Gon: Volume 2 By Masashi Tanaka Publisher: CMX Genre: Action/Adventure Rating: Teen Price: $5.99 Rating: Storyline: Gon meets many animals, which were a Giant Tortoise, a Shark, Buffalo, a Hard Tick, a Warthog, Baboons, an Elephant, a Hedgehog, a Squirrel Monkey, a Tamandua, an Ocelot, and a whole bunch of Penguins! What I liked: I liked it when Gon chased the squirrel. I liked how angry Gon was drawn. I also liked how Gon played with the Penguins. What I didn’t like: I hated it when Gon gave one piece of a banana to the Shark and how he behaved. It was a bit violent. Would you recommend this to kids your age? Yes. It’s not too violent and Gon is cute!
It was really hard getting through Previews this month. In the catalog, May is Manga Month, so along with all the regular series, there were new ones coming out that had to be evaluated. Top that with a weakening economy, and you get some really tough decisions to be made with this month’s order. More after the cut.
The Manga Village reviewers have been working hard this week to give you another great batch of reviews. Charles Tan starts us off with a tour of the Museum of Terror: Tomie Volume 1 from Dark Horse. John’s all packed for another delivery from Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Volume 4 also from Dark Horse. Lissa Pattillo finds out how Boys Be Volume 1 from Tokyopop. Dan Polley gets a last shot at Golgo 13 Volume 13 from Viz. And, going for the three-peat, I catch a class at Monkey High! Volume 1 from Viz. We’ve also got our weekly picks up from everyone except for John. He’s probably off raiding Akihabara no doubt, like any good otaku. Think he’ll bring something for his wonderful editor? No, I didn’t think so either. But what we are hoping for are some great stories about his time there, so keep watching for them!
Dragon Drive Volume 4 By Kenichi Sakura Publisher: Viz Media Genre: Fantasy Rating: All Ages Price: $7.99 Rating: Storyline The three heroes are in Yaudim, the most dangerous place in Rikyu, eating. Reiji is ready to go into the first round in the tournament when they meet Taiyo. He’s the Reigning Champion Sun Wols, and he’s waiting in the second round. After saving Maiko, they head back to their hotel. The next morning, a team of rookies have beaten Taiyo. Reiji gets extremely pumped. Review This one was awesome. I liked Taiyo and the way Reiji and Hikaru battled. Rokkaku was also funny, how he loved to drink and party. The flashbacks got me looking at them again and again. What I liked about it It was cute. Rokkakku’s flashback was so funny as his friend picked on him. Taiyo was pretty good as well. What I didn’t like Not even uno. (one, for those who can’t read Spanish.) What you could do to make it better Nada. (nothing) Is this suitable for children? There’s blood in it, but yes, yes it is.
The apocalypse is nigh, the end of the world is near, the impossible has happened. My local Barnes and Noble actually had a decently stocked manga section! (Cue dramatic chords). This weekend I decided to go out and see if I could find a physical copy of King of Cards Volume 2. I’m not getting this one again sight unseen. My youngest was going to a birthday party, so I thought after dropping her off, we could drive down to the nearest Borders, which is about 20 minutes away. A check of their stock online said they might have it in stock. I had already written off Barnes and Noble. The one by us always has really lousy selection and the shelves are badly maintained. But, on a whim, I checked out the B&N website, and they said our local one might have it as well. Well, B&N was on the way home, and a whole lot closer than Borders, so I decided to take the chance. (And, I had a gift card for B&N, just in case.) So, we stopped and went to the back of the store, and to my utter surprise, the shelves were full! OMG! (as…
Eagle: The Making Of An Asian-America President Volume 1 By Kaiji Kawaguchi Publisher: Viz Comics Genre: Political Drama Age Rating: Teen+ (16+) Price: $19.95 Rating: With the 2008 Election coming up, I thought it would be interesting to read Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President and see how the Japanese view of our election system stacks up to the real thing while it’s going on. It’s turned out to be an interesting comparison with the way the Democratic side has shaken out. Eagle follows the Senator Kenneth Yamaoka, a democrat from New York, as he decides to throw his hat into the ring before the New Hampshire Primary. Takashi Jo, our protagonist, has been asked by the Yamaoka campaign to be the Japanese correspondant, and follow the campaign. This volume follows Yamaoka from his declaration to Primary night. There is some drama involved in this as well, and I’ll get to that in a moment. What I want to do first is to look at Yamaoka as compared to the current Democratic candidates, particularly Barack Obama. Kenneth Yamaoka and Barack Obama are both young senators of mixed heritage. Yamaoka is a Japanese-American, and Barack is an African-American. Both are…
Manami doesn’t know a thing about “Chaos”, a popular trading card game at school. Wanting to learn more about the game, she purchases a beginner’s set that contains “Sahgan the Sorcerer”, rarest of all Chaos cards. Now, not only does every fanatical Chaos player around challenge her, but she also starts having visions of Sahgan himself! King of Cards Volume 1 By Makoto Tateno Publisher: CMX Genre: Fantasy/Romance Age Rating: Teen Price: $9.99/OOP Rating: There are a lot of manga titles about games available, but this series differentiates itself from the rest by relying more on its characters than on the mechanics of the game. Manami just wanted to learn to play “Chaos,” so she could play with her cousin Tamotsu. But things become more complicated when her beginner’s set come with the rarest card in the game, Sahgan the Sorcerer. And as you might expect from a game series, she is then beset with challenges from players that all want to win Sahgan from her. And like all those other manga, she wins all the challenges. But what makes this series different is that Manami stays true to why she started playing Chaos; to have fun. Being a beginner…
Another week, and another round of reviews. What have we got? John Thomas teaches us Death Note: How to Read Vol 13 from Viz. Then Lissa Pattillo satisfys that BL desire by casting a Crimson Spell Vol 1 from Kitty Media. I blast off for one last trip to Andromeda Stories Vol 3, for the end of this sci-fi classic from Vertical, Inc. Dan Polly also takes a trip, this time to Miki Falls: Winter Vol 4 for the conclusion of the teen romance from Harper Collins Publishers. Charles Tan gets a part time job with Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol 1 from Dark Horse. Then, we make our weekly picks from this week’s manga. It’s a smaller list, but the distribution between publishers is more even. There are still some good books coming out, including two novels translated by our reviewer John Thomas! So come get your read on with us!
I don’t know if it’s just me, or if I’m the only person left reading this manga, and I don’t want to beat on CMX, since they have been making inroads for bringing out new, good manga, but this has really been bothering me. One of the series’ CMX is releasing is King of Cards, a kind of shojo version of Yu Gi Oh!, but not really. It’s a good series, with enough tweaks to make it different from the other card game manga. Well, I finally got around to reading Volume 2. I got about 2/3 of the way through the book, right at the climax of the main game of the book. It’s the page where the heroine stands up, proclaiming “I Win!”, but her opponent just smirks and…it immediately repeats the last 20 pages, coming back to that same page, but on the next page the action picks up several more pages in! I have no idea what happened! Why Manami didn’t win! Why she and her cousin were looking at playing her opponent again!!! Why?! Why right there?!?! King of Cards: Volume 2 I stopped reading, since is seemed kind of pointless to go on without…
Here’s an FYI if you’ve been interested in some of Tokyopop’s older manga, but haven’t wanted to pay full price. This is via AnimeonDVD.com in their [email protected] forums. BookCloseouts.com is having a sale on Tokyopop manga. 75% off the titles they have available. That’s only $2.49 a piece! Kids titles can be even cheaper at $1.49! It’s mostly older titles, so don’t expect to find titles that have just come out. And there won’t always be a full run of a series, especially if it was popular. But, if there is an older series you want to look into, it’s definitely worth a look The shipping’s by media mail so it won’t be outrageous and skew the price. Feed your manga hunger without breaking our pocketbook!
Zombie Loan Volume 1 By Peach Pit Publisher: Yen Press Genre: Supernatural/Action Rating: Older Teen Price: $10.99 Rating: Michiru Kita’s a weak-spirited girl who has a hard time saying what’s on her mind. One day, she notices mysterious, ring-like markings around the necks of two of her classmates, Chika Akatsuki and Shito Tachibana-two boys who miraculously survived a horrible accident six months ago. Michiru, possessing the rare ability to see these rings, knows that they warn of impending death. Thinking that, perhaps, she can do something to save her classmates’ lives, she approaches them…but it seems the boys have already make a different kind of deal and garnered themselves a heavy debt. Shinigami eyes, black rings that appear around necks that foretell of impending death, zombies that eat human flesh, two hot guys, one with a sword and the other with a gun, that hunt the zombies and release their souls. Sounds like an exciting story, right? Too bad this volume didn’t play out that way.
We went out shopping today. My oldest’s birthday is coming up this week, and we were getting the last gifts we needed. One of our stops though, wasn’t for presents, but for supplies. Both my girls like to collect Pokemon cards (actually my oldest is totally hooked on Pokemon right now) and the box we bought for their cards has filled up. So, we went to our local comic shop (LCS) to get another box. Our LCS is small. Every wall is stacked with books, comics, games and toys. There isn’t an inch of wall that isn’t displaying something. The middle holds shelfs for back issues and trades. And then there’s the table, directly opposite the register that is for clearance items. Every couple of months, or until the table is cleared, the shop would put out stuff that hadn’t sold and was taking up space needed for new inventory. Sometimes it’s comics, or toys or trading cards, or manga. This week happened to have manga. Three rows length wide across the table stacked about 8 volumes high and a sign over it saying $2.50 each. So, guess where I was for the next 10 minutes. The only problem with…