Category: Manga

By Sanami Matoh (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 1-59816-663-8

Al Foster is a glamorous and successful private eye, whose life turns completely over the day a large crate mysteriously turns up in his office. Inside is young Rai Spencer, who wants to hire the detective as a bodyguard, although what a boisterous, boy millionaire with psychic superpowers needs guarding from all his skills can’t discover…

And so begins an easy-going and engaging comedy thriller series as Foster becomes increasingly embroiled with the unconventional Spencer family, even becoming romantically involved with Rai’s incredibly high-maintenance sister Rei.

This easy-going, jolly and thrilling series combines action, traditional manga comedy-romance and even super-psionic adventure with the detective genre and comes up with a gentle brew that has lots to recommend it. Neither challenging or life-changing, but tremendously unprepossessing fun for ten year olds and above.

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

© 1995 Sanami Matoh. English script © 2006 TokyoPop Inc.

By Mitsukazu Mihara (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 1-59816-646-8

In Japan the sociology of death is different. Preservation and beautification of corpses is considered unclean and tasteless. Shinjyurou Mamiya is a dark enigmatic young man with a dangerous calling. He is an embalmer, convinced that he can assuage the pain of loss by his loving care of the dead. One corpse at a time he brings peace and fulfilment to the bereaved in a hostile society that does not understand him.

This truly modern gothic character has friends and a fully realised ‘normal’ life, but also a dedication to his craft that is absolutely enthralling. As with all very the best manga tales ‘The Embalmer’ captures the subtle differences in cultures with powerful effect. Superbly illustrated, these episodes of a unique character in a unique situation are powerful, moving and addictive.

By making the stories all about the transitional characters, Mitsukazu Mihara has created a truly memorable Protagonist and a story with appeal far beyond the usual fan-base. This series is one of the very best of its kind and one I can happily recommend even to people who don’t like the Japanese style of comic strip. Try it, it’s worth it.

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

© 2003 Mitsukazu Mihara. English script © 2006 TokyoPop Inc.

By Seyoung Kim (Net comics)
ISBN 13: 978-1-60009-037-0

Boy Princess is a strange beast to Western Eyes. An online bestseller in its native Korea, this Manhwa Shonen-Ai (that’s a love story for girls depicting affection between boys, and created by Koreans not Japanese) pot-boiler is as much fairy-tale romance as Ruritanian adventure or political thriller, all told in the manner and style of a daytime soap-opera, with swords and sorcery thrown in to keep it all moving.

When the Princess of Erin elopes two days before her arranged wedding to the gorgeous Prince Jed the entire kingdom is in crisis. Her desperate family embark on a truly mad scheme and convince her young brother to dress in her clothes and marry the Prince in her stead. And it works. Moreover when Jed discovers the substitution he doesn’t mind: In fact he falls in love with the beautiful boy he calls Nichole.

Jed has bigger problems. His dysfunctional family make the Borgias look like the Waltons and the power struggle between himself and his brother Derek threatens to destroy the Kingdom. In this penultimate volume Derek has drugged Nichole and forced Jed to admit to treason charges if he wishes to save his bride. Moreover their father admits that he has been plotting against his sons, since he has a new heir to mould to his will and they are both now irrelevant. Can civil war be far away?

This volume includes a contemporary – and much more explicit – tale of the lead characters in a romantic mood; so think twice if you’re easily startled, but the main tale is amazingly engaging and well handled despite the odd subject matter, and the romance is as moving as the intrigue and action are gripping. This is a great read and well worth your attention.

© 2007 Seyoung Kim. © 2007 DGN Production Inc.

By Ema Toyama (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-813-6

Young Mayu’s mother owns a café and she loves to help out there, taking great pride in her ability to make all the drinks just right. But after a particularly trying day at school making a fool of herself in front of a boy she’s trying to impress, she accidentally drinks a strange seven-coloured drink meant for somebody else.

That “someone” is Pucho, the magical fairy of beverages, and the foul-tasting drink was meant to transform her into an adult. Because Mayu has swallowed it she has been changed instead – but not in a good way. Now whatever she drinks, other than pure water, will transform her magically! Milk enlarges her, ordinary water makes her invisible and pork soup transforms her into a piglet!

And all this just when she so very desperately needs to look good – and normal! – for that handsome but distant boy Amamiya…

This is a charming and very engaging fantasy/comedy for younger readers, which has much to say about ambition, dreams and the inevitability of growing up. An above average tale that many older readers will also enjoy, this book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

© 2004 Ema Toyama. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 TokyoPop Inc.

By Mizuki Hakase (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 978-1-4278-0298-9

When the ancient gods of Japan came to Earth they mated with mortals and the fruits of those couplings were often born with unnatural powers and abilities. These individuals were known as “Kuruizaki No Hana” which we hear as “Flowers out of Season”.

Ushitora is a demon and an assassin. This elegantly beautiful, arcane and attenuated being hunts down these children of the gods and kills them. Yet one day, whilst performing his latest mission and with all but one child dead he pauses. For some reason he cannot bring himself to eviscerate the happy, trusting little boy before him. Instead he adopts four year old Masato Hiradaira, bringing him to his home to join Nao, a human girl he picked up outside an orphanage five years previously.

This is a horror story about family. Ushitora doesn’t like killing but it is his job and duty. He longs for something different but years later the children are almost grown and his masters and servants all expect him to do what he was made for. Can he escape his dark destiny or is he simply fooling himself? Is he capable of the emotion he’s been mimicking all these years? Most importantly, as the grand design nears completion what will become of his children?

This solid eerie mood piece is a disturbingly languid thriller with a unique tone and a highly stylised, almost abstract art style, cool, aloof and in perfect harmony with the challenging themes of the narrative. Demon Flowers is a beguiling treat for fear-fans.

© 2003 Tachibana Higuchi. All Rights Reserved. English script © 2007 TokyoPop Inc.

By Suzuki Tanaka (Blu)
ISBN: 1-59816-358-2

Here’s another Yaoi story, (romanticized fantasy relationship tales of beautiful young men created for female audiences; like Shonen-Ai but with a more explicit erotic content) although very mild – to the point of chaste gentility – by that standard.

Kotori is a shyly demure young man living in the big shadow of his older brother Kujaku, who’s smarter, prettier and much more successful. This gentle tale of first love recounts his growing confidence and closeness with “Boy-Hottie” Akaiwa whose attentions, though heartfelt, are constantly questioned by the insecure Kotori.

Set in the crucible of a Japanese High School, populated with a lovely looking, manipulative bunch of gossips and back-stabbers (Yaoi guys are apparently all the sort of snotty bitches beloved by TV teen soap operas), these two meander down the path of true love hampered by the eternal hurdles of misapprehension, misunderstanding and the impossible dream of a little privacy.

Funny, unassuming, charmingly and painfully romantic, the main tale tells a very common story and tells it very well, with the minor characters adding to the narrative mix in their own sub-adventures in separate chapters, rather than as scene-changes in the major text. This can seem a little disconcerting to western sensibilities, but these drastic jumps will resolve into the big picture eventually, so bear with it. I personally couldn’t grasp the oddly unwholesome concentration – an almost veiled sexual subtext – regarding the physical attraction between brothers – but I might be reading too much into the family relationships of another culture, so you should really decide for yourselves…

Menkui translates as “shallow” or “superficial” and although this everyday saga of pretty-boy angst might seem to condemn itself with this title these characters have the potential for a genuinely moving tale. If you are a grown-up romantic you could do worse than begin this journey with these young lovers.

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

© 2000 Suzuki Tanaka. All Rights Reserved. First published in Japan by BIBLOS Co., Ltd. English text ©2006.

By Kei Kusunoki (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 1-59816-498-8

Everybody knows that witches are bad, so when Private Eye Makoto Hirasaka, a detective with an absolutely uncanny ability to find his quarry is accused of being one he laughs it off. But even though his pretty young client is “mistaken”, she still wants him to ride a bus and meet someone at the last stop. And that person will actually be a witch…

And so begins a dark and nasty splatter-fest of shock and gore. When the bus crashes in the wilds, Makoto discovers that in fact all the pretty young girls are witches and moreover the locals have turned the crash-site into a private hunting preserve, which is okay since they’re witches and witches are evil and evil witches must die…

This decidedly odd and amoral tale is well-paced, thrilling in the classic modern-horror manner and beautifully illustrated. In spellbinding images we see the girls – and to be fair, their pursuers – die in increasing splashy and bizarre ways as Makoto realises that maybe not only his client could be mistaken as to his mystical status…

If you love mood and action and can overlook any sense of plot this rather nonsensical piece of fluff might call to you.

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

© 2004 Kei Kusunoki. All Rights Reserved. English script © 2006 Tokyopop Inc.

By various.

Fruits Basket Created by Natsuki Takaya (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-4278-0293-4

Fruits Basket is an incredibly popular Manga – and latterly anime – series that tells of the romantic adventures and life of a young orphan girl adopted by the benevolent but cursed Sohma family. Tohru is just an average girl but she soon adapts to the fact that whenever one of her new family hug a person of the opposite sex they are transformed into an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. A Shojo (girl’s story) story, it is funny, sad, charming and incredibly convoluted. Hence this frankly daunting companion volume that charts relationships explains details and tells you absolutely everything you might ever want to know about the series and the characters.

Also included in this lavishly illustrated book are games, puzzles, story-synopses’ for the first 17(!) volumes and even beautiful stickers of Tohru, some of her scrumptious boyfriends and loads and loads of cute, cuddly zodiac animals. These manga chaps certainly know the meaning of “added-value”…

© 1998 Natsuki Takaya. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 TOKYOPOP Inc.

By David Hine & Hans Steinbach (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-4278-0080-0

Here’s a taut Sci-Fi thriller in the manner of Scanners from the English speaking end of the manga world. Young Sam Chance has most of the usual teenager’s problems but that all changes when he starts having nosebleeds and manifesting terrifying psychic powers. When doctors examine him he is found to be the latest victim of SKAR: South Korean Adolescent Retrovirus. There is no cure.

And then his life gets really weird. Whilst coming to terms with his imminent death his family is approached by the world’s richest computer games manufacturer with a solution; to cryogenically preserve him for two tears until the cure he’s working on is perfected. It seems like the perfect – if drastic – answer.

So why then is the Government prepared to assassinate every one who knows him and even shoot down the plane he’s travelling on? Despite all such efforts Sam escapes and nervously submits to the freezing process, bitterly regretting the two years he’ll be separated from his girlfriend. A century later he opens his eyes…

And that’s where this volume ends: a sharp and quirky tale that promises much to come and a few new twists to this fan-favourite theme of teen psychic super soldiers. Keep watching…

© 2007 David Hine and TOKYOPOP Inc. All Rights Reserved. POISON CANDY is ™ TOKYOPOP Inc.

By Barbara Randall Kesel, Heidi Arnhold & Max Kim (TOKYOPOP)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-701-6

The manga movement gains more ground with this wonderful prequel to the classic fantasy movie as Barbara Randall Kesel scripts a gripping and emotive story of oppression and defiance on a far-flung world.

Gelflings are passive, gentle folk; farmers and artisans in a world lacking technology. The real power players are the philosophical Mystics and their depraved and evil counterparts, the Skeksis. Whilst the former are solitary isolationists, the monstrous Skeksis are power-hungry and use the life essence of the Gelflings to extend their own lives.

This story starts as the herder and musician Lahr discovers the giant Garthim are raiding again, taking Gelflings for the Skeksis to consume. Too late to save his own village, he stumbles across Neffi, whose village was also raided by the lobster-like plunderers. The desolates pair up and find another Gelfling village, hidden deep in a ravine.

They are in time to warn them but become embroiled in a deadly debate. Should the Gelflings stay hidden and hope to evade the relentless ravagers or should they abandon everything and run, in the hope of finding some new refuge? Is there another option? Can these gentle creatures learn to fight back in time to save their race?

Enthralling in both script and artwork, this is a quality fantasy tale, that won’t disappoint genre addicts or fans of the original film.

© 1982, 2007 The Jim Henson Company. All Rights Reserved. The Dark Crystal is a trademark of The Jim Henson Company.