Monthly Archives: October 2010

Manga the week of 10/27

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You thought the last week of the month might give you a break? HAH! Tokyopop and Del Rey team up to double team you!

Oh yes, and Dark Horse as a new volume of the Shinji Ikari spinoff manga that simply doesn’t appeal to me, mostly as I hate the ‘Episode 26’ universe and thought that it was a parody when it appeared in the anime.

As for Del Rey, all of these volumes will be ‘final volumes’ from Del Rey manga itself, but only Hell Girl, which gets its last 3 volumes put out in one giant omnibus, is actually over (bar its sequel, Hell Girl R). The others are all entering limbo land, hopefully to be rescued soon by Kodansha USA. I say hopefully as there’s some great stuff here.

A new Mahou Sensei Negima, which has the scene the yuri fans have been waiting for forever. There’s also the second volume of Code: Breaker, a shonen series I was pleasantly surprised by this summer. On the shoujo end, we get an omnibus of Vols. 22-24 of The Wallflower, which I love for its wacky humor and characters, although many hate its lack of romantic payoff. There’s the 2nd volume of potential dark magical girl series Fairy Navigator Runa. And there’s a debut, Arisa, from the creator of Kitchen Princess.

And now we come to Tokyopop, who have 3 new debuts. Summoner Girl, a cute shonen series. The Stellar Six of Gingacho, a cute shoujo series. And Saving Life, an ecchi harem series. Something for all walks of life! They have new volumes of Happy Cafe and V.B. Rose, which makes me incredibly happy. And they have new .hack, Maria Holic, and Asu no Yoichi, which I’m sure makes people other than me incredibly happy. They also wrap up their Gravitation reprint with Vols. 11 and 12.

And, most interesting of all, they have Hakusensha’s How to Draw Shojo Manga book, with contributions from many of their star artists!

What interests you this week?

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan Volume 1

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By Nagaru Tanigawa and Puyo. Released in Japan as “Suzumiya Haruhi-chan no Yuutsu” by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The Haruhi franchise has always had one big problem, which is that the light novel and anime releases are generally (Endless Eight aside) fantastic, whereas the manga is merely a serviceable adaptation. The few places the manga has generally had time to shine is where the author is allowed to do his own occasional side-story original chapter.

That’s why I was so pleased to see Yen license this. It’s a 4-koma gag manga, based off of the original series, which runs in Shonen Ace alternately with the regular Haruhi manga. And being a gag manga, it’s not restricted in any way, either by characterization (Yuki wouldn’t do this!) or by plot. The result is pure fanservice in many ways, being essentially the artist reaching out and pushing as many fan buttons as he can, but given this is Haruhi Suzumiya, he has a lot to work with.

I won’t lie, this isn’t fantastic. The art is just as average as the regular Haruhi manga, but in a different way. And as with all 4-koma mangas, some gags simply don’t work. But it’s funny. Gleefully taking apart its source, this is a manga willing to have Haruhi accidentally roll down a flight of stairs, or have Ryoko come back as a miniature super-deformed version of herself. The essential thrust of the characterization is still there… Haruhi makes unreasonable demands, Kyon makes a sarcastic retort, Mikuru twitches and is tortured, and Koizumi smiles enigmatically.

Well, there is one glorious exception. Yuki Nagato is still her deadpan self, mostly. But then the artist does a gag comic which shows her playing an Ero Game instead of reading, and you can see the lightbulb go off over his head. Suddenly the idea of Yuki the otaku is born, and it leads to wonderful places. This is then combined with her interaction at her apartment with the tiny Asakura, where Yuki not only gets a well-deserved chance to be the boke in a tsukkomi routine, but actually has to control her laughter at some points. Mostly as seeing Asakura frustrated is just too adorable.

(Yuki, by the way, is also the star of a second spinoff manga, The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato, which runs in Kadokawa’s seinen Young Ace. This one takes her 4th movie characterization and spins it into a light romantic comedy. I suspect Yen will license it as well once it has enough volumes.)

It’s hard, as with many subjective 4-koma, to describe why I enjoyed this so much. And it’s possible that the humor may not win over others. And yes, just as with its parent manga, the anime is even better, although there isn’t the same major drop-off, just a minor one. But really, it’s Haruhi with tons and tons of gags, super-deformed madness, and fun. Pandering of the best sort, the type that doesn’t also offend the sensibilities. Heck, the light novel author in the afterward says he wishes his own series was more like this. Even if you’ve avoided the original manga, you should check this out.

Seiho Boys High School! Volume 2

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By Kaneyoshi Izumi. Released in Japan as “Men’s Kou” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Comic (“Betsucomi”). Released in North America by Viz.

(This review contains a major spoiler for this volume.)

Well, that was a bummer. Don’t get me wrong, a beautifully told, well-written bummer. I enjoyed every minute of it. But dang. Thank goodness the volume ends with a wacky romantic farce, even though it pales in comparison to what came before.

Maki’s on the cover of this one, and indeed the bulk of the volume is about him, as we discover the backstory that we mysteriously never got in Volume 1. Clearly the artist had been holding back as it was going to take most of a volume to tell – I wonder if this was the ending she had in mind for a short series? (Most shoujo writers are told to plan ‘short, medium, and long’ endings for any series they create, so that if a series isn’t popular it can easily wrap up, and if it is, there’s resolution on the horizon.)

Things start off with some prospective new guys touring the school. One of them brought his amazingly cute sister, who sets about trying to score free food and otherwise use her looks to hit on guys. She’s drawn immediately to Maki, the stereotypical nice guy, and indeed he seems to be going after her as well, but Rui notes that it’s a facade. Then, of course, the girl makes the mistake of bringing up Maki’s ex-girlfriend. Cue Maki’s rage.

We then get the story of how Maki and Erika, the ex in question, met in middle school. It’s my favorite part of the volume, mostly as we see how fantastic they would be as a couple. Maki is determined to be nice to Erika no matter what, but he’s not perfect – we see his frustration with her actions, and we also see that a lot of his ‘dogged nice guy’ persona is a mask that’s easily slipped on. And Erika is fantastic, being a grumpy loner who will not be dealing with any fools today, thank you. Maki is relentless in getting her to open up, and when she does, we smile.

And then she dies. And I was sort of hoping that it was a fake death, one of those ‘my parents told you I was dead so they could break us up’ things, but no, this is far too gut-wrenching for that. This is the best part of the book, with Maki reading, finally, the book that Erika had given him before she was killed and showing her message to him. The narrative notes that this isn’t a sad story, as it’s a story of love that is returned, but frankly it’s hard to convince yourself of that. And then the artist draws her as a spirit (and later as an angel in the end comic) to show us, yes, really dead. Sigh.

So clearly, if Maki gets together with anyone, it’s not going to be until Volume 8 or so. And it probably won’t be with Miyaji, the girl we meet in the last chapter who seems to combine bad luck and desperation in equal measure. She’s dealing with the aftermath of a situation where she and her friend were both in love with the same guy, but the friend admitted her feelings first, and won. And while Miyaji is happy for them, it makes things very awkward. So… better find a fake boyfriend! After the serious previous chapters, this comes off as even more goofy than it should, and I groaned at the predictable ending, but Miyaji seems like a lot of fun, and it’ll be nice seeing another female in this mostly male cast.

I’d noted in Volume 1’s review how wildly variable the series was, and Volume 2 is much, much better. The series has found its footing (as many shoujo series do once they realize they’re going to BE a series), and Maki’s past was definitely worth the wait. I look forward to the next volume of this.