When timid Kanan comes home from his office job to find his apartment flooded, he rushes upstairs to see what’s going on. This sets off a series of events in which the upstairs neighbor, a pushy guy called Kaioh, ends up living in Kanan’s bathtub. Kaioh is a mermaid, though never once is he seen with any fishlike qualities other than his love of soaking in the tub (who doesn’t?) and the ability to breathe underwater (though not through gills).
Soon, a romance establishes itself. I guess. I don’t really see the attraction between the two. As the title suggests, Kaioh is extremely selfish. Kanan is not so much a character as he is a human-shaped doormat who insists that Kaioh is really kind, deep down.
The rest of the volume concerns itself with introducing side characters such as Kaioh’s half-sister Suoh, who is boyish and abrupt, and Kaioh’s childhood rival Haru, who is yet another pretty boy. None of these characters are very interesting to me at all. In fact, I was ready to write Selfish Mr. Mermaid off entirely when suddenly the manga introduced me to Haru’s best friend. A giant clam.
That’s when I started to giggle. Honestly, the giant clam made up for most of what I’d read before. It might not work for everyone, but I’m a Doctor Who fan, and–well, here’s a Youtube clip of why I started laughing:
Unfortunately, the giant clam does not stay a bivalve very long.
The art of Selfish Mr. Mermaid is unremarkable in the best panels, and uneven and off-balance in the worst. There are places where the facial features don’t fit the face or where proportions don’t fit. Underwater scenes don’t seem to pay any attention to the physics of how water works, leaving me to wonder why the characters go underwater in the first place. Overall, Selfish Mr. Mermaid is worth a miss.
Selfish Mr. Mermaid is by Nabako Kamo and is published in the US by June.
Grade: C-
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
It’s one of the first clichés I ever learned, far enough back into my past that I don’t actually remember a time when I didn’t know those words. I propose a new corollary to it, however:
Don’t judge a manga by its art.
I quite like the art of Mr. Flower Bride, particularly the expressiveness of the characters’ faces. It’s true that some designs can seem repetitive, but I don’t mind that so much because I can easily decipher a character’s emotional state.
The story. Well. Shinji Souda is the younger son of the Souda family, and when his sister-in-law finds out that she’s pregnant with a son, Shinji is married off. To a boy. Not just a boy, but Aoi Uno, an effeminate boy from his class. While Shinji initially wants none of it, Aoi has been harboring a crush on Shinji for quite some time and was happy to accept the marriage proposal.
The resulting courtship seems kind of rushed. Shinji is quick to accept Aoi as his spouse, even laying claim to him in public, at school. Aoi has initial moments of doubt, but that goes away quickly. I think the story might have benefitted from being longer, but instead there are three short stories in this volume, only one of them related to the main narrative of Mr. Flower Bride.
Of the remaining two short stories, one is a tale of a high school student and his diminutive male bodyguard. It’s nothing new, but it’s not bad. The other–I don’t get the other. There’s a young male prostitute in an image club who is dressed as a woman, the young man who’ll inherit the image club, and some sex that is creepy and almost shotacon. From conversation, I’m surmising that the prostitute is indeed of legal age, but what I don’t get is why the prostitute was male in the first place. It certainly didn’t pertain to the story at all.
In the end, Mr. Flower Bride has little that keeps me interested. The main story, while inoffensive enough, picks a BL formula and sticks to it without deviation. Two of the short stories aren’t really memorable, and the third is only memorable because I find it bewildering and a little gross.
Mr. Flower Bride is by Lily Hoshino and is published in the US by Yen Press.
Grade: C-
These were my Manga Recon reviews for the week of December 30-January 6.
12/30/2009
The Lizard Prince, Vol. 1 by Asuka Izumi: B+
01/01/2010
The Aristocrat and the Desert Prince by Haruhi Tono with illustrations by Ai Hasukawa: D+
01/03/2010
Pandora Hearts, Vol. 1 by Jun Mochizuki: B+
One of the biggest complaints I have about yaoi manga, in general, is how strict the gender roles seem to be. You know, you’ve got the taller, more aggressive seme and the smaller, more feminine uke. Or perhaps it is less gender roles and more along the lines of age, like one would find in antiquity. Either way, the roles are set, and very few stories move past that.
Hell, very few stories even really deal with the homosexuality or bisexuality of the main characters, even though the relationships are decidedly homosexual.
Dining Bar Akira is one of those manga that does move past the stereotypes, does deal with the implications of a relationship between two men, and does deal with the fact that one of the characters is only just now discovering and exploring this side of his sexuality. It goes like this: Akira is the manager of the titular Dining Bar Akira, running it with three of his childhood friends. Helping the quartet out are four part-timers. The problem is that Torihara, one of the part timers, confessed his attraction to Akira during a night of drinking.
It’s lucky for Torihara that Akira doesn’t actually own the restaurant. Instead, his friend Maki does. It’s Maki who refuses to fire Torihara when Akira pleads for it, and leaves the two men to deal with this like adults. Dealing with it is difficult–Akira has identified as straight until this point, and he’s decidedly uneasy with the entire situation. Making him more uneasy is the fact that he finds himself attracted to Torihara.
They do strike up a relationship and start seeing one another, neither quite knowing how to deal with the other and yet still retaining that attraction that keeps them together. When it finally comes to the point where their relationship takes on a sexual angle, Dining Bar Akira provides one of the most honest, unsexy depictions of foreplay I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing and funny, especially for the expression on Akira’s face in a specific panel.
In trying to think of what I love most about this manga, I think it’s that it really is about two people finding one another. Yes, they’re both men–masculine at that, not giving way to typical gender roles–but it’s more than that. It’s about breaking down walls and reaching for something that leaves you vulnerable, and the characters are so well done that you see where those vulnerabilities are on each of them. The side characters help to perfectly round out the story, making Dining Bar Akira one of the best manga I’ve read in the past year.
Dining Bar Akira is by Tomoko Yamashita and is published in the US by Netcomics.
Grade: A+
In London of the late Victorian period, a young woman named Emma is the maid for a retired governess named Mrs. Kelly Stownar. Though she is definitely a servant–the only servant–to the household, the relationship between mistress and maid is very affectionate and close. The tale begins when one of Mrs. Stownar’s former charges, a young gentleman named William Jones, comes to call. He’s immediately taken with Emma, and she him, though they come from different classes.
Emma paints a deep, loving picture of a time and a place where social status meant everything. William and Emma are a wonderful match when it comes to personality and temperment, but while Emma remembers a time when she couldn’t afford to own shoes, William comes from comfort and luxury. Their worlds are entirely different, and while the love that’s growing between them can bridge that gap, the realities of the day make it difficult. Though they have supporters in Mrs. Stownar and visiting Indian Prince Hakim, William’s father Richard will have none of this nonsense. He wants a suitable wife for his heir, most likely in the form of young Eleanor Campbell, a viscount’s daughter who has just made her debut into society.
Even though it’s monochromatic, the detail of the art and the shading helps to paint it in my mind’s eye as having the same colors as the BBC period dramas I’m so fond of. Mori-sensei does an amazing job of bringing the period to life through her drawing, idealized as it may be. A particular favorite image is from volume one, page 55. I had forgotten how interesting Victorian ships could look. I also really enjoy how she draws people. Yes, the faces are stylized as one would come to expect in a shojo manga, but the bodies seem more like real people than I’m used to seeing. The illustration of an Indian girl on page 79 is a great example–she doesn’t seem like a stick figure at all.
There’s actually only one thing I can complain about when it comes to Emma, which is a first for me. (Usually I have more!) In the second chapter, William receives a model airplane by post. Thing is, this title is set in the Victorian era at the end of the 19th century, and the first flight didn’t happen until 1903. Aside from that, this is an intricate, exquisite tale of cross-class love set in an era of propriety and obligation.
Emma is by Kaoru Mori and is published in the US by CMX.
Grade: A
am·biv·a·lence (
m-b
v
-lns)n. 1. The coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings, such as love and hate, toward a person, object, or idea.
I just can’t figure out how I feel about Butterflies, Flowers. There is such a huge part of me that loves what I’ve read. The art, the humor, and the storytelling here is all skillful and kept me interested and reading. On the other hand, there are some control and sexual issues that make me pause.
Choko is a young woman just starting out in life. As a child, her family was wealthy and owned a large home and employed many servants. This changed when the recession hit in the 1990s and her family lost almost everything. They’re staying afloat, now keeping shop at a noodle restaurant that the entire family works at. Choko does the usual new graduate thing and sends out many resumes and applications for office work, and soon receives an interview at a large company.
Something isn’t quite right here, though. One of the interview panel, a handsome young man, comes out and asks her if she’s a virgin. Stunned, she answers to the affirmative, and later swears that she won’t take the job if offered, she’ll take another.
Only, she doesn’t get any other offers.
So she takes it, not having any other choice, and is immediately picked out of the trainee crowd by the same man who asked her the awful question and put in a position that she isn’t qualified for. He’s her supervisor, treats her demonically, though it never comes to sexual harrassment…quite. She’s utterly befuddled by it all until a moment of crisis and the truth comes out: he’s Masayuki, the son of the family’s former chauffeur, a boy she called Cha-chan and adored as a child.
Things become interesting here. Their roles are often reversed–at work, he’s the demon supervisor, cracking the whip (only metaphorically, folks) and a complete hardass. In other times, she’s the young lady of an aristocratic family and calls him by his first name, ordering him about. In this, both seem to be aware that neither the office mode nor the old master-servant role work for the feelings they have for one another, but recognizing that and breaking the patterns are two vastly different things.
In the end, I still feel uneasy about whatever it is growing between Choko and Masayuki. There’s definitely something honest there, but that’s clouded by the issues of the workplace and the past. While it’s clear that the author views Masayuki’s sexual harassment as something wrong, does that give her the right to use it as a plot device? Is my interpretation biased by a cultural difference? I just don’t know. I want to read more, and I want to see where this goes…but I can’t bring myself to give Butterflies, Flowers an A.
Butterflies, Flowers is by Yuki Yoshihara and is published in the US by VIZ Media under the Shojo Beat imprint.
Grade: B+
I’ve decided to do something a bit different for my Manga Recon reviews. Instead of posting each as its own entry, I’m going to collect the links once a week and post them as a list. This post contains the links to all of the reviews I’ve done since the last one I posted here.
12/07/2009
Boys Love by Kaim Tachibana: B-
Liberty Liberty! by Hinako Takanaga: B+
12/17/2009
S.A, Vols. 13-14 by Maki Minami: B
12/21/2009
Gin Tama, Vol. 16 by Hideaki Sorachi: B
Ooku, Vol. 2 by Fumi Yoshinaga: A-
12/28/2009
Dog x Cat by Yoshimi Amasaki: C
Love Skit by Rie Honjoh: B+
It’s probably a mistake to try and review all four of these volumes in one chunk, but I’m incredibly behind as it is and have library manga sitting on my shelf, ready to go back!
The arc is in play now, moving inexorably forward. Volume five starts off with Shizuka Hio’s death at Kaname’s hand (literally) and the reunification of twins Zero and Ichiru. The vampire world’s politics are as murky and full of backstabbing as you’d expect out of any decent group of bloodsuckers, complete with Kaname foisting the guilt for pureblooded Shizuka’s death onto Zero. Yet, Kaname also protects Zero from the assassins sent by the Senate–it seems that he still has plans for Zero, wanting to make sure that the humanborn vamp owes him a debt.
The sixth bolume has Yuki inadvertantly crashing a vampire soiree, thanks to a lost vampire child who is more than what he seems to be. It also sees the exit of Maria Kurenai–the real Maria
Kurenai, who 
warns Zero that the same people who used his family as pawns are also working against the purebloods, and that they are the true enemy. There’s an adorable story about the vampire kids when they were young, giving some sweetness to the story before the final chapter, in which Senri meets his father. Also notable is that this volume sees Yuki starting to hallucinate being covered in blood when she tries to think about the snowy night that is her earliest memory.
Volumes seven and eight…gamechangers? To say the very least. Yuki’s hallucinations continue, Shiki gets posessed by his father, Kaname offers his blood to Zero in order to keep the beast off, and Zero angsts a lot…and then Kaname drinks from Yuki. Yuki is not just a foundling, she is the youngest child of the Kuran family. This means that she’s a pureblooded vampire, Kaname’s sister, and also his fiancee. It may be the history dork in me, but in a way it makes sense. Marriages between siblings was common amongst the pharaohs of Greco-Roman Egypt as a way 
to keep the dynastic bloodlines pure. Yuki remembers her cloistered childhood now, her very existence hidden from vampire society in order to keep her safe, but Shiki’s father Rido (who is Kaname and Yuki’s uncle) now knows of this newest pureblood…
I’m just going to come out and say this: I prefer Ichiru to Zero. Zero’s angst does nothing to move me–I mean, yeah, I get it…he’s been turned into a vampire, has no way back, and will slowly go insane. If he really hated his life so much, though, he wouldn’t keep drinking off of Yuki…he’d off himself. Ichiru, on the other hand, is fascinating. While Shizuka Hio turned Zero into a vampire, she raised Ichiru and kept him human. He’s also functional socially. Rather than angsty stoicism, Ichiru seems to want to get along with his classmates.
We won’t even go into how I feel about Zero’s attitude in volume eight, after Y
uki’s true nature comes to light. Boot up the backside sums it up well. I fear that I have doomed poor Ichiru horrible death due to my preference for him.
Vampire Knight continues to be one of my guilty pleasures. I love the art, I love the political intrigue and machinations, and I–well, the characters might not be my favorite part, but I can deal with most of them.
Vampire Knight is by Matsuri Hino and is published in the US by Viz.
Grade: B
I don’t know how many regular readers I have, but any of you who might be out there have probably noticed that I’ve been quiet for the past week or so. The end of the semester is swiftly approaching, leaving me knee-deep in exam study and final projects. As a result, my reviewing has been put on a back burner.
I may or may not get more reviews done over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll definitely pick up after December 11. Just wanted to give a heads-up!
I chose to read and review Apothecarius Argentum for two reasons: first, I had heard that it was pretty good, and second, that it was a CMX title and I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the shojo titles they import. Unfortunately, this one didn’t really hold up for me.
The story is set in a small country called Beazol, which seems to be culturally based on Western Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The country is at war, and the King with his troops, leaving his adolescent daughter Princess Primula to oversee the kingdom. Primula is athletic and headstrong, with a strong moral streak that only intensifies as the series goes on. She’s the sort of character I like, but nothing about her really made her stand out from the archetype.
When Primula is poisoned through her food and her usual healer cannot be found, they find the quickest replacement they can, an apothecary named Argent. As a child, Argent had been Primula’s food tester–he comes from a group of people in a different country chosen as infants and slowly fed different poisons until they’ve built up an immunity. Argent cannot be killed by poison…but as a result of this, his touch itself is poison and his hair has turned silver. He had no name when he was first bought–he started his service as a child slave–and it was Primula who named him Argent.
Primula’s father, the King, is a cold and calculating man. He truly loves his daughter (though she is rumored to not be his), and is a more complex character for it, but he also has ambitions for his country. Now that Argent is back in the picture, the King intends to use him as a weapon rather than a healer, much to Argent’s distress. Argent has reinvented himself as a healer, not a poison tester or a specialized assassin. He cannot touch people, but he can make all sorts of cures.
I can’t tell you why this manga isn’t working for me. Primula and Argent are interesting enough characters and Soda, the boy who elbows his way into becoming Argent’s apprentice, is only vaguely annoying instead of being incredibly annoying. The writer has done her homework when it comes to the sorts of medications that apothecaries would use. There’s just something missing, though if the development at the end of the second volume doesn’t go the predictable route, perhaps it’s just missing from these two volumes.
The art of this series is technically skilled. The artist’s linework is delicate and soft, and she doesn’t overuse the screentones the way some others do. It’s nothing unique, though–nothing memorable. While this doesn’t bug me, it doesn’t do anything to help my ambivalence.
In the end, I don’t know if I could recommend Apothecarius Argentum. I don’t know if I could tell someone to avoid it, either. While it doesn’t work for me, it might work for someone else.
Apothecarius Argentum is by Tomomi Yamashita and is published in the US by CMX.
Grade: C+
