It should be like a dream come true. Chae-Kyung grew up living a normal life, but now she finds herself as the betrothed to the Crown Prince of Korea. The only problem? The Crown Prince, Shin Lee is a royal jerk. Chae-Kyung is taken away from her family and her life as she knew it and thrown into the strange world of the Royal Palace, where she struggles against loneliness and her growing feelings for the Crown Prince amidst the political and romantic background of the Royal Palace. By Park SoHee Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Teen Genre: Romance/Drama Price: $10.99 Goong takes place in an alternate reality, where Korea still has a royal family, and the government is a constitutional monarchy, like the United Kingdom. Chae-Kyung is from the ordinary world, where she lived an ordinary life, and is suddenly thrown into the turmoil of learning the traditional and customs of the Korean royal family as well as deal with political and romantic intrigue. This is a title wrought with melodrama and a crisis of some sort at every corner. It’s a title that you know you shouldn’t want to read, but just can’t help getting drawn into. Starting…
Yen Plus is Yen Press’ monthly manga magazine. It’s about 450 pages of mostly pure manga, and divided into two sections. One side reads left to right (western style) and is composed of OEL and Korean titles. The other side reads right to left (Japanese style) and is all Japanese titles. The magazine carries between 10-12 titles, some titles occasionally taking a month “off”. For example, in this issue, Maximum Ride and Sumomomo Momomo did not have chapters, making for only 10 titles. By Various Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Action/Romance/Supernatural/Horror/Slice of Life Price $8.99 On the OEL/Korean side, the titles that ran this month are Nightschool: The Weirn Books, Pig Bride, Time and Again, Jack Frost and One Fine Day. These are all strong titles, making this side of the magazine most enjoyable. Nightschool by Sveltlana Chmakova is a supernatural adventure story about a girl named Alex who is a weirn, a kind of witch who seems tied to some sort of dark future. Sveltlana’s art is beautifully done and her story remains intriguing month after month. Pig Bride is a romantic comedy. Si-Joon Lee, when he was young, got himself engaged to Mu-Yeoh Park, a…
Yotsuba is back, and this time from Yen Press. The quirky, inquisitive little girl is still romping around with her favorite pals: her dad, Ena, Fuuka, Asagi and Jumbo. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Kiyohiko Azuma Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: All ages Genre: Comedy Price: $10.99 The mischievous antics start when Yotsuba and her dad move in next to the Ayase family, which includes Ena, Fuuka and Asagi, three girls. Of course, Yotsuba wanders off and Fuuka talks to her dad and agrees to find him. Yotsuba, who thinks Fuuka is a stranger and should not be trusted, runs away, and the pair almost get hit as Jumbo pulls up to the house. And that’s just the first chapter. Another one of Yotsuba’s curiosities is her ability to not fully understand what the adults or older kids tell her. This is exactly what “Global Warming” is about when she hears “glowball warming.” Yotsuba proceeds to deem anyone with an air conditioner on as an enemy of the earth. The young girl is full of good intentions, and that’s what leads to her getting into trouble most of the time. This is best seen in “Helping Out” in the…
At Matabi Academy, students are allowed to bring their pet cats to the dorms. For Yumi Hayakawa, whose favorite hobby is making clothes for her kitty Kansuke, Matabi seems like a sure bet. After all, nothing can possibly go wrong with her best friend at her side! But on the first day of school, the two find themselves face-to-face with a murderous demonic minion on campus! Will Yumi and Kansuke be able to defend themselves and their school against an ancient cat demon’s thirst for vengeance? By Yuji Iwahara Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Supernatural/Action Price: $10.99 Usually ditzy lead characters like Yumi Hayakawa annoy me to no end, and make me dislike a series greatly. But not in this series. Why? Because Yumi has Kansuke, her no-nonsense, tough as nails cat to constantly berate her and keep her in line. And that’s the charm of this first volume; Yumi and Kansuke’s relationship and how it changes when the demonic forces come into play. When we first meet Yumi, we see how thoughtless and clueless she can be. Riding the train to her new school, she puts Kansuke in her suitcase, and forgets to let him out. …
While Yohei is trapped, Shotaro and Tool battle the Fear Robot. And NoFix is unable to finish off Shotaro and Tool, who happen upon a lucky break — and decisive action. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Atsushi Ohkubo Publisher: Yen Press Rating: Older Teen Genre: Action, Comedy Price: $10.99 And after the battle, the two seem to think that the best action is to infiltrate the Fear Factory headquarters to help Yohei. But surprises await them, perhaps the biggest just as they are about to enter: Mana comes flying out of the sewer tunnel. After a few cheap laughs at her expense, the three head back in to the Fear Factory lair. Of course, the first thing they do when they get in is yell for Yohei, which certainly doesn’t help their cause but does provide some entertainment. Despite Tool’s best efforts, the natural curiosity from Mana and Shotaro bring about some more comedic situations — and, of course, a fight. Meanwhile, Yohei is being held captive and he starts to dream about his past and about NoFix. All the while, Shotaro, Tool and Mana are encoutering trouble in the headquarters. Eventually, they make it to Yohei, who finally…
In the sixth volume of Black God, the Shishigami family faces some critical decisions. Kuro, the sweet and innocent — vacuous, some could say — sister of Reishin, who is being groomed as the successor to the family leadership position. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley Written by Dall-Young Lim; Art by Sung-Woo Park Publisher: Yen Press Genre: Fantasy Rating: Older Teen Price: $10.99 Reishin falls into the young upstart whose views differ from those of the leadership council. Kuro reacts, too, to the wishes of the council and is chided for her intrusiveness. Later, after she and Reishin take a trip and talk, their mother experiences a prophetic dream, and afterward, her actions are a bit incongruous to her words. Kuro later takes a trip to a nearby city to play, but during the course of her excursion, she takes a slight detour. Unfortunately she ends up in the haven of a killer. And she watches as the killer threatens other young women who have fallen into his trap. It’s hard to believe she would be able to defend herself against a psychopath like Hiyou, and her escape is achieved through other means. After that ordeal is sorted through, the…
It was my first time seeing the city at night. Those lights glittering like white sugar against the gloom of the dark sky were as wondrous as the starry heavens spread out upon the earth. By Gong GooGoo Publisher: Yen Press Genre: Shoujo/Manwha/Drama Age Rating: T/Teen Price: $10.99 I’m not very familiar with Korean comics, or manwha, but all the examples I’ve encountered have been both excellent and distinctly different from Japanese comics, while obviously owing them a stylistic debt. Sugarholic is no exception; it’s so steeped in the shoujo tradition that it even includes a brief parody of Rose of Versailles, the shoujo manga to end all shoujo manga; and of course, the heroine is clumsy and plain. But she doesn’t start the manga by running out of the house with a slice of toast in her mouth because she’s late for school, and for that we can all be thankful. No, the heroine of Sugarholic has left school behind: she’s 20-year-old Jae-Gyu Sin, who’s been shipped off to Seoul to live with her brother because her hardass of a grandmother is tired of her lazy, gluttonous ways. On her way to her brother’s apartment, Jae-Gyu runs into Whie-Hwan…
Now that I don’t get to talk to my family, I’ve noticed I talk to myself more often… By Mikage Publisher: Yen Press Genre: Humour/yonkoma/yuri Age rating: T/teen Price: $10.99 Yonkoma (or “four-cell comics”) are the Japanese equivalent of comic strips like Penny Arcade or Garfield: short, continuity-light gag strips that may or may not build up into a longer story. The best-known yonkoma in the English-speaking world is probably Azumanga Daioh. Ichiroh! concerns two girls, Nanako and Akane, who have failed their college entrance exams and must spend a year studying at a prep school to re-take them — hence the title: they are “ronin” because they failed the exams, and “ichiroh” because they’re in their first (“ichi”) year of studying to catch up.Added to the picture is Shino, a classmate who is hopelessly infatuated with Nanako but who unfortunately managed to pass her entrance exam and so can’t join her in prep school (no matter how hard she tries), and a very eccentric dorm manager, whose dorm is also a Shinto shrine which Nanako and Akane are expected to help maintain as mikos to offset their rent.And as if that wasn’t enough, Akane is addicted to video games…
The manga market is fairly saturated with books about ninjas. Ninjas are the latest craze for boys, just like vampires are the latest craze for girls. It’s no surprise that plenty of people are trying to get in on the ninja bandwagon. Yen Press’ entry into ninja fiction, Nabari no Ou, has been publishing monthly in its Yen Plus anthology for more than a year now, and it’s picked up a lot of steam, but only recently has the compiled trade paperback (manga fans call them tankobon) been released. By Yuki Kamatani Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Action Price: $10.99 The first volume introduces us to Miharu Rokujou, a completely apathetic schoolboy who wants nothing more than to take over his family’s restaurant and make sure that he never has to care about anything. Unfortunately for him, he is the carrier of hidden ninja world’s most powerful secret – the Shinra Banshou, and a faction of ninjas called the Iga Grey Wolves wants it bad enough to kill him for it. Members of the Banten and Fuuma villages don’t want that to happen though –his classmates Aizawa, Shimizu, and his strange teacher Kumohira have all decide to…
Blurb from the back cover: “Haruhi holds the fate of the universe in her hands…lucky for you she doesn’t know it! “Meet Haruhi–a cute, determined girl, starting high school in a city where nothing exciting happens and absolutely no one understands her. “Meet Kyon–the sarcastic guy who sits behind Haruhi in homeroom and the only boy Haruhi has ever opened up to. His fate is now tied to hers. Meet the S.O.S. Brigade–an after-school club organized by Haruhi and Kyon with a mission to seek out the extraordinary. Oh, and their second mission? Keeping Haruhi happy…because even though she doesn’t know it, Haruhi has the power to destroy the universe.” Written by Nagaru Tanigawa; Illustrated by Nozi Itou Publisher: Little Brown Books/Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Sci-fi/comedy Price: $8.99 So, I know this is not manga, but it is the light novel (a term used in Japan for something like YA lit) that the manga is based on. I work in a kidlit bookstore, so when I saw this come in, I couldn’t help checking it out. This is an insanely popular book in Japan, spawning something like eight sequels, a manga adaptation, an anime adaptation, and translations…