Flower in a Storm Volume 1

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By Shigeyoshi Takagi. Released in Japan as “Hana ni Arashi” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine LaLa DX. Released in North America by Viz.

I was rather surprised when I saw that Viz had licensed this. Even though Hakusensha spreads their licensing love among three companies, you tend to associate certain kinds of shoujo with certain companies. Viz gets the big hits, Tokyopop gets the slightly less big hits, and CMX gets the not-hits and smaller series with high cute potential. So seeing this 2-volume cutesy series from Viz is surprising.

I’ll admit, it does not particularly stand out. The hero is handsome and rich, ignoring the heroine’s pleas to leave her alone and swearing that she will be his. Generally in shoujo you do this in two ways; either have the hero be a gigantic jerk and trust the audience will want to see the heroine bite her lip and have her feelings waver whenever he deigns to be nice to her; or have him be incredibly stupid, and do the whole thing as a comedy.

Flower in a Storm goes the latter route. As well as having a bit of an idiot hero, the heroine is clearly capable of taking care of herself… but doesn’t want to. Riko just wants to be normal, and like most characters who just want to be normal, just can’t seem to get the hang of it. The book describes her as having superpowers, which I think is a bit of a misnomer… the action just seems to show her as having tons of strength and endurance. She’s really not much different, ability-wise, than Hikari from Special A.

The art is very Hakusensha, with lots of handsome smirking men and stressed-out sweatdropping women. I did like the minor character of Riko’s classmate, who shaves his head. He doesn’t really do much except snark at the heroine (who tends to call herself a normal high-school student after doing things like leaping into the class over her teacher’s head), but it’s at least different from the standard pretty boys. I also liked Ran’s description of how he fell in love with Riko, which dovetails nicely with him not wanting her to be normal, just herself. This is, essentially, the plot of the manga, and I’m sure Volume 2 will find her coming to a greater understanding of herself.

As with most Hakusensha early volumes, we get a short story at the end, this one from the main LaLa magazine, which came out right before the author started on Flower in a Storm. It’s also much more serious than its companion. It deals with a grumpy guy and his vague attraction to a girl who seems to have several things wrong with her, notably her tendency for kissing everyone. This has given her a reputation, and her slightly ditzy persona doesn’t help. The resolution is quite adult, and surprised me (I suspect the series would be rated Teen except this story put it in OT).

This manga likely falls into the category of ‘since it’s a short series, I’ll get the final volume’. It’s light as air, with little to no substance, and if it were ongoing at 6 or more volumes, I’m not sure I’d keep getting it. But at 2, it’s good enough that I’ll get the end.

One Piece Volume 46

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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.

I’ll admit, I might not have as much to say about these next few volumes as I did about the previous 12. Don’t get me wrong, Thriller Bark is pretty good… but it’s pretty good in a ‘this is a light-hearted change of pace’ way, rather than the epic awesomeness we had come to expect from our One Piece.

First off, however, is the end of the Ace/Blackbeard fight. As one might expect, ‘darkness’ is a lot more than just making things dark, it’s more of a black hole. Also notable is that Blackbeard’s actually fairly vulnerable to damage from other fruit user attacks, getting burned by Ace’s fire powers a couple of times. The outcome of the fight is supposedly a cliffhanger, but seeing Ace’s hat lying upside down on the ground suggests that he’s not coming out on the winning side.

However, the main thrust of the volume is the introduction of Brook and the arrival at Thriller Bark. Yep, still no Fishman Island for you. One would think Oda was deliberately teasing us… instead, we meet Brook, the gentleman skeleton. Gentleman is arguable, especially after asking for Nami and Robin’s panties, but he’s definitely a skeleton. He’s a giant goofball, so naturally Luffy IMMEDIATELY asks him to join his crew. Brook, however, has other fish to fry… he’s lost his shadow, and rushes off to Thriller Bark to get it back.

What follows is a bunch of setup, mostly revolving around horror movie tropes. Oda apparently got the idea for this arc after seeing the video Thriller by Michael Jackson, and that comes across pretty well, especially when we meet the zombies. He also knows how to balance out his crew to fight the horrors. They’re divided up in a way that will show maximum comedy. This means we get Nami, Usopp and Chopper screaming and running their way through things; and we also get the rest of the crew being far less scared.

Favorite gags include the ‘600 Million Berry Jackpot’; Thriller Bark’s animate scenery trying to avoid being seen by our heroes; everyone’s reaction to Cerberus (well, the 2nd time); and 3 of the goofiest henchmen we’ve seen this side of Alabasta, featuring a mad doctor and his grumpy Frankenstein girl, a perverted invisible tiger man, and my personal favorite, Perona, a Goth With Attitude (GWA). We only just get introduced to them here, though.

Oh yes, when Robin says “I love… a good thrill”, I’m sure many other reader’s minds went right where mine did.

This volume is mostly setup, like many arc beginners. It shows what we’re in for; a lighter, more playful arc than the angst and trauma of Enies Lobby. In that, I think it succeeds pretty well.

Excel Saga Volume 11

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By Rikdo Koshi. Released in Japan by Shonen Gahosha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young King OURS. Released in North America by Viz.

There really aren’t any revelations, for once, regarding hidden civilizations and the past lives of Excel or Il Palazzo in this volume. What, then, does it have to offer? A whole heaping helping of humor, as this is one of the funniest books yet.

Elgala is a terrific addition to the cast, as her interaction with Excel is hysterical. On the surface, she and excel are very similar characters, being outgoing to the point of chatterboxey, as well as prone to failure. However, Elgala actually manages to one-up Excel in the failure sweepstakes, as she also has a ‘refined taste’ (read: she likes to spend money), which gets her in to big trouble here when she goes out drunk and accidentally spends 10 million yen… the entire contents of their savings account Il Palazzo gave them.

So Elgala goes off to try to earn back the money (in a nice contrast to Excel’s journey to find herself in Vol. 10) and Excel and Hyatt are back to part-timing it. Luckily, Hyatt has a lovestruck benefactor! Watanabe’s crush on Hyatt is starting to reach its apex, and he goes to incredibly stupid heights to save her from the life of sleazy prostitution he imagines she will end up in. (The mind reels at the thought of Hyatt the hooker…) So, after a discussion with Kabapu, their bank account is full again. And all it requires is for Watanabe to work without pay for the next 200 years or so.

In the interim, we have one of the more surprising chapters of the manga to date. The City Security employees are on another training trip in the middle of winter in the mountains… only this time Misaki and Iwata have actually gotten into trouble, getting lost in a blizzard and falling off a cliff, leading to her breaking her leg. Iwata, surprisingly, is being less of a retard than usual, possibly as he’s devoting his cyborg body to keeping her warm. Most of the chapter is Misaki talking to Iwata and herself as she slowly freezes to death. We get a few flashbacks to her college days when she met Iwata… these are from her POV, so they’re more accurate than Iwata’s earlier ones. Most surprisingly, she notes that Iwata’s sheer lovable goofiness drew her out of her shell and enabled her to make other friends. And she reveals that the chocolate on the pocky she gave him for Valentine’s Day *was* homemade. It’s a rather touching scene…

…which is then followed by the brilliantly hysterical ending. She only told Iwata this as his battery had run down and she figured he couldn’t hear it. After being rescued by Shiouji and Ropponmatsu II, she’s informed that he still actually heard every word… as did the doctor, who was listening in. Misaki begs him to erase Iwata’s memories… which he’ll do for the right price. This is great stuff in two ways. First of all, Misaki is perhaps the first female Shiouji has shown any interest in at all who isn’t 9 years old or lower. It’s not a romantic interest, but the mere fact that he’s talking to her at all is something. Secondly, I love the way Rikdo handles the artwork. When Shiouji reveals that Iwata heard her confession, Misaki clearly turns bright red. But we only see this from the back, and barely on her ears. He draws her with her back to the reader the entire time, so we can’t see her humiliated face. It works really well.

The rest of the volume is pretty much business as usual, with Elgala bringing back a bar of gold to pay back what she lost. It’s questionable whether her Indiana Jones-style story is entirely accurate, though. Sadly, Il Palazzo is not happy with her for being AWOL, nor does he like her blurting out her internal monologue where she reveals she spent all his money. One of the oddest moments in the manga comes when he berates Elgala for losing sight of the mission, and tells her to look to Excel’s example. This is the second time in two volumes that he’s praising Excel. Excel’s face realizes this, and looks very uncertain. (Poor girl, she’s so used to abuse…)

Also, I note that this volume has Hyatt catching fire, in one of the more disturbing scenes to date. Excel and Elgala are both now wondering if ANYTHING can actually kill Hyatt. Of course, Excel has already shown herself to be hella tough… and we’ll see evidence of her own quick recovery from severe burns in Vol. 20. As well as the end of this volume, where she and Elgala decide to please their lord by burning down and bombing a bunch of abandoned buildings and bridges that are there as the city is too lazy to tear down and rebuild. Luckily, they’re only severely burned and in traction.

Also, at one point Kabapu calls Shiouji, and a cute perky yet utterly ditzy voice answers the phone. Once again, they give this the font of Ropponmatsu II. It isn’t, but I can’t blame Carl & Yuko for assuming it is. This is more foreshadowing, and we’ll finally meet the owner of that voice in Vol. 12. Meanwhile, Vol. 11 is really funny. Check it out.