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October 02, 2004

Seitôin-gakuen fûkiroku: Kiken ja nai daro! (Narita Ken x Ishida Akira, Okiayu Ryotaro, Koyasu Takehito, Midorikawa Hikaru)

First posted in LJ's bl_dramas community; re-posted here with slight alterations.

Kisaragi Tsurugi (Ishida) is a high school student who has just transferred to Seitôin-gakuen, an all-boys boarding school for rich kids. He's just a regular kid himself, but he has come chasing after Takamura Suzaku (Narita), who is his favorite partner ... in fisticuffs. Suzaku, on the other hand, seems interested in more than that, but Tsurugi is rather oblivious. (The usual uke/seme dynamic, you understand.)

Anyway, at Seitôin-gakuen there is a school council that every student looks up to. It appoints members of different commitees, and it so happens Tsurugi and Suzuku are appointed to the fûki (public morals) committee. The head of the "public morals" comitee is Ijûin Tsutsuji (Okiayu), who is a ... weird guy who surrounds himself with white lillies, jumps most guys in seight, and has been madly in love with the student council president Goryôji Hisoka (Koyasu) for tifteen years. The feeling is unrequited, though, as Goryôji is an onmyôji (yes) and apparently he has visions and is attacked by snakes every time Ijûin gets near him. Not to mention Goryôji is sensible if stuck-up, while Ijûin is plainly insane.

The student council has a tradition to throw a ball every year for the new comitee members. Ijûin reasons that he should switch all the tail coats to evening dresses because that would impress Goryôji (his logic. Don't ask me), and orders Tsurugi and Suraku go switch them. Goryôji, being psychic, senses this, and sends Shishigatani Kaoru (Midorikawa) out to stop it. Shishigatani is in love with (and as weird as) Ijûin, and deeming that Tsurugi is his biggest rival (again, his logic), proceeds to attack Tsurugi with ... dumplings and fried rice.

Hilarity ensues.

Overall, I'm in love with this CD. Seriously! Okiayu, Koyasu, and Midorikawa are too damn funny in each their wacky roles. There isn't any smut (sorry), but this is a goldmine for cool seiyu acting, if you ask me. :D However, being the Narita Ken fangirl I am, I was quite disappointed by his lack of lines. He hardly ever talks for very long, and he doesn't say anything interesting, cool or funny, which I think is a waste. He's such a funny guy, even when he isn't trying to be! (Don't mind me, I'm just obsessed.) I doubt that anyone but me will listen to this CD for Narita Ken, though, so to all of you Ishida, Koyasu, Okiayu, and Midorikawa fans out there, or just to people out for a good laugh -- I recommended this CD. Yep.

Category: BLCDs | Comments (169)

Okina baibu no sha no shita de (Suzuoki Hirotaka x Horiuchi Kenyu, Narita Ken)

Errr. What is this? How should I describe it? What is the story? What is the point?

It's about a firm that makes toys for adults. Horiuchi-san plays a rookie "salary man", Suzuoki-san his superior. It's about vibrators. About 2000 of them. And light sabers. No, I mean real Light Sabers (TM), with a very good sound effect and all. You get the general idea. Right?

I'm guessing you have figured as much that this is a parody. Of something. And that's the problem: what is it a parody of? Of BL? Not really, because toys for adults might be one of the things you could use to make fun of BL, but it certainly isn't the only or most obvious one. Of the sex industry? No, then there isn't a single need to make this BL. Of the "salary man" mentality of Japan, under which workers never seem to doubt the morally good in working for and protecting their firm no matter how rediculous the means, the firm, or the product? I think that's the closest one, but ... errrr ...

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying this because I dislike toilet humour. I knew exactly what this CD was about before I began to listen to it, and I even made myself ready to laugh. I was looking forward to the toilet humour! But alas, although some parts had enough power to make me listen closely, it only made me chuckle a few times, never really laugh.

It reminds me of indipendent movies made by students at film schools. Like, what's it called, Gay Niggers From Outer Space. Movies like that. And it is, strictly spoken, an indipendent (dojin) product, but it doesn't really seem that way at all (neither the cast nor the editing is anything below professional standards), and maybe that's what's puzzling me. I might have laughed my head off if this had been presented to me in a small dark room at the farthest corner of the university building, and I had listened to it with a selected number of inside people. Hm.

The only BLCD on which I was glad there wasn't a free talk. It does deserve some credit, though, for trying something different. To say the least. And oh, for including a sound effect duely missed (solely by me) in BLCDs. You know. Wetness. Even if it's a joke.

Category: BLCDs | Comments (0)

Ojisama Lv. 1 BL-ban (Kishio Daisuke, Paku Romi, Chiba Susumu, Ishida Akira, Kosugi Juroto, Miki Shinichiro, Takimoto Fujiko)

Gah, the cast list is too fucking long. Pairings are as follows: Chiba x Paku, Ishida x Chiba, Kosugi x Ishida, Miki x Takimoto. The story, as it is, follows Spy Itoh (Kishio) as he walks around town on an assignment to spy on the various couples. Some sex ensures. Um. That's it.

I really liked the game this is based on, you see, and have already seen all this smut on the screen, so I don't particularly care about this CD. Sure, voices are nice ... but I'm not that much of a voice freak that I can't enjoy a game without voices. This feels unnecessary to me. Now, if this had been a CD with side stories for the game, and not just dramatizations of scenes from the game, I'd have been all over it. The relationship between Hakuoh and Celesto (and Ax) has potential to be explored much more, and I really dig Canan-sama.

And to top it off, this CD has a mortal flaw: female seiyu in male roles faking sex. I'm not so closed-minded that I can't accept female seiyu in BL (on the contrary! I think there should be more of them!), but having sex? Eh. Kind of missing the point, isn't it? I know this doesn't bother some other people, but it bothers me.

Good things: I adore Kishio-san, who is as apathetic as I ever imagined Itoh to be, and I adore the fact that Ishida-san is in seme-mode. That's about it.

Category: BLCDs | Comments (0)

Ikenai seitokaishitsu (Midorikawa Hikaru x Ishida Akira, Tohchika Koichi, Kikuchi Masami, Iwata Mitsuo)

Why do I torture myself with these sort of things? Agh, who am I kidding, I always liked mediocre porn better than good porn. Direct reason for trying this out was Midorikawa-san being seme and Iwata-san just being there.

Summary, summary ... Midorikawa-san is the precident of the student council and is in love with Ishida-san who is a typical cute uke. Kohchika-san is an old friend of Ishida-san, and Midorikawa-san thinks they're dating. Much jealousy and drama ensures. (Not.) Just the fact that the uke is so typical makes me want to throw this in the trash, but I can bear with that because I know that's how many people like it. But the conflicts ... or rather, the solutions to them ...

The first conflict is the jealousy thing, and thank-you-god that's solved fairly early on in the story. Then comes the next conflict, which is actually quite interesting: Ishida-san's character likes to paint, but loses his self-confidence by comparing himself to a friend who has already sold a painting. He doesn't know if he should continue to study art or not, and it doesn't make it much better when Midorikawa-san's character laughs at him and says nothing but going to art school would suit him. Angst! Finding out what to do with one's life is something everyone is or has been experiencing, so even if it's a bit banal this should prove for interesting drama, right? Right? Wrong again. Midorikawa-san spends most of the story not even realizing what his boyfriend's problem is, and the whole thing is solved by Ishida-san apologizing. For what? Don't ask me. For the make-up sex, I'm guessing. Next time I want to listen to a BLCD for the cast, slap me. (Probably won't do much good, but you can try.)

Good things: I like Midorikawa-san's seme voice significantly better than his uke voice. He does comedy well, too. It seriously annoys me that he doesn't seem to be offered roles in good BL titles, because he is a good actor and he is willing to do BL. Casting directors everywhere owe it to us to give him good roles. Are you listening?! Also, Iwata-san plays a big guy who is in love with Midorikawa-san's character, and he is fabulous. He does long lines perfectly, of course, but is especially splendid in short utterances like "Yeah" and "Mmm-hmm". Really! In the last act there's an exchange between him and Midorikawa-san in which all Iwata-san says is "Yeah" "Okay" "Aha", and the timing and tone is so perfect the whole thing made me crack up. If this CD had been Iwata x Midorikawa (with Midorikawa-san keeping his seme voice), I'd probably have loved it.

The free talk cracked me up as well. I guess it's on purpose that vetran seiyu like Midorikawa-san and Ishida-san talk of faking voice-sex as if they actually were having sex (saying "I" instead of the name of the character, etc.), but it's fun nonetheless. I'm going to look forward to Kohchika-san being on top of you, too, Ishida-san.

That reminds me, note to self: Add Tohchika Koichi to list of seiyu to check out. He has natural boyish voice I quite like.

Category: BLCDs | Comments (0)

Boku no mono ni narinasai (Koyasu Takehito x Midorikawa Hikaru, Ishida Akira)

This is one of them infamous "idiotic PWP BLCDs Midorikawa-san does". What's worse, I knew that perfectly well even before I listened to it, because there's a cute ::heart:: mark at the end of the title. Midorikawa-san can act, but never seemed to grasp the fact that there are good BLCDs and then there are BLCDs like these. Let me see, what was I thinking ... oh yeah, Koyasu-san is in this one. That's it. And Ishida-san isn't playing uke, which is always a plus for me.

As Koyasu-san says in the free talk, in this CD he's using a voice he seldom uses these days. I was expecting Koyasu-san's character to be some sort of pseudo-sadist (not a judgement of his character, just his roles), but no, he's just an ordinary 16-year-old boy who made me wonder what the casting director was thinking. I'm guessing many Koyasu-fans will be disappointed, but personally, I was pleasantly surprised. He's just so very cute here, Koyasu-san. Every time his character said that Midorikawa-san's character was cute, I was yelling in my mind, "No, you're cute, Koyasu-san!" And he acts well, of course. Not that I think anyone was expecting anything else.

I liked Ishida-san's voice as well. I don't understand why so many people like his sugarly uke-voice, so listening to him being a regular guy was very nice. He is, really, a good actor who can do all sorts of roles, so they should cast him more in roles like this one. Midorikawa-san ... well, he just does what he almost always does in BLCDs and has been doing for a rediculous number of years, so he's neither particularly good nor bad.

Story? Eh, you don't need to know. Or rather, there isn't enough of it for me to be bothered to type a summary. It's the sort of thing in which two guys fall in love and have sex on the day they meet. Enough said. There's sex, obviously, and quite an amout of it as well (though nothing overwhelming), in which you get to hear Koyasu-san be an almost-uke!seme. You'll either enjoy it or laugh your head off, but that's the way with most BLCDs.

Conclusion: good atypical casting in some of the roles and good acting, but not much else. A waste, truly. Um. The free talk was fun?

Category: BLCDs | Comments (0)

BL urabanashi vol. 2 (Morikawa Toshiyuki, Yamaguchi Kappei, Narita Ken)

This is the direct reason I began to listen to BLCDs after a hiatus of about seven years. That's how much I liked it.

Morikawa-san hosts this CD of behind-the-scenes free talk about BL. Yamaguchi-san and Narita-san (who make up the main couple of the Muteki na bokura series) are guests, and the three seiyu and Abe-san, the producer, talk about how they first came to know about BL, what sort of problems they face when recording BLCDs, the Muteki series, and all manner of other things, and do a simulated recording of a scene from Muteki.

'Tis immencely amusing. Or, more specifically, Narita-san is. While Morikawa-san and Abe-san try to hold the conversation as serious as possible, Narita-san keeps dragging the subject down to acting having a penis in his mouth, strange objects he has stuck up Yamaguchi-san, and how Yamaguchi-san is a good uke because he gets so easily embarrassed. Yamaguchi-san? He just keeps laughing. I've heard some of the other CDs in this series as well, and while the others have been as interesting, none of them has been as funny as this one. I salute you, Narita Ken, you know how to make life worth living. I am a fan.

And thus I went on a search for drama CDs with Narita-san (I can't be bothered to watch that much anime anymore), and ended up with a still-growing collection of BLCDs. Yes, it's aaaaaaall his fault.

Category: BLCDs | Comments (0)

Baito wa meido!? (Narita Ken x Sakurai Takahiro, Tobita Nobuo, Okano Kosuke, Fukami Rika)

Okay, I'll admit it. I do other things while listening to BLCDs. It can be to read a book or a manga, or write a review of some completely other title, or clean the room. But I'm always doing something else. I'm sorry. BLCDs are not that important to me. I'm sorry.

(No, I'm not.)

The good thing about this, however, is that by doing this, I can easily measure the goodness of a drama CD. This one is good, and I know because I couldn't read more than five pages of Takahashi Tsutomu's Jiraishin (Ice Blade) while listening. And that has nothing to do with the fact that Jiraishin is a dull manga ... I think. Or maybe not.

Anyhow! Ogata Minoru (Sakurai) is a high school student who needs to find a job to support his family after his father's firm went down. He is recommended a job as a maid by his teacher (Okano) at the house of a trendy actor Ezaka Takeaki (Narita), who is the brother of the teacher's girlfriend (Fukami). Two problems: One, Ezaka lacks any sense for his own living conditions and cannot clean, wash, or cook, and has an apartment Minoru likens to "Dream Island" (the artificial island in Tokyo Bay which works as a dump for all the garbage of Tokyo). Two, Ezaka is gay, and his manager Toba (Tobita) fools him into believing that Minoru is prepared to be more than just his maid, if you know what I mean. Trouble ensures.

All manner of things are good about this CD, but the first thing you notice is the sound effects. When Minoru walks into Ezaka's apartment, flies buzz so you almost reflectively lift your hands to wave them away. The state of the apartment is made even more clear by the next sound effect: feet walking over what sounds exactly like huge piles of trash on the floor (I should know). Hail to the producer.

The next thing you notice is of course the cast. Sakurai-san is a fairly new seiyu (to this genre), and I don't think he has a particularly good or peculiar voice (sort of like a less peculiar Midorikawa Hikaru, maybe?), but he's a great voice actor. His comical timing! His screaming! His moaning! No, really, he's good whatever you make him do. His interaction with the old-timers is priceless; he has been pulled up to a higher ground here, I'm sure.

Five actors in one CD drama is relatively few, but you won't find it lacking at all. Fukami-san is a wonderfully weird beauty, Toba-san a wonderfully weird pervert, and Narita-san ... well, I always like Narita-san. Some of the things Ezaka does is actually really annoying, when you think about it, but Narita-san always manages to act sincere and lovable. The only regret I have regarding his character is that the smut is too short. I mean, I'm not the only one here who likes his sticky seme, am I? Am I? ... Am I?

Of course, there are things to be criticized (beside the length of the smut). Minoru gets too easily carried away by Ezaka, in my opinion, and I didn't really like the sugarly ending. The story isn't a great piece of art, granted. But I can forgive all that because this is a great piece of CD drama, a truly professional and enjoyable work. Make more of those, please.

Category: BLCDs | Comments (0)

October 01, 2004

Tabata Yoshiaki/Yogo Yuki: Comic Master J vol. 1-8

Comic Master J is the best manga I have read in, I dare say, years. What, or indeed who, is Comic Master J, you ask? Let me enlighten you!

In every trade, there is a legend -- and the manga industry is no exception: there is a rumour whispered in the corners of publishing houses and given on from manga-ka to assistant, that if a manga-ka is stuck down by illness or accident, and cannot meet his deadline, he should go to Shibuya station and leave a secret message on the message board, and he will appear: the Super Assistant, a man who can emitate the style of any manga-ka and finish a manga page with the speed of lightening, a man in a white suit and white coat who will save only those manga-ka he deems worthy for the fee of five million yen. He is ...

Comic Master J!!

Yes, in all seriousness.

Besides the obvious meta-factor, this series also hits right home with me in character and plot: J is so freaking cool and cute, not to mention extremely slashy especially with The End (J's enemy/friend who drives around on a huge motorcycle carrying a guitar case with manga supplies, forcefully ending manga that have become trash by not knowing where to stop). The main storyline about a secret organization called CLUB which is just waiting to destroy humanity by ruining its culture, and how J can't write his own manga because ... no, I can't say, it's too good to ruin for you! Suffice to say it's a very mock-serious good reason, and that it is revealed in the masterpiece that is volume six.

It's so hot, this manga, in so many ways. That's all I can say.

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

Hirano Kota: Hellsing vol. 6

What happened in the last volume, again? Hirano writes that this is the first new Hellsing book in nine months, so I guess that would explain why I can't remember. I'm pretty sure I read volume five. But maybe I didn't.

Above paragraphs illustrates how little I care about this manga.

So, let's see, lots of zombies ... blood ... body parts ... random German ... yeah, this sure is Hellsing. I guess the correct way to read this manga is by becoming intoxicated by the chants of dialogue and splashes of ink, but I can't even be bothered to actually read the text (I just skim them for meaning without pronouncing them in my head), and I'm not the type to get excited over blood, so that's not really possible for me. I didn't check, but I'm fairly sure it didn't take me much more than ten minutes to read this.

Although that tatooed lady's cracktastic stuff was Evangelion/Nausicaa-esque and quite cool.

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

Maya Mineo: Rashaanu! vol. 1

What Maya Mineo wrote before he hit a goldmine with Patalliro. Actually the structure of those two series are pretty similar, so I don't know why Rashaanu ended after eight volumes and Patalliro continued to well over 70 volumes (it's still going, and is the longest running shojo manga in history).

Rashaanu is the son of a wealthy Indian businessman, and has ... an odd personality, let's leave it at that. He also falls in love extremely easily (with both men and women), and is always talked into helping out those he falls in love with from criminal/financial/etc. trouble. Then they dump him. And that's the running joke. In every single episode.

That sounded cynical, but I really just adore this manga anyway. The individual plots of the episodes are intriguing (if sometimes contrived), and the dead-panned humour of Rashaanu gets me every single time. Not a manga for everyone (the art probably picks the audience, too), but Maya Mineo is my eternal hero.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Ayahana Min: Akazukin Chacha vol. 10

This might be the most hilarious volume of Chacha in a while. From the first episode, in which Seravy's father turns out to be a beautiful lady who is actually a giant lizard, to the yonkoma manga at the end, I was laughing hard while my family observed me with concern in their eyes.

The best episodes, though, has got to be the ones with Hohoemi Senshi (Smile Soldier) Egaon. Ichimatsu-kun forces Poppy-kun to become a real-life tokusatsu hero, Egaon (as you can see on the cover). The exchange between the mad-scientist-y Ichimatsu-kun and Poppy-kun, who sure as hell doesn't want to be something as idiotic as a Smile Soldier, is hilarious in itself, but the gap between the cool Poppy-kun and the cheesey Egaon is priceless. (I say "priceless" about Chacha every time, don't I?) Riiya, being the kiddo that he is, becomes a huge fan of Egaon, and he is sooooo cute! And following the golden rules of tokusatsu heroes, an Evil Overload (TM) arrives -- but following the rules of Chacha, he isn't an ordinary overload. No matter what you make Ayahana draw, she just knows how to push it one step further.

Combined with Seravy as a kid, the only sad thing about this volume is that there's only three to go.

(You know, it's annoyingly difficult to write something about manga you think rule. It turns out boring. Makes me recall why it is I usually only write about CLAMP manga ...)

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Ohkami Mineko: Gekka kajin ~ Lumen Lunae vol. 02

I currently have Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor For Organ (BWV 565) playing in the background. (It's the scary ta-ta-taaaaa ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta organ thing you hear in cheesey horror flicks.) It's very appropriate, although I didn't calculate it that way. In case you don't know, Lumen Lunae is a manga filled to its edge with blood, gore, bodily fluids, homosexuality, incest, and homosexual incest, written by the lady who brought you Dragon Knights. Yay!

This volume adds on to the homosexual incest that already excisted in the previous volume, and we have two fair-haired brothers who, according to the author's notes, are "versatile". It also appears that Kaiga-sama (the friendly local sadistic villain) has taken a liking to the older one, which makes me a happy Kaiga fangirl. Not only that, in this volume Kaiga-sama has necrophilic sex with whats-his-name that messed up in the last volume, and fucks his sister! If there had been some Kaiga x Hisanagi in there, beyond the French kissing, I'd have held onto this volume like to my first-born child, but alas.

Story? What story? Well, there does seem to be one, underneath all the gory sex, about this world we're living in having been created by Suruga, the ruler of that other world, and it's falling apart now because he doesn't care about it any more. There's also some talking about Aika (the heroine, so to speak) being the cause of all evil that's happening. But it's all too murky, and put beside all the perversity happening, I can't really bring myself to care. Maybe in the future volumes.

Ohkami Mineko said in volume one that this series was a shojo manga about pure love, by which she was referring to Kai and Aika, the protagonist and his mother. Right now, I'm really afraid that's the road she's going to take it ... not because I dislike incest, or anything, but Kai and Aika are honestly the two most boring characters in this thing. And that's counting Hisanagi's bird. Just stick to the non-pure love, if you will, Ohkami-sensei.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Maya Mineo: Astarot bunko vol. 1

Astarot is, according to this manga (I have little knowledge of Christian/Jewish mythology), a "Devil Duke" and one of the four strongest demons of Hell. He has long black hair and is rather good-looking, but his personality is comparatively simple and hot-headed. Which is the best thing about him, really; he's strong and cruel but cute.

I like Maya Mineo best when he's writing short stories, so my favorite part of this Astarot volume are the first two installments, and I lost interest somewhat when the story became about the war in Hell. Meh. I probably will read volume two, just to see if there are more good short stories in there. But meh.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Midorikawa Yuki: Akaku saku koe vol. 1

A series of short stories focusing on Karashima, a boy with a voice so beautiful he can make anyone do anything just by speaking to them.

The premise is lovely and so is the title, but I have to say I'm quite bored by the various criminal cases Karashima is involved in solving. I enjoy the pages where Midorikawa lets reality casually slide over to dream, as the opening with the surprising and intriguing shot of a boy wearing a fox mask, and the scenes with blood changing to red flowers and the snow to cherry blossoms. Beautiful.

Everyone in this manga seems so obsessed with Karashima, which makes him edge towards the Gary Stu side of characterization, but he doesn't cross over just yet. He's rather erotic, though, especially when he leans in to whisper sweet noithing ... eh, I mean commands into the ears of various people of the male sex. Yay for homoerotism. Kokubu? Who's that?

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Yoshinaga Fumi: Kodomo no taion

Yoshinaga Fumi has this odd ability to write good manga with happy endings which make me depressed. Take the story, Kodomo no taion. A 13-year-old boy comes to his father and tells him he might have made a girl pregnant. The father takes the girl to a gynecologist. The whole story is simple but illustrates family love and the hardships of puberty very well, and even ends happily. And I'm depressed after reading it! What's that about?

Maybe the feeling I experience isn't actually "depressed", but more like "setsunai". Which is, um, difficult for me to convey. Dictionaries will give you translations such as "painful" or "trying", but it's not actually a pain ... erm. Although I wasn't pregnant at 13, I do know painfully well both the love/hate you have for your parents in that age, and the feelings of an adult as he loves someone he knows he'll never understand. (If that makes sense.) This remembered pain sinks in slowly and lasts (for me) quite a while after I have finished a Yoshinaga book, and then, equally slowly, the joy of these humans emotions sink in.

God, that was difficult. I do like Yoshinaga, if that wasn't obvious. She's just a difficult author for me to read. Which isn't a bad thing in this case.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Nasu Yukie: Machigai no koi

I can't remember when I first heard that Nasu Yukie (of Here is Greenwood fame) was writing BL, but ever since I found out, I've wanted to avoid it with all my might.

Then, curiousity got the better of me. Nothing good ever came of that ...

Nasu Yukie should not attempt to write porn. She ought to just stop that right away. I don't mind her writing gay fluff or gay comedy or gay drama; over-all, it's not her writing BL that's getting to me (although I think she ought to fulfil her protential for good, mainstream stuff) -- but not porn! Please! There is, fortunately, only one mildly porny scene in this book, but it nearly killed me. My imaginary dick went so flaccid it's not funny. It's so awkward ... no mood what so ever (she was never an atmospheric kind of shojo manga-ka so I guess that's given) ... just bad.

What really gets to me, however, is that I only enjoyed one of these stories. The other two were bland to say the least, and had no punch like Nasu's earlier short stories (Dareka, anyone?). I don't even think that it's because I expect too much of her, because the one story I did like (unfortunately, the one with sex) amused me and made me think she can still do good stuff. The last omake manga was funny, too.

Am very ambivalent.

Category: BL manga | Comments (0)

Ashinano Hitoshi: Yokohama kaidashi kiko vol. 1-3

"Café Alpha" is the name of a coffee shop out on the East cape. Alpha is the only waitress there. She is a robot. A few years ago her owner suddenly left, telling her to take care of the shop. She makes coffee and drinks most of it by herself. Sometimes the old man from the gasoline stand comes to visit her. Sometimes his grandson comes, too. Alpha serves them coffee and "maplo".

When Alpha goes to Yokohama to buy coffee, the sea has flooded the road. The waters are rising. The climate is warm, with sudden rain clouds and fits of thunder. In the tideland a female monster with fangs hunt for fish. By the creek a child is sitting frozen, body glowing as if covered with white cotton, gazing out at the sea. A plane flies by, carrying passengers that will never get off.

Nothing happens. People wait for extinction.

When reading Yokohama kaidashi kiko, I kind of wish the end of the world would arrive soon.

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

Midorikawa Yuki: Akaku saku koe vol. 2

I think this series relies a bit too much on its premise. The general theme is "Karashima has an ability which could potentially make him a very dangerous person; Karashima tries to supress this possibility by keeping away from people; Kokubu is in love with Karashima and tries to get close to him but is repeatedly reminded of Karashima's situation; Kokubu repeatedly realizes that she will do anything to be with Karashima". And Midorikawa slaps on a criminal or two with a grudge against Karashima, and voila. Nothing wrong with that, but reading this volume I can't stop thinking I've read it before. Which I have. So it needs to move on from this premise.

I suppose the purpose of this particular criminal in this volume was to make Karashima realize that Kokubu was his "saviour", so to speak, but it was too weak to really get through. Which is sad because I do like this manga.

The two early short stories also featured here show that Midorikawa has written the same story over and over again since her debut. There's nothing wrong with that in her case, and I liked both. It seems she has changed pens between Hanadorobô and Kôhii hirari, and I actually liked her early, thicker lines better. Her characters appear cuter in Hanadorobô, especially Takahira.

Completely unrelated to the story, I was taken aback by the public phone in this volume. This was written in ... 2000? Didn't every high school girl in Japan have a cell phone at that point? But I guess that adds to the weird timelessness.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Kawahara Izumi: Kôshien no sora ni warae!

When it's hot outside, it's nice to be reminded of people who have it a hundred times hotter than me. In this case I'm talking of the highschool baseball teams of Japan, who gather at Kôshien (name of a stadium) in the middle of August to play god knows how many baseball matches in the heat and humidity of central Japan. Hah!

Anyway, Kawahara Izumi is an odd shojo manga-ka who doesn't draw well or prettily and writes stories about women and girls who can't really be bothered to do much. Like me. In this book a biology teacher at a minisclule highschool in the countryside of Japan is talked into training the school baseball team because ... well, because no one else will or can. The team's greatest wish was to win one match in the prefectural tournament, but for some reason seeds are removed that year for "fairness" and they end up going to Kôshien for the national tournament.

It's not a sports manga, however, because the matches described here are not particularly interesting. It's sort of a comedy, but not a laugh-out-loud one, and it's sort of a romance but at the end the two people involved only agree to exchange letters. I guess it's a manga where you enjoy the slowness of it all and recognize the oddities that are hidden in everyday living.

... I think.

Definitely picks its audience.

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Fujiko Fujio: Obake no Q-tarô vol. 5

This particular segment of the Fujiko Fujio canon is out of print at the moment, but I was as lucky as to find some scans. And you know what? This thing is bloody hilarious. Someone reprint it! Immediately! I want to buy the whole series!

It's basically about a ghost called Q-tarô (Q-chan) moving in with a boy, and a bunch of his ghost relatives and friends following him and moving into the town. The "ghost" aspect doesn't have much of an significance, though, aside the fact that Q and fly and some of the other ghosts can change shape. It's a comedy.

I'm mostly fond of the story in which a gossip-loving neighborhood lady spreads rumours about the Q-chan family that Dad is out of job and they're going insane. Q-chan gets the brilliant idea of acting as though they are filthy rich so the lady will begin to spead rumous of that sort that instead, but Q-chan keeps messing up.

Boy: We have so much money! We'll buy Mount Fuji! Q: Wow, that's big. Then let's make a huge slide and charge five yen! [Five yen = five cent] Boy: That's so small. After Fuji, we'll buy Tokyo Bay! Q: Let's turn it into a fish pond and charge five yen for admission! Boy: Why do you keep making the story so cheap?! Q: It's difficult when you aren't really rich ...

I don't know why, but the five yen joke struck right home with me.

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

Osakabe Mashin: Toriko vol. 2

I haven't read volume one, but I don't expect that's necessary. Osakabe Mashin always seems to write porny shojo-manga about a pre-pubescent young girl bought by a handsome guy and made his sex toy. Then this pre-pubescent young girl falls in love with the paedophile guy and gets hurt because he can't seem to express his love for her clearly. Then she usually runs away, and he catches her and fucks her and they make up, and then this pattern repeats in all her work the next chapter.

I don't understand what the appeal of Osakabe is, but she has published more than ten tankobon so some people out there must be into this kind of ... of ... shit? I've read far too many porny manga in my life and I'm not paedophillic enough to get excited about a girl getting fucked by a man twice her size, and the stories are so identical and boring I skipped the last one-third of this book. Blah.

Reminder to self: do not pick up an Osakabe manga to see if it's funny in a funny badfic way. It's not. It's just boring in a boring badfic way.

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CLAMP: Tokyo Babylon Photographs

Possibly the only CLAMP artbook I've ever wanted, though I do own a few more that I'm not sure what to do with. Oh, wait, that's a lie -- I really want the new Soryuden artbook, too. But I swear that's it! This is the (almost) last time I pour money into CLAMP, inc.!

One thing I find fascinating about CLAMP in a good way (they sure are fascinating, but usually in a TWS-y way for me) is their ability to invent one style for each title they do and stick to it. They've become relatively tame with it these days, especially with their color work (the color pages of Tsubasa are so ordinary, they're dull; xxxHolic is a bit better), but when they started out there was no mistaking it: TB was slick, smooth, and with lots of bright, primal colors, while RG Veda was, well, Gigerian. Although Mokona's art is far from polished in TB, it's still my favorite of all the styles CLAMP has taken on.

I mean, it's so bright and camp and cool! The shoulder pads! The capes! The hats! The crosses! The skirts! OMG I luv!

I have heard people complain that not all of the fold-out color pages of the tankobon are included here, and I do think that's a bit of a shame. Like china!Sei-chan. Although I own the tankobon so I can just go look there. To make up for it there were actually a few pictures here I had never seen before, which I didn't think there would be because the amount of TB art online is huge, so that was lovely. I understand why people wouldn't scan and upload, say, that extreme close-up of Subaru with only one eye showing, but it's lovely. The sexay red hot Hokuto-chan is lovely, too. Everything's lovely!

Well, except the bananas. What's up with those bananas?

One thing this book reminded me of is that I adored the grown-up!Subaru design from the end of TB and volume 8 of X. He's so almost!seme and rather Japanese looking, it's a pleasure. I'm still upset with Mokona that X!Subaru keeps turning younger and younger and more frail!bishonen for every volume. What's up with that? Screw it! I want Asian!Subaru.

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Yoshizumi Wataru: Ultra Maniac vol. 1

Ayu is an ordinary junior high student who has never been interested in supernatural things. She is in love with Kaji-kun, the ace of the baseball team, and she acts cool and collected so he's going to think well of her. One day, she helps a new girl in her class, Nina, by finding a pocket computer Nina had lost. Nina is so happy about this that she decides to pay Ayu back -- by granting her wish with magic. Because Nina, it turns out, is an exchange student from Magical Kingdom.

I've read most of Yoshizumi-sensei's manga since Quartet Game, much of it real-time, but I have never been able to decide if I think she's a good manga artist or not. She has always drawn well and done entertainment well, and her manga are never directly bad in any way that you can name, but they lack the last bit of something (originality, eccentricity, spice, power) that make them good rather than just okay, in my opinion. So she's a manga artist I like to read, but can't really be bothered to buy.

Ultra Maniac, however, seems to be a rare hit. There isn't a reason a pro like Yoshizumi-sensei would miss out on grabbing hold of readers (even her works I hate, like Marmalade Boy, have thrilling first three episodes), but just when you think a pattern of "Nina tries to help Ayu / the magic goes wrong and Ayu gets in trouble" is established, she takes a screeching turn that made my hand grab out for volume two to read immediately. The end of volume one is fabulous! Yoshizumi-sensei sure does know how to construct a good plot.

Another plus in my opinion is the characters. The main reason I hated Marmalade Boy was that I disliked Miki and You, but Ayu and Nina are just my thing. I like both Ayu's external face, the cool girl, and her real self, the comical rationalist ("tukkomi"), and the gap between the two is natural and believable. Nina wouldn't be my type, being a bit too cute and too kiddy, but Ayu and Nina compliment each other. I like the heroes as well, especially Tsujiya-kun: at first he seems like your typical cool hero, but in reality he has quite a weird character.

I'm going to keep my eyes on this series.

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Arai Rie: X ~ Peke vol. 3

Peke, I think, is usually regarded as the first progressive yonkoma of mainstream shojo manga. It was about the first one to contain violence, sex, black humour, and absurdities, when the majority of shojo manga comedy at the time weren't actually funny but rather ... märchentique?

Anyway, this was at the beginning of the 90s, so it's not particularly procative now. The funniest part is actually the self-degrading attitude of Arai, which gets progressively worse as we go along. There are seven Peke volumes in all, and already at volume three I'm beginning to ask myself why this woman became a manga-ka if she hates it so damn much. I guess this manga is a witness to the fact that the fucked up people sometimes really are the ones to revolutionize.

By the way, it's also fun to catch the cameos of Ragawa Marimo. But that's a rather maniacal thing to do, I guess.

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Tanemura Arina: Fullmoon o sagashite vol. 6

Errrr. Don't ask me to summarize this? Please? I honestly can't remember what happened in volume five, except Izumi-kun was captured by Jona-san, and I have no idea how Ôshige found out about Fullmoon's disease.

As I can't really speak coherently about Tanemura manga, here are some Random Thoughts:

-- Izumi-kun sure is a hot masochistic uke.
-- Woa, who wears that kind of a dress to a date (as opposed to a, um, renaissance* fair?), Mitsuki?
-- Possessed!Izumi-kun sure looks lovely in that little black number.
-- Shachô sure is a bastard, and he should cut his hair, too.
-- It would have been funnier if Meroko really had betrayed Takuto, but I guess that would have been too similar to Fin Fish in Jeanne?
-- The "Death Master" speaks in riddles, but somehow manages to make more sense than Tanemura Arina's ordinary dialogue and monologue.
-- The Shinigami Buchô reminds me of Raphael of Earthian. He's hot.
-- But Jona-san is hotter.

* I spelled that correctly on first try. I'm so proud.

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Tanemura Arina: Fullmoon o sagashite vol. 7

On the version I have there is an ad for the Shueisha "Summer Comic Fair" of 2004. They abbreviate this to ... "NatsuKomi". Which just happens to be an abbreviation of "Summer Comic Market", too. You know, Comiket? That event where they sell millions of hentai and yaoi dojinshi every year? Yeah, that one.

What the fuck were they thinking?

Anyway, to the point ... what is the point? That the long hair doesn't suit Izumi-kun, of course. What else? Damn, that's some ugly hair. Or is it just some really really long sideburns?

Also, the dojin quality fanart at the end by Tanemura's assistants ... ye gawds. Stop it. Stop the pain. Oh, wait, is has stopped. This is the last volume. Someone please tell me why I've already decided to follow her new series ...

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Konomi Takeshi: Tenisu no ojisama vol. 1

First volume in the on-going series about Echizen Ryoma, a 13-year-old tennis prodigy who comes back to Japan from the US, enters the tennis team of Seishun Gakuen, becomes a regular member, and aims for all-Japan. It's a supokon (short for "supotsu konjo", roughly "sports guts") manga in the classic sense: lots of unique characters with their own ideas and goals fight each other in a tournament. Don't be put off by the fact that this is about sports; basically, it reads like an ordinary fighting manga.

If I had read the first installments of TeniPuri (as it is called among Japanese fans) in Weekly Shonen Jump (WJ), I'd have dismissed it as a misled attempt for WJ to get yet another sports-mixed-with-a-bit-of-gag manga in their stable of similar titles. The genre has succeeded in the past and probably will continue to prosper, but I wouldn't have thought that TeniPuri could survive in WJ.

The art is rough, not necessarily bad but definitely underdeveloped. The episodes are quite cliché, with an almost all-mighty protagonist beating annoying side-characters easily. The story is trying to be self-contained while also retaining the possibility for expantion, which is common in a WJ manga (because WJ cancels manga like US TV cancels TV drama), but doing it rather awkwardly. WJ was giving Konomi Takeshi the chance for a big break here, but I would have thought it was a bit too early for him and expected TeniPuri to be cancelled after six months.

How wrong I would have been.

TeniPuri is popular. Dead popular. In fact, more popular than technically and artistically better WJ titles like Hikaru no Go and Hunter x Hunter. The evidence? Maxi CDs with practically every single character of TeniPuri is being released as we speak. How much bigger can a manga/anime get? No, seriously. The last title I remember something like that happening for is Angelique, and that was a game specifically aimed at a female otaku audience.

Just so there are no misunderstandings, I don't mean to say TeniPuri is a bad manga. Volume one just isn't very well drawn or interesting. It has promise of becoming more than "just another sports manga", like hints of interesting characters and good comedy (definitely the two strong points of TeniPuri); it just hasn't gotten there yet. Like many other WJ manga, volume one isn't the place to start with TeniPuri. Watch a few anime episodes, read a couple of random installments in WJ, and if you like those, read the manga from the beginning. That's what I recommend, and it also seems to be the way many hard-core fans got into it.

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

CLAMP: RG Veda vol. 1-10

As CLAMP manga goes, I thought RG Veda was very good. Up until about volume seven or so, I was reading it with much pleasure. The dark storyline fits my taste, the characters are no-too-stereotypical, and even the hinted yaoi and yuri was bearable. (Note: although I don't mind yaoi or yuri in the slightest, I hate "subtle" hints that only exist to appeal to such-oriented fans. Like in CCS and X.)

There weren't really any characters that I liked, which probably helped, because the position CLAMP manga has in my heart is "manga that is carried by obsessive fans of the characters". There weren't really any characters in RG that made me go, "Ugh, this is to sucking up to the fans," if that makes sense.

But then. But then, volume eight came. And the entire volume was a resume of the previous seven volumes. I kid you not. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happened in it, aside recapping, plus obvious and idiotic foreshadowing. Gah! Give back my enjoyment!

The rest is history. Volume nine and ten consisted of exposition after exposition after exposition. (And oh, some cannibalism, too.) And the end ... I don't even want to think about it. It was just stupid. Far, far stupider than the truth about Ashura-ô, though that was so damn stupid I almost choked on my tea. Just ... trust me.

Final verdict: Good story gone wrong. Which makes me hate it even more than bad story just being bad. Hear me weep.

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Yoshinaga Fumi: Tsuki to sandal

Seven short stories in an omnibus, about a high school teacher, a student who is in love with him, and the people surrounding.

Yoshinaga is a talented manga-ka. There is no denying that. She is very good at composing fatisfying plots and stories, even with very few pages, and unlike Nasu her smutty scenes are hot and tasteful. Any woman's wetdream, I suppose.

So there ought not be anything for me to dislike about this book, really. Just ... there is. I don't know why it is, but on one hand when yaoi writers pretend that being gay is something universally accepted I feel like smashing my head against a wall, but when they -- as with Yoshinaga -- attempt to deal with "gay issues" and mention stuff like "nichôme"*, I get really squirmish (and not in the good way). I mean, we're all adults here. We are grown women writing and reading gay porn because we get off on it. That has absolutely nothing to do with real gay men and certainly not with gay politics, you know? It's a fine line to walk.

But anyway, aside that this is a good piece of manga and recommended to anyone.

* Shinjuku Ni-chôme. Gay district of Tokyo.

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Shimizu Reiko: Wild Cats vol. 1

Features two short manga about a boy who finds a lion kit on the street and takes it home. Yes, it's set in Japan. No, I don't know what the lion was doing there. But that doesn't matter! It's a good story!

The first story is about the boy, Ryuichi, and how he overcomes his low self-esteem. But the second story is really the best, and about a pub Tongu who, for some reason, can't seem to settle in one place. At the end it turns out that he was ... Aw. I'll just say it made me cry a bit. It's been a while since I cried over a manga ...

Another short story called Himitsu -- top secret is also included, but I read this one in another book already, so I won't comment aside to say it's a good story. (When is Himitsu volume 3 coming out, anyway?) I've never completed a long series by Shimizu (tried, with Tsuki no ko and Kaguyahime, couldn't), but her short stories really are some of the best around. Recommended.

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Kishimoto Ryoko: Hiizuru tokoro no tenshi bunko vol. 1

A fictional account of the life of the historical figure Shôtoku Taishi, who was a member of the ruling class of Japan a thousand and some years ago. The only thing I know about Shôtoku Taishi is how he looked, and I only know this because he used to be on the 10000 yen note. Well, I suppose I also know that he was the one to spread Buddhism to Japan? And I hear it was rumoured that he was a psychic.

Shôtoku Taishi of this manga looks nothing like he did on the 10000 yen note, which is probably for the best because he was rather ugly on that bill. Here, he is an attractive boy, androgynous and enigmatic, and angsting in silence. He isn't called "Shôtoku Taishi", either, because that was a name given to him after his death; no, he's called Umayado-no-ôji. Confused yet? I am.

The narrator is Emishi, the eldest son of one of the ministers of the royal court at the time. (I'm guessing he's a historical figure, but I don't know to what degree he has been fictionalized here.) He is rather unmanly by the standards of the time, being more interested in reading and studying than in horses and girls. He meets Umayado-no-ôji by chance, and gradually gets attracted to him even while learning about the boy's schemes of murder and betrayal.

Yaaaaaaay, historical RPS!

And that is as much as I understand of this manga. The narrator Emishi, while bright, isn't very well-informed in the intrigues of the court or the supernatural business Umayado-no-ôji is involved with, so the reader is equally left behind. This doesn't matter as such because the story is mysterious and engaging nonetheless, but I have a hard time saying anything intelligent about it at this point. I suppose Umayado-no-ôji is scheming to become emperor (he has already succeeded in making his father emperor), but I don't know why he'd do that; he's rather the lonesome type, mostly because his supernatural abilities isolate him but probably also because he is a prodigy and can't find anyone to associate with that would truly understand him. I guess he thinks of Emishi as special, because he lets Emishi notice his plotting, but it also appears he is tired of Emishi's snooping around. But over-all, I don't get the boy.

What left the biggest impression on me in this volume was the cunning way in which Buddhism sneaks into the lives of people who previously had other gods: it doesn't attempt to throw out these gods, but rather convinces people that their gods are true but Buddha is above them, and other gods are a part of Buddhism. When people hear Japan has two state religions, Shinto and Buddhism, they tend to think this is because the Japanese are very loose about such things, but it has as much to do with how Buddhism works.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (2)

Ima Ichiko: Hyakkiyakôshô vol. 8

One warning: if you do not actually understand Japanese fully but can follow most manga, you probably shouldn't pick up Ima Ichiko. She'll ruin your confidence in your Japanese abilities.

So much text! No furigana! Not-linear-at-all stories!

But it's damn good.

This is a semi-horror story about monsters and ghosts. It's technically set in modern day Japan, but the designs and atmosphere is Taishô-esque -- which I adore, with the old Japanese houses and women in kimono and yokai in montsuki. The stories are more sentimental and melancholic than scary, and though they have a few shock moments, the scariness is more of the sort that reminds you of stories you heard as a child from your superstitious grandmother. The yokai (monsters) are for the most part cute and slightly pathetic, while they sometimes show their true nature and reminds us that there are lines into the other side we shouldn't pass easily.

I love it.

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Maki Yoko: SoraSora (in Ribon)

First impression: Wow, Maki Yoko surely had improved her art since this ... Second impression: Wow, she sure has forgotten how to construct a plot since this ...

Maki Yoko is drawing Aishiteruze Baby in Ribon right now, and I think, quite frankly, that it sucks. The art is pretty, oh yes, but nothing much happens in it, and what little that does happen doesn't lead anywhere. I think Baby could have become a great manga if the Yuzuyu episodes and the Kokoro episodes had inter-connected in some way to reach a solution about what a family ought to be, but it never really happened, and I can't really see what the point of the story is.

Anyway, SoraSora. I like the two protagonists, because they're silly and stupid and don't take school seriously, which reminds me of myself. I also like the teacher, because I admire him for actually caring about those two. The plot is ... err ... typical. The heroine gets picked on by some bitchy girl who hides her true nature in front of the hero -- been there, done that. Seriously, this theme goes way back to shojo manga of the 50s and 60s. I've never liked it, because I'm not really the type to identify with the heroine and wallow in the pleasures of self-pity.

The good thing about this manga, though, is that the heroine doesn't entirely wallow in self-pity: she counter attacks, both verbally and physically. Way to go, Sorako! And although the plot itself could have been resolved in one installment, the various small episodes about the school life of the protagonists are funny and adds to the total product. Unfortunately, in Baby, these side-episodes are so numerous they completely cover up the main plot, but here, the balance is right.

Over-all, a good read. I have hope for Maki Yoko yet.

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Yoshizumi Wataru: Ultra Maniac vol. 2

Wah, a lot of things happen in this volume and in a convoluted way, it's difficult to make a summary. Following the events of volume one, Nina tries to tell Ayu about the true Kaji-kun, but Ayu won't believe her. Meanwhile, Nina gets to know Kaji-kun better, and slowly begins to grow a liking to him. Another exchange student comes to Ayu's school from Magical Kingdom: Nina's old frind Yuta. Yuta wants to go out with Ayu, and Nina stops him and tells him that Ayu is in love with Kaji-kun, but then they overhear Kaji-kun say that Ayu isn't the one he's in love with. Yuta asks Ayu to show him around town, which she agrees to, and then as a thanks gives her a camera which takes photos of whoever the person is in love with, saying Ayu can take a picture of Kaji-kun, and if it turns out Kaji-kun isn't in love with Ayu, she can go out with him instead. Ayu, curious, brings the camera to school, and while she doesn't get to take a picture of Kaji-kun, she does find out that Yuta is actually in love with Nina, and that Nina might be in love with Kaji-kun!

Not much magical comedy over this volume, but that doesn't make it less good. Love triangles are what Yoshizumi-sensei does best, and in this series the magical items are working perfectly with the romance theme. The theme of how people have two sides, their true self and their outer self, is further developped and works much, much better than in series like, say, KareKano. So far, that's what makes me love this series most. Plus, it's lots of fun and has great art. Grab it now.

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Shimizu Reiko: Himitsu ~ The Top Secret vol. 1

This is a good book. Good characters, good art, good original concept, good story. I'll never again read it, though. Nope, not me.

Himitsu is a collection of two short stories, not related to each other besides in basic concept: in the near future, scientists have found a way to interpret and project the visual impressions stored inside the brains of dead people. Of course, the police is using this technology to solve crimes that would otherwise have been impossible to solve.

The first story, titled Himitsu 1999 not for the year it's set but for the year it was written, features the murder of the president of the United States. He was found deal, alone on a balcony, and the president being the most important person in the country and all, it is decided that this new brain scan technology should be used on him. The president's brain reveals that he was murdered by a masket man who appears to just have been a random robber, but before he died, the precident took out a phothograph from his wallet and tore it up, which leads the police to think that a comspiracy was at work. The plot is simple, and the story isn't carried so much by it as by the concept, which isn't unusual for science fiction short stories. The resolution is sad in a melancholy way, and I liked it a lot.

The second story, Himitsu 2001, is more orthodox crime fiction about a police department investigating the mysterious deaths of a group of young men. The investigation leads them back to a serial killer who was executed for the murders of 27 boys and men. But the killer is already dead, so how can he have anything to do with the recent deaths, which are, too all appearances, suicides? Although not as good as the first, it's a well-constructed and intriguing short story. But I never, ever want to read it again.

The deals is that the gore in this second story is very real. It is (or at least, appears to be) anatomically correct. Seen as individual drawings, these pages of gore are actually quite beautiful -- before reading this book, I casually lifted through it and my eyes fell on the full page with a boy and his very open ripcage, and I was fascinated and stared at it for minutes. But in context, namely that 27 boys were murdered (probably raped and otherwise tortured before dying, though this isn't touched upon) and dissected in each his own way ... aw god, I think I'll barf. I am so not good at dealing with that sort of thing, especially when it's depicted so realistically. There was one scene where I realized I was imagining the feel of the cool, tender, and dead muscles, tendons, and veins on my hands, and while I have touched all those things like any other person who has ever cooked a meal, when a human head was attached to them it was just not good. As said, good book. But I'll never read it again.

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Ayahana Min: Akazukin Chacha vol. 09

I love this cover. Seravy/Dorothy is one of the very few het pairings I wholeheartedly support. But only because it's so funny.

The cover fits this volume well. If I loved Riiya in volume 8, I love Seravy in volume 9 -- how he sits and watches a video with Dorothy-chan, how he gets jealous at a guy because he's sleeping next to Dorothy-chan (fully clothed and on the floor), how he cries when he finds out the angel who looks just like him has a wife who looks just like Dorothy-chan ... He's so sweet, in an incredibly stupid and scary way. I mean, how can the guy still be obsessed with Dorothy-chan, after she's ignored him and openly hated him since they were little kids?! It's beyond me, but Seravy wouldn't be Seravy if he wasn't like this.

As for non-Seravy-related episodes, I like the one with Ichimatsu-kun, the android assassin who has come to kill Poppy-kun. I laughed my ass off at how he says everything he thinks, including all his plans to kill Poppy-kun. His identity crisis is priceless as well ... when his engine stalls, and the kids call him a car; then his arms are replaced by the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner and an electronic eggbeater; then a telephone appears on his stomach. "What am I? Am I a car?! A vacuum cleaner?! An eggbeater?! Or a telephone?!!" Lovely parody og robot fiction. I love.

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Yoshinaga Fumi: Kôzuka no ehon

A dôjinshi on Yoshinaga's famous series Antique ~ seiyô kottô yôgashiten (and by "famous" I mean it was made into a TV drama series). I haven't actually read that one, but that never stops me from reading dojin anyway, so ...

The premise is pretty typical and fangirly: a group of yaoi fangirls enter the shop of the protagonists and begin to ramble about the yaoi possibilies of the shop owners. They seem to agree that the small guy behind the counter is sôuke (i.e. uke to everyone else), but one girl has a different idea: she wants the big hairy guy to be uke to the even bigger guy with sunglasses. And she wants them to be yakuza. Thus her fantasy is unfolded over many lovely pages.

Big, old men yaoi! Uke with a beard! Oh god, I love this. It's hilarious and hot. But mostly hilarious. People should write more bearded 182cm/66kg ukes. In yukata.

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Ayahana Min: Akazukin Chacha vol. 08

I'm not interested in the anime Akazukin Chacha, but I've read the manga since it began to run in Ribon, and I've always loved it. It's one of the veeeeeery few Ribon manga that actually crack me up (the others being High Score, the legendary works of Okada Amin, and early Chibi-Maruko-chan). The cuteness of this manga has a lot to do with it; while Okada Amin cracks me up with her psyched-out art that matches her stories, Ayahana cracks me up because she has extremely cute characters (like dog!Riiya) doing extremely stupid things.

I don't have favorite characters as such in Chacha (Seravy comes closest), but my favorite episodes tend to be those with Riiya. In this volume, we have the classic "Riiya needs a vaccination but refuses to go to the doctor's" episode and its sequel, the "Chuchu sets traps in the entire school" episode in which Riiya reveals he's wearing sentai-briefs, and the "Shiine-chan's dad gets mistaken for a kidnapper" episode in which Riiya is just so stupid and cute I almost went into a seizure.

The other character I find funny (though in a disturbing way), Seravy, also stars in a episode in this volume. Dorris makes a cake which will make everyone who eats it hate Seravy, thinking he will be with her (eh, him, actually) if he feels lonely enough. What does Seravy do when Chacha and the other kids don't want to be with him anymore? Something really, really scary. I'm afraid ...

Did I mention I love this series?

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Togashi Yoshihiro and co.: Yoshirin de pon! (Yu Yu Hakusho dojinshi)

Found a pretty low-quality digital version, but all the pages were included so I'm happy. I mean, I've been wanting to read this for years and it goes for something like 30000 yen.

This is a (in)famous YYH dojin Togashi made and gave out for free at the 1994 Summer Comiket. It contains some random drawings by him and his friends, short weird comics with the YYH cast, an interview, and an essay. I had read the interview and the essay elsewhere before, so I was mostly interested in the comics.

12-nin no obieru mono-tachi (12 Frightened People) has the cast of YYH (with complete opposite personalities from their roles) staying at a hotel, where something frightening is supposed to happen. I say supposed to happen because this piece is only three pages long and ends with "They did not yet know what frightful tragedy would unfold ... The End". Ahahaha. Kuwabara's actor is actually super-smart and wears glasses, and looks exactly like Kaidô-kun. Koenma (adult version) is yummy.

There is also a one-page preview (fake) of a manga called Gkuen kiki ippatsu, where Kurama and Hiri are girls (Hiei is tied up and crying and Kurama is wearing a pretty skimpy outfit), with leading-up-to-100% Toguro in the background wearing a girl's sailor uniform (!) going, "I'm, like, Toguro Misaki. I'm an ordinary high school student!" Yeeeeeeah ... right.

I really do adore Togashi's art from this period (YYH volume 19 is a treat in my eyes), so it was nice to get to see some of it again. Over-all this book is fairly anti-YYH, but not ill-spirited. I might actually pay 30000 yen for it if I find it somewhere, which is a frightening testament to my Togashi Yoshihiro obsession. Meep.

Category: Dojinshi | Comments (0)

Kouga Yun: Otona na koi (Naruto, Iruka x Kakashi)

This is the second Naruto dojin I read and I've still only read the first volume of Naruto, but now I do know who Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei are, so that's progress.

This dojinshi contains one longish manga and three short plus random free talks and drawings, all rather ... silly. In all of the stories Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei talk about sex but never seem to talk about the same thing at all. Kakashi-sensei knows what Iruka-sensei is talking about (or wants to talk about) but doesn't admit it and lets the conversation go weird ways on purpose. Iruka-sensei is cute and Kakashi-sensei is a tease, and it's all very sweet.

Not as good as Shampoo, but maybe more enjoyable for most people.

Category: Dojinshi | Comments (1)

Kouga Yun: Shampoo (Naruto, Iruka x Kakashi)

Firstly, I should probably tell you that by the time I'm reading this dojin I've never read a page of Naruto and this is the first Naruto dojin I ever read, so obviously I'm not the most qualified person to review it. But I have read quite a bit of manga by Kouga Yun, so maybe I'm more qualified than most to bear with her rambling style. Because, you know, I have a sneaking suspicion that reading Naruto won't help me much with understanding this thing. That's not a critique. Well, not really. I like her style.

Kakashi-sensei is dirty. He's covered with wind and sand and blood, but he can't be bothered to wash himself. It's so bothersome, in fact, that he's about to die. Iruka-sensei says he'll wash Kakashi-sensei, wash everyone, and then they have sex and a bath.

That's as much of a story you'll get. But like most of Kouga's works I like this better and better the more I read it. It's rambly and inconsistent, but it does have a clear message: shampooing your hair is likened to breathing, so what Kakashi-sensei can't be bothered to do is live -- although he is set to be alive -- and that's what Iruka-sensei helps him out with. Combined with the art, which is in my second favorite of Kouga's many styles (first favorite being the style around Earthian volume four), and the pretty design and binding, I like this dojinshi very much.

But would I recommend it to anyone? Eh. Kouga Yun is a difficult manga-ka to recommend, so let me just say that I'm not the only fan she has ...

Category: Dojinshi | Comments (0)

Ima Ichiko: Rakuen made ato môchotto vol. 2

In volume one Kawae took over the travel agency after the death of Sayuri's father (she tricked him), and worked up a clientele of yakuza members earger to prove their worth. The relationship between Asada and Kikuchi, however, is becoming more strained because Kikuchi's wife becomes pregnant and confesses she's in love with someone else. In the meanwhile, Sannami, an old flame of Kawae's, turn up and seems still to be interested in him, which annoys Asada endlessly.

Oh god, Sannami. When he turned up I was all "Yes! Old man slash!" because he looks balding and all, but ... I hadn't seen that one coming. So not going to write anything here. Spoilery. Woa. Gah!

Also, I'm increasingly falling in love with Tera-san the yakuza. And Asada's mom is fucking weird. Although not as much as Sayuri's mom, who is impossible (yet hilarious). Oh dear, wonderful.

The only bad thing is that this series runs rather irregularly and there are about 20 months between volume one and two, so I have no idea when I'll get to read the continuation. See, this is the sort of thing that makes me want to never read BL again ...

Category: BL manga | Comments (0)

Ima Ichiko: Rakuen made ato môchotto vol. 1

A BL manga about a two-timing finance company employee, mountclimbers in debt, mountclimbing yakuza, and ... umm ... no, that's not making any sense.

Kawae is asked by his devorced wife Sayuri to run her father's travel agency for a week while her father is in the hospital. It turns out the agency is in debt, and although Kawae tells himself it's not his business anymore, he ends up getting involved. Here, he meets Asada who is working for the finance company the travel agency is borrowing money from, who also happens to move in next door to him and who is obviously sleeping with his married boss, Kikuchi. And, well, Kawae is attracted to Asada who can't leave Kikuchi (although I want to smack him for that, and kick Kikuchi's ass), and stuff happens.

No, strike that: a lot of stuff happens. Ima Ichiko's pages are filled to their edges with dialogue, spread over twice as many panels as your average shojo manga. This might annoy me and make me think she ought to write a novel instead if she's going to do all the story-telling with words anyway, but this isn't the case at all: Ima draws fabulously and she knows how to utilize various manga-effects perfectly. Combined with an entertaining story that would work lovely even without the BL, and great characterization of all characters, this is a wonderful piece of manga.

See, it's because of manga like these that I can't stop reading BL ...

Category: BL manga | Comments (1)

Tanaka Suzuki: Tenkôsei Jinno Murasaki vol. 1

OMG I luv.

Tanaka Suzuki has this lovely Ishinomori Shotaro/Babil II-esque art which I can't help but ogle. I even liked her Menkui (I think Obsession scanlated that one), which most people seemed to find dead boring. Which I guess it was ... but seriously, the art! 'Tis teh pretty!

I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this point, though, so please don't rush out and buy it with high hopes.

Okay, so yes, the fact is that I adore Tanaka Suzuki and would be all over anything she does regardless of plot, but this thing really is good! I swear!

Jinnai Midori is one of those delinquent high school students you thought you wouldn't see more of in manga written this side of 1995, but there he is. He's special, though, in that his left hand seems to be able to wipe away the "wicked thoughts" of anyone he touches -- so no one dares to get into a fight with him because they'll become all goody-good after he's beaten them up (which he will).

Jinno Murasaki is, as the title says, a transfer student to Midori's school. He approaches Midori and says they used to be friends as children, and that he's come to protect Midori (we don't know from what). Midori, on the other hand, doesn't remember Murasaki at all and beats Murasaki up, but Murasaki is unaffected. Additionally, Murasaki is attaced and beaten up senselessly while protecting Midori, but although he's bleeding like hell he is unaffected by this as well. It seems there is something Midori is repressing about Murasaki, but, you know, he's repressing it so we don't know (though I have my guess).

What's good about this manga is ... umm ... Murasaki? He's just cute and mysterious and smug, it's a delight. Sure, I'm curious about the plot ... but huzzah for Murasaki!

Category: BL manga | Comments (0)

Tanaka Suzuki: Tenkôsei Jinno Murasaki vol. 2

Midori does a stakeout at the school following a disturbing even with a ghost at the end of the previous volume, and Murasaki stays with him. They both fall asleep, though, and when they wake up, they find themselves trapped in a school where students are preparing for a festival. It turns out they are all ghosts trapped there for years, every night preparing for the festival tomorrow which never comes. Some of the students are out to kill Midori, because they seem to know he has the ability to delete the ghosts, and some other of the students are looking for Midori to get deleted so they can get out of this place.

Me, I still love Murasaki who is scolded and left behind by Midori and is all "Meeeeeep" (cute!), and adore Harada-san, one of the ghosts who appear at the end, who seems really fangirlish and funny. Augh, me want volume three.

At the end is also included a short story about a boy getting kidnapped. It has the feeling of Tanaka's earlier short stories like Memai (Shi-Ran scanlated that one), in the sense that it seems mundane but is rather scary. I just love the way she can be casually disturbing, like this off-hand remark from the kidnapper after he figures out the boy isn't an ordinary boy: "I don't really like corpses, but ... I guess it'll have to do ..." Waaaaaaah!! Get this man away from me!

But anyway, I repeat: OMG I luv.

Category: BL manga | Comments (0)

Ojisama Lv. 1.5 (BL game from Alice Blue)

Not a direct sequel to Level 1 but more like an "omake" (extra) disk, Level 1.5 contains four small games, a gallery of desktop wallpapers, and random related things like progress reports of the game-development by Itoh, fanfic/fanart, feedback cards from users, etc. That doesn't mean this is a disk you can browse though and finish in an hour or two, though, because all four games are fun and/or difficult in each their own way.

Ojisama ikkagetsugo is a semi-RPG (semi because the story only goes in one direction) in Celesto's POV. It's set one month after Level 1, and the pretended objective of the game is to help Celesto's sister convince their father that she should be allowed to marry her lover. This isn't a difficult task at all, and although the new characters prove to be interesting, the real objective of this game is to get Canan and Celesto into bed.

The game can be configured so that it's either Celesto x Canan or Canan x Celesto (or to being neither, but what's the fun of that?), but I tried both. I don't really have a personal preference regarding the seme and uke of this pair, but it seemed to me that the Celeste x Canan scene was longer them the Canan x Celeste scene. (Probably because it's more mainstream.) The sex is okay. It has what I find annoying in visual BL, namely the sudden disappearance of male genital organs (they're literally transparent), which I don't get especially because this game is rated NC17, but I guess that's how most Japanese girls want it. (Weirdoes ... eh, sorry.) Celesto's POV is funny because he keeps talking to and about Canan with exaggerated politeness even when doing him from behind. Like, relax, man ...

Reading and looking at the sex-scenes made me realize why it is that the player isn't the protagonist in this game, and why there is no "choose what to say/do" option; if this had been the case the player would actually have had to initiate sex with a character (like in NC17 games for men ... eh, I'm guessing), and I think most girls/women would feel uncomfortable about this. It again proves my theory that the key element of yaoi/BL is the mental distance between spectator and subject.

But anyhow.

Hakuoh no kobun-tataki isn't an RPG at all but rather a "hit the bandits over head" action game. If you do well, you get to see Hakuoh have sex with Ax. (Big surprise there.) I'm not really good at these sorts of games, because I don't really care about high scores and the lot, but there is an easy mode for people like me. One disadvantage: if you use the easy mode, the CGs in the gallery will have a pooing bear in the corner. Once again the game can be configured to either Ax x Hokuah or Hokuoh x Ax. Frozen (the boy monster) has a small part in the latter, if he's your thing. I'm sure this is a good game for people who like these sort of games, but I don't.

Ojisama 1/16 is another type of game I don't really enjoy, namely simulation. As the title says Canan has shrunk to 1/16 of his normal size, and in this game you are Celeste who has to raise him for 30 days. It's pretty much like a Tamadotchi, you can feed the prince, play with him, bathe him, train him, etc., and depending on some factors that are beyond me the Prince will react in different ways, different events will unfold, and after 30 days the prince will evolve to a specific type of character (my prince became a lone wolf). Although I'm not into this sort of game, just looking at the 1/16 Canan made me a bit happy. He's really cute, dresses in all sorts of cute clothes, and does weird yet cute things. This is just cute.

The last game is Spy Itoh no "Quiz! Ore ni saborasero", a trivia quiz of the Ojisama games (Level 1, the add-on, and the Ikkagetsugo part of Level 1.5). The objective is to get Spy Itoh to his work place, namely the Blue Alice development team (where he mostly slacks off, sometimes paints CGs, and leak information to the net), and in order to do this you have to answer a whole bunch of quizzes for various unconvincing reasons. This is for hard-core fans only; most of the questions are really trivial. But if you get through all six stages, you'll get to see four CGs in all for each 800.000 points you collect. When writing this I have gone through all six stages, but not collected enough points to see even one CG ... Suffice to say, this sort of game isn't really my thing, either. The absurd storylines in-between the quizzes are fun, though.

The wallpaper gallery has 12 .bmps for use on screen resolution 800x600 and 1024x768, with practically every memorable character from 1 and 1.5. My favorites: the boy monsters, and Lucias and Roy.

To sum it up: this doesn't have nearly enough game-play that I normally enjoy, but the cuteness and the tongue-in-cheek stories made me enjoy it nonetheless. And although they weren't my thing all the games have been developed well and include many hours of enjoyment. Except the trivia quiz, this game also has quite a bit of fun for people who don't read Japanese. If you liked Level 1, you'll have to try this. It's not just an extra disk to cash in money until Level 2 comes out. Though it probably will make you impatient for Level 2 ... I know I am.

Category: Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

Ojisama Lv. 1 (BL game from Alice Blue)

I mostly tried this game because I was curious as to how a BL (or yaoi, for those of you who prefer to call it that) game worked, and expected the BL element to be the only advantage of it. To my surprise and delight, it wasn't. Let me say out front that this is a lovely game you can enjoy even if you're not really into cute boys hitting on each other. It was such a nice game, in fact, that I finished it in one day. (Yes, I played games for a whole day again. So shoot me.)

Ojisama Level 1 is a Role Playing Game, but unlike many other RPGs you're not, as a player, the protagonist. The main character is Canan, the young Prince of a peaceful kingdom, who has always dreamed of (um, maybe more like "had deluded fantasies about") becoming an adventurer like in the heroic tales of the founding fathers of the kingdom. Thus, on the day a guild of adventures comes to town, he immediately sneaks out of the castle to join. Celesto, Canan's servant, bodyguard, and eye-keeper, follows him in order to stop him, but is talked into joining the guild as well. The two become officially registered adventurers, form a party, and begin to explore the dungeons hidden in the kingdom.

The game-play is very orthodox as RPGs go: you wander about town talking to people, kill monsters in the dungeons to get money and experience, buy equiptment for the money, get higher levels with the experience, etc. This is a 2D game, like Angelique in the dialogue and event parts (it doesn't have animation, but does have many very pretty still pictures), and the actual game-play and battling much like the Dragon Quest series or early Final Fantasy titles (i.e. basically like the later FFs, just in 2D).

Only two things set this game apart from many other RPGs: Firstly, the lack of "choose what you want to say"-dialogue. But I actually found this to be a blessing; it rarely really matters what you choose to say in an RPG, anyway. Secondly, you can capture monsters and have them join your party. This was also the case in DQ, and in FF there's the chocobo, but we're talking about "otokonoko (boy) monsters" here, so the purpose of catching them is different. They're not of real use in a battle; I never had them in my party, and I solved the whole game easily. They're just pretty. It really does become an obsession to catch them, and you'll be griddling your teeth if you meet a new one and don't have room to keep it. Collect all 16!

Overall, this isn't a very difficult game. All the monsters are in plain sight and don't move, and if you run into enough of them on purpose you're easily going to reach the levels you need in order to defeat the bigger enemies. (Level 20 is more than sufficient for the last battle.) The only obstacle is that you have to go home in time to eat your dinner, meaning there is a "harapeko shisu" (a number that shows your "tummy-emptiness") which steadily falls as you walk around the dungeons. If it reaches zero, there's nothing to do but head home and start again the next day. Because most of the obstacles have time limits, this can get slightly annoying. I never experienced a game over because I didn't have enough time to solve the dungeons, though, and I don't think anyone but the most inexperienced RPG-player will.

Another slight annoyance is that you only have five slots for your skills, meaning you can only choose between five different actions during a battle, but if you use the slots wisely (like, don't fill all of them with skills that require MP ...) there shouldn't be a problem in that area, either. In fact, if you want a challenging RPG this isn't the one.

The best things about this game are not in the actual game-play, they're in the characters, the dialogue, and the story. Canan might seem at first sight to be the typical uke (cute, sweet, oblivious), but in fact he's a spoiled brat with guts, attitude, determination, and brains. I'm not sure if he'll be everyone's cup of tea, as he does tend to act as though he is the center of the universe, but no one can argue that his heart is in the right place: he loves his family, helps people (and monsters) if they are in need, and never chooses the easy way out. He is a well-defined and interesting character to follow, a big plus in RPGs as they tend to be dialogue- and interaction-heavy. (Are you listening, SquareSoft?)

Most of the other characters are interesting as well: Celesto is usually sweet, strong, and reliable (albeit a bit nosy and overprotective), but in the scenes without Canan he is an ordinary guy with hobbies, personal problems, and a different "I" pronoun (the formal "watashi" becomes "ore" -- good detail). It's nice that he isn't the typical stuck-up swordsman and bodyguard that thinks of nothing but his duties. Hokuoh is seemingly gay to the bottom of his black heart, something surprisingly rare in BL, and never easy to pin down. Ax and his gang of bandits are so, so cute, their affection for each other being the most touching thing in the game for me.

The dialogue is silly in a cute way and often tongue-in-cheek, commenting lightly sarcastically on the events unfolding. Many of the events are intentionally absurd, like when a family of "Haney" monsters is put in the most old-fashioned and clichéd melodramatic setting ever imaginable (complete with a handicapped mother, a father who got fired at the factory, began to drink, and ran away, and a son who joins the Haney-yakuza). The main story could have been longer and had slightly more depth, and there are a couple of annoying loose ends, but some twists at the end and quite a bit of character development going on compensate somewhat. There is a sequel coming out which might continue and develop the loose ends.

What about the BL? you might ask. There isn't much of it, to be honest. The two main characters have some chemistry, and Hakuoh does hit on Celesto quite a bit, but kissing and hugging is all it amounts to. (Eh, and Hakuoh drugging Ax to do whatever he commands. But we don't get to see anything interesting.) There are the boy monsters, but they won't do anything interesting for you even if you train them. (I think "Chapochapo" is rather perverse just standing there, though, so you might get off on him. Me, I don't do shota.)

Over all, I enjoyed this game very much. But I can't really imagine what anyone would get out of playing this if they don't understand Japanese. The add-on and Level 1.5 have sex, so those might be better choices for people who want to play this for the BL. I think that would be a shame, though. Someone should translate this game so everyone could play it. It is, really, very good.

Category: Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

Takemiya Keiko: Isalone Densetsu vol. 3

This volume is mostly dedicated to Lukish. The deal with the supporters go as far as to an attempted assassination of Lukish (his mother dies instead), and seeing that it has gone far enough, the supporters decide to marry Lukish with a girl from Tiokia's mother's family (arranged marriage, everyone's happy). Lukish is thrilled because his wife turns out to be a girl he saw at the day of his crowning and fell in love with, but the new queen, Fleya, is pissed off because she had a boyfriend where she came from.

In the meanwhile, the last king gave a mysterious key to a deer-person out in the woods before he died, saying it must be given to "the one who shall inherit the throne". This deer-person (a fairy-type boy who lives in the woods in the form of a deer) finally arrives at the castle and gives the key to Lukish, who opens a little box with it and find a map. Because he is still worried that the last king had meant to make Tiokia king instead of him, he decides to go out and look for the place on the map to prove that he was the one supposed to inherit the throne. It turns out Fleya comes from a village of witches (as did Tiokia's mother), and she turns into a bird and follows. The road is difficult and many die, but at the end Lukish and Fleya manages to find the house on the map. Inside it they find the will of the last king, which says that if Tiokia becomes a boy, he should marry Fleya and rule Isalone, and if Tiokia becomes a girl, he should marry Lukish and rule Isalone. Lukish, obviously, is devastated at this, because it means the king wanted Tiokia to rule no matter what.

Fleya and Lukish, however, become more close the more they learn about their destiny, and in the end of this volume they fight together and conquirs Zebek.

Okay. Now I'm just hoping I can remember all that when it becomes relevant later on. Damn.

The king's will is rather amusing ... Tiokia and Lukish, married. Heh heh. This probably wasn't the king's intention, though, as I suspect he sent Tiokia off to Ishka so he could fall in love with one of the princesses there, and thereby become a man.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Takemiya Keiko: Isalone Densetsu vol. 2

At the end of volume one Tiokia (the hermaphrodite prince of Isalone) had entered a gate to an ancient civilization while Isalone attacked Ishka. Inside the gate and under Ishka they found an ancient city with advanced magic/science (?) and with people turned to salt (how biblical, that). They go through it and escape to Ashkinis, where the prince develops MPD and is devided into ickle-and-frail!Tiokia and aggressive-and-provocative!Al. Al is really gay (he is!) and disguising himself as a female dancer he manages to sneak into the royal palace of Ashkinis. Here he is found by a group of witches living in the hills of Ashkinis, who have been waiting for him to come and open the gate that they have been protecting since the times of their ancestors.

It seems Tiokia is driven by a purpose inside of him which I can't really fathom at this point. Neither can the monk and the side-kick following him, but Tiokia probably can't make sense of it himself at this point, either. He is obviously destined for something and he instinctively knows where to go and what to do, but the grand scheme is still shrouded. Meh.

Anyway, while Tiokia is busy with his destiny business, the king of Isalone (Tiokia's father) dies in battle and Lukish (Tiokia's cousin) is crowned king. It doesn't fly very well, though, because the Tiokia supporters and the Lukish supporters become more and more aggressive in their hatred of one another (a bit like hooligans, innit?). I'm beginning to like Lukish more; he's a simple, headstrong shonen manga hero type. Nice, nice.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Takemiya Keiko: Isalone Densetsu vol. 1

Takemiya wrote the very first real shonen-ai manga back in the 70s and is as such most famous for that, but she's a prolific and diverse lady who has written historical epics, space opera epics, fantasy epics, and all manner of other things. This one is a historical epic of a make-believe county set in a fantasy world (what do you call those, anyway?).

Tiokia is the prince of Isalone, a country eagerly going to war with all neighboring countries. They call him a prince but in reality he's a hermaphrodite, so technically I guess he isn't. The king of Isalone is a stern man whom I can't see through at this point, and it is rumoured that he would rather have his nephew, Lukish, take the throne after him tham Tiokia -- perhaps because Tiokia is a hermaphrodite, perhaps because Tiokia is mild-tempered and pacifistic while Lukish is aggressive and war-loving. At any rate the king sends Tiokia away to the country Ishka as a piece offering (that is to say, a hostage). In Ishka, a country of a rich and old culture, Tiokia meets a wise monk who seems to know a whole lot about Tiokia and his (apparently) destined future, and seems to think that Tiokia has some connection to an old, highly advanced civilization that went under a long time ago. By this monk Tiokia gains wisdome and learns the ancient art of magic, all the while falling in love with the sweet young princess of Ishka. But all couldn't go well, of course, and the army of Tiokia's father attacks Ishka ...

I wrote everything above mostly in the hope that I could remember the names afterwards if I wrote them down like this. I usually dislike fantasy novels, mainly because I can't for the life of me remember all the foreign-sounding names. Tiokia! Ishka! Lukish! No doubt I'll have forgotten them again by the time I pick up volume two ...

Takemiys is usually a very logical author (meaning her plots are linear and she tends to choose simple over complicated when explaining various situations and characters), which is good because if this had been more convoluted I would have thrown it across the room. Damn, I hate historical epics! My mind can't wrap around them.

But I am going to pick up volume two, because I do so love ancient civilizations and hidden chambers and encantations and what not. I find Tiokia quite cute, too, so I hope he'll grow on me even more.

This turned out longer than I intended.

Category: Shojo/ladies | Comments (0)

Urushibara Yuki: Mushishi vol. 4

Uromayudori! The opener of this volume is so weird and illogical and fantastical and supreme, it's my favorite since volume two's Fude no umi. Basically, the idea is that if you split up a twin cocoon and trap a mushi inside one of them, the two cocoons will still be attached (in some inter-dimentional wormhole effect I'm guessing), so you can get the mushi to travel from one to the other and deliver letters at great distances. What a marvelous idea! The story itself is about a girl who gets lost inside this wormhole thing, but just the idea!

Kusa o fumu oto, the closing story, takes us back to Ginko's childhood. It's a simple tale of boyhood memories and nostalgia, and just classic. The best volume since volume two -- and hey, if Urushibara can put out one fabulous volume and one good volume alternatively, I won't complain. So put out volume five already!

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

Urushibara Yuki: Mushishi vol. 3

Ohtomo Katsuhiro (of Akira) is quoted on the front, recommending this manga. How weird that that makes me want to read this manga less. I mean, I didn't even think Ohtomo read manga, as odd as that may sound. Wasn't he always an animation fan?

Anyway, the main attraction of this volume is the story of Ginko's past, where his white hair and missing eye is explained. It's quite interesting that he remembered nothing about it. After volume two, which I loved, it's a bit difficult for me to get worked up about the other pieces here, but the uncertainties and mercilessness of life as conveyed in Kaikyô yori and Omoi mi leaves a heavy impression.

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

Urushibara Yuki: Mushishi vol. 2

There are only four volumes out of this manga, did you know? Damn you, Urushibara; write more then once every two months, will you?

Probably my favorite episode, Fude no umi, is included in this volume. A girl is cursed by a powerful mushi generations back writes down the stories of mushishi to seal the powerful mushi. Tsuyu o sû mure is also wonderful, though a bit on the creepy site (at least for me), and so is Watahôshi especially for women (giving birth to mushi ... ewww).

Lifting through this volume again I noticed that I love Urushihara's art though she uses more tones than what I usually like. Unlike most other people she seems to have this ability to combine a few number of similar tones to make her pages more subtle and calm, and to express glowing light. I wish more manga-ka would do that, really. The watercolors are also subdued and lovely, especially when she remembers to let the white paper speak for itself like on page six. Much love.

Category: Shonen/seinen | Comments (0)

Urushibara Yuki: Mushishi vol. 1

Let me say right away that the designs in this manga reminds me an awfully lot of Nausicaa and Mononokehime, and that the author and the publisher and the readers probably feel the same way. But that's okay, because this is a fantabulous manga.

In the universe of this manga, "mushi" are life forms existing close to life itself. As such they aren't animals or plants or insects, and they are so close to the origin of life that most people can't see them. The main character, Ginko, is a "mushishi" (roughly, "mushi master") with a tendency to attract mushi. This makes it impossible for him to stay in one place, so he travels around curing people with strange deseases caused my muchi and generally collecting information on mushi. Mushishi doesn't have a general story-line, but is a collection of short stories about the people and the mushi than Ginko meet on his way.

This manga might not be for everyone. If you're squirked by things like parasites, you should consider staying away. It would be a great shame, though ... the mushi are all inventive and interesting, and the people infested with them tragic but hopeful. In this volume I especially enjoyed Yawarakai tsuno, about mushi that eat sound.

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Fujiko F. Fujio: Shônen SF Tanpenshû vol. 3

Third volume, including five short stories, and the last one I have. I wonder if there are more out ...

At any rate this is my favorite volume, if only because it contains Anko ôi ni ikaru (Anko Gets Mad), the prototype for Fujiko's ESPer Mami which I adore. Quite a few things were different in the prototype (Anko's mother is dead, Anko doesn't have a dog, Anko's father is irresponsible while Anko is responsible, Anko can cook [!]), but the feel of it, that an ordinary, not-too-bright girl with supernatural powers save people in need, is intact. I wouldn't have loved ESPer mami if it hadn't been altered from the prototype, though ... I love Mami because she's a ditz, and Anko's father and boyfriend aren't nearly as attractive as their counterparts in ESPer Mami. But an interesting read, of course.

Then there's Zetsumetsu no shima (Island of Extinction), which is a good and solid humans v. aliens spectacle action flick until the very, very end ... where it turns highly satirical and made me laugh out loud. Brilliant!

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Fujiko F. Fujio: Shônen SF Tanpenshû vol. 2

Again, a collection of six short stories. Again, some of these are typical (tomorrow's news paper; vampirism as a virus), but New-year-sei chôsa (Exploration of Planet New-Year) is pretty damn cool SF. A scientist makes the hypothesis that all the civilizations in the Milkey Way galaxy originated on one particular planet, and takes off to prove it. It seems like he succeeded, or ...?

In general these short stories end too much for me, though. There is a clear theme which is resolved clearly at the end, typically with the narrator going "This was the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, and it never happened afterwards, and I learned this and that of it, bla bla," which is ... annoying. I don't know why. A bit too moral for me, perhaps. In that way I enjoyed Fujiko's Ishoku tanpenshû (collection of "unique/unusual" short stories) better, as they tended to be slightly more absurd and had more open endings.

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Fujiko F. Fujio: Shônen SF Tanpenshû vol. 1

A collection of six sci-fi/fantasy-esque short stories. Some of them are pretty typical (old man stealing a young man's body; a boy cloning the girl he can't have), but I loved Nakuna! Yûrei (Stop Crying, Ghost!) which seems to be the oldest story in this collection. A ghost moves in with a boy when his father buys the statue of a frog which the ghost is attached to, and refuces to leave until he has gotten revenge on the ancestors of the person who killed him. It's not a ghost story, though, because the whole thing is light-hearted and pretty deadpanned, and the ghost is as un-ghost-like as they come. Reminds me of early comical Doraemon; nice piece.

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Fujiko F. Fujio: Chinpui vol. 4

The story of Eri, a pretty ordinary pre-teen school girl, who is suddenly chosen to be the wife of the prince of planet Marl -- which she refuses stubbornly to become. A bunch of weird aliens are sent to convince her, all of which she has to fend off -- except the cute ape-like creature Chinpui who moves in with her and becomes her friend.

My favorite episodes in this volume are the ones where Eri-chan discovers that she has become a multi-milionare because merchandise in her name has been a big hit on Marl, where they already adore her as their future queen. The lengths she goes to in order to get some money to buy a manga magazine without using money from Marl (which she loathes) was cute and amusing.

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Fujiko F. Fujio: Chinpui vol. 3

I got my hand on the wrong edition! Or rather, a different edition than volume four from yesterday, so some of the stories are duplicate. Not to mention I had read several of these elsewhere already. Sadness.

My favorite story from this book is the one with Eri-chan figuring out aluminium is a rare and expensive metal on Marl. So she and Chinpui decides to collect cans and make a trade company and become rich.

Wait ... money-related stories were also my favorites in volume four. I guess I'm just single-minded like that.

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Maya Mineo: Patalliro! vol. 20

The end to the Balcolan vs. Balcolan arc. "Tanuki" makes me laugh no matter how many times I look at the page; I just love it that Patalliro crashes into the final battle to ruin he serious atmosphere totally. Snicker.

Includes five short stories as well. I had read the first one about Alpha Random (that would be a boy robot Patalliro made a few volumes priviously), sadly, and I don't like Yotalliro (that would be Patalliro's cousin) so I didn't like that one. But oh my, Disney has moved in with Larken (that would be the man who trained Malaich -- well, actually it's not, but that's a spoiler)! I love Disney; he's a first-class assassin and he's making coffee and opening doors for Larken wearing a frilly apron. So much love!

Howcome is it that I vowed not to explain Patalliro here and ended up doing it anyway? The Aestheticism page lists far too few characters.

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Maya Mineo: Patalliro! vol. 19

Patalliro! (this being the official spelling, though you'll also find the variations Patariro and Patarillo) is a series about crazy kids who happen to be kings, gay MI6 agents, and bad puns. I don't really care to explain the premise, so if you must know go to the Aestheticism page.

Volume 19 picks up where bunko volume 10 left off (which is the last bunko volume I own), so of course I've been very eager to get my hands on it. I accidentally also picked up volumes 17 and 18, which I had read before, but let's not touch that (*sob*). Bancolan (that would be the gay MI6 agent) meets his arch enemy Keen (that would be his uncle), and Malaich (that would be Bancolan's former-assassin boy lover) has gotten over the whole "I'm not good enough for Bancolan! Bwaha!" thing that Etrange (that would be Patalliro's mother) brought on.

That paragraph has too many paranteses.

As said above I don't enjoy Maya Mineo's long series so much, and I don't enjoy his action, either, but this arc has enough of Patalliro popping in to disturb the seriousness, so it's a-okay. Disney (that would be the hired gun going after Bancolan) was lovely in his dead-panned stupidity, too. Additionally, I hadn't seen it coming that Godot (that would be the spy Patalliro hired to ... oh, shut up) was that guy ...

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Sanjô Riku / Inada Kôji: Dragon Quest ~ Dai no daibôken vol. 35

Wait, Pop, Aban, Him, and Larhalt weren't turned into little balls? I swear, I'll kill Sanjô and his cliffhangers one of these days. Also, Crocodine! I love you though you're weak (relatively speaking) and you're a little ball. You have the greatest heart of all the characters, surpassing every damn human.

The five heroes continue the battle against Vearn. Quite frankly, I haven't been this excited about the outcome of a battle in this manga since Pop's Megante against Baran all those volumes ago. This is what the previous four volumes have been leading up to, and it's worth all the wait. From page 96 to 141, where Pop and Dai move in for the final attack, I was sitting there agape praying it would work. The flashbacks, which I hate so much, even work perfectly here in small spouts, and the stillness of 134-137 in contrast to the deciding spread of 138-139 had an amazing impact ...

And yet, Sanjô had more. Such an elementary mistake, and therefore such a crushing defeat. I can't imagine how we could go from here to a happy end. If the last two volumes are as good as this one, I'll love this series forever.

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Sanjô Riku / Inada Kôji: Dragon Quest ~ Dai no daibôken vol. 34

I told you Vearn wasn't dead! (As if anyone couldn't tell.) So Mist Vearn's body was actually a duplicate of Vearn's body which he was protecting, which isn't a big surprise, but howcome both Mist and Vearn had to go and look so ... bad after Mist returned the body to Vearn? I admit grandpa!Vearn wasn't very good-looking, either, but Mist in Vearn's body was much hotter than young!Vearn. Not to mention how Mist really looks. Keep the hood on, Mist. It suited you.

Wow, that was irrelevant.

The last many volumes have been lacking in Pop (my absolute favorite wizard in the whole wide world ever omg), but once again he becomes the light of hope for the party to run to Dai. Awwww, Pop. You rock. Also, the line "Until you defeat all of us ... it's not Game Over!!"? So cool. I luv.

Just too bad Vearn turned them all into small balls immediately after. Hate. Hate!!

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Sanjô Riku / Inada Kôji: Dragon Quest ~ Dai no daibôken vol. 33

Mist Vearn looks damn good without that hood. But I knew.

Sanjô has a lot of bad habits with his story-telling (like how he hardly ever kills anyone), but the most prominent is his abnormal fondness for flashbacks. Now, flashbacks in themselves aren't bad in my opinion, and they can even be used effectively in battling manga (just look at volume five of Hunter x Hunter). The annoying thing about Sanjô's flashbacks is that they keep on rolling while the characters are supposed to be in the middle of, ya know, a battle. Why Mist Vearn doesn't kill off all the heroes while we hear about Aban's old days and the true story of the Aban vs. Kill Vearn battle, I will never know ...

I loved Mist's flashback to when Kill first joined Vearn, though. It was always a mystery to me why and how as powerful people as Mist and Kill seemed to follow Vearn so blindly, but it turns out Kill was sent from someone powerful (who?!) to assist Vearn, and if Vearn failed to destroy Earth, to kill him. Now I badly want know who he really worked for ... curiouser and curiouser.

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Sanjô Riku / Inada Kôji: Dragon Quest ~ Dai no daibôken vol. 32

Hahahahaha! The classic Dragon Quest line ...

Evil Overlord: "Join me and I'll give you half the world!"
Hero: "Okay!"
GAME OVER

No, wait, that's not right. Dai says no, of course, although he admits that humans sometimes suck and that they'll probably soon forget that he saved them and begin to fear and discriminate him. He even goes as far as to say that after he has saved the world, if humans so desire, he'll go away and never come back. Wow, whatever did we do to deserve a hero like him?

At any rate, it's nice to once in a while be reminded that this manga is Dragon Quest and not some random shonen fantasy manga, since it can be a bit difficult to tell at other times except for the spells and items.

Continued from the last, there's a feeling of "we need to get this over with to get to the good stuff" in this volume. There just isn't anything exciting about the Dan vs. Vearn battle or the Him vs. Mist Vearn battle, really. The Aban vs. Kill Vearn battle is also a bit lame, since Megante (the suicide spell) has been used before and better (nothing will top Pop's Megante in my mind), which is a shame: both Aban and Kill Vearn are some of the most off-beat and unique characters in this series. Maybe there was too much off-beat-ness in between the two that it sort of ... died.

Continuing to the next volume without me believing Vearn is actually defeated. See, I've learned my lesson! (Seriously, what would the last five volumes be about if the Evil Overlord is already dead? I'm not that gullible.)

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Sanjô Riku / Inada Kôji: Dragon Quest ~ Dai no daibôken vol. 31

So what has happened in the last 30 volumes? Erm, a lot. Dai, the hero, gathered his party, defeated lots of opponents, met his long-lost father, lost his memory, almost died, had friends die and resurrect, among other things. I don't really want to summarize it all, so let's just go with the flow.

This volume covers the very beginning of the Pop/Marm/Larhalt vs. Mist Vearn battle, and Dai and Reona's way to Vearn. If nothing else one can always count on Sanjô to make up a new villain just to power up the protagonists, which is exactly what he does here and Dai gains another Dragon Crest. At least the Evil Overlord (TM) of this manga admits that he should never have let the hero fight all his subordinates ... I mean, heroes only become stronger by it. It's elementary.

It's also elementary that no one dies in this manga, but I had hoped that Hunckle had actually died. But nooooo. Trust Sanjô to write a cool death and resurrect the person in question. How many times has this happened? At least once each to Dai, Pop, Hunckle, Aban, Him, and Hadlar ... why do I keep trusting Sanjô when he says someone is dead? Gah! (I should probably note that I didn't want Hunckle dead because I dislike him, I wanted him dead because it would have been a totally cool way for him to die.)

What I have written above makes it sound like I dislike this manga, but I don't; it's one of the few titles that make me cry every time I read it. This volumne was pretty sub-par, though.

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