Urusei Yatsura Volume 5

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By Rumiko Takahashi. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

For those following along with Viz (as you should be), this whole volume can be found in the collection The Return of Lum*Urusei Yatsura Vol. 2: Lum in the Sun, as chapters 3-13.

Generally speaking it’s hard to review the gag humor of a Takahashi manga. Describing most of the gags tends to ruin them for the potential reader, and a lot of them also depend on humor that makes no sense out of context, or that is already adapted from impossible-to-translate Japanese into an English equivalent. Suffice it to say that this is a very funny volume of UY. The characters are now all settled into their roles, and react just the way that we expect them to. Ataru is lustful, Mendo is egotistical, Lum is happy / angry (delete where applicable), and Shinobu is melancholy / angry (delete where applicable). We do see Shinobu’s super strength debut here, as she lifts a boat (including the people in it) to hit Mendou over the head after he slights her. The manga never bothered to explain it, though the 3rd movie hinted it was due to Lum’s continued presence, sort of a leaking of superpowers.

This volume can essentially be divided into two parts. The first half takes place at the school, and involves a new school nurse: Sakura, who now debuts as a full-fledged regular after occasional appearances in previous volumes. Her eccentricity comes up a few times – at first Ataru wants nothing to do with her, knowing that she tends to cause him bad luck – but after a while she settles into your standard young woman fending off sexist teenagers with her fists while occasionally using her spiritual powers to battle the insane maladies that crop up at the school. Her temper’s also far worse than it was before – on par with the other women now – most likely due to being treated like a sex object all the time by Ataru and his friends.

We also meet Tobimaro Mizunokoji for the first time, Mendou’s childhood friend and rival – well, OK, just rival. Tobimaro is obsessed with baseball, and determined to win a game over his longtime adversary, even after the previous 11 years have ended in 11 draws. He’s pretty much a big goof, thinking only of baseball and living out in the mountains, sort of Tarzan-like. His other big notable trait is that he’s one of the only male cast members not obsessed with women – he thinks of baseball as a man’s challenge, and resents Lum for being part of Mendou’s team. (Lum soon lets him know what she thinks of that opinion – violently.) Notably, when we see him in the other story in this volume, he has a bodyguard squad composed entirely of hot young women – whom he treats like… a bodyguard squad. Mendou would never be trusted with such a thing – his bodyguards are notably male. In any case, Tobimaro will pop up throughout the series, usually either in a baseball context or, later on, involving his insane family. He’s generally more sympathetic than Mendou – though not here, where he’s just a pure dumb goofball, stealing Lum’s bikinis as, well, the plot requires it.

The second half of the manga moves from the school into summer vacation, and takes place entirely on the beach. This not only allows the girls in the cast to wear gorgeous swimsuits (Mendou notes that Lum’s one-piece is incredibly sexy, likely as it’s a change from her usual bikini – this is what prompts Shinobu, wearing a cute bikini herself, to try to hit him with a boat), but gives us some plotlines that wouldn’t really work in classes, such as Cherry getting mistaken for a swimsuit-lovin’ octopus, or Cherry teaching Ataru and Mendou how to surf, or Cherry teaching everyone yoga so that they can lose weight after sitting around the beach eating all vacation. Oh, did I mention Cherry’s also a regular now? Yes, with Sakura’s arrival comes Cherry, everyone’s least-favorite Buddhist monk, who had also made occasional appearances but shows up far more often now. The series would be far less funny and far less annoying without him, so it balances out well.

Highlights of this volume include the baseball match (especially Mendou’s bodyguards, who really test the limits of “how stupid can they be” here), Ataru accidentally getting combined with Mendou’s physics notes, the whole ludicrous chase after Tobimaro and his bodyguards to rescue Lum’s “only good clothes”, and possibly the best of all, Ataru, Cherry and Sakura participating in an all-you-can-eat competition. Ataru drops out pretty early, and Cherry a bit after that, but Sakura not only eats the entire hotel out of every single bit of food they have – including an entire roast COW – but still looks slim and gorgeous. Of course, as we find when she tries to lay on a float device in the hotel pool, looks can be deceiving. Sakura’s bottomless appetite will come up a few times in the future.

Having settled into her basic premise, Takahashi is now moving the pieces around, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Hence Sakura and Cherry’s appearances becoming more frequent. Tobimaro is also a refreshing change of pace (his constant obsession with rivalry may remind Ranma readers of Ryouga Hibiki), though she wouldn’t really get a good handle on him till later. Most of all, though, she’s really getting the hang of a constant stream of gags, developing into outright chaos until everything collapses right at the last page. There’s only one or two chapters here that aren’t as funny as they could be (the legend of the “Red Cloak” needed far more room than just 16 pages to be really good). That’s a high average for a harem comedy. And next time, in Volume 6, we’ll see another regular character debut – possibly the first “yandere” in all of manga and anime.

Ai Ore! Volume 1

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By Mayu Shinjo. Released in Japan as “Ai wo Utau Yori Ore ni Oborero!” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shoujo Comic (“Sho-Comi”). Released in North America by Viz.

I think I’ve finally managed to figure out the lineage of this particular title. It debuted in 2006 with that long Japanese title translated as “Instead of Singing About Love, Drown Yourself in Me” at Shogakukan, in the pages of their shoujo in name only magazine Shoujo Comic. It ran for 5 volumes (including what we see here), and then the author had a very public falling out with her company and left, taking her work with her. The title ended rather abruptly in Sho-Comi, but then began as a “sequel” in Kadokawa’s shoujo magazine Asuka – in reality, it merely picked up right where it left off – and ran for 5 additional volumes. Kadokawa has licensed the whole shebang to Viz, and they’re releasing it in these slightly oversized, 300-page editions.

As for the manga itself, well, it may bear Kadokawa’s name, but it reeks of Shoujo Comic. This is a Mayu Shinjo title, and even though she’s playing with gender roles, and her lead girl is a handsome prince type rather than a cute busty girl, you have to go into it knowing what to expect. She isn’t known as the “Queen of Smut” for nothing, and even though Ai Ore! is technically rated T+ by Viz, it’s going to be knocking on the door of M without actually going in. What’s more, all of her favorite cliches and tropes are here and present, to the point that when we got to the distasteful final scene where the hero asks his best friend to rape a girl so she can be taught a lesson, my reaction was mostly surprise that it took that long.

In any case, the premise of Ai Ore! is that Mizuki is the “handsome prince” lead guitar player in an all-girls band, all of whom look very masculine and bishonen. They go to an all-girls school, where she’s the apple of all her fan’s eye. But then her best friend and lead singer moves to New York, and they need a new singer. Enter Akira, who has a great voice and looks like a cute teenage girl… except he’s a boy. And what’s more, he’s obsessed with Mizuki, and determined to make her fall for him. The trouble is that the naive Mizuki isn’t even sure what love *is*. She just knows that her chest hurts when she gets near him…

It has to be noted that the author is clearly writing this with her tongue firmly in her cheek. She knows what her teen Japanese readers want, and is giving it to them in spades. Mizuki is actually a rather interesting cross between your typical put-upon Shinjo heroine, a dense and clueless Hakusensha type, AND a handsome guy in the role of the “uke”. Aside from the occasional shots of Mizuki’s breasts or seeing her naked, this could be a BL manga – no doubt deliberately. As for Akira, he’s even more interesting. He’s trying to be the standard hero of these sorts of manga – I believe TV Tropes calls it the ‘Bastard Boyfriend’ type, i.e. “Sure he’s mean and callous and manipulative and forcing himself on me, but OH SO HOT.” The trouble is that he’s young, selfish, and immature, and therefore doesn’t really have the right tone. So we see him vacillate wildly between sweet little boy, manipulative seducer, and callous jerk. I’m actually rather interested to see if he manages to settle on one by the end of the series.

Honestly, there wasn’t anything that really irritated my sensibilities until the final scene, mostly as I was reading it with my “this is a Shinjo Mayu” switch turned on. The final scene is pretty horrible, though, with the lesbian seductress who attempted to sexually assault Mizuki a chapter or so earlier being “taught a lesson” by Akira and his best male friend (who has a crush on him, sort of). I’m not sure of the author will actually go through with it – I suspect not – but it’s a bad place for a cliffhanger, as it leaves a bad taste in your mouth that affects the entire volume. One might also ask why the strong and tall Mizuki always seems to be overpowered by various people whenever they attempt to seduce her, including the much smaller Akira, but hey…

In the end, this manga knows its audience, and the author knows how to line up current trends and her undoubted skill at shoujo smut to make an interesting story. Mizuki and Akira are different enough from the usual cliche that I want to know more about them – not just the crossdressing, but even their “true personalities” seem fluid and not set in stone, very appropriate for the teenagers they are. I’m not certain how much of this is meant to be comedic, as in a Butterflies, Flowers type, and how much is just the usual shoujo “he does it because he loves you” drama, as in Black Bird, but I’ll definitely give it another volume to find out. And anyone who was a fan of Black Bird, or Stepping on Roses, or Hot Gimmick, or even Sensual Phrase, the author’s other English-language title, should love this.

Kimi ni Todoke Volume 8

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By Karuho Shiina. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret (“Betsuma”). Released in North America by Viz.

Well, I didn’t really get what I wanted at the end of Volume 7. Kazehaya and Sawako are still misreading and frustrating me. Not just me either, as Yano is starting to be driven a little nuts by the whole thing. However, there’s a new guy on the cover, and this is really his volume, as Kento, who was introduced at the end of Vol. 7, makes a full appearance here, and hits the cast like a nuclear bomb.

Kento is, of course, the male rival that this series really did need, and the counterpart to Kurumi. But Kurumi was rather sneaky about her manipulation, projecting a facade of sweet young thing while working to get rumors spread… and yet strangely open with Sawako, who she always referred to by her correct name. Kento is, by contrast, very open and obvious about his manipulations, going right to the source and instilling doubt and confusion with no need for intermediaries. What’s more, I noticed that he refers to Sawako as ‘Sadako’ whenever he speaks to her, but when talking with others when she *isn’t* around, he uses her real name.

His conversation with Kazehaya is devastating to the latter, as Kento feels (whether this is true or just something he’s saying we don’t know yet) that Kazehaya is only interested in Sawako as she’s an ‘outsider’ and that Sawako is better off developing on her own rather than having to worry about jealous girls trying to sabotage her maturity. (Oh Kento, you’re a good 4 or 5 volumes too late.) What’s more, he notes – and Ryu and Chizu both later agree – that Kazehaya doesn’t understand Sawako at all, and that the two are quite far apart.

Kazehaya gets a lot of attention this volume, which is good, as he needed a crisis of some sort. We see him almost managing to work on a confession at the start of the book, after seeing Kento and Sawako bond so quickly, but then he chickens out, and later proves to be awkward around her. Sawako doesn’t really get it, but everyone else immediately notices the difference. Now he has to genuinely aalyse his feelings, which can be quite difficult for a high-school boy, even one as squeaky clean as Kazehaya.

Yano and Pin, as always, get the best moments in the manga in terms of figuring things out. Yano is particularly aggravated here, as the relationship between Sawako and Kazehaya, not exactly a fast-moving one to begin with, is now actually moving backwards thanks to Kento and Kazehaya’s own insecurities. As she notes to Chizu (who has now, as of Volume 8, finally realized that Kazehaya likes Sawako ‘that way’), she wants Sawako to be more confident in herself before they start dating, so that it doesn’t look as if he’s doing it because he feels sorry for her. Kazehaya becomes so paralyzed at this proposition (which Kento brought up) that it requires Pin to kick his ass into action. Pin noting that starting off knowing nothing about the other person is how ALL relationships are, of course – that’s WHY you get closer.

As for Sawako herself, despite being a bundle of nerves due to Kazehaya’s treating her differently (and a small mini-breakdown in front of Chizu and Yano), she is getting much better at dealing with others, though I’m not sure it translates into more confidence in herself, as she still hasn’t equated her actions and behaviors with actual good things, but it’s great to see. Kento *does* have great interaction with her, and it’s rather startling how quickly they bond – and what’s more, Kento’s direct ‘Do this, do that’ advice seems to be working better than Kazehaya’s mild positive reinforcement.

So we end with another cliffhanger, this time with Kazehaya going off to confront Kento and Sawako. Now, the sensible shoujo fans knows that Kento is not going to win the day here (it’s not even clear if he’s actually interested in her romantically), but the fun is in the journey, and I look forward to seeing if Kazehaya can throw off his doubts and step up his game.