Brief Reviews On Sundry Manga

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I have a pile of backlog here, but can’t quite work up the energy to post a full review for them. Hence these brief thoughts.

My Girlfriend’s a Geek 3: We basically have more of the same here, which is very much what I expected. Taiga deals with his girlfriend’s fetishes as best he can, while getting increasingly exasperated. Introduced here is Yuiko’s cosplaying friend Akari, who turns out to be Kouji’s younger sister. But honestly plot is sort of irrelevant to this series. I did enjoy seeing a brief snippet of Yuiko’s thoughts when she was dealing with the sleazy guy at her office – it shows that she actually does view Taiga as a genuine boyfriend, even if the depth of her feelings for him is still in question. That’s more than I usually get out of Otomen. A bonus at the end of the manga gives us a fake chapter of Sepatte Takuro, Yuiko’s BL obsession, and they even bring in another mangaka to draw it – Hiromi Namiki, who writes the ice hockey manga 88 for Kodansha’s Monthly Shonen Magazine. Unfortunately, the chapter itself is quite dull, being far TOO close a parody of shonen sports manga, to the point where the joke is lost.

Oh My Goddess! 38: We finish off the Chrono arc here, and thank God for that, as it’s one of the weakest in the series to date. Chrono’s fear of cats is incredibly lame, the dojikko maid thing continues to be done to death, and everyone’s praise of her at the end thus seems overdone. On the bright side, once she’s gone we start a new arc that will prove to be more dramatic, as Urd’s mother Hild gets overthrown in Hell by a sneaky trickster, and is now in a chibi body and relatively powerless. What’s worse, now the new demons in charge are arriving on Earth and granting wishes – but as ever, they twist them and make people suffer. I was amused at seeing Chihiro and Megumi actually SEE Hild appear before their eyes, and the building subsequently destroyed – but when the building is magically reconstructed later, they just edit their memories to fit the facts. All in all, not a great volume, but I’m hoping for better things now that Hell has new ownership.

Fairy Tail 13: As ever with Fairy Tail, I enjoy the volume when I’m reading it, but have difficulty retaining any memory of it five minutes after the fact. Erza’s backstory arc gets a bit of an epilogue here, and we see that we probably have not seen the last of Ultear – or Jellal, for that matter. There then follows some goofy comedy as they head back to a now-rebuilt Fairy Tail and welcome Juvia (unsurprisingly) and Gajeel (somewhat more surprisingly) in as members. This mid-section is particularly noted by the cameo appearances by Jason Thompson and Dallas Middaugh, whom Mashima had met when he was a guest at SDCC 2008 and decided to write into the series. Jason in particular makes a great dorky reporter. This is counterbalanced with Lucy’s attempts to use her charms for various purposes – and failing miserably. However, we then head into the next arc, where Laxus returns to town, just as big a jerk and twice as pissed. He and his colleagues decide to have a ‘festival’ where the Fairy Tail members have to fight each other in an elimination bout – and the female members are all turned to stone and used as hostages to make them do it. A sadly predictable plotline, but certainly effective. Fairy Tailo remains good, solid shonen, but I just can’t get into it more than I need to.

Natsume’s Book of Friends 7: Been a while since I reviewed this one. I enjoy the series a great deal, but rarely have much to say about it. This volume is notable for having a plot arc that lasts a good 2/3 of the volume, and features what may prove to be a new ongoing ‘villain’. Someone is attacking yokai in order to get their blood for some unknown purpose – and the attack is human! The main thrust of the plot, however, as with a number of previous chapters, is getting Natsume to be more proactive and choosing to do good, rather than drifting along trying to avoid being hurt. This volume is very much yokai focused – Tanuma and Taki don’t even show up – but that helps, as the whole thing ends up being almost like an action movie. There are a few flaws to the volume – the revelation of the human attacking the yokai turns out to be very anticlimactic, and the unrelated short story at the end is clearly a case of needing to pad out the book, as it’s not that hot. Still, the main story itself is an excellent relaxed shoujo horror, and I look forward to seeing Natsume’s further development.

Butterflies, Flowers Volume 7

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By Yuki Yoshihara. Released in Japan as “Chou Yo Hana Yo” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Petit Comic. Released in North America by Viz.

I note as I continue to read this series that the reason it succeeds with me in a way that, say, Black Bird does not, is that every horrid moment in it is immediately undercut by some over the top bit of humor or fourth wall breaking that reminds you that this is merely a dumb josei romance. Case in point: continuing where we left off at the end of Vol. 6, Choko has her hand bandaged after Kaori stepped on it in her heels, demanding Choko break up with him. Choko, not one to back down, angrily confronts her the next day at work, whereupon Kaori grabs her hand and sneers “No snitching” while squeezing it hand. A dramatic scene filled with scary tension… until you turn the page, and see superdeformed Choko lying on the floor in a puddle, with a little arrow noting “pissed herself”.

This is perhaps why I didn’t have as much of an issue as some others did with the date rape scene later in the volume. First of all, the moment it “happened” I knew that it would turn out to be something just for show – we’ve known the leads for 6 volumes, and the other man involved for 2, and there just isn’t any way that he would do this sort of thing, and thus it was purely for potboiler show. That said, it was a horrid thing to do, and Masayuki’s response (not immediately telling Choko he knew things didn’t get that far) is equally bad. But then, this is Butterflies, Flowers. If you aren’t ready for the men to be gloriously horrible (but sweet deep down), you’re reading the wrong manga. And again, when she finds out, we cut immediately to Masayuki… who is hiding himself behind her, wearing palm fronds, disguised as a plant.

Then there’s the popularity contest, and the sheer gall of the ex-girlfriend trussed up on the bed like a meat market sale, and Choko’s having to really think back on when the two of them last had sex, and of course the best line of the volume, which I won’t give away here except it involves the word “semen”. Every time something that would be offensive in any other manga comes by, Butterflies, Flowers is here to be so gleefully trashy and over the top that at most you just slap your forehead and sigh.

In terms of the actual couple, Choko gets some good development in the latter half of the book. She’s been, despite the sex, very much the naive and innocent heroine throughout this, and thus when she is confronted by several angry women noting that she’s frustrating Masayuki by her lack of sexual desire for him, she’s not sure what to think. Of course, these girls not only don’t have her prior history with him, but also don’t have him acting like a flaming moron in front of her all the time. But we do start to see Choko think about Masayuki as an actual desirable man, and try her best to understand her own passions. Unfortunately, she doesn’t really get far. Fortunately, the next volume is the final one, so I anticipate that she will soon!

So yes, the sexual politics of this series remains as questionable as ever, but it’s so ludicrous that I don’t care. I like Butterflies Flowers because it’s funny. I dropped Black Bird because it was painfully earnest. Your mileage may vary, but I guess that’s how I see the series. So if you want more of what you’ve seen in the first six volumes, well, you won’t be disappointed.

Oh, you might be disappointed in that there are no Gundam references this time. But they do namedrop Space Battleship Yamato, so I guess it’s OK.

Ouran High School Host Club Vol. 16

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By Bisco Hatori. Released in Japan as “Ouran Koukou Host Club” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz.

The series continues to wrap up, which unfortunately means that this volume, while excellent, is a lot more serious than previous ones. We have to resolve Tamaki’s family situation, and that’s just unhappy – his grandmother seems to despise him, his father is strangely aloof and uncaring, and halfway through this volume he’s forced to abandon everything else that might possibly influence him. It’s really brought home here how good he is at putting up a facade, even when he’s alone – it helps to drive home just how crushed he in in the moments when that facade cracks.

This is not to say there is no comedy at all, luckily. Hunny and Moru finally have their fight, and Mori’s demands turn out to be both sensible and amusing. I liked the contrast with their father’s playing shogi, and reminding me a lot of Genma and Soun in Ranma. Likewise, the accidental kiss between Tamaki and Haruhi here is very well done, absolutely terrifying both of them, and giving Tamaki a great moment of self-doubt when he’s discussing the incident with… um, his dog, but it makes sense in context. I really liked “Don’t worry, the new Tamaki is not as stupid as the old Tamaki.” Very true!

Sadly, he then moves back to the main mansion, no longer in exile. While he initially thinks that’s cause for celebration – as does everyone else, and I love his discussion of it with Haruhi – it turns out to be a trap, one he realizes only after he’s walked into it. What’s worse, he realizes that the ones he loves are at risk, and that he has to protect them at all costs. Because this is a manga, you know what that means – telling Haruhi that she can leave the club if she wants to now, and that his affairs are none of her business. Yeah, you can imagine how well THAT goes. But to no avail – for this cliffhanger, we see Tamaki’s father ordering the Host Club shut down.

As for Haruhi, she’s still not very good at all about dealing with her feelings for Tamaki, even if she now realizes them. Her expression after the accidental kiss is funny but also a wee bit disturbing – how repressed has she been that this will freak her out that much? And it’s bookended with the end of the volume, where she’s alone in her apartment during a thunderstorm, painfully aware of how much Tamaki has helped her and his absence right now. Hopefully her emotional breakdown here will lead to greater resolve.

There are two short stories at the end of the volume. The first gives us backstory on how Haruhi’s mother and father got together, and is very sweet. You can see why Haruhi wants to live up to her mother’s dream. The other introduces us to the twins’ grandmother, who is just as eccentric as the rest of the family, and is another good look at how, while the twins seem to run roughshod over everyone they know, in reality they are quite easily manipulated. At least before the manga begins…

So we’re definitely at a low ebb in the manga, and unfortunately we have to wait till December for the next volume. This particular volume was quite good, though, especially if you like the serious, more angsty side of this manga.