Manga the week of 1/12

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A very quiet Week 2 of the month here. Usually Week 2 is where we get a pile of Del Rey from Diamond, but of course we now have to wait till May for the ‘reborn as Kodansha’ titles to come out. And I’d hoped for some Yen, but I guess I wait till next week on that.

So it’s just Viz, but there are several notable entries. The biggie here is that Volume 56 is the final volume of Inu Yasha, which Viz has now been releasing for over 12 years. Of course, they’re still doing the VIZBIG omnibuses, and we still have Rin-Ne, but it just won’t be the same without it. There is also a 2nd omnibus of the awesome Cross Game, which is now down to 2-in-1 volumes. This therefore covers the Japanese Vol. 4 & 5.

There’s plenty more Shonen Sunday stuff as well, with the penultimate Yakitate!! Japan, new Kekkaishi (which I know little of, but which is big enough to get an omnibus release from Viz this summer), as well as new Hyde & Closer and Case Closed (is he still Jimmy? I suppose Viz can’t quietly make him Conan now after all this time…)

And lastly we have the one non-Sunday release, Vol. 14 of Battle Angel Alita: Last Order. Now, Shueisha did release Vol. 15 in Japan, so it’s likely that Viz will put that one out. After that, though, there was a big fuss over reprints that rewrote old dialogue, and the artist left Shueisha entirely, and will be continuing the series in Kodansha’s Evening magazine. What this means for the books over here is, I suppose, something that only the contract writers at Viz know for sure. Hopefully the series will not go the way of Zatch Bell, canceled over in North America due to contracts and bad feelings (and, admittedly, possibly due to mediocre sales).

Aria Volume 6

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By Kozue Amano. Released in Japan by Mag Garden, serialized in the magazine Comic Blade. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

This is the first volume of Aria I’ve gotten to review here on my blog, which given I began in December 2009 should tell you something. Aria is one of those manga series beloved by bloggers and no one else, which always gets great word of mouth but somehow translates into low sales. Companies HATE these titles, mostly as the online folks won’t stop going on about how awesome it would be if they were picked up, and how it would totally find an audience. (The number of Signature books from Viz on the NYT list speaks for itself.) And Aria is doubly special, as it’s actually a license RESCUE – it had originally been put out by ADV Manga, who folded after 3 volumes.

And so Aria, which is 12 volumes total, seems to be down to one volume a year, meaning we should see the ending in 2017. It’s a long, leisurely pace that urges us to take a closer, longer look at each volume, and learn to appreciate what is in front of us. Much like the manga itself, in fact. As readers of Aria know, this is not a manga packed with action and madcap chase scenes. This is about relaxation, and short slices of life in a Venice that just happens to reside in the future on a different planet.

There’s a lot to like in this volume, though not much of it translates into things I can easily talk about in a review. Manga like this are difficult to analyze, as so much of it has to be experienced by the reader. Calling Chapter 30 a big parody of Galaxy Express 999 (which it is – President Aria even dresses like Maetel) misses the entire point of the evocative winter’s night mood of the piece, as well as Akari once again interacting with the World Of Cats that only she seems to be able to connect to. Likewise, looked at dispassionately, the chapter with Akari meeting the glassmakers can be somewhat twee, another example of Akari’s pure awesomeness managing to drown out even the grumpiest of voices. But it isn’t dispassionate, of course – this is a manga to get emotionally involved in, so much that when Akari comes out with what should be a hideous cliche, we grin from ear to ear.

My favorite chapter of the volume featured Alice, the somewhat emotionless girl of Akari’s power trio, and her encounter with a tiny, eccentric kitten. Everything just clicks here, from Aika’s wild fantasies stirring Alice’s imagination, to Athena’s deadpan expressions making Alice even more paranoid (every single in the manga has a sempai who is very similar to them, and Alice is no exception – Athena is even harder to read than she is.) Best of all is Alice’s despair when abandoning the kitten, and later frantic search for it. It’s filled with raw emotion, but for all that, we still don’t actually see Alice cry. We’re waiting for the tears, but they don’t appear – they’re only implied in shots from far away. It’s an excellent stylistic choice.

There’s also the omake chapter, which is one of those things that is startling when you first read it, but afterwards just seems too short and one-note. That said, this is the most terrifying Akatsuki you will see in the entirety of the series.

In the end, this was a good volume of Aria. Lots of Akari being sweet, and some nice development of Athena, who we only just met last time. We’re now halfway through Aria, and I find that I don’t really mind the pace Tokyopop is putting it out – as long as they keep doing it, I’ll be happy to spend the time with Akari and company whenever they stop by.

Happy Cafe Volume 6

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By Kou Matsuzuki. Released in Japan as “Shiawase Kissa Sanchoume” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

Looking back on previous reviews of this series, I see that I accidentally forgot to review Vols. 3 and 5. But hey, that’s sort of the way it goes. Happy Cafe isn’t bad at all, but it is painfully average. The romance, such as it is, is crawling along at a snail’s pace, and our heroine, Uru, hasn’t really had too many life-changing experiences yet. As a result, we’re left with cute slice-of-life baking comedy, which is cute, but that’s about it.

There are a few things about this volume that stood out for me. First off, the second half takes place in Uru’s school. Given this is a rare high school manga where the heroine is mostly seen outside of it, this manages to come across as refreshing. It’s especially interesting seeing Uru bouncing off a different set of friends – she’s a bit more savvy and less clueless when dealing with the difficulties of classmates and culture festivals. And yes, we get another culture festival here, of course – it’ll be a good excuse to get the lead guys to the school in Volume 6.

Secondly, Uru and Shindo’s relationship proceeds at a crawl despite everyone’s best efforts. Both the boss and Mitsuka seem to regard it as inevitable (though with different feelings about such a thing), and work to make Uru’s ‘cake research’ with Shindo into a date. Which it would be, were Shindo not still in denial, and Uru still not completely clueless. To make up for this, two of Uru’s classmates are clearly in love but avoiding each other, mostly due to class separation and the girl’s mother. Naturally, Uru will be doing everything she can to fix this – it’s the right of every clueless shoujo heroine to fix all romances but their own.

The last reason to enjoy Happy Cafe is the random humor thrown in. Not necessarily the written gags – most of the best bits in this volume are the ones that are pure art. I loved where Shindo was briefly imagining Uru dressed in the nice outfit she wore on their ‘research date’, then punching the image in half when the real Uru actually arrives. Likewise, the artist has a way of drawing comedically dense expressions and mining them for humor. Oh yes, and even though it probably wasn’t a dig at otaku culture, I loved the bit in the imaginary wedding between Uru and Ichiro where the caption notes ‘we promise she isn’t pregnant!’.

Really, though, a lot of this volume is simply adequate. Even the flashback to Ichiro’s school life, meant to give him a backstory and some depth, feels perfunctory – we never really get the sudden change in personality he exhibits, the way that we get Mitsuya’s lack of purpose and sudden discovery of it in V.B. Rose 11. Happy Cafe isn’t a bad series, but it doesn’t reach out and grab you like a lot of Hana to Yume stuff. Still, the volume made me interested in what will happen at the festival, so I’ll pick up 7 to see what happens. It’s 15 volumes total, so there’s a lot still to go.