Archive for the 'Manga' Category
 Story & Art: Fumi Yoshinaga
Publisher: Viz Signature
Rating: M for mature
Retail: $12.99
Length: 1/4+ volumes
I first heard of Ōoku about a year ago from a friend. The premise, she said, was that due to a disease that targets only men, the power hierarchy in Japan was genderflipped. Women filled roles that had, up until the disease struck the male population, been traditionally done only by men — including that of the Tokugawa shoguns. It sounded completely like something I would like but since I’m unable to read Japanese, it was one of those things I resigned myself to never having access to. Thankfully, other people thought it sounded interesting too and it’s now available in English.
In Ōoku, a strange new disease breaks out among the Japanese male population. It’s characterized by a high fever that’s then shortly followed by red pustules that spread all over the body. These pustules soon fester and the victim dies within a few days. Because of these symptoms, the disease is dubbed the Redface Pox.
Although the Redface Pox originated in a small farming village, it becomes apparent that the plague is highly contagious and virulent as well. It spreads from one …
Dear Readers,
Netcomics is a publisher that publishes manga and manhwa online. No e-reader is needed, just $0.25 per chapter. They publish not only their own but Luv Luv and Yaoi Press comics among others. The way it works is that you buy e-cash in $10 amounts, then pay as you view each new chapter.
You don’t own the chapters, not at those prices. You get to view them for 48 hours. But, so you have a chance to look at a manga before starting to pay, the first 1-2 chapters are always available free (one for short works, 2 for longer).
Last, almost all the books are or will be available in hard copy if you find you truly love them and can’t live without them. There are a couple of series I follow that I purchase in hard format. What I love most about Netcomics though is that the net-version is usually 1-2 volumes ahead of the print, and with chapter releases the wait time is generally much less for updates, 2 weeks for my favorite series.
The series tend to be focused on women’s and girls’ comics. There are romances both …
 Dear Readers,
I just have to tell you about this manga. This isn’t a typical manga for me to review because it’s not a romance manga, and it’s not really about the characters. It’s about food. I’m a serious foodie. I love exploring foods of all cultures, from low cuisine to high. And I love reading about it as well. Viz Manga has decided to bring over to the US part of one of the most influential food manga series of all time, and if you’re a foodie you’ll probably love it.
First, a note about food manga. The Japanese love them. There are a surprising number of action manga where the hero of the series has special food talents. Yakitate! has a boy with a gift for creating breads unique to Japan. Addicted to Curry is about a chef dedicated to, yep, curries. Kitchen Princess is a shoujo (girl’s) romance about the orphan daughter of pastry chefs who has inherited their talent to please everyone with some dessert.
There are also manga that seek to educate adults. The Drops …
I received two publisher alerts and want to share them with the community. One relates to a Yaoi publisher closing shop and the second is Tokyo Pop’s Manga Pilot draconian contract.
Iris Print:
Iris Print is a Yaoi publisher who apparently closed up shop and failed to tell its authors. Giapet.Net first reported this on May 17:
Something I didn’t mention in my Yaoi Press report was that Yamila Abraham, when asked about publishing yaoi novels as well as comics, said that it tends not to work very well, and pointed to Iris Print as an example– saying that the company has actually closed up shop.
Emails to the owner of Iris Print have seemingly gone unanswered. From an Iris Print author:
Well isn’t that swell? Iris Print closes up shop and doesn’t bother to tell the creators they have under contract. Nice. So what about our books? What about our titles? :/ I don’t know what to say about this, except that I’m truly disappointed. I’m beyond pissed; I wonder though, where is Amazon getting their re-stock if Iris is out of business? What about all those people who paid pre-orders for Queer Magic? It would’ve been nice to know
…
Dear Readers,
Here are two more first volumes, these two from popular series that I found I didn’t like as much as their popularity suggested I should.
 Honey and Clover by Chica Umino. Viz. Retail $9.99. Rated T+ for older teen. 10 volumes (still ongoing in Japan; 1 released here).
Honey and Clover centers around a group of poor eclectic students at an art college that live in the same tiny, rundown apartment building. There’s a large cast of characters but these are the main ones: Morita is a weirdo genius slob who’s been in college for many years, and who leaves for weeks at a time and comes back exhausted and loaded with money. Mayama is a fairly normal architecture student about to graduate, but with hints of a mysterious past. And the last is a very average guy, the hero, Takemoto, who doesn’t have any real aim in life except he’s studying architecture as well.
One day they meet a tiny relative of a professor who enters the school as a Freshman. She’s Hanamoto Hagumi and both Takemoto and …
Dear Readers,
Two more vol 1’s from Viz. But the first is a Vol 1 from CMX, another publisher who brings quality shoujo to the US.
 Land of the Blindfolded by Tsukuba Sakura. CMX. Retail $9.99. Not rated, but I’d say high school and up. 9 volumes (complete in Japan and in the US.)
(I should mention that the main story only takes up about 2/3 of the first book. There are also two unrelated short stories at the end that are rather sweet, both romantic.)
I actually heard of this story back when I first started reading manga and the concept intrigued me. I never knew it was released over here though until recently, and so I bought the first volume. It’s definitely a cut above other shoujo.
The story involves a high school girl named Kanade who can sometimes see the future when people touch her. She thinks of it like living in the land of the blindfolded, only her blindfold sometimes slips. One day she bumps into a young man in the hallway, Arou. He can see the past …
Dear Readers,
I got some first volumes of some shoujo series from Viz for review. I’ve not read any of the series, so I’ll just be providing my first impressions based upon all the Vol 1’s, a couple at a time.
 Wild Ones by Kiyo Fujiwara. Viz. $9.99. T for Teen (innuendo, some cartoony violence). 6 volumes (still ongoing in Japan, 2 volumes out here)
I’m a sucker for yakuza (Japanese gangster) stories, especially the ones that are comedy so I was looking forward to this manga. Unfortunately this one, unlike Gokusen, didn’t have much special to make it rise above the rest.
The main character, 15 year old Sachie, is orphaned and trying to figure out what to do when her presumed-dead grandfather shows up and asks her to live with him. She’s a little shocked to find out that he’s the head of a yakuza family, and she is his heir. She finds herself thrown into this family of idiot gangsters with hearts of gold and decides to try to live as normal a life as possible. Unfortunately for her, her new bodyguard, the young and handsome Rakuto, …
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, …
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 …
 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 …
Dear Ms. Ganter,
 My blogging partner Jan reviewed this series earlier and I was so impressed by the review and by the artwork she included that I posted to her review. She graciously offered to loan me the volumes of “Sorcerers and Secretaries.” I’ll be honest and say that I’d never tried any manga and in fact hadn’t read any type of comic or graphic arts book since childhood. Yep, manga has swept the world but hadn’t swept me. That is until I read this book. Now I begin to understand the appeal. I might not be a convert but this is one novel I might just have to search out.
I’ve included ‘manga’ tags on this review so it will show up on our website along with Jan’s original review but I’m not reviewing it as manga. Since I don’t know the genre enough to speak with any authority on it, I’m talking about it as a romance. And a delightful romance it is. Nicole and Josh have to work through their problems as any romance couple I normally read about do. Nicole is one smart cookie. Though she initially likes …
 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 …
 Manga: The Complete Guide, by Jason Thompson. Del Rey. $19.95. 592 pages. A-.
Dear Mr. Thompson,
I can’t even imagine the effort it took to put this book together. I heard that you read one to two manga series a day, and upwards of 900 of them total to write the reviews within. The result is frankly an indispensable book for anyone interested in Japanese manga that has been published in English, not only for manga fans, but also for parents wanting to know what their little manga fans are reading. Every bookseller and library should keep one of these at their information desks. It’s just that useful.
I love the header information you give for each series: the mangaka, the original publisher and year, the English publisher and year, the age rating, and the length. It’s what I typically want to know at a glance. The reviews I scanned through in the main section were to the point, even if I didn’t always agree with the number of stars the series were granted. The …
Dear Readers,
Here are some suggestions for slightly spooky romantic manga for Halloween.
 Vampire Knight by Matsuri Hino: I enjoy this one even though in many ways it’s a very typical shoujo (girls) romance series. The very polished artwork raises it a notch above many series, and there’s something about the main characters’ love triangle that won’t let me stop reading: The pureblood vampire prince manipulating everyone within reach to bring a peace between vampires and humans for the sake of the young woman he loves; the vampire hunter, bitten and in the process of turning into a mad vampire, who can only control it by drinking the blood of his rival or his love; the young girl with the missing past, family killed by one vampire even while she was saved by another, loving both the one who saved her, and the one she has to save. There are many typical things about it, but because of the characters I cannot stop reading it. B, 15+
 Beyond My …
 Cipher by Narita Minako. Published by CMX. Retail $9.99. Rating: Teen (some heavy issues, but little to no sex or violence; I’d say high school age personally). 7/12 volumes released in English, complete in Japan.
Dear CMX,
I think you are my favorite shoujo manga publisher. I’ve only tried a few of your series, and I love Emma and Seimaden, but even your average ones are better than everyone else’s. Cipher is a case in point.
The series initially interested me for a couple of reasons. One is that it was written in 1985, which I’m told is often considered the Golden Age of Manga. I’ve not read much from the period and wanted to try more. I thought the artwork looked pretty. It reminded me of paintings of children from the early 20th century, despite the new clothing, and I thought I might enjoy the change of pace. Also, it was set in New York City, and I always find manga set in NYC to be amusing for all they …
Fushigi Yuugi by Yuu Watase. Published by Viz. Retail: $9.99 18/18 Volumes released in Englis. Rated T+ for older teens (sexual situations, attempted rapes, pretend rapes, lots of death). D-.
Dear Readers,
Imagine if you will being stuck in the middle of the Gobi desert, thirsting for anything to drink, when you come upon a spring of clear water. You fall to your knees gratefully and begin to drink, only to choke when you find it tastes like camel piss (you know this because you drank your camel’s piss in desperation before it died the previous day). It is, however, the only water you’ve got. You drink it, ignoring everything that makes you shudder, and live to walk out of the desert. And when people ask about your journey, you praise the spring to high heaven.
That spring is Fushigi Yuugi.
You see, there didn’t used to be any shoujo manga, manga for girls, released over here. “Everyone” knew, “everyone” being male comic book sellers, that girls didn’t read comics. Then Sailor Moon came along and kicked …
Ichigenme…The First Case is Civil Law, by Fumi Yoshinaga. Published by 801 Media. Retail: $15.99. 1/2 volumes released. Rated 18+ (Mature content, graphic sex between males showing at most some blurred [Japanese self-censored] naughty bits, NOT FOR KIDS). A-.
Dear Readers,
A law education in Japan is slightly different than one in the US. Students compete to enter specialized schools straight out of high school. There they receive a general education, as well as enough of a specialized education to enable them to get jobs as one of many several types of legal careers such as a professional arbitrator or a legal consultant. If they wish to become lawyers instead, they must pass the bar, then be accepted into a training program after which they will finally become actual lawyers. Only 1000 a year make it. There are relatively few genuine lawyers in Japan, and lots of lawyer-substitutes. < insert joke here >
So most of the law school students don’t have much hope at gaining such an elevated position. Combining that with the relief all Japanese college students feel at …
Paradise Kiss, by Ai Yazawa. Published by TokyoPop. 5/5 volumes released. Retail: $9.99. Rated OT 16+ (sex scenes, but only showing what you’d see on network TV.)
“The basement store was removed from the main road by a maze of side streets. To reach it, one had to go down a flight of stairs to the cute little door. Sweet exotic scents filled its every corner, as if someone was making candies in a Chinese import store. Dizzying music pulsated and bounced off the loud pink walls. There was an old bar and a pool table, and three sewing machines. It was like a secret hideout. They called it their studio.”
Dear Readers,
Welcome to Paradise Kiss.
Haute couture, a bitter but studious high school girl, a group of misfit designers, one of the most fascinating and frustrating heroes I’ve met in manga. All of these add up to a coming of age story that will hit home with most of us, even while taking us places we’ve never been.
The mangaka is Ai Yazawa, probably the …
Never Kiss a Stranger by Madeleine Kerr and Mayu Kasumi. Retail: $7.99. Rated T for Teen, 12 and up, lots of sweet kisses only. 1 of 1 volumes. D.
Three Wishes by Darlene Scalera and Matsuri Akino. Retail: $7.99. Rated T for Teen, 12 and up, lots of sweet kisses only. 1 of 1 volumes. Based upon A Man for Megan, 1999. B+ for young girls and for older readers. (Oh, and I just noticed these books are selling for $6.39 at eHarlequin. You can’t beat that!)
Dear Harlequin,
*sigh* No, no, and no. I read the second of my Harlequin Pink purchases, Never Kiss a Stranger. Aside from the annoying visuals (more about that later), I noticed the story seemed decidedly … dated. I looked at the copyright. MMCLXXXV. 22 years old. One of those …
 A Prince Needs a Princess. Story by Barbara McMahon, art by Reiko Kishida. Retail: $7.99. Rated T for Teen, 12 and up, sweet kisses only (I’d say a little younger would be OK too). I believe it’s based on McMahon’s Harlequin Romance The Tycoon Prince, from 2003, but has been reworked into a YA romance. B for young girls, C+ for older readers.
Dear Harlequin,
Harlequin Manga seems to be going through some permutations. That’s good. There was a lot of room for change. When I bought the very first manga that you published, I couldn’t get past two things: the fact that you were using romances from the early 80s to attract readers who hadn’t even been born then, and that awful purple and pink ink.
It seems like you eventually realized some of the same problems. That horrible ink is still there (Note: “Printed in Flirty Pink Ink!” is not a selling point for me), but at least the aged feeling is gone. The covers have an updated look, more modern. You’ve stopped selling the …
 Emma by Kaoru Mori. Published by CMX. Retail: $9.99 2/7 Volumes released in English. Series complete in Japanese. Rated T+ (teens and up; female nudity in a matter of fact manner, mild sexual references, kissing) . A-
Note: I feel distinctly uncomfortable addressing a frank letter to a Japanese mangaka. It’s so… Ugly American. So I will be addressing readers for the most part in these reviews so that I don’t have to be so circumspect.
Dear Readers,
One thing you’ll discover if you read much manga is that accuracy in setting isn’t something that really concerns most mangaka, if a story is set outside Japan. But there are exceptions. Emma is one of them.
Admittedly, there are a few things used here and there that are slightly anachronistic, such as having a model airplane in a few panels well before the first one ever flew, but they are used to make the story a little more colorful and are not major plot points so they don’t bother me. It’s the feel of the story I love….
For a long time, I have been badgering a friend of mine who reads manga to do reviews for us at DearAuthor. Manga is one of the fastest growing genres and is read by a broad audience of young girls and boys to adults. ジェーン(Jān) (Japanese version for Jane) is a great lover of romances, provides me with a ton of fantasy recommendations, and now has agreed to provide some guest reviews of her current favorite genre, Manga.
Dear Readers,
 These reviews are typically written as letters to the authors of the books in question. The problem with this story is that the author’s name is Nakano Hitori, meaning “one among many”. In other words, the author is claiming to be an anonymous witness to the events described within. Did it really happen? No one is quite certain, but I would like to think it did, because it’s a very heartwarming and romantic story.
The “Train Man” in question is a hopeless anime geek (think the worst kind of Star Trek nerd). His type is so typical in Japan they have a word for …
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