Blue Exorcist Volume 1

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By Kazue Kato. Released in Japan as “Ao no Exorcist” by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Jump Square. Released in North America by Viz.

Sometimes it’s hard to start a series when it’s actually starting. This especially holds true for Jump series, which frequently take a few volumes to get off the ground (and sometimes completely change direction). If the series has gotten buzz, and there’s already 15 or so volumes out, you can slowly catch up one by one, and if a volume is slow or awkward, shrug it off because you know the good stuff is coming.

So I suspect it is with Volume 1 of Blue Exorcist, which, as a setup for a Jump series about a hot-blooded exorcist who’s also the son of Satan, is entirely… adequate. The first chapter slightly less so, as it reads very much like a pilot episode (Nura had the same problem with its first episode), and doesn’t really go anywhere unexpected – Father Fujimoto had ‘I am going to die tragically’ tattooed across his forehead from the moment he showed up. Luckily, things pep up right at the end with the introduction of Mephisto, who is a giant freakish freak of the sort I love to see in Jump series. His alternate form is possibly the funniest moment of the volume.

After we begin Volume 2, at the academy, things start to improve as the author takes pains to worldbuild. The Academy itself looks great – the two-page spread of its grounds it fantastic, and made me want to walk around in it. I likewise enjoyed the revelation about Rin’s brother, and look forward to seeing more of their interaction – so many anime fighting series have siblings either on opposite sides or one dies to protect the other. Luckily for Rin, he already has his designated tragedy, so he and his brother can continue to bond. The other major character we meet, Shiemi, is a sweet, nice, girl in the Orihime Inoue vein, though so far lacking the eccentric quirks that drew people to Hime. I hope we get more to draw on in the future.

Again, the trouble with first volumes is that we don’t get much of Rin wising up, learning, and getting more powerful. I’m not sure how much he’ll actually wise up – his character is pretty much a hothead by definition, and will no doubt be rushing into any battles with little analysis. But right now he seems to be there to be exposited to, as we learn more about the way that exorcism and demons work here. Which unfortunately makes him a bit dull right now. There’s a few cool action sequences, but…

So as a debut Blue Exorcist is okay, but I still wonder if I would enjoy it more if I’d waited till Volume 5 was out, and then read it all in one big gulp. I will check out Volume 2, however.

Manga the week of 4/20

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First off, my obligatory Tokyopop/Diamond rant. Most of this months’ titles shipped on time. 2 were on Diamond’s list this week, but my store (and Midtown) did not get them: Gakuen Alice 16 and V.B. Rose 12. Two are simply M.I.A.: The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko 2 and the Hetalia Axis Powers Postcard book. I suspect the last of those is genuinely delayed, as Amazon also doesn’t have it. But Amazon has had the others for 2 weeks now, so it’s a repeat of last month. And they aren’t coming next week either. I’m behind on Gakuen Alice anyway, but I’m Amazoning the other two, which means when Diamond gets off its arse and ships them via the direct market, I may do a contest giveaway.

Rant over, so what’s out next week? Quite a lot, actually. Breaking it down:

Bandai has a 3rd volume of Code Geass: Knight, the doujinshi anthology book marketed for young women with an emphasis on yaoi tease.

Digital Manga Publishing has a slew of things, including three shoujo titles from Mag Garden’s Comic Blade Avarus. The Beautiful Skies of Houou High in particular has a solicit that I suspect makes it sound more yuri than it is. There’s also a new Itakura Na Kiss, which surely must be getting near the point where the couple actually get together. Surely. Any volume now. On the yaoi front, there’s the 2nd volume of the late 1990s ‘Treasure’, and the second omnibus of Yellow 2, making it Yellow 2 2. Does that make sense?

Our long national nightmare is almost over, as Kodansha Comics releases the last of its fake new releases, the 6th volume of Akira. Like the previous 5, this is a straight up reprint of the old Dark Horse release. Next month will see the company actually release things that are NEW.

Finally appearing a mere 14 months after its solicitation in Previews is the 4th volume of Udon’s reprint of Silent Mobius, as they do their best Dark Horse imitation. Luckily, Udon’s reissue has been top notch, so us fans of the series should get a nice treat.

Viz has two new Ikki volumes, House of Five Leaves 3 for you Ono fans of not-really-yaoi-but-close-enough, and Kingyo Used Books for you really-you-read-this-for-the-characters? fans. There’s also March Story, with its Korean creator but Japanese magazine release, as it’s in Sunday Gene-X. And there’s a new 20th Century Boys, which is still chugging along.

And lastly, Yen Press has a new Black Butler, for those who were bored with seeing 1-4 in the NYT list and wanted a new volume to keep it company. New volumes of High School of the Dead and Omamori Himari remind us that even Yen Press is not above catering to the ‘harems and boobies’ school of manga, as typified by Dragon Age, the magazine they both run in. There’s a new twist in this month’s Higurashi: it’s the 2nd volume of an arc, but it’s not the end! The Eye-Opening Arc has not even begun to screw with your head yet, and is only at its halfway point here. Pandora Hearts not only runs in the same magazine as Black Butler, but also sells very well, possibly to the exact same demographic. Lastly, it’s the end of an era, as one of Yen’s first licenses, Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning, comes to the end with Volume 15. Congratulations to Yen on completing this shonen mystery series!

What interests you this week? It’s OK, you can admit it’s Omamori Himari, I won’t get mad. Much.

Clean-Freak Fully Equipped Volume 1

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By Touya Tobina. Released in Japan as “Keppeki Shounen Kanzen Soubi” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

In reading this short shoujo series, I noticed immediately a fair number of similarities to the also recently licensed Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko. Both start off with what is clearly meant to be a one-chapter story that wraps everything up, only to have to dial it back and send certain characters away in order to continue the basic premise when asked to make it a longer series. And both series have the love interest stick around, be it by gratuitous stalking (in Kanoko’s case), or by constant letter writing (in Clean-Freak’s case). And they’re both the same sort of fun, light-hearted and not entirely realistic shoujo comedy that we’ve come to expect from the folks at CMX… sorry, at Tokyopop. (I do wonder if the recently-departed Asako was responsible for licensing these two series, as they really do seem like CMX bait.)

That said, the protagonists in the two series differ quite a bit. Senda, the lead male and title character,l is a hypochondriac and has a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder, owing to a trauma he had when he was a boy. (To be honest, the trauma doesn’t seem too traumatic, but hey, whatever sets up your plot.) The humor of the volume lies in his over the top ways of protecting himself from anything that could possibly infect or interact with him, ranging from going on field trips wearing hazmat suits to a giant square “bubble boy” type environment that he walks around the school in. How much you enjoy this depends on how much you can suspend your disbelief – much of this borders on the ludicrous – but I found it fun after I was able to get into the author’s groove.

The supporting cast fall into the ‘introduce one new character every chapter’ cliche that typifies much of this genre. In the opening ‘one-shot’, we meet the super-cute Aiuchi, who is popular and outgoing and seems to like Senda and see beyond his off-putting exterior. In return, she really brings out the best in him, and helps us to realize that beyond his obsessed exterior is a nice guy with a strong moral code. They bond after he discovers she has motion sickness, and defends her from some boys “grossed out” by her throwing up on the bus, but then the author shunts her off to New York so that Senda can stop loosening up and we can have an actual plot. She’s still very much present throughout, though, both via letters (the pictures of her with various animals is hysterical – I presume she must visit the Bronx Zoo every day) and Senda’s thoughts (when asked to consider why he likes Auichi rather than, say, the girl throwing herself at him).

As for the others, Anzai is there to be Senda’s opposite, and is fun, even if his over the top antics can grate a bit. The backstory with his mother was quite serious, and I appreciate the fact that it wasn’t resolved neatly. Yumeno is the aforementioned girl from the previous paragraph, who also sees beyond Senda’s exterior to the real person within, but is more pushy about it, and has the basic problem of showing up after he’s started crushing on Aiuchi. Sotsugu probably gets the least development here, being an animal lover, but maybe he’ll have more to do in the next volume. All three of them serve the same basic purpose, which is giving Senda a reason to start interacting more with the world and stop living in his own sterile environment.

There’s a one-shot at the end, the author’s debut which ran in The Hana to Yume a year earlier, but it’s really pretty bad. It does serve to show that her art has improved, at least, though it’s not terrific. But the series is fun, and at only two volumes it’s not that much of a time sink. No doubt Volume 2 will see Auichi’s return from New York, and hopefully will wrap things up with a nice sweet bow while leaving the main reason to get this title, which is watching Senda’s amusingly over the top freakiness.