Vampire Hunter D Volume 3

Age Rating: 16+
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror
Price: $13.95

The vampire-slaying hunter known only as "D," with a reputation of taking care of business by way of the sword, is on another bounty run-- this time to resuce the beautiful daughter of a wealthy village elder, kidnapped by the vampire Noble, Mayerling.  But what happens when another group of bounty hunters have taken up the same assignment? Head of the notorious mercenary clan, the Marcus family, older Borgoff leads his not-so-merry band of ruthless renegades not only on a mission of pursuit and retrieval, but also on a path of destruction that'll hopefully wipe out anything that gets in the way from their payday, including D.

In this adaptation of the third novel, we get to see more the world D is living in, which in this case, isn't necessarily a good thing.  Hideyuki Kikuchi continues to build on D's background and mystery, but his misogynistic portrayals will only turn away women with any self worth that might enjoy a good sci-fi/horror series.

This third volume in the Vampire Hunter D series was the basis for the anime Bloodlust, which was popular in the US.  The villain in the story this time isn't a Noble, despite appearances.  D is one of two Hunters hired to rescue the village elder's daughter.  The other Hunters, know as the Marcus Clan.  They are three brothers and one sister, and are about as ruthless and despicable as any group of people can get.  They kill indiscriminately, and don't really like competition, thus making them the villains for D to beat.

The story itself makes a good chase.  Mayerling and the girl, whose name is never mentioned, are a sort of Romeo and Juliet.  They are truly in love and are running away to find a safe haven to live together in peace.  Mayerling thinks he knows just the place and they race off in his carriage, hiring mercenaries from a mutant village along the way.  The confrontations along the way are first between D and the Marcus Clan, and then between both Hunters and the mercenaries.  But neither the Marcus Clan nor the mercenaries can last long against D.  He has the final confrontation with Mayerling in a sword fight.  The ending is bittersweet, much like the story it takes inspiration from.

A few more tidbits of information about D are released in this volume.  We learn about another of his Dhampir weaknesses; sunlight syndrome.  Apparently, dhampirs suffer from this about every 6 months and the best way to recover from it is to lie in the earth.  D is different in some respect of course.  He's gone 5 years.  But, it's got to happen in the middle of this chase.  There's another hint about his heritage, with the elder of the mutant village recognizing him as Dracula's progeny, and treating him with respect that D tries to brush off.  He doesn't seem to want to admit to his parentage.

While I've enjoyed this series so far, there is something that has really started to get on my nerves; the blatant misogyny.  It practically runs rampant in this volume.  The men of D's world can't see a woman without trying to drop trou.  The sister in the Marcus Clan, Leila, is raped by her brothers.  All of them.  They tell her constantly that she belongs to them.  The girl with Mayerling is left alone, and is nearly raped twice; once by a passerby and once by one of the mutant mercenaries.  It's like the moment the men see breasts, they're unbuckling their belt.  Women are treated like things, not persons.  It's not just disturbing.  It's getting disgusting. 

And this makes me sad.  I love D.  I want to know more about him, his past, and the Nobles in general.  There looks to be a great story to be told there.  But, this misogyny really seems to be taking over the series.  It keeps becoming more prevalent, and really makes me want to just put the book down and walk away.  Vampire Hunter D could be a good sci-fi/horror series if it doesn't continue this trend.  Less rape and more action can only do this series good.

Sarasah Volumes 1-2

Age Rating: Teen
Genre: Historical Romance
Price: $10.99

High Schooler Ji-Hae is desperately in love with her classmate Seung-Hyu.  She has done all she can think of to win his affection, but to no avail.  When her latest scheme crosses the line, Seung-Hyu decides he's had enough...and inadvertently pushes her down a staircase! Ji-Hae awakens in the world beyond, only to learn that it's not her time to die.  But why go back when the love of her life hates her to death!  Touched by her passion, the keepers of heaven send Ji-Hae to her past life to mend the rift between her former self and Seung-Hyu.  But can Ji-Hae keep up the act long enough to find Seung-Hyu and set things right?

No, not really...  Sarasah is a modern-girl-gets-sent-to-the-past story combined with girl-dresses-up-as-a-boy-to-be-near-boy-she-loves story.  Neither of these plots are usually appealing, but Sarasah adds a karmic twist to the Ji-Hae's dilemma. The reason Seung-Hyu hates her some much is because of something that happened in their past lives, and Ji-Hae is given the chance to correct it.  Though, the more I read of this series, the more I wondered if it wasn't a time paradox, and it's because she came to the past that screwed everything up.

When we first meet Ji-Hae, it's in the present.  She's in love with a boy, who looks more like a girl, but doesn't act like the typical love sick girl.  She's closer to an obsessed stalker.  She spends two years doing everything she can to get Seung-Hyu to like her, but everything she does seems to backfire.  She refuses to give up, and such persistence is usually seen as a good thing.  Not so much with her.  She really comes off as selfish and annoying.  There's nothing noble or endearing about her attempts to win Seung-Hyu in the present, or her single-mindedness to find him in the past.  She doesn't try to blend in at all into her new surroundings in the past, and runs around like a bull in a china shop, knocking over people and trampling their feelings with any thought.

The story itself starts to take an interesting turn in volume 2 with the introduction of some political intrigue.  It turns out that the past life of her love, Ja-Yun, is involved with Misa-Huel, a ruthless noble who seems to be building up a military, and doesn't like that the current ruler of the kingdom is the Queen.  Bub-Min who becomes involved with Ji-Hae by constantly running into, wants to use her relationship with Ja-Yun to find out more about what Misa-Huel is plotting, while Ja-Yun wants to do the same to find out about Bub-Min.  Ji-Hae is stuck in the middle, and finding her feelings getting more crossed the more she sees of Bub-Min.  I find all this interesting because it is all occurring at a time before Korea was united and were still warring kingdoms.  I love learning about the ancient history of Japan and Korea, and regret now not taking classes on Korea in college.

I liked the first two chapters of this series when I first read it in Yen Plus, but after reading through two volumes, not so much now.  Ji-Hae is annoying as is her "love" Seung-Hyu/Ja-Yun.  The more I get to know these characters, the less I like them.  The relationship that is growing between Ji-Hae and Bub-Min is much more interesting, but I like confrontational relationships.  The art is well done, with detail used sparingly, for clothes and such. But the characters themselves are rendered with clean, bold lines.  This title would be an intriguing story if the annoying lead characters didn't overshadow it so much.

Magic Touch Volume 3

Age Rating: Teen Plus

Genre: Romance

Price: $8.99

I think I am a glutton for punishment. After thoroughly  disliking the first two volumes of Magic Touch, you would think that I would know to steer clear of the manga from that point onward. Sadly, the review copy for the third volume came in the mail, and I feel it's my obligation to give the book its review.

I know that I am not a martyr for the cause here - it was my conscious decision to read the third volume and give the series another try. The cast of the manga, while not spectacular, is charming in its quirky way. I was hoping by the third volume the relationships would have progressed further, and we would actually get to see some real plot building.

After finishing the third volume, my hopes have been dashed on whatever sharp stones Magic Touch could find. Repeatedly.

Chiaki and Yosuke are still doing that same thing they do, which is close to absolutely nothing. The two get bashful around each other, and only at the end of the third volume does Chiaki realize she might actually like Yosuke for more than his back. WOAH! What a shocker.

The stupid plot points continue, with a "secret" massage underground tournament. I just had to laugh when I read that. I suppose that having high-school students do a massage tournament would be not school sponsored, right? Since, of course, we have to reference that seedy image of massage parlors again and again.

The most interesting thing about volume three is the introduction of new characters. These background characters are actually pretty well designed, and I almost wish that their story would be the focus of Magic Touch. They are a million-fold more interesting than Chiaki and Yosuke. Still, some of the characters are just as ridiculous as the plot. The main massage competition is a guy who can turn his voice into a sedative? He can't show people his eyes because they're so ugly? What the hell.

The plotting that I praised in the first two volumes has hit a low point in volume three. Especially during the massage competition, it's really hard to follow what is going on. Tiny insignificant pieces of writing on each panel push the storyline forward, and in the end, the reading is long and tedious.

The art is still pretty decent here, and Tsubaki has managed to evolve as an artist, even though her story telling still sucks on ice. I suggest that the next time this aspiring mangaka wants to do a series, she be paired up with a skilled writer. She has the illustrating chops to draw good shojo, but her story is complete rubbish.

If I were cheese, then Magic Touch would be my coarse grater. It's hard to see why this series is still running. Viz Media has put out the fourth volume already, so someone out there likes this garbage. Please, if you're looking for an introduction to shojo manga, Magic Touch is not the right choice.  With unfortunate storytelling, pacing, and character and relationship development, this manga lacks everything a good shojo needs.

Oishinbo: ala carte Ramen & Gyozo Volume 3

Age Rating: Teen

Genre: Food

Price: $12.99

Like every volume of this series, this one draws from multiple stories across nearly three decades of the manga. Viz is looking at an ongoing manga with so much history they’ve given up any hope of reprinting it volume by volume here in the US. Instead, they’ve decided to collect various stories based on subject. This does two things: it at once intensifies the “foodie-ness” and dilutes the narrative flow. When a volume is entirely about certain aspects of Chinese cuisine and how these things affect everything from romance to international relations, you cannot help but see the world as entirely consumed with and by food.

On the other hand, when a volume leaps around through time, as this one does due to its having the double subjects of ramen and pot stickers, you lose any vital sense of the broader arcs of who the characters are and what their relationships are or where they are going. These are the obvious results of messing with the original format, but there’s subtle ways that this format skews the manga. But before I get to that, let’s talk about some of the straightforward stuff.

Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki have been creating Oishinbo stories continually for nearly thirty years. Have I said that enough already? But here’s the reason to reiterate it: Spread a character over thirty years and what do you usually get? Either lots and lots of sameness or too much change. One of the amazing things here is the consistency of character. Shiro Yamaoka is solidly himself, his through line from beginning story to end is consistent and strong from the first story to the last. The same can be said for the secondary, tertiary, even the incidental repeating characters—their ongoing personal stories are woven in and out of Oishinbo with a finesse rarely found in comics.

Actually, what it reminds me of the most is a comic strip. Think of an American comic like, say, Spider-Man, where Peter Parker is either nothing like the character so clearly defined by Lee and Ditko, or he has gone nowhere, developed not one whit since those early, vital stories that first made the character, and the series, worth reading. Or even a manga like DragonBall and all its children, where Goku and pals cycle endlessly through the same struggles—not that this isn’t exactly what we love DB for. But would you expect a dozen or so episodes of Goku facing off against Piccolo, pulled from across the hundreds of chapters of Dragonball to hold up strung together like that? But in certain permutations of the American comic strip, particularly in ones like Doonsbury, or For Better or Worse, or even alternative strips like Dykes to Watch out For or Ernie Pook’s Comeek, years and years, sometimes decades of stories allow for character development that slowly accrues in the background of the ongoing daily, weekly push of humorous narrative.

Similarly, Oishinbo never loses sight of its primary mission: the constantly entertaining culinary edification of the reader, and yet, like water finding its level, story seeps into the cracks between, behind, and around the explanation of how to make the best ramen ever. I still have problems with this structure, however. Two problems, both of which detract from the volume.

First, the conflict between Yamaoka and his father either is completely ridiculous in the amount of time and space it takes up in the series OR the two of them argued much more about ramen and gyoza than any other food. Somehow, I feel like neither is true, in which case this volume isn’t exactly representative, as the two of them battle in over half the stories within. And if it is representative, then this sampling affects the feel of that relationship—from volume to volume, the structure traps the father-son conflict in a vicious cycle of never escaping the past, always returning to ground zero. The other problem is the art. Hanasaki’s style changes pretty dramatically over the course of the series, and it’s distracting. The difference isn’t one that you would even necessarily notice drawn out over a generation of stories, but laid side by side, it wrenches you right out of the story.

Ultimately, I think this is a very fun, very interesting series for foodies. But, while the quality of the writing and the art are solid, there’s nothing about this series that raises it above the genre. If you love cooking manga, and I do, then you’ll really enjoy Oishinbo, but if you’re just looking for a quality manga on par with other works from Viz’s Signature line, I think Oishinbo falls short as a series. By all means, buy a volume or two, but you might find that, after one of these ala cartes, you’ve had your fill.

Yakitate!! Japan Volume 19

Age Rating: Older Teen

Genre:  Food/Comedy

Price:  $9.99

Series Description: Azuma Kazuma, an energetic and dense young man, was introduced to the art of bread making when he was six. He decides to take the path of bread-making and become a baker right after graduating from middle school. Through his travels, he encounters many rivals and found work at the branch store of the most famous bread maker brand, the Pantasia.

Volume Description: Kazuma Azuma's team Pantasia is one defeat away from losing their shop as they enter round six of the Yakitate 25 baking competition. Their opponent is Mokoyama, a man in a panda suit whose silly exterior belies his great baking power...and otherworldly baking powder. If that weren't enough to bear, Azuma must teach a lesson to a spoiled mini-gourmand who insists on having his bread and eating it too. Will Team Pantasia rise to the occasion or run out of steam?

November begins the holiday season, both here in the US and other countries around the world. As such, I’ve been undertaking a month of cooking manga reviews. Last time, I made this comment about cooking manga: When somebody tastes great food in cooking manga they can immediately break down the ingredients that make it so. In a good cooking manga, nearly every character is, at heart, a foodie. I’ve read only two volumes of Yakitate!! Japan, this one, and the very first. There’s quite a distance between the two—in the set-up volume, our hero Azuma is a naïve young man hoping to get a job at the great bakery Pantasia. He’s never had any formal training, but he’s spent the better part of a decade working on his own, attempting to create a bread that is the perfect expression of the concept “the bread of Japan.” He has the idea that every great nation in the west has its own national bread, a bread that perfectly expresses something about the national identity, and Japan deservers its own. This is Azuma’s ultimate goal.

The humor comes in his competing against world-class bakers—he’s kind of an idiot savant of baking. This is a blend of battle and comedy manga. What brings the funny is ##’s ability to turn my description of cooking manga on its end. Everyone in Yakitate!! Japan has a phenomenal understanding of food, baking, and everything that goes into cooking. Everyone, that is, except Azuma. Azuma has a magical talent and an intuitive sense about baking, but he has no formal culinary knowledge. Take a more conventional cooking manga like Iron Wok Jan or Oishinbo, where, like the classic resolution of an Agatha Christie novel, the mystery of the food is laid bare by the one figure in control, the one person whose palate is keen enough to detect the truth.

See, that’s part of the model of the cooking manga—the hero is like a food detective. I used the phrase “idiot savant” earlier to refer to Azuma, but that’s not quite true. He has no knowledge whatsoever of the culinary arts, yes; however, it’s not like he hasn’t worked his butt off to acquire an intense, vital knowledge of what he is doing. So here, he isn’t the detective, but the Watson to everyone around him. He works magic, and the other characters are left to explain the trick. Of course, most of this pertains to the first volume. Here, in the nineteenth volume, some of those initial tensions have shifted.

Azuma now works for the Pantasia bakery, and he lost some of his naiveté. He’s knowledgeable, and—while he’s always been self-assured—he now has a wise self-awareness to accompany his cheek and pluck. But now there’s a hole where Azuma used to go…so who will fill that naïve, comedic role? Hashiguchi uses Kawachi, one of the series’ regular characters, a brash guy who, in the first volume, tries to compensate for gaps in his knowledge and his lack of great skill with bluster, scheming, and overconfidence. Where in the first volume he’s a good foil for Azuma, as the series has progressed he’s outlived his original usefulness. Shifting him, then, more fully into the comedic “Watson” role previously occupied by Azuma seems like a natural choice.

Unfortunately, in execution it’s not that great. Azuma loses some of his early charm (although I have heard some folks don’t like Azuma early on because he comes across as stupid), Kawachi becomes a full-blown cliché, and one of the subtle, quirky ways that Yakitate!! Japan stood out initially from other manga has now kind of faded. Does this mean you shouldn’t get volume 19 of Yakitate!! Japan? Well, it’s not a great jumping on point, in any sense of the term. The storyline is caught in the middle of an ongoing series of battles which seem less than critical if you haven’t been reading continually up to this point. And the crisp characterization that I found so refreshing in the first volume has here mellowed. However, the art and stories are still fun, the cooking battles still interesting—my recommendation is to pick up volume one of this charming series and keep reading until the series disappoints or bores you. My guess is, you’ll still be reading to book 19 and beyond.

Magic Touch Volumes 1-2

Age Rating: Older Teen
Genre: Romance
Price:  $8.99

I love apples. They're one of my favorite fruits. The best apple is one that is sweet, has lots of shine, and has a satisfying crunch. In a sense, my taste in apples is like my taste in shojo manga - it needs to be cute and sweet, it has to look great on the page, and it has to have solid writing and relationship building.

Magic Touch is the definition of a rotten apple.

It's hard to know where to start with this manga. The author, in a sort of tongue-in-cheek manner tells us in the first volume that she developed the idea for Magic Touch in a short story deadline, and somehow, someone liked it enough for it to get its own series. The author claims she doesn't know how the series got published. I'm not so sure I understand how it got published in Japanese, let alone licensed in the USA by Viz Media.

The story follows main character Chiaki Togu, a cute girl who loves massage. She's part of the high school massage club and she is the best freshman masseur in the high school massage club. Her brother is also a masseur, and all of her friends are in the massage club. They give massages during break time for anyone that wants one. She meets a man on the train who has the stiffest back she's ever seen, and it turns out to be the prospective love interest, the stoic, unreadable Yosuke. He promises, in the first volume, that if she can make him fall for her, he'll let her give him a massage.

First, let's ignore the ridiculous premise of a "high school massage club." It's better this way, because we can forget about the seedy "massage parlor" imagery that comes with the setup for the book, and we can suspend our disbelief a little easier. Joking aside, the entire backbone of this story is ridiculous bordering on disablingly stupid. Sadly, mangaka Izumi Tsubaki spends far too much time focusing on the most tedious and banal parts of massage for you to ever truly forget that you're reading manga about a high school massage group.

In the first chapters though, the drama is thick, because Chiaki has this evil twin, who apparently gives out her sister's name when she's having cheating relationships with other girl's boyfriends. Yosuke only makes this little agreement with Chiaki because his younger brother got played by a "Chiaki Togu" and he wants to lead her on.

I was expecting this to be the best, juiciest melodramatic chunk of shojo ever. Even if the set up was ridiculous, this would be interesting, right?

Wrong.

This little plot line resolves almost too quickly, and the evil twin sort of dissolves into the background as the Chiaki and Yosuke relationship starts treading water. I do mean that. These two characters tread water longer than most professional swimmers. At the end of the second book, Chiaki hasn't even realized that she likes Yosuke for anything more than to practice massage. It's quite frustrating to see the two leads constantly doing nothing. The biggest thing that happens in the second  volume is Chiaki makes Yosuke a lunch. Really.

Another thing that irked me was the botched joke telling. I can't decide if Magic Touch is supposed to be sweet and sappy with jokes here and there, or a melodramatic high school conflict romance. It tries to be all of the above, and ends up with sloppy jokes that just don't make the mark, and drama that is off tilt.
 
The only thing that makes these two volumes even worth looking at is the art.  It's clear that Tsubaki is a new artist, because her style changes dramatically over the first two volumes. Despite being a newbie, her paneling and delivery of key moments was right on track. I really enjoyed the dramatic close ups and the costuming. The characters do look good, even if they can't express their feelings.

Overall, I'm highly disappointed with this beginner's first two volumes, but I suspect that Izumi could improve over time. Her art certainly did so within two volumes. Still, the art alone does not a good manga make. My opinion - skip this title. It'll be cathartic.

 

Goong: The Royal Palace Volumes 5-7

Age Rating: Teen
Genre: Romance/Drama
Price: $10.99

It should be like a dream come true.  Chae-Kyung grew up living a normal life, but now she finds herself as the betrothed to the Crown Prince of Korea.  The only problem?  The Crown Prince, Shin Lee is a royal jerk.  Chae-Kyung is taken away from her family and her life as she knew it and thrown into the strange world of the Royal Palace, where she struggles against loneliness and her growing feelings for the Crown Prince amidst the political and romantic background of the Royal Palace.

Goong takes place in an alternate reality, where Korea still has a royal family, and the government is a constitutional monarchy, like the United Kingdom.  Chae-Kyung is from the ordinary world, where she lived an ordinary life, and is suddenly thrown into the turmoil of learning the traditional and customs of the Korean royal family as well as deal with political and romantic intrigue.  This is a title wrought with melodrama and a crisis of some sort at every corner.  It's a title that you know you shouldn't want to read, but just can't help getting drawn into.

Starting a series that's already established can be confusing.  You have all these characters that are already established in the story and plot lines going that can be difficult to untangle.  Fortunately, Goong isn't like that.  With only a minimal description of the title's basic premise I still had no problem getting into the story and characters.  Chae-Kyung is a conflicted character.  She longs for her normal life and doesn't want to be drawn into the palace intrigue, but she still finds herself falling in love with Shin.  Shin himself sends out confusing signals, making it harder for her.  He can be so cold and unkind to her, but then suddenly seem to care very much about her.  He too finds himself falling for Chae-Kyung, and it's their stubbornness to ignore their feelings and keep to the deal they apparently made at the beginning of the series to stay together until they are of age and then divorce that fuels their conflict.

Of course that isn't all that's making things hard for them.  The situations going on around them only makes things more complicated.  The deceased king's widow and son are both making plays to get back into power, but for different reasons.  Yul, the former Crown Prince, loves Chae-Kyung and wants to take her away from Shin.  His mother, the Daebi, wants her son to be Crown Prince for the power it will bring her, but hates Chae-Kyung and doesn't want Yul marrying her.  She makes life miserable for Chae-Kyung and her plans cause havoc for Shin and Chae-Kyung, as well as the current queen, Shin's mother.  The current king was, and possibly still is, in love with the Daebi, and the favor he shows her has not gone unnoticed by either wife or son, and both begin to show their claws.  So, even though the plots can get complicated, they aren't difficult to understand, or get involved in.

Goong is an engrossing title, even if it's only for the soap opera style of writing.  It's strength is in how well done both the plots and characters are.  They all act like real people, not the stereotypes typically seen on daytime TV.  Chae-Kyung is under so much stress that she doesn't eat much and consequently looses and lot of weight.  This is treated realisticall and without a lot of melodrama.  The people around her, and even Shin himself show concern for her, even if he denies the one things she really wants; to go home.  The situations aren't so outrageous that you couldn't believe they could happen, but just melodramatic enough to keep you reading.

The art is very nicely done, though I have to admit some problems with the eyes.  Sometimes on a profile, it's hard to tell if the eyes are open or closed.  And SoHee's chibi's aren't the same kind of cute as in manga, but after a while, you get used to them.  But what I love most is all the detail that goes into the costumes.  The women of the Korean Royal Family wears the traditional garb whenever they are in the palace or conducting palace business.  The costumes are intricate, and beautifully rendered.

I didn't think I would like Goong from it's initial description.  But that turned out to be completely wrong, and I gladly join the growing fan base for this title.  Goong is a great sunjeong, or shojo/romance title that lover of these genres or just plain drama will enjoy.

Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture Volume 1

Genre: Comedy
Price: 10.99 USD
Range: T 16+
 
Bacteria to School

Just when you thought you have seen it all, Del Rey brings one of the most original and funny stories to English this reader has read in a long time. The first Moyasimon is the tale of university student Tadayasu's opening days at a Tokyo agriculture school. He is joined by his buddy, Kei, the son of sake brewer. What makes Tadayasu special is his secret ability (that everyone seems to know about) to see microscopic organisms with his naked eye. Any bacteria, fungi, germ, or other microbe appear as tiny (and cute) little guys floating in the air. Since each microbe has it's own qualities, each looks different (for example, a microbe beneficial for making sake appears to Tadayasu as a little smiling ball with a top-knot like a samurai).
 
Despite Tadayasu's truly unique ability, he is one of the most down-to-earth characters in the book. Between his eccentric professor who takes Tadayasu under his wing and bad sake-brewing classmates, Tadayasu's special talents come into play again and again in some often bizarre and always entertaining situations.
 
What makes Moyasimon surprisingly special is how it reads like a manga, but is chock full of fascinating facts about our world's smallest inhabitants. Without even realizing it, this first volume is a crash course in microbes. Notes on the edges of the page remind readers every chapter of not only who the main characters are, but who the main bacteria are. As fundamental as the information "taught" is, much of it was news to me, and Tadayasu's desire to be able to identify the bacteria he sees on the spot becomes to a degree the same goal of the reader.
 
It is no surprise Moyasimon remains a mega-hit in Japan. Limited edition Moyasimon microbe toys and phone straps were released in Japan, and a sake brewer who convinced artist Ishikawa to put sake microbes on a special label was rewarded with a sold out line of sake. The requisite anime series is no surprise, but two children's books about microbes also came from Moyasimon, including the timely upcoming release Let's Wash Hands.
 
Dense and wordy, Moyasimon is a surprisingly good read. The 16+ rating is more for lots of alcohol talk then for anything really lascivious, and the hidden educational benefit will pique the interests of those interested in science and agriculture. But even this decidedly non-biologist reader was infected by the engrossing story upstaged by the real stars of the show: the microbes.

20th Century Boys Volume 5

Age Rating: Older Teen

Genre: Mystery

Price: $12.99

20th Century Boys has been an engrossing read from the very beginning, as Naoki Urasawa is great at feeding readers just enough information to keep them guessing. However, in the more recent volumes things seemed to be unraveling too fast. Volume 5 fixes this problem, as Urasawa throws a wrench into his story that changes its entire scope.

As the fateful 31st of December rapidly approaches, Kenji is gathering his friends in preparation for their climatic encounter with the Friends. There is a small problem, however. The “Book of Prophecy” states that nine warriors will fight the league of evil, but there are only seven of them including Kenji. In a last-ditch effort, Kenji reaches out to Yanbo and Manbo, but with no luck. This, along with him being unable to decipher one of the pages of The Book (and numerous pages being torn out), causes him to reconsider everything. However, these feelings are short-lived, as the meaning behind the mysterious page soon reveals itself and the countdown to Apocalypse begins.

Sounds like a great volume, right? Well, that quite literally is not even the half of it. Just when Kenji and his friends are about to take on the Friends, Urasawa abruptly shifts his focus to the year 2014. Of course, their story cannot end there, as there are far, far too many loose ends to be tied up. Even so, in the second half the focus is on the now teenaged Kanna and her current lifestyle. This portion of the book does drag its feet a little and will certainly cause many readers to yearn for Kenji, but it still gives way for some entertaining moments and also some new characters. Not to mention Urasawa saves his trump card for the very end. What a cruel little twist indeed.

The great moments just keep on coming in volume 5. The introduction of the adult Yanbo and Manbo is both creepy and funny at the same time, and the moment in which Kenji, Otcho, and Kamisama simultaneously realize the meaning of “the signal went up” at the precise moment it actually happens is well done (though to the reader the meaning is already obvious by that point). Otcho’s reasoning behind his original design for the Friends’ symbol is laugh-out-loud funny, as is Kanna’s boss at the restaurant. Kanna also single-handedly (and successfully) mediates a mob feud, which is quite amusing to see take place. The list goes on.

Though being forced to wait and see what happens to Kenji is an unfortunate annoyance, Urasawa continues to prove his storytelling prowess all the same with another very good volume. Volume 5 answers some questions while bringing to light many more, bring the series to a significant turning point. In addition, now that he is telling two stories at once, all doubts one might have had regarding the pacing of 20th Century Boys can be cast aside for now.

Antique Bakery Volume 1

Age Rating: 16+

Genre: Comedy

Price: $12.95

Description: When an old antique shop re-opens as the hottest new bakery in an unsuspecting neighborhood, there’s no doubt that a few surprises are cooking. Love, rejection, old high school flames and the most delicious boy-to-boy affections all blend together to make a treat unlike any other. The Antique Bakery is now open…care for a dessert? Antique Bakery teases the palate with humor, fun flirtation and a host of sweet and sour moments. No matter what you crave, this is one shop you can’t pass up.

As I said last week, for the month of November I’m going to review cooking manga. When I reviewed the first volume of Kitchen Princess, I said this about cooking manga: In my mind, cooking manga demonstrates everything that comics can be—all about great stories about something everyone does. I mean, let’s face it; everybody eats. Cooking manga is shonen, shojo, seinen, yaoi—it cuts across genres in ways that other types of stories don’t. I just think it’s cool how creators play with food and cooking to come up with so many different situations, characters, plots. Plus, there’s some inherent difficulties in representing food in comics—the visual pleasures of food are not easily re-created in black and white line drawings, and the obvious draws—smell and taste—are not available to the mangaka. Yet the best cooking manga makes you hungry! I’ve heard about Antique Bakery quite a bit—Fuji Yoshinaga is a major talent and it shows here. She’s primarily a yaoi artist, and her work is spoken of in the same way that I’ve heard people speak about DeathNote, Monster, and Nana—as in, “if you want to know what seinen/shonen/shoujo/yaoi manga is like,” someone will say, (or even, “before you judge that genre”) “check out this.” Antique Bakery is the yaoi that sealed Yoshinaga’s reputation here in the US, and so when I decided to write a month of cooking manga reviews, I knew I had to include this title.

I’m glad I did—Antique Bakery is as sweet, delectable, and playful as the pastries sold in the titular shop. This is a love triangle, kind of, but at heart it’s a situation comedy. In fact, it feels only nominally yaoi. The setup is this: Tachibana owns the bakery and runs service, Ono is the master pastry chef, and Eiji is the equivalent of a busboy. And the setup is this: Tachibana is an oddball business-type, kind of a schemer, beautiful but loutish, a straight guy who’s hoping that his bakery will give him access to cute young women he can endlessly hit on. And while Ono is the finest pastry chef there is, he is, in his own words, “a gay of demonic charm”—every bakery and restaurant he’s ever worked in has fired him for causing fights between men, husbands leaving their wives, and worse. Eiji is a boxer with a vicious sweet tooth and detached retinas. Thus, Tachibana’s too much of a businessman to hire any chef but the best, but Ono’s total, inescapable fear of women means that Tachibana cannot hire a “sweet little counter girl.” And Ono’s omnivorous sexual attraction has found in Tachibana the one man who escapes his devilish charms. Eiji, on the other hand, works just to be near the master chef—a desire of another sort. But he’s not Ono’s type, and he has no respect for Tachibana. And that is what I mean by love triangle, albeit, a love triangle of a different sort.

This first volume begins in the present, with the bakery and its trio acting as set pieces for “problem of the week” storylines. Complex set-ups, involving interweaving both the main and secondary guest characters’ backstories leads to a not very satisfying ending for the chapters, but good enough. At this point, midway through the volume, you have a fun handle on the characters and the humor. Then the story drops back to the beginning and the series of events that led to the creation of the Antique Bakery. And it’s here that the story, humor, characters, art—everything really clicks and starts humming along.

I loved Antique Bakery. Just picking up the book to look over sections for this review had me cracking up seeing again some of the great moments. Yoshinaga has such great control over her characters, their gestures, and facial expressions. Her stylings are solidly in the yaoi mode, with lithe, limber guys, finely rendered and lovingly detailed. One of the things that tends to bother me about yaoi—how backgrounds tend to completely vanish for pages—here is done judiciously. And if you’re squeamish about guy/guy action, there’s only really one brief scene in the book, definitely more heat that fire. That said, the guys are sexy, particularly Ono when he gets dressed up to go out on the town. What I don’t know is where the series goes from here. The whole set-up seems like a delicate balance that threatens to fall apart if Yoshinaga keeps things going as they are, or collapse in on itself because the stories stall out in a stale, guest with romantic problem per chapter.

A couple of other comments before I leave Antique Bakery: Yoshinaga does a fantastic job of the cooking side of the manga. There aren’t lots of drawings of the pastries, but what make’s it really sing are the ways she has the customers savor their food. When somebody tastes great food in cooking manga they can immediately break down the ingredients that make it so. In a good cooking manga, nearly every character is, at heart, a foodie, sort of like how everyone in a shoujo manga is pretty. In Antique Bakery, this food ecstasy becomes a more general expression of sensual, sexual energy. So that everyone’s sweet tooth becomes suggestive of different cravings entirely. It’s very clever.

Finally, I just want to note something about the packaging of this by Digital Manga Press. Their volumes are larger than the typical manga released in the US, and they include the dust jackets that most other publishers forego. I really enjoyed these elements of the book. Yoshinaga’s art felt expansive and dramatic with the extra space, and the slipcover gave Antique Bakery that extra bit of class that made it stand out. DMP really stands out with this volume.