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Four manga reviews
Nov. 13th, 2006 02:05 amI've been going through the library catalog requesting volume one of random manga. The easiest way to find manga in the catalog is just to do a keyword search for a manga publisher, so this the CMX batch. Also known as the WTF batch. I will now review them. While sleepy.
These are going to be kind of grumpy reviews, by the way.
Musashi #9, Takahashi Miyuki
There exists a secret organization called "Ultimate Blue," unfortunately and frequently abbreviated "UB", whose nine super-elite top operatives vigilantly protect the innocent, punish the guilty, and defuse delicate diplomatic situations that could lead to World War III, by means of the delicate diplomatic application of explosives controlled by big remotes with exactly two buttons.
(I feel safe!)
And of these most elite nine operatives, of this most elite secret organization, the most elite of all... is known only by his codename, Musashi #9. And he's actually a sixteen-year-old girl!
(Spoiler for the end of chapter one and, like, the back cover. I don't think it really matters, but I'm being nice and hiding it anyway.)
This is your basic shounen manga that knows the names of approximately seventeen thousand guns, and approximately three foreign countries. Each of the chapters in this volume is a self-contained story, and each is basically the same story - rebellious teenagers get inadvertently involved in ridiculous international political intrigue, get rescued by Musashi, and learn valuable life lessons.
Many of which are kind of covertly about Japan's very important position within the world community, and how you can help, teenagers. This manga gives me nervous Saburo Ienaga flashbacks. It might be, like, federally approved for human consumption or something.
( the spoiler is also behind the darn cut )
Totally Representative Scan: Musashi's vocabulary = SOPHISTICATED. (has that darn spoiler in it again)
Swan, by Ariyoshi Kyoko
Masumi is a young ballerina who is recruited into the first national ballet school of Japan due to her great natural talent, but is handicapped by being years behind the others in terms of practical experience and by the intense disapproval of her peers who feel that she was admitted due to the favoritism of the Russian dancer Alexei Sergeiev who is so handsome and whose dancing she adores but who is cruel and inconsistent as a teacher and who makes her cry and will she be able to achieve her dreams???
(See, I've reviewed these last two in a format intended to evoke their style! I hope that isn't completely annoying italics.)
( Read more... )
Totally Representative Scan: You were born to be a statistician, Headband Guy.
Pieces of a Spiral, by Tachibana Kaimu
Three very different young men find that their fates are linked by shared experiences in their past lives, and wait-a-second they're not having sex.
This is one of those manga that is in the closet about being shounen-ai. The characters are hot guys who keep talking about how beautiful the others are, and who keep swearing vows to protect each other and having sad flashbacks while the others look on worriedly and the like - y'know. But there is no chemistry whatsoever between any of them. It's like they're just kind of in the same room a lot.
Part of it is probably the art and page design are kind of crap - there are a lot of places where characters who are supposed to be looking at each other instead seem to be looking at a chair, or where an unimportant panel is given too much space and disrupts the flow of a conversation. The pacing is bad enough that you sometimes can't even tell where the artist is trying to make a joke.
( Read more... )
Totally Representative Scan: Panel four on the second page? That's supposed to be funny. (Bonus Alternate Subtitle!: "Plot? I tell you, man, plot. All kinds of plot. Plot? Plot.")
Land of the Blindfolded, Tsukuba Sakura
High school kids with psychic powers have pleasant, boring relationships.
I just read this manga, and I don't remember anything that happened.
Totally Representative Scan: I, personally, care deeply about Eri and Ezawa's relationship.
These are going to be kind of grumpy reviews, by the way.
Musashi #9, Takahashi Miyuki
There exists a secret organization called "Ultimate Blue," unfortunately and frequently abbreviated "UB", whose nine super-elite top operatives vigilantly protect the innocent, punish the guilty, and defuse delicate diplomatic situations that could lead to World War III, by means of the delicate diplomatic application of explosives controlled by big remotes with exactly two buttons.
(I feel safe!)
And of these most elite nine operatives, of this most elite secret organization, the most elite of all... is known only by his codename, Musashi #9. And he's actually a sixteen-year-old girl!
(Spoiler for the end of chapter one and, like, the back cover. I don't think it really matters, but I'm being nice and hiding it anyway.)
This is your basic shounen manga that knows the names of approximately seventeen thousand guns, and approximately three foreign countries. Each of the chapters in this volume is a self-contained story, and each is basically the same story - rebellious teenagers get inadvertently involved in ridiculous international political intrigue, get rescued by Musashi, and learn valuable life lessons.
Many of which are kind of covertly about Japan's very important position within the world community, and how you can help, teenagers. This manga gives me nervous Saburo Ienaga flashbacks. It might be, like, federally approved for human consumption or something.
( the spoiler is also behind the darn cut )
Totally Representative Scan: Musashi's vocabulary = SOPHISTICATED. (has that darn spoiler in it again)
Swan, by Ariyoshi Kyoko
Masumi is a young ballerina who is recruited into the first national ballet school of Japan due to her great natural talent, but is handicapped by being years behind the others in terms of practical experience and by the intense disapproval of her peers who feel that she was admitted due to the favoritism of the Russian dancer Alexei Sergeiev who is so handsome and whose dancing she adores but who is cruel and inconsistent as a teacher and who makes her cry and will she be able to achieve her dreams???
(See, I've reviewed these last two in a format intended to evoke their style! I hope that isn't completely annoying italics.)
( Read more... )
Totally Representative Scan: You were born to be a statistician, Headband Guy.
Pieces of a Spiral, by Tachibana Kaimu
Three very different young men find that their fates are linked by shared experiences in their past lives, and wait-a-second they're not having sex.
This is one of those manga that is in the closet about being shounen-ai. The characters are hot guys who keep talking about how beautiful the others are, and who keep swearing vows to protect each other and having sad flashbacks while the others look on worriedly and the like - y'know. But there is no chemistry whatsoever between any of them. It's like they're just kind of in the same room a lot.
Part of it is probably the art and page design are kind of crap - there are a lot of places where characters who are supposed to be looking at each other instead seem to be looking at a chair, or where an unimportant panel is given too much space and disrupts the flow of a conversation. The pacing is bad enough that you sometimes can't even tell where the artist is trying to make a joke.
( Read more... )
Totally Representative Scan: Panel four on the second page? That's supposed to be funny. (Bonus Alternate Subtitle!: "Plot? I tell you, man, plot. All kinds of plot. Plot? Plot.")
Land of the Blindfolded, Tsukuba Sakura
High school kids with psychic powers have pleasant, boring relationships.
I just read this manga, and I don't remember anything that happened.
Totally Representative Scan: I, personally, care deeply about Eri and Ezawa's relationship.
