Vampire Knight Volume 11

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By Matsuri Hino. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine LaLa. Released in North America by Viz.

First of all, it needs to be said: Matsuri Hino draws some of the least menacing vampires ever. Look at the cover for this volume, which features Zero hovering over Yuki with a stake. It’s meant to be menacing, dangerously sexy, showing their hot tormented passions! So why are they both looking at the reader going “Um… is this OK? Are we vampirey enough? Also, nice timing with the blue roses so that you don’t actually see my cleavage. That was really excellent.” So it’s more sort of a lukewarm pretty sort of sexy.

That goes for the volume as a whole, where we keep hearing menacing threats about the true darkness of vampires, but actually see very little of it. Much of the fault of that is that this is a cooldown volume after the last battle, as well as a timeskip – one year passes mid-volume. This means everyone is regrouping and biding their time, and the battles in this book are almost all emotional and psychological rather than physical. Yuki in particular suffers from this – when she isn’t able to get out there with her scythe and kick ass, her passivity kicks in. Her relationship with Kaname in particular would be creepy even WITHOUT the incestuous tone to it, mostly due to the power games and vampire lore that envelop the whole thing.

It was very nice to see Sayori still taking part in all of this, despite Yuki leaving school. Her actions at the end of the volume certainly show her devotion to her best friend, if not necessarily her good sense. In a volume where almost everyone in the cast is a hot male vampire of some sort, it’s nice to see the bond between the two girls is still strong. At least, it will be nice to see it provided Sayori doesn’t get slaughtered at the start of the next volume, but I’m not expecting that.

The main issue I have with this series is that it remains very hard to tell what is going on, and also very hard at times to tell who is who. Viz helpfully provides the pictures and cast list at the end of every volume, but that should not be required reading. I realize that a series that comes out as infrequently as VK (it’s caught up with Japan, mostly) might cause me to have some memory lapses, but I don’t seem to have this issue with Ouran or Skip Beat. Vampire Knight makes me feel I have to re-read the whole series before I start the new volume, as a refresher course.

That said, at the end of the day I do still enjoy this series, even if I’m not quite sure why. I’ve never read or seen Twilight, but I imagine there must be similarities. The series has weak plotting and character differentiation, but the style of the manga is quite strong, and it manages to draw you in and keep you wanting to guess. It’s also quite well paced, which is a surprise for a volume like this one where very little action happens. But in the end, I’m STILL not entirely sure why I enjoy Vampire Knight. I just do. If only more series had this sort of primal effect.

I Am Here! Volume 1

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By Ema Toyama. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Del Rey.

Another omnibus volume from Del Rey, though this one at least looks like it was designed that way deliberately. We’re seeing a few of these 5-volume series being released here in Volumes of 3 and 2 – Yen Press is doing this with Dragon Girl and Sasameke – and certainly it makes more financial sense. And, thankfully, we now at least know it won’t be abandoned halfway. Kodansha USA is listing the 2nd and final volume for July of 2011.

As for the volume itself, I was sort of reminded as I read it of Fairy Tail. Now, it has absolutely nothing to do with Fairy Tail itself. But much as I imagined Kodansha telling Hiro Mashima to go draw a clone of One Piece that will get the same audience and (hopefully) the same sales numbers, it’s very hard to read this volume, and its heroine, without thinking of Sawako from Kimi Ni Todoke. Whereas Sawako had the ‘Ringu’ effect going for her, Sumino here is merely invisible to others. Not in a Translucent sort of way, just in the normal teenage girl ‘I don’t stick out or speak very well, so I get ignored or disregarded’ sense. Luckily, this being shoujo manga, she has some allies. The hot boy in school turns out to have been watching her – and falling for her – all along, and she also has two commentors on her blog, which is how she has most of her daily interaction. Were this an actual blog in real life, no doubt she would be dealing with ‘tits or gtfo’ posts. Instead, her two online friends offer sensible (if sometimes differing) advice.

The plot itself is fairly generic, with one premise that I’ve grown very weary of (all the girls in school hate me, but at least I can lean on my hot guy friends). As with most manga in this genre, the hero is a bit too perfect – I prefer his snarkier friend, whose advice to Sumino tends to be less affirming and more practical. That said, the heroine is certainly likeable, and you do root for her to succeed. I was also interested in the main ‘bully girl’ character in this volume. She gets her comeuppance towards the end, as her fellow girls abandon her when she gets more and more strident – but the page focuses on her briefly as she runs off, seeing her frustration and self-loathing. That was nice.

The art is both quite good and very bad. The character designs are cookie-cutter, and worst of all tend to vary – the hero in particular can look different from one panel to the next, and the only way we can tell him apart from his best friend is that one is blond. On the other hand, the general layouts are a lot more professional, and the artist clearly has an idea of what makes a striking image. With the focus of the volume being the distance Sumino feels from her classmates, seeing the group of girls in a half-circle as they realize that Hinata is paying attention to her is striking and doom-laden, and makes good use of a two-page spread. We see this again and again throughout the first hal;f of the book, as various girls surround Sumino, giving off a crushing vibe. Then, in the scene where Sumino stands up to the bully, we suddenly see these same girls gathering around Sumino to confront the bully. Suddenly Sumino is WITHIN the half-circle – and it’s a warm, life-affirming feeling. I like seeing that sort of thing in a manga. If only the characters themselves didn’t look so generic.

In the end, this is a good but not great manga. It’s good enough that I’ll get Volume 2 to see how it ends, but it’s certainly no Kimi ni Todoke. Just a normal story of a shy invisible girl who’s gradually learning to come out of her shell and find love.

Manga the week of 1/5

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Believe it or not, for a first week of the month, it’s pretty quiet. Which is somewhat of a relief after all those Tokyopop releases last week. But Viz has scaled back and postponed some releases, so we don’t have quite as much as usual from them.

But first, Bandai comes out with the final Volume of Gundam 00 2nd Season, which is, naturally, totally distinct from Gundam 00F, which I believe may still be ongoing. And Dark Horse comes out with two titles at the complete opposite end of every demographic spectrum: the T&A; violence of Gantz (from Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump), and the horror with shonen ai overtones of Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse (which ran in Kadokawa’s shoujo magazine, Asuka).

As for Viz, a couple of their titles are also coming to an end, including one of the original Shonen Jump titles, Shaman King, which ends this week at Vol. 32. There’s also Prince of Tennis, which has hit Vol. 40 and is still going. Not much longer now, though, it wraps up at Vol. 42, provided Viz don’t pick up the sequel which just started. There’s also Eyeshield 21, which has 3 more volumes to go after this one. Given One Piece and Gin Tama (and Claymore, whose Vol. 17 is also out this week) are still piling up volumes with no end in sight, Viz must be relieved to see some of the lower-selling but long running series come to an end.

In shoujo news, we get new volumes of Natsume’s Book of Friends and Stepping on Roses (I’m hoping for more awesome shogi action in the latter, though I expect I’ll merely get more passive heroine mooning over jerk), and the final volume of Sand Chronicles, which ended its main storyline back 2 volumes ago but has added some side stories here rather than interspersed throughout as I’m more used to with shoujo.

Lastly, Viz lists the 2nd volume of Kurozakuro as coming out the week after next, but Midtown has it shipping on 1/5. Well, there had to be something different in this week’s comparison of Midtown and Diamond – there always is. Anyway, buy this title, or the character on the cover will leap out and rip your throat out with his razor-sharp teeth. I think.