Rocket Bomber - manga

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Viz has got the third half of their February releases this week, Netcomics is coming through with some more manhwa for the fan base, and a couple of oddball releases round out the list.

Manga (& Manga-ish) Releases for 18 February to 24 February, 2007

The Devil Does Exist, vol. 9 — CMX — $9.99
The Drifting Classroom, vol. 4 — Viz Media — $9.99
Emperor’s Castle, vol. 3 — Netcomics — $9.99
Gals! vol. 9 — CMX — $9.99
Golgo 13, vol. 7 — Viz Media — $9.99

Hana-Kimi, vol. 16 — viz Media — $9.99
Hot Gimmick S (novel) — Viz Media — $7.99
In the Starlight, vol. 1 — Netcomics — $9.99
Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, Vol. 1 — Viz Media — $9.99
Kameo Manga, Issue #1 (of 6) — Prima Games (Random House) — $3.50

Kekkaishi, vol. 8 — Viz Media — $9.99
Land of Silver Rain, vol. 5 — Netcomics — $9.99
Let’s Be Perverts, vol. 2 –
Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, vol. 7 — Viz Media — $9.99
Pine Kiss, vol. 5 — Netcomics — $9.99

To Terra… vol. 1 — Vertical — $13.95
Vagabond, vol. 24 — Viz Media — $9.95

##

I suppose this is one of the reasons I compile the list: Kameo “Manga” #1, 32 pages, $3.50. Wait, Prima Games does strategy guides, don’t they? What the heck is this thing? Smells like a comic book to me, but I think RH is trying to sneak this into bookstores under the Prima aegis. If anyone buys this, heck, drop us a line in the forums. I’m curious but I don’t see myself special ordering a copy.

Let’s Be Perverts is from the same writer/artist as 0/6, so you know if the title didn’t sell me (and it almost did all by itself) then knowing his previous work means I’m going to have to take a look at that one.

Also on order this week are In the Starlight, To Terra… and well, some history: Angelic Layer from CLAMP. I know it’s not their best title, but it’s one of my favorite anime (mock me if you must, but still) and this seemed like a good week to get around to the manga. I’ve also got a double handful of stuff that I found on the shelf, new-ish but not brand spanking new releases.

So what did I miss? Questions, concerns, corrections? Hit me up, I might have answers…

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Onegai [Please] Twins (single volume manga)
Published by: DrMaster Publications
Original Story: Please!
Writer & Artist: Akikan

228 (216) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2005. US edition July 2006.
Translation: Gretchen Kern
Adaptation: Alien Lujo
Production Artists: Primary Graphics, Bryce Gunkel, & Stephanie Zhu
Cover Artist: Bryce Gunkel
Editor: Matthew Scrivner
Publisher’s Rating: Ages 15+

Rating: 1 out of 5

##

Premise: …save yourself the trouble and rent the DVDs.

Synopsis:

Mike is an orphan; thanks to an aptitude for programming and a fair amount of hard work, he is able to leave the orphanage and live on his own, just barely making the rent on a broken down old house somewhere out in the Japanese exurbs.

Why’d he move out to the sticks? Well, as a programmer, he can pretty much work wherever he’d like — but he has a particular attachment to his current digs. His only link to his past is an old photograph, showing himself and a girl (relative?) as toddlers, in front of the house where he now lives.

There’s only one girl in the photograph. Imagine Mike’s surprise when two girls show up on his doorstep, each with a copy of the photograph, and each claiming to be his “sister”. Or something; all three are half-japanese, and all three have the same shade of blue eyes.

It’s safe to say one is a relative. The other… well, hell, this is where the premise meets the plot, now isn’t it?

##

Review:

This is a single volume adaptation of a 13-ep anime. So yeah, with (roughly speaking) 10 times the room to tell the same story, the DVDs are going to be better. This manga is merely an exercise to soak the fanbase for an extra ¥1200 apeice. And to be fair: yeah, they got my 10 bucks too.

The art is good, both faithful to the character designs and perfectly acceptable in it’s own right. The story skips a bit; a familiarity with the TV show is taken as a given, so someone brand new to the story and premise will be OK, but will miss a lot of the nuance. In an attempt to bring something new to the table, the manga introduces a new character and has a “twist” ending—and the attempt is appreciated—but in the end the story points still resolve themselves in more or less the same way.

I’ve encountered this script before, in both an English dub and reading the subtitles on the anime, and there are a few translation flubs that detract from the story; I’m not saying that the translation and adaptation are wrong, just that there is some room for interpretation (obviously) and that in other versions, it was done better than this. I may have to take this as an object lesson when approaching other manga: translation is more art than science, and even the published version may not be the best one.

I won’t say the book is completely without merit, but there isn’t enough here to recommend to folks who haven’t already seen the show, and once you’ve seen the anime the manga is superfluous. 1 out of 5.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Rose Hip Zero, Vol. 1
Published by: Tokyopop
Writer & Artist: Tohru Fujisawa

200 (194) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2005. US edition November 2006.
Translation: Takae Brewer
Adaptation: Kara Stambach
Copy Editor: Stephanie Duchin & Sara Morgan
Retouch & Lettering: Michael Paolilli
Graphic Design: Al-Insan Lashley
Editor: Luis Reyes
Publisher’s Rating: Older Teen, Ages 16+

Rating: 2 out of 5

##

Premise: He’s a burnt-out former terrorist expert who voluntarily took a job with the juvy crimes unit. She’s a burnt-out former terrorist, sick of the work she was assigned and now willing to turn state’s evidence… and, she’s fourteen. Looks like Kyoji Kido’s two jobs are about to collide violently, with a side of gunplay.

Synopsis:

Desert Eagle .50. Think Dirty Harry and we’ll raise you a caliber or two. Kyoji Kido is a cop who doesn’t like to play by the rules, and he has a five-oh-vulture riding shotgun in his holster. The casual street trash he is currently running across in his daily police duties are getting the raw end of his anger, and I bet they wished they’d bothered to get bigger guns.

Kido used to work counter-terrorism, at least until his job bled over into his personal life, and his kid sister bit it.

Oh yeah, he’s all kinds of smoldering anger and pissed off at the world.

He’s found a way to sublimate that rage, though, and he’s trying to be just another beat cop — He took the job on the juvy patrol because he figured that way he’d never have to use deadly force again. He would have been right, if it weren’t for two things: A terrorist group called “Alice” started to target high-ranking cops… and a defector from Alice, Kasumi Asakura, has just been assigned to Kido as his new partner.

Dust off that Eagle, Kyoji, things are about to get messy.

##

Review:

The rating is 16+, so even if I didn’t notice it in this volume, all sorts of violence is no doubt coming. Volume one gives us a fairly standard cop drama, with a twist named Kasumi: one holds out hope that future volumes will make the most of the pairing of the two main characters, but at least for the length of this volume, it’s all just cliched interplay between the crochety “old” (20s) guy and the teen heroine.

We don’t even get into a lot of cop drama to date. Volume one exists to set up the premise and not much else. (The enemy are a bunch of teens. This is a spoiler, by the way, but heck — it’s just the first volume and I think most of us could have guessed that plot twist anyway.) Rose Hip Zero looks like a great title, but it may need a bit longer to stew before we see any real dramatic developments.

2 marks out of 5 — though keep your eye on this series; better things are coming.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Read or Dream, vols 1 & 2
Published by: Viz Media
Writer: Hideyuki Kurata
Artist: Ran Ayanaga

200 (188) & 208 (198) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2002. US editions November 2006 & January 2007
Translation: JN Productions
Touch-up Art & Lettering: Mark McMurray
Design: Amy Martin
Editor: Shaenon K. Garrity
Publisher’s Rating: Older Teen

Rating: 2 out of 5

##

Premise: Those who really love books can become Paper Masters with the ability to manipulate paper into tools, shields, & weapons. Who knew there would be three together in one place? Meet the Paper Sisters Detective Agency of Hong Kong.

Synopsis:

Michelle is the oldest: she is an avid collector of books, a passionate reader, and the de facto leader of the agency.

Maggie is next, a quiet, bookish young woman who is shy (perhaps due to her height) and easily engrossed in any book, to the point where she ignores the rest of the world.

Anita is the youngest, a little firecracker and the only realist of the group, in that she doesn’t see the need to spend every last yuan on more books, when they already have so many. She claims to hate books, but she shares her sisters’ power.

All three can manipulate paper, of course, and they use their powers to solve small cases around town involving books — well, they’ll also track down the occasional lost pet if that’s the only work they can get. Business has been slow recently.

##

Review:

Call this one Read or Die Lite. The focus shifts from intrigue and action to comedy and dialog.

Different yes, but not by any means bad. Some familiarity with the previous manga, the Read or Die OVA or the R.O.D TV Series is handy, but not necessary. If you want to fault this manga for lacking a strong story arc, definitely check out the two seasons of ROD the TV. The show and book were developed together, and I think one was meant to compliment the other.

These manga are a little different in style, compared to the rest. In these first two volumes, most chapters are self-contained stories (with one 3 chapter arc), so you can take as much or as little of the adventures of Michelle, Maggie, and Anita as you’d like. Each small episode deals with the smaller things in the lives of the detectives: books, cases and clients, the usual friction between sisters, and spending the grocery money on more books (I know that pain). Gone are the multipage duels with hardcore paper-cutting action, but instead we get some characterisation and exploration into what exactly books are and their meaning to the people who love them.

The art is also “softer” in style, in keeping with the other changes. Part of that is of course the change in artists, since the original series was drawn by Shutaro Yamamda. With three all-new main characters and no crossover between Die and Dream, direct comparisons would be unfair — Ayanaga is a fairly talented artist in her own right; her art (particularly character design) is a lot closer to what you see in many anime, not falling strictly into any one manga genre.

A few liberties are taken with some of the storylines, with aliens and magical libraries and a run in with “Lily the Reader, the Book Pirate” (a literary thief with a taste for rare books). Since the story resets to normal after each plot line wraps up, I guess Kurata can get away with these oddball elements. There are a couple of hints that some clients may be coming back as recurring characters, which would bring some much needed continuity and depth to this series, but since Read or Dream caps out at 4 volumes, I doubt it’ll be growing much of a plot between the halfway point and the end.

Recommended for fans of the series; a skip-able but enjoyable light entertainment for others — 2 out of 5.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

E’s, Vol. 1
Published by: Broccoli Books
Writer & Artist: Satol Yuiga

224 (186) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 1997. US edition January 2007.
Translation: Stasuki Yamashita
Adaptation: Elizabeth Hannel
Cover, Touch-up, & Lettering: Keiran O’Leary
Graphic Supervision: Cristopher McDougall
Graphic Assistant: Krystal Sae Uea
Editor: Dietrich Seto
Publisher’s Rating: Ages 16 and over

Rating: 3 out of 5

##

Premise: After the collapse of most nations following the last great global war, the world is a patchwork of independent cities and quasi-governmental corporations. Into this bleak future are born psychics, called E’s, who are subject to discrimination and outright hatred from other “normal” people. A psychic’s life is a very tough one, unless they get taken in by one of the ruling organizations…

Synopsis:

(note: this title should not be confused with ES: Eternal Sabbath by Fuyumi Soryo, published by Del Rey Books)

In this first volume, we get introduced to a dozen or so characters, two factions, a blighted urban landscape and of course, psychic powers. On one side is Ashurum, a shadowy group with mysterious motives, whose current objective is “peacekeeping” in Gald City. On the other side is Gald, a city partially rebuilt from the ruins but still a tangled mess both physically and in terms of civic organization.

Ashurum employs a small group of E’s as a sort of psychic SWAT team, to be used when conventional forces fail, or to counter other psychics. The members of this team are all teens, including one of the newer recruits, Kai Kudou. Kai has lived a sheltered life within Ashurum, and while he’s been told E’s are hated by most people on the outside, it is completely outside his experience. He is opposed to violence and killing, and is being brought into the team slowly by his commander Eiji Sagamiya, who shields Kai from some of the grittier parts of the job while still making use of his power.

Our story proper begins when the teen agents are sent into Gald, supposedly to find and capture other psychics who are being used by the guerillas. The kids can fly, teleport short distances, and employ some pretty sophisticated telekinetics — even up against other psychics, they should be OK. Eiji might have some other objective, though, because conditions on the ground are nothing like Kai and the others were told: the area isn’t mostly abandoned, innocent civilians are put in the crossfire, and the whole mission quickly devolves into a struggle for survival.

By the end of the book at least two agents are down, and Kai has had a major blow-up with one of his comrades, and his doubts about working for Ashurum will be fulfilled in violent and spectacular fashion.

##

Review:

Kai also has a younger sister, stuck in hospital. He has a rival, Shen-Long, who has a twin sister, Shen-lu, who has kind of a crush on Kai. There are also a handful of characters in Gald (with their own motivations and interactions) who each get quite a few pages… in fact, there are so many players that you can’t quite keep them straight without a program.

Broccoli Books has thoughtfully provided some help: two pages of quick character intros in the front of the book, and other character descriptions within the voluminous extras in the back. There are a lot of extra features: 20 pages after the story in fact, with the usual vol. 2 preview and translation notes, but a lot of good stuff about character and background, and a mini-comic where Yuiga writes & draws about her creative process up to that point.

I guess that’s why Broccoli calls this a ‘deluxe’ edition. That and it certainly feels like a better grade of paper in there; the paperback is noticeably heavier than other manga, even though it’s a half inch shorter in this trim size.

Between the excellent inkwork and toning, the blood-splattering fast-moving action, and the brooding night-time urban ruins in which much of this volume is set, there are a lot of pretty pictures to look at here. Yuiga is obviously very skilled, and if the credit page is to be believed, did all of the artwork herself. Broccoli retains the original Japanese sound effects (with small English subtitles) which they probably had to do given the way the f/x overlap in the dynamic panel layouts.

This is a fast paced, action-packed manga that still finds a little time to lay groundwork for future plots and character arcs. If anything, there is too much going on, and the reader is left feeling a bit lost, trying to figure out just who the “good guys” are and which characters will be Kai’s enemies, his allies, or his friends. It is a flashy introduction to the series.

This volume ends on a cliffhanger so of course I want to pick up the next one. While I’m giving this 3 marks, since I like a little more characterisation to balance out my action, I think the series as a whole has a lot of promise and will edge my rating upwards if future releases continue to build on this solid opening.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Legend, Vol. 1
Published by: Ice Kunion
Writer: Woo SooJung
Artist: KARA

196 (176) pages.
Original Language: Korean
Orientation: Left to right
Vintage: 2004. US edition November 2006.
Translation: HyeYoung Im
Adaptation: J. Torres
Retouch & Lettering: Terri Delgado & Marshall Dillon
Graphic Design: EunKyung Kim
(six editors, including Im, Torres, and Dillon, previously cited.)
Publisher’s Rating: Teen Age 13+

Rating: 1 out of 5

##

Premise: Delinquent student Eun-Gyo Sung gets suspended from school, locked out of the house after she “runs away” long enough for Mom’s temper to cool down, and now she’s being kidnapped and dragged 1000 or so years into the past by a handsome stranger. All in one day.

Synopsis:

And the Premise blurb nicely summarizes chapter one. In chapter two, Eun-Gyo adapts quickly (really quickly) to finding herself transported to the past, in a fashion that totally upsets and frustrates her “captor”, No-Ah Joo. The pair rapidly get into a mess because of mysterious occurrences in the village they delorean into. It’s a strange village; everyone there is a child [*cue low-key but creepy background music*]. They run into a child fleeing the local guard, barely have time to introduce themselves, before they are caught and jailed for “helping” in the attempted escape.

I’d tell you more about this second chapter, since one might assume that the story would really get started now that Eun-Gyo and No-Ah are in his proper time, but it seems to be a side quest, and has nothing to do (yet) with any of the plot points alluded to in chapter one. (These are fairly long chapters, 70+ pages each, so two is all we get)

##

Review:

To be fair, I should probably reserve judgement until after I’ve read volume two (which releases at the end of the month). [edit 14 July 08: Ice Kunion ran into trouble, and was absorbed by Yen Press in the intervening 16 months, and release schedules… suffered — vol 2 released like, last week] To be fair, I probably will read it even though I found this volume to be disjointed and confusing, with a couple a characters I can’t bring myself to care too much about.

Each of the two leads is defined by only the broadest of bush-strokes, and minor characters seem to be cardboard cut-outs, at least so far. The whole second chapter is told non-sequentially, with scenes jumping time and POV in a way that makes me wonder if my copy is some kind of printing error; since none of the pages are numbered, there is no way for me to be sure. It could be intentional, building suspense with foreshadowing and all that jazz, but it makes no sense.

The art is pretty good– much more polished than say, Zero Six. If you like long flowing hair and big liquid eyes, then the character designs will likely appeal to you. That plus the decently rendered backgrounds and action, along with the frequent splash pages featuring full-page character art will be enough to pull you along to the end of the volume. The slightly larger (5.5×8in.) format and the fact that nearly every panel bleeds out to the edge of the page make this a big, beautiful book. Very pretty.

However, this particular style is a little too far down the “pretty” end of the spectrum for my taste. The lack of anything deeper in the characters for me to latch onto makes the two leads seem even more superficial: all whipped cream and icing, no cake.

And if you don’t have much of a sweet tooth for the romance fantasy time-travel adventure genre of manhwa/manga to begin with, it’s best to steer clear. I’m only giving Legend, Vol. 1 a single mark, out of five.

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

So many of these are coming out each week, it’s not surprising that I’ve missed a few in weeks past:

My Dead Girlfriend and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, vol. 2 from Tokyopop, and Red String from Dark Horse.

I can’t imagine how I missed the Dead Girlfriend, it seems like every time I turn around Tokyopop is hawking the thing. Of these, Red String looks like a much more probable buy (though I’ll check out the web site first.)

This week’s list is under the fold.
Manga (& Manga-ish) Releases for 11 February to 17 February, 2007

All-New Tenchi Muyo! vol. 10 — VIZ Media — $8.95
Angel Sanctuary, vol. 18 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Banana Fish, vol. 18 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Basara, vol. 22 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Boys Over Flowers, vol. 22 — VIZ Media — $9.99

Flame of Recca, vol. 22 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Gravitation EX, vol. 1 — Tokyopop — $9.99
Hayate the Combat Butler, vol. 2 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Heaven! vol. 1 — Tokyopop — $9.99
Hits and Misses Book 3 — Realbuzz Studios — $4.97

Inuyasha Ani-Manga, vol. 19 — VIZ Media — $11.99
KAMUI, vol. 6 — Broccoli Books — $9.99
Law of Ueki, vol. 4 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Meet the Robinsons, vol. 1 — Tokyopop — $5.99
Mushashi #9, vol. 10 — CMX — $9.99

No Need For Tenchi, vol. 10 — Viz Media — $9.99
NOW 2nd Edition, vol. 2 — Infinity Studios — 10.95
O-Parts Hunter, vol. 2 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Sensual Phrase, vol. 18 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Tenjho Tenge, vol. 12 — CMX — $9.99

Train_Man: Densha Otoko, vol. 3 — VIZ Media — $9.99
Zatch Bell, vol. 11 — VIZ Media — $9.99

##

My plate is pretty full already, though a “volume one” is always tempting -– I have a habit of selecting them to review for the site, as you may have noticed. Nothing really begs for my attention on this week’s list, though.

Know of any other great (or just other) titles I might have missed? Or even a publisher or two that isn’t registering on my radar? I open the floor to your questions and comments:

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Tail of the Moon, Vols. 1 & 2
Published by: Viz Media’s Shojo Beat
Writer & Artist: Rinko Ueda

204 (190) & 200 (186) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2002. US editions October & December 2006
Translation & Adaptation: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
Retouch & Lettering: Kelle Han (1) & Mark McMurray (2)
Graphic Design: Izumi Hirayama
Editor: Pancha Diaz (1) & Nancy Thistlethwaite (2)
Publisher’s Rating: Older Teen

Rating: 3 out of 5

##

Premise: Historical Tensho Era Japan and the mysterious ways of ninja are a backdrop for, you guessed it, romance! (maybe it wasn’t your first guess)

Synopsis:

Usagi is our heroine, a bit klutzy and a bit of a slacker, but she has a good heart — and while not beautiful in a classical way, she is down-to-earth and cute as a button. (that’s her on the covers.)

She’s also a ninja. In fact, everyone in these comics right up to page 111 of vol. 2, is a ninja. Ninja training, ninja clan politics, ninja feats — yeah, all that. Setting that to one side…

Usagi isn’t very good at the family business. Her great-grandpa, who is also the head of the local ninja village, decides in his own enlightened way (hey, the year is 1580) that the only thing Usagi might be good at, is having ninja babies. So her “mission” is to marry the head of the main branch of the clan, and have his kids. Usagi is lucky that Hanzo (the previously referenced head of the clan) is a young hottie, but since this is a Shojo Beat title we all should have expected that.

Hanzo is talented, serious, responsible, and gorgeous. Even before she knows who he is, and that he is in fact her assignment, she falls in love (vol. 1, pg. 20). And there you have it. As readers, we all know the eventual ending, but it’ll be a lot of fun getting there.

[Spoiler: you may want to stop reading here.]

Rivals for both Usagi and Hanzo are introduced, and a whole subplot forms around a noble-born contender for Hanzo’s heart, all while Usagi’s ninja training continues. By the end of volume two, quite a few of these twists have to back-seat it while the Big Plot Development unfolds: where Usagi (under duress, but still) gives up on her ninja heritage, and decides to take a job as an herbalist to a feudal lord.

##

Review:

OK. Shoujo isn’t my cup of chai, but this is pretty good.

Heck, I don’t even like ninja comics much (I already know a ninja modern student of several “ninjitsu” martial arts schools, and while Mike does in fact kick much ass, the fiction doesn’t quite match reality.) Still, like costumed crime fighters or high school students with magical girlfriends, the ninja thing is part of comics and particularly manga, so there we have it.

And in Tail of the Moon the ninja thing is incidental to the human relationships. Like the art or the humour, it’s just part of the overall flavour of this particular comic. Ueda is doing an excellent job with characterisation so far, and is also a fair hand with the occasional bits of humour… and while I’m not nominating her for any awards, the art is pretty damn good, too.

The frame story that Ueda is working with is also done well. There’s that plot twist at the end of volume two that leaves me wondering just where the story is going, and quite a few other surprises along the road up to that point.

I hope that this title doesn’t drag on through too many volumes, because now that I’ve started I want to read it through to the end. (which is praise enough of any series).

originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]

Enchanter, Vol. 1
Published by: Digital Manga Publishing
Writer & Artist: Izumi Kawachi

184 (172) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition August 2006.
Translation: Sachiko Sato
Lettering: IHL
Graphic Design: Fred Lui & Wendy Lee
Editing: Stephanie Donnelly
Editor in chief: Fred Lui
Publisher’s Rating: For young adults, 16+

Rating: 2 out of 5

##

Premise: Demon lands in the lap of a mechanically savvy but academically challenged high school student. A female demon. In hot pants. She wants his body — but it’s not what you’re thinking…

Synopsis:

Generic Manga Hero #988 (gods, I’m starting to hate these guys; what’s this one’s name again?) high school student Haruhiko Kanou is an average mug whose only redeeming feature is a knack with machinery and gadgets. That and bland, manga-generic good looks. He starts out with problems, mostly that he’s slacked his way through classes and now really needs to study for upcoming exams. He’s finding it hard to concentrate though, because he has a huge crush on his science teacher, Yuka Fujikawa — who he also grew up with, since she happens to be the girl next door.

Into this set-up, let’s add a demon. Sure, why not? Eukanaria is on a quest, and she thinks Haruhiko has got what she needs. Not that she really wants him, it’s just that she’s been carrying around the soul of her lover for a while now, and needs a handy container to put it in — a roughly Haruhiko-shaped container.

Just one demon isn’t enough of a plot twist, oh no:
Because Eukanaria’s lover was the noted alchemist and inventor Fulcanelli, quite a few demons want his powers as an enchanter to make weapons (no doubt for evil, demon-y things that wouldn’t be good for mankind). So Eukanaria has been on the run for a while.

(I should mention that Haruhiko looks a lot like Fulcanelli… and aside from her much more revealing costume, Eukanaria is a dead ringer for Yuka. Handy coincidence, no?)

It sure would be handy to have an enchanter whip up a few demon-fighting devices right now, but Haruhiko doesn’t want to give up his body (he’s not quite done using it yet). An odd alliance of sorts is formed, since Haruhiko is pretty good with gadgets himself, and Fulcanelli seems to have an agenda separate from his girlfriend’s. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to allow Haruhiko to face the oncoming demonic assaults.

##

Review:

This first volume only contains three chapters, and there were quite a few introductions and all the background to cover, not to mention at least 2 big showdowns with demons. So it’s a bit hard to get a feel for the story, just with what we’re given.

And the manga has some flaws; I mean, if this title were just an excuse for some degenerate artist to draw teasing depictions of one of his favourite female fantasies, it would explain so much about Eukanaria’s character design, and the whole Eukanaria-Yuka plot angle. Let’s ask the artist:

(from the artist blurb on the dust jacket) “I’m a degenerate artist and like it”

Well then.

To comment on the other artwork, it’s pretty good, though with some flaws. The backgrounds are OK, nothing special but fine in application, but action & motion are decently rendered, and (to use the cinematic metaphor) there are a variety of shots and angles employed to keep panels visually interesting. Nothing sticks out, aside from the occasional object or weapon that gets drawn a bit wonky. While the artist may need to go back and study a few still lifes, he is (as was previously noted) well practised in at least one brand of anatomy.

Fan service is hard to separate from content in this title: teasing, sexually suggestive dialog, and adolescent male fantasies — leavened with a bit of action — are the order of the day for Enchanter. The odd relationships between the four “lead” characters (even though one is a disembodied soul) could in fact be called the primary plot, with the whole demon-fighting thing added as a side story to occasionally nudge things along.

With all that said, the story set-up isn’t that bad: a magic-MacGyver approach to demon fighting where the hero only survives if he can figure out and adapt an arcane and eldrich technology he’s never seen before. There’s also the dynamic of demon/human interaction, which is barely hinted at as yet — it would seem that some demons are invisible to most, and only apparent to a few people like Yuka and Haruhiko. There is a lot of backstory like that in this first volume, which is to be expected; the hints and clues are intended to keep us reading, and buying future volumes.

It’s a hardship, I know, but if you are willing to endure the fan service or can somehow read around it, there’s an interesting story here, with some potential for future volumes. 2 out of 5.