Manga Review: Palette of 12 Secret Colors (volume 1-3)

Earlier this summer I started reading one of  Kusakawa's other works, Two Flowers for the Dragon, and heard that her other works weren't too bad either. I actually remember shelving this title when I worked at one of the branch libraries a few summers back* and when I checked the catalog I discovered that sadly that volume (number two) hadn't been returned to the library after it was checked out last October^ but the system did have volumes one and three and I was able to find scans for volume two online (literal scans, someone took the CMX copy and didn't even bother to clean up/separate the spreads into individual pages). The series is more than three volumes long (6 total) but again these were the only volumes my library had, I've heard that the rest of the series isn't terribly expensive online as well.

Palette of 12 Secret Colors by Nari Kusakawa

 Summary: Cello lives on the island of Opal where some of it's inhabitants have the magical ablilty to move color from one object to another, called palettes. They are paired with the island's native birds to train to use this ablitly but poor Cello has trouble controlling hers, will she ever become a full palette?

The Good: It's a cute little story without anything offensive in it with a laid back pace, I almost wish this was in the children's section in the library instead of the teens since I could see myself recommending it to girls in late elementary school/early middle school who want to try reading manga but aren't sure where to start. Cute really is the best word to describe the story, it's light-hearted, the problems aren't dark and gritty (there still is conflict, it wouldn't be a story without a conflict of some sorts) and it works well as lazy summer afternoon reading.

The Bad: Is there a rule that all shojo manga must include a completely different one-shot manga in nearly every volume? The one included in volume three was a whopping 30 pages long, longer than some of the chapters, and this trend just really bothers me. The story doesn't have much of a central plot so this isn't as big a deal as it could be but it does feel a bit disrespectful, as if the manga-ka/editor/publisher didn't care enough about the story to give it more time to make things work. Not that every chapter in this story is good, some are certainly weaker than others and it could use a bit more continuity between chapters as well, it just feels a little too disconnected at this point.

The Art: From the author notes in the back, it sounds like Kusakawa was drawing this manga at the same time she was drawing Two Flowers for the Dragon so the art from both series looks very similar. Her characters don't look very different from each other and the adult characters all look rather young (Dr. Guell looks incredibly young in his first appearance, more like he's Cello's classmate than a teacher at her school). Personally I would have loved to see this comic in full color instead of just black and white since it's a story that's all about color and the covers are really pretty to look at. I can't think of any manga that are in full color (I have heard of a few but only in passing) so this might be an unreasonable request but I honestly do think that having the manga in color would have given it a little more charm.


So, the manga isn't bad but it felt a little young to me and I just like Two Flowers better, I want to post a review of that soon but I'm going to try a little harder to see if I can find a summary for what happened in the final volume first. As mentioned earlier, Palette was published by CMX so it is out of print now but the prices are still fairly reasonable online (except for the last volume which is sadly the case with out of print series). 




*specifically, I remember that about once a week I would have to pull out all the manga in the teen section and reshelve them since they would get so out of order.
^I personally believe there is a special place in whatever afterlife you believe in for people who don't return library books, especially out of print ones. 

Manga Review: Paradise Kiss (volume 1, reread)

Very sorry for not posting yesterday after all, it was a stressful day and I was really tired when I got back home after the author visit (which was lovely, the author in question was Maggie Stiefvater) and I just didn't feel up to writing a review when I got home. Obviously this means that I've got a book review going up on Thursday instead (which should be on time) an I'll probably post about the visit on my LJ on Friday if anyone is dying to hear about it/see the really strange bathroom the bookstore had.

Anyway, I've read some of Paradise Kiss before back in high school and then a few chapters that were scanned (not scanlated but someone literally scanned the TokyoPop pages) online but I never got around to finishing it since I felt so bad about those scanned pages. I was thinking about this series back in the winter because some people found out that many of Funimation's Genon license-rescue titles were going out of print and I really regretted that I didn't have the money at the time to buy up some of the titles including this one. And now that TokyoPop has gone under that makes the manga an out of print title as well, glad that I've got at least one volume of it so let's see how well it holds up since the last time I read it.

Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa

Summary: Yukari wants nothing more than to be done with high school and in college just so all the pressure about getting into college is gone, even thought she has no idea what she wants to do in her life. So she's in awe of the designers who make up Paradise Kiss, people who have a goal and want her to help them by being the model for their school's fashion show.

The Good: Paradise Kiss is actually a sequel of sorts to one of Yazawa's earlier works (Neighborhood Story or Gokinjo Monogatari) but no prior knowledge of that series is needed to enjoy this one (which is very good because that series has never been released in the US). Paradise Kiss itself is more of a character-driven story than a plot driven one and all of the cast members are interesting and many are relatable as well (such as Yukari's desire to get into college just so she doesn't have to worry about it anymore and Miwako's trouble that comes from being in love with two people at once, very normal high school problems). The other not quite as relatable characters are also interesting people and you want to learn more about them and see if they can all pull off the dress for the fashion show in time.

The Bad: Unfortunately not as much happened in this volume as I remembered, which is understandable, and, even though all the major characters were introduced and the setting was established, not much else was. It was an okay first volume but if you only have the first volume on hand to read it might be hard to see why you need to put in the effort to find and read more*. The side cast hints that the story might become something greater but Yukari's change over the volume, especially as she finds herself falling for George, seems rather average.

The Art: It's no secret that part of Yakawa's reason for making this manga was to draw as many fancy outfits as she could and they all look great. You can really imagine some of the outfits in the comic as real, haute coutre outfits (or at least real outfits made by talent yet amateur students) and being able to show not tell that the characters are good at this is a great thing. The characters are fairly distinctive (everyone has their own clothing style which helps) and everything is consistently drawn. 

So, yet another volume where I now need to track down the rest before they get really expensive, bit worried since volume 2 seems nigh impossible to find, anyone got any leads?







*especially since it seems that volume 2 is the hardest to find, which is strange since generally it's the later books that have a smaller print run which makes them more expensive in the end.

Manga Review: Maid-Sama! (volume one)

Got this one out of the local library but I have read a few volumes of Kaichou wa Maid-Sama! (The (student body) President is a Maid!) online before the anime aired last spring and I liked the series enough to try the anime. I watched about half-way through the series before Sentai licensed it and, since their simulcasts weren't free, I decided to stop watching the show (fansubs included) and that sounds like it was a good idea, I've seen a number of manga readers unhappy with how the stories were moved around/changed for the anime. Which is a shame if it's true since I do like this manga pretty well and I hate to see nice things get bad adaptations (but who doesn't feel that way?).

Maid-Sama! by Hiro Fujiwara

Summary: Until recently, the moderately priced Sekai High School was an all boys high school and still has a high male to female ratio and most of the boys, while not bad people, are less than considerate of the girls. Man-hater Misaki has stepped up to the challenge of being the student council president of this unruly high school and when she isn't working herself to the bone there she's working part time at a maid cafe to earn money for her family, two aspects of her life that she really doesn't want to mix. But as life would have it one of her classmates, the attractive Usui, finds out about her secret and is fond of teasing her about what everyone else would think about their president being a maid....

The Good: Misaki is a pretty cool and fun character who, even in just this volume alone, has some character development as she begins to get along with and respect the guys around her. Sometimes it takes Usui to appeal to her more moderate and fair side but, when it's pointed out to her that she's favoring the girls more than the boys (such as when she confiscates all the guy's magazines but none of the girl's) she's quick to act and see if she needs to revise her statements. And the maid cafe she works at doesn't come off feeling like a gimmick to make people read the series, it really does feel like a cafe that simply has a maid theme, nothing sleazy about it. Finally, it's nice to have a female character who can physically kick ass every now and then if she needs to, it's just fun to watch.

The Bad: Like many other shojo series that have been reviewed here, this one uses a roughly 30 page short story to fill out the volume which is a bit frustrating. There's nothing wrong with the story story* but it is frustrating to pick up a manga, expect it to have 150-180 pages about the main storyline and then find a good chunk of the book is devoted to something else, do the editors in Japan just want to stretch out the number of volumes in books that aren't epic length, shonen series? As for the story itself, Masaki has already had a good bit of character development in this volume alone but this is still an on-going series, 12 volumes currently, can the material really go that long without feeling forced and stretched? It's no fun to read a series that starts off great and then becomes mediocre as it goes on and this one starts out so fun that this might be the case. Judging from the page over on tvtropes, it sounds like the story is in fact winding down just can it really maintain this level of fun without getting repetitive?

The Art: While the art has a shojo feel to it it's not nearly as stylized as many other series are. There are plenty of big eyes on the guys and girls and Misaki has a round, cute looking face but the art doesn't scream shojo, it says it in a conversational tone instead. Actually, the art in this book is probably similar to what most people think of when they think of "manga style art" and it reminds me of why I was attracted to manga in the first place, cuter, simpler designs than found in American comic books where every thing looks attractive.


Drat, when I was reading this I suddenly remembered that this was published by TokyoPop so this is technically an out of print manga (they published 8 volumes before they collapsed) and, if I want to avoid high prices later, I need to buy this now. But the thing is I'm just not sure if I'll like the rest of the series as much as I enjoyed this installment, decisions decisions....




*in fact, I would love to have a hardcover, ominibus sized volume just of the various short stories you find in the back of shojo manga since I have come across a number of sweet yet interesting ones. 

Manga Review: Variante (volume 1)

I had a bit of an odd conversation with a librarian lately when I was being checked out, I think it was when I was checking out this book, that I thought might be interesting to share. It was an older woman who I hadn’t seen around a lot (and believe me, after almost five years of volunteering, I recognize a lot of the librarians) who was taking an extra-long time to check me out and mentioned that one of the books I had on hold wasn’t in the library after all, the AX manga anthology. I was a little surprised; all I remembered about the anthology was that I got the recommendation from it off of ANN, but apparently the library thought it had sexual material that was unsuitable for teenagers and didn’t simply shelve it in the adult fiction instead. That said, then she had no trouble with checking out this comic which I found in the teen comic section that has a big label on it saying PARENTAL ADVISORY and a cover promising gore to come. Now I’m really curious to see if the AX manga had sex that was somehow worse than all the gore in this one….

Variante by Igura Sugimoto

Summary: One night, for an unknown reason, Hosho Aiko and her family are killed by a monster but Aiko wakes up three days later in a morgue seemingly fine. However, one of the arms of the monster has grafted onto her body, replacing one of her own, and seems to have a life of it's own at times. Because of these strange things there are several government agencies who are interested in her, those who are devoted to eliminating monsters like the one that attached itself to her. 

The Good: While this is a fairly gory story, there’s no denying that, none of it is the kind that will leave a reader disturbed for days on end (it reminded me of what little I’ve seen of Six Billion Needles and Guyver, both pretty gory but not without some reason). The government organizations here are portrayed as fairly capable and fairly logical (some sections are cold-hearted bastards but they’re cold-hearted bastards who know how to do their jobs) and the choice they offer Aiko is a surprisingly nice one, a chance to fight with them and discover the secret behind her parent’s death instead of simply being dissected for her abnormality. Finally, this is a dark story and the manga-ka isn’t afraid to prove it by showing a lot of characters dying, and not simply background characters, so kudos for that.

The Bad: It’s really hard to get a feeling for how good this story will be from the first volume. It’s a solid start to the story but it’s treading familiar territory, can it do anything really different that will make it stand out? It does show promise but the premise is built upon tropes and, while it plays those tropes well so far, it just hasn't done anything new with them. 

The Art: The art is fairly detailed which is a good thing, the more detailed a monster it is the easier it is to show just how disturbing they are. The monsters (and the gore) are suitably scary and grotesque looking and everything else is well-detailed as well. So there is certainly no problem with the artwork and it does it's part in the story quite well.

So, I was interested by the series but just don't really want to make an effort to find the rest of the volumes. It was published by CMX but they managed to publish all four volumes and all of them can still be found for a good price (come to think of it, the only CMX manga I've found that has an engorged price is Two Flowers for the Dragon, I wonder if that was one of their bestsellers) so anyone who is interested in the series should go right ahead and check it out!