Viz gets Library War: Love and War

I don’t remember the last time I was so excited about a new manga license. Viz is going to put out the shoujo manga version of Library War, called Library War: Love and War. Library War is a tender love story about librarians who defend intellectual freedom with machine guns. How could any self-respecting librarian or book lover not adore this manga?!

I only hope that more Library War merchandise makes its way over to North America like the anime, light novels, little keychains, mugs, pencil cases, t-shirts, bookmarks, and cell phone charms. All of that might be too much to hope for, but I’m so happy that this manga is coming out here.

Karakuri Odette

Karakuri Odette Volume 1 by Julietta Suzuki

The cover of this manga immediately captured my attention. Who was this this girl plugged into a machine with a deadpan expression on her face? When I realized that Karikuri Odette was about an android attending high school, I was a little concerned because I tend to associate mechanical high school girls with excessive amounts of fan service. Fortunately Karakuri Odette ended up being a nice slice-of-life school story about a machine who just wants to become more human.

Odette and her creator Professor Yoshizawa meet with the school principal. Odette wants to know what the difference is between her and humans, so she expressed the desire to attend school two weeks after she was constructed. The Professor assures the principal that Odette is state-of-the art, with programming in place to ensure that she will never do anything to harm a human. A mosquito lands on the coffee table and Odette slaps it, splintering the table with her incredible strength. Despite her destructive tendencies towards furniture, Odette is allowed to attend school as a new transfer student. She sees her classmates eat lunch and wonders at the meaning of the word “tasty” so she asks the professor to give her the ability to eat. She also asks for her strength to be diminished to that of a normal human girl. Odette wonders at the meaning of tears when she sees her classmate Yoko crying over a boy. When Odette is trapped with Yoko and unable to save the situation she tells Yoko to look away and selflessly sacrifices herself by ripping out her circuits to trigger an alarm signal to the Professor. Odette wakes up with the Professor reassembling her. When he tells her she has friends waiting to see her, she says “What’s going on? I feel like my body should be jumping up and down.” The Professor replies “It means you’ve gotten ten steps closer to being human.”

The rest of the volume has some standalone episodes that show Odette gradually progressing with her understanding of humans and androids. An android assassin named Chris visits the house when the professor is out, and Odette thinks he is the answer to her Christmas wish of “someone to play with.” A delinquent named Kurose finds out Odette’s secret after she defends him from bullying and finds himself treating the android girl like a friend despite his knowledge that she isn’t human. Odette has an encounter with another android girl who seems a little too good to be true, and the collection concluded with an unexpectedly touching story about Odette encountering a ghostly little boy.

One of the things I liked most about Karakuri Odette was the lack of emphasis on romance. Odette will comment on her human friends’ pulse rate and body temperature as they gaze at their objects of affection, but a typical shoujo romance doesn’t seem to be in the cards for this series just yet. The art is clean and expressive, as Odette’s expressions gradually grow warmer and more human-like throughout the volume. There’s a bit of physical humor as Odette reacts to the human world and some of the poses she strikes are hilarious, like when she holds up tensed fingers to say that she’s capable of playing the piano.

At six volumes, this series seems like it would be a good length. Not too long to make someone panic about running out of space on their bookshelves, but long enough to explore several story arcs and hopefully wrap everything up with a nice conclusion. This is exactly the type of shoujo series that I hope to see more of from Tokyopop, and I’m looking forward to reading the further adventures of Odette.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Black Bird

Black Bird Volume 1 by Kanoko Sakurakoji

I generally don’t pay super close attention to reviews of titles I think I’m going to end up reviewing myself, but my impression is that the reaction to Black Bird among manga blogs was decidedly mixed. Sakurokoji wrote the cute two volume series Backstage Prince, so I pre-ordered this series based on my enjoyment of her previous work.

Misao is burdened with the ability to see demons. She frequently gets sick at school or trips and falls due to her visions of the otherworldly creatures that are invisible to everyone around her. One thing comforts her – the memory of a childhood friend who also saw demons. The boy next door was a few years older than her and before he left he promised to return for her.

A handsome man suddenly appears next door and introduces himself as Kyo. He greets Misao by name and tells her to call him if she runs into trouble. Misao doesn’t connect him with the long-lost friend from her youth. The next day at school a fellow student slashes Misao’s neck and announces his intention to eat her – she’s a rare human whose blood will grant a demon long life and eternal youth. If a demon marries her, his clan will prosper. Misao calls out for Kyo and he appears, asking her if she remembers him because she’s going to be his bride. Kyo is a tengu, a bird-like demon. He fends off Misao’s attacker and heals her by licking her wounds. Evidently Tengu saliva contains magical healing properties.

Kyo seems to spend most of his time licking Misao’s wounds. I wonder that she has much blood left in her, because she is constantly getting cut. He also frequently gropes her, and while Misao slaps him a bunch I find her curiously passive about her predicament. Why isn’t she trying to come up with some sort of strategy or solution to dealing with her demon problems? While she doesn’t seem too thrilled about marrying Kyo, she isn’t doing anything on her own to make her situation better. Kyo is given to the worst type of romance novel alpha-male utterances like “You can’t live without me. I have to teach your body that.”

I didn’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for the characters. On the other hand, with all the licking, groping, and random injuries going on Black Bird isn’t bland and even though I found it frustrating it captured my attention more than another recent supernatural series, Rasetsu. So while my reaction to Black Bird was mixed, I think I’ll at least check out the second volume to see of some of the charm of Backstage Prince starts to work its way in to this series.

Animal Academy 2 and Takeru 2

Animal Academy Volume 2 by Moyamu Fujino

I’m liking this series about a human girl attending a high school for shape shifters more with the second volume. I previously reviewed volume one. The second volume shows Neko continuing to settle in at her strange new high school, with just enough mysterious happenings to keep the reader wondering what will happen during volume three. She finds out that one of the boys in her class is another undercover human. There’s a mysterious portal to the outside world that randomly appears in the forest surrounding the school. The student handbook seems to predict the future, especially Neko’s club selection – just what is the “Ninja Club” for anyway and how can she find it?

There’s slightly less interspecies friction as Neko’s cat-roommate Miiko settles down a little bit and is less antagonistic towards the other students. Neko still can’t figure out the human identity of the mysterious snake she previously encountered. The only student who is a snake, Sasuke, claims it wasn’t him. Sasuke also appears to have a similar looking brother named Yasuke who also appears around Neko often. The only thing that I find to be a little off about the book is the way the high school students are all drawn to look as if they are in fifth grade. Still, Animal Academy is a light, undemanding read with plenty of cute drawings of animals, and the day to day life of the students attending the mystical high school was entertaining. It is very tough to find manga suitable for the 10+ age range, so I’m glad Tokyopop is publishing this series.

Takeru: Opera Susanoh Sword of the Devil Volume 2 by Nakashima Kazuki and Karakara Kemuri

I previously reviewed the first volume of this fantasy saga about three men named Takeru who come together in a quest to find a legendary sword. The second volume is much more frenetically paced than the first, with plenty of battles, plot twists, and revelations. After being hailed as three legendary heroes by the Jagara, the amazonian society that protects the legendary sword of Susanoh, the Takerus find themselves in a frantic battle that involves hang gliding and an airborne blood coagulant that hampers the Jagara’s legendary blood based fighting powers.

The revelations keep coming as the reader learns that the Jagara have a graveyard for their missing breasts, and Takeru Oguna is actually the long lost prince of the enemy Amamikado. While the action scenes could be a little more coherent, there was something about the non-stop nutty revelations and the energy of this manga that appealed to me. This is the type of series that I’d be perfectly happy reading from the library, but I might not go out and spend my own money on it.

Review copies provided by the publisher

Sailor Moon for Sale

If you would like to own a tiny piece of my manga collection, I have a mixed lot of Sailor Moon Manga for sale on e-bay. It has Sailor Moon 2 and 3 and Sailor Moon SuperS 1, 2, and 3. I had some unexpected expenses recently, so I thought I’d give e-bay a shot. This would be a good starter Sailor Moon collection if you haven’t had a chance to check out this classic out of print manga before. Thanks to everybody who linked to the auction on twitter and their blogs!

We Were There Volumes 2-5


We Were There by Yuki Obata

Most of the time I tend to read series as they come out. With We Were There, I bought the first volume, liked it, and meant to get around to reading the other volumes eventually. I was happy to be able to dive in and wallow in drama, reading four volumes of this series in one day. We Were There starts out seeming like a fairly conventional high school romance, as Nanami begins to fall for her new classmate Yano. By the end of the first volume the reader knows there is plenty of pathos ahead, as it is revealed that Yano hasn’t yet recovered from the death of his ex-girlfriend, named Nana. To make the situation more complicated, Yano’s ex was also cheating on him at the time of her death. When Nanami tells Yano that she likes him and asks if he’ll be able to return her feelings, he simply says “I don’t know.”

We Were There Volume 2

Nanami misses Yano during summer break. He’s ditching rehearsals for their class play, so she’s not even running into him at school. She dresses up in a yukata for a summer festival, but just runs into Yano’s best friend Takeuchi. He tells her that the anniversary of Nana’s death has just passed. Nanami realizes that she’s just been trapped in her own mind and not seeing Yano’s point of view. Takeuchi tells her that Yano needs someone like her who is happy and cheerful to be around him, and snaps a picture of Nanami with his cellphone. Nana visits Yano at his house and tells him that she’ll always be there for him.

Nana’s younger sister Yuri Yanamoto is in Yano and Nanami’s class at school. Yano and Yuri occasionally have brief, silent, emotionally charged moments hinting that there’s something between them, even if it is only sharing dealing with the impact of the same person’s death. Yuri is able to comment on Yano’s irresponsible behavior and he doesn’t use his usual comebacks when talking to her. A flashback scene shows Nana when she was alive; capricious, somewhat stupid, and with horrible taste in men. The younger Yano decides to rescue her from her abusive boyfriend.

Nanami and Yano grow closer, and he announces that he likes her. They start going out, but with Yano still haunted by the specter of his dead girlfriend and Nanami seeming to think if she loves Yano enough she’ll save him from himself I have a feeling they have a rough road ahead of them.


We Were There Volume 3

Yano and Nanami start to adjust to their new relationship. They try to figure out what type of Christmas present to buy each other. Nana asks Takeuchi to help her find a present that Yano will like, but their planned shopping trip has the potential to turn disastrous thanks to Yano’s heightened sense of betrayal and jealousy. Yano decides to secretly follow Nanami as she waits for Takeuchi in a shopping district, but he only observes her take a phone call – Takeuchi isn’t meeting her because he thinks Yano will be happiest with a present that Nanami picks out all for herself. Events like this make me think that heartbreak will soon visit Nanami and Yano, because if a simple shopping trip can be the source of so much unspoken tension it doesn’t bode well for them being able to navigate relationship problems in the future. Nanami heads off on her shopping trip and later runs into Takeuchi. He’s come to check up on her after all, but he refuses to go get tea with her. I have a feeling that Takeuchi is holding himself back because he has a better idea of what Yano’s reaction would be if he found out that his best friend and girlfriend were spending time together without him. Yano stares at the scene between the two with a blank look on his face while Nanami thinks that Takeuchi is kind as she watches him walk away.

While Christmas ends up passing without incident, Nanami overhears a conversation between Yano and Yanamoto that makes her even more suspicious that something happened between them. Takeuchi isn’t much help. When Nanami confronts Yano, saying that he made her promise that there’d be no secrets between them, he changes the subject and brushes her off. My sense of impending doom grows even more.

We Were There Volume 4

Nanami and Yano run into difficulties when they try to physically consummate their relationship. Going to each other’s houses after school isn’t going to work out, so they decide to save up their money so they can go somewhere to be alone. Nana comes across a photo in Yamamoto’s book – a group picture that includes Yano. She doesn’t have time to replace the photo in Yamamoto’s book and later Yano finds the photo again in Nanami’s notebook. He returns the photo to Yamamoto and comments to Nanami “Only a lowlife would snoop around, don’t you think?”

Nanami senses the anger underneath Yano’s cheerful facade, and he’s enraged even more when Nanami gives Takeuchi a goofy cellphone strap as a joke birthday present. Nanami confronts him, and he says she can’t understand him because she’s never had someone betray her. They make up, spending time looking up at the night sky. Yano is desperately clinging on to their relationship and Nanami forgives him again and again. Yamamoto confronts Yano about the day Nana died by visiting him at his house when Nanami is there. Nanami is tired of all his secrets when he’s made her promise not to hide anything from him. As Nanami and Yano walk on the beach together, it is clear that he isn’t over Nana, and for all his efforts to throw himself into a relationship with Nanami he isn’t able to truly love her.

One of the things that I like about Nanami is even while she is exhibiting some remarkably co-dependent behavior, when things get really bad she does stand up for herself. She hasn’t really been in a relationship before and her first boyfriend is charming, popular, and comes with an incredible amount of unprocessed pain and trauma. Although she keeps asking herself if love is enough to make them happy, when confronted with Yano’s feelings that remain for Nana she decides she has to end things.


We Were There Volume 5

Breaking up with Yano isn’t so easy after all because everyone at school wants to know what the problem is. Nanami is hounded by questions. Takeuchi cheers her up by taking her to visit some puppies that he’s taken in after they were abandoned. Yano is badgered to going on a group date, but just sits there silently. When someone tries to delete a picture of Nanami from his cellphone, he reacts frantically by trying to get Takeuchi to send him the picture again. Takeuchi and Nanami begin to spend more time together, but Yano tells Nanami that he won’t accept that they’ve broken up. Everyone goes through the motions of preparing for the school festival.

One of the things I like about We Were There is the way the characters seem fully human, with their own quirks and emotional baggage. Too often, manga authors resort to stock character types, but Obata has really done the work in establishing each character’s unique personality. Even when We Were There seems it might be headed towards a stock plot, as Yano’s friend Takeuchi develops a crush on Nana, I was genuinely curious to see what would happen next.

There’s a certain amount of tension that the manga develops due to contrast between the adorable snub-nosed character designs and the anguish that the characters experience. I can’t help but compare We Were There to another another dramatic series, Sand Chronicles. Sand Chronicles seems to have a slightly more balanced story in terms of the range of emotions the reader experiences, with a few more light-hearted moments or pastoral interludes. Even when Yano and Nanami are seemingly happy, there’s still an underlying current of unease just because they are desperately trying to be happy together so much. No relationship can sustain that type of desperate effort. As a result, while I might consider Sand Chronicles to be a two hankie story, We Were There definitely requires four or five hankies. I think I’ll wait a bit more until more volumes are out, and lose myself in We Were There again whenever I feel like I need a healthy dose of drama and teen angst.