Manga Xanadu

Rin-ne Volume 2 By Rumiko Takahashi Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Supernatural/Comedy Price: $9.99/Free online Rating: It’s more ghostly hijinks with Rin-ne and Sakura, as Rin-ne works to pay off his grandmother’s debt to the spirit world.  The stories get longer in this volume, with more multi-chapter stories, but that doesn’t mean they get any better.  More of Takahashi’s formula kicks in as a new character are introduced with some petty motivations.

RIN-NE Volume 1 By Rumiko Takahashi Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Supernatural/Comedy Price: $9.99/Free online Rating: Ever since a childhood incident Sakura Mamiya has had the power to see ghosts. Now her life has gotten a lot more complicated with the arrival of her mysterious classmate Rinne, who seems to know a thing or two about detecting ghosts himself! Having enjoyed so far Takahashi’s shonen titles since Urusei Yatsura, I was thrilled to hear that we in the US would not only be getting her newest, Rin-ne, at the same time as Japan, but it would available for free online to read.  Having now read the first volume’s worth of chapters, I have to say my initial excitement may have been premature.

A lot has been going on at Viz Media recently.  First, back in April, Viz started running Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga, Rin-Ne, concurrent with it’s Japanese release online for American fans to read.  A first for legal simultaneous manga releases.  Next, Viz quietly announced that they would be releasing up-to-date One Piece chapters in Shonen Jump.  Then they confirmed that they were discontinuing it’s manga magazine for girls, Shojo Beat.  This was a major disappointment to many people (myself included).  But, right on the heels of that, as if to try to make amends, Viz then announces the start of a new manga magazine.  Online.  Ikki is a Japanese manga magazine that specializes in seinen, or young men’s manga.

I’ll jump on the band wagon and give some of my reactions to Rin-ne, Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga. I’m not completely sold on this one yet.  It was a good introduction to the two main characters, but it didn’t really grab me.  I like supernatural stories, so I’m hoping she’ll take the Shinigami concept into a different direction, though that is how it appears with her emphasis on reincarnation.  It seems to have more of a Buddhist take on the afterlife, which is more interesting to me than Bleach‘s.  I did like the ghost Chuhuahua.  The buggy eyed dog.  LOL. Takahashi really likes red-headed protagonists too, doesn’t she? I’m going to keep reading, and see how things go.  It fits perfectly into my lunch 1/2 hour. On the Inuyasha VIZBIG new: YES!  THEY GOT IT!!  THEY FIGURED IT OUT!!! Okay, I feel better now, and little vindicated.  I am so glad that Inuyasha is coming out unflipped finally.  What I have to figure out is how to justify buying 32 volumes all over again… Now, all we have to work on is getting Ranma 1/2 and Urusei to get the same treatment.