Category: Manga

 

By Yukiru Sugisaki (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59532-901-3

The premise of RizelMine will be familiar territory to long-time manga fans, featuring as it does a hapless high-school boy/all-around geek (this one is 15-year-old Iwaki Tomonori) and a beautiful, super-powerful girl who inexplicably falls hopelessly in love with him, leading to the traditional slap-stick chaos and fearsome personal embarrassment all around.

Rizel is – or appears to be – a cute twelve year old girl, which would be annoying enough to a young man preparing to declare his undying love for his high school teacher. But his protestations are not only largely ignored, but they seem to inevitably lead to humiliation and quite a lot of bruising.

Tomonori adores older women, and cannot understand why this girl bursts into his bedroom brandishing a marriage certificate and telling him that they are now man and wife. He certainly can’t imagine why his parents are going along with this nonsense, nor why Rizel’s three incredibly scary “guardians” have moved in with them.

It soon transpires that Rizel is an artificial life-form needing to experience human love to further evolve. Furthermore, the government are prepared to go to any lengths to maximise their asset, and it doesn’t care how embarrassing or inconvenient it might be for some of its citizens. Enduring the approbation of his school-mates, the machinations of the world’s richest boy – who wants to marry Rizel himself – and the truly catastrophic repercussions of annoying his child-bride (something Tomonori does with astounding regularity) our hero soldiers on, determined to regain his pride, social standing and equilibrium. If only Rizel wasn’t so darned nice…

Although perhaps a slightly disturbing premise to contemporary western eyes (I don’t even know if school-children can marry in Japan!) this is a fairly standard manga comedy-fantasy that will delight aficionados of the genre but probably baffle the casual reader.

© 2002 Yukiru Sugisaki /KADOKAWA SHOTEN. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 2005 TOKYOPOP Inc.

By Maki Murakami (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59532-317-1

This whimsical action-fantasy tells the story of Yamada Shintaro, who, although a seemingly average, everyday, good-looking, teen fighter of the supernatural horrors of the night, is, in fact, the world’s latest Monster Guardian. Appointed to protect the Earth’s dwindling and endangered un-natural species, he finds himself annoyingly embroiled in a budding relationship with the distractingly attractive Nao, a human girl who attends his high-school.

Played for laughs and action in equal measure, with distractions to a peaceful, romantic life as diverse as the High School Occult Club, defeated Monster-hunters who refuse to stay dead and a persistently determined hottie/exorcist who won’t take a hint, this is an above-average teen-romp that will nicely fill the gaping gap in your dire life since Buffy stopped filming new episodes.

© 2001 Maki Murakami. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 2005 TOKYOPOP Inc.

 

By Shizuru Seino (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59182-696-9

This bizarrely engaging cross-dressing sports comedy is an examination of pushy parenthood gone wild. Kyo Aizawa’s father was good enough to play basketball for the majors of the NBA, but an injury destroyed his career forever. Kyo has the potential to be an even greater player, and dear old dad will let nothing thwart this second chance for fame and family glory. He enrols Kyo at the legendary Seisyu High School, home of the greatest Boys Basketball team in Japan. Not even the fact that Kyo is a girl will stop him from having a Basketball star in the family!

Blending genuine pathos with the slap-stick and teen angst comedy-of-embarrassment, Shizuru Seino examines the need to fulfil family obligations battling the growth to independence, and the first inklings of adult desire within the trite framework of an ostensibly hackneyed and moribund theme. There are school hi-jinks aplenty, with Kyo, a double outsider, striving to excel, trying to remain undiscovered, and fighting off the growing feeling she is developing for her team mates. There are even a few bona fide laughs along the way.

Faithful to the manga style, Girl Got Game still manages to provide a few entertaining surprises for the general reader. You don’t even need to love sports or be a girl…

© 2000 Shizuru Seino. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 2003 TOKYOPOP Inc.

 

By Erica Reis (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59816-401-5

This charming fantasy follows the coming of age adventures of a regal daughter of the Oceans who is reaching maturity and therefore sadly compelled to accept some pretty odious responsibilities – such as marry a foreign prince to end a war.

I’m sure this all sounds like pretty standard storybook fare so far, but when you take into account that Sea Princess Azuri is a mermaid, half girl, half Orca (that would be a Killer Whale to you or me), that her friend and bodyguard harbours secret feelings for her, and that the Prince she must marry (half man, half Eel, by the way) is a sneaky, slave owning creep with a secret agenda of his own, the potential for a real rollicking adventure is pretty high.

Erica Ries draws beautifully and her undersea world is both whimsical and fully fleshed, whilst her modernistic take on the classical fairytale scenario makes for a charming and readily approachable read. I look forward to future volumes, and so, I suspect, will you.

© 2006 Erica Reis and TOKYOPOP Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Hiroki Endo (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84576-487-0

Despite the truly monumental breadth and variety of manga, I suspect that to western eyes Japanese comics are inextricably linked to science fiction in general and cataclysm in particular. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good, merely saddled with a few unfair presuppositions. With that stated and in mind any fair reader should sit down to Eden: It’s An Endless World! and be prepared for a treat.

Elijah Ballard is one of a small group of immunes who have survived the global pandemic named the ‘Closure Virus’. Most of humanity has been eradicated, and those infected who have survived their initial exposure are doomed to a slow deterioration that compels them to augment their failing bodies with cybernetics simply to survive. They barely qualify as human by most standards.

Pockets of survivors immune to the plague are dotted about the planet and as the years pass various factions form to take control of the world. Through a series of flashbacks we see the immediate aftermath of the plague before jumping twenty years to follow this young man’s picaresque ramblings through a devastated South America. Accompanied by a robotic bodyguard he is eking out a precarious existence when he is captured – or perhaps adopted – by a rag-tag band of soldiers.

When the world died political society divided into two camps. The fragmented remnants of the United Nations tried to retain some degree of control but found themselves under attack by Propater, a revolutionary paramilitary organisation that had been planning a world coup even before the virus hit. Global war has raged among the survivors ever since.

Now caught up in this conflict Elijah begins to realise that his long missing parents are major players in the new world order and day to day survival is no longer his only concern…

Despite the cyberpunk appurtenances and high octane pace of the narrative, this is in many senses a very English approach to the End of the World. There are echoes of that other Ballard (J. G., an author, not a comic strip scripter), Aldous Huxley, and even Chapman Pincher. The adult themes present here aren’t simply nudity and violence – although they are here in an abundance that will satisfy any action manga fan – but also a lyrical philosophy and moral questioning of political doctrine that underpins the text in the manner of much Cold War era science fiction.

This Titan Books edition is translated into English but printed in Japanese format – that is read from back to front and right-to-left, but don’t let that deter you. You will adjust in minutes at most and the slight effort is really worth it. Subtly engaging, beautifully illustrated and balancing swift action with introspective mystery, this series looks set to appeal to that literate sector that needs their brains tickled as well as their pulse rates raised.

© 2007 Hiroki Endo. All Rights Reserved.

 

By So-Young Lee (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59532-481-X

This traditional Manga fantasy tale is the story of a young orphan girl with the magical ability to speak to and understand animals. With her best friend Zode – a large Collie dog (sort of) — she is summoned to the court of the Emperor as the next hundred year winter is about to fall upon the land. Her improbable mission is to retrieve a guardian dragon to protect the Empire from a predatory demon-race waiting for the long shadows to fall.

Our demure and uncertain heroine is unconvinced that all these noble lords have the right Chosen One, but gamely and dutifully agrees to go a-questing accompanied by the enigmatic, young and eerily good-looking wizard Yulan and a growing assortment of motley companions of all races and species.

This epic of magic and adventure is simple, uncomplicated fare that will delight all fans of imaginative fiction and historical romances.

© 2003 So-Young Lee, DAIMON C.I. Inc. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 2005 TOKYOPOP Inc.

 

By Fred Gallagher, with Sarah Gallagher & Dominic Nguyen (CMX/WildStorm)
ISBN 1-84576-476-5

Now, you and me, we’re normal. Sure we like comics, and sci-fi shows and big-explosion movies, toy guns and ninjas and beer, but that’s still regular stuff. Yet don’t we know a couple of guys that take it just a little too seriously? Maybe they’re a tad too… keen?

Piro and Largo are those guys. Piro is a big, Big, BIG fan of all things Japanese and collectable (there’s a word for it and that’s “Otaku” – which probably translates as “obsessive geek”). Largo is a hardcore Gamer – he even thinks and speaks in a game language, “L33T”. One night they get unbelievably drunk in America and sober up in Tokyo – with no money to get home.

And that’s really all the backstory you need to start reading this epic online comic strip (apparently the world’s most popular non-Japanese manga). The two hapless odd-boys must find jobs and earn enough money to get home, but Japan is seductive. Piro finds himself drawn into a web of bemused attraction with three very different girls and Largo becomes the charismatic leader of a group of ‘heroes’ dedicated to destroying a deadly ‘zombie horde’ plaguing the city. It’s all their dreams come true.

This is incredibly dense storytelling when gathered into book form. You need a lot of irons in the fire when you’re publishing daily, and the plots, sub-plots and asides are utterly packed with drama, comedy from satire to slapstick, and a delightful absurdist fantasy that can always be relied on to keep the audience guessing. With a dedicated pick’n’mix attitude to everything that intrigues them, the Gallaghers have re-fried all their favourite elements of popular culture into a seamless surreal blend of goofy unrequitable love, male haplessness, giant monsters, warrior cults, guardian angels, funny animals, fairies, imaginary science and soap opera. This is a fun, fun read. Here’s hoping the (book) publisher re-releases the previous volumes – mean time you could always check out www.megatokyo.com.

© 2007 FredArt Studios, LLC. All Rights Reserved.