Monthly Archives: October 2010

Manga the week of 11/3

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First week of the month, so must be Viz! Well, mostly.

Certainly the title that caught my eye the most is the manga biography of Che Guevara, which Penguin Books is putting out. Unlike most faux-manga bios, this seems to have actual Japanese artists. If you like Che Guevara, check this out! (How often do I get to type that?)

Bandai has another 4-koma volume of Lucky Star coming out. And DMP has Bloody Kiss tonight, which seems to feature yaoi vampires, making it the most licenseable title in the history of the world.

And Viz. New Gintama is always welcome, this one wrapping up the long arc with the cursed otaku sword. New Bakuman will likely give me mixed feelings, but I’ll read it anyway. Special A and Crown of Love put out their final volumes, though I think everybody but me dropped SA a while back. There’s also new Otomen, hopefully with more Ryo after that last cliffhanger, and new Kimi ni Todoke, which continues the arc focused on Chizuru.

As for debuts, I’m very interested in Genkaku Picasso, a title from the author of Short Cuts, which sounds vaguely disturbing. Though possibly not as disturbing as the cover to Kurozakuro, a new Shonen Sunday title which will not eat you if you buy it, despite those teeth. And a new shoujo series, The Story of Saiunkoku, comes from Kadokawa’s Asuka magazine, and no doubt has an anime tie-in or two already.

What’s interesting you?

Dragon Girl Omnibus 1

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By Toru Fujieda. Released in Japan by Akita Shoten, serialized in the magazine Princess. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Toru Fujieda is one of those manga artists who’s been around for some time. In the 1990s she was working at Sony Magazines, putting out short shoujo under their imprint. Then in the 2000s she moved to Akita Shoten, and has been releasing fun, medium-length shoujo series in their magazine Princess. One of her previous works, Oyayubihime Infinity, was released over here by CMX, and now we have the Ouendan-loving manga Dragon Girl, which Yen is releasing in 2 giant omnibuses, each covering 2 1/2 volumes of manga.

Yen has a lot of helpful translation notes (which are at the end of each ‘volume’ in Japanese, slightly awkward for the reader, and make me wonder if the omnibus decision was last-minute), but doesn’t actually get into the concept of ouendan, which may be unfamiliar to readers here. ‘Male cheerleaders’ doesn’t really describe the culture and history of the thing, and they aren’t really much like female cheerleaders at all, something which is pointed out in this volume. However, they do have similar goals. You can read more here.

Into this school comes Rinna Aizen, a tall, athletic, overly enthusiastic girl whose father was king of all ouendan at this school. It’s just recently gone co-ed, so she can finally pursue her dream of following in her dad’s footsteps (and also meet the cute boy who encouraged her years ago). This despite the presence of numerous obstacles in the form of high school boys: the leader of the club today, who wants to stay traditional; the unemotional pretty boy who ignores her; the boy who inspired her years ago, who now seems to have become a delinquent; and above all, the evil Class President, who seems to enjoy torturing her because that’s what he’s like.

Yes, in case you hadn’t guessed, for all of its focus on cheering clubs and high school drama, what we have here is a reverse harem series. This is actually one of its strengths, as we’re halfway through the manga with this omnibus and I’m still not entirely certain who she’ll end up with. Most reverse harems (or regular male-lead harems, for that matter) give a large pile of love interests short shrift while concentrating on the boy you know the heroine will pick eventually. But honestly, we could go in one of three directions here with no real logical leaps. Impressive.

To be honest, a lot of this is shoujo paint-by-numbers. If you’re looking for shocking twists or new variations on a standard theme, you’re not going to find them here. That said, this is a fantastic manga for me, as it pushes a lot of MY buttons. Rinna is exactly my sort of manga heroine – tall, strong, loud, a bit dense, and cheerful as the day is long – and seeing her personality slowly win over others is another favorite plotline of mine. Also benefiting the series is the fact that Rinna’s immediately given two best female friends (who are almost polar opposites), who help make the reverse harem aspect of the plot slightly less obvious, and give a wall of common sense for Rinna to occasionally run into. Nice to see this in Volume 1, where usually it takes series like Ouran 9 or 10 volumes to do this.

Most of all, Dragon Girl passes my most important test: I really, REALLY want to find out what happens next. After reading it, I went to Yen’s site to see when the 2nd and final volume is due out. (Yen says ‘Spring’, Amazon says February.) It’s not the best shoujo in the world, but it’s fun, funny, and doesn’t offend my sensibilities. That’s a winner for me.

Cardcaptor Sakura Omnibus Volume 1

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By CLAMP. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Dark Horse.

First, a brief note on the presentation. Dark Horse’s Chobits omnibus was good, and improved on Tokyopop’s, but was not, in the end, worthy of buying the same manga a second time. Cardcaptor Sakura had an even higher bar, as Tokyopop released it twice, once early in their history and again in a spiffy, more faithful box set. So Dark Horse needed to go that extra mile to justify buying everything a third time.

They’ve done so. This manga looks fantastic, one of the best I’ve seen this entire year. The volume is bigger in size, which shows off CLAMP’s gorgeous art style. The paper stock is heavy and fine, and the art reproduced on it shows that Dark Horse weren’t kidding when they said it was remastered from CLAMP’s originals. The translation seems to involve taking Tokyopop’s 2nd edition one and spiffing it up a bit, but then, there wasn’t really anything terrible about that version’s in the first place. (And yes, Kaho still makes Sakura feel all floaty inside.)

So that’s for the people who already know the story. What about those who, for some reason, have never read Cardcaptor Sakura before? Well, you’re in for a treat. This is CLAMP firing on all cylinders, giving us cute shoujo with a fantastically likeable strong heroine, great supporting cast, and a clear, magical-girl issue plot that lacks the excessive machinations of later works such as Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. This is just the story of Sakura Kinomoto, a 10-year-old girl who opens a magical book and now finds she has to retrieve a series of magical cards with only the help of her best friend and a magical talking animal.

CLAMP are clearly having fun with the magical girl archetypes, and just jump right into rescuing the cards. The premise is actually quickly given as an afterthought in a Chapter 1 flashback, basically telling the reader ‘this is why Sakura can do magic and what she’s after, now back to our cute girl’. It works well, and allows CLAMP to take the high fantasy art they had done in Magic Knight Rayearth and X and apply it to a real-world setting. Sakura is a typical 10-year-old girl, especially for shoujo heroines. Athletic yet bad at academics, generally perky, and with a huge crush on her brother’s best friend.

Speaking of crushes, one thing that does stick out here is all of the romantic and quasi-romantic pairings. In fact, the one couple that will end up together at the end are the only ones NOT interested in each other here. Sakura and Syaoran are still mostly faced off as rivals here, and Syaoran seems to have far more of an interest in Yukito, the boy Sakura also loves. Which is a shame for both of them, as Yukito is shown to be fairly devoted to Toya, Sakura’s brother.

And then there’s Tomoyo, Sakura’s best friend. She’s my favorite character in the manga, getting to be both the sensible advice-giving best friend AND the weird cosplay-loving Sakura-obsessed freak. She definitely gives CLAMP some great costumes to work with, with Sakura appearing in a variety of stunning outfits (most of which make their appearance on the added color pages throughout). She also loves Sakura – and makes it very clear in this volume how she means that, even if they’re only 10 years old. “I think we’re talking about different kinds of love, Sakura,” she says when Sakura cheerfully announces she loves her back. Tomoyo knows that Sakura’s unaware of her interest, but to her credit doesn’t back off – she knows Sakura’s crush on Yukito isn’t going to happen, so presses her love whenever she can. Of course, we also meet her mother, who seems to have paralleled this in her devotion to Sakura’s mother, so we can likely see where this is going to end.

That said, there’s also the odd couple of Rika and Terada-sensei, which mostly just makes me sigh. Like Tomoyo’s love for Sakura, this was toned down a bit for the anime, which skipped the part where Terada-sensei actually gives the 10-year-old girl an engagement ring. I suppose this falls under the heading of ‘I am not the audience for this sort of thing’, and certainly for the 6-8 year old girls that read Nakayoshi, the hot teacher you have a crush on returning your love must be a great fantasy. But it still sort of creeps me out.

Cardcaptor Sakura is one of CLAMP’s masterpieces, an exciting, cute, and direct shoujo story that uses all the old magical girl cliches but never feels tired or repetitive. If you were to ask me which CLAMP series I’d take to a desert island, this would probably be the one. And this volume is an excellent starter, with Dark Horse providing a fantastic re-introduction for those who may have first met these characters in Tsubasa. Anyone who likes shoujo should read this.