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“This darkness leads to where you want to go. You must not stop. You must not look back.”
Case Closed Volume 40 By Gosho Aoyama • Viz Media • Mystery • Older Teen • $9.99 Conan and his friends have more cases to solve, though only one murder in this volume. First he gets dragged into disrupting a date that ends up involving a drug deal, a suicide that looks suspicious, and a search for Dr. Asaga’s first love. After reading so many shonen, shojo and thriller titles lately, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the chase of a good mystery manga, so it was great to get back into a volume of Case Closed. The cases in this volume are mostly light fare, involving the relationships of supporting characters Sato and Takagi and Dr. Asaga. The mysteries involve solving puzzles and reading people. It’s a lot of fun watching the deduction process with Conan and the Junior Detective League. The one murder is fairly obvious about who the culprit is, it’s the way the murder is committed that is the mystery. This was a fun, light read, with three complete cases, and the last chapter being the hook for the next volume. If you need a mystery fix, Case Closed is sadly your only option at the…
When their high school’s pop-music club is about to be disbanded due to lack of interest, four girls step up to fill the membership quota. Unfortunately, lead guitarist Yui Hirasawa has never played an instrument in her life. Ever. And although she likes the idea of being in a band, standing in front of the mirror posing with her guitar is a lot easier than actually playing it. It’s gonna be a while before this motley crew is rocking out, but with their spunk and determination cranked to 11, anything is possible! By: Kakifly Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Young Adult Genre: Comedy Price: $11.99 Enjoying tea, friendship, cake, and sometimes picking up their instruments to play Kakifly’s K-on! is a 4 panel manga about four girls coming together to create a pop-music club. This slice of life series shows the struggles the girls face with both creating the pop-music club and maintaining it’s existence; through recruiting new members and showing their worth to the school through putting on a show. The color pages throughout the volume are a lovely addition to the volume. Though the girls didn’t play their instruments that much throughout the first volume, enjoyable nonetheless, the…
Hikaru’s evolution continues, now as the host to both Horizon and Maelstrom. A new cosmic entity has come to Earth, sensing a disturbance in its evolution. The Moderator sees a macro-evolution for the Earth, but with Horizon and Maelstrom not doing their jobs, it’s up to him to see it through, or else wipe all life from Earth, and let it start over. It’s up to Hikaru, Horizon and Maelstrom to find the solution, and the next step in the Earth’s evolution. By: Nobuaki Tadano Publisher: Vertical, Inc. Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Sci-fi Price: $10.95 Volume 3 starts by showing how much Hikaru has changed from the first 2 volumes. She is no longer a loner, nor does she try to shut out the world. She spends time with her friends Saya and Nao, and acts more like a normal girl. She also starts to notice their classmate Chika, a girl who seems to have the same problem Hikaru had, but reacts in the opposite direction. She doesn’t want to be alone. She is desperate for friends, and to have a place to belong. That no one really wants to be alone is a theme that runs throughout the…
Natsume Ono is one of my favorite creators in comics today. Her distinct style and charismatic writing have filled many of my evenings with beautiful imagery of Italy and feudal Japan, and her characters have sparked my imagination and wanderlust. When Ono’s first works were brought to the USA, we started somewhere in the middle – Ristorante Paradiso and not simple were a progression of sorts from La Quinta Camera, which is some of Ono’s earliest work. The series started as a webcomic, and was brought to print in one volume through Viz Media’s IKKI COMIX imprint. Of all the creators popularized by the IKKI format from Viz, Natsume Ono is the most complex, and most wonderful. La Quinta Camera is certainly an expression of that – but Ono has learned much between her initial comics debut in 2003 and her currently running series House of Five Leaves. By Natsume Ono Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; Sig IKKI Age Rated: T for Teen Genre: Slice of Life Price: $12.99 La Quinta Camera is a series of vignettes focusing on four men who live in a five-bed apartment in Rome, and how they use that fifth room; or rather, who they rent…
One of the things that surprised me (and continues to surprise me) about TokyoPop was their ability to survive off of B-list titles. The subject matter of this review is a prime example. Butterfly is the definition of B-list. The series is a five-volume supernatural/horror/gender bender from Gentosha, which looks to have a really smart collection of josei and seinen manga. Why this series was picked from all of the other content Gentosha could provide is really not the subject of this review, but it is worth considering. Perhaps Tokyopop was getting smarter with their releases, and knew that Butterfly would appeal to their fan base. By: Yu Aikawa Publisher: TokyoPop (March 1, 2011) Age Rating: T for Teen (13+) Genre: Supernatural Price: $10.99 If that is the case, this series proves that I was not a part of the TokyoPop fan base. The story centers on Ginji, a high-school guy with a severe hatred for the occult, but who is haunted by the image of his dead brother. This dead brother appears to have hung himself, for reasons unknown. Ginji meets up with a girl who his friend has introduced him to and ends up in a rough spot…
When you get out of here, you’re going to forget about me, huh? It’s like I have never existed in your eyes.
Over the past three years, I have come to admire the work of Jiro Taniguchi. Through The Quest for the Missing Girl and A Distant Neighborhood, I have come to appreciate Taniguchi’s masterful draftmanship, his unique stories, and his strength as both a writer and a cartoonist. Of all his great qualities throughout books adapted by Fanfare/Ponent Mon, I have noticed one key feature, one slight detriment to his impressive works: Taniguchi has a difficulty creating people. His characters are impressively constructed, but like the craggy cliffs and towering skyscrapers he so ornately crafts, they are inscrutable. It is hard to understand their emotions, and their faces are mask-like in quality. And while the beauties of the scene that surround each character are readily apparent, the beauties of the characters themselves are often hidden behind a wall. Written and Illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi Publisher: Ponent Mon S.L. (June 23, 2011) Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Slice of life Price: $23.00 In A Zoo In Winter, Taniguchi sets his sights on himself – and thereby, other people. The focus he puts into drawing the emotions of his characters is equal if not greater than the usual care he devotes to mountains…
Irel, Lamia and Clarion fight off assassins, but soon after, Lamia takes off on her own. Irel and Clarion continue to follow the chrism bottle trail, which leads them to the secret society Crossline. Irel’s power grows and it’s enough to get Crossline agents to question their leader, Ian. Lamia goes to an “old friend” and learns the truth of her origins, and it’s relation to Ian, Crossline, and Christianity. Detective Chris and Grace also find Crossline, and, joined by Chris’ partner Aileen, are recruited to try to stop Crossline’s plans. By JinJun Park Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Action/Horror Price: $11.99 There is plenty of confusing “zombie battle action”™, but an actual plot does start to show itself in these 5 volumes of Raiders. Lamia’s past is revealed, as is the reason for Chris’ obsession with conspiracies, and most startlingly, the true origins of Christianity, and how it relates to the secret organization, Crossline. I can’t say that I really enjoyed these volumes, but I was fascinated with the way the history/mythology/beliefs of the Christian church was used in the story as well as its references to the use of science. After three volumes of mostly…
The rogue doctor Black Jack is back with more stories of strange diseases and amazing feats to cure them. These three volumes feature stories that move away from the “corruption of the medical system” and focus more on Black Jack’s patients, both the two-legged and four. We also get another glimpse into Black Jack’s past with the appearance of his father and his new family.