Category: Manga

By Katsu Aki (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-4278-0536-2

If you are offended or embarrassed by graphic cartoon nudity and sexual situations, or if you have any problems at all with the oddly coy forthrightness of manga, skip this review and move on. Otherwise this peculiar blend of soap opera and sexual self-help manual might pique your interest…

Billed as “the best-selling sex guide from Japan” this is more accurately a sweet but explicit soap-opera love-story – albeit related in a staggeringly clinical-yet-chatty manner.

Makota and Yura are just married and unbeknownst to each other, both virgins. In short narrative episodes we see their stumbling first steps to a healthy sex-life, peppered with diagrams, statistics and a disturbingly jolly commentary. The act and techniques themselves are almost of secondary importance to the telling of a RomCom story, with vamping co-workers, interfering, know-it-all siblings and inquisitive parents always making an embarrassing situation worse…

There’s lots of nudity and oddly graphic-yet-(self)-censored copulation on show (neither male nor female primary sexual organs are ever depicted – it’s assumed you already know what they look like; moreover, the Japanese consider them to be in poor taste) but in no way does this resemble the Western style of manual where the emphasis is on dispassionate, clinical education and task-oriented elucidation (of course I’m just guessing here – I’ve never needed a manual or even a map in my life, no, not me, nope, Nuh-Uh…)

Seriously though, this isn’t so much a “how-to” as much as a fascinating and beautifully drawn insight into the acceptable face of Japanese sexuality, and as such has lots to recommend it. Which I do, as long as you’re old enough and promise to stop sniggering…

© 1996 KATSUAKI. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2008 TOKYOPOP Inc.

By Yasushi Suzuki (DrMaster Publications)
ISBN13: 978-1-59796-070-0

Yasushi Suzuki is a world-renowned commercial artist and game-designer. Purgatory Kabuki is his first venture into graphic narrative. This first volume (of three) drops the reader right into the eerie action with no preamble.

In the underworld a mysterious samurai wanders, seeking battle. Despite the maxim that a samurai’s greatest honour is to die in battle, Imanoturugi is desperate to leave this place of mist and conflict. He roams the land of the dead fighting warriors and demons whenever he finds them. When they are defeated he takes their swords. He has been told that if he wins one thousand swords he will be able to leave this misty fastness…

Moody, action-packed and visually enticing, this very traditional tale owes as much to the fantastic scenario Suzuki has created as the folk lore it is derived from. This Hell is a bleak cold place of swirling grey menace. The Great Gojou Bridge is a tremendous iron structure that stretches from one end of the underworld to the other, and beneath it warriors fight and die. Across this wasteland Rashomon, a huge flesh-eating gate and a home to seven demons randomly travels. The gate is constantly moving because it is pulled by a savage pack of Chimeras…

Painfully short on plot and dialogue (which might actually be to its advantage) this is a pictorial delight that promises much. Hopefully when all the mysteries are revealed and the quest concludes the story will live up to the promise of the art.

This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

© DGN Production Inc./ Yasushi Suzuki 2006. All Rights Reserved.

By Kazuya Minekura (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-978-2

Despite a definite homoerotic subtext this tale of modern gangsters can be read as a crime story with the lone protagonist as the proverbial alienated outsider. Makota Kubota is cool. A High Schooler, he seems immune to all the pressures of a teenager’s existence. He only comes alive when playing Mah Jong.

When he is sought out by a local Yakuza boss to take charge of the local youth gang he goes along with it. He is told to keep all other gangs out of his area – he successfully complies. Makota is extremely capable, and can handle himself in a fight. There seems to be nothing he can’t do. And still, nothing seems to penetrate his aloof exterior…

Slowly though he establishes a relationship – almost a friendship – with another young Yakuza, Nobuo Komiya, and learns about a semi-mystical mutagenic drug that’s just reaching the streets. Wild Adapter is not just another narcotic. Some of the addicts are turning into strange animals and dying.

What is happening and what does Makota’s uncle, the famous detective, know about all this?

In this first volume, almost a prologue, Kazuya Minekura lays the groundwork for a fascinating adult crime thriller, but that’s all. The threads and settings are in place but there is no real narrative here yet. Engaging and intriguing, dripping with Gangster Chic and wonderfully drawn, it will still take a few more volumes before we know what’s going on and whether or not it’s worth pursuing.

This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format, and carries a parental advisory notice of explicit content.

© 2000, 2001 Kazuya Minekura. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 2007 TOKYOPOP Inc.

By Hiroshi Aro (Studio Ironcat)
ISBN: 978-1-9290-9000-6

This deceptively charming if saucy tale dwells on the Japanese fascination with gender-roles, but does it in a slapstick manner devoid of much of the cloying coyness of other manga series.

Futaba Shimeru (Kun is a suffix denoting maleness – like Futaba-boyo or Futaba-mate) is an average high-school student plagued with all the usual problems that beset boys. He’s trying to do well academically, he’s trying to shine on the school wrestling team and he’s blissfully unaware that one of the teachers is smitten with him, as is his cute but superstitious classmate Misaki. I should specify here that Misaki is a girl but the teacher isn’t. I’m not sure about the implications of a homoerotic fixation by a teacher for a student in a Japanese context; it’s played broadly and for laughs and the book is not meant for children anyway, but still…

When a boy sneaks some American porn mags into school Futaba’s life changes forever. Excited despite himself he suddenly turns into a beautiful girl, loses all his (her?) clothes and is chased naked through the school. She only escapes by using her wrestling skills, causing the captain of the school team to declare that he will never rest until she joins the wrestling squad! Everybody else just wants to see her naked again…

When Futaba gets home after many adventures, his father reveals that they all have the genetic disorder and it simply means he has come of age. He also lets slip that he was the one who gave birth to the boy, not his mother! Moreover, the headmaster, a part-time superhero, is also in on the secret…

Racy, rude and very funny, this is social and culture-shock at its merry best, incorporating traditional manga school hi-jinks, with a knowing nod into hormonal, adolescent humour. If you like manga, aren’t easily shocked and love to laugh, this strange, strange tale could be just your cup of tea…

™ & © 1990, 1999 Hiroshi Aro. All Rights Reserved.

By Sunao Yoshida & Kiyo Kyujyo, character designs by Thores Shibamoto (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 1-59816-674-3

I don’t usually go into much backstory for manga tales, but this phenomenon needs a little extra exposition, so brace yourselves. Trinity Blood is a multimedia experience and if you want to enjoy this rather tasty Sci-Fi vampire saga via this book you’ll want some blanks filled in.

Originally a series of wasei-eigo ranobe (light novels, aimed at the young adult market – prose illustrated with manga -style illustrations) Toriniti Buraddo was originally written by Sunao Yoshida, and were adapted into anime shows and the comic-strips collected here. Although all formats vary to some degree in detail, the basic storylines are similar.

More than nine centuries prior to the events occurring Earth attempted to colonise Mars, and discovered there nanotechnologies that were used to alter the biology of the explorers. The Bacillus nano-machines turned humans in Methuselahs: Shape-changing, super-strong, super-fast immortals that drink human blood and have no tolerance for ultra-violet light. The Crusnik nano-machines were only successfully injected into four subjects, Seth, Cain, Abel and Lilith, transforming them into superior creatures that drank the blood of Methuselahs.

When the colonists returned to Earth an apocalyptic war between vampires and humans all but destroyed civilisation. After ‘The Armageddon’, as society recovered and settled into a slow, Cold War, Methusalahs became a widespread political power controlled from their capital Byzantium, countered by the resurgent Catholic Church, still centred at the Vatican, although the mysterious Albion nation remains an unknown, but oppressive third force. It is now nine hundred years later, and civilisation has gradually returned, although much of Earth’s technology and science has been lost… or suppressed.

In this dark world of intrigue and double-dealing Abel Nightroad, an enigmatic yet affable priest arrives at the city of Istavan where he meets the nun Sister Esther. Oddly out of place at the dark, brooding, beleaguered Church of St Mathias, under the twin moons that seem to bless the predations of vampire Lord Gyula’s monstrous horde, she is fascinated by the itinerant priest but blissfully unaware of his terrible secret. Nor has she any inkling of the part she will play in the eternal struggle with the vampires and how she will aid The Church’s supreme anti-Methuselah weapon when he tries to thwart a plot to destroy the Holy City with a pre-Armageddon super-weapon…

Complex and moody, this High-Gothic thriller is fast-paced and movingly grandiose, and doesn’t fall into the old narrative trap of ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. Vampires and High Church each have their own intrinsic charismas and light, deft characterisation keeps the pot boiling when the plot wanders towards over-pomposity. This is a sharp, compulsive fantasy/Sci-Fi/political thriller that appeals to more than just Goths and Geeks, so be prepared to sign up for a long haul and lots of books (two six-novel sequences) and DVDs (24 episodes of the show to watch!) as well as these graphic novels.

This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

© 2004 Kiyo Kyujyo. © 2004 Sunao Yoshida. English script © 2007 TokyoPop Inc.

Created by Oh Se-Kwon (TOKYOPOP)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-670-5

This rip-roaring fantasy fight-fest has all the traditional hallmarks of what we westerners consider classic manga – although this is technically a manhwa thriller (i.e. a product of South Korea). In a world where flying bikes and feudal overlords co-exist bounty-hunter Hong Gil-Dong and his acolyte Danu rescue the abducted daughter of a merchant. As they conduct the beautiful Ju Sanghui back to safety they encounter bandits, assassins and monsters, and she realises that there is more to these rough capable men than at first appears.

Can Gil-Dong actually be the legendary fighter who founded and failed to save the fabled kingdom of Yuldo? If his claims are true and he is growing younger with each passing day will he have time to re-establish his kingdom before it’s too late? Or will the mysterious forces stalking him end his quest before he even has the chance?

Fast, furious, beautifully illustrated and untroubled by complexity, this is just plain fun to read. It ends in a cliff-hanger though so if you’re interested best pick up the next volume at the same time…

© 2004 Oh Se-Kwon, DAIWON C. I. Inc. English text © 2006 TOKYOPOP Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Miki Kiritani (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 1-59816-932-4

When over-protective Mikako Saeki learns that her sister Megumi has accepted a marriage-meeting (a formal precursor to an arranged marriage: The parents arrange the match but the prospective bride and groom can then meet to scope each other out and decline their intended if they’re unhappy) with high-school student Rou Kitajima, she wants to know more about her prospective brother-in-law. Despite being only 15 years old she tricks him (he’s unaware of who she really is) into letting her share his flat for three weeks, during which time she’ll discover if he’s good enough for her beloved sister.

But put two healthy, good looking people in such close proximity and even the most deliberate plans can start to unravel…

This light, frothy teen-soap comedy is a gently romantic farce with little gravitas or depth but lots and lots of sophisticatedly innocent charm that belies its premise. Episodic and a little hit-or-miss in places, it’s still got a lot of laughs and engagingly romantic underpinnings to entice the open-minded and soft-hearted.

This volume – printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format – also includes a bonus story ‘Sentimental Spillover’, a lyrical and languid high-school/hospital romance about a girl obsessed with how she looks when crying and a guy who doesn’t mind.

© 2000 Miki Kiritani. English script © 2007 TokyoPop Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Kai Tsurugi (BLU)
ISBN: 1-59816-522-4

This is a lyrical but sexually explicit fantasy of the popular Yaoi (beautiful boys in love) sub-genre of manga featuring wayward hero Zeke O’Brien, a trainee mercenary of lower class origins who rises to the rank of Black Knight by saving the life of a lovely young Prince marked for assassination by the hidden enemies of the King of Aran.

Thwarting every attempt to murder the elfin Prince Chris, Zeke falls hopelessly in love with his charge and is delighted to discover that the feeling is mutual and furtively, passionately reciprocated. But the enemies of the King are many and the trials for the young lovers are only just beginning in this Ruritanian Romance of intrigue and melodrama.

Lavish, ostentatious, beautifully illustrated and inoffensively charming, this volume has an additional, modern tale of boy-on-boy romance that might upset some readers. ‘Deadly Sin’ tells of the intimate (and graphically explicit) affair between a young priest (the son of IRA terrorists who has since murdered the SAS killers of his parents) and a strapping athlete/poet he meets on holiday. Despite being well written and drawn, this type of material is bound to offend devoutly Christian or conservative sorts (please note the small ‘C’) so if that’s you please save us all some grief and don’t read it.

This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

© 2003 Kai Tsurugi. English text © 2006 BLU Inc. All Rights Reserved.