Gatcha Gacha Volume 2

1 Reply

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

In this volume we continue to have fun watching Yuri’s perky desperateness, Motoko beating people up, and Hirao having a wonderful knack for saying exactly the wrong thing. We also meet Hanada, who is also on the Student Council with Hirao. She has a huge crush on him, and can also see that he’s crushing on Yuri. This leads more to angst than anger, as Hanada has issues as she looks older than she is, so most people mistake her for a woman in their twenties. Assuming that Yuri ends up with Yabe, it would not be surprising if Hiroi ended up with Hanada as a beta couple prize.

Of course, this assumes that Yuri will end up with Yabe, which is not really an assumption one can make at this point. Yabe continues to conceal himself behind a facade of loser playboy. His true self occasionally shines through, but unfortunately, his true self is far more broken. Yuri, meanwhile, is still trying to learn everything she can so that she can be the bestest girlfriend evar! Or at least get Yabe to see her as a girlfriend. She can be annoying, but I will grant that she can also take care of herself. When the schools starts moving from pranks and humiliation to ‘accidentally’ punching her in the face, Yuri shows that she can bust jaws as well as anyone else.

It’s probably a good thing too, as we learn that Motoko, for all her violent tendencies, is utterly unable to hit women. And this leads back to Yabe and Motoko’s past – again. We got a glimpse of it in the first volume, but it was implied Motoko made all that up. Now we see that far more of it was true than false. And oh, what an epic past it is. I’d mentioned people read this manga for Motoko, and Motoko’s past is one of the best parts. Here we meet Kanako, her sister who had health problems and died. Only now we find that Yabe was madly in love with her, and that she stabbed him as she was madly in love… with Motoko.

We also meet Motoko’s rich and bitter grandfather, who does not get along with her at all. He seems to know what happened in the past as well, so at least we finally have confirmation about Yabe’s stabbing from someone who *isn’t* Motoko. She also lives in a mansion, something I should have realized looking at her last name. The 5-syllable last names in anime and manga tend to be rich. :) Kagurazaka-san is no exception.

And then we have Hirao, who is here throughout this entire volume, but does nothing, paralyzed with being unable to confess to Yuri and watching her throw herself at Yabe over and over again. (I will grant Tachibana this, she knows how to show the good and bad sides of being forward. Yuri looks positive and risk-taking, and also attention-seeking and desperate. Usually at the same time.). He’s actually rather annoying in this regard, and you really have to smack your head at the ending, which leaves Yuri thinking that he’s actually in love with Motoko. Motoko smacks her head as well.

This is pure potboiler, with lots of violence, broken lead characters, and not really much actual romance at all yet (something lampshaded by the author in her end comments). We still don’t have the whole story, but at least we know the basics. Kanako and Motoko were sisters. Kanako was sickly. Yabe loved Kanako. Kanako loved Motoko. Kanako slept with, then stabbed Yabe. And then when Motoko slapped her, she ran off and collapsed, dying in the street.

Got it? Good, because that’s not the whole story either. Stay tuned for Volume 3!

Fruits Basket: Banquet

2 Replies

By Natsuki Takaya (and the uncredited editors of Hana to Yume). Released in Japan by Hakusensha. Released in North America by Tokyopop.

I’m pretty sure that, barring Tokyopop winning the licensing wars to bring out Hoshi Wa Utau, Takaya’s current serialization, this is the final drop of blood they can wring from this very profitable author. This and the pleasant but forgettable Songs To Make You Smile came out last week, and we now have most everything vaguely Fruits-Basketey out here.

That’s not to say this isn’t good in its own right. Guidebooks are rarely released over here, mostly as they tend not to sell as well as the manga itself. We’ve seen some for Naruto and Bleach; Bleach also has a second coming out this summer. In Japan they’re far more common, being a great way to get people to spend money and provide a nice summation of the franchise they love. This volume has polls, fanart, Q&A; with Takaya, games, a short manga wrap-up, and various other fun miscellany. It reads like it was made for teenage girls, which is sensible given the magazine it ran in.

The majority of the book is devoted to polls. Favorite Chapter, Favorite Couple, and Favorite Character take up about half the book, with clips from the manga and lots of text going into why the winners are so beloved.

Be warned, Fruits Basket is an emotional manga, and reading the Favorite Chapter section can be dangerous if you’re in a public setting. No… no, it’s OK, I just… have something in my eye. They’re aren’t really many surprises here, with the bulk of the winners being from the last 3 volumes, which pack the most emotional punch, with a smattering from earlier volumes (2nd place, for example, is the resolution of Kyo’s ‘monster form’ from Vol. 6). The one that surprised and pleased me most was the high placing of “Sorta Cinderella” (it got 4th), mostly as I rarely see comedy chapters placing high in polls like these.

After some fill-in-the-blank quizzes, a general Q&A; session, a horoscope (which was eerily accurate in my case – I’m a Cat, in case you wondered), we get the couple poll. This one surprised me more, mostly as I have a very Western perspective of the ship wars this title begat, and thus was a little surprised at some of the placings in Japan. Yuki and Machi coming in second was the biggest surprise, as I’ve always felt that people regarded them as “Yuki’s consolation prize” to a degree. On the other hand, when you go back and reread the chapters devoted to them, they really have quite a lot of buildup. Nice to see Haru and Rin so high as well, something else I suspect would be different if this were a poll of North American readers (who hold grudges longer). Pretty sure Shigure and Akito would be much lower as well.

We then get a cute Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game, another quiz, and then the favorite character poll. The 3 leads pretty much crushed everyone else here, as expected. Being a huge Shigure fan, I was pleased to see he only dropped to 8th. Like Takaya, I expected everyone to hate him after the later volumes! And poor Uo, barely making the top 20. At least your pairing with Kureno made the poll this time!

There then follows a brief 8-page manga, with the characters discussing the poll results and various wrap-up things. It’s 4th wall breaking fun, and also mind-breaking in some ways (please never draw Akito like that again). And it confirms, as we all knew, that Hana would easily beat Akito if they ever had a battle of wills. After this we have a glossary (which is a bit too scattered for me), and more Q&A; where readers ask for more details on characters after the series ends.

Tokyopop’s production of this is mostly decent, though I wish they’d put it out in a larger size. Something along the lines of Bleach’s guidebooks from Viz would mean a bit less eyestrain. I was pleased at the load of color artbook pages at the front, which look fantastic.

Obviously you’ll only bother to get this if you’re a huge Furuba fan. But for those fans, it’s a great book, and I’m sure will prompt many people to… well, to go online and write enraged forum posts about how the polls were fixed and [insert couple here] should have been MUCH higher!

Excel Saga Volume 10

Leave a reply

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

This is probably one of my favorite volumes of Excel Saga, if only as it shows Excel at her absolute best. Excel’s personality has been slowly shifting for some time now, but the presence of Elgala not only allows her to play the straight man, but allows her to prove that no, ACROSS would not be better off if Excel were simply fired.

Not that you’d know that from the start of the book, which mostly deals with Excel’s insecurities and lack of self-confidence. Now that ACROSS is out in the open (somewhat), Excel and Hyatt are trying to get the word out to the heathen masses. It’s hard, though, given they choose a derelict department store with no customers. On, and Iwata the Sentai Ranger shows up again, and is just as destructive as last time. He is at least joined by his colleagues this time, but they mostly stand around and watch Iwata be stupid.

Sadly, things are complicated once Elgala gets back. She’s still not revealing what secret tasks she’s doing for Il Palazzo. What’s more, she talks about her skills with a sword. Then Hyatt mentions her skills with ranged weapons (at least when she’s not coughing up blood). Things Excel never knew about. Now Excel is trying to think of what *her* specialty is, and the best everyone can come up with is her insane endurance. She takes it badly, and decides to run away to train harder so that she can be worthy of Il Palazzo. (Il Palazzo merely notes that her note saying she’s running away is formatted poorly.)

While Excel trains hard, Elgala is settling into life with Hyatt, and has started to become used to her falling over dead every once in a while. Meanwhile, we meet Sumiyoshi’s sister, who looks like a cute meganekko, and we’d never associate her with her brother except they both speak in captions (and in a heavy Geordie accent). Naturally, everyone shows up to either a) mock Sumiyoshi being a incestual pedophile, or b) no, there is only a). Even Misaki joins in on the mocking, mostly as she stayed up all night playing games and isn’t thinking straight. (Misaki’s hardcore gamer personality comes up every now and again, usually when Rikdo wants to show her as something less than perfect.)

Unfortunately, Excel comes back from training to find… everything’s fine without her. What’s more, she’s done a little bit of training in everything, but still isn’t an expert in anything. She regards jack-of-all-trades as a pejorative. And Elgala and Hyatt are now at the World Cup, broadcasting ACROSS’s message to a huge stadium of people. What room is there for Excel? Coming to an epiphany, Excel realizes that she doesn’t need any glory or recognition, and has forgotten that all this is for Il Palazzo, not for her. Strengthened, she runs to join the others…

And a good thing she does, too, as Elgala and Hyatt lose control of the situation very quickly once Iwata shows up. After posing and making a short speech, he then accidentally fires a laser weapon right at Hyatt. something which surprises even him. “Mom, is your cyborg son a murderer?” He is not, as who should emerge from the flames and wreckage, kicking Iwata out of the way while clutching an uninjured Hyatt? Why it’s Excel, and she is BADASS here. Quickly commandeering the PA, she gets the crowd to turn against Iwata (the others have stayed behind, not wanting to deal with football hooligans) and then cutting and running when the entire stadium is blown to bits. Even Il Palazzo realizes what’s happened, giving Elgala the pit while singling Excel out for praise. Of course, she then gets the pit for being AWOL for weeks, but hey.

The last regular chapter in the book deals with Excel & company getting a gift of some expensive sake from Watanabe, who is celebrating Hyatt finally remembering his name. Excel tries to be frugal, but Elgala, who tends to be craftier than our heroine, suggests they drink in honor of their lord Il Palazzo. What follows is a typical humorous chapter, with no real surprises. Hyatt can drink like a fish and not show any signs. Elgala gets randy and starts grabbing boobs when she’s drunk. And Excel passes out and has a very weird dream. It’s clear by now that the dream is actually a flashback to her past life. We see Il Palazzo talking to her, noting how perfection cannot last, and how they need to give themselves to Chaos to survive. Sadly, Excel is too busy going “Oh wooooow, Il Palazzo looks gorgeous!” to take any of this in, but we the reader appreciate it. Sadly, reality returns, and shows us that sometime during the night, someone withdrew $983,000 from their account. TO BE CONTINUED!

…wait, not quite yet. As we also have a side-story alternate universe thing here. And it’s better than the fantasy one we saw earlier. This starts as your typical high school romance, with Excel having a crush on her sempai Il Palazzo and willing to do anything for him. Sadly, this means dying her black hair blonde and participating in every sport known to man in an attempt to win a competition. She’s even joined by her “long lost sister” Elgala. Seeing Kabapu and Il Palazzo try to lie and cheat their way to a sports title amuses me (and is not too far off, frankly). Sadly, Excel and Elgala must face off against the Ropponmatsu sisters, experts in beach volleyball… and robots. They basically get their asses handed to them… until Ropponmatsu 1 is struck by lightning, and therefore now loopy. Excel and Elgala come back… only for a tidal wave to take out the entire match.

(Incidentally, in a ‘spot the cameo’ part, a future main character is introduced in this side story. I did not initially recognize her as Viz mistakenly uses Ropponmatsu 2’s cutesy font for her dialogue. But Shiouji’s exasperated reactions, as well as “Um… waaah, I spilled it!” confirm who it is. We’ll meet her in Volume 12. This is also around where Rikdo decides to, if not drop, at least quietly play down the nastier parts of Shiouji’s pedophilia. He’s clearly lusting after Sumiyoshi’s underage sister here, but once we hit Volume 12, he’ll turn more serious and the worst of it will be gone.)

A terrific volume, especially if you love Excel kicking ass. The good times roll with Volume 11, so let’s keep going! For the greater glory of ACROSS!