I tend to enjoy most Clamp manga, but one thing that’s frustrating is the amount of unfinished series that they’ve put out. This book was so fun to read, I wish that the series had continued for more than one volume. The Legend of Chun Hyang is Clamp’s take on a traditional Korean folk tale about a common girl who becomes engaged to a nobleman and preserves her chastity. The Clamp version of the story features a spritely Chun Hyang who is the daughter of the village medicine woman. She fights against injustice in her town while also taking on the role of protector for her mother since her father is absent. The Yang Ban, the local government official, is throughly corrupt and the Yang Ban’s son trades on his father’s position to abuse any of the village women who happen to be attractive. Fortunately, Chun Hyang has some kick-ass martial arts skills.
Chun Hyang’s Mom has just made some tasty treats for dinner, when a man sitting in a tree outside their door invites himself to dinner. He’s Mong Rong, a handsome traveler. Mong Rong is the type of hero that Clamp excels at - he seems feckless and irresponsible but he has hidden depths. He’s often found sitting on the sidelines, clapping and saying things like “Such a brave maiden you are!” after Chun Hyang has administered a beatdown to someone.
After some horrible events in her village, Chun Hyang joins Mong Rong on his journey. He’s actually traveling around the country in order to stamp out government corruption. The dynamic between the two is cute, as Chun Hyang is quick to charge ahead and get into fights while Mong Rong appears to be mainly concerned with filling his belly. He obviously finds Chun Hyang attractive, but she’s rather clueless about noticing any romantic attentions on his part. It is a shame that there is only one volume of this series, because it would have been nice to see the relationship between Chun Hyang and Mong Rong develop.

I’m not tagging anyone, but if you want to play along, feel free

Comics:

ZOT Vol. 1: Complete Black & White Stories 1987 to 1991 - I have most of the single issues for Zot! but I’m looking forward to being able to sit down and read them in a collected edition.

All Star Superman

Manga, new series:

SUGAR PRINCESS SKATING TO WIN by Hisaya Nakajo, the author of Hana Kimi. I’m hoping this is good. Mostly I’m very amused by the title, and I wonder if the heroine will somehow manage to win at BOTH ice skating AND love?! I’m guessing she will prevail!

Manga, ongoing series:

ONE POUND GOSPEL 2 - I’m buying this even though I haven’t read the first volume yet simply because it is by Rumiko Takahashi and involves a boxer and a nun. I don’t see how it can fail to be entertaining.
TAIL OF THE MOON 12 - My favorite comedic ninja romance manga. Also, the only comedic ninja romance manga that I read.
APOTHECARIUS ARGENTUM 6 - This is a nice, low-key fantasy series from CMX with plenty of court intrigue.
VENUS IN LOVE VOL 4 - Another CMX series. I’m hoping that the male character with a crush on his best (male) friend doesn’t suddenly turn heterosexual for the heroine of this book, but I’m not counting on it.
BOYS OVER FLOWERS 31 - Ah, Tsukasa and Tsukushi, will they ever get together? I think there are only 5 volumes left after this one.
HER MAJESTY’S DOG 10 - The only GoComi title for me this month, I decided to wait on getting Cantarella to keep within my budget.

Dojo is pensive:

The kidnappers call and demand the documents the library corps retrieved in the previous episode. They put Iku on the phone and she babbles about having to cancel a reservation with her friend Asako at a very expensive restaurant. Asako realizes that Iku is actually using her brain, and she’s provided the team with a clue to her whereabouts. The commander also takes off his prosthetic leg, which activates a homing beacon.

When they pinpoint the captives’ location Genda immediately buys the building where they are being held so the Library Corps have jurisdiction over the police, and they can send in the guys with the guns to attempt a daring rescue. I wish my library had an acquisition budget like that, it would certainly come in handy.

He laughs at the police:

Dojo heads out to lead the rescue mission, thinking about how similar Iku is to the way he was when he was just starting out. Ah, the memories!

Fighting Dojo!

As the commander is being wheeled away, he thanks Iku and says he told Dojo she did a good job:

Dojo compliments her on a job well done, but they get into a fight again:

Iku says she definitely doesn’t like Hikaru, so she can’t go out with him. He’s ok with that, as he only asked her out because Dojo said he could learn something from her. Iku is dismayed that she got all worked up for nothing.

Next episode: Iku’s parents come to visit, and they have no idea that she’s been serving in the Library Corps! Aiee!

With a title like “Foxy Lady”, I was halfway expecting this manga to be about the misadventures of an attractive woman in the 1970s. Since this is manga, the book is an example of the mystical girlfriend subgenre of shonen manga, where an ordinary schmo suddenly finds himself with an incredibly hot alien/goddess/demon/magical girl who demands to marry and/or have sex with him. The shining example of this genre would be the sadly out of print Urusei Yatsura.

Jin is the heir to his parents’ shrine. He lives in the deserted dorms attached to the shrine with his friend Sogo, a nearsighted cigarette fiend with a severe pornography habit. Jin is about to defile sacred ground by reading a manual on picking up girls in the shrine when he has has second thoughts. He heads back to the dorms and finds a girl sprawled out over Sogo. She’s Kogane, a half-human, half-demon who announces that she’s come to the human world “to beget” with Jin. After Kogane realizes that Sogo isn’t Jin she quickly switches her affections. She wants to become human, and the only way to do that is to get it on with a mortal boy. If she kisses Jin her ears, tail, and mystical powers disappear for a brief period of time.

The art is slick and attractive, with plenty of shots of Kogane in miniskirts and skimpy outfits. The reader learns disturbing things about Jin’s Dad, as he seems to have a closet full of naughty Santa-girl and nurse outfits. Some of the panels seem overcrowded and cluttered, with too much explanatory text and multiple shots of the characters from different angels. Sogo seems to exist as lecherous comic relief, as he often tries to get together with Kogane or any other female that happens to be in his vicinity only to become violently injured in the process. Jin decides that he has to protect Kogane as part of his shrine heir duties. When the kids go to school, all the sports clubs start fighting over Kogane due to her demon physical prowess. There were a couple amusing details like the portal to the demon road being placed in a linen closet and Kogane’s reaction to fried tofu, but the title didn’t capture my interest. I’m not really a member of the intended audience for this title. There’s plenty of madcap action and jokes about people being perverts, but this is a manga that doesn’t transcend the limitations of its genre to have much appeal for people that aren’t already seeking out titles about girls with animal ears.

Review copy provided by Tokyopop

Dorian reviews a ton of the FCBD comics, so you know what to look for.

If you can’t make it out to your local comics store, you can enter online to win free comics at Yet Another Comics Blog.

Books

Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe
Grave Peril by Jim Butcher

Manga

Emma #7
Gun Blaze West #1
Good Witch of the West #5
B.O.D.Y. #1
Blood Alone #4
ES (Eternal Sabbath) #8
Queen’s Knight #10
Nana #10
Yurara #4
Honey and Clover #1
White Night Melody #1
Tea For Two #1
Samurai Deeper Kyo #1, 2
Fairy Tail #1
Hellgate #1
Heavenshield #1
Foxy Lady #1
Pearl Pink #1
Knights of the Zodiac #1
Your & My Secret #1
Teru Teru x Shonen #1
A Wise Man Sleeps #1
Yumekui Kenbun Nightmare Inspector

This is a prequel to a videogame where I guess people fight a lot of demons. In the near future John Fowler wakes up from a terrible dream where he’s menaced by a dark figure in a bird-like plague mask. He’s a scholarship rugby student at Temple Unversity. When he digs up a skeleton as part of an impromptu outdoor archeology class he finds himself with a splitting headache and a mysterious pendant. He and his sister soon find out that their family has a secret - they’re part of an ancient line of Knights Templar that are supposed to protect London from demons. He finds his father’s sword in the attic; it looks like a giant Exacto knife. I assume that’s a detail from the video game.
The art was effective, making the demons and John’s ancient relative look suitably creepy. I appreciated many of the details like John’s brother Tyler and his tendency to make experimental sandwiches, and Lindsey’s prowess using a cricket bat. It was nice that Lindsey was an equal partner in demon ass-kicking.
While there isn’t anything terribly original about a story centering around demons taking over London, Hellgate was much better than I expected a video game spin-off property to be. I suspect if fans of the game are looking for a comic adaptation they’ll find this book entertaining.

Heavenshield Volume 1 by Ryu Blackman (amazon)

This volume introduced so many different characters in the first half of the book that I had a really hard time following what was going on. There’s a guy with a beard who seems to be having flashbacks and doesn’t treat his hookers very nicely. There’s an evil guy named Oz. A government official who seems to treat his hookers somewhat nicely. A crazy girl with a sword. Other government officials. A hooker named Chocolate. The bounty hunter heroine of the book seems to talk normally in the first half of the book and then communicates drunkenly in cockney rhyming slang in the latter half.
There’s plenty of action and women running around in costumes that look like wedgie inducing torture devices, but I had a hard time finding any semblance of a plot, it seemed like there was just too much stuff crammed into too few pages. There’s something off with the flow of action and the paneling in the art for the book that makes it confusing to follow. The book is set in a futuristic world, there’s a wacky religion and some lizard people!? The dialog doesn’t really help to explicate anything. With characters saying things like “Gonna rape you good”, “Mi nah fear di renk beast wen a come fi tess I?”, and “So I gotta ace this gig or my rep on the network is in the gary for good!” there’s not much there to motivate or help the reader make sense of what’s going on. Relying on dialect and rape threats to establish character is poor storytelling and ultimately boring.

Review copies provided by Tokyopop