High School Debut Volume 13 by Kazune Kawahara

I always approach final manga volumes with mixed emotions. It is nice to see a series wrap up, but sometimes concluding volumes just peter out, without giving the reader a satisfactory ending. While some of the recent volumes of High School Debut meandered a but, the final volume seemed much more focused. Haruna and Yoh are facing the prospect of a long distance relationship when he starts making plans to study in Tokyo for college while she’s wrapping up her final year of high school. At first she begs him not to go, but then she decides to put her selfish feelings aside and encourage him to follow his dream. It wouldn’t be High School Debut without some frantic plans and ultimately benign misunderstandings. Haruna pretends to be happy about Yoh’s departure by pasting a smile on her face that is incredibly strained. Yoh sees right through her. Their friends take the typical senior class trips, and Haruna and Yoh gradually come to terms with the changes in their lives through snowboarding and making their relationship official when Haruna has a fateful encounter with Yoh’s mom.

As a shoujo heroine, Haruna was unique because she was so open with her feelings. Yoh has always provided a counterpoint to her openness with his tendency to express himself through his actions instead of words. We can see how she’s influenced Yoh as he starts showing signs of his own insecurity at the thought of boys hitting on her when she’s gone. He puts aside low-key personality when he runs around to all of Haruna’s friends to ask them to take care of her when he’s far away. I’ll always be fond of Yoh’s character design, because it is so rare to see a male lead with weary lines underneath his eyes. The ending of the manga flashes back to the beginning in pitch-perfect way that made me close the cover with a smile on my face. High School Debut is by far one of the better high school comedy romance mangas that I’ve read. Even though it might stretch across thirteen volumes, I was happy for the longish length of the story because Kawahara’s characters are so individualistic and idiosyncratic.

This is very exciting news. Fantagraphics is adding a manga line. More Moto Haigo available in English will be a treat, and Fantagraphics really packages their books nicely.

This is shopping day at my blog, I suppose, as I take a peek at the March Previews:

Viz

Viz has some great stuff coming out this month, like Afterschool Charisma #1, Children of the Sea #3, Butterflies Flowers #3, and 20th Century Boys #9. But by far the most exciting thing that I’m looking forward to is Library Wars: Love and War Volume 1. I have made no secret of my love for this franchise, and I hope that the manga does well so we get to experience other Library Wars goodness. Here’s the synopsis:

Iku Kasahara has dreamed of joining the Library Defense Force ever since one of its soldiers stepped in to protect her favorite book from being confiscated in a bookstore when she was younger. But now that she’s finally a recruit, she’s finding her dream job to be a bit of a nightmare. Especially since her hard-hearted drill instructor seems to have it in for her!

So Library Wars is a shoujo romance about a group of soldier-librarians who FIGHT CENSORSHIP WITH MACHINE GUNS!!! How could any self-respecting librarian not love that?! If you have a librarian or book-lover in your life, you should buy them a copy. This manga could be drawn by monkeys, I would still want to buy it, read it, and cherish it forever. LIBRARY WARS!!!! It could be yours on June 1st! One week before my birthday!

Tokyopop

There are a ton of good ongoing series coming out from Tokyopop this month, even if none of them are related to combat librarians:

Karakuri Odette 3
Deadman Wonderland 2
Alice in the Country of Hearts 3
Silver Diamond 6

CMX

Also, a couple 9th volumes from CMX that I want to read, even if they don’t feature a new librarian falling in love with her short drill sergeant.

I’m looking forward to Venus in Love #9 and Apothecarius Argentum #9

Yen Press

I’m on the fence about these since they don’t feature librarians in combat, anyone have any opinions?

Black Butler 2
Kobato (Clamp Series)
My Girlfriend’s a Geek

Del Rey Manga

Night Head Genesis #2 – I will buy this because of You Higuri despite the woeful lack of uniformed librarians with grenades.

There’s something going on at Amazon, because the prices for many huge hardcover omnibus volumes have been slashed to $14 or $8.

If you head over to Bully, he’s put together a page that links to all the great deals.

It’ll be interesting to see if amazon honors the prices or cancels the orders if this is due to a data glitch. But it is worth a shot, if you want to pick up hundreds of pages of comics goodness for a tiny amount of money. I decided to try for some Ed Brubaker volumes, Invincible Volume 1, The Ultimates, and The Matt Fraction Iron Man Omnibus.

Crown of Love Volume 1 by Yun Kuga

I haven’t read Kuga’s other series Loveless, but I gather from the covers it involves cat people. Lots and lots of cat people. Crown of Love is set in the world of show business, but I had a hard time getting into this manga initially. I’m glad I persisted past the first few confusing pages. Maybe it was a function of reading this right before bedtime, but I had a hard time figuring out who the main characters were because everyone was introduced so quickly. Yurie is worried about one of her classmates missing the train. Tajima is so handsome, smart, and popular he basically has a built-in fan club at his high school for the performing arts. A girl runs by, chased by paparazzi and a ten year old fan. She’s the popular teen idol Rima. Rima bumps into Tajima and a one-sided romance is born. Tajima decides that he’s in love with Rima. She doesn’t know that he exists. Rima’s former manager and current crush object decides to scout Tajima as the latest teen idol to join his agency. Tajima agrees because entering the world of show business is the only way he can get close to Rima. Poor Yurie is left on the sidelines as Tajima decides to pursue fame and Rima.

One of the things I liked about this manga was the gender swapping of the typical teen idol plot. Rima is the one who is more established in show business and Tajima has to try to catch up with her. She views him as a new rival and doesn’t appreciate his blase attitude towards becoming a teen idol. She yells at him “In this business everyone is your rival! You’ll never make it in the entertainment business thinking like that!” She’s in love with her former manager and doesn’t appreciate that all his time is going towards launching Tajima’s career. Both Tajima and Rima are dealing with less than perfect family lives, so it is easy to see how they might find the artificial family created by a show business agency a refuge. Having the focus of the manga be on the boy pursuing an unobtainable girl is a little different than the typical shoujo plot line. Kuga’s art is attractive, although sometimes the character designs seemed a little inconsistent. Some of the plot twists seemed a little sudden or forced. It seems from the author’s notes that this series is a reworking of an earlier two-volume series. Crown of Love is like Skip Beat’s angst filled second cousin once removed. I think I’ll pick up the second volume to see if some of the storytelling issues smooth out a bit, since I do enjoy show business manga.

Eugene and I review the classic sports movie The Cutting Edge 3: Chasing the Dream at the Bureau Chiefs.

I continue my march through the Manga Views review database, adding new review links! Take a look at the recent reviews for Karakuri Odette and Ikagami the Ultimate Limit.

Also, there’s a new blogger profile up for Dave “Manga Monday” Ferraro of Comics and More. Check it out!

I’ve written an article on Manga for Your Quarter-Life Crisis for the Bureau Chiefs. Click on over and take a look!

This month was a little bit on the light side for me.

Books

A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
Dream Trilogy by Nora Roberts

Manga

Natsume’s Book of Friends #1
Alice in the Country of Hearts #2
Haru Hana: The Complete Collection
Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee #1, 2
Nana #20
Sand Chronicles #7
Vagabond #6
Stolen Hearts #1
Hanako and the Terror of Allegory #1
Sexy Voice and Robo (reread)
Bleach #30
All My Darling Daughters
What a Wonderful World #1

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee Volume 1 by Hiroyuki Asada

Tegami Bachi starts off with a familiar device in shonen manga. A prequel chapter shows a cool older character meeting up with a little kid, who vows to be just as cool when he grows up. The land of Amberground is shrouded in perpetual darkness, with only the capital city Akatsuki illuminated by an artificial star. Mail carriers called Letter Bees are a rare class of people that are free to move from town to town as they complete their errands. Gauche Suede is a Letter Bee, charged with delivering a small child named Lag Seeing to his aunt. Lag isn’t thrilled about being a letter or going along with Gauche. His mother vanished and he’s being sent to his Aunt in another town. As Lag travels with Gauche he learns about the dangers of the road the Letter Bees travel. There are dangerous insect-like creatures called Gaichuu that lurk in the countryside and attack the Letter Bees. The central message of the first chapter is “You’ve gotta have heart.” The Bees have special guns embedded with spirit amber that are fueled with fragments of their heart, and they are aided in their journey by animal sidekicks called dingos. They are dedicated to delivering letters that express the hearts of the postal customers. Lag has an eye made of red spirit amber, which gives him the potential to have more power than the average Letter Bee. There was a little too much weeping for my taste as Lag processes his emotions about his lost mother and begins to relate to Gauche. After Lag and Gauche have many adventures along the way to their destination, Lag vows to become a Letter Bee when he grows up.

It is five years later and Lag is ready to leave his town to take the entrance exam to become a Letter Bee. Along the way he finds a girl stuck in a crevice with a misaddressed label stuck to her arm. Lag names her Niche. As they begin their journey together, Lag learns that Niche’s hair can harden on command into sword-like blades. She’s a powerful companion. Lag wants to find Gauche, but he has to become an official Letter Bee first.

I enjoyed the world building aspects of the title. The illustration of a world shrouded in darkness, with the only illumination being a false star that looks like a Christmas tree ornament made for some compelling images. Asada uses a thick line and European designs for his buildings, making some of the background images feel vaguely like wood cuts. I’m not surprised at a certain amount of fan service in shonen manga, but a subplot involving Niche’s refusal to wear underwear and Lag’s instance on giving her a pair of boxers was more than a little bizarre. I did like Niche’s Medusa-like superpowers, which reminded me of old issues of the Fantastic Four.

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee Volume 2 by Hiroyuki Asada

The second volume shows Lag and Niche on their way to the Letter Bee headquarters. They stop in a town that’s the end of the line and quickly get into trouble when Lag’s transit pass is stolen by Nelli, a local street urchin. It turns out that she’s struggling with her feelings of anger towards an older kid in her town named Jiggy Pepper who left to become a Letter Bee. Her little brother died soon after Jiggy left, leaving behind a letter that couldn’t be delivered. Lag goes beyond the call of duty to try to help resolve Nelli’s situation and then travels on to face his Letter Bee test.

I thought the underwear shenanigans that I found off-putting in the first volume were mitigated by the second volume. It was pretty hilarious when Lag asked Niche what she was wearing on her head and she produced an animal that was all mouth and sharp teeth and announced that his name was Steak. The reader learns more about her background as a semi-mystical creature known as “the Child of Maka.” There’s a little more action and less angst from Lag as he battles the forces that tormented Nelli’s heart and then turns to his outward test of Letter Bee ability. The art in Tegami Bachi can sometimes be a bit on the crowded side, but I actually enjoyed all the extra tiny stars that often decorate the panels, as they help remind the reader of the fantastic world that Lag is navigating. I have to say that the covers illustrations for these books are incredibly attractive, with tones of blue and lavender serving to illustrate the darkness of Amberground. I wish there were even more color pages included in these books, although there are a couple at the beginning of each volume. I’m glad I read the first two volumes at once because after reading the second volume it was clear that Lag’s adventures are just beginning. There are hints of additional subplots that might be explored like the motivations of various people in the Letter Bee bureaucracy and Lag’s quest to find Gauche again. As long as Tegami Bachi concentrates on action and world building I’ll be interested to see what happens next.

Review copy of volume 2 provided by the publisher