“On the Eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Eight Dragon Priestess Guardians,” Akane Motomiya is walking to school, when she hears a voice calling to her from an old well. When she goes to investigate, she is sucked into the well by Akuram, the oni leader who wants to control Akane and take over Kyou, a land that greatly resembles Kyoto of the Heian period. Akane, it seems, is meant to be the Priestess of the Dragon God, and is given powers and eight Guardians to protect her. Along with two her friends Shimon and Tenma, who were sucked in as well, she must protect Kyou from Akuma and his oni before they can return to their time. Yes, Haruka, Beyond the Stream of Time, another Shojo Beat title. I really like this title, mostly because it happens in the Heian period. I love the history and the costumes. It also has dragons and other legendary creatures, which is another thing I love. This title has gotten a lot of flack for being so derivative of Fushigi Yuugi, the title that originated the “girl goes back in time and is surrounded by a ton of bishonen”,…
“On the Seventh Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Seven Dragon Balls,” Goku is a strange boy with a tail and super strength living by himself in the mountains. One day, a girl named Bulma finds him while she is searching for a legendary object: a dragon ball. If you collect all seven and call forth the dragon, he will grant you one wish. Goku has one of the balls, left to him by his Grandfather. He agrees to let Bulma borrow it, but wants to go along with her on her journey to make sure the dragon ball remains safe. The pair then embark on a strange and exciting journey to collect the rest of the dragon balls, but they seem to have some competition. Dragon Ball (the original series, not Z) has the distinction of being the first manga I ever bought, in English or Japanese. I was into Dragon Ball well before it became the phenomenon it did here. And I never like Z. I stopped picking up the manga when they started heading off into space. The first 16 volumes are all I need. Goku was cute and fun, with his clueless innocence. …
“On the Sixth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a Six Girl Volleyball Team,” Tomboy Nobara Sumiyoshi has one passion in life; Volleyball. Her mother, however, wants her to be the girlish hostess of the family’s ryotei (Old fashion Japanese restaurant). Nobara runs away from home to try and fulfill her dream, but her mother tries to stop her, going so far as to try and force Nobara’s younger sister to take Nobara’s place. The three make a deal; Nobara will play Volleyball until she graduates, when she will take over the ryotei, until then her younger siste will help out. In the meantime, Nobara has to bring back the Girl’s Volleyball team at her chosen High School, Crimson High, and get the minimum required 6 girls to form a competitive team, all while playing dorm mother to the Boy’s Volleyball team. This is another series I found through Shojo Beat. I wouldn’t be reading shojo manga if it wasn’t for Shojo Beat. I didn’t really like this title at first. I’m not much for sports, and all the romantic drama that was thrown out at first didn’t really interest me. It wasn’t until the title got…
“On the Fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Five Bronze Saints!” Long ago, the ancient Greek goddess Athena, had an army of warriors known as Saints. They were young boys who trained to control their Cosmo, a power within, that allowed them to perform supernatural feats. Thousands of years later, Athena has been reborn, and a new group of knights are training to earn cloths, or armor, and gain the honor to be one of her saints. Seiya is one of these saints, who has one the Pegasus cloth and returns to Japan to compete for the prestigious gold cloth of Sagittarius. But to win it, he must defeat the other returning bronze saints. Shun, Shiryu, Hyoga and Ikki start out as rivals and enemies, but they soon become friends, and Athena’s staunchest protectors. Saint Seiya is an old passion from my first getting into manga and anime in the eighties. There were no translations of either at the time, so when Viz announced the release of it in English, I had to have it! I just had know what was going on in these stories! Saint Seiya is a basic shonen fighting manga, with our…
I got this through the comments on a previous post of mine about reading manga on the Kindle. Of course, this isn’t for legally downloaded manga, becasue…..there isn’t any! But if you read and enjoy scanalations, which manga publishers obviously don’t consider a threat or care do anything about, here’s a new solution for reading them on the Kindle. Mangle is open source software that makes organizing and reading manga on the Kindle easier. It was created by Alex Yatskov, a manga reader with one of those imaginary Kindles Michael Gambos keeps asking to see. He did what I couldn’t do; play around with the Kindle and it’s “undocumented features” and got scanalations working on his. Of course because these are not official features, there were problems. See the link for details. But, being an enterprising gentleman, he set to work to create software to fix them. The site includes download links, instructions and screenshots. It’s really sad that we have to rely open source and borderline pirates to get manga in a digital format. But as long as publishers refuse to do anything about it, I’m glad there are people like Alex and the other sites that make online…
“On the Fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Four Friends in Winter,” Ann Uekusa and her mother move back to her mother’s home town Shimane from Tokyo. Her parents have divorced, and they have returned to live with Ann’s grandparents. They arrive in the winter, before Christmas. Ann becomes close friends with 3 kids; Daigo, Fuji, and Shiika. Not long after returning, Ann’s mother commits suicide, leaving Ann with her grandparents. Ann makes a life for herself in Shimane, and she and Daigo become a couple. Then her father comes back from Tokyo offering to take Ann back to Tokyo. Sand Chronicles is another series I started reading through Shojo Beat. I don’t think I was hooked instantly, but it certainly didn’t take long for it grow on me. Sand Chronicles also holds the special honor for making me cry not once, not twice, but three times over the same scene! It’s rare that a title can do that to me. Once maybe, but hardly ever twice. So much care is put into the characters that the dramatic scenes with them hit that much harder. Most of the story so far has been following Ann’s teen…
It’s a new week, and a new round of reviews from the Manga Village. Charles Tan starts things with a big dose of reality with Real Volume 1 from Viz. Alex Hoffman balances the reality with some fantasy with Stray Little Devil Volume 1 from DR Masters. John Thomas brings a Samurai Classic back with Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 1 from Dark Horse. Katherine Farmar wants to Close the Last Door Volume 1from DMP/June. I check out Record of a Fallen Vampire Volume 2 from Viz. We’ve got our weekly picks up for last minute shopping (only a week and a half left until Christmas…) and our Manga of the Month for November. Over at Good Comics for Kids, I have my weekly All ages comics and manga list, and Esther Keller has a review of Yen Press’ only all ages title, World of Quest. <A HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fmangxana-20%2F8003%2F8f773d56-bcc8-46d0-a5a1-f3b32c89a600&Operation=NoScript” mce_HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fmangxana-20%2F8003%2F8f773d56-bcc8-46d0-a5a1-f3b32c89a600&amp;Operation=NoScript”>Amazon.com Widgets</A>
“On the Third Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Three Sibling Cards,” Manami Minami decides to learn to play Chaos, a popular TCG. Her cousin Tamotsu, who also plays, takes her to the hobby store to by a starter pack. By a strange twist of fate, the pack she buys has an ultra-rare card in it, Sahgan, the Mighty Sorceror. Manami quickly becomes the target of other Chaos players who want to challenge her for Sahgan. With Tamotsu, her new friends from the card club, and Sahgan himself, who comes to Manami in her dreams to give her hints, she faces these challenges and grows as a player, while trying to balance her regular life. I got King of Cards because of the art and the premise sounded intriguing. I like a lot of game manga, such as Yu Gi Oh! Shadow Games, Legendz, and Hikaru no Go, so decided to give this one a chance. And am I glad I did! I have really enjoyed the shojo take on gaming manga. Manami is more interested in enjoying the game than just winning. Over the first couple of volumes, she gets a reason to get better, but…
“On the Second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Two girls named Nana.” Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu are two girls going to Tokyo to realize their dreams. Nana O. is looking to put together a new band and make it big, with Nana K. is going to join her boyfriend with whom she hopes to find love and happiness. From a chance meeting on the train to sharing an apartment, the lives of these two girls become entwinded as they strive to make their dreams come true. I didn’t think I’d like Nana when I received my first volume of Shojo Beat. I didn’t think I’d even like Shojo Beat, with all the emphasis Viz was putting on it being a “girls” magazine about romance and fashion. But, when I got to those first chapters, which actually told all of Nana K.’s story in that volume, I was hooked. I hadn’t read much shojo before SB, so I didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what Nana turned out to be. The characters were realistic, with real flaws and real problems. Ai Yazawa’s art is mostly realistic with a touch of manga comedy makes…
It’s the holiday season, so that means, shopping, Santa Claus and christmas carols. For me, it means combining manga with christmas carols! This year, I’m doing the most obvious of carols, The Twelve Days of Christmas. From now until Christmas, I will post one line, featuring a manga that I hope goes with the song. So, here goes! “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, A One Piece for the Pirate King.” Monkey D. Luffy has the lifelong dream of finding the One Piece, the treasure of the Gold Roger, the former Pirate King, and claim the title for himself. As a child, he ate the Gum-Gum Devil Fruit, and gained the power of elasticity, but lost the ability to swim. Undaunted, he set out on his journey, gathering a crew who have come to believe in Luffy’s dream because of his determination and friendship, as well as believing in their own dreams, and Luffy’s abiltiy to make them all come true. One Piece is one of those titles I discovered by reading Shonen Jump. I was familiar with the name from the interwebs, but once I started reading it, I really enjoyed it! It’s…
King of Cards Volume 3 By Makoto Tateno Publisher: CMX Age Rating: Teen Genre: Fantasy/Romance Price: $9.99 Rating: Are Manami’s grades slipping because of her dedication to her favorite card game? Her math teacher thinks so and threatens to tell her mother — unless she can beat him in a Chaos match! Also, a seemingly unbeatable player who actually hates Chaos is gunning for Manami. What’s this girl’s connection to Manami’s card-playing cousin Tamotsu? In this volume, there is plot development in two different directions. The first half of the volume continues the love triange between Manami, Tamotsu and Misa, with a revelation relating back to the last volume that makes this a true triangle. The second half returns to a plot point not seen since the first volume revolving around the Sahgan card.
Well, it’s been quite a week at Manga Village. You might see some new faces as you look around, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. Let’s start with our reviews for this week. Charles Tan starts things off with another season-appropriate sports title, Eyeshield 21 Volume 22 from Viz. Dan Polley has quite a tale with Fairy Tail Volume 4 from Del Rey. Katherine Famar gets aquainted with You and Harujion from Deux. I take a new Viz title for a walk with Nora: The Last Chonicle of Devildom Volume 1. John Thomas gets his learn on with Style School Volume 3 from Dark Horse. We make our weekly picks this week as usual, with just one minor change. We have a new villager! Yes, Alex Hoffman from the blog Manga Widget has joined the crew and starts out with giving a pick with the rest of us. Hopefully we’ll have reviews going up from him real soon! Good Comics for Kids has been pretty busy this week too. Not only do I have my weekly all ages list up, but I also have a review of the first new Naruto Chapter book, Naruto, The Boy Ninja…