ジェーン(Jān)
 reads any genre as long as the books aren't depressing. Her preferred reads these days are in manga format and come from all manga genres, but she especially likes romance, doubly so when there are beautiful men involved. With each other. Her favorites among currently-running English-translated manga series include NANA, Ze, Ouran High School Host Club, Junjou Romantica, Blood Alone, Vampire Knight, Skip Beat, Silver Diamond and anything by the holy triumvirate of BL: Ayano Yamane, Kazuma Kodaka and Youka Nitta, including any scribbles they might do on the backs of napkins.
From Far Away by Kyoko Hikawa. Publisher: Viz. Retail: $9.99 each. 14/14 volumes released in English. Rated T for Teen (some fighting, no sex).
Dear Readers,
I’m starting to feel a little like Harriet Klausner, with all the positive manga reviews I’ve been doing. But everyone knows there’s a lot of mediocre manga out there. I’m trying to share the good ones that I’ve come to love. This next one I came to love overnight just a few weeks ago and the romance is still new and sparkly in my eyes. That’s probably not the best way to review, but consider yourself forewarned. But for that reason I’m giving this a B+, since A’s really need to stand the test of time with me.
First, thank you to you readers! You recommended this to me after my Basara review, and I read it overnight. “So what?” you might think. “Manga reads fast.” So it was 14 volumes, I dropped $70 for it (yay for coupons and sales), and I couldn’t put it down, …
 Dear Ms. Collingwood,
I both liked and didn’t like your novella Lieutenant Samuel Blackwood (deceased).
I was attracted to it as soon as Jane offered it to us, because your email mentioned it was a penny-dreadful styled ghost story, and I love the ghost stories of the Victorian era (it’s set in Georgian times but the style it’s written in is from the Victorian period). I didn’t realize it was a romance, and a MxM one, until fellow reviewer Jayne mentioned it in an email when I was already 20 pages into the 80.
And therein lies the duel nature of my feelings toward this piece. As a Victorian-style ghost story you did an admirable job, beginning with the naval men around the fire hearing a hair-raising story about a cursed ship from one of its men. I was surprised and pleased when at the quarter mark it shifted into present tense and the most intriguing character of the first part, Daniel Leigh, decided to challenge the curse himself by joining the crew.
There were hints about the sexual inclination of the …
Manga Sutra by Katsu Aki. Published by TokyoPop. Retail: $19.99. 1/37+ released in English. Rated M for Mature (graphic sex). Note: Each single English volume contains 2 Japanese volumes.
Dear Readers,
This one is slightly different for me. Some people might just call it hentai (Japanese porn). But while it does contain scenes that qualify, its purpose isn’t just to titillate, but to educate. The author put it this way in his short preface:
This isn’t just a hentai manga. It’s about love, sex, and how-to… I wrote this with the hopes that it would serve as a bible to those who dream of having the best sex ever! And I really mean that.
That’s cute. So to serve that purpose Aki-san gives us Makoto and Yura, virgin newlyweds in an arranged marriage (still fairly common in Japan with businessmen and women who are too busy to date). They’re basically pretty nice people, though not very outgoing (hence their virginity), and they eventually fall in love.
But they …
 Dear Ms. Tokunaga,
You had me fooled. I thought you were Japanese. From the minute I started reading this, I felt like a Japanese woman was writing it, and it had been published in Japan. And since this is written from your heroine’s close point of view and she’s a Japanese woman, that’s a good thing, though not all readers might see it that way.
I am endlessly fascinated by Japan, both the good and the bad of it. The reserved Japanese styles of interpersonal and intrapersonal interactions are particularly fascinating to me, and though I’m not Japanese I felt you really nailed that aspect of the main character, at least from what I know. You portrayed the shortcomings of Midori’s style of thinking and acting when it came to her dealing with a new culture, and fairly portrayed the good and bad as she saw it of American behavior. There’s not a lot of overt emotion here, just always measured responses, which are accurate but also unfortunately not all that exciting to read about.
That kind of sums up the pros and …
 The Crimson Spell by Ayano Yamane. Published by Kitty Media. Retail: $11.99. 1/2+ volumes. Rated: Mature (this title is adult-only, sexually graphic yaoi (MxM).)
Dear Readers,
This is my favorite manga release of 2007. There are some with loftier ambitions that I might admire more, like Town of Evening Calm, but when it comes to pure enjoyment of a book, The Crimson Spell wins hands down.
The story is a fairly simple one. Prince Vald’s country is overrun by demons and there’s only one way to save them, to take up an accursed family sword. For the sake of his people he does so, but the sword’s demon begins to take him over. At first it’s only at night, when he changes into an erotic beast-like version of himself (and whoo boy is he one erotic looking beast). His country’s wizards are able to give him ensorcelled shackles that keep the change at bay each night. But he knows it’s only a matter of time until the demon takes …
 Basara by Yumi Tamura. Published by Viz. Retail: $9.99. Rated T+ for older teens (frank sex and violence. The sex isn’t graphic but the violence can be.) 25/27 volumes published, complete in Japan.
Dear Readers,
Some long running romance manga series are drawing to a close this month, and all deserve mention here. This column is for the first, Basara, a shoujo manga classic that is Romance in both the old and new senses of the word.
Basara is a sweeping saga of 27 volumes, the tale of the death and birth of a nation, epic in length and scope. It’s also an involved love story that is as heart-rending as anything you’ll read (but *hint* it is a romance manga when all is said and done). The main story ends in volume 25, which is just out this month. The last two volumes are side stories.
The gist of the story is that Japan has had an apocalypse that’s sent society back into more primitive times, and it’s now ruled by a dissolute king and his four wicked …
 Ai Yori Aoshi by Kou Fumizuki. Published by TokyoPop. Retail: $9.99. Ratings: T+, older teens, for most volumes (many sexually suggestive situations a.k.a. fan service – the cover gives you a taste for that), Mature for the last volume (tasteful sex between the h/h). 17/17 volumes published.
Dear Readers,
Two long running romance series have drawn to a close this month, and both deserve mention. This one is different from what I normally review because it’s a shounen harem story, written for boys. Oddly perhaps for those of us in the west, while the other series, Basara, was written for girls it concentrates on warfare and politics albeit emotionally; this series however concentrates on love and relationships. It’s called Ai Yori Aoshi.
Ai Yori Aoshi is, through much of the story, a typical harem manga. That means a young man finds himself living with a group of young women, generally stock characters, all of whom fall in love with him. Circumstances always keep him and the one he truly loves from being together until the end. …
 Princess Tutu created by Ikuko Ito and Junichi Sato. Released in English by ADV. Entire 26 episode series available at Amazon for $28.49. Manga adaptation available but really, don’t go there.
Dear Readers,
I’m cheating today. This blog is for book reviews, things you read. And so I’m going to review an absolutely terrible manga adaptation so that I can also review the anime of the same name, because it’s just a wonderful series that’s so overlooked, and it would make a great Christmas present for anyone who loves storytelling, ballet, or classical music.
First, the manga. I’m not even linking to it. It’s terrible. It takes an enchanting story and wipes all emotion and excitement and meaning from it. Take, for example, the climax of the first story arc of the series. This is a tremendous episode in the anime, with the “light” and “dark” ballerinas battling through dance for the heart of their prince. In the manga, when the light ballerina comes and dances with the prince and his knight …
Sorcerers and Secretaries by Amy Kim Ganter. Tokyopop. $9.99. Ages 13 and up (kisses). Reads left to right. 2 volumes, complete.
Dear Ms. Ganter,
I don’t try much Original English Language (OEL) manga or American graphic novels, because the stories don’t normally appeal to me, and one big reason is that they’re often written for men. Now, I like stories written for men, but after a constant diet of them in comics ever since I stopped reading stuff like Archie in third grade, I prefer stories written for women. So I was quite delighted to find your romance, Sorcerers and Secretaries.
Many readers are sure to identify with your imaginative but lonely and bored heroine Nicole, who carries a notebook and likes to spends all her spare time writing stories of another land and a sorcerer Ellon, who is more real to her than most of the people in her life. Her neighbor Josh is the perfect foil for her, a playboy of sorts who collects girls’ phone numbers that he keeps in a jar under …
Dear Ms Sinclair,
You really love Star Trek, don’t you? Not that I hold that against you. I love it too, including the original series (TOS) with Kirk where men were men and women were, well, sometimes they were clouds of energy that sucked the very life from you, but at some point they could always kiss back.
Your book really reminds me of TOS. No nice Klingons here. The villains are evil bastards without a hint of redeemable material. The monsters? Screw IDIC, kill them all. (IDIC, for the reader, is a Vulcan ideal, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, actually mentioned in the book).
And the hero and heroine don’t spend all that much time on introspection. Sure, they’ve both had major problems, especially the heroine, but other than the occasional nightmare she seems to buzz right past them. But then that could be alien psychology, or military psychology, which is at times even more mysterious.
It’s fairly clear from the hint you dropped at the end of the book that the similarities were intentional. …
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