Rocket Bomber - manga

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

Welcome to the N.H.K., Vol. 1
Published by: Tokyopop
Writer: Tatsuniko Takimogo
Artist: Kendi Oiwa

192 (172) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2004. US edition October 2006.
English Translation: Katherine Schilling
Adaptation: Zachery Rau
Retouch & Lettering: Chris Moore & Corey Whitfield
Cover Design: Al-Insan Lashley
Editor: Alexis Kirsch
Publisher’s Rating: Mature, ages 18+

Rating: 0 out of 5

##

Premise: Tatsuhiro Satou is a hikikomori, a shut-in who has voluntarily retreated from the rest of the world, spending all of his days alone in his shabby, single-guy apartment. Something threatens to shake him from his self-imposed seclusion, and he resists like they’re trying to pull his eye-teeth…

Synopsis:

Chapter 1 gives us a quick overview of the sad phenomenon of hikikomori as demonstrated by our main character: unemployed college drop-out Satou hasn’t gone further than the corner convenience store for more than 4 years.

The first people he’s talked to in close to a year are the hapless missionaries who happen to knock on his door. One of the two who come to his door is a pretty young girl. Satou can’t really handle it and the rest of the encounter, needless to say, doesn’t go well at all.

Already depressed over his own condition and seeming inability to do anything to pull himself out of this state, Satou slides even further into hell. He does some drugs, and after a brief conversation with his household appliances (who of course tell him it’s all due to an evil conspiracy) and the realization that both his savings and his parents’ charity are about to give out, he comes to the momentous decision to get a part-time job. …at a manga café, of course (kind of a cross between a coffee shop and a comic reading room) because even with the determination to do something about his pathetic lot, he’s still a loser fanboy.

Satou marches off to apply for a job only to meet, behind the counter at the café, the same girl who had been going door to door with her aunt, the missionary. The same girl in front of whom Satou had lost it the day before. He loses it again.

Now he’s broke, soon to be starving, depressed, embarrassed, and suicidal. The only thing to save him from offing himself right that minute is that he manages to channel his rage toward the guy living upstairs, who’s been blasting anime theme songs all day. (that’d probably piss me off, too.) His urge to kill is instantly deflated when he discovers his upstairs neighbour is another shut-in, and a guy he knows from high school–an underclassman who used to look up to Satou.

Chapter one ends with a note from Misaki, the girl who came to his door the day before, the one who unknowingly short-circuited his brief attempt to find gainful employment. It’s an odd sort of proposal: she wants him to participate in an unspecified research project.

Things kind of go downhill from here, and by the end of the book we have seen Satou go from bad to perverted to worse, and we’re still not sure why Misaki has chosen Satou, or what the project is.

##

Review:

Zero points. Any redeeming qualities are more than cancelled out by the craptastic content. Oh, so you don’t believe me? Our “hero”, the one we’re meant to root for? A shut-in who has completely rejected normal society.

Well maybe the comic is a story of redemption, bravely overcoming obstacles, etc. etc.

Nope.

After blowing the interview to become a part time wage slave, Satou’s idea for making money? Start up a porno-computer-game company with the other shut-in upstairs. His idea of research… I won’t mention, except that it would get him arrested in 47 of 50 US states. Yes. Arrested.

There is half a plot. There are events going on. And yet the main character is so hard to stomach most of us have tuned out by page 30. Almost all of us will stall at page 60 (or throw the book against the wall). Satou uses drugs. He’s a perv. He has no real interest in really coming out of his shell, unless there is a punishment or reward to consider.

To be fair, even the main character knows things are wrong, and the icky bits are not treated sympathetically. But… at the very nadir of his descent, he’s hiding in the bushes to photograph candid shots of grade school girls. Even with my thick skin and an honest attempt to understand this part of the overall Japanese mindset, I can’t start to defend that. Misaki, the enigmatic female lead, shrugs it off and says that just makes Satou an even better candidate for her project, but the fact that this is in the book still irritates me.

The writer, Tokimogo, is doing a decent job of setting up the story. There is a mystery to be solved. Odd things are happening in the background.

I just wish they were happening to someone else. Needless to say, I won’t be buying future volumes.

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

Someday’s Dreamers: Spellbound, Vol. 1
Published by: Tokyopop
Writer: Norie Yamada
Artist: Kumichi Yoshizuki

192 (182) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2004. US edition December 2006.
Translation: Jeremiah Borque
English Adaptation: Hope Donovan
Retouch & Lettering: Bowen Park
Cover Design: Jose Macasocol, Jr.
Editor: Paul Morrissey
Publisher’s Rating: Teen, ages 13+

Rating: 3 out of 5

##

Premise: The normal stresses of typical high school student life are only compounded when the potential career paths include studying magic…

Synopsis:

Nami Matsuo is a high school senior who has coasted through a lot of school so far; she never joined any clubs, she gets by with just a small cadre of close friends, and boyfriends are only on the very edges of her radar.

Her senior year brings a lot of changes though. She’s elected class president. The class jock (a triathlete, of all things) expresses interest in her, as does one of the more studious types: the president of the photography club. (Not to mention one of her friends…)

Nami is mostly oblivious to all that, but there is one new factor she can’t ignore: Ryutaro Tominaga literally tears into town on his motorcycle, almost crashing into Nami in the process. He misses her, but hits a tree.

Nami is an earnest but ineffectual magic user, and in her attempts to fix his bike after the accident, she only makes things worse.
And this is the beginning of a whole chain of events, that ends with the usual realizations and confessions… well, if you really have to know, I guess you’ll be reading the book.

##

Review:

Another story set in the background of Someday’s Dreamers (and hence, the title), here the writer decides to back off a bit from directly addressing magic in the modern age, to see how some of the same issues will tangentially affect a more typical love story.

Mostly, this weakens a lot of the punch of the first miniseries, in that now we just have plain characters and typical high-school-teen interaction to carry the plot, without a gee-whiz gimic like magic-for-hire. On the other hand, the characters are genuine, and while seemingly generic, their interactions and feelings will find resonance with our everyday lives because they are in fact that much closer to the reader’s everyday experience.

So it’s one more iteration with the same old stock cast, a story of high school loves and crushes. Ugh. I’d almost give this a single point, out of five. (you know there’s a but coming…)

But the writing and art manage to convey the emotions well, and while the art isn’t as drop dead gorgeous as in the previous two Someday’s Dreamers volumes, it is still very good. The longer page count, combined with a slower pace of storytelling, could also be taken as good points. In some ways the flaws of this first volume can be read as necessary for the build-up, with the need to introduce a whole new cast, set up relationships, and get the ball rolling.

Taken on it’s own, I’d give it a two out of five, but I’m willing to bump that a point for the payoff of the last page, and the potential of future volumes.

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

Someday’s Dreamers, Vols. 1 & 2
Published by: Tokyopop
Writer: Norie Yamada
Artist: Kumichi Yoshizuki

144 (128) & 144 (98) pages. Vol. 2 also includes a 37pg bonus story.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2002. US editions March and July 2006.
Translation: Jeremiah Borque
English Adaptation: Hope Donovan
Copy Editor: Eric Althoff (vol. 1) & Peter Ahlstrom (vol. 2)
Retouch & Lettering: James Dashiell (vol. 1) & Creative Circle and Camellia Cox (vol. 2)
Production Artists: Jennifer Carbajal and Lucas Rivera (vol. 1) & Fawn Lau (vol. 2)
Cover Design: Gary Shum
Editor: Paul Morrissey
Publisher’s Rating: Teen, ages 13+

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: Modern-day, professional magic is just another part of the service economy. Yume Kikuchi has come to Tokyo for a summer internship with noted mage Masami Oyamada. Learning the rules of magic is only the beginning of her education…

Synopsis:

An odd misunderstanding that develops from the way his name was spelled leads Yume Kikuchi to think her new teacher would be a woman. When she finds out that Masami Oyamada is a man… well, lets just say that her slight phobia towards men is going to make this difficult. Not just because Masami is her teacher, but also because Yume signed up to stay at (not ‘her’ but) his house for the next few months.

Over the course of her internship, Yume makes a few bad decisions. It’s all part of the educational experience, and daily proof that magic won’t solve all problems. Despite the reassurances of her friends and teachers–and while her magic does do some wonderful things for the people that she meets–Yume ends up taking all of these small failures all too seriously.

When her desire to help ends up going head to head with both the realities and limitations of her craft, Yume get disheartened, and despairing and depressed, runs back home with every intention to give up magic for good. But with the help of her teacher, her mother, and the head of the magic bureau, she works through both her trepidations and the problems of her most difficult client, and finds that in the end, the magic of both her special gifts and the human heart will prevail.

##

Review:

From this site’s FAQ:

[quote]
Q: Why is there so much stuff about manga? I hate those creepy-looking bug-eyed kids.

A: There are two kinds of people who like manga. The first are 12-year-old girls. The second are middle-aged pervs with school uniform fetishes people who are such comic nob/snobs that they believe that manga is better than guys in spandex beating each other up.
[/quote]

Well, let me switch gears from my usual fare (rated 16+ or 18+; “Wrapped in plastic = bonus!“) and review a couple of books that appeal to the other half of the demographic. While the back of the books say ages 13+, I don’t see anything objectionable here. If you let your kids read Harry Potter, than this series is more than fine. (in fact, I’d heartily recommend these to any Rowling fan)

Another reason to review this particular title is that the first volume of the spin-off series released just last week (check this space in 2 days) so I’m presented with a perfect opportunity to dust off and review one of my favourites.

Let me make a note on the page counts: The second volume barely runs a hundred pages, after subtracting out a couple of ‘bonus’ stories, and there is the usual padding of ads and extras across both volumes. (Take that as one more reason why I decided to combine the two volumes into one review.) While Tokyopop could have sold us a single ~240 page book, if they had done so, we would have had one less cover.

The cover art is gorgeous. The thumbnails don’t really do it justice; try to find a larger image or just hunt this one down at a local comic book store. You can find yourself getting lost as your eyes gaze down a road winding into the background art (particularly on the cover for volume one).

The first 5-6 pages of each volume (along with the last few pages of story in vol. 2) are hand-shaded, either with watercolours or art markers (it’s hard to say with black & white art)– but either way, it’s very nice. If I ever win the lottery, I’m going to be paying serious bank to some artists to do whole books in this style. The soft tones (without inks) provide an excellent introduction to both the main character and the overall mood of the books.

After the subtle, nuanced art of the first few pages, the rest of the book will be jarring, briefly, but even after switching to standard inks and tones, the artist is still doing some amazing things with the standard palette. The play of dappled light and shadow as sunlight is filtered through leaves; the background of trees, rocks, and water when two characters are sitting by the side of a creek; dynamic visual contrast on nearly every page–I don’t know if the credit goes to Yoshizuki or to a phalanx of unnamed art assistants (heretofore unnamed; let’s name ‘em: Junji Ikeda, Makoto Koizume, Shin Hasegawa, & Takehiro Kotera) but you could use these books as examples in manga art classes. Yeah, it’s still black and white art, but we’re not missing a damn thing because of that.

So it’s pretty. How’s the story?

The anime of the same name is a slow, meandering story that seems to take 25 minutes to make a single plot point. (I saw the anime first) By contrast, and perhaps because this is just a 2 volume series, events in the manga move at a much brisker pace. After volume one, our heroine has not only taken on four cases, but the aftermath of that last case ends the book with a real dramatic punch.

Volume two steps away from outside events, and begins to wrap things up for all of our main characters. The drama is still there, but it is focused on the present-day consequences of things hidden in the main characters’ back-stories. While the books reach a conclusion, we are also left with the distinct feeling that the characters are now moving forward. In some ways that’s the best kind of ending, particularly when the main conflict is more psychological than physical.

We do get a little more, though: the end of volume two is padded out with a couple of cute stories about Yume and a friend of hers, two light romances for the end of summer.

I’ve already said this series is one of my favourites; and between the art, the story, and the overall accessibility, this is one of very few manga that I can recommend to anyone without reservation. If you wanted proof that comics can be more than superheroes and formulaic monster-of-the-week plots… here ya go, have at it.

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

My-HiME, Vol. 1
Published by: Tokyopop
Writer: Kimura Noburu
Artist: Sato Ken-etsu

200 (192) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2004. US edition November 2006.
Translation: Jeremiah Bourque
English Adaptation: Gina Lee Firenzi
Copy Editor: Sarah Morgan
Design and Layout: Michael Paolilli
Graphic Designer: Monalisa De Asis
Editor: Bryce P. Coleman
Publisher’s Rating: Mature, Ages 18+

Rating: 3 out of 5

##

Premise: School girls with psychic powers are gathered at a special academy to fight the “orphans”, monsters that appear out of nowhere with little but mayhem and destruction on their mind. So far, at least, the Orphans only appear to attack the school…

Synopsis:

Yuuichi Tate is a new transfer to Fuka Academy. He’s stoked, because his old school was boys-only, and he’s looking forward to co-ed education.

The poor lad. It’s just his second day, and on the way into class from the dorm, he finds himself in the crossfire of a psychic-powered catfight: a couple of girls named Mai and Natsuki are in the middle of a grudge match when poor Yuuichi takes a wrong turn.

The results of the fight are pretty much a draw, but Yuuichi discovers he is a Key, and as such is able to amplify the power of a Hime, as the girl psychics are called. The thing is, it looks like he is the Key for not one but both of the girls.

That afternoon one of the Orphans attacks (at the pool; because the writer & artist wanted girls in swimsuits in peril, is my guess) and while the Hime response team (with Yuuichi’s help) manages to defeat the monster, a stray shot takes out Yuuichi’s dorm room.

Poor guy. This being a manga, he gets assigned temporary quarters in a girl’s dorm, rooming with Mai and her junior roommate, Mikoto. Before the night is over Yuuichi has to put up with strict rules about which side of the room is not his (enforced by Mikoto with a sword), inadvertent temptation, a kidnapping, and a botched rescue that results in another destroyed dorm room, and a third girl (Mai’s rival Natsuki) being crammed in with the rest.

There are at least two more battles and a lot of school politics, and mayonnaise-covered ramen and other horrors to contend with. And Yuuichi’s first week isn’t even over yet.

##

Review:

My-HiME is based on an anime of the same name. From the info in one of the sidebars within the manga–and also some of the flaws apparent in it–we know the comic was conceived as part of a multichannel strategy (TV, print, a PS2 game, merchandise, etc.) to drown the market in cute power-wielding, creature-summoning, monster-fighting school girls, who in the heat of battle occasionally have bits of their uniform burned, torn, or melted off.

Obviously, these guys know their target market.

Like many (all?) adaptations, this manga suffers from one glaring flaw: the writer assumes everyone is familiar with the show, so they hardly bother to introduce anyone or explain anything.

If you didn’t know better, you might think that this was a brilliant literary device, using foreshadowing while simultaneously dropping the reader in medias res, with the expectation that characters and concepts will be introduced later, after the action.

Let me disabuse you of that assumption right now. Nope, no exposition, no introductions, and only the slightest nod to the reader not-in-the-know. At most, they’ll toss a name at you in a caption the first time a character appears, and that’s all you get. A knowledge of a whole bundle of personalities, allegiances, conflicts, back story, and motivation is all taken as a sine qua non.

But here I am, 600 words into a review, and while I’ve insulted several people, disparaged a whole class of manga, and used Latin twice, I still haven’t actually told you anything about this particular comic.

Well, I haven’t seen the anime yet (I’m waiting for the final disc to street sometime this March; call me picky, I like to see a show all at once) so like most of you would be, I’m nearly lost in this first volume. And, if an offhand comment from another sidebar is any indication, fans of the TV show will be just as confused (if a bit more familiar with the characters) because apparently the manga is an alternate storyline anyway.

The events of this first volume could easily have been split over two books of the same length. A slightly slower pace, particularly in the beginning, would have given the writer room to introduce characters (and setting, and concepts) while also providing the artist some room to display the monsters and summoned creatures in all of their glory, rather than having them shoehorned in behind explosions in the fight scenes.

Granted, the art is good, mostly. Tender moments between leads are perhaps some of the best panels in the book; Ken-etsu manages to convey the emotions of the teenage characters well. You can literally read it in their faces. The action panels are also well done, but tend to pile up on one another. And inexplicably some attacks appear to be happening in mid-air, without impact or targets, just because the character will look cooler that way.

The book earns its 18+ rating, so don’t let your 12-year-old read it. Damsels in distress get at least a half page each, skirts fly even without a breeze, and there was the aforementioned fight at a swimming pool. I know that as a manga fan I’m supposed to demand my books uncut and unbowdlerized, but in this case some of the fan service is just distracting, or seems misplaced. The book would have actually been better without a bare ass or strategically-tattered uniform or three. Not that you’ll hear me repeat that.

So I might have given this a 4, if they bothered to explain anything, or a 2 just for the distracting T&A. I’ll split the difference. And as distractions go… I suppose it could be worse. [*cough*]

Fortunately for me the final DVD will be released about the same time as the second volume, so I can watch a few episodes and then come back to this property with a little more background. If you are already a fan of the show, then you might just give this a try for an alternate take on your favourite characters.

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

Recast, Vol. 1
Published by: Tokyopop
Writer & Artist: Seung-Hui Kye

192 (184) pages.
Original Language: Korean
Orientation: Left to right
Vintage: 2003. US edition November 2006.
English Translation: Woo Sok Park
Re-touch & Lettering: Nathan Kaestle
Graphic Designer: James Lee
Editor: Hope Donovan
Publisher’s Rating: Teen, Ages 13+

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: In a world where just about anyone can use magic–if they bother to pay attention in their high school classes–JD is an apprentice mage being raised by his grandfather to be something exceptional…

Synopsis:

JD is trying to follow in his grandfather Grifford’s footsteps; problem is, Gramps is a kick-ass mage, and he doesn’t bother to teach much, believing in something along the lines of “Well, toss ‘im in. If he doesn’t drown, he’ll learn to swim.”

JD runs into all kinds of crap in the zombies-coming-to-get-us line in this first instalment, which he manages to deal with, both with and without his grandfather’s help. Along with Professor Celine, who is too hot by half to be stuck teaching kids magic, and the currently-unnamed-but-persistent foes, JD has his hands full. I’d love to go into more details, but there are a lot of spoilers I won’t get into

##

Review:
…because you should read this for yourself.

This is not your standard fantasy. Oh, some of the usual props and tropes are here–from spells and magic weapons, to wise old mages and young, brash apprentices. And then after that, all your expectations are going to fail you. This isn’t just another D&D rip-off.

There’s a cosmology here, something that seems new. It may be old hat to someone conversant with Korean myths… but then again, I don’t think so. (I don’t have a degree, but I’m pretty sure I’d heard about most world myths already.)

Not that anything will fit into my neat Western-derived categories, but the basics are “heaven” (the 6th world) and “hell” (the 4th world) and the goldilocks-zone of the 5th world (which has a top and bottom– the inside of the sixth sphere and the outside of the fourth sphere, near as I grok it) where all our characters are starting out. And while some restrictions apply, there seems to be a lot of back-and-forth movement between the three. From here, though, who knows where Kye is going to take us next.

There is a lot of other stuff dealing with the mechanics of magic that I won’t go into, either because it’s barely been mentioned yet, or because it has something to do with major plot points related to our characters. And there we are. A complex fantasy story that I can’t describe in detail because I don’t want to ruin it for you.

Back to nuts and bolts: So, even with new clothes, is it just the same old hoary story? Yes and no. I can see the setup: Young hero must overcome obstacles, realize his own power, collect the plot coupons, find the Magic McGuffin and then face off against evil (“You’re not my father!”) before cashing in on the happily-ever-after voucher. And while I want to write this off as just another derivative fantasy, so far artist/writer Kye doesn’t seem to be falling into that well-worn and well-padded rut. I’m not sure what to expect from future volumes, but the usual clichés don’t seem to be any part of the story yet.

It’s that promise that raises my eyebrow, and my review by a point. Otherwise I might have only given this a 3 (for uneven pacing, and the annoying habit of not explaining anything) but his hook has worked. I want to read more.

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

By the Sword, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Published by: ADV Manga
Writer & Artist: Sanami Matoh

Rating: 2 out of 5

Premise: Whilst wandering medieval Japan, an itinerant demon hunter finally finds the mystic blade through which he can properly channel his powers, but it comes with some baggage…

just this once, since for this title they tend to go on for much too long, I’ll list the credits after the break…

192 (184) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition March 2005.
Translator: Yuko Yoshikawa
Translation Staff: Javier Lopez (Translation Supervisor), Kay Bertrand, Amy Forsyth, and Brendan Frayne
Print Production/Art Studio Manager: Lisa Puckett
Production Staff: Klys Reedyk (Pre-press Manager), Jorge Alvarado (Senior Designer), George Reynolds (Group Leader), Heather Gary (artist), Natalia Morales (artist), Mark Meza (intern)
International Coordinators: Toru Iwakami, Atsushi Kanbayashi, and Kyoko Drumheller
Editor: Susan Itin
Editorial Staff: Margaret Scharold (Assistant Editor), Sheridan Jacobs (assistant), Mike Essmyer (intern), Marsha Arnold (research)
Executives who get their name in the book though it’s questionable if they actually did any creative work on the project: Kevin Corcoran & John Ledford.
Publisher’s Rating: Ages 13+

##

Synopsis:

We meet our hero, the demon hunter Asagi, in a brief action sequence that kicks off the comic. Asagi offs the demon he is fighting, though he has to use his mystic power to do so. (it’s an unspecified power, but really good against demons, apparently.) His power can only be used when channelled through a sword, though this has the side-effect of fatally weakening, or even destroying, the blade.

Soon after, he gets a tip on a mystical blade, the Moegi, that would let him fry and chop up demons as much as he’d like, if he can find it. His only clue is that the one who supposedly has the blade is a girl named Kaede in a prefecture a couple of mountains ranges over.

This being a two volume mini-series, only a couple pages later Asagi tracks down Kaede (well, he randomly runs into her at a temple, after making his way to the prefecture in question) and he now has the blade he needs. Sort of.

Asagi can use the blade, when Kaede lets him, but she insists on carrying it around & generally not letting it leave her sight. The blade also comes with other baggage: namely, Kuranei the fire demon, the blade’s forger. Well, Kuranei is feeling a little under the weather; his body is missing so it’s just his spirit that hangs around. His spirit appears as a foot tall version of himself. And he’s a reformed demon, he doesn’t go around eating people’s livers any more. Oh, and he happens to be Kaede’s father.

The volume ends with some more exposition on how each of the characters ended up like they are, as well as a bit of a cliffhanger.

##

Review:

If the number of people listed in the credits is any indication, ADV is fairly serious about making a business of this manga licensing thing. Sheesh, people, I just want to know which poor, underpaid artist actually did the lettering, I don’t need to know the whole office staff, or who went out for coffee and doughnuts. I tried to summarize as much as I could in the header above (this is only a review, after all) while still giving credit where due.

(to be fair, this is one of ADV’s first releases– first manga release, anyway; they’ve done two boatloads of anime– and in a more recent release from ADV which I’ve referenced, it seems they’ve reined in a bit on the credits.)

If you’ve seen Inuyasha on Cartoon Network then you have a feel for this type of background and setting already. Fans of one will likely find something to enjoy in the other. Still, the plot seems wafer thin and character motivation and development are both fairly simplistic.

I can say a few good things about the art, though. The panels are dense, and renderings use both hand-drawn inks and screen tones to produce some very lush, expressive black and white artwork. Action scenes have a lot of punch [har har] and all in all, the book is fun to look at.

Even with all the pretty art to distract me, I still thought the story was yawn inducing. I probably won’t even bother buying the second volume.

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

Air Gear, Vol. 2
Published by: Del Rey Books
Writer & Artist: Oh!great

224 (196) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition October 2006.
Translation & Adaptation: Makoto Yukon
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Publisher’s Rating: Older Teen, Ages 16+

Rating: 3 out of 5

##

Premise: The very latest in cool gear are inline skates with power boosters, called Air Trecks. It’s all fun and games until the Trecks are adopted by the local street gangs…

Synopsis:

Itsuki has a screw loose.

In this case literally: Even though Itsuki Minami feels ten feet tall and bulletproof because he is coming fresh off of a win, his Trecks are a little worse for wear. So he heads of with Mikan (second-oldest of the unsinkable Noyamano sisters) as his guide to the thrilling world of… sporting goods stores.

At this particular store, though, all is not as deadly boring as we might fear because Itsuki meets the girl of his dreams, the sexy and mysterious Simca. We all know this is going to lead to trouble.

Simca gets our poor dumb hero into yet another scrape with a local skating gang, and after that altercation, his equipment ends up even more messed up.

So now Itsuki needs money, fast. After a few false starts he finds himself a gig as a ramen delivery boy. This introduces him to the world’s most improbable extreme athlete, “Fats” Buccha, who needs really hefty skating gear to get his bulk flying. Fats has a proposition for Itsuki, a way to get free parts for his Air Trecks, if our hero can handle the challenge…

##

Review:

Volume 2 has been out since the end of October, so hot on the heels of the review for Volume 1 here’s a two-fer for all you nice folks.

If you liked the art and action from the last volume, Oh!great has got more for you. The panel layouts continue to be dynamic, and between speed-lines, shading and lighting effects, and forced perspective we always have a sense of both velocity and altitude when two Storm Riders are fighting it out on skates above the city skyline.

I’ll heap some praise on Del Rey, too. Their translation manages to catch (or perhaps, manufacture) a real sense of the slang and phrasing we’d expect from a bunch of teenage skaters. All in all it’s a fun read.

And yet…

OK, here’s my major complaint: Our “Hero”, Itsuki? He’s a dick. I find it hard to like him. In fact, I’d like to reach into the book and smack him. It’s not that he’s an anti-hero, or that he’s got that “I’m evil only because your world calls me evil” shtick working for him. He’s just a dick.

His only virtues are his fighting skills. He steals from his foster sisters. He’s a bundle of male hormones that drops any brains or sense just as soon as he’s presented with even the barest whiff of a likely female target. He’ll try just about any scheme to avoid real work, and

Oy! Hey, Itsuki, get off my lawn! Damn punk kids, think they can get away with anything [mumble, mumble]. Maybe I’m getting old, and just can’t relate to the mindset anymore.

Still and all, the supporting cast is pretty good. Also, while the enemies faced down by Itsuki and the Noyamano sisters in volume one were pretty much dire villains straight out of central casting, volume two brings in few shades of grey and begins fleshing out the whole sub-culture surrounding Air Trecks and their enthusiasts, the “Storm Riders”.

And there was a mini-physics-lesson-slash-(unintentional?)-Monty-Python-reference that had me laughing out loud.

Will I be buying volume three of Air Gear? Yes, if only to watch the Sisters bring the beat down on that dick, Itsuki. That, and there was enough punch coming out of the first volume that I’ll give the writer time to find his pacing and his story, and see what develops. You can either pick up #1 and see if the premise grabs you in the same way it did me, or wait and see– I’ll be buying and reviewing volume three (and four. and likely five, too.)– before you start investing in these.

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

Air Gear, Vol. 1
Published by: Del Rey Books
Writer & Artist: Oh!great

232 (208) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition July 2006.
Translation & Adaptation: Makoto Yukon
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Publisher’s Rating: Older Teen, Ages 16+

Rating: 4 out of 5

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Premise: The very latest in cool gear are inline skates with power boosters, called Air Trecks. It’s all fun and games until the Trecks are adopted by the local street gangs…

Synopsis:

Meet Itsuki Minami, near legendary street fighter, hero of the Eastside, known all over as “Babyface”.

He can beat anyone except any of the four girls he lives with, the Noyamano sisters. All five are orphans; both families used to be close friends, and circumstances being what they are Itsuki lives in the Noyamano household. Itsuki makes due, looking out in his own way for his ’sisters’ while trying to keep from getting too beat up at home.

“Babyface” Itsuki may look like a softy, but outside of the Noyamano household, he kicks serious ass. He’ll take any challenge. The troubles start when he accepts a challenge from a rival gang, and while he wins decisively, he has no idea that the Westside punks have dangerous underworld connections.

Avenging their recently-defeated cohorts, gangsters on Air Trecks move into Itsuki’s turf– defeating his gang, kicking his ass, and generally making life a bitch for all the kids involved. Soundly beaten, Itsuki loses any cred with his gang, or his rivals, or the Sisters. But he’s like family, so the Noyamano girls help the poor kid out.

With new trick skates and a few choice skate tricks, Itsuki finds redemption in the mangled near-corpses of his enemies. Of course this takes a few chapters to cover, including the inevitable one-on-one showdown with the rival gang’s boss.

Now turned on to a whole new (underground) world of blood, skates, and flying leaps, in some ways Itsuki is just more confused than he’s ever been, but he wants to know more. As he goes in search of answers to all these burning new questions… we get a pretty solid setup for what we’ll all get to read about in Vol. 2.

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Review:

Oh!great is the pen-name of Ito Oogure (go ahead, say his last name out loud… you’ll see where he picked up his nom de plume) and he has built up something of a reputation over the past few years as a writer and artist with a flair for fight scenes and violence.

In that respect, at least, Air Gear does not disappoint. Also, Oh!great does some really good work with perspective and motion, imbuing a number of scenes with a definite sense of soaring over an urban landscape.

While the pages are pretty, sometimes the story takes a back seat. Important plot points flash by in a single panel, occasionally hidden or obscured by a stylish but confusing layout. I found myself re-reading pages just to figure out exactly what was going on, and how Itsuke managed to get to where he was, three pages on.

The story moves in fits and starts, not really settling into a steady narrative, or bothering to expand on characters or circumstances much past a rather two-dimensional portrayal, including the so called hero. But the art is nice to look at, and perhaps if Oh!great steps back a bit to tell his stories with a bit more space and care, it’ll all make sense in future volumes.

As a special bonus, Del Rey gives us the first 8 pages rendered in colour (a nice touch) and of course the extras at the end of the volume include their usual translation notes, along with some character info/preliminary sketches, and a few preview pages from volume 2, which are sort of nice to look at but only really handy if you happen to read Japanese.

Volume 1 is a slick and fast-paced opening for a series with an original concept and some very nice artwork… you know there’s a “but” coming. The premise works, for the most part, but the whole gangland-skate-challenge theme could be written off as just a flashy 90s extreme sports retread overlayed on old 50s car culture memes, right down to a final duel (or should I call it a race?) between the once-beaten hero and his nemesis. If you can buy into the ground rules, though, it looks like we’re in for a hell of a ride.

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

School Rumble, Vol. 1
Published by: Del Rey Books
Writer & Artist: Jin Kobayashi

192 (162) pages
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: 2003. US edition February 2006.
English Translation & Adaptation: William Flanagan
Letterer: Dana Hayward
Publisher’s Rating: Older Teen, ages 16+

Rating: 2 out of 5

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Premise: High school romance, the comedy.

Synopsis:

A collection of 18 ’shorts’, each smaller story featuring a different problem in the love lives of a small group of High School students.

Tsukomoto Tenma is a second-year student, and she has a big ol’ crush on Karasuma Oji. He’s calm, cool, collected, and completely clueless as to how she feels.

Harima Kenji is a delinquent, a drop-out, and a motorcycle-riding badass who generally gets along by beating up or running over anything in his way. It turns out he has a big crush on Tenma. But she’s also clueless as to how Kenji feels. Well, she’s clueless in general.

After the first few chapters set up this love triangle and the rest of the story, events proceed as you’d expect, with any number of good ideas to get close to or to confesses to the object of one’s affection going horrible awry, or just failing with a comedic flop.

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Review:

Let me say a few good things first. The art is nice, the girls are cute, there is a fairly tight story focus and the short chapters make for a brisk read.

Another nice touch is the differing art styles employed; when Tenma is the main character the art is crisp, if perhaps a bit manga-generic, but when the delinquent Harima is featured, Kobayashi switches to a looser, grittier style, with screen tones often replaced by cross-hatching and other hand-drawn shading, especially in the fights and other action sequences. It’s a neat gimmick, and certainly gives you the feeling that poor Harima really has been dropped from another comic entirely, right into the middle of white-bread suburban high.

The bits of background and other scenery are sparse, though. In quite a few panels (and regrettably, a few whole pages) it seems like the characters are floating in white space.

The cast is small, though additional teachers and students– nameless extras– step in as needed. It looks like the series is going to concentrate on Tenma, her sister Yamuko, and three of Tenma’s friends, with Harima as added comic relief and the enigmatic Oji only there as an object for Tenma’s affections.

The back cover and other promotional materials have pitched this as an ‘over the top’ comedy. And at it’s best, it is chuckle inducing– usually when there is some excuse for Harima to whop someone upside the head. Some of the setups shade a bit dark for real comedy, though, and there may have been some losses in translation.

Del Rey has done a decent job with the adaptation, with lots of notes (the end notes not only explain some of the trickier translations, they reprint the panel in question so you don’t have to flip back through the book) and some care in keeping a lot of the flavour of the original Japanese. They leave written foley in the original katakana script (with translations in small subscript) for example. But even with all that effort, it doesn’t always play well. The manga didn’t make me laugh out loud, which might generally be considered a failure.

From the setting (high school) to the characters (students) to the setup (crushes, love triangles, and unrequited love), School Rumble is close to being a typical (or even stereotypical) plain-vanilla manga. Kobayashi uses all the usual visual conventions– including intercutting with cute, cartoony versions of characters and similar wild-takes to emphasise a punchline– so if that aspect of the manga style is hard for you to take in large doses then even the good jokes won’t make you laugh.

Sometimes the comedy and the story work, sometimes they don’t. If you like the premise, or perhaps if you’re closer (in age, temperament, or relative hormone levels) to the whole high-school-crush thing, then this manga might “work” more often for you than it does for me. But I think a lot of us would rather go read something with more explosions in it.