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!
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…
This week at Manga Village, we’ve got another batch of reviews for you. John Thomas is getting small with is review of Minima Volume 1 from Del Rey. Things aren’t looking so divine to Dan Polley with his review of My Heavenly Hockey Club Volume 3 also from Del Rey. Charles Tan, on the other hand, kicks it with Eyeshield 21 Volume 2 from Viz. I’d like to flip mine off though, with Volume 1 of Switch from Viz. Don’t “hulk out” until you read the review of it though. We’ve also got our picks from the new releases this month. There’s shojo, shonen, a touch of seinen with a sprinkle of old school, and a side order of BL, so come check them out!
Phantom Volume 1 By Ki-Hoon Lee/Seung-Yup Cho Publisher: Tokyopop Rating: 13+ Genre: Action/Mecha RRP: $9.99 Rating: Reviewed by Brian Henderson K is a mech pilot for the Neo Seoul Police, chasing down terrorists in his TC (Tactical Costume) in the near future. This is after the deadly “Meteo Rain” that showered the Earth, toppling governments and bringing about the rise of the mega-corporations that now rule the planet. K has never really given much thought to his job but when an arrest goes horribly wrong, he’s trapped in a world that wants him dead and forced to side with the terrorists against the megacorps at the helm of a new type of TC, controlled by the AI Cerebus which identifies K as it’s sole pilot.
This week we’re cooking up the sweets at Manga Village! Dan Polley is serving up some shojo with Kitchen Princess Vol. 5 from Del Rey Manga. Charles Tan is ready with a cure if you eat too much with Death Note Vol. 2 from Viz. Or you can hit the streets to work off some of that good eating with John Thomas and his review of Tekkon Kinkrete from Viz. Pass the time running with some Andromeda Stories Vol 2 from Vertical by me. Then, check out our latest picks from the manga coming out this week. As usual, we have an all-you-can-eat buffet of picks to satisfy your manga hunger.
Wandering around the web yesterday, I stumbled upon a Livejournal group for an unlicensed manga called 07-Ghost. It’s a shonen sci-fi that I read a few chapters of a few years ago and liked. No new chapters came out after the initial few, so I figured it was dropped as happens so often in scanalations. But, on the community, there was a message about the possible licensing of this manga based on a Take Down notice Tokyopop had sent to this manga trading website. The list of manga Tokyopop asked to be taken down can be found here. The Take Down notice was sent in January of this year. I found this list rather odd though. Yes, all of Tokyopop’s titles were there, as well as 07-Ghost. There were also a couple of other titles on the list that were not announced licenses such as Saiunkoko Monotagari, Sayuki Gaiden, and Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam. These are all series I would love to have, and Sayuki Gaiden just makes sense since Tokyopop has published Saiyuki and Saiyuki Reload. But, what made me wonder about the reliability of this list is that there were several series’ on this list that were licensed,…