Animania

Note: As I'm in the process of moving, expect reviews to continue to be fairly sporadic until August, as much of my manga is now packed.

A Love Song for the Miserable is a single volume yaoi title from the seemingly unknown, single named mangaka Yukimura. It was published here in North America by Digital Manga Publishing under their June label back in May. I decided to give it a whirl after reading a favorable review of the title over on AnimeOnDVD.com. Being from DMP, it features the usual large book size, a nice color dust jacket and high quality pages and printing.

Itsuki Asada works for a large department store. When his request to be transferred to his dream department, events planning, is denied, he drowns his sorrows in alcohol and ends up laying in a bush crying. He's found by Iwasaki Sunao, normally just called Nao, who got lost while jogging and thinking. He pulls Asada from the bush and, sobered up, Asada gives him directions. In exchange, Nao tells him to drop his shop. Feeling more and more depressed about his job, Asada finds the paper with the shop's address and decides to visit. This starts a friendship between the two men, as Asada becomes new pastry chef Nao's personal taste tester. Alas, when Nao decides he should go to France to study more, Asada reacts badly, leaving things bitter between them. At this point, the story jumps ahead three years, finding Asada finally in the events department and Nao the pastier at a new shop who is already receiving tons of praise. Asada must inject himself back into Nao's life to try to get the chef to be a participant in a baking event at the store. These two must now deal with the past, and with the feelings that caused them to both react as they did. They must also decide what kind of future they want, and if it should include one another.

I don't know if this is Yukimura's first work or not, but if it is it is certainly a good one. She has an excellent art style, with her men looking like men without the ridiculously sharp pointed chins often seen in these series. Instead, their chins are more normally proportioned, while still being "manly." Her characters are all distinctive looking, with good facial expressions, and her drawings of the desserts were so well detailed I wanted them to come off the page so I could eat them! I like both central characters. Asada is so miserable, I can't help pitying him. He has a lot of issues with his work, and really just wants to be needed. When he finds his own little paradise, losing it really hurts him. Nao also has an interesting personality, hurt by Asada's reaction and a little slow to realize why. As whole, it has a good story, with some nice resolution and just the right amount of interaction with others without getting distracted by them. It was particularly nice to read a yaoi title that didn't fall back on having some former friend/coworker etc decide they suddenly want to have one of the main characters. The only thing causing problems for Asada and Nao are their own personalities and unwillingness to be honest with their feelings. I highly recommend this one for anyone tired of the usual high schoolers, love triangles, and ultra-pointy chins. This is two adult men, just trying to deal feelings they never expected to feel.

Rating: A

Back in February, I reviewed the first volume of the Blood+ manga adaptation. As I mentioned there, in addition to the manga adaptation, two light novel adaptations of the original Blood+ anime series were written and published in Japan. Both are licensed by Dark Horse, and the first volume of the main series, also entitled Blood+, has been released. Written by Ryo Ikehata, the series is illustrated by Chizu Hasahi. Each volume is subtitled, so to avoid confusion for the rest of the review, I'll refer to this first volume by its subtitle of First Kiss. Unlike with the manga, the main novel series is a fairly straight novelization of the anime events, with First Kiss covering the events in the first fourteen episodes of the series, with the introduction of the characters and Chiropterans, and the trip to Vietnam. All of the novels are divided into two "books", which each book divided into two parts and each part into varying numbers of chapters.

For those unfamiliar with the anime series, Blood+ tell the story of Saya Otonashi, a high school girl with amnesia who can't remember anything of her life beyond the last year. Her otherwise normal life is destroyed when she encounters monsters called Chiropterans, and discovers that she is the only one who is capable of killing them. Joined by the mysterious Hagi, who is her companion, and taken into the care of an organization called the Red Shield, each battle with Chiropterans causes Saya to learn more about the past she has forgotten, a past she realizes she needs to remember if she wants to protect her brothers and her new found companions, not only from the monsters, but from herself.

While the series is a novelization of the show and follows events pretty much right on track with the episodes, it adds more descriptions and more in-depth views of the characters thoughts and reactions to events. David, in particularly, comes across more sympathetically here than he did in the first parts of the anime, and Riku as being less bland. The writing is very well done, flowing well with descriptives that not only helped me remember the scenes from the anime, but visual them with greater depth. I also got a better feel for the individual characters and their motivations. Dark Horse's translation of the work is good, with only one or two minor typos. Like most companies releasing light novels, Dark Horses released the work in the typical manga size, though they did choose to keep the full color front pieces. All in all, this was an excellent read, and it was nice to have a novel keep me busy awhile instead of the usual quick 30 minute read of the typical manga volume. I'm looking forward to picking up the second of the four volumes, Chevalier, in July.

Rating: A

Mmm....yeah, I got happy again All caught up on RM's available volumes, and cauht up on TB as well.

Ceres, Celestial Legend, Volume 02: Yuhi (05/03/2008)

Chibi Vampire, Volume 08 (05/23/2008)

Rave Master, Volume 14 (05/23/2008)

Rave Master, Volume 28 (05/23/2008)

Shaolin Sisters: Reborn, Volume 02 (05/23/2008)

Shaolin Sisters: Reborn, Volume 03 (05/23/2008)

Shaolin Sisters: Reborn, Volume 04 (05/23/2008)

Trinity Blood - Reborn on the Mars, Volume 02: The Iblis (05/23/2008)

Trinity Blood, Volume 01 (05/23/2008)

Trinity Blood, Volume 03 (05/23/2008)

Love Mode, Volume 09 (05/28/2008)

Rave Master, Volume 23 (05/28/2008)

Rave Master, Volume 24 (05/28/2008)

Rave Master, Volume 25 (05/28/2008)

Rave Master, Volume 26 (05/28/2008)

Rave Master, Volume 27 (05/28/2008)

Shaolin Sisters: Reborn, Volume 01 (05/28/2008)

Trinity Blood, Volume 06 (05/28/2008)

Blood+, Volume 02 (05/30/2008)

Nana, Volume 10 (05/30/2008)

Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning, Volume 03 (05/30/2008)

Fall in Love Like a Comic is a short, two volume series from Chitose Yagami that takes a look at high school mangaka (manga writer) who writes shojo manga but as never had a boyfriend. It was originally serialized in Japan's Ciao magazine in late 2002. Viz released the series as two volumes, however the second volume is really a separate sequel that was serialized sporadically in in Ciao and another magazine, Chuchu. Still, the two flow together very nicely, so I can see why Viz made the choice to just release as a whole story. I decided to pick it up after reading the first chapter when it was previewed in an issue of Shojo Beat.

The story focuses on Rena Sakura, a high schooler who hides the fact that she is a successful, professional mangaka from most people. Her best friend teases her about writing smutty manga when she's never even been on date, while her editor has mentioned that having actual experience would only make her writing even better. Enter Tomoyo Okita, a gorgeous schoolmate who stumbles on Rena's secret. With her editor's words still ringing in her ears, Rena impulsively asks Tomoyo to date her so she can gain experience. When he accepts though, she soon finds herself wanting to be more than Tomoyo's fake girlfriend, not realizing he wants her to stop seeing him as some perfect shojo manga boyfriend.

Though short, Fall in Love Like a Comic is a short, but fun series. Rena is cute and her surprising vulnerability and insecurities about her looks and whether Tomoyo really finds her attractive are a nice touch. With her success and popularity, one might have expected her to be more arrogant or aggressive. My only minor annoyance is that Yagami drew Rena in such a way that she looks like a elementary or middle schooler. Very small, short, with big huge eyes and a child-like figure. She's the only character given such an appearance, and its jarring at first to see her then sharing rather heated kisses with Tomoyo, who looks like a normal high school boy. Still,

Rating: B+

Okay, it isn't quite as soon as I'd been planning, but as I mentioned in my last review, in addition to the Chibi Vampire manga series, I'm reading the Chibi Vampire: The Novel series. The novel series is written by Tohru Kai, with the manga's writer Yuna Kagesaki providing the illustrations. The first novel was published a few months after the manga was released. So far, most light novel series I read that tie into an manga and/or anime series are either straight adaptations (like Blood+) or the original source material (Trinity Blood). Chibi Vampire: The Novel is neither. Instead, it is actually neatly tied into the manga, fitting within the manga story line at various points. The first novel is set between the events in volumes 1 and 2 of the manga and the second between volumes 2 and 3. The third and forth novels are set in the middle of the forth manga volume, during Karin and Kenta's summer break. The novels, of course, reference events and characters from the manga, but the manga also does the same. I think its great that Kagesaki and Kai worked so well together to enable the novels to work so well with the manga.

That said, one shouldn't think that Chibi Vampire: The Novel is the same as the manga, just in prose. The novel series was published under Fujimi Shobo's mystery label. As such, in each volume, Karin and Kenta get involved in various strange and mysterious events. In the first volume, Karin bites a rich high schooler named Youichiro Juumonji, but Anju's usual memory erasure doesn't completely work. In order to find the girl who "hugged" him and made his life better, Youichiro begins "kidnapping" girls from Karin's school to test hug them. He eventually gives this up and transfers to Karin's school. After quickly figuring out it was her, he begins pursuing her as his good luck charm. Kenta doesn't like any of this one bit. While Karin thinks Youichiro is an okay person, he also sends her into blood overload even worse than Kenta. When she learns Youichiro was behind the kidnappings, though, she isn't sure what to do, because all the girls who were kidnapped were also raped while they were drugged. Karin and Kenta have to figure out what really happened, before Karin becomes the next victim.

As you might guess, the Chibi Vampire novels are a bit more adult, to me, than the manga. Tokyopop puts cute and silly descriptions on the back, and labels them as comedies. While they have a lot of hilarious moments that had me laughing so hard I nearly cried, they also have some serious events happening, with multiple sexual assaults and harassment, attempted murders, and some rather vicious bullying in the four volumes I've read. So if you want silly, immature comedy, skip these, but if you can get past the bad Tokyopop descriptions and are looking for well-written and relatively well developed novels that expound on Karin and Kenta's continuing adventures, with lots of humor but with some nice twists and quite a few serious moments as well, go get these now. I am thoroughly loving them, particularly in reading them along with the manga series. Kai's commentary at the end of each volume also make for fun reading.

Though Tokyopop uses rather poor descriptions, their releases of the novels are otherwise nice. They only slightly modify the original Japanese covers to match the manga releases and the print is clear and large enough for me to read without my glasses but not insanely huge. I do with they would take a page from Seven Seas, and at least keep the color pages at the front. Tokyopop does include them, but they are all converted to black and white. Can't argue with the price point, with $7.99 a volume being right in line with any standard fiction paperback. I just hope that it doesn't end up like some of their other novels, and left uncompleted. So far, though, they seem to be committed to finishing them, with volume five due in July. I'll be picking it up, of course

Rating: A