mei (the mystery girl) is even kind of funny, and it's a welcome bit of levity after all the build-up. 

Of course, for all that it does well, it also fails on some front.  The biggest failing is when it comes to characterization.  Barely anyone, Koichi included, gets any sort of character arc or any sort of personality beyond a quirk or two.  Mei is somehow the best developed of the entire cast, which would be fine if she were the lead.  The problem is that she isn't.  Koichi, like so many horror leads, really isn't a character onto himself so much as he is a plot devise.  He's there to ask questions when needed, to stand there quietly while others make mysterious proclamations, and to collapse conveniently whenever he needs to get out of a scene or to move things forward a few days or weeks. 

Also, while the twist works fine, the plot developments after that become positively melodramatic, particularly once the cast goes on their class trip.  Their paranoia builds into stabbity madness, and it seems after so much slow, quiet build-up that such hysterics become a little silly.  Also, the Big Twist kind of loses its impact when near the end, you realize that the class's coping mechanic is basically the equivalent of "I'M NOT LISTENING! LALALALA NOT LISTENING!"  Also, after going so long without using any sort of supernatural BS, they go and give Mei a supernatural power, only to take it away. Also, there's a nurse who supposed to serve as clumsy comic relief, and almost every scene she's in is PAINFUL, and in ways this manga did not intend.

So while the story isn't all that bad at building atmosphere at the beginning, it's not so good at building up its characters or maintain its atmosphere in the second half.  It's not a bad story, but not a brilliant one either.

ART:
Another's story may have its faults, but those faults do not apply to the art.  Kiyohara's art is dark, sharp, and good-looking.  The character models are distinct and expressive.  Panels tend to be large, closely focused and sparsely composed, and there are a lot of high and low angles to liven things up.   Backgrounds are mundane, when present, and most of the time the characters drift through grey and white limbos.  Despite the horror elements, there isn't a lot of gore, and what blood is there is artfully rendered in black splotches.

PRESENTATION:
This series is presented as a single omnibus, and it's a veritable brick of a book.  It's almost awkwardly big, and I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have been better to split it in half.  There's color splash pages at the beginning and halfway point, colored in moody shades of red, purple, black and white.

RATING:
Another is an entertaining read with some lovely artwork.  Just don't think too hard about the details, because it sort of falls apart if you do.

This series is published by Yen Press.  This series is complete in 4 volumes, and this omnibus is currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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One Volume Wonder: KISSES, SIGHS, AND CHERRY BLOSSOM PINK

Maybe I've been a little TOO hard on Seven Seas.  Yes, they release a lot of harem-y, fanservice-y works, but they've also taken a chance on bringing yuri back to the mainstream manga market.  Having never read any yuri myself, I decided to take a chance on one of their titles and was pleasantly surprised by this one volume wonder.

KISSES, SIGHS, AND CHERRY BLOSSOM PINK (Kuchiburu Tameiki Sakurairo), by Milk Morinaga.  First published in 2006, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Nana and Hitomi have been best friends through junior high.  Near the end of junior high, Hitomi kisses Nana, and she dismisses it as a joke.  The two end up in different high schools, and Nana is heartbroken over the loss of her friend.  She discovers that she feels bad about Hitomi, and that her feelings for Hitomi have developed into love.  The two begin to date, but struggle with working around their different schedules and interests, classmates from both schools who begin to get suspicious about the two, and coming to terms with their own desires and the dynamics of being in a relationship.  Mind you, they are far from the only Sapphic relationship in their schools, as the girls around them go through similar sorts of same-sex crushes and relationships - some requited, some not. 

STORY:
This is not a continuous story, but an anthology of chapters published over many years.  In spite of this, this volume feels very cohesive because it wisely anchors the various chapters to a single relationship.  Better still, Morinaga gives that central relationship a lot of development and substance, and in some ways it feels more complete than most manga relationships (gay or straight) tend to be.

I liked the fact that we get to see Nana and Hitomi's relationship develop over time.  So much romance in manga tends to focus solely on the build-up to the couple getting together.  We don't usually get to see the two partners figure out how to make dating once they are together.  That's why it's so refreshing to see these girls have to deal with the consequences of dating.  How can they find time to see one another when they have to work around two very different social cliques and activities?  How do they keep they balance their desire to keep the relationship a secret with the romantic urge to declare their love from the rooftops?  How do they deal with their burgeoning sexual feelings for one another?  Does someone have to be 'the guy' in the relationship?  The story never gets too explicit or oppressive with these questions - after all, this isn't a hentai and neither is it an after-school special - but the fact that they are brought up at all help to give their relationship some dimension, that a relationship has to evolve beyond blushing confessions and first kisses.  On the other hand, the brief bits of drama around them tend to be resolved almost a little TOO neatly, as if Morinaga was afraid to disrupt the otherwise sweetly serene tone of the chapters.  Sometimes, it feels like Nana and Hitomi's relationship is all the highlights of being with someone and being deeply in love without any of the perils or downfalls.

Admittedly it's also rather convenient that so many girls around Nana and Hitomi are also experiencing similar feelings for other girls, but there's enough distance between the various parties and the main couple as to keep things tightly interwoven without EVERYONE around Nana and Hitomi being gay.  Characters from the various one-shot chapters pop up here and there in later chapters either as supporting characters or just simply background filler.  The one-off chapters tend to be a little more repetitious in structure, about one girl confessing her love to another in some form.  Most of the time the feelings are requited; some are not.  Most of them are down-to-earth, save for an early chapter about a ghost in love with the school nurse, who was her best friend before her death.  My personal favorite was the chapter about the school drama club, where the star actress has taken to practicing her role as the 'prince' in the school play a little more seriously than the other girls expected.

There's also a certain degree of similarity in the couples, and I don't know whether this is due to Morinaga's personal preferences or whether these traits are part of the yuri equivalent of the seme/uke clichés.  Nonetheless, you will see a lot of chapters where shorter, darker-haired, more passive girls are paired with taller, lighter-haired, and more aggressive or outgoing ones.

It has a few minor blemishes, but Kisses, Sighs and Cherry Blossom Pink is an anthology that is not only as sweet and lovely as the imagery of its title, but also takes pains to give its central romance some depth and to neatly tie its chapters together into its own little universe.

ART:
This is a collection of Morinaga's earlier works, but you wouldn't be able to tell just from looking at it.  Morinaga's character designs are very much within the shoujo mold, all rounded, delicate, and frequently blushing.  The art style is quite consistent, which also helps to visually tie the different stories together.  She also does a good job at visually distinguishing the various girls involved, so we have at least some idea of who's who and can recognize them as they appear and reappear throughout.  Backgrounds are nicely drawn, even if they mostly consist of classrooms and bedrooms, and while Morinaga tends to break out the shoujo sparkles and bubbles frequently, it's never to the point of abuse.  Overall the book looks as pretty and sweet as its stories, and it only adds to the pleasure of reading it.

PRESENTATION:
There are some notes on each of the chapters from Morinaga, as well as an extremely useful relationship chart to help the reader keep track of how the girls all relate to one another.

RATING:

Even those who don't get any particular thrill from lesbianism can enjoy Kisses, Sighs and Cherry Blossom Pink because Morinaga ties everything together so well and because she gives so much time and page space to developing the main couple.  I highly recommend this one, and hope to see many more works like it in the future.

This volume is published by Seven Seas.  It is currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: VINLAND SAGA

To say that today's selection has high expectations is a serious understatement.  It's long been a favorite of the scanlation scene, and many despaired of it ever being released in the US.  Vertical was in the process of making their own plans to release it, only to have the license snatched away by Kodansha themselves to release on their own.  Is Vinland Saga as epic as its history?

VINLAND SAGA (Vinrando Saga), by Makoto Yukimura.  First published in 2005, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
During the Middle Ages, a ruthless band of Vikings attacks a Frankish village.  The Vikings win the day in part to their ruthless leader, Askeladd, and in part due to Thorfinn, a young man whose age belies both his strength and his rage.  He has good cause to be rageful, as we flashback on Thorfinn's carefree childhood.  Back then, he had a family and dreams of being a great warrior like his father Thors.  Thors may have been a wise and caring man then, but he carried dark, bloody secrets in his past and it is those secrets which lead him to venture away from his village and family.  Those same secrets are the reason Askeladd is hired to hunt Thors down, and their encounter changes Thorfinn's life forever.  Now Thorfinn fights and lives for one cause only: revenge.

STORY:
So, was Vinland Saga worth the wait and struggle to bring it to the North American market?  The answer is a resounding YES.

I'll admit that I've long had a sweet spot for Viking history, so already this manga gets credit for focusing on a culture and history I enjoy and for choosing such an unusual time and setting for a manga.  As a self-admitted history geek, I'm very pleased to see that Yukimura did his research, and aside from a few little things (like the Franks speaking modern French), the times, places, cultures and people are historically accurate, at least as much as possible.  Honestly, the only major anachronism is its best developed character - Thors.

Poor Thors.  He's got the makings of a great man, with his great strength, keen mind, loving heart, and a healthy dose of humility and thoughtfulness.  Unfortunately for him, Viking culture put greater value on one's abilities as a warrior and leader of men, and Thors wants to put his marauding days behind him.   It is only under great duress that we get to see why he was once so feared, and sadly it is his sense of decency that undoes him.  His is a commanding presence, and his absence is just as keenly felt by the audience as it is for Thorfinn.

Because a good two-thirds of this volume is a flashback about Thors, it's kind of easy to forget that Thorfinn is supposed to be our lead.  The contrast between the happy child of the past and the angry young man of the present couldn't be greater, though.  Because of that flashback, you understand where Thorfinn is coming from, but he's not an easy character to like.  As is, he's sullen, haunted, and barely suppressing his rage.  He avoids the company of all other when off the battlefield, and speaks very little.  When he does, he has no kind words to share, and while he obeys Askeladd on the field he clearly hates the man to his very core.

Askeladd is the thread that ties the stories of the past and present together, and while he could have been a simple villain, he's simply too congenial and too much of a trickster to fit such a role.  His cunning makes him a great general, someone who can change tactics as needed on a moment's notice and use unconventional strategies to win.  Off the battlefield, he's surprisingly easy-going and even a little snarky, even with Thorfinn.  Still, he is no angel.  He is a mercenary, after all, and he is a man who must fight to survive.  He has no pity for those below him and has no room in his life for decency or fairness without profit for him.  He may be a bastard, but he's an interesting bastard, and he completes the plot threads between the past and the present.

As you may have guessed from those last few paragraphs, this is a very character-driven story.  There's certainly a fair bit of action (mostly in the beginning), but much of the time is spent establishing Thorfinn's family and community in the past, as well as establishing his situation in the present.  The extended flashback does kill some of the plot momentum, but it's necessarily to create context for Thorfinn's present and give the story much of its great depth.

Time will tell if this manga lives up to its title as a saga, but as is Vinland Saga is a great historical drama supported by its extremely well-written characters.

ART:
Yukimura's art is surprisingly cartoony when compared to his previous work, Planetes.  It's still very much grounded in reality, save for the odd exception (like the toad-like Frankish lord), but the eyes seem wider and the faces much simpler.  Still, they're quite subtle and expressive, and look just as good in action as they do in calmer scenes.  Action scenes are fluidly drawn, and while Yukimura makes frequent use of speed lines, he never lets them obscure the actual action.  The page composition for these scenes verges on the cinematic, with the way the scenes cut from panel to panel.  His historical research extended to the art as well, and everything from the buildings to the clothing to the boats is both well drawn (if rather homely) and historically accurate. 

PRESENTATION:
Kodansha is releasing this in hardbound 2-in-1 omnibuses, in a style closer to library binding.  There's a 2-page color splash page in the front.  After each volume, there are a few goofy 4-komas (including some rather amusing ones dedicated to Thorfinn's sister, Ylva), along with beautiful renderings of things like the floorplan of Thorfinn's family home and some of the weapons.  There's also maps showing where the characters are in relation to one another and in relation to Europe as it was in the 11th century, as well as translation notes.  There are also some amusing pictures of Yukimura in Viking costume when he received an award for this series.  Finally, there's a snippet of an unrelated Japanese historical story, "For Our Farewell Is Near," about the Shinsengumi. 

RATING:
Vinland Saga is shaping up to be an epic release, and one I would heartily recommend to others.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 12 volumes available so far.  The first omnibus, containing the first two volumes, has been released and is currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: CRIMSON EMPIRE: CIRCUMSTANCES TO SERVE A NOBLE

I was genuinely interested in this next one, as it proudly trumpets that it's from "the creator of Alice In the Country of Hearts!"  As I've noted before, I was pleasantly surprised by Alice and I am doubly happy to see that it's a big seller, to the point where Yen Press and Seven Seas have snatched up and put out every possible spin-off possible.  So, it makes perfect sense that Seven Seas would also license a new series based on another game from the same company.  Can Crimson Empire compare to its predecessor, though?

CRIMSON EMPIRE: CIRCUMSTANCES TO SERVE A NOBLE, adapted from the game by QuinRose, with story and art by Hazuki Futaba.  First published in 2009, and first published in North America in 2013.

STORY:
Sheila's like has always been one long struggle.  Born into poverty, her mother sold her into slavery, and in turn was sold to a guild of assassins.  The leader believes she'll never amount to a proper assassin, but she'll do as a bodyguard to some noble.  As such, Sheila is now serving as the bodyguard to Prince Edvard, the heir to the throne, disguising herself as his head maid.  Edvard is outwardly blithe, but his handsome face and charming manners conceal a ruthless nature and an awareness that many wish him dead.  First and foremost on that list is his own older brother, Prince Justin, but he's far from the only person who wants Edvard dead and far from the only person with a secret bodyguard.  Thus, Sheila and her fellow maids have their hands full between their duties as maids, the antics of the minor nobility around them, and their constant struggle for them and their charges to survive.

PLOT:
It's extremely difficult to NOT compare this to Alice In the Country of Hearts, because aside from their similar histories the two couldn't be more different.  The biggest problem is that as far as the story goes, Crimson Empire does everything wrong that Alice got so unexpectedly right.

For a professional assassin who very literally sold her soul to a demon, Sheila's kind of a dull character.  The story is spent mostly having her react to the antics of others, along with the odd flashback to her past.  She's not incompetent - she has a no-nonsense attitude towards life, and she's just as capable as a maid as she is as a killer.  It's just that she feels lost within what should be her own story.  Also, the concept of an assassin maid feels a little bit like the story trying to have its cheesecake and eat it too: they get to have a strong deadly woman who also gets to prance around in a frilly, fetish uniform. 

Of course, it's easy to Sheila to get lost in her own story because there are simply too many damn cast members.  Aside from the three already mentioned, there are two other maids, a few other minor nobles, a couple of wizards, a handful of assassins, and a demon, and they all have to come out at least once and do whatever wacky thing they are supposed to do.  Hell, I'm not entirely sure we learn everyone's name outside of the cast list.  Meanwhile, what little plot there is stops dead in its tracks.  Sure, things pick up in the last quarter of the volume, but then that leaves the reader wondering why all these people were introduced in the first place, aside from the fact that they were in the game.

With all those cast members to parade before the reader and only so many pages to fill, it's little wonder that there's isn't much time for character development, and as such they tend to tell, not show, what these characters are like.  Not even the princes are immune, as we depend on Sheila to tell us about how hard Edvard has had things and how much the public loves him, but we see little of Edvard doing anything that justifies his adoration beyond being handsome.  The only character with any explainable motive is Justin, and that's mostly because he's bitter at being passed over for his brother.  That lack of time for the character also means that romantic tension is nonexistent between Sheila and pretty much everyone.  There's obviously supposed to be some sort of love triangle between Sheila, Edvard, and Justin, but beyond Edvard commanding Sheila to stay with him always there's no point where they act like they are anything other than acquaintances.

Overall, the story is confusing and dull, and so much time is spent trotting out the cast that neither they nor the plot can develop properly.  As such, the story simply washes over the reader leaving little to no impression.

ART:
The artwork for Crimson Empire is as unremarkable as the story, but it's harder here to determine how much of this can be blamed on the artist and how much can be blamed on the original game designs.    The character designs are conventional - girls are wide-eyed and cute, men are narrow-eyed and expressionless, which far too many manga artists confuse for being 'aloof.'  Many of the men tend to be based around the same bishonen face, which are then dressed up in the goofiest fashion possible to distinguish them.  The cast as a whole tends to have rather stiff expressions, and the few bits of action are equally stiff and often framed in odd ways or obscured with screentone, which only adds further to the stilted storytelling.

PRESENTATION:
This series is printed in a large format, which is meant to better show off the art.  It includes a couple of color splash pages in the front, along with a cast list (including the seiyuu from the original game). On one hand, I'm thankful they included this because you'll need it to keep everyone straight.  On the other hand, the blurbs below each character tells us more about the characters and their relationships than the actual manga, which is a very telling flaw.  I also wonder why a North American audience would care about the seiyuu, considering that the game this is based on has not been released here (and even if it were, would they leave the speech in Japanese?).

RATING:
They say lightning never strikes twice, and that is most certainly true for QuinRose adaptations.  There's too much cast and too little story, and there's nothing in the story or visuals to charm the reader and keep them reading.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is complete in 3 volumes.  2 volumes have been published so far, and both are currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: BLUE MORNING

You know, it's a little strange to consider how long it took Viz to embrace the yaoi market.  Sure, most of it was put out by tiny niche companies, of which only Digital Manga Press survives.  Still, Tokyopop was willing to create a yaoi line, and many others from the pre-crash days at least dabbled in it.  Still, Viz has had the last laugh with their SuBLime line - they may have had a slow and unspectacular start, but in this last year, they've picked up some good series that have started to get some really good reviews.  Today's review is one of the gems of their lineup, and further proof that good yaoi does exist - you just have to be willing to look for it.

BLUE MORNING (Yuutsu no Asa), by Shoko Hidaka.  First published in 2009, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
At the turn of the twentieth century in Japan, young Akihito Kuze finds himself thrust into the glittering world of the aristocracy upon the death of his father.  Akihito is now the Viscount Kuze, and is expected to grow and behave in a manner befitting both his title and his late father's stern legacy.  His father's last words were commanding Akihito to listen to Tomoyuki Katsuragi, the family's highly efficient and highly intelligent butler with many a secret of his own. 

As he grows, Akihito grows increasingly frustrated with Katsuragi because he is impossible to please and seems focused solely on advancing Akihito's position and maintaining his wealth.  In spite of that, Akihito is hopelessly drawn to Katsuragi.  He wants to understand how a man with Katsuragi's brains and breeding could end up in such a position, what history he has with the Kuzes, and above all to please him and get some sort of reaction.  Akihito's desperation turns into something more desperate and passionate, and Akihito finds himself willing to do anything to find out more about Katsuragi.

STORY:
Blue Morning is one of the best yaoi series to be released this year.  Hell, it might be one of the best yaoi series I've read in many years.  It's a shining example of what a mangaka can accomplish with good character building, good drama, and an interesting setting.

What makes Blue Morning work so well is that the focus isn't on smut, but story.  There's barely any sex in this volume, and the only instance comes near the end.  Hidaka wisely spends all those pages letting the reader get to know our two leads, to see their relationship build and change over time, and to set up all sorts of intrigues and drama.  This sort of period drama is closer to Downton Abbey than it is to Junjo Romantica, and it's a refreshing change of pace.  The setting is intriguing in that it shows a historic Japan where the people, the buildings, and social structures are rapidly changing and Westernizing.  Honestly, were it not for the names and the odd kimono, you could easily mistake this for a Victorian-era European setting. 

So many yaoi mangaka spend little to no time developing the relationship between their leads - they simply throw the two into bed as soon and frequently as possible without necessarily giving the reader any notion of who these two people are or why the reader should care about them having sex or entering into a relationship.  This is not the case with Blue Morning.  Akihito and Katsuragi may be master and servant, but their relationship goes beyond mere kinky stereotype.  To say that their relationship is 'complicated' would be understating things.

Akihito sees Katsuragi as a father figure, standing in for the real father he barely saw or knew.  Like any young boy, he's driven to earn his father figure's praise, a feat made all the harder by Katsuragi's high standards and stoic façade.  That drive to please him shifts as Akihito grows into manhood and becomes something of an obsession.  At first he just wants a reaction - any reaction! - out of the man, but as he starts to piece together Katsuragi's past he also wants to find a way to raise his social status to one more befitting of the man.

As for Katsuragi, he is harder to read, and the story gives us all sorts of hints and teases about both his past and present.  He is technically nobility himself, being the younger son of a family close to the Kuzes, and was taken in by them at an early age.  It's clear that he looked up to the former viscount, although the exact nature of their relationship is unknown.  He also seems to have a rather complicated view of the aristrocracy.  One minute he'll be sleeping with members of influential families to ease Akihito's social ascent, the next he looks down upon those who waste their wealth and status on frivolity and leisure.  He's always pushing Akihito towards success and perfection, but the bigger question is whether this is for Akihito or himself.

Theirs is not a romantic relationship, and I don't think Hidaka wants us to see it that way, at least not at this stage.  Theirs is a relationship founded on obsessions and secrets, and their coupling is not so much the culmination of a romance as it is the tension Akihito perceives between the two building to the point of desperation, and takes their relationship to the next inevitable (and nonconsensual) phase.  It's just all so dark, complicated, and psychologically messy, and because we've spent so much time getting to know these two (as much as the story will allow) you WANT to see how this relationship will turn out, and you WANT to find out the truth about Katsuragi along with Akihito.  This just goes to show what a good mangaka can do when she's committed to writing a genuinely good story with complex characters, instead of simply using the story as padding between sex scenes.

ART:
Blue Morning also stands out in that the artwork is above-average for this genre, the best I've seen since of the works of Fumi Yoshinaga.  While Hidaka's character designs are handsome, they're also well-rooted in reality.  The proportions are normal, the faces well-detailed and subtle, and she even manages to expertly handle foreshortening them in cases of extremely high or low-angled panels that show up relatively frequently.  She puts care into the wardrobes and backgrounds, even if they are not exquisitely detailed.  Admittedly, there aren't a lot of big vistas - this is story with a lot of talking, and thus a lot of talking head close-ups.  Still, it's high quality work and the understated elegance of the art fits the story beautifully

PRESENTATION:
There's only a single color page in the front.

RATING:
Blue Morning is a fascinating little period piece that I would recommend even to those who are usually wary of yaoi.  Shoko Hidaka was not someone I was aware of before, but if the rest of her work is like this, then I eagerly await more of it.

This series is published by Viz.  This story is complete in 3 volumes, and all are currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: MONSTER MUSUME

I've lamented before about the sorry state of many of Seven Seas' licenses, of how they tend to pick up otaku-bait harems and other fanservice-driven titles.

I am sorry to say that today's review is no exception.  Hell, if anything it might be one of the worst titles I've come across from this company.

MONSTER MUSUME (Monster Musume no Iru Nichijo), by Okayado.  First published in 2012, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Kurusu Kimihito is an ordinary boy (aren't they always?) living in an extraordinary world.  A few years back, humanity and liminals (half-animal women) came to an accord, and now the monster girls of every shape and size have incorporated into human society, with legal rights and protections of their own.  As part of an exchange program, Kurusu has taken in Miia, a lamia (half-snake) girl who is as clingy as she is lustful.  Along the way, Kurusu takes in the child-like, ditzy harpy Papi as well as the proud, formal centaur Centorina.  All of them come to love Kurusu, but the treaty forbids Kurusu from acting on any impure thoughts.  At least, that's what Kurusu thought, so what's this about using him as a test-run for human-liminal marriage?!

STORY:
I have seen my fair share of fanservice-heavy manga before, as well as my fair share of harem series, and my expectations for both remain remarkably low.  Monster Musume achieves something remarkable in its ability to scrape the very bottom of the harem genre all while achieving gross new heights in blatant fanservice.  It's one of the trashiest manga I've ever read.

There are so many questions I have about this universe, all of which go completely unanswered.  Why are all the liminals women?  Why does a snake girl even NEED panties? Where do all these species come from - are they all from the same place, or different nations?  Do they come from Earth or some other dimension or planet?  Why do the vast majority have boobs bigger than their heads?  There are just so many questions, all of which will never go answered because the mangaka is far more interested in having monster girls take off their tops and hump some dull stand-in of a man.

Kurusu is one of the blandest harem leads you'll see on the shelves, which says a lot considering the towering examples of boredom the genre is known for.  He has no personality whatsoever, being only mildy nervous and mildly pervy, who someone wins all these girls over by his stunning ability to be generically nice.  Forgive me for launching into a rant, but I will never understand for the life of me why the foundation of so many harems seems to be unspecific, superficial courtesy.  These girls are never drawn to the guy because they share some personal interest, share a mutual lust for one another, or because the guy is particularly smart, talented, or charming.  Nope, all it takes to get into their pants is a few 'please's and 'thank you's, garnished with a few generic words about friendship, and all the while the girls will be so amazed because NO ONE has ever been THIS NICE to them in their ENTIRE LIVES!  As with so many elements of the harem genre, it's just another form of wish-fulfillment for guys who have never had a relationship with anyone that wasn't a hug pillow, for those who want all the rewards of female affection without making any sort of effort to attract or ensnare them beyond the barest of human decency.  Oh wait, I forgot the one thing Kurusu does that keeps them near: he gropes them!  Apparently regardless of species, the easiest way to win a liminal's heart is to grope her breasts until she achieves orgasm.  So there you go - he's a master groper!

Anyway!  Back to the characters!  The girls surrounding Kurusu are just as dull and plain as him.  Those couple of descriptors I used in the Plot section?  Yeah, that's all the character development any of them get.  Miia is horny and jealous, Papi speaks in the third person, mixes up words, and barely can keep a thought in her head, and Centorina speaks like a LARPer trying too hard.  They are all brought together by Agent Plot Device, better known as Ms. Smith.  She's there to spout exposition as needed and to torment Kurusu while mooching off of him.  She's meant to be comic relief, but the attempts at comedy are just as lame as the romance.  The only other attempt at comedy comes from the translation, which is chock-a-block with lame, groan-inducing puns.  The sad thing is that this is actually an improvement on much of what I've seen from Seven Seas before.  They've had a bad habit of leaving in honorifics and such untranslated, so I'll take full translated puns over 'fu fu fu.'

Monster Musume is lazy and dull.  The only inspired thing about it is the fact that it's about a harem of fantasy creatures instead of moeblobs.  The characters are shallow, dumb, and clichéd, and the plot ignores all the plot potential of such a universe and settles instead on plot the same old well-worn harem route.

ART:
Monster Musume has some of the grossest art I've come across.  It's not gross in that it's loaded with blood and guts, but instead in how fragrantly it flaunts its shockingly uncensored fanservice.  We're not talking about a few ridiculously sized boobs or a panty shot here and there.  It's more like that you can't go four or five pages without somebody's bared and realistically detailed breasts being shoved into frame.  The only reason there aren't that many panty shots is that only one of the girls can wear panties in the usual manner.  Okayado manages to turn something as innocuous as feeding a harpy girl a popsicle into an improbable and grossly unsubtle semen joke.  Papi in particular is the source of the most uncomfortable fanservice in the whole volume, as she is the token loli character. Thus, when she starts stripping or shoving her taint into the frame, you fear that at any moment Chris Hansen will start peering over your shoulder.  Honestly, the only thing that keeps this from being hentai is the lack of actual sex.  I can't believe this got away with an "Older Teen 16+" rating, because this one of the most sexually explicit and exploitative manga I've seen in general release.

The worst part is because there's so little plot to this volume that the fanservice ends up driving the story forward.  This isn't an instance of fanservice distracting from the plot, this is fanservice BECOMING the plot.  It's not help that beyond the fanservice, the art is exceedingly plain.  The designs for the girls are unremarkable, since more attention was lavished on their breasts than their faces.  It is rather convenient that the girls are just humanoid enough so that their faces and breasts are unaffected, and most of the animal parts consist of extraneous things like ears and tales.  Expressions are broad as possible, and the girls blush so frequently that you'd think they were stuck in a sauna.  Backgrounds are rare - after all, who needs backgrounds when you can just fill the panel with more tits!  Better still, make sure to make the panels really big so you can fill them border to border with nipple!

The story was bad enough, but the artwork takes this story to exploitative new lows.  I suspect this guy got his start with hentai doujin, and frankly I wish he had stayed there.

PRESENTATION:
There are a couple of (mercifully unexplicit) color pages in the front.  The same cannot be said for those in the back, like the couple of pages where the girls compare their assets, or the character profile which mostly serves to define the girls' cup sizes.  The only interesting extra was the preview they included for another Seven Seas title, A Centaur's Life.  It's a stark contrast to this volume, as the artwork's noticeably better, puts more effort into its universe (mostly in that there are monster boys as well as girls), and the tone is far more gentle and casual, like something out of a shoujo magazine.

RATING:
If you really want something with monsters and lots of huge shiny tits, there are loads of hentai manga to be found on the internet.  I guarantee you that no matter how strange or kinky it may be, it will be better drawn and better written than this travesty.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with four volumes available so far.  1 volume has been published so far, and is currently in print.


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Review: BARRAGE

Today's review was one of the first series out of Shonen Jump Alpha to get some serious buzz, and some thought it might be the next big title out of that magazine (Spoilers: It was not).  What was it about this series that got people so hyped?

BARRAGE (Sensei no Baruji), by Kouhei Horikoshi.  First published in 2012, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Astro is a street rat living in the capital of the planet Industria, which currently is locked in the middle of a fractious, violent civil war.  Astro is oblivious to all this, though - he's simply working when and where he can so he can earn enough to feed himself and his makeshift family of fellow street children.

Astro's life changes forever after a chance encounter with Prince Barrage, who turns out to be Astro's doppelganger.  Barrage trusts Astro with a strange bracelet, only to die shortly thereafter.  Astro now must impersonate the crown prince, and that the bracelet is in fact a secret and powerful weapon.  With the help of Tiamat, the king's most trusted knight, Astro must set out to use his weapon to not only save the capital, but the whole planet.

STORY:
To a degree, I can see why people got excited for Barrage.  It's built on a lot of classic shonen archetypes, and has a lively pace.  On the other hand, it can never quite make all those archetypes mesh into something more coherent.  Instead, it seems more like Horikoshi just kept thowing ideas on the pile of archetypes hoping something will work, and the result is a mess.

At first, it seems like the story is going to be a riff on The Prince and The Pauper, until said Prince is blown away by random gunfire.  So next you'd think it'd be more of a personal journey for Astro and how he is transforming into both a hero and someone worthy to rule, thus showing how nobility is earned instead of being granted by others.  Then midway through it becomes a sort of combination of buddy cop action and a shonen tournament arc, with Astro and Tiamat learning to trust one another and how to get stronger while taking down an ever-escalating series of goons.  Any one of those ideas would work fine for a manga, but it seems like Horikoshi kept changing his mind about the direction of the story every couple of chapters.  That uncertainty in direction thus makes it hard for the reader to get invested in the story, because it could totally change on them without notice.

Astro is like so many young Shonen Jump leads - young, spunky, loyal to a fault, not terribly bright.  One thing that makes him different is that he has a veritable monomania when it comes to family.  Even after he becomes a prince and the kids are brought to the castle, Astro's first concern is making sure that his kids are safe and sound, and any threat to his or anyone else's family is met with fanatical anger.  Tiamat serves as reluctant mentor to Astro, being strict and formal, always having to keep Astro focused on the task before them.  He also has a painfully labored quirk where he is either afraid of or extremely nervous around women, to the point where he can't even look at a girl.  At least he's trying to keep the story moving, because no one sticks around long enough to do so.  These two are pretty much the only constants within the story, as the cast seems to shift chapter to chapter.  Those kids that Astro so highly values are completely pointless, offering a few brief moments of cuteness before disappearing midway through.  The villains aren't much better themselves, since they are mostly big dumb goons, abusive and one-dimensional. 

It's not that Barrage is completely awful.  It's fast paced, so even when the concept changes it moves on quickly which helps to smooth those transitions.  The greater focus on action in the second half only adds to this.  It's a perfectly enjoyable, simple story.  It's just that it has yet to settle on just what kind of story it wants to be.

ART:
Well, this certainly looks like a modern Shonen Jump series!  That of course meaning that the character designs are simple, cartoonish, and often oddly angular with big, broad, and frequently shouting expressions.  Horikoshi's style actually reminds me a little of Hiroyuki Imaishi (of Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill fame), in a pleasant and not overly derivative way.  Horikoshi is also good at making his action scenes lively and flowing, which when combined with the fast pace of the second half makes those scenes thrilling and fun to read.  Otherwise his art is clean and clearly assembled.  While Barrage's story may be muddled, its artwork is not.  Instead is lively and broad in a way that works with the story (such as it is), not against it.

PRESENTATION:
The only extras are a few bits of character art between the chapters.

RATING:

Barrage might not have been The Next Big Thing in manga, it's got a certain degree of charm.  The story may still be working out its growing pains, but the artwork is energetic and I feel like it starts to figure things out and find its direction by the end.  I can see how some might have gotten attached to it.  Too bad the audience for Shonen Jump in Japan did not.

This series is published by Viz.  This series is complete in 2 volumes.  Both volumes are currently in print.  The first volume is currently available in e-book form from Viz, and the series was serialized in full digitially via Shonen Jump Alpha.

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Review: NO MATTER HOW I LOOK AT IT, IT'S YOU GUYS' FAULT I'M NOT POPULAR

There are few titles that have been more anticipated than No Matter How...oh god that's too long to write over and over.  Maybe an acronym will work.  So, few titles have been as anticipated as NMHIL...ugh, that will just be a mess.  Oh screw it, I'll just call it WataMote like everyone else on the internet. As I was saying, few titles have been more anticipated than WataMote, so does the title live up to the hype?

NO MATTER HOW I LOOK AT IT, IT'S YOU GUYS' FAULT I'M NOT POPULAR (Watashi ga Motenai no wa do Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!), by Nico Tanigawa.  First published in 2011, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Tomoko Kuroki is certain that she is going to be popular in high school.  After all, she believes she was popular in junior high (despite getting insanely nervous when asked to respond to the simplest and most mundane of questions).  She also believes that she can't be unattractive - surely her flat figure, messy hair, dark undereye circles, and lack of style will blossom into the beautiful, stylish woman she wants everyone to see.  Plus, all those otome games she loves to play always involve shy, unpopular girls who become popular, gorgeous man-magnets, so surely the same will happen for her!

Of course, life is not like a video game, and two months into the school year no one has so much as talked to Tomoko.  She tries to change herself to make her dream a reality, but between her own strange media-choked viewpoint on the world and her crippling social anxiety, the results never go as they should.  Still, Tomoko is determined to make the world recognize her and gain the attention she so desperately desires.

STORY:
WataMote is a fascinating and surprisingly honest character piece.  There's no great overarching plot save for Tomoko's quest for popularity, which is onto itself a never-ending comedy of errors.  Such a plotline, as vague as it can be, could be little more than a cover-to-cover round of Mock the Geek.  Amazingly, WataMote's humor never descends into outright cruelty.  I think the biggest cause of that is because it's so committed to fleshing out Tomoko for the audience, flaws and all. 

She's no mere otaku stereotype.  Yeah, she's a social outcast who is too obsessed with dating sims for her own good, but she's got a surprising well of confidence in herself, even if it's often misdirected and delusional.  She's also got a healthy (if heavily frustrated) libido, and her sexual frustration is so great that when she isn't taking it out on digitized bishonen, she tends to misread even innocuous incidents (like accidentally seeing a classmate's panties) or perfectly normal things (like going to a lingerie store with her junior high friend Yuu) as something oddly sexual.  As for talking to boys, she can barely spit out a few words to her homeroom teacher.  When confronted with guys her own age, she agonizes over her response so long that she inevitably says something strange, all while desperately hoping others will see through her awkwardness and believe her to be someone loveable and fun. She's also got a bit of sour-grapes bitterness about her social situation, as when confronted with her classmates having normal social lives and interacting with boys like they were normal people, she snidely wishes death and despair on them, or disparages them for being slutty.  Of course, she doesn't see the hypocrisy in wishing her classmates death one moment and wanting their acceptance the next.  Tomoko doesn't live entirely in her own head - she can talk to her brother Tomoki, who simply thinks her weird, as well as Yuu - but even the most superficial reader can pick up that Tomoko has some serious social anxiety issues that no mere makeover can fix, issues which are both realistically and empathetically portrayed. 

Tomoko's not a stereotype and she may be deeply flawed, but she's weirdly compelling and relatable because Tanigawa was so committed to making Tomoko a person and not just a character with a quirk or two.  Some found the anime adapted from this series hard to watch because they could relate a bit TOO much to Tomoko's mindset and social anxieties, and while the manga isn't quite as visceral in that regard, I could easily see this being a love-it-or-hate-it sort of series because of that quality.  I'm honestly surprised this has done as well with otaku as it has, because that audience (both the Eastern and Western halves) have rarely responded well to having critical portraits of themselves and their community portrayed in the media they love.  Chalk it up to good writing, I guess.

ART:
WataMote's art is simple, but surprisingly effective.  The character designs themselves are quite simple and generic, save for Tomoko herself.  She treads that thin line between cute and awkward, with her permanently messy hair, wild sketchy eyes, and her frumpy fashion sense.  She's also wildy expressive, ranging from pissy scowls to wild pervy grin to awkward embarrassment, which give life to her inner monologues.  Aside from her, the rest of the art is unremarkable.  The backgrounds are vauge and infrequent, and the panels tend to keep things tightly focused on Tomoko and her reactions.  It may seem a bit claustrophobic, but considering the story it's actually a perfect fit for such an introverted story.

PRESENTATION:
The only thing to speak of are some translation notes.

RATING:
WataMote isn't always a comfortable story to read, but it's an honest one.  Its focus on fleshing out Tomoko, flaws and all, and giving her wild expressions to go with her lively thoughts go a long way towards making this one of the most compelling manga of the year, and one well worth the hype.

This series is published by Yen Press.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 5 volumes available so far.  1 volume has been published so far, and is currently in print.


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Want a chance to win some of the volumes reviewed this month?  Enter the 12 REVIEWS OF CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY by leaving a comment here!

Review: WOLFSMUND

Vertical had a busy release schedule this year - it genuinely took effort to not review everything they put out for this month, because it's all so different and interesting.  Well, I must start somewhere and I might as well begin with a medieval action piece.

WOLFSMUND (Ookami no Kuchi: Wolfsmund), by Mitsuhisa Kuji.  First published in 2009, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:
Deep in the Alps, in what is now Switzerland, the Hapsburgs rule the land with an iron fist.  The main way between the Holy Roman Empire and Italy, the Sankt Gotthard Pass, is ruled just as strictly by the bailiff Wolfram, known locally as the 'Wolf's Maw' or Wolfsmund.  He is a man renowned for his ability to see through any disguise and to outwit any plot.  He is also renowned for his cruelty, as those who try to defy him are punished severely and displayed publicly.

Pockets of rebels, aided by a beautiful innkeeper who resides near the pass, do their best to defy Wolfram.  Some do this through deceit, others through battle, and some even try to bypass him by travelling through the cold, treacherous peaks.  Unfortunately for them, the Wolf's Maw is as clever as he is bloodthirsty, and will stop at nothing to preserve what he calls 'peace.'

STORY:
Wolfsmund is an odd sort of historical drama.  It's not bad per se, and I admire its use of very real (if rather obscure) history, but it's often one hell of a downer.

The chapters are very similar in structure.  There is one person (be it Lisellotte the aristrocrat's daughter, Johanna the warrior, or no less than William Tell himself) who wants to get through the pass.  They in turn must face Wolfram, whose smile never seems to waver in the face of their resistance, and who notes each of his victims at the end of the days as plainly as a grocery list.  The only other element tying the chapters together is the unnamed innkeeper, who uses her proximity to the pass, her good looks and willingness to put out, and her connection to rebel forces to get information and to aid others as much as possible. 

As such, we don't get a lot of character development for anyone.  Our protagonist are over and done in a single chapter.  The innkeeper has more screentime and the most complex motivations, but doesn't even get a name.  Even Wolfram is a mystery, betraying nothing in his speech and expression about himself.  The only hint we get about his are complaints from others that his superiors disapprove of his bloody methods.  Wolfram's abilities verge on magical, to the point where he can overtake rebels in the mountains in spite of blinding snow, rugged terrain, and thin air.  While such acts do add to his mystique, they also sometimes make him come off like a supervillian.  The protagonists themselves range from figures from history (like Tell) or fictional but feasible (like Lisellotte).  The most outrageous is Johanna the assassin.  Sure, she's a brilliant, crafty, and powerful fighter, but she's rather anachronistic considering women of the late Middle Ages were still viewed as weaker, delicate, and overall lesser beings.  She seems like she stepped out of an Assassin's Creed game, and were it not for the fact that she too falls before Wolfram she would be just as unrealistic as a video game character.

There's a certain thrill to each chapter, as a plot is formed and the tension builds with each new step and new gambit.  By the end, though, it all becomes a bit monotonous and depressing, as each one seems to end in failure.  Worse still, the lack of development for the cast makes it hard to root for either the rebels or Wolfram.  Instead, you can only stand back and marvel at the events unfolding upon the page - just don't get too attached.

ART:
Kuji has worked in the past as an assistant for both Kentarou Miura (of Berserk fame) as well as Kaoru Mori, and clearly some of their flair for medieval grunge and historical detail rubbed off on his own work.  Sadly, that doesn't carry over to the character designs, which are a bit too generic, cartoonish, and even cute for such a grim setting.  Expressions are a little stiff and broad, although that may be influence by the fact that much time is spent gasping and grimacing.  There are also some odd bits of fanservice, like the innkeeper's lowcut and rather modern neckline, or the fact that Kuji liked showing off that Johanna wasn't wearing underpants during her fight.  Sure, it's historically accurate, but it doesn't add anything to the story at large. 

Aside from strange moments like that, the wardrobes and setting are accurate to time and setting, although neither are intricately detailed by any means.  The action scenes are solidly drawn, with a great sense of fluidity in the images.  There's a dynamic quality to the poses and angles, and prudently uses short bursts of short speed lines.  Panels are tightly focused, sometimes claustrophobically so.  They also tend to be small, save for some one-page spreads to convey the vast scale of the mountains and the pass tower looming tall over the pass.

Kuji might have a great background pedigree, but he's still got a ways to go as an artist.  He's good with action and scale, but his characters are a bit too cute for the setting.

PRESENTATION:
Nothing to see here.

RATING:

While it's far from perfect, Wolfsmund is an intriguing little period piece with some decent art and well-executed (if repetitive) tension.

This series is published by Vertical.  This series is ongoing in Japan, with 4 volumes available so far.  2 volumes have been published, and both are currently in print. 

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

Want a change to win some of the volumes reviewed this month?  Enter the 12 REVIEWS OF CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY by leaving a comment here!

The 12 Reviews of Christmas Giveaway Returns!

Sorry for the silence, folks.  A lot of things have gone down in the last month in my life - I quit a terrible debt collection job that was literally leaving me depressed, got denied for unemployment, got a great temp-to-hire job, only for said job to end 2 weeks later when they hired someone else, and getting sucked into XCOM because I apparently consume video games the way tweakers consume meth.

So yeah, things have been busy.  Nonetheless, I have returned to start my favorite of the few traditions this site has: The Second Annual 12 REVIEWS OF CHRISTMAS.

Just like last year, I will be posting 12 reviews of brand-new series this month up to Christmas Day.  Also like before, I will be doing a 12 Reviews of Christmas Giveaway, although this year it will be slightly different.  This year I will be giving away a mystery box, a selection of the books reviewed this month to be revealed at the end of the month.  Entering the giveaway is the same process, though.  To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below answering this question: What was your favorite manga this year?  As before, it can be new or old, long or short, popular or obscure - all you have to do is briefly explain why it is so below and you could have a chance to win!