Manga A Day: Alive - The Final Evolution

Amazon.com: Alive 1: The Final Evolution: Books: Tadashi Kawashima,Adachitoka ISBN: 0345497465 ISBN-13: 9780345497468

The back of the book reads: "Suicide Virus - A strange virus is making it's way around the globe, causing it's victims to commit suicide-and becoming a lethal pandemic in less than a week. Now a group of Tokyo teens who have survived the outbreak are wondering why they are still alive." Except they don't even suggest that the suicides are caused by a virus until a good two thirds through the book, and even then it's just a passing comment. There are suicides, and people dying in interesting and explosive ways. However it, mostly, happens "off-screen" so while there is some gore (severed heads in silhouette anyone?) it's not overwhelming.

The art is crisp and clean and the artist Adachitoka is very fond of rich and full backgrounds. When a character appears against a blank background it's for effect, not laziness. The character designs are distinctive and even minor characters have a lot of personality. There was a scene where people are being interviewed on TV about the suicides they'd witnessed. There are only three people but the scenery around them and their design just leaps off the page. Even the bullies that only get a couple of panels are drawn well.

The story is a bit disjointed, but they tried to pack a lot into one volume. You have the familial histories of main character Taisuke and his sister Yoko to get through. It also describes Taisuke's childhood friends Megu and Hiro, how they're connected to Taisuke, and their schoo lives. Plus there are all the suicides and the mysterious people who seem to know what's going on. Now that the basic character development is out of the way, I hope it gets a bit more coherent. I have to say that I was impressed that it didn't feel very rushed or weighty, despite all the exposition they packed in.  

Now that that exposition is out of the way it will be interesting to see how the meat of the story develops in future volumes.

Technorati Tags: manga reviews, manga, Alive

Manga A Day: King of Cards Vol 01

Amazon.com: King of Cards: Volume 1 (King of Cards): Books: Makoto Tateno ISBN: 140121312X ISBN-13: 9781401213121

Main character Minami decided to start playing "Chaos," a collectible card game similar to Magic or Yugioh. By pure chance the beginner's set she picks out has the rarest card in the game, "Sahgan the Sorcerer." Now any player who's anyone is itching to engage her in a match to get it from her. Reading the back of this book didn't elicit too much interest, but I gave it a chance because it was brought out by CMX. CMX has a pretty good track record for putting our some quirky interesting releases. I didn't think I'd like Omukae Desu or Recipe for Gertrude either.

I found this a pretty bizarre choice, even for CMX. This book seems dated. The artwork looks old, older then 1998 when it was first published in Japan. The story line seems to try to capitalize on the now dead CCG craze of that same time by making up a game to base the story around. The story is about as interesting as watching someone play magic or the pokemon card game. In other words, not very interesting. But without the artwork or story to save it wonder why they brought this title over. I'm also trying to figure out if this Makoto Tateno is the same Makoto Takeno of Duex/Aurora's Hate to Love You and DPM's Yellow, both Yaoi titles.

The author admits that the first chapter was meant as a short story, but readers at the time responded to it. As a short story I like the concept fine, the following chapters don't do as well. They are very formulaic, Minami is challenged by a strong player. They usually make a snide comment about a technique or worthless card. Her cousin Tamotsu, who she looks up to, coaches her on how to play. The night before the game she has a dream that Sahgan appears in. The next day she wins the game using whatever card or technique the strong player dissed.  Plus, it's revealed after the fact that the card/technique was also in the dream.

The blurb for the next book indicates this title is going into a more fantasy realm with Minami entering the world of the Chaos cards. This might break it out of the rut the stories are in. I'll give it another couple of books to see if it develops into something interesting.

The book also include a short story based on Sudoku (though they just call it Magic Square in the story). It's a murder mystery. I wonder what she'll write about next? Crossword puzzles? Deathmatch over Rubix Cubes?

Technorati Tags: manga reviews, manga, king of cards

Manga-A-Day: Quickie Reviews, Two Weeks Worth of Manga

In the past two weeks I stopped posting, but I didn't stop reading. I'm going to go through the regular stuff first and then put the yaoi at the end so people who want to can skip over it.

Land of the Blindfolded Vol 8 & 9 :  These two volumes finish out the series. It had a satisfying end, and it's a pleasure to read a story that managed to have angst and growth without any real villains. I also liked that at the end, they didn't try to pretend like everyone would have no problems with their abilities, but that in the end their own actions determine how they're treated. Plus I like that Namaki got chapters of his own right up to the last volume.

Penguin Revolution Vol 4: By the same author as Land of the Blindfolded, Penguin Revolution continues to please. The premise of this series is the silliest thing ever, but the characters are so appealing I can't find it in me to care. Yukari is my favorite kind of heroine, focused, tough and sweet as pie. I really hope we find more about Mokoto. And also, I hope that Watanuki the manager doesn't disappear. He's a completely minor character, but I like him.

The Devil Within Vol 01: The main character, girl, loves little boys. In the biblical sense... not that she actually has, but she'd like to. She hates men, thinking that they're all demonic devils after watching a porn tape of her father's (who is named Satan) when she was a little girl. Now her father has said she must pick one of three "devils" to be her husband. But she's found a little boy to love living downstairs (conveniently he only looks like grade-schooler, he's actually 15). It's really bizarre, and the pacing and panel layout is confusing, but it has this square cat thing that looks like Domo-kun so I'll give it at least another volume.

Love*Com Vol 2: Cute! That is the image word for this series. It's nice to read a story with such a normal and realistic plot. Everyone remembers what it's like to be awkward and self-conscious in high school. This book is about that, but with cute art and lots of funny faces. I love Koizumi's fish face.

Tramps Like Us Vol 13: Lots of loose ends tied up in this volume. There is a lot of sweet and sugary moments between Sumire and Momo. I like that Hasumi didn't disappear the moment Sumiere made her choice too. I'm kind of wondering what will happen in the last volume as it seems like there really isn't much more to say in this story.

Heaven!! Vol 01: This book is by the author of Girl Got Game!! (Power!! in Japan). It's completely silly and fun. I hope it doesn't try to get serious because that's where Girl Got Game totally fell apart. This author is good at silly, I was giggling through most of this. Plus, it's got possessed stuffed monkey.  Everything is better with a monkey.

YAOI stuff:

La Esperanca Vol 4, 5, 6, & 7: If you like boy's love with plot and angst and little to know touchy-feely stuff. This is the series for you. This story is angst, angst, angst and just when you don't expect it (except you really do) more angst. It art is pretty though they go a bit far with the religious symbols. Also, I get annoyed with the way the characters mouths move around on their faces.

Don't Say Any More, Darling: Oh Fumi Yoshinaga, I can't hate you even when you do bad things. This is a collection of short stories of varying quality. The artwork remains consistently good, but the plots fall far short in the first two stories. Of course, if all you want is pretty men having sex, you'll probably love the first two stories and hate the last three. I loved the last three, one of which isn't yaoi at all and especially the last one which is just funny as heck before smacking you in the face with sweet melancholy.

La Vie En Rose: More pretty men having sex. It's a collection of short stories very loosely connected by a bar the characters all frequent/work at. This might claim to have a plot, but it's a dirty, dirty lie so don't you believe it. If all you want is mindless shagging you'll like it, if you like some purpose to your smut you'll probably find it as dull as I did.

 

Technorati Tags: manga reviews, manga, yaoi

Been a While!

I didn't quite reach my goal of thirty Manga-A-Day posts. I made it to twenty-five before getting swamped with work. However, several of the posts covered more than one book so I'm only counting it as a half-failure. Plus, I plan to resume now that I'm back from MangaNext, the other distraction I had from posting. I'm going to start with a quickie review of what I've read in the past two weeks after this post just to keep my manga-a-day posts separate.

I got a table last minute and spent most of the past weekend sitting and selling buttons. I didn't do anything much con-related. I went mostly so I could visit with my friend Elina, and we left the con every day at 8 to go eat and I never had the energy to go back and try to join in on anything. I'm kind of curious what happened staff wise because I saw almost none of the same faces from last year.

The highlights were:

1) Hero-worship from the hordes of teens and tweens who shopped my table. I spent most of the time away from my table responding to calls of "HI, Button-lady!" getting bowed too. It was surreal. At one point a girl asked me in a hallway if she could hug me, and after she did ran away crying "I hugged the Button Lady!"

2) I got an Arcee Transformers Gashapon at random in the dealers room. Arcee is one of the few "girl" Transformers, and the only that became a cast regular. She was never made into a toy because her character design was made for the movie first and couldn't actually transform if produced as is. They did make a toy of the motorcycle version of her, but it's just not the same. I always wanted an Arcee toy, and now I got one and I got it on my first try in a blind Gashapon set! She doesn't transform, but she is pink and blocky, just like in the cartoon.

3) The cute and much too young guy who did magic tricks and flirted with me on Sunday. He was probably all of 19 or 20, but flattery is nice to hear from time to time. Plus, he was cute in a Momo from Kimi Wa Petto kind of way. And his magic tricks were really good!