{"id":3559,"date":"2009-11-17T21:59:44","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T05:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/?p=3559"},"modified":"2014-01-16T22:00:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T06:00:57","slug":"yen-plus-november-2009-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/2009\/11\/17\/yen-plus-november-2009-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Yen Plus November 2009 # 16"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yen Plus<\/i> is Yen Press’ monthly manga magazine.\u00a0 It’s about 450 pages of mostly pure manga, and divided into two sections.\u00a0 One side reads left to right (western style) and is composed of OEL and Korean titles.\u00a0 The other side reads right to left (Japanese style) and is all Japanese titles.\u00a0 The magazine carries between 10-12 titles, some titles occasionally taking a month “off”.\u00a0 For example, in this issue, Maximum Ride<\/i> and Sumomomo Momomo<\/i> did not have chapters, making for only 10 titles.<\/p>\n

\"Anthology18A\"<\/a>By Various<\/strong>
\nPublisher:\u00a0<\/strong> Yen Press
\nAge Rating: <\/strong>Older Teen
\nGenre:<\/b> Action\/Romance\/Supernatural\/Horror\/Slice of Life
\nPrice <\/b>$8.99<\/p>\n

On the OEL\/Korean side, the titles that ran this month are Nightschool: The Weirn Books<\/i>, Pig Bride<\/i>, Time and Again<\/i>, Jack Frost <\/i>and One Fine Day<\/i>.\u00a0 These are all strong titles, making this side of the magazine most enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Nightschool<\/i> 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.\u00a0 Sveltlana’s art is beautifully done and her story remains intriguing month after month.<\/p>\n

Pig Bride<\/i> is a romantic comedy.\u00a0 Si-Joon Lee, when he was young, got himself engaged to Mu-Yeoh Park, a girl who wears a pig mask.\u00a0 She has come to claim her fiance, and has brought a load of trouble with him.\u00a0 Great characters combined with both comedy and some drama make this one of the best titles in the magazine and a strong anchor.<\/p>\n

Time and Again<\/i> is a recent edition, starting this year.\u00a0 Baek-On Ju is a wandering exorcist and Ho-Yeon Won is his bodyguard.\u00a0 Together they travel the countryside, encountering spirits and humans, going up against both.\u00a0 The stories in this title delve a lot into Korean ghosts, demons and belief in karma and reincarnation.\u00a0 The stories can be bloody, but very poignant.<\/p>\n

Jack Frost<\/i> is a horror story, starting out to look a lot like Hellsing<\/i>, but has evolved into its own.\u00a0 Noh-A Joo is a new transfer student to Amityville Private High School, and a being gifted with immortality and whose blood can heal others.\u00a0 She is also wanted by the Immortalizers.\u00a0 Her protector is the brutal Jack Frost.\u00a0 There is a lot of blood and decapitation in this series, but it has a real story if you stick with it long enough.<\/p>\n

One Fine Day<\/i> is the only all ages title in this magazine otherwise filled with teen\/older teen titles.\u00a0 It’s about three animals, a dog, a cat and a mouse, who live with No-ah, a novice apprentice.\u00a0 The chapters follow the three animals daily activities as they discover new things and get into trouble.\u00a0 The stories are light and often cute.\u00a0 They are easily enjoyed by all ages.<\/p>\n

Included in this issue was a one-shot story and the first of two a chapter preview of a title soon to be published by Yen.\u00a0 The one-shot was Prom Night<\/i> by George Alexopoulos.\u00a0 It’s a story of a boy asking a girl to Prom, and then trying to come up with the money to go.\u00a0 The characters are awkward teens, not your average good-looking, popular kids usually seen in manga or comics.\u00a0 They look and act like real kids which is what really makes the story work.\u00a0 The Preview story is for Raiders<\/i>.\u00a0 In the first chapter we meet Irel, a young man about to rob an old church that is protected by armed forces.\u00a0 He is discovered and makes an exciting and dramatic escape.\u00a0 The story has a very Indiana Jones\/Tomb Raider feel to it, and looks to be a great read, especially if you like that kind of adventure.<\/p>\n

\"YP<\/a><\/strong>The Japanese side ran the titles Soul Eater<\/i>, Nabari no Ou<\/i>, Black Butler<\/i>, Pandora Hearts<\/i> and Hero Tales<\/i>.\u00a0It starts out with Soul Eater<\/i>, a title hyped by both Yen and fans.\u00a0 Maka is a scythe meister, trying to make her weapon, Soul Eater, into the strongest weapon ever.\u00a0 The chapter in this issue doesn’t feature the main characters, but a shinigami, or soul reaper and his weapons.\u00a0 Soul Eater<\/i> is an average action\/supernatural title with a large side of fan service.\u00a0 It failed to impress me.<\/p>\n

Nabari no Ou<\/i> is about Miharu Rokujou, an apathetic boy who is also possessed by the Shinra Banshou, the ultimate ninja art.\u00a0 He is drawn into the battle as rival ninja clans fight to posses him and the Shinra Banshou.\u00a0 This title is on the edge for me.\u00a0 Miharu’s apathy makes him different from other shonen protagonists, but not necessarily interesting.\u00a0 The story does take some interesting turns.<\/p>\n

Black Butler<\/i> just started with the August issue and is still gaining its legs.\u00a0 Ciel Phantomhive is the Earl and head of the Phantomhive family in 19th century England.\u00a0 Sebastian is his butler, and not an ordinary one at that.\u00a0 In this chapter, we learn more about Sebastian and why he works for Ciel.\u00a0 The story and art for this title has been great and deserves the praise it’s gotten.<\/p>\n

Pandora Hearts<\/i> is a strange take on the Alice in Wonderland story.\u00a0 Oz Vessalius was imprisoned in the Abyss, but escaped thanks to the help of Alice, a girl with no memories and the powers of the B-Rabbit.\u00a0 Alice and Oz agree to work for the Pandora organization to find out who imprisoned Oz and get Alice’s memories back.\u00a0 I had my doubts about this title, but it’s turned out to have a fascinating mystery.\u00a0 It’s definitely worth the read.<\/p>\n

Hero Tales<\/i> is by Hiromu Arakawa, the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist<\/i>, and this story is no less epic or engaging.\u00a0 Taitou Shirei is the Hagun, one of the cursed stars in the Big Dipper.\u00a0 He, with his sister and two of the Hokushin Tenkun, other warriors tied to the constellation, go in search of the Kenkaranbu and it’s thief Keirou Hakuhou.\u00a0 Set in Ancient China, this action adventure has all of Arakawa’s great art and a story worthy of it.<\/p>\n

Yen Plus<\/i> has gone through a lot of changes in the past year, switching out titles and giving other time off to feature others.\u00a0 The magazine as it is now has a good balance of genres with at least one title to please anyone.\u00a0 Though, at its price, it really needs more than one to make it worth the monthly purchase.\u00a0 But, the emphasis on manga and less on articles about TV shows or video and card games make it more relevant to adult readers and not just teens.\u00a0 There are ads in the magazine, but are mostly in-house to Yen Press, and Little Brown, another\u00a0 imprint under Hachette.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yen Plus is Yen Press’ monthly manga magazine.\u00a0 It’s about 450 pages of mostly pure manga, and divided into two sections.\u00a0 One side reads left to right (western style) and is composed of OEL and Korean titles.\u00a0 The other side reads right to left (Japanese style) and is all Japanese titles.\u00a0 The magazine carries between 10-12 titles, some titles occasionally taking a month “off”.\u00a0 For example, in this issue, Maximum Ride and Sumomomo Momomo did not have chapters, making for only 10 titles. By Various Publisher:\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Sveltlana’s art is beautifully done and her story remains intriguing month after month. Pig Bride is a romantic comedy.\u00a0 Si-Joon Lee, when he was young, got himself engaged to Mu-Yeoh Park, a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,20],"tags":[83,99,110,154],"class_list":["post-3559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews-reviews","category-yen-press","tag-manga","tag-older-teen","tag-review","tag-yen-plus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2umma-Vp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3559"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4067,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions\/4067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/manga.jadedragononline.com\/village\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}