Gatcha Gacha Volume 3

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By Yutaka Tachibana. Released in Japan by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Melody. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

First off, it has to be said, this volume has offensive gay stereotypes. The gay male stalker type who likes to molest young boys? Is here. The insane psycho lesbian who will crush anyone in order to have no one else but her sister? Is here. The latter is handled better than the former, but neither are handled with what you’d call grace. The author even notes in a sidebar that she’ll get angry letters saying she doesn’t understand gays, and admits she does not.

That having been said, this is overall a good volume of Gatcha Gacha. The author has now realized that Yuri is not the reason anyone reads this, and though Yuri is still our ‘viewpoint’ character, much of the focus is now on Motoko and her screwed-up life. That said, Yuri is a very important part of this volume. Yabe is continuing to try to push her away at the start, and notes that her love is too “heavy”. Unfortunately, that awkwardly translated word is exactly what all her other boyfriends used when they broke up with her, so it sends her into a spiral of depression.

Yabe, of course, is still trying to deal with Kanako’s death. Seeing how awesome he was in the past, especially through the eyes of one of his kendo counterparts, really drives home the fact that he’s been unable to deal with anything since her death. Surprisingly, though, he seems to finally appreciate Yuri for who she is (Yuri getting hit by a truck and living might have helped a bit) and is ready to confess. Motoko being Motoko, she demands that he confess at her mansion, convinced Yabe won’t be able to handle the traumatic memories.

Which we finally get to see, in a flashback to some of Motoko and Yabe’s past. This is the best part of the volume, with some fantastic turns of phrases, and some nice subtlety. We first meet Motoko as a short-haired gangly tomboy, trying to defend her sickly half-sister against… well, against herself, really, as Kanako’s jealousy is even now a major issue. We also see that she and Yabe have been friends since childhood, and that Yabe, upon meeting Kanako, instantly falls in love with her. Sadly, Kanako only has eyes for Motoko. We flash forward a bit, and see Motoko growing her hair longer. She says she just felt like it, but the implication is that she’s trying to fend off Kanako’s incestuous tendencies. (Wearing t-shirts that say ‘Juicy American Princess’ is not helping much, IMO.)

Things come to a head when Kanako sleeps with Yabe, so that she can drive him away from Motoko and Kanako has her all to herself. This is a chilling scene, with Kanako bluntly telling her sister that she doesn’t care if Yabe lives or dies.

Something inside Kanako had shattered. And when it did, the broken, razor-sharp shards exploded from her and cut into everyone around her.

We then end by seeing, with a little more detail, the scene implied in Volume 1. Kanako running off in the snow, Motoko angrily looking all over for her, and finding her crumpled on the sidewalk. So now Yuri knows the truth, and what’s more, she and Yabe are finally a couple. The end!… wait, no, there’s 5 more volumes to go. What’s missing?

Well, I suppose I could mention Hirao. It has to be said that the guys in this manga do not fare nearly as well as the girls. Yabe is a slacker who can’t let go, and even now looks to be getting together with Yuri so he can try to blot out his past with Kanako. And Hirao is still pretty pathetic. Yelling at Yabe for making Yuri sad is not the same as telling Yuri your actual feelings, even if life is conspiring against you every time you do. He gets a bit better later, but the love triangle of him, Yuri, and Yabe is still a bit malformed.

It’s also worth noting that Motoko’s grandfather attempts to tell his own version of “the truth”, and tells Yuri that Kanako and Motoko had different mothers, and that her father abandoned Kanako. Luckily, Motoko arries to leap in here, pointing out that her parents wanted to have Kanako as well, but the grandfather refused to let her go, using her medical bills as an excuse. Ah, family drama. I know all about that myself.

Oh yes, and Sekine turns out to be a cute l’il bishie when he takes his huge glasses off. Who here’s surprised? The first chapter is the closest we get to comedy here, proving that Motoko can take a baseball bat to the head and get right back up (albeit with severe bleeding).

It’s a good volume, with a couple of exceptions, and one has to wonder where they can take this now that we have all of Motoko’s backstory… wait, what’s this? The preview for Volume 4 notes that they meet a girl who looks exactly like Kanako? Oh dear! Could it be that we STILL don’t know the whole truth? Stay tuned for the next volume of this pretzel-like series!

One Piece Volume 48

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By Eiichiro Oda. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Released in North America by Viz.

As the last volume featured our heroes getting their asses kicked to a large degree, it seems fitting that this volume should show them getting a bit of their own back, as Zoro, Sanji and Usopp all have big epic fights, and Robin and Chopper have a lesser but still satisfying fight.

When this was first coming out a couple years ago, I was irritated with what he’d done with Nami in this arc, and I still am to a degree. Oda has rarely had to resort to ‘helpless woman being rescued by big strong man’ plots in the past. You can argue there was a certain amount of that in Enies Lobby, but that was Robin’s own choice, and once she stopped wishing for death, we saw several scenes of her fighting against captivity. But Nami, though this volume, is unconscious. You could replace her with a doll for all the difference it makes.

And I admit it doesn’t help that I find Sanji’s perverse ‘chivalry’ grating, especially when we see it combined with his perversity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, comedy Sanji talking about women does nothing but annoy me. We’ve frequently seen him be serious and clever, especially when women aren’t involved, so seeing him this obsessed over losing the fruit that could let him see women showering naked is not that fun for me.

As a side note, this volume came out in Weekly Shonen Jump at about the same time that another gag manga, Bobobobo-bobobo, was ending. Oda, it seems to me, pays tribute to its style throughout here, notably with the zombies watching Sanji and Absalom. The Zombie Generals, throughout the fight, react in surprise with bugged-out eyes to various things. “Where did the bazookas come from?!?!” “His anger is totally misplaced!” This is very much a Bobobo trademark, usually with Beauty reacting to her companions’ stupidity. It’s nice to see such a subtle shout-out.

Meanwhile, Zoro has found the swordsman who has Brook’s shadow. And, coincidentally enough, a kick-ass sword. Since Zoro has just lost a sword in the prior arc, this is very convenient. What follows is one of the more normal battles in the volume, as generally Zoro fights don’t get as silly as others might. And Chopper and Robin fight against Hogback and Cindry, giving us some suggestions that Zombies and their personalities might not be as cut and dry as we once thought. It’s nice seeing Chopper fight the battle with moral sense as much as physical strength. And Cindry’s final smile was both fantastic and chilling.

And then there’s Usopp. Oh, Usopp, I love you. Back at the start of the volume, half the gang runs into Perona and her ghosts, and they fall easy prey to the depressing thoughts that accompany them. But not Usopp… he’s made of stronger stuff! Negative Hollows can’t affect a man who’s already negative! (Perona’s face, a callback to Eneru’s in Skypeia, is a stitch.) So he goes off to battle Perona, only to find she has more tricks up her sleeve than he’d thought. (Another quick note: despite Perona being a goth loli, and Oda giving us increasing fanservice for Nami and Robin, when we see giant Perona squatting in the castle, we get no panty shots whatsoever. I am grateful.)

So Usopp is now dealing with a seemingly unkillable woman. Oda briefly fakes us out by having Usopp call on Sniper King to help him (and donning the mask), but that’s just to run away for a bit. The real battle is won by Usopp himself, who is clever enough to realize something’s up with Perona’s confidence, tricky enough to miscall his attacks (oh, if only more manga heroes did this), and badass enough to use the dials in just the right way. Defeating Perona by a combination of sticky goop, fake roaches, and a balloon hammer. And yet it’s so awesome that you jump into the air along with him when it’s done.

And so, having won their minor battles, our heroes now have to face up against Oars. Who is huge, and has Luffy’s shadow. Yeah, they’re crushed badly. Only Luffy can save them now! But we’ll have to wait for June to see him do so.

My Girlfriend’s A Geek Volume 1

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By Rize Shinba and Pentabu. Released in Japan as “Fujoshi Kanojo” by Enterbrain, serialized in the magazine Comic B’s Log. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Fandom can be a scary thing. Especially if you really have no idea what goes into it. Just explaining to someone who’s never dealt with internet fandom the huge appeal of ‘twincest’ can have people backing away and avoiding you. But of course, you could say the same about being a huge sports fan. Or train spotting. Everyone has their little obsessions, and if you want to get closer to someone, you learn to accept them – or at least live with them.

Taiga is our hero, and he seems, for the first couple chapters, to be a lucky guy. His job’s fairly easy, and there’s a cute woman working there. She’s pretty, she’s hardworking, she’s nice – and she seems to be single. Sure, she gets a little weirded out when he sees her reading manga, but hey, that was his fault, right? So he asks her out.

To Yuiko’s credit, she knows what she’s like. She confesses to him that she’s a fujoshi, and asks if it makes any difference. Unfortunately, not everyone knows what a fujoshi is. And so he says NO PROBLEM!

And then the manga *actually* begins, as the whole point of this manga is not to see the loving romance, or even the comedic romance, but to see Taiga get tortured. This does not run in a shoujo romance magazine, Enterbrain doesn’t have any of those. Nor does it run in their men’s magazine Comic Beam. No, it runs in Comic B’s Log. Which is technically shoujo, as it’s definitely for girls, but its genre is yaoi. Well, not quite. Almost yaoi. Yaoi-ish.

And this is the fandom Yuiko is part of. Fujoshi literally means ‘rotten girl’, and refers to what North American fandom calls a ‘yaoi fangirl’. And once the two of them start dating, Taiga can’t quite be sure of Yuiko likes him as a good boyfriend… or just likes fantasizing about him with other guys. What’s worse, he likes the shonen manga she’s obsessed with… having never even thought of its yaoi potential… and he can write, after a fashion. He’s perfect!

If you’re after characterization and romance, this title will likely seem lacking. Mostly as Yuiko is a complete cipher. She has slotted Taiga into the ‘I can be obsessive around him’ slot in her mind, and when that happens, it is very difficulty to realize just how far you’ve gone. More to the point, however, he worries that she’s only using him to fuel her fantasies. He may be absolutely right. The whole thing is from his perspective.

That said, anyone who has been involved in fandom, even a little bit, will find situations to laugh about here. The manga they’re talking about is a shonen sports manga about sepak takraw (kick volleyball), which reads to me a lot like Eyeshield 21, a manga which DOES have a huge yaoi fandom, both here and in Japan. But more than that, the whole thing is filled with the little in-jokes that all fandoms get, the ones where other people go “huh?”. Such as her insistence on calling Taiga Sebastian when he’s pretending to be a butler. Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei did that joke as well, and I’m fairly certain Black Butler will too. It has to do with Dog of Flanders.

Yen’s translation is good. I think their choice of retitling it as ‘Geek’ is ultimately a good one – Yaoi Fangirl reduces your potential audience. I’m not sure, judging by the excerpt from the novel printed here, if I could stand it for a full length work, but who knows? Other writers have published their blog posts successfully.

I don’t think I could recommend this manga to everyone. I saw Ed Sizemore’s review, and he’s right. If you don’t want to read 5 volumes of a guy alternating between getting frustrated and humiliated, with perhaps the occasional bone thrown of her showing actual interest in him, you’ll hate this. But for what it is – a broad look at fujoshi culture from the outside, and how it can be both freakish and understandable all at once – it’s pretty good.