V.B. Rose Volume 12

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By Banri Hidaka. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

Another bittersweet post, as I rave about another Banri Hidaka series that will likely never be finished in North America. Tokyopop is dead, and so, like I Hate You More Than Anyone!, we’re locked out again from knowing the outcome of a wonderfully fun fluffy shoujo series. Ironically, Kazuha makes another cameo appearance in this volume, and I can imagine her consoling Ageha, saying that she knows the pain of having an American company collapse and leave readers hanging.

Luckily, I have copies of the last two volumes in Japanese. I’d gotten them long ago in order to spoil myself about the ending, as, well, that’s the sort of reader I am. Still can’t read Japanese, but I can make educated guesses about things based on the art. So, at the end of the review, I’ll give a quick summary of what comes after.

This particular volume resolves the long-standing tension between Mitsuya and Tsuyu. As we guessed from Vol. 11’s lame cliffhanger, Mitsuya is home sick, having caught a bad cold. This allows him to sleep and dream even more flashbacks about his past. Luckily these are the last ones, as this series has been particularly flashback-drenched, a habit of Banri Hidaka’s works. We see a younger, less evil Mitsuya falling for Tsuyu right off the bat, and the devastation that hits him when she breaks up with him and leaves. This in turn leads him to harden his heart, and to a certain extent to his current personality. This is unfortunate, as when Tsuyu returns, Mitsuya reacts like “a little boy”, as Ageha noted, making her feel extreme guilt and torturing her with it in order to keep her mind on him.

Fortunately, his fevered flashbacks are interrupted by the actual Tsuyu, who shows up after a call from Yukari, who notes that they need to sort things out by themselves but he’ll give them “a little push”. What follows is a short bit of awkward, followed by Mitsuya finally snapping. Yukari is quite clever here – Mitsuya with a high fever is far more open and vulnerable then he would ever let himself be when he’s well, and this allows him to be blunt and direct to Tsuyu. It’s my favorite scene in the volume, as he finally just says what he thinks about the arranged marriage meeting: “Why would you do that to me? Do you want to see me run around in circles again? Don’t leave me… I’ve always loved you.”

Tsuyu, of course, doesn’t really want to do this, but she’s so shy and passive she’s lost the ability to tell people no (possibly as the one time she did so was the worst moment of her life). Luckily, Mitsuya’s reassurances, and a few hot kisses (seriously hot… the kissing between these two in this scene is really sexy!), she returns his love, and he now feels confident enough to come up with a plan to sabotage the arranged marriage.

That’s right, the second half of the volume is a ‘caper film’. Yes, you could argue that she COULD simply announce to her father and aunt that she’s actually in love with Mitsuya, given they seemed to arrange this for her own benefit rather than any malice, but where’s the fun in that? The fun is in seeing Mitsuya be EVIL! So once they’ve recovered from their colds (you kiss like that, you’re bound to catch a cold, Tsuyu-chan…) and break the news to Ageha and Yukari. Ageha’s reactions are hilarious – she’s still the funniest part of the series, and there’s lots of cute art here showing her hyperactive joy at the news. (Well, OK, the funniest part was Kana’s text message reacting to the news. Oh Kana, never change…)

And so Mitsuya announces his plans to sabotage the meeting, and enlists Ageha an Yukari to help… by manipulation and guilt tripping. Yes, in case you worried he’s straighten up and be nice, fear not. Admittedly, it helps that the guy that Tsuyu is meeting seems to be pure scum, so we’re allowed to cheer as they ruin everything. There’s disguises, there’s secret documents, there’s Yukari dressed as a woman, anjd there’s Mitsuya and Tsuyu together and happy at the end… and her father and aunt are OK with it. Yay!

…and that’s the end of the series here in North America, 2 volumes short. Volume 13 consists mainly of Ageha, after a Mitsuya-centric 12. Mitsuru and Tsuyu are getting married, and Ageha wants to be a part of all the prep, but her grades were pretty bad last midterm, something noted by her teacher. Given her teacher is Saki Sugimoto from I Hate You More Than Anyone, and he’s still pure evil (probably best that he and Mitsuya don’t meet…), this is not going to fly, and she’s banned from the shop while her grades improve. This, of course, also leads to another fight with Yukari. So Ageha frets, and panics, and has discussions with Mamoru and Nagare, and her head falls off and floats away at one point. No, really. Hidaka-san loves her ‘breaks from reality’. And finally she and Yukari make up.

So with Vol. 14 we get the wedding… which is traditional Japanese. Aheh. So much for V.B. Rose. There’s lots of prep anyway, though, and it has to be said that Mitsuya and Tsuyu look like they SHOULD have a Japanese wedding – Tsuyu is the very definition of a Japanese doll, and looks fantastic in her wedding kimono. Also, at some point, Yukari dresses up as a woman AGAIN – by now I think it’s become clear that Hidaka-san knows what her readers like. Shizuya is at the wedding as well, by the way, and though he’s jealous of his big brother being “taken” from him, he eventually accepts Tsuyu. Then Yukari and Ageha spring a surprise on the couple as they’re about to leave for their honeymoon – a mock Western wedding, complete with dress by Yukari, accessories by Kana, and bag by Ageha. (I was amused at the dress, which is, for a wedding dress, almost a miniskirt – it doesn’t even hit the floor!)

Then we get the final chapter, which takes place 4 years later. The majority of it is shot from ‘camera-eye-view’ – Ageha is recording a movie, and everyone gets to do a ‘where are they now’ 2 or 3 page bit. Mitsuya and Tsuyu are happily married with two kids, 4 and 2. Mamoru is in college, and still torturing Shizuya – presumably they’re officially a couple by now. Nagare is still trying to get over Ageha, and in his final year of high school. Shizuya is angry,and frustrated, and shouting at the world – no changes there. Rei is fine, and looking more like his sister than ever before. Speaking of whom, we also see Kazuha and Maki, with their daughter. Sadly, it would seem Maki is still being teased and tortured by his half-brother Saki – Kazuha advises those who are confused to go find copies of I Hate You More Than Anyone 1-13. Ageha’s sister and her husband are also fine. Ririko is preparing Sakura, Yukari’s brother, for grade school. Sekiguchi is, um, still trying to seduce every woman he runs across. We see Kana doing some work on accessories, and she seems as happy as she’s ever going to get. And finally, we see Yukari and Ageha walking down the aisle, with Ageha in a V.B. Rose creation. (This one has a 15-foot-long train *and* a miniskirt look. But I like the hat.)

And that’s it! Happy endings for all! Well, did you expect anything else? I really wish we had seen this finished here, and worry that future Banri Hidaka projects may not be licensed due to the two incomplete series (it doesn’t help that her current project is a next-gen sequel to I Hate You More Than Anyone…). But I’m very happy with what we did get, and thank Tokyopop for its attention to this marvelously cute shoujo series.

Lychee Light Club

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By Usamaru Furuya. Released in Japan by Ohta Shuppan, serialized in the magazine Manga Erotics F. Released in North America by Vertical.

It really has to be said, this is not the sort of manga that I would have bought and read were I not a huge Furuya fan. It’s based off of a play by the performance group Tokyo Grand Guignol, and certainly there are many images throughout the manga I would qualify as exactly that – gore so lovingly depicted that it almost transcends and becomes art. But of course it *is* a Furuya title, which means that I get even more out of it – fantastic drawings, and a plot that had more depth than I was expecting.

I’ll be honest, I was thinking that the manga would start slow and build up to a horror-filled climax. Which is why I was particularly startled by the first chapter, which drops you into a very disturbing club meeting where the club has been discovered and the trespassers must be dealt with. It’s matter of fact about its nudity and violence (just as it is later on with its sexual content), and shows you exactly what we’re dealing with when it comes to the club’s leader, the neo-fascist Zera.

This is not exactly a realistic setting. Murders, rapes and abductions are carried out and no one in the outside world seems to notice or care. Vertical noted it as being a modern-day Lord of the Flies, but in this case the outside world IS just a short walk away – it’s just no one notices or cares. To girls from another school passing by, the kids are creepy, but that’s about it. Even the deaths of the club members, one by one, are done an an over the top, histrionic way. This is probably why I found the most disturbing image in the manga to be one of the more realistic – the violation of Tamiya’s sister, halfway through the book.

The boys themselves are all various degrees of creepy – some are more noble than others, and find their inner consciences, but let’s remember that they all were involved with butchering a woman in the first chapter. That said, I liked the plotting and counter-plotting, here literally represented by a game of chess, as well as Zera’s constant paranoia about who will end up betraying him – I was actually surprised at who the real villain actually was, mostly as Zera’s paranoia was so overdone I assumed that he was incorrect and that no one was betraying him at all. And all that said, some of the boys, particularly Tamiya and Dentaku, have some fantastic scenes where they man up and realize that they have to stop Zera.

Throughout all this, I feel I should note, the boys have also built a giant robot that runs on lychee fruit. It sounds completely ridiculous, but if you take this world as being as unrealistic as it is, Lychee starts to fit right in. His own plotline with Kanon, a girl who looks as if she stepped off the page of Furuya’s 4-koma manga Short Cuts, is absolutely fantastic, and helped me to finish the book. While watching the Light Club slowly have their numbers ebb away in grotesque fashion can be fun to read about, Lychee and Kanon’s plot is quiet, sweet, and gives a balance that helps the other scenes have more impact when they do arrive.

I had read another review of this title, which noted that the ending was heavy handed and moralizing. I’m not sure I agree, and even if it was I’m pretty sure that was the point. Here, in the middle of a group of young boys who glory in killing, rape and mutilation, is their creation being taught that it is wrong. The club sends Lychee out to find a pretty girl for them to moon over, and he keeps getting it wrong until one of them inputs new data into him – it has Lychee think “I am human”. From then on, Lychee’s destiny is set. In the end, Lychee proves more human than the megalomaniac Zera, who even dies thinking about his own ridiculous standards of beauty. As for Lychee, he may have killed, but he knows that it is wrong and requests forgiveness.

Honestly, I could go on for a while. We barely get into the actual background of the boys, something that I believe Furuya is now doing in an online ‘prequel’ running in Japan. I’m actually glad it was such a short flashback here, as I think it would have distracted from the overall thrust of the story, which has a breathless pace. Make no mistake about it, this is a book filled with sadism, horrific violence and sexual situations, and depraved behavior. But it has a human heart in its Frankenstein-esque robot, and what I’ll take from it is not the scenes of people being cut open and smashed to bits, but Kanon singing a hymn and playing the organ surrounded by their corpses, and then simply walking away. More manga as thought-provoking as this, please.

The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko Volume 2

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By Ririko Tsujita. Released in Japan as “Warau Kanoko-sama” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa DX. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

This volume didn’t wow me quite as much as the first one, but that’s more because I now know the characters and the basic themes. It’s still a lot of fun, and as always the main reason for reading this series seems to be watching Kanoko snark at people, and Tsubaki stalk her.

The first chapter was probably the weakest, dealing with two rival girls each trying to get the attention of a guy. I liked the mention of putting on a ‘fake personality’, and how everyone does this a little bit and that it’s not always bad. On the whole though, this part didn’t gel for me. It was followed by a second chapter that was excellent, dealing with a boy who can’t escape the shadow of his classmate… or rather, doesn’t really want to. Discussing playing it safe versus taking a chance is always great, and is why this is a great series for teenagers – it seems to give desperately needed life lessons naturally. The chapter also gave us an overly perky teacher who turns out to be far more than what she seems. It’s nice to see Kanoko actually impressed.

The longest chapter in the book is also the best, mostly as it gets out of the school classroom. They’re filming a movie near Kanoko’s current home (which is, I think, the first indication I got that her parents are actually constantly moving, as opposed to her just transferring all over the country for the hell of it.) Of course, rival actresses have a whole different set of issues from rival students, and Kanoko is glorying in playing her observation card. Naturally, Tsubaki is there as well, on a vacation (funny how that always works out – Kanoko is incredibly clueless about herself as always), and things actually take a turn for the serious here, as someone is trying to kill one of the actresses. Kanoko gets to play detective here, and ends up being pretty good at it. The best part, though, is seeing her talk Tsubaki into their sharing a room together so she can keep investigating, and his noting that it means “she isn’t interested in me as a man”. Given he’s walking around the bedroom shirtless, it truly does boggle the mind.

The last Kanoko chapter of the book involves a boy who can’t get out of the shadow of his older brother, and an overly optimistic girl who enjoys “making up fantasies” about people to cheer them up (well, more accurately, to cheer herself up.) That’s her on the cover, horrifying Kanoko and Tsubaki with her re-imagining the series as a reverse harem. Fantastic cover, by the way. Yumemi actually turns out to be the star of this chapter, and manages to save the day with a little help from Kanoko. And once again we find Kanoko having her own advice turned back on herself, as she keeps trying to convince herself that she’s an outside observer.

There’s a short story at the end of this that is unrelated, but proved better than I’d expected. It was Tsujita’s debut comic for LaLa DX, and has a girl who has difficulty showing her emotions trying to figure out why her boyfriend, who wears his heart on his sleeve, broke up with her. Understated and cute, it’s easy to see from this why she was picked up as a regular artist.

Sadly, this is likely it for Kanoko. We’re not sure if Tokyopop’s titles will be license rescued or what happens to them, but I’m going to assume we won’t see the last volume of this until told otherwise. I have the 3rd volume in Japanese, and from what I can gather it gets into what the heck her parents do that has them moving so often, and somewhat resolves her relationship with Tsubaki and her other two friends from his school. It’s somewhat open-ended, but that’s OK, as we now have the ongoing adventures of Kanoko and Tsubaki in high school (along with a few of the one-shot characters from Kanoko-sama, including Yumemi from this volume), Koi Dano Ai Dano, which is currently running in LaLa DX. It’s a shame this was cancelled, as it’s a fantastic series for young teens, even with the overly busy art that’s typical of Hakusensha.