12 Days of Anime: Changing Thoughts on Adaptations

Hi y'all, sorry that these posts have gotten away from me so badly. As usual I've been busier than I'd like in the rest of my life and it's taken a toll on my blogging time. Honestly it's taken a toll on everything this year, especially my manga-reading and anime-watching free time. I've gotten pickier than ever about what I spend my time watching and reading and it's really made me reconsider how I feel about adaptations of works, both those that I've already seen and those I haven't.

12 Days of Anime: The Shojo Hero Takeshi Natsume

Wohoops, totally forgot to link this one! I published one of my 12 Days of Anime posts over on The OASG, The Shojo Hero Takeshi Natsume where I talk about Natsume from Natsume Yuujinchou (Natsume and the Book of Friends) and how he really is a shojo lead. Not a transplanted shounen lead, not a shojo "romantic lead" guy but just, a shojo lead!

Manga Review: Millennium Snow

Title: Millennium Snow
Genre: Romance
Publisher: Hakusensha (JP), Viz Manga (US)
Story/Artist: Bisco Hatori
Serialized in: Lala in 2001, Lala DX in 2013
Original Release Date: June 3, 2014
Review copy provided by Viz Media
Review originally posted on The Organization of Anti-Social Geniuses 

Bisco Hatori’s name may not be well-known in the west but her most famous work, Ouran High School Host Club, still finds new readers and viewers every year who enjoy the comedy mixed with bits of romance. Millennium Snow both predates the series and was finished after it. Hatori took a break from it to work on Ouran and it shows: the story doesn’t feel disjointed but the first two volumes have a very different tone and goal than the latter two do.

Anime Review: Snow White with the Red Hair (part two)

So, new week, new anime? Considering I only review series after they've finished I can't precisely say that the second half of this Summer 2015 adaptation by Bones is brand-spanking new but it's still pretty new! As I've been saying with all of the sequels so far, yes this is a direct sequel to the first half, think of this more as a split show than a proper sequel, so go try that out before you watch this part. I suppose you could read this review first but I do have a review of the first half as well.....

Snow White with the Red Hair (Akagami no Shirayuki-hime)

Anime Review: The World is Still Beautiful

Running too behind for a weekly round up this week so let's get going, I've actually made some progress on my backlog!

The World is Still Beautiful (Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii)

Anime Review: Yona of the Dawn

As probably everyone already knows, I have been a huge fan of the Akatsuki no Yona manga for years so I was happy was an anime adaptation was announced, thrilled when I heard it was going to be two cours (since adapting any part of the story into just 13 episodes was going to be a mess), and then shocked when it was picked up by Funimation from the get-go, I guess successes like Kamisama Kiss are making people a little less hesitant about shojo again. So why do I love this show so much? Well, this adaptation does a pretty good job at explaining it!

Yona of the Dawn

Manga Review: My Little Monster (volume 4)

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I think my branch library has gotten a new employee lately who is fairly manga-savy, not just because of the "sad Naruto is over? Read these manga instead!" display but because I've seen more recent manga releases popping up in our small section recently. Obviously this was one of them, I hadn't gotten around to buying the latest volume of My Little Monster yet for, well, actually that's part of the review!

My Little Monster (volume 4) by Robico

Comic Review: Hana Doki Kira

I waffled over reviewing this anthology or not since I don't want to be excessively mean-spirited to a fan project and I know that it's highly unlikely that the creators of these stories will see this review and then keep it in mind the next time they plan something (like you would for a critique). And yet, this was a project I had high hopes for and this book really just didn't pan out for me and I would like to articulate precisely why this was since I do think these are correctable mistakes and not all of them are the fault of the artists.

Hana Doki Kira

Anime Review: Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun

These days I get most of my manga recommendations from tumblr, although "recommendation" makes it sound as if people are specifically telling me to read them. This time around I was following a blog for another series altogether, saw them posting a group of strips from this series and fell head over heels for it, I had to make sure I didn't just reblog every single one I came across! I immediately started hoping for an anime since I knew it would be a tough sell to convince my friends to read scanlated 4koma and thankfully one was announced quite soon after I first discovered it and I then proceeded to hope that I wasn't hyping up the series too much. Fortunately it seems like my friends have all fallen harder for this show than I did and I'm still seeing new people every week, people who don't even watch a lot of anime, picking up the show and falling in love.

Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun (Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun)

Anime Review: Ashita no Nadja

Over on Star-Crossed Anime Blog, Psgels (I believe this is where I first heard about the series) dubbed this one of the "50 episode Shojo Series of Awesome" and while awesome may be a bit of a strong word I will back him up and say that this is a really great show. I'm more familiar with the shojo demographic of manga than I am with shonen/senien/josei and for me this series was a fun throwback that felt like a mixture of 80s/90s adventure shojo and a number of turn of the century books for girls that I read when I was about ten (The Secret Garden, Heidi, Betsy, Tacy and Tibb, Anna of Green Gables). Those two kinds of stories might not sound that similar at first but they really are, they're almost slice of life stories focusing on the main character as she grows up and her relationships with her friends, her crushes, and the world in general (and the western novels often focus on the girls for years and years which is something you don't really see replicated in any kind of YA fiction these days). And that description fits Nadja to a T, the story starts out with a very small goal but gradually grows in scope until it becomes not quite a coming of age story (merely because Nadja is only 12) but something rather close.

Ashita no Nadja

Manga Review: Mars

Long time readers probably recognize this title because it's one where I've been trying to find a complete collection of it to read for years, I seem to recall I first came across it in high school which even for me was quite a few years ago now. Once I finally discovered that one of my library systems had the complete set I carefully set up my request for when I would have a ride (since I 1. wasn't going to request one book at a time again, heck now and 2. was not going to walk over a mile each way in the DC heat with 15 books) and then over the course of many nights spent babysitting worked my way through the series to see once and for all just what actually happened in it.

Mars by Fuyumi Soryo

Manga Review: My Little Monster (volume two)

After simply not having a chance to buy manga on a regular basis for so many years it still feels rather odd to get back into the swing of things and pick up a volume every other month, even back in high school when I was somehow able to buy manga I wasn't buying series as they came out, I was always trying to catch up with a million different series whenever I had a coupon! Of course, even back then in 2007-2009 there weren't many series coming out bi-monthly, I think Viz may have "sped up" some of it's big three shonen series and I would have gladly devoured more Fruits Basket if it came out six times a year instead of three but oh well. It's interesting that there's been such a bit shift towards these quicker releases, especially since Kodansha isn't trying to "catch up" with this series, it's already finished in Japan, but at least this way I won't suddenly have to start waiting four or more months for a new volume!

My Little Monster (volume two) by Robico

Manga Review: Nana

When most people think of anime with "broad crossover appeal" they tend to think of the shows like Fullmetal Alchemist and Attack on Titan, shows with flashy action that also spend quite a bit of time making their characters sympathetic so that any audience can follow their actions, not just hardcore anime fans who know what it means when a sister sighs after her brother. Nana doesn't have that flashy action that tends to grab people and yet I have heard so many people say that they don't usually read manga/watch anime or that they're fans but their parents aren't and yet this is one of the few series that has really grabbed them. I've been trying to get a hold of the series for years but given that, even unfinished, it's 21 volumes I've had a bit of a hard time, heck there's probably a review or two of volume one floating way back in my backlogs here. But when I had a lot of free time this past winter I decided to just go ahead and check out as many books from the library as I could carry at once (especially since it was a 30 minute walk each way to the silly place) and found out that the series was well worth my time indeed.

Nana (volumes 1-21) by Ai Yazawa

Manga Review: My Little Monster (volume one)

Back in the fall of 2012 I was pleasantly surprised to see that a new anime with a very bland sounding premise (girl is badgered by boy and a romance somehow develops) ended up becoming one of my favorite shows of the season and was then saddened when manga readers noted that due to how the series ended it was unlikely to get a second season. Well, that and the DVD sales, although I was a little surprised that this was the only one of the three shojo shows that season (the other two being Kamisama Kiss and Say I Love You) to not get licensed in the US since I thought it was by far the strongest. So I was quite excited that Kodansha USA announced that they were going to be putting it out and, like a good little manga fan, I went to my local independent book store, ordered it, and then actually got my book before anyone else did it seems, hurray for being a trendsetter!

My Little Monster (Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, volume one) by Robico

Manga Review: Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden (volumes one through ten)

So, many years ago (I almost want to say this was back in the OneManga days) on a whim I decided to try out this series even though I wasn't that big a fan of Yuu Watase's other series. I liked Alice 19th but I'll admit that series was total fluff for me, tried the original Fushigi Yuugi, didn't like it, and was a bit confused by the tone/story Ceres Celestial Legend was telling (having read about how that series ends, yep not one for me). But somehow this one worked better for me, it was just my kind of fluff in an art style I liked and I went through everything I could find pretty quickly. So when I spotted the first nine volumes at my local library I checked them out and discovered that very ironically they didn't even cover up to where my scanlations had ended, thankfully volume 10 was already on order and that did progress farther but I couldn't help and laugh, it's actually a pretty good example of why trying to keep up with current manga releases using only libraries is nigh-impossible (as of writing Viz has put out volume 11 as well and the final volume is due out in English this spring). But regardless I had it all and really was curious if I would still enjoy this fluff years later or not, the fact alone that I checked it out should give you a good idea of what I expected my answer to be.

Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden (volumes one through ten) by Yuu Watase

Summary: The year is 1923 and Takiko is adjusting to life in a new town after she and her mother move away from Tokyo to help her mother's tuberculosis. They both know the end is near and Takiko is furious that her father is still on his trip to god knows where and not with them. And when he finally reappears in their life he's a changed man, possessed by a fervor to finish translating the ancient Chinese text he was researching, The Universe of the Four Gods. The story itself is surrounded by stories and when Takiko is accidentally sucked into the book her father is horrified to realize that she is now the main character in the story who will team up with other super-powered people to summon an ancient god and that the path to get there is filled with danger. 

The Good: Yup, this is still my kind of fluff and more or less the closest I ever get to having a "guilty pleasure." I like the art and Takiko is a confident and strong-willed main character and actually does use her naginata skills more than just once in the first chapter (as opposed to the "look they have a weapon and used it once so they're a Strong Female Character!" trope, obviously she doesn't compare to all the super-powered people around her but she does use what skills she has). The pacing flows pretty well, Watase knows to give the character's a breather between big fights/revelations, they never feel too long or like the story is just dragging it's feet, and the story manages to flesh out all of the main characters just enough to make them sympathetic and distinct. It's not a super deep read and while I can't call it great I can easily say I enjoyed it and that it's certainly not terrible.

The Bad: Not all tropes are bad, on one level they're just short hand terms to describe common plot occurrences. However, common plot occurrences are just that, ordinary and predictable and this story is rather trope-y. None of the characters are super deeply fleshed out and often, especially earlier on, fall into the "he's the hot headed one and he's the calm, silent one" archetypes and Takiko is also really fixated on the fact that her father had wished for a son, not a daughter, early on in the story which gets tedious. This isn't a story with a super deep story either, Takiko has to gather the seven celestial warriors to summon Genbu and that's what they do, obviously they run into trouble along the way but it never deviates that far from the basic plot (although I did like the side-plot of Takiko and her father rather well and thought it fit in well with the rest of the story).

The Art: Part of the reason I consider this "my kind of fluff" is because I really like how the story works, it's rounded, soft, detailed shojo where all of the characters look great even when they're in the middle of an energetic fight scene. It's funny because I recall not liking how some of Watase's other works looked (like the original Fushigi Yugi and Ceres) but when I looked at them again for this review the art didn't actually look that different (well, aside from the male characters having those super long cheekbones that every male shojo character in the 90s had). The characters are distinctive enough and Watase designs some really cute costumes for everyone, I have to admit that even I have started eyeing a few of the characters going "yeah, that would be a fun cosplay....."


So obviously I intend to read the last two volumes (if I can I'll review both at once so don't expect anything before April or May) and I suspect I'll probably end up buying this series as well. While not the best thing ever it is just the kind of thing that I like to relax and reread every now and then. It is also available on Viz Manga's website and they have a preview of the first chapter for those who are curious about checking it out too, no account required to see it.

Manga Review: Bokura no Kiseki

I half remember where I first stumbled across this manga, I could have sworn I was on a thread on Anime News Network, I believe something had just gotten an anime adaptation, and someone said something dismissive about this title so of course I went and looked it up. I checked yesterday though and could not find the thread at all so perhaps I found this one via tumblr as well. Regardless, I looked it up and went ahead and tried out the first chapter expecting, based on the tone of the person who first mentioned it, to dislike it and quit halfway through. After the first chapter though there was a little bit of swearing on my part as I realized that this was exactly the kind of manga I loved, I was hooked, and had next to no hopes that it would ever get licensed, a truly winning combination!

Bokura no Kiseki by Kumeta Natsuo 

The manga title translates as "Our Miracle" but I've never seen anybody actually use it, probably because it's so generic (and I have no idea at this point what the "miracle" is supposed to be, that they've all been reincarnated???).


When he was a kid Harusami Minami told his classmates that he was the reincarnation of a princess from a far off land and unsurprisingly was teased for it mercilessly. By middle school he knows well enough to keep quiet about it and seems to doubt even himself a little bit. But when cornered by bullies he almost unthinkingly uses magic to scare them off and suddenly there's no doubt that everything he remembers, from the people around him to being killed by invaders from his fiancee's country, is completely true. A few years later he's starting high school with a surprisingly tight-knit class and jotting down everything he remembers from his former life in a notebook written in the old language. When a few of his classmates find the book they don't tease him about it, Minami has gotten too good at lying over the years to distract them, but some of them seem confused by it. And later that night when someone starts firing off magic in the school building he finds out why, suddenly his classmates are remembering their past lives as well and they were all connected to Princesse Veronica's life. As everyone begins to sort out who they were and which side they were on the various groups of students all have the same goal, to figure out what happened hundreds of years ago and why they died.


Often I feel bad about writing a long synopsis of a story but considering just how detailed the set-up for this one is this time it feels reasonable. This truly is a story best read in chunks and preferably with a character chart nearby (heck, I even took one from one of the later volumes and added onto it since it wasn't detailed enough!) since there are about five different factions of characters to keep track of, some of whom overlap, and about 20 characters which means 20 in the present day and 20 in the past (plus a few key players from the past who haven't shown up yet that the reader knows of, most notably Veronica's betrothed Prince Eugene). And in case anyone was wondering if they've been reading this right, yes Minami is a guy and Veronica was a girl, both cisgendered and straight, honestly since he's grown up with most of her memories it just doesn't seem to phase him at all (I believe either the series proper or the omakes makes mention of this at least once). 

I actually really like Minami as a main character since he's just a bit more manipulative than normal which keeps things interesting. Admittedly, part of the reason he is manipulative is due to his friends advising hiding that he really is Veronica (which I honestly do agree with from a logical perspective, not just because it makes things more dramatic) but I still find it rather interesting to see that his classmates who knew Veronica (who wasn't that terrifying) completely cave in to his bluffs and think it speaks volumes about how isolated Minami has been if his classmates can't work out that if Minami isn't like this and Veronica wasn't like this then it must clearly be a bluff. This doesn't mean that I think the other characters are dumb however, I'll certainly allow that high emotions and general confusion (unlike Minami whose memories gradually returned over 15 years, and still aren't completely there it seems, all of his classmates had theirs return all at once and are having a hard time reconciling the war with their current situation) account for a lot of the character's freaking out. 

Heck, I like a lot of the character dynamics here. Like I said in the summary, they've all just started high school so some of them have known each other for years and years but a lot of them haven't yet they were shaping up to be a really fun, close-knit class. And then you have characters realizing that their childhood friends were on the opposite side in their past lives which means that they very well could have been fighting and killing each other* and have to work it out. I'll admit that I like the "characters on the opposite sides for reasons they can't control" trope more as I get older but what I really like here is seeing the characters having to choose how they'll let it define each other, especially since some groups were keeping secrets in the past and have to deal with those as well. And the story really does focus on a lot of different characters, lately it's branched out from following just the three main groups (the Zestrains, Moswicks, and the neutral Church) to follow some characters who are forming splinter groups and I just love both how complicated it's become and watching one or two characters in particular navigate and manipulate their way through because they don't know that much which in my eyes makes them even more relatable. All of the characters that the story has focused on thus far feel like real, fleshed out characters with a lot of different emotions and goals right now since they are so rounded I can't fault the story for not focusing on every character (although I do wonder if there will be an important reason later on why some of them, namely a few servants on both sides, were also reincarnated).

So what exactly is the plot some people might be asking by now, especially since that's what I usually talk about first about a story. Well, in short the characters have two goals; one that everybody shares is trying to figure out how they all died and putting together what everyone remembers (since even the Moswicks, where the attackers came from, have said that they don't know anything and given that the story shows their points of view I'm inclined to believe them). Minami's group, and the Church as well to a lesser extent, is also trying to figure out who was attacking people with magic that first night in the school since at this point it's clear that this person is a key player in the current day plot and probably the story of the past as well. I have my own theories on who it might be (since again, there are two key players and one moderately important one still missing, although the story has all but confirmed one of them is present this has become more complicated) but I'm sure that no matter how it turns out that it'll be interesting. I'm slightly torn on the pacing of the story again, the chapters are long (I think the magazine it runs in is published every two months) so a lot happens but the story so far, at 8 volumes, has all happened within the span of a month I believe which does stretch my suspension of disbelief a bit. Then again, as I already mentioned, add together teenagers, sudden intense memories about how you were just attacked and dying, plus the realization that you have no idea whose telling the truth and whose lying around you, yes I can see why a lot is going on at the same time. 


As for licensing, well, I'm not that optimistic here. The publisher is Ichijinsha (and it looks like the magazine is a spin off of Comic Zero-Sum, of course that's why I liked it!) so no publisher except Kodansha is restricted from it but I don't know how well it really fits with any of the current manga publishers. Someone asked Seven Seas about it on tumblr and it sounds like the fact that it's already 8 volumes long has them hesitant (I don't see it ending in under 12 volumes myself, under 20 but maybe more like 12-16, but that's just going by how the plot currently feels to me and the scanlations seem to be behind by at least a few chapters if not an entire volume). The manga-ka hasn't had anything published over here before, looks like she hasn't done much except a shorter series or two and contributed to a few anthologies, so that's nothing to worry about here but it's always good to check. And aside from the size, this is older shojo (not precisely josei but rather close to the line), fantasy, not much romance going on (since with how messy everything has gotten people are a bit turned off by romance for the moment), and it has some kinda-complicated politicking in it. I would love to be wrong about all of this and have it picked up but as it currently stands I guess this is another manga which I need to plan on importing for myself someday.




*admittedly it's unlikely that they managed to kill each because of one detail, that you had to be killed by magic to be reincarnated, although a large chunk of the characters were magic users. And that detail actually makes the story even more interesting, how did all of these characters die by magic, especially some that were nowhere near Veronica's castle when the hostilities go down? It seems that everyone's memories get hazier right before their deaths so no one knows, Minami actually realizes that what he thought were Veronica's last moments in fact weren't and unsurprisingly it looks like her last few moments were rather important ones.

Manga Review: Marin (Volume One)

Another emanga/DMG title and I was quite delighted when I opened it up and saw how retro the art style was. Despite that however I'll note that some point I thought I saw a note saying that book is from 1992 but I can't seem to find my source for that again, although I've found another source saying it's from 1998. If that is the case however then it's not quite old enough to be retro (I refuse to call anything younger than myself retro until I'm at least 30) but doesn't change the fact that I wished I had checked it out earlier because of the artwork.

Marin (volume one) by Miyoko Satomi

Summary: Marin wants to live out his life as a cute, normal boy who happens to have a talent for fortune telling rather than learning magic like his grandfather wants him to. However it seems like he's going to have to pick up a few tricks for his own safety since he's suddenly being targeted by strange people left and right, thank goodness it seems that he already knows more magic than he already thought....

The Good: Somewhat episodic supernatural stories are just up my alley so I rather liked it, I think it's my favorite DMG manga I've reviewed so far and there have certainly been some other good ones in the mix. It's true that a lot of the set-up, someone doesn't want to get involved with magic yet turns out to have a surprising aptitude for it which comes in handy, is fairly tired but I rather liked Marin and his buddy Rikishi, just something about their personalities worked well for me (I think in Marin's case it's because while you often see the "cute young boy whose popular with girls" trope they're rarely the main character, so that was a nice change for me). The plot also doesn't play out expectedly or with any special reveals, aside from the fact it was a bit darker/gorier in places than I expected, so again, for me what made the story enjoyable was that this was the right combination of looks, characters, and genre, not stunning technical prowess in the writing or such.

The Bad: I'm not quite sure where this story is going and it's puzzling me. Fiction has taught me that with great powers comes great plots but I don't know if there will turn out to be a group pulling the strings behind all of the events in Marin's life or if all these incidents will turn out to be unrelated after all, so far some of them seem rather random. It doesn't help that I can't seem to find much information on the series either, it looks like it was part of a two volume series which I suspect means that either Satomi wasn't sure what kind of story she wanted to write either or that it was unpopular enough that it got canned before everything could get really moving.

The Art: The art is a bit of an odd mix here actually, the characters look more like they're from the 1970s than the 1990s (note the big eyes and lack of pomanders mullets on the male characters) but the use of screentones feels more modern to me (especially some of the special effects against various monsters, felt like I was reading something from the 90s then!). Whatever decade it's from, the paneling flows fairly well but some of the characters look a bit to similar to each other and made me wonder if I had missed someone explaining that they were related or such.


I whole-heartedly recommend this book and, if my research is right and there are just two volumes, I hope that DMG gets the second volume as well. And if there are more than two volumes, well, obviously I hope they get as many as there are and I hope that someone informs me of just how many there are then! As of writing this book is digital only and can be read online or downloaded once purchased.

Manga Review: Akatsuki no Yona

In the past few years I've gotten library cards to even more libraries and I've been able to see that some of them have had a very devoted staff member, or perhaps more than one, whose been championing buying manga for years now and I've had a chance to read quite a few things which are harder to find these days. Some of my favorite finds have been in what I've dubbed the "epic shojo" category where the stories are large, the casts are huge, and each conflict is multi-layered and complicated to the point where the line between hero and villain can get very blurred indeed. Which has lead me to wonder, where did all these stories go? Was this some fad of the late 80s/90s, similar to the "Girl Power!" trend in the West from around the same time? But in the West we have a thriving YA book market which must have been inspired, both the characters and the writers, by that culture so why don't I see at least a few epic shojo manga out there today? After thinking for a bit I realized that this is close to being an "epic shojo", although with a distinctly post-2000 flavor, so not all hope is lost yet!

Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn, The Girl Standing in the Blush of the Dawn) by Mizuho Kusanagi

Princess Yona was a naviie and a bit spoiled young princess who was doted on by her father and protected by her bodyguard Hak (even if they had a bit of a tsundere relationship). The only thing she wanted in life was to marry her cousin Soo Won which was oddly forbidden by her father (also that her hair wasn't as flaming red but that was even less likely to happen). No matter, she planned to ask her father again after her sixteenth birthday party but upon arriving at the king's room she finds him dead, stabbed by Soo Won and who frames her and Hak after they flee the palace. Broken she tries to adjust to life outside the palace and finds that with her father's death a veritable political maelstrom is brewing with each of the five clans that make up the country weaseling around trying to gain power and favor with Soo Won the new king. After a period of mourning Yona snaps and finds the strength to vow revenge against Soo Won and that she will find out the truth behind the things he said about her father and why her father was keeping secrets from her. But to get revenge one must have power and she's going down an odd path for it, on some odd advice she turns to an old legend for help. The story goes that centuries ago her country was founded by a great dragon and that four of his fellow dragons blended into the human population, waiting for the day their king will return to seek them out. So far this plan is working surprisingly well, although it seems like there was a lot more truth to that old legend that even Yona realizes.

As a note, the scanlations are quite a few volumes behind the Japanese releases and I have both skimmed through some of the Chinese scans I was able to find and track down a few people on tumblr who are reading the Japanese raws and translating bits and pieces and summarizing others. So I am going to talk about where the scans are up to and where the story seems to be going after that since after looking around it's become clear that the "major" arc the scans are on wasn't the "main" arc of the story but rather the first major one and I can see what the second major arc is now (and that knowledge also lets me guess at how the rest of the story beyond that arc will play out as well).


I feel a bit odd writing such a long summary and honestly that does cover at least one, maybe almost two, volumes of the manga but given how the story it setting itself up (it's going to take probably years in-verse, doesn't have a "first episode twist/reveal", etc) I feel like it's just one of the stories which needs a lot of background before you can discuss it. I'm also torn about how I feel about the pacing, on the one hand when I was reading the series I had no problems with the length or progression of each arc (and while each arc is longer than the previous one so far no arc has been so long this has become a problem), I always end up worrying that a long series or even just a series with long build-up will scare off potential fans*. It's not quite epic in scale, yet at least, but as I mentioned above if Yona collecting the four dragons was supposed to be The Major Arc of the story then this would be a little different. Instead the story is becoming a classic "let the king-to-be see the people he will rule from the vantage point of one of them" with Yona realizing that there were some terrible things going on under her father's rule and trying to figure out why. Was her father unknowing, unable to fix them, or did he know but not care as the peasants seem to think? It's certainly nurtured the seeds of doubt that Soo Won planted when he told Yona that her father had been keeping many secrets from her and now it seems like the country is in a much more delicate position than she ever could have guessed.

Speaking of major arcs, as of the current manga in Japan Yona has managed to find all four of the dragons and form a band of badassery with them and when I was glancing through tvtropes I realized something about the story, we the readers know more about that legend than Yona does. It's both subtle and not, as of the scans each of the dragons has chosen to follow Yona partially because they have their dragon ancestor yelling inside their head that the time has come to follow their king, very unsubtle, but Yona doesn't know that. She thinks they've all chosen to follow her since she's won them over, which she certainly has done as well, but that combined with a note on tvtropes (more or less, Yona like the dragons' descendants also has an improbably strange hair color, red like the Red Dragon King) makes me wonder how much more there is to that legend and the idea that Yona might actually be fulfilling a prophecy of sorts, not simply taking advantage of it for her own needs like she believes, certainly gives the story a different, more epic, feel to it. I'd be frustrated if this gave her an 11th hour superpower, especially given the circumstances she's already been through, but I doubt the story will do that.

To talk about Yona herself, I rather like her as a character. While it does take more than a single chapter for her to process her father's death and choose what her path will be, I believe it was closer to a volume's worth of chapters, it felt like a very natural progression and she has ended up being a complete badass and a determinator as a result and I always love to see characters grow into those roles. Actually, some of the scenes make me wonder if  Mizuho Kusanagi ever wants to write a horror manga since the way some scenes are drawn, when Yona is at her most intense and prepared to kill someone, there's this "pause" like the pause right before a scare that I feel like makes them extra effective. I was also rather pleased that despite the fact Yona has a good sized reverse harem going on (six people currently, seven if you count Soo Won) there's not much romance in the series. Of course, with Soo Won committing familicide the story established that Yona and Hak would one day be the OTP pretty firmly (first guy wins and all of that) but other than a couple of tsundere-esque advances on Hak's side the story has been relatively romance free which I like. Of course, I would like there to be, you know, more main female characters, not just ones who show up only for one arc but given how large the cast has already grown and all the juggling it takes to show everyone's viewpoints I'm not holding my breath here.


So yes, Akatsuki no Yona isn't quite the same as the epic shojo of the 80s and 90s but it's slowly growing into something similar, just with a 2000s flavor of styling. And when I say that I mean the artwork, pacing, types of characters and their interactions, and I'd argue that humor has been incorporated into more and more genres of manga in the past decade, a la Fullmetal Alchemist's very serious tone at points broken by a single panel or two of humor. You can find all these things in older manga of course but if this is what the next few years of epic shojo look like then I think we're in good shape and just hope that I can find more of it!

As for it's chances at being licensed, well, I'm not super hopeful. As noted earlier, it's already getting to be pretty long and since it's a long proven fact that each successive volume of manga in a series will sell less than the first (I wonder if that's the same for regular novels in the US as well) that's going to make publishers a bit shy. It's published in Hana to Yume which means that Viz could get it which I do think is it's best chance, they've published other manga from that magazine in their Shojo Beat line and that's really where it fits in the best. However, the manga-ka has already had two series published in the US (NG Life and Mugen Spiral, I've tried a bit of each and didn't care for either), by TokyoPop, and I have no idea how well those series did. Other publishers would know, they'd have access to places like BookScan which could tell them, and if they sold poorly then I think that would be the final nail in the coffin in getting a long, adventure-first-then-romance, shojo manga published over here. Finally, this is just me but I do wonder if the fact that Viz already has a longer, 10+ volume, shojo that features a red headed heroine (who hates her hair color) caught up in royal family politics with the word "Dawn" in the name would make them nervous about splitting the fanbase and diminishing sales for both series, although there's no way to ever ask them this**.



*which is silly given the size of the Game of Thrones and Doctor Who fandoms out there, plus if you're not willing to take some time to let the story set-up then clearly this is not a good story-fan match for you.
**the other series in question is Dawn of the Arcana which I tried out and did not like the relationships so I stopped. I'm told it gets better but I was so disgruntled by the time I finished the first chapter I didn't see any reason for ever picking it back up.

Manga Review: Basara (volumes 1-5)

And I'm back folks, survived the almost 35,000 person crowd that was called Otakon and, well, that was certainly an experience! And expect a non-review post sometime in the next few days detailing a few changes around the blog since I'm moving again soon and moves always seem to leave this little blog a bit different.

But enough about that, let me talk to you about amazingly late 1900s shojo for a few minutes. For some reason from the late 70s, maybe mid 80s, through the very early 2000s there was a lot of shojo which I term "epic fantasy shojo" where the focus was on sweeping stories, large casts, and the coming of age of female characters in tense, often political, situations with a bit of romance tossed in that rarely was the main driver in the story. I'm not sure what happened to those stories, I've seen YA fiction in the US that seems more similar to that manga than most shojo manga I can find these days yet these titles are so unknown outside of the really devoted manga fandom that I doubt there's any connection. And of those titles this is one of the best known and if I hadn't been hearing about it for literally years I probably would have passed it up when I cam across it at the not-so-local library. I mean, look at that font, Basara are you SURE you're only as old as I am because that font looks like it came straight out of the 80s, a classic example of just because the calendar has entered a different decade doesn't necessarily mean that design sensibilities have caught up yet.

Basara (volumes 1 through 5) by Yumi Tamura

Summary: When Sarasa and her twin brother Tatara were born a prophet declared one of them to be "the child of destiny" and the village always assumed that this proclamation referred to Tatara. So did the king of their area of post-apocalyptic Japan, the Red King, it seems and Tatara is slain before he can even begin a rebellion to change Japan and so Sarasa takes up his name and begins her quest of revenge while discovering what a complicated place the world now is.

The Good: I make no secret that I adore stories with complex politics woven in and I love how the story has set up Sarasa/Tatara with their goal to take down some clearly corrupt kings, including the Red King, to make life better for all and yet has also shown her and the reader that the Red King's land is far better than the rest of Japan with the implication that the reason rebellions like the one her village planned have been crushed so brutally is because if they succeed the other kings will move in and make that area even worse. It's a world where there appear to be completely cruel and one hundred percent sadistic villains yet no true heroes or right thing to do, a fun set-up for readers who enjoy watching their protagonists fight for a good ending. The cast, much like the setting, expands rapidly but so far I haven't had any trouble telling the characters apart and the story remarkably enough even managed to sell me on it's star-crossed lovers aspect. Normally I become frustrated by that, especially when it's between two characters who are sworn enemies as is the case here, but the way that Sarasa and Shuri's relationship begins and grows feels as natural as it could under the circumstances and even though I know it will almost certainly end in tears I'm continuing to hope for the best. Finally, it's amazing how much has already happened in five volumes of this story when you consider that the entire story is twenty-seven volumes long. It's well paced now and if it continues at this pace then it's literally an epic and I can't wait to read the rest regardless.

The Bad: I almost feel like Sarasa is gathering allies too easily in the story, she's not a shonen protagonist after all, but I recall a line (sadly I can't seem to find it at the moment) that said that while Sarasa should seek out the groups which have the three other swords that were made along with the one she inherited the swords aren't magical, it's to find the people who go with them that matters. So yes this seems to be too simple until you remember what kind of world these characters live in and what they stand to gain by allying themselves with their best chance at creating a better world for themselves, although the fact that this usually comes after a battle means I'm not going to give up that comparison anytime soon.

The Art: As previously alluded to, even though this manga started in 1991 it still has a bit of an 80s look to it, especially when you remember that the shojo manga from the 80s and the 90s don't look that different anyway. It's not a pretty manga as even the editor admits in their column in the back of the first volume, the characters have oddly elongated cheekbones, hair that seems to puff without hairspray, and rather unfashionable clothes as well. But it does have nice detail work and I was able to keep the characters straight much easier than I expected to and everything is laid out nicely as well, the art is just styled in an out-dated way. But I am curious about one thing Viz did, what the heck happened to the cover of volume two? Here's what the original Japanese cover looked like, here's what the cover of the volume I got out of the library I got looked like (the manga inside is unflipped). Apologies for the lighting because it does not truly get across just how damn pink this cover is, while some of it can be from aging over 10 years, and all of these volumes look a bit faded, I doubt that's the only reason why. Although, looking at these Japanese covers at least explains where the truly strange title font comes from, I had been questioning the sanity of designers in the early 2000s who were going for a font like that.


In short, if my library had more than the first five volumes I would have checked out and read those by now as well (funny enough, I'm not the only blogger to have this problem recently and according to Ash yes, this is one of those series with out of print volumes that are hideously priced). I actually got rather excited at Viz's panel at Otakon since when they were talking about their digital manga I swear they mentioned Basara yet when I checked online afterwords it's not on their site. Hopefully this means that it will be up soon, since they've put up a lot of the other "epic shojo fantasy" manga (Red River, From Far Away, Please Save My Earth although that's technically sci-fi) they must have at least tried to get the digital rights for this one as well. 

Manga Review: Kitchen Princess

Last summer I checked out the first two (of ten) volumes of Kitchen Princess out from my not-so-local library and was surprised and pleased that I liked the series a lot more than I expected but didn't have time to read the rest before I had to go back to school. So naturally one of the first things I checked out from it this sumer was the other eight volumes, it just ended up down a little lower in my stack so I'd have enough time to read all of them at my leisure.

Kitchen Princess written by Miyuki Kobayashi illustrated by Natsumi Ando

Summary: Najika is an orphan from Hokkadio who has recently come to Tokyo to attend school and finds herself in the elite class since she is not only a fantastic cook but can accurate taste every ingredient in a dish and remember it later on. She does also have a second reason to come to the school however, years ago when she was saved from drowning by a young boy who cheered her up and gave her a flan with the school's spoon stuck in it and she's always wanted to find him again and thank him for not only saving her life but for helping her find meaning and a reason to keep on living.

The Good: While romance does play a large role in this series I was pleased to see that it wasn't the driving force of Najika's life, she remains passionate about her cooking throughout and her search for her flan prince remains something that comes up only now and then (although I almost want to give the series credit for creating at least a more interesting than usual love-polygon, even if it was clear from the beginning who Najika would ultimately end up with). The series never gets dark although it does veer a little closer to darkness and tragedy than many shojo do and while sometimes the way it handles that gives the story a little more depth and heart at other times it flounders and becomes simply melodramatic instead.

The Bad: This series likes it's melodrama and overuses it by the end of the series. The best example comes at the series final climax where Najika is at a baking competition when tragedy (from an event outside the competition) strikes and that overwhelms the story. In this particular case the tragedy had been foreshadowed, I could had sworn it had already been taken care of by that point, but it still was just too much for the story, the competition would have worked just fine and this was hardly the only time the series did this. I wish the story had instead had less drama and just had the characters struggle through it to create tension, I think this would have also made the series feel slightly more mature since instead it feels like the creators are so worried that they're audience won't stay engaged unless there is something happening all the time that it's also a tad insulting.

The Art: KP reminds me of Fruits Basket in a few ways including in the art style (which is a bit odd since KP ran in the mid-aughts while it's tall oval shojo eyes look is more of a trait from the mid to late 90s, ie when Fruits Basket started). It's not my favorite type of art style (I prefer slightly less exaggerated character proportions and less screentone, heck it  popped up as a translation note in nearly every volume since Ando was always mentioning it in the illustration notes) but the characters looked distinct from each other and everything flowed well so it technically more than fine.


So while the series didn't turn out to be quite as strong as I had hoped based on those first two volumes I still enjoyed it and will probably get Kodansha Comic's re-release omnibus editions at some point. Overall I'm giving this series a 3.5 out of 5 for being sweet, having it's heart in the right place, yet just missing the beat multiple times with it's fondness for melodrama.