Category Archives: reviews

Cross Game, Vol. 5

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By Mitsuru Adachi. Released in Japan in 2 separate volumes by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

At last, we can now talk about the big secret that comes halfway through Cross Game. Well, after we finish up the big game, of course. It’s an 8-volume series, and we’ve still got four to go. Will our team manage to defeat their rivals and go to the Koshien in their second year, and first with Ko and Azuma?

Hi, spoiler on the cover, thanks for ruining everything as always. In any case, no, of course they don’t. Sports manga have to follow a certain pattern, after all. Ko and Azuma and company have no had to experience the harsh realities of competition nearly enough. And Ryuou is a very good team. We really know that they’re going to win when we’re introduced to the likeable players they have behind the two supposed “superstars” – calm and patient Mishima to contrast with overhyped slugger Shimano, and cocky yet analytical phenom Oikawa replacing the cool – perhaps too cool ace pitcher Matsushima. It’s no coincidence that both replacements mirror Seishu’s own Ko and Azuma.

So yes, Ryuou wins and goes to the Koshien, and Ko and Azuma get a reminder that they’re not perfect yet – but also that they have another year to go. There’s lots of the usual Adachi touches here. Ko’s apology to the third years who will be graduating, and their hug. Ko’s fatigue and injuries, and his pitching through them. Aoba, once again, asking what Wakaba would be like were she there. (Her sister’s reply is both accurate and eerie foreshadowing.) Half the enjoyment of this manga is re-reading it and picking out little subtle bits you missed the first time around.

As for what Wakaba would be like were she around, well, one merely needs to look at the cover, which clearly shows Aoba standing next to a teenage Wakaba… oh, wait, no it isn’t. Instead, it’s Adachi using one of the hoarier cliches in fiction – the lookalike of the dead romantic interest. There’s a new soba shop in town, and their daughter, Akane (come on, he HAS to be trolling Takahashi here, even if it is a common Japanese name) is a dead ringer for a 17-year-old Wakaba… well, at least that’s what everyone isn’t saying. There’s a lot of stunned gazes, a few muttered asides, and some discussion of “ghosts growing older”, but mostly what we see here is Ko and Aoba trying to deal with her mere presence. They both, typically, share the same reaction – they’ve no idea if she looks like Wakaba as a teen or not, as Wakaba is still 12 in their heads.

As with the previous section, the second half of the volume is rife with fantastic character moments. Azuma’s quiet happiness at seeing his brother being cheerful, and his needling of Ko about fulfilling Wakaba’s dream – and Aoba’s, since she can’t participate. Mizuki doing his best to be nice and helpful to Aoba, but never quite getting the hang of it, mostly as he tries hard to do what Ko does naturally by being a brat towards her. Aoba’s detailed research on Akane, and Ko’s annoyance that everyone seems to assume that he’ll end up with her the moment she arrives. (Clearly they read the same big book of cliches Adachi did). And of course Akane herself, mostly still a nice, polite cipher, but her increasing puzzlement at everyone staring at her as if she’d grown a third head is apparent.

I remain ecstatically happy that Viz picked this series up. I do hope they do more Adachi in the future (digital?), but for now I will enjoy this, a release once again appropriate for the season – baseball is wrapping up, time to move on.

Halloween Briefs

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So, due to power outage, these aren’t on the regular Manga bookshelf site with last week’s briefs, and the MMF is actually long over. So just pretend this is still relevant.

The Manga Movable Feast dealt with horror, but most of the titles I’m about to talk about fall more under the realm of ‘supernatural’. They’re shonen and shoujo titles that deal with friendship, romance, etc., but happen to feature monsters, demons, or yokai in some way. This is, of course, not to say that they don’t all have the ability to scare in some way.

The one with the least horrific content here is likely Kamisama Kiss 5, which continues to be about a young girl who finds herself the god of a local shrine, and her vaguely romantic relationship with her familiar, sexy fox creature Tomoe. This particular volume in fact, is about removing the terror – no one goes to the shrine due to its reputation, so Nanami decides to hold a festival to entice people to notice the shrine is no longer run-down and creepy. There is a mysterious chapter where Nanami thinks that Tomoe has abandoned her and the shrine (which looks like a pit again), but it turns out to be a trick, and the majority of the volume is devoted to showing Nanami as plucky and never-say-die, and Tomoe as being aloof yet caring. The supernatural mostly is a spice here.

Much more scary, or at least with a vague tinge of unease hanging around it, is Natsume’s Book of Friends 9. The series is about a young man with the ability to see and control yokai thanks to his grandmother, and his attempts to balance out a normal school and family life with his desire to help free (and to a certain degree befriend) the yokai in his book. The stories tend to be drenched in yokai lore, and sometimes need a footnote or two, but generally dealing with monsters tends to be universal. We all know when a monster demands something or else she will do harm, and then gets what she wants, harm is going to happen anyway. There’s less school antics here and more of Natsume working with his own familiar, Nyanko-sensei. Who, thank goodness, is not a sexy fox creature. Things can get scary here, but this series gives more of a feeling of melancholy than terror.

Nura also deals with yokai, and is a Shonen Jump manga, so is not concerned so much with cute romance or finding friends as it is with awesome fights. Rikuo is still having issues with his leadership skills, and a lot of this volume continues to deal with the takeover of the town by a rival gang of yakuza… um, yokai. This volume in particular is very good at contrasting Rikuo’s caring and accepting nature, even of those who can’t stand him, with that of Tamazuki, who callously destroys his closest allies with a cruel word and a wave of his hand. It’s the difference between ruling by loyalty and ruling by fear, and this being a Jump manga, we know what will eventually win out. There are several good scary moments here, but I’d read it more for the Friendship, Training, and Victory myself. (Also, the Rikuo/Tsurara shiptease is really getting hammered on here.)

Lastly, there’s Vampire Knight 13, which despite the presence of vampires and demon hunters, is not so much horror in this volume as the political intrigue that it’s excelled in ever since Yuki came into her heritage. I’ll be honest, I think I preferred Yuki in the earlier volumes – despite trying to balance being prudent with becoming her own person, she still comes off as awfully passive here. There are a few scattered bits of action, and a scene or two of blood and gore (tastefully and sexily done, of course – this is LaLa Magazine, after all), but this is horror in the same way that Wilkie Collins was horror – romantic suspense horror with twists and turns and fitting into society turning out to be far more important than the number of people you kill. Normally I enjoy it, but I admit I found this volume a bit boring.

So, to sum up, it’s November 5th. Happy Halloween! Dress as Guy Fawkes!

Psyren, Vol. 1

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By Toshiaki Iwashiro. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

When it comes to weekly manga publication, there are several things we have to face up to. First of all, the editor of Weekly Shonen Jump has to get 18 series out every week. And they can’t all be One Piece. Sometimes you get super blockbuster hits, and sometimes you get those ‘workhorse’ series. Secondly, when Viz is looking for Jump series to license, they may see a series that’s 19 volumes and still running and think “Will this be profitable enough to risk it never ending like One Piece or Naruto?” Much easier to take a chance on a medium-length series, 16 volumes or so, that’s already over.

And so enter Psyren, a perfectly serviceable Jump series that I suspect is not going to gain much of a following simply as its first volume, like many Jump series, is pretty damn average. Of course, One Piece 1 was pretty mediocre as well, but it was already a huge phenomenon by the time most folks here read it. No one is telling Psyren readers, “Just wait it gets so much better later.” Indeed, it may not, I’ve no idea. But if this series is like most other Jump series, I suspect that it is a slow builder.

So, Psyren! Let’s see, we have the guy on the cover, who is our hero, Ageha. (No, he doesn’t sew designer accessories, wrong series.) Ageha is fairly cocky, likes to hit things, helps out cute young girls… he’s a very likeable teenage hero. He happens across a rather beaten and stoic classmate, Sakurako, who flips out when he returns her wallet that had been stolen and notes a red phone card in it saying Psyren. Mysterious card… damsel in distress… time for Ageha to jump to the rescue! Especially once he gets a phone card of his own.

Psyren’s predictability is both its strength and its weakness. You know to a certain degree what to expect, so the book moves fast and the plot sets up nicely. Naturally Ageha will never turn his back on someone in need, even a stranger he barely knows, and his stubborn desires impress his new soon-to-be friends. On the downside, there’s nothing that leaps out and makes you want to read Volume 2. It’s a fun read, but if the series was cancelled after this volume, most readers would simply never notice.

The setting is a desolate wasteland, so naturally there’s lots of room for battling huge ugly monsters, another Jump staple. These battles also seem to involve psychic powers, or at least they do for everyone but our hero, who I’ve no doubt will be unlocking his true abilities soon. And yes, the heroine does get a nosebleed after using her powers. It’s not just Marvel Comics doing that cliche. If there is one surprise in the volume, it’s the cliffhanger, which makes a refreshing change from the ‘we’re on an alien planet’ or ‘we’re in another dimension’ that I was expecting.

So the question is, is it worth getting volume 2 in hopes the series takes it up a notch? Not sure. But I don’t think you’ll have wasted your money if you get Vol. 1. Psyren is a perfectly normal manga series, which unfortunately may not have enough hooks to make folks come back for more.