Not that I needed any special persuation to adore this book. This is an artbook published well over ten years after the end of the series, appearing out of the blue after I had given up any hope. Well, maybe not entirely out of the blue. The publication of the complete edition of Yu Yu Hakusho had given me a faint hope again. There's no doubt that Shûeisha's current greedy obsession with digging out popular 90s titles and cashing in on them again is the root of this publication, but I'll be damned if I care. I wanted this for so long, and here it is! Wah! Excuse me while I squee like the fangirl I am.

That aside, I shall now try to look at this book objectively. It contains 42 new pictures, drawn for the recent complete edition reissue and exclusively for this artbook, and 42 full-page old pictures from the series' run in Jump (along with a smattering of small pics for the tankobon and promotion). Additionally, there are a few pages' worth of liner-notes on each picture. And ... that's it. It's a fairly thin book, not even 100 pages. Also, some of the pics from Jump are two-color printing (meaning black and red). There are also a few pics which are supposed to be full-color, but ... aren't.

All in all, this book is a scream from Togashi saying, "I HATE COLORING STUFF SO GO THE FUCK AWAY."

Yeah.

I'm still amazed he agreed to doing new color pics for the complete edition.

As for the quality of the colors, it's low. I say that as someone who adores Togashi's art, especially around the end of Yu Yu Hakusho, so I can only imagine what this book looks like to a non-fan. There are a few orthodox color illustrations among the old Jump covers, and the copic-colored new pics may appeal to more of a general audience, but ... this isn't CLAMP, and it sure isn't Kouga Yun.

Conclusion? This is a book for fans. This is a book for Togashi and/or YYH completists. And yes, I fall into that category. I personally adore the black and white cover pic. The rough Indian-ink drawing of the four guys makes my knees weak (especially Kuwa-chan's expression. Oh. My. God). Although he was very, very tired of coloring things when he drew it (and it shows), I'm just happy I own that Sensui & Itsuki color pic; the way Sensui is standing is just ... hot. As is Yomi, although the color choices in that pic is all over the place. Oh, the Shuichi & Yôko Kurama pic is actually hot and objectively pleasing. I think. Maybe. I'm biased.

Only buy it if you can forgive Togashi everything, and have already forgiven yourself for being such a sucker for the man. Like me, haha.

This is Kouga Yun's fourth artbook, three if you don't count ASIA which was a self-publication and only out for a limited amount of time in connection to an exhibition she did, and which goes for an insane amount of money these days (and no, I don't own it. Though I've been sorely tempted at many occasions). And if you don't count ASIA, this is her first artbook since 1989 (!). I imagine her break with Shinshokan and wandering from one publishing house to the next is what has caused this great break, because Kouga's art is quite well-suited for publication in artbook form. Her now stable (for all appearance, at least) connection to Isshinsha (formerly Sôbisha), combined with the animation of Loveless, most probably made this long overdue artbook happen, and for that I can't thank Isshinsha enough. Because needless to say, I've been waiting for this book to appear for a long, long time.

This artbook contains about 100 individual illustrations spread over 90 pages. About half of them are from her current hit Loveless, while the other half mostly collects recent color pages from Earthian and Ren-Ai Crown. There are also a few old pics form ASIA, and some Gundam illustrations she has done with permission from Sunrise, along with a smattering of other things. The selection covers mostly CG art, from what she calls her very first CG job to her most recent output. The ASIA pictures and one Ren-Ai Crown pic were done with color ink, though, which makes their inclusion here all the more interesting.

Although most people purchasing this book probably does so for the Loveless artworks, if I have to be I wasn't all that interested in that. What I really, really wanted, and didn't blink an eye paying 2400 yen for, were the five Michael and Raphael pics from the Earthian side-story she did in Crimson in 2002. Which makes the price ... nearly 500 yen a piece? Hahahaha. No, no regrets. They're beautiful.

As are the other illustrations and the general presentation of this book. It's a big and heavy hardcover book, with wonderful thick pages, a gorgeous layout which doesn't interfere with the illustrations in any ways (except maybe the two-page spreads, but not everything can be the perfection that was the Hikaru no Go artbook), complete and lovely liner-notes, and possibly the most gorgeous dustcover I've ever seen. The purple, red, and pink is exquisite, the paper has a wonderful feel, and the glitter details on the title and some of the butterflies is plain wonderful.

An absolute must for all Kouga fans, of course, but if you ask me, this is a necessity for anyone who has any interest in manga-style art at all. A beauty, through-and-through.

To be frank, the first couple of volumes are not very good in an objective sense. Yagi has some very interesting ideas, but his skills aren't mature enough to bring them to life. He actually has a popular multi-volume title under his belt already, but that was a comedy and it's quite obvious (most painfully in volume one) that he has little exterience in drawing human figures from other angles than eye-level (i.e. perpendicular to the ground). He's also very obviously trying to expland on this, as is evident in the fight scenes which show many signs of more dynamic compositions, but he's just not there yet. Additionally, the first few volumes are lacking in any form of exposition or introspection, which make them very unfulfilling to read. Yagi doesn't let the readers know Claire's thoughts and no one speaks much, so the readers' eyes just skim over less-than-brilliant fight scenes (if I'm rude and compare them to fight scenes in manga like Hunter x Hunter, they're shit) without having anything to actually read. My experience is that on average it takes me 25 minutes to read one 200-page volume of manga, while I imagine I finished the first few Claymore volumes in less than 15. They're certainly not uninteresting, but lacking.

The story only gets rolling when Yagi suddenly begins to tell the story of Teresa, a Claymore who was the strongest one in the Claymore organization. It turns out that as a small girl, Claire was saved by Teresa, and without apoiling you too much, we're told why Claire joined the organization and underwent the surgery to become half-monster. Before this exposition Claymore had a good premise, but here the premise begins to develop into a plot: we are introduced to some of the other Claymore; the elusive organization that makes the Claymore warriors is hinted as being not just a nice little the-good-humans-vs.-the-bad-monsters welfare group; Claire's motivations for becoming a Claymore is revealed and we are told what her ultimate wish is. As the flashback finishes, Clair teams up with some of the strongest Claymore of the organization and is dragged into a battle against a foe unlike any she has faced before, and gradually becomes entangled in a conspiracy. Compared to the first few volumes this plot came out of total left field, and I couldn't help but feel that Yagi had come up with this plot at the top of his head, while he originally only meant to write about Claire fighting monsters in a new town in every arc. But despire this, the inner logics of the world he has built is quite intricate and fascinating, and along with his increasing drawing skills and his desire for more emotional depth and individuality in his new characters, it just works so well.

This is also where the different Claymore warriors begin to show their personalities. They never completely lose their air of male wish-fulfilment fantasy ... because come on: they're beautiful with fair skin and hair and silver eyes, model-thin but always with big boobs, fighting in tight leotards and sparce armour, strong as the devil but still underlings in a highly partriarchal organization which bought them and did with their bodies as they pleased? The female Claymore are a double-edged jack-off fantasy where the male reader can simultaneously fantasize about 1) ravishing them and having them submit to his will and 2) being the only one to truly understand them and their tragic past and comfort them and change them back into the sweet innocent victims they were and keep them for himself. Not that I'm blaming the men, here; if the Claymore were male and played by you-know-who, I'd be jacking off, too. And I'm sure you can find manifestations of similar fantasies in the wide world of BL manga. But I digress.

What I wanted to say was that nevertheless, the Claymore are cool. Ophelia is brilliantly wicked and twisted, while Galatea is just wickedly cool, and Irene has style. (Having written this, I came to think that maybe I just like Yagi's long-haired women. Maybe. They're cool.) They share the fact that they are half-monsters, but they each have their own reactions to and motivations for becoming Claymore and working for the organization. Considering that in the first few volumes, not even his protagonists (Claire and the boy) had much personalities to speak of, I'm amazed that Yagi has come so long. He really only needs to apply the same attention to his villains, but judging from the lastest developments, I think he's getting there.

The only less than awesome thing I can think of is the lack of original attacks for everyone, really. I'm not much of a fighting manga buff, and don't really care about fight scenes unless they're extremely good or extremely bad, but even I feel a sense of déjà vu at most of them, especially from Weekly Shonen Jump manga of the Golden Age, such as Yu Yu Hakusho and Dai no Daiboken. The extending limbs of some of the monsters is very Toguro Ani (YYH), especially the scene with them coming up from the ground, which not much of a surprise if you've read YYH. The growing muscles is very Toguro Ototo (YYH), Jean's screw blade was done by Hyunkel in (DnD), and so on. But I guess you can't expect people to make up brand-new attacks all the time. How many of those can there be left, anyway?

On a side note, the current number one warrior of the organization is named "Alicia". Hehehehe. Her nickname is "Alicia the Black", and as far as I can tell from the few frames with her in them, she's pretty much a robot and a complete follower of the organization. Can't wait to see her for real.

All in all, I recommend it.

Urasawa Naoki: Pluto vol. 1-2 + ch. 16-19
I started reading this after months of thinking about it, and when I had finished volume one I had to pick up volume two and when I had finished volume two I just had to look for all the magazine chapters. I's really, really good. The entire premise of this manga is to re-tell, in typical Urasawa-style, the most popular Tetsuwan Atomu story. If you've read the original you'll know pretty much exactly who the bad guy is and why he's doing what he's doing (destroying the most powerful robots in the world and killing prominent robot-supporters), but Urasawa's psychological suspence crime novel style with his obsessing over detail and character is just so different from the original (which was a great read, but in an action adventure way), I'm at no time bored with this manga. The characters are brilliant. The exposition is slow, but absolutely fascinating. Read this manga if you don't read anything else in 2005.

Ragawa Marimo: Shanimuni GO vol. 18, 19
End of high school year two for our heroes, and the end of part two. It's so exciting to see Loui and Nobuhisa slowly but surely coming closer to fulfilling their dreams and ambitions. Especially Loui. You have one more year left! Go for it! The romantic Shun/Hinako/Nobuhisa subplot is getting gritty, and I don't really like it mostly because I don't think either Hina/Shun or Hina/Nobu will work, but ... I guess Ragawa knows what she's doing.

Suzuki Nakaba: Blizzard Axel ch. 2-9
The artistic parts of figure skating is dealt with quite well in these chapters, where the protagonist learns how to express himself on the ice. Strangely enough, at the beginning I was worried this manga wouldn't focus on the artistic side enough, but now I think it's not focusing on the technical side enough. I mean, you can be the most artistic person in the world -- and it wouldn't mean a thing if you didn't have the technical tools (the elements) to express your artistic vision. Huh, that was unexpected. I'll keep reading, but mostly because I'm worried about the whole thing. I also think Suzuki needs to make more hooks to his chapters; they're slightly too self-contained for a weekly series in my opinion.

Ninomiya Tomoko: Nodame Cantabile vol. 1-4
The first few volumes were hilarious, but the story moves too slowly. As a collection of one-shot stories it's great, but it doesn't pull me into its longer storyline and thus I got bored and stopped around volume four.

Shimamoto Kazuhiko: Moeyo Pen
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I love it a little bit less than Comic Master J, because CMJ has that overblown thing pinned down perfectly, but for a slightly more realistic look into the manga world, this is perfect. I'll try to get around to reading Hoeyo Pen sometime.

Ikeno Koi: Tonimeki Midnight vol. 2, 3
I think my positive opinion on volume one was a bit too rushed. Two and three are ... boring, for the lack of a better word. Ranze, being a human, doesn't move around enough on her own, thus making her a far less interesting protagonist to follow than she was in Tonight. The overall mystery is handled a bit awkwardly, too, I think ... she ought to use more pages and go about it slowly.

His golf series Rising Impact was cancelled by Shonen Jump, and then became the first -- and so far only -- Jump manga to be resurrected from cancellation by means of reader protest. It only makes the story funnier that it was cancelled again shortly after. He went on to draw Ultra Red, and while I'm told Rising Impact was a very good golf manga, Ultra Red is, reportedly, a horrific martial arts manga ignoring human anatomy which you can only sneer at. At any rate when that was cancelled as well, he wrote the words "BYE BYE JUMP" in a mob scene of the final installment, and left Shonen Jump to never return. "Bye bye Jump" has since become slang for a manga writer breaking contract with Weekly Shonen Jump, which is how I know his name.

Anyway, onto Blizzard Axel. Program (as the chapters are titled) 1, Minna ore o miro! (Everyone look at me!!). Kitazato Fubuki is a delinquent who just entered middle school three months ago, and already he has won his 100th fisticuff. He has a pretty typical (of the mid-90s, anyway ...) delinquent-shonen-hero!background of being ignored by his parents growing up because his three older brothers are the smartest kids in Japan who excell at sports, music, writing, and everything else they touch, so what he wants most in life is attention -- hence the fighting. What sets him apart from many other delinquent heroes is that he's far from depressed or repressed, and seems to live life with simple-minded optimism and good humour. For instance, where Naruto has been brooding for the last 20 volumes of that manga while pretending to be chipper and over it, Fubuki doesn't dwell in self-pity but rather goes out on a hunt for something that he will actually excell at. I like him, and I don't like shonen manga heroes easily.

So after no one congratulated him on his 100th victory and no sports club would have him (or they had too small a crowd to please his craving for attention), Fubuki decides to go with a couple of his friends to a skating rink. There, he sees the members of the local figure skating club practising, and upon noticing that the other customers are looking at the figure skaters, he begins to meddle with them to get attention. One of the figure skaters, a tall guy called Gotanda, tries to divert the attention from Fubuki and does a double Salchow (Salchow being the second-easiest jump, a double Salchow being pretty much nothing by international senior standards). The other figure skaters are like "Hehe, that was nothing," but the regular visitors at the rink are of course amazed, and clap for Gotanda. Fubuki sees this and realizes that these jumps gain *gasp* attention! and attempts a jump as well. It's his first time ever trying, but with a horrible form of legs and arms flaring he still manages a two-and-a-half turn jump!

But because the form was terribly ugly, people just laugh. Gotanda (who is really annoyingly smug -- typical shonen manga rivan type, I dislike him already) then calls the attention back to himself and performs a triple Axel, and while his landing is bad (I can't tell from the drawing if he keeps it on one foot or not? Probably not), people still slap because dude, three and a half turns! Amazink! (Triple Axel really is a difficult jump. I just can't stop being sarcastic about Gotanda, because he's an idiot.)

Fubuki, however, is all "Buh?" and asks if that's a cool jump by figure skating standards. Hey, he could do that if he keeps his arms and legs tucked into his body. No one believes him (except the coach who already saw Fubuki's potential in the first jump -- hahaha, how much more typical can this sports manga get?), but Fubuki races to a jump ... and with an incredible hight and velocity, Fubuiki does a ... dum dum dum ... quadruple Axel! While screaming "EVERYONE LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!", of course. Heee heee.

Anyway, his landing sucks but there's major applauce, and the chapter ends with Fubuki narrating, "This was the first time everyone paid attention to me ... and this was my first meeting with figure skating." Awwww.

On the whole, I enjoyed this first chapter more than I thought I would. It does somewhat fall into the "figure is all about the jumps" pattern, but I had expected as much, so. Jumps are a huge part of it, true, but if this manga is going to continue and Fubuki is to enter actual competition, shonen manga unfriendly stuff like coreography and artistic expression has to come into it at some point. The glittery pretty color cover image makes me think Suzuki will be dealing with those things, though, so I'm going to sit back and see how he'll do it. The coach's words about how figure skating is a lonely sports makes me think Suzuki knows what he's talking about. (It's lonely! And unnatural! And therefore so beautiful! And so on.) Susuki-sensei, I trust your word when you write that you love figure skating. Don't let me down.

I like Suzuki's art. He tends to overuse purposefully deformed anatomy, but his characters have expression and life and especially Fubuki moves around lively on the pages, and it's all really cute. The art and especially the facial expressions are a big part of my liking Fubuki. Never mind that the Fubuki in the manga looks nothing like the the one on the color cover! Because really, he doesn't. Like, who's that shiny femmy bishonen, dude? Is he going to be introduced in the next chapter? I'm not going to comment on how authentic the skating moves look here, because I'm really no expert of that. To me, it looks okay. Not spectacular, but it gets the point across.

As mentioned above, as far as first episodes of sports manga goes, this is standard fare. A protagonist with hidden potential (so hidden he didn't even know about it himself) does something spectacular (even something no one in the world has done before) and is discovered by an expert. I was expecting the quadruple Axel the moment I saw the title. I hear some Chinese men have done it in practise, but I don't believe it's been ever done in competition, so it's a pretty obvious thing for a protagonist to be able to do (and not at the current moment considered impossible, like a five-turn jump). I can just see this series becoming an epic on the scale of Kyojin no hoshi, I really can. I wish it was a finished 40-volume epic I could pick up and spend one entire Saturday reading. Alas it's not, and I must try to contain my excitement. Augh! Come quick, next chapter.

A quick google search of the dialect used here suggests to me this is set in Tochigi (a prefecture slightly North-East of Tokyo). Might be wrong. I wonder if it has any significance, though.

Oh, by the way, better explanations of figure skating terms than I could ever give: FAQ at SkateWeb.

The content of this book, however, is good. I daresay the best Tanaka work I've read, which says something since I was fascinated by Memai, adored Jinno Murasaki, and even liked the pointless Menkui. So I guess the bottom line is just that I like Tanaka Suzuki a lot. I mean ... think of her name, people. Tanaka. Suzuki. What Togashi Yoshihiro connoisseur wouldn't love her, I ask you. And yes, I am calling myself a connoisseur. Shut up.

Like a dog, as a dog collects five short manga about animals that become humans to speak to people that have effected them in one way or another. If the person believes that they are an animal, they can change back -- else, they must spend the rest of their lives as humans. This catch is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse. The resolutions are all different and not always purely happy, but the characters all manage to change and move on in the few pages they are allotted, and the book as a whole leaves a bittersweet but hopeful lasting impression.

It's difficult to talk about manga that are just ... regularly good. Um. I'm placing this under "BL", but only two of the pieces are mildly BL and all it amounts to are a couple of kisses. I suppose you could consider it beastiality if you were anal about that sort of thing, but that'd be taking something beautiful and twisting it into something it's not. I especially liked the last 20-page story, which I thought was worth all 590 yen even if the rest of the stories had been shit.

Soryuden is an as-of-yet unfinished series of fantary/action novels penned by Tanaka Yoshiki, which paperback edition CLAMP illustrates (the original versions are illustrated by Amano Yoshitaka of Final Fantasy fame). This collection includes about 40 pages of color illustrations, about 70 pages of black and white illustrations, one short comedy comic, and a 110-page unfinished manga series that ran in a now-defunct magazine something like ten years ago and which had never been published in a collected format before.

CLAMP has been drawing for this series since 1993, so it's, um, interesting? to see their style go from Rayearth to Tsubasa within the colored 40 pages. I was surprised to see I actually rather liked their recent takes on the Ryudo brothers. The most recent color pic, the pin-up of volume 12 from 2003 featuring Hajime and Tsuzuku, is so devastatingly cute. (Nokoru from the cover of the same volume looks like no one but Xiao Lang, though.) I still really really like that madly elaborate Nokoru pic from the pin-up to volume one, too ... the moon, the cherry blossoms, the facial expression ... man, good stuff. So nice to see it in a larger size than a postcard. I had never seen the Nokoru/Tsuzuku and Owaru/Hajime two-shot pics from the CD dramas, but they're so very cute; especially the latter one.

There are hits and misses in the black and white illustrations, but I remember that from the actual books as well, so it's okay. Mokona manages in most cuts to convey situations and scenes well and interestingly, and I fear I actually think she's a better illustrator than a manga writer. Volume one, especially, was a hit. Owaru looking back into the side-mirror of a car while a car explodes behind it? Exploding tanks and a subtle outline of one dragon in stormy clouds? Yeeeeeeah, that's where it's at. This reminds me volume one didn't have the obligatory gratuitous dragon(s) illustration, which always annoyed me in the later volumes because there are only so many ways you can draw a dragon interestingly. Okay, the shot of the dragon curling itself around the Tokyo City Hall building while it went up in flames from volume two was good, too. But then it went downhill. Aside volumes one and two, seven was best: that Nokoru/Hajime pic where Hajime grabs a hand holding a knife? Neat. There really aren't enough explosions after that volume. I admit I haven't read past volume nine, but knowing Tanaka Yoshiki, the text can't have been lacking in explosions Mokona could have drawn. Pity.

The comic is Owaru-centric and pretty run-of-the-mill. The comedy and the interaction between Hajime, Tsuzuku, and Owaru is funny, but it ends just as the story gets rolling. Don't buy this for the comic.

I'm at a point where I don't care about the contents of this collection as long as I just own it, so I'm probably not the best one to judge, but ... don't buy this if you just like CLAMP. Especially if you're a recent fan. This is a Soryuden book first and foremost, here to be enjoyed by fans of the four dragon brothers. So if, on the other hand, you're a Soryuden fan ... man, what are you waiting for?!

I first met Kouga Yun (figuratively) in a dusty used books shop in an obscure corner of Paris in the early 90s. The bookshop mostly dealt with Japanese paperback novels and only had one shelf or two with manga, and a less-than-mint first volume of her series Earthian was the only one in the small bunch I found intriguing enough to buy. I paid for the volume, got into the metro home, and promptly began to read it. It felt as though someone had shot my brains out.

It was nothing like anything I had previously read. No, not the gay -- I read gay shojo manga since I was seven or eight. The pure style of it. Today this style has become an integral part of shojo manga (dammit, they're quick) so it's difficult for me (and probably even more difficult for people who read Kouga for the first time today) to pick apart her work and determine exactly what caused me (us, for Kouga indeed shocked everyone at the time) such a huge shock, but ... The monologues. The panel work. The use of tones on the skin. The white-outs. Everything was new. Whether you like Kouga Yun or not, her impact on the industry is unquestionable. I personally spent the next few years of my life intoxicated by the blow it gave me. I still have an unhealthy attachment to her work although I don't seriously believe much of it is "good".

So anyway, LOVELESS. Her newest series. About battles with words and lost memories and catboy shota. I have yet to find a good summary of it, and people keep saying it's too complicated to convey in few words, but those people just haven't read enough Kouga Yun, if you ask me. This is the most concise Kouga manga to date. Basically it's about sex. It's about bonds between people and wanting to be wanted. But everything she ever draws is about those things, so what sets this one apart is the concise storytelling: a Kouga manga that hasn't fallen apart at volume four and still manages to hold onto the themes close to her heart? Like, wow. Miracle. People seem to do unreasonable and strange things and plot-points do seem to come out of the blue at times, but that's because the basic storyline is complex, not because she's making it up as she goes along. The characters are okay; she has a tendency to make everyone like the main two characters, but she doesn't put down others to do it so it works. The only thing that doesn't seem to work, in my mind, is how childish and un-menacing she has so far described the main "villains", but maybe that'll change. So far the end of volume four almost had me weeping, and I'm happy.

I honestly think this could become her best manga.

Quick, everyone! Knock on some wood! Pleeeeeeease!!!

So the new big enemy, I guess, is called Liou and is gathering strong monsters from all over the world to break the seal on that big castle thing which they're calling ... ファウード. I have no idea how that's supposed to be spelled (yes, even less an idea that with the rest of the cast). Fawood? What draws my curiousity is that we don't see Liou's human partner. As far as I recall, there have been monsters who were physically strong and could fight without their books, but there haven't been any before who could use any sort of magic without a book, was there? Hmmm.

As for the Momon v. Tio battle ... Tio scares the hell out of me. I'm curious as to why Megumi can't read that new spell, though I guess it's something like Bao Zakelga which won't work unless under a special condition, perhaps.

187 was sort of ... weird. There have been many Suzume-centric episodes between battles, but this one is directly Kiyomaro/Suzume, and even has a shojo-manga feel to it. Not that it's bad, but ... it threw me off. I think it signifies that the big battle coming up really will be the last. Not that it wasn't obvious from 188, where Elly, Ted, and Zeon also head to the Fawood (wait, what about Brago?). Awwwwwww. Does this mean Gash will end before reaching volume 30? I think it might.

188 was a big important revelations chapter, but I forgot all about that when Folgore appeared. It's been so looooong without Fol-sama! I'll cherish these two panels forever! Or, you know, until he appears again. Com'on Kiyomaro, run to Folgore's place! Come quick, next issue!

And, um, that's it. I can't think of more to say about this, because although the premise is interesting, nothing much happens in this manga. Yoshimori and Tokino goes around defeating monsters and (at times) helping ghosts. It's not bad, and the characters and comic relief is all nice, but ... um. The art of the ayakashi is pretty Takahashi Rumiko inspired, but the general style is rather Ghibli-esque (actually, closer to Urushihara Yuki) and cute in a highly simple way. The fight scenes work. The touching sequences are adequate. But it's like ... it doesn't have much substance. When I had finished the volume, I thought it must have been something like 120 pages long though it's actually the standard length of a tankobon (about 190).

Nice for a laid-back read because you don't have to think much about what you're reading. A very typical Shonen Sunday manga, I suppose, and it wouldn't surprise me if it continued for 40 volumes in the same vein. Not that that would be a bad thing per se, but if it doesn't get more exciting soon I won't keep reading.

I love the cover design, though. It's very simple and cool.

Togashi's debut in the Tezuka Award at Shukan Shonen Jump. It's a baseball manga set in a school baseball team (a standard genre in shonen manga) about the rivalry between Todoroki, a power pitcher, and Segawa, a technique pitcher. They hate each other's guts and get into fisticuffs every day about what they believe baseball really is -- a sophisticated team sports, or a war of life and death.

The teachers decide to throw Todoroki out of the team, as they gather he is pretty stupid and probably won't be any use in the national championships, and they propose a fixed match in the club: two teams, one pitched by Todoroki and another by Segawa, will fight for the spot as the pitcher; just, the team will sabotage Todoroki!

It should be noted that the teacher who comes up with this conspiracy resembles the ass that is Iwamoto of YYH rather closely, both in appearance and manner. I suspect Togashi holds a grudge against one or more of his teachers in school. Not that I blame him, if he had teachers like that. It's amusing to me to see that one of the very few purely evil and unsympathetic characters in Togashi manga is a school teacher ... I don't know about you, but I want to smack Iwamoto around a few times.

Tonda Birthday Present

Hachimonji Tetsu is Yusuke a delinquent who loves to fight and to play video games. His grandpa is a notorious mad scientist (none of his inventions have ever worked, and he blows up his house regularly), and for Tetsu's birthday he invents a virtual reality machine so Tetsu can play fighting games as if it were in real life. Tetsu decides to play the new action RPG Dragon Chest II, and grandpa turns the machine on -- and lo and behold, their town transforms into the universe of the game, and Tetsu into the hero! Now he must save the princess (actually Keiko his childhood girlfriend) from the evil Dragon King (actually the yakuza boss).

Although it wasn't my original intention to compare these early stories to later Togashi works, this particular manga reminds me of Level E, in which a group of school children are sucked into a real RPG taking up an entire planet. I loved that story line to death, and this short manga isn't all too unamusing, either.

Horror Angel

Kyosuke is Japan's biggest horror movie fan. He can say he is for certain, because the failry of horror movies (yes) showed up and told him so. The fairy says she will grant him three wishes that has to do with horrow movies. First wish, she thinks Kyosuke wants to experience a horror movie in real life, and has his mother feed him his father, which Kyosuke hates (obviously). What Kyosuke really want help with is to ask out his beloved Moka, which the fairy can't do, but she does encourage him to ask her out ... and surprisingly, she agrees. But ...?

Togashi writes in the author's notes that he drew this piece purely because he wanted to, which is evident in the horror-y drawings (Togashi loves horror). Oh god, the gross! The contrast to his usual cutesy art is striking, and I almost think this is the kind of thing he really wants to draw.

... Ew.

Over-all, I think the "horror fairy" theme and the love story fitted together rather badly in this story. I guess that's what you get for both wanting to draw something mainstream and something personal at the same time, and not being experienced enough to join the two properly.

Occult Tanteidan

A two-part detective/horror manga. In part one, the Occult Detectives solve a case about a ghost haunting their school because it was murdered before it could enter a singing contest. In part two, they help the living spirit of a dying boy enter a marathon contest.

I don't really have much to say about these -- they have nice ideas that are well-told, and have the heartwarning quality that YYH had in the first two volumes. The characters are amusing and cute (the male protagonist is another prototype of Yusuke), and it's a joy to read. I understand why Togashi writes in the author's notes that this was the piece that enabled him to go on drawing more manga.

Ôkami nante kowakunai!!

Takuro is a warewolf. He's pretty bad at keeping this a secret, and has already lost count of how many times he has moved and changed schools because he changed form in front of people. At his new school he falls in love with Sayaka, the cutest girl in class, and enters the baskett club to be near her. Can he get her to love him although he's a warewolf?

This is standard Jump comedy/action/romance fare with a few "naughty" shots, and quite clearly leads up to Togashi's first long series, Tende Showaru Cupid. The girl is cute and the guy ordinary, and it really isn't my kind of thing ... Sadly (for me), Togashi holds this course and goes on to become the "oiroke tantô" of Jump (the place Katsura Masakazu held for a long time, and Ichigo 100% is holding now), until he returns to the quirky fantasy/fighting manga we know and love with YYH.

When I heard they were going to release a drama CD of YYH, with the original anime cast, and feature the (in)famous Kurama and Hiei flashback episode Two Shots in it, I was ... "thrilled" is too mild a word. "Out of my fucking mind with joy" probably fits better. It's not that I didn't have my share of skepticism about the obvious cash-in nature of it, or that I didn't worry about how the now ten years older seiyu would deal with these characters, but my love for YYH transcends all skepticism and doubt and I always end up loving everything associated with the title however bad it may be (and often is), so I soon forgot all needless worries and just waited to get my hands on it.

The seiyu. Sasaki Nozomu (Yusuke) doesn't sound at all like he used to, and it's really really weird to hear Yusuke being so deep and serious all the time. Actually his voice here fits my personal image of Yusuke better, but the comical side of Yusuke is almost completely lost, which is a bit of a shame. Hiyama Nobuyuki (Hiei), I think, acts better now than he did in the anime, and doesn't seem to be forcing his voice to be as deep as it was in the anime, which I love. I was a bit disappointed that he doesn't have a high-pitched evil laugh like the good-ol' crazy villain that he is here, but oh well! Chiba Shigeru (Kuwabara) only appears briefly, but sounds exactly like he did in the anime, and I love him and his voice so very much. I hope he'll have lots of lines in the second volume. I'll probably be flamed by Ogata Megumi fans and Kurama fans alike for saying this, but ... Ogata sounds exactly like she did in the anime, as far as I recall, and she reminded me that I never liked Kurama's voice in the first place, haha.

As for the supporting cast. Fukayuki Sanae (Botan) sounds exactly like she used to, which is great. Amano Yuri (Keiko) sounds more laid-back and grown-up here which I personally find refreshing, since I disliked Keiko's high-pitched squealing in the anime. She doesn't sound like a 14-year-old anymore, though, which might annoy some people. I loved Wakamoto Norio (Gôki) here, and he reminded me of the voice of some other character I also loved but couldn't quite place, so I looked it up and it turns out he also voiced Chû in the anime! I love Chû and his voice, especially the way Wakamoto kinda rolls the words on his tongue. Honestly, I liked Gôki's voice the best on this CD (your mileage will most probably vary). Tanizawa Kumiko (Shiori) left no big impression with me. Matsuoka Yuki (Kitajima Maya) was surprisingly cute and I loved how the sentenses just spurted exitedly out of her mouth; very Maya-ish. Nishikawa Ikuo (Hedoki) had a voice you would expect from a vomit-formed low-life scum of a yôkai, but I really didn't like Katô Osamu (Yatsude): I had imagined Yatsude to have a deep and more matter-of-fact voice, since I didn't think he seemed very stupid in the manga.

As for over-all quality of the acting, I liked it. But that probably has much to do with how I think this media (drama CD) complements YYH much better than anime. What I enjoy most about Togashi Yoshihiro is his pace and tempo, like the quick bantering between the characters and the swift and effective panel-work in the battle scenes. I feel the anime dragged on too much, and while that's a general problem with anime based on shonen/battling manga, I felt it ruined the style of Togashi's works even more than it ruined other works. (Or I could just be hugely biased.) 45 minutes to cover the whole storyline with the Gôki v. Yusuke battle, the Kurama storyline, and the Hiei v. Yusuke battle is a wee bit too short, yes, but still better than dragging it on for three and a half 25 min episodes, if you ask me.

I do have a lot of complaints as well, though. The overtly explanatory lines, like Botan's "Yusuke, look! Keiko-chan is hanging from the ceiling!" (what, like he wouldn't have seen her dangling there?) makes the production seem a bit ... cheap. I realize that the Gôki battle isn't very important to the over-all storyline, but I was disappointed when Yusuke defeated him too easily. I hate that they changed some of the lines and grabbed lines from other places in the manga and pasted them in randomly: Kurama's lines from a flashback of Hiei's much later in the manga were pasted into the end of Two Shots instead of the poetic way the manga ended, and since I loved how the manga version of TS ended, I haaaaated the end of the drama version. I also disliked that they made Kurama fight with his rosewhip here. The image I had of young-Shûichi!Kurama clashes majorly with Ogata's acting, too ... in TS it was very interesting how Kurama's expression changed drastically from when he's speaking to Hedoki (cruel) to when he turns around and talks to Maya (gentle), but Ogata's acting doesn't convey this at all. I rather like how she's gentle and teasing yet so very seme towards Hiei, though. Hahaha, yay for seme!Kurama.

Most of all, though, I missed Koenma-sama and Atsuko-san. They had lines in the manga, you know! Meep.

Lastly (yes, this piece of ramble will have an end), a few complaints about the booklet.

Ouch!

OUCH!!!

Reportedly they also wrote Keiko's name wrong in one place, but I couldn't spot it. But ouch.

But still! The Ide Nobuhisa v. Takatsu Heita match is included in this volume, and I luff Heita oh so much. Leading directly from the end of the last volume where Heita sat in the boy's room and angsted about the pain in his back (... I guess I do remember what happened), this volume begins with Heita and Asano Takumi arguing loudly (more angsty Heita!) and Heita wondering about whether Ide heard them argue about his back pain or not (even more angsty Heita!), and continues onto Heita grimacing from pain with every swing at the ball (Heita angst!), flashes back to Heita being picked on because of his attitude (Heita angst!), and then ends with Heita collapsing with pain into the arms of his team mates and groaning loudly (Heita angst!).

So yes. It's all about the Heita angst. (Like, duh.) And that one shot of Heita being all cute and teary-eyed looking up at his balding coach (whom I also love). OMG so much cuteness!!!

Okay, in all seriousness, I admire Ragawa's ability to draw a whole three-set tennis match, intervene it with adequate amounts of shojo-manga-esque flashbacks and angst, and have such a relieving and refreshing and hopeful resolution for the rival character (in this case, Heita). If she can manage the same in the destined match against the evil overlord looming menacingly in the distance (i.e. Saseko Shun), whether this will be Ide v. Saseko or Louis v. Saseko, I will love this manga forever. (Because quite frankly the Ide/Hinako/Saseko love triangle plotline was rather depressing in the last couple of volumes, and if the resolution is depressing, too, I'll die. On a side-note, I'm a Shun/Hinako supporter.)

On a smaller scale than the Heita angst (which rules all), this volume is also a treat for all lovers of Japanese dialects and accents. Asano's Osaka dialect is more believable than most others I encounter in manga (most manga uses "soyana" for "sôdana", while I muchly prefer "seyana" which Asano uses here -- such a small thing, but so lovely). Raiden Shizuka's brother's Kagoshima dialect is great, too. Like "are homechottoyo". Homechottoyo! I'll totally have to incorporate that to my daily vocabulary. I might like Shizuka more if he spoke the Kagoshima dialect like his brother, but alas he doesn't and besides he looks too much like a girl.

This was like the most rambly comment I've made about a manga in a while. Let me conclude with what I always tell people when the opportunity arises -- stop reading Prince of Tennis, read Shanimuni GO. For realz.

The hero Sakura Tetsu is a high school student obsessed with money who works so many jobs that he only sleeps three hours a day. He became that way because his family owns and lives in a house in the middle of downtown random megalopolis, and he has to make money to keep this house. One day, while Tetsu is at school, a huge tree appears in the air above his house and begins to attack it. It turns out the tree is Sekaiju (Yggdrasil), the palace of Future Queen Aris who has escaped to the past because in the age she comes from, the universe is just about to die of old age (it got wrinkles). She claims she owns the future rights to the property on which Tetsu's house is built, but of course Tetsu's grandfather has the right to the property at present. They're just about to settle this dispute peacefully (with a lot of money exchanging hands) when Space Pirate Feyerabend comes flying in on his spaceship Principia Mathematica and says he will be taking over the Sakura estate and building his castle there, seeing as he has been meaning to invade Earth for three years (it took him three years to decide where to build the castle because he couldn't get the darts he threw at a globe to actually stick). Just as Aris and Feyerabend are about to engage in a huge battle, Emperor Sigmund of the Land Beneith the Earth comes up from the ground under Tetsu's house and says he can't let the others have a war over the property directly under which his land resides. So they have a huge three-way battle that is about to ruin the entire city.

Have I lost you yet?

Basically, Sakuratetsu Taiwahen features a series of fairly unrelated events in which some new weird entity tries to invade Tetsu's house and property and Tetsu fights back more or less sucessfully, while his "friend" Idea Furato (lover of all things weird and unusual who only worsens every bad situation) records everything. It is quite hilarious. I loved how the evil scheme of Prince Nietzsche of the Demon World was so easily ruined and how he's reduced to a sorry hobo for the rest of the series. Hahaha.

However, it doesn't seem like the readers of Weekly Jump liked this series very much, and it only had two volumes and the last half of the second volume is a self-parody of how it's being cancelled. This is where the meta comes in, with the God of Manga sending a reader of WJ into the world of this manga, but sadly, I didn't like this part as much as I had expected. I'm generally not very fond of this self-torturing kind of humour, so when the reader commented about how he remembered this manga being "all the way back in the magazine" and how he "remembered reading the first chapter sometime" ... eugh. Not funny.

But why was this manga not popular? If it had continued for some more volumes and not ended so masochistically, I'd really have liked it. The format (new "enemies" appearing at the hero's doorstep every week) is pretty standard shonen manga, and the wacky comedy and cute art reminded me of Magical Taruruuto-kun* which was a fairly big hit in WJ ... Well, okay, I know why it wasn't a hit: not enough porny shots of pretty girls. Idea is cute, and there were a few risky shots of her at the end, but I guess that was too late. Tsk.

Also, I'll accept "Sakura Tetsu" as the name of a Japanese person, but "Idea Furato" is pushing it.

* Second Egawa Tatsuya reference in one day! I don't even like the man.

There have been a lot of manga coming out in Danish lately, but quite frankly I don't really care about any of the titles they're putting out. I've read Detective Conan (who is keeping his name in the Danish version), Ranma 1/2, D.N.Angel, and Evangelion already, which leaves me with a choice between stuff like Ah! Megami-sama, Tokyo Mewmew, and Love Hina ... which is like the ultimate choice of evil vs. evil if you ask me.

So, Yu-Gi-Oh!. It's difficult for me to say anything about it, since it's just another fairly entertaining Jump series in my eyes. Not much stands out. The art is Egawa Tatsuya-inspired and cute (much cuter than the anime) but not really my thing, the "bets" that Yugi makes in each episode are childish but probably okay for the audience, and the translation is passable (better than Dragon Ball and One Piece, which had unnaturally excessive swearing). I'll probably give it to my little brother like I did with my DB and OP volumes, because quite frankly it doesn't seem better or worse than the majority of stuff on the Japanese market. Like, whatever.

Oh, Jônouchi is cute in all his idiocy.