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…
Though Elle wants nothing to do with fighting, her grandfather has different ideas and betrothes her to an up-and-coming boxer from his own gym. She hates the idea and doesn’t want to marry him. One day she meets a handsome street brawler who intrigues her, but her jealous fiancé finds out and goes after the guy! What will happen when a trained boxer goes a couple rounds with a scrappy street fighter? By Rie Takada Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: OT Genre: Shojo Price: $8.99 Cheerful and energetic Elle Nagahara just wants to find a normal boyfriend. Sounds like any teenage girl except she is already engaged so the ever so handsome Ruo. Though she views her betrothed as a brother figure and tries to break off their relationship by seeking other boys that often fall victim to Ruo’s fellow gym members. And her grandfather just so happens to be the owner of the gym. After growing up in an environment of seeing bloods and guts on the ring Elle no longer wants any part of any violence. Though her stance begins to change when she encounters a street fighter named Kizuki at the mall one day. Now she begins…
It is said that the road to hell is paved on good intentions, and if that particular idiom proves to be true in any manga ever published in English, Alive: The Final Evolution is the story that seems to be laying down the bricks as quickly as possible. The first volume of Alive seems to be changing gears in the middle of the first volume, changing its tone and its storytelling technique within the first 3 chapters. Written by Tadashi Kawashima and Illustrated by Adachitoka Publisher: Del Rey Age Rating: T for Teen Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Shonen Price: US $10.95 ISBN: Vol. 1 – 0345497465 The beginning seems interesting enough – Taisuke Kano and his friend Hirose always seem to be on the wrong end of the fights around school. Hirose is small and picked on, and Taisuke, while he talks a big talk, is a total wimp himself. Still, he’s an admirable guy, sticking up for his friends. The resident heroine, Megu, is a cute tomboyish girl who gives Kano and Hirose a hard time for being goofballs and getting beat up before school. It’s obvious she cares about the two of them, and she falls under the typical shonen…
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…
“You won’t last one step on that catwalk. And do you know why? Because you can’t see your true self.” By Chihiro Tamaki Publisher: Aurora Publishing Age Rating: OT/Older teen/16+ Genre: Josei/drama Price: $10.95 (or $5 direct from Aurora’s website) Of the four key manga demographics — shoujo for girls, shounen for boys, seinen for men, and josei for women — josei is the least well represented in the English-language market. You could fit the titles of all the josei manga available in English on one side of a postcard, and still have plenty of room for the address — so every new addition to the list is worth a look, and Walkin’ Butterfly is worth a lot more than that. The heroine of Walkin’ Butterfly is more of a scorpion than a butterfly, at least at first. High school dropout Michiko Torayasu has always been tall, and at 19 she’s 6’0″ and sick to death of being stared at and teased. She’s so tall that no boy will go out with her, and all the rejection and mockery has given her a fiery temper and a desperate sense of being freakish and outside everything, “like a monster built by…
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. …
Because of our Thanksgiving holiday, American Football, and the Fall season, this is a big food month here in the States. So, for the month of November I’m going to review cooking manga. I love cooking manga. In my mind, cooking manga demonstrates everything that comics can be—all about great stories about something everyone does. I mean, let’s face it; everybody eats. We all do, and the popularity of television like Iron Chef and the Food Network, and books like , Eat, Pray, Love and In Defense of Food or Like Water for Chocolate, they all speak to something inherently dramatic and fascinating about food. Cooking manga is shonen, shojo, seinen, yaoi—it cuts across genres in ways that other types of stories don’t. I just think it’s cool how creators play with food and cooking to come up with so many different situations, characters, plots. Plus, there’s some inherent difficulties in representing food in comics—the visual pleasures of food are not easily re-created in black and white line drawings, and the obvious draws—smell and taste—are not available to the mangaka. Yet the best cooking manga make you hungry! For my first review, I’m talking about Kitchen Princess, volume 1: Publisher’s…
Juvia and Gray continue to battle as the rival guild continues its assault on Fairy Tail. As the two battle, Gray is impervious to Juvia’s words. But despite their bickering, Gray manages to overcome Juvia’s obstacle and leaves just one of the Elemental 4 for Fairy Tail to take down. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Hiro Mashima Publisher: Kodansha Comics Genre: Action, Fantasy Rating: Teens (13+) Price: $10.99 Meanwhile, Natsu is taking on the best of the Elemental 4. His magic is smooth and efficient whereas Natsu’s is frenetic and disjointed. The face-off doesn’t appear to be an even match at all until other Fairy Tail guild members show up and lend an assist. Still, for their enemy, it just means the task requires more concentration; defeat is not imminent. Unfortunately for Fairy Tail, one of the enemy guild’s members, Gajeel, has Lucy. But Erza has a plan: Unleash the full power of Natsu’s potential. Master Jose plows through minions of Fairy Tail members, all while Gajeel sits and toys with Lucy, who is being held prisoner in shackles linked to a wall. During the fight of Gajeel and Natsu, the duo learn about each other and their powers…
Yura Onozuka is the daughter of the stars, and she’s not very happy about it. Always being compared to her parents at school, she hates being average and hates that they make her life harder just by being around. On television, the star couple make their family seem perfect. In fact, you could call it anything but that. Yura’s mother, Yukari Shiraki, is a beautiful actress who treats her daughter like dirt, and her father, who is living in New York, is a world-famous composer. After coming home after being away for two weeks, Yukari drops a bomb on Yura -that she and her father are getting divorced, and that Yura is being kicked out into the street. To make matters worse, Yura’s mother is having an affair with Yura’s only friend and crush, Shin. By Miki Aihara Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Drama/Romance Price: $8.99 What a first chapter! When Yura tells the paparazzi surrounding her home that her parents can eat shit and die (that’s a paraphrase, but I’m sure that’s what she wanted to say), her father’s manager swoops in and decides that he wants to make Yura into an actress. Add a pair…
Cosmoralia’s Prince Ithaca is about to wed Princess Lilia of Ayodoya and be crowned Astralta III. The apparently favorable celestial bearings mean he will be no mere monarch but holy king of a new “papacy”. Alas, the peaceful inhabitants of Planet Astria have no clue that they’re next in line for invasion by a ruthless machine force–a threat that seems to metaphorize the inherent perils of politics and desire in this multilayered saga. The tension slowly mounts to an unbearable pitch in this ominous first volume of three. By Keiko Takemiya Publisher: Vertical, Inc. Age Rating: 13+ Genre: Sci-Fi Price: $11.95 Short on action, and long on drama and intrigue, this first volume of Andromeda Stories sets the stage for an epic battle that has become a staple of science fiction: Man vs Machine. Before there was The Terminator, Andromeda Stories was examining the relationship between man and machine, and what it means to be human. Things start out ordinary enough. Princess Lilia, the protagonist of this first volume, prepares to marry Prince Ithaca after he is crowned King Astralta III. After much ceremony and celebration, the couple begins living happily in the palace. Astralta is a good and kind…