Nightmares For Sale by Kaoru Ohashi
Oh Shadow, I liked you better when you were Count D and your pawnshop was a pet shop. That being said, you’re still an interesting take on the tempter and make a worthy incarnation of Lucifer. I wouldn’t buy this series based on this first volume, however, it may pick up later. The artwork is clean if nothing particularly special. The concept of the shop that sells desires has been done before, and better, but if you like it when the Devil is in the details, this is probably a series you’d enjoy.
Category Freaks by Sakurako Gokurakuin
Hmmms, I like this one so far. It has a Ghost Hunt/Hellsing vibe to it, though not as good as either of the aforementioned titles. Asagi is interesting, mainly because he smokes and in my shallow, easily influenced world view that makes him sexy. The plot is standard monster hunter/demon slayer fare. It got interesting when the demon eye that chills in Asagi’s abdomen when he fights manifested in the form an attractive, charming bishounen. That being said, the really neat part of the series are the rabbit princesses that eat up all the remnants of the freaks/demons after they’ve been KO’d by their Stand partners. They’re horribly cute and horribly creepy.
X-Kai Volume 2 by Asami Tohjoh
I really, really liked this series. Kaito is a beautiful, tragic creature and I must say I love the flowers as weapons. However, I felt that this series would have been much better had it been a few volumes longer. The story arcs feel rushed and really, really interesting characters that could have been developed in more depth before disappearing aren’t mined to make the story more substantial. The series was beautiful if short and fragmented.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Iron Dragon's Daughter
Did you ever read a book and it felt liked you'd been waiting your whole life to read it? A book that for this moment in your life was so perfect and it encapsulated everything you've been looking for and articulated all those vague, ambiguous feelings you've had? Okay, if you haven't then you probably don't read as much as me....or maybe you don't fall in love as easily, but books have the power to cause paradigm shifts in our thinking and I think Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter is one of those books. Love it or hate it, I think that readers will still be transformed.
Swanwick's novel is nothing short of marvelous, and I mean marvelous in its most basic, broadest sense, in that the book causes one to marvel. That sense of marvel never disappears throughout the whole glittery, phantasmagorical, cruel and ultimately beautiful novel. Swanwick's fairy world is bitter and gorgeous and absolutely gritty. To see his fairyland is to know despair. And utter delight. His book follows the story of Jane, a mortal changeling, who so obviously does not belong in this glitzy, dizzying world that it's almost painful to follow her story. Jane's life is a series of harsh and surreal events in which she survives the horrors and wonders of this post-industrial wasteland. Eventually the book culminates in wonder, death and transformation and my head is still spinning from all the philosophy and downright skillful storytelling. Jane's relationship with the multiple and doomed Tetigistus is enough to drive the compelling narrative forward, but add in the sinister high elves, multiple fantastic fairy-tale creatures, and a truly stunning, albeit insane and dangerous dragon and the story becomes that much better.
Did I mention that dragons are made in this world. Made to be huge, unstoppable weapons of war which the high elves unleash upon each other like so many locusts? Oh yes, they're made, and they're also mad and dangerous and full of lies. Did I also mention that this fairyland takes place in skyscrapers and factories? That what gives the novel most of its haunting power is that Swanwick's dark, lush and dangerous fairy world is so very close to our own, uncomfortably close? Oh my yes.
This is the kind of book that needs to be re-read, I think. Once my head stops spinning and my memories of Swanwick's jittery landscapes and cruel wondrous characters fade, I will be re-visiting and I think I will be just as amazed and just as flabbergasted as the first time I read it. And I will most likely come away with a completely different reaction because The Iron Dragon's Daughter is just that kind of book.
Swanwick's novel is nothing short of marvelous, and I mean marvelous in its most basic, broadest sense, in that the book causes one to marvel. That sense of marvel never disappears throughout the whole glittery, phantasmagorical, cruel and ultimately beautiful novel. Swanwick's fairy world is bitter and gorgeous and absolutely gritty. To see his fairyland is to know despair. And utter delight. His book follows the story of Jane, a mortal changeling, who so obviously does not belong in this glitzy, dizzying world that it's almost painful to follow her story. Jane's life is a series of harsh and surreal events in which she survives the horrors and wonders of this post-industrial wasteland. Eventually the book culminates in wonder, death and transformation and my head is still spinning from all the philosophy and downright skillful storytelling. Jane's relationship with the multiple and doomed Tetigistus is enough to drive the compelling narrative forward, but add in the sinister high elves, multiple fantastic fairy-tale creatures, and a truly stunning, albeit insane and dangerous dragon and the story becomes that much better.
Did I mention that dragons are made in this world. Made to be huge, unstoppable weapons of war which the high elves unleash upon each other like so many locusts? Oh yes, they're made, and they're also mad and dangerous and full of lies. Did I also mention that this fairyland takes place in skyscrapers and factories? That what gives the novel most of its haunting power is that Swanwick's dark, lush and dangerous fairy world is so very close to our own, uncomfortably close? Oh my yes.
This is the kind of book that needs to be re-read, I think. Once my head stops spinning and my memories of Swanwick's jittery landscapes and cruel wondrous characters fade, I will be re-visiting and I think I will be just as amazed and just as flabbergasted as the first time I read it. And I will most likely come away with a completely different reaction because The Iron Dragon's Daughter is just that kind of book.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Manga, manga and more manga
Manga roundup, yo. Here’s what I’ve been reading. Not really full blown reviews like I would like because there is so much and nothing was so super stellar that I feel like it warrants a huge long treatment. However, everything I’ve read was really entertaining if non-nutritious brain candy.
Black Sun Silver Moon by Tomo Maeda. This has zombies (aka the Resurrected), a priest who is slowly turning into a demon, his spunky protégé, and their adopted zombie dog, who may or may not be clinically stupid.
Taki takes a job with Father Shikimi to pay off his father’s debt and ends up working in a large, largely abandoned church in the mountains. For the most part he cleans up messes that the father makes, and this is where most of the character development and interaction takes place. It’s funny, and Shikimi and Taki have a good dynamic. On the other hand, I picked this up because there were zombies in it. I think the zombies get a total of four panels. That being said, there is Agi, who is a zombie dog and is quite fat and adorable and gives new meaning to the words brain dead. Towards the end we find out Shikimi is turning into a demon and he expects Taki to kill him. There is angst over the way the villagers treat Shikimi, there is angst over having to kill Shikimi, and then the angst stops when some zombies appear for two panels. And then Taki goes back to cleaning.
I liked this series; it was cute, though not what you’d consider a compelling drama. Definitely for people who like character driven series and don’t mind a little cliché with their characters. Definitely not for the hardcore lover of all things Romero and undead.
X-Kai by Asami Tohjoh. This manga has a florist. A very pretty, florist. Who happens to be an assassin, known without irony or fear of cliché as Death, by night.
Kaito is yummy. And serious. And thoughtful. And for being a hired killer has quite the moral streak. The first two stories center around his, um, renegotiations of some contracts he accepts and then finds morally deplorable. He’s a softie, especially for women. And children. Eventually there is an arc with a copy cat killer. This is my favorite arc, so I won’t spoil it. Needless to say, I am in love with the flowers as weapons. Eventually Kaito picks up an abandoned child and there are some touching moments between the two.
Kaito is pretty. Renge, the child he picks up, is adorable. And Sugaru, the woman who brings Kaito his missions, is hot and interesting, though not in the manga nearly enough. That’s pretty much all I need for a manga so I’m definitely going to order the next volume even though this manga has nothing I haven’t seen before in it. However, full of tropes and clichés that it is, it’s still done well and is engaging.
Sengoku Nights by Kei Kusuniki and Kaoru Ohashi. Mmmm, a women’s spirit reincarnated in a young high school boy’s body and her demon lover, who doesn’t give a damn that she’s now a teenage boy, by the by. Yay!
Masayoshi Kurozuka is a normal high school student and this manga definitely starts off a bit like Inuyasha especially with all the demons and reincarnating and whatnot. However, I was not overly fond of Inuyasha and I really enjoyed this.
The premise of Sengoku Nights is simple. Masayoshi Kurozuka is the reincarnation of Oni-hime, a figure from the Warring States era (I think, am not sure, my handle on Japanese history is not as good as it should be. I also think that Oni-hime is an actual mythological figure, but am also not sure on that count), who did some bad stuff (I know it involved killing lots of soldiers) and was basically cursed from here to kingdom come. She wielded some sort of special exorcist type power and was able to summon Nozuchi No Mikoto a god of the land, who then became her protector. Oni-hime, in order to protect herself, locks all the curses that were cast upon her, the souls of her enemies, and Nozuchi No Mikoto in a mountain that was then passed down through her lineage and reincarnates hundreds of years later as a boy so no one will find her. Masayoshi’s mother sells said mountain and they start to build a golf course on it. Curses, gods, and vengeful souls are released antics and plot ensues and I am entertained.
I like Masayoshi, I love Nozuchi No Mikoto, I like the guardian spirit of the mountain village that Masayoshi refers to grandmother and I really like the psychotic girl Masayoshi has a crush on. This is a two volume series and I most definitely will be getting the second one from the library. Highly recommended, as it’s a mix of the better parts of Inuyasha and Ghost Hunt.
Night of the Beasts volumes 1 and 2 by Chika Shiomi. Contains an kickass, entertaining heroine, a moody, hot man slowly turning into a demon and the family that’s trying to kill them.
I enjoyed this manga immensely and am sad that the library has no more of it. Aria, our heroine, is a normal school girl. She’s spunky, full of fight and a protector of the innocent and defenseless, especially girls. One day, people start dying of “feral dog” attacks, read demons, in her neighborhood. A man named Sakura appears at one of the deaths and steals a kiss from her. Later we find out that Sakura is a very, very distant blood relative to Aria and is destined to kill all 4,000 of his blood relations do to a curse that will turn him into a demon. Aria appears to be the only person who can save him, both from the demon and from his family that isn’t going to take being killed lying down.
I really, really liked the character of Aria; it was nice seeing a girl doing the ass kicking and the protecting for once. I hope that her falling for Sakura will not make her useless later in the series; it doesn’t seem so, though, as Aria gets her own demon, too! I liked Sakura, as well. He’s a saucy beast. And there were some nice supporting characters as well. Recommended for those who want some romance with their demons.
Peace Maker by Nanae Chrono. This is touted as being Kenshin but on the other side. Between the Shinsengumi, a spunky protagonist, his endearing worrywart of a brother, a sexy blade master who looks almost like a woman and may or may not be having a relationship with the other sexy piece of man meat in the series, gender bending spies and of course samurai battles, with surprisingly little angst, what’s not to love? The art in this is so very clean and all of the characters are great. I’m not going into a lot of detail, mainly because this was my favorite read out of the whole bunch and I really, really, don’t want to spoil for anyone. (I tend to get excited when I really love something and I don’t shut up).
It’s character driven, if a little slow on the action. But I think the art makes up for it. I’m really excited from volume two to come in. And this is a series, I’m definitely looking to buy.
Black Sun Silver Moon by Tomo Maeda. This has zombies (aka the Resurrected), a priest who is slowly turning into a demon, his spunky protégé, and their adopted zombie dog, who may or may not be clinically stupid.
Taki takes a job with Father Shikimi to pay off his father’s debt and ends up working in a large, largely abandoned church in the mountains. For the most part he cleans up messes that the father makes, and this is where most of the character development and interaction takes place. It’s funny, and Shikimi and Taki have a good dynamic. On the other hand, I picked this up because there were zombies in it. I think the zombies get a total of four panels. That being said, there is Agi, who is a zombie dog and is quite fat and adorable and gives new meaning to the words brain dead. Towards the end we find out Shikimi is turning into a demon and he expects Taki to kill him. There is angst over the way the villagers treat Shikimi, there is angst over having to kill Shikimi, and then the angst stops when some zombies appear for two panels. And then Taki goes back to cleaning.
I liked this series; it was cute, though not what you’d consider a compelling drama. Definitely for people who like character driven series and don’t mind a little cliché with their characters. Definitely not for the hardcore lover of all things Romero and undead.
X-Kai by Asami Tohjoh. This manga has a florist. A very pretty, florist. Who happens to be an assassin, known without irony or fear of cliché as Death, by night.
Kaito is yummy. And serious. And thoughtful. And for being a hired killer has quite the moral streak. The first two stories center around his, um, renegotiations of some contracts he accepts and then finds morally deplorable. He’s a softie, especially for women. And children. Eventually there is an arc with a copy cat killer. This is my favorite arc, so I won’t spoil it. Needless to say, I am in love with the flowers as weapons. Eventually Kaito picks up an abandoned child and there are some touching moments between the two.
Kaito is pretty. Renge, the child he picks up, is adorable. And Sugaru, the woman who brings Kaito his missions, is hot and interesting, though not in the manga nearly enough. That’s pretty much all I need for a manga so I’m definitely going to order the next volume even though this manga has nothing I haven’t seen before in it. However, full of tropes and clichés that it is, it’s still done well and is engaging.
Sengoku Nights by Kei Kusuniki and Kaoru Ohashi. Mmmm, a women’s spirit reincarnated in a young high school boy’s body and her demon lover, who doesn’t give a damn that she’s now a teenage boy, by the by. Yay!
Masayoshi Kurozuka is a normal high school student and this manga definitely starts off a bit like Inuyasha especially with all the demons and reincarnating and whatnot. However, I was not overly fond of Inuyasha and I really enjoyed this.
The premise of Sengoku Nights is simple. Masayoshi Kurozuka is the reincarnation of Oni-hime, a figure from the Warring States era (I think, am not sure, my handle on Japanese history is not as good as it should be. I also think that Oni-hime is an actual mythological figure, but am also not sure on that count), who did some bad stuff (I know it involved killing lots of soldiers) and was basically cursed from here to kingdom come. She wielded some sort of special exorcist type power and was able to summon Nozuchi No Mikoto a god of the land, who then became her protector. Oni-hime, in order to protect herself, locks all the curses that were cast upon her, the souls of her enemies, and Nozuchi No Mikoto in a mountain that was then passed down through her lineage and reincarnates hundreds of years later as a boy so no one will find her. Masayoshi’s mother sells said mountain and they start to build a golf course on it. Curses, gods, and vengeful souls are released antics and plot ensues and I am entertained.
I like Masayoshi, I love Nozuchi No Mikoto, I like the guardian spirit of the mountain village that Masayoshi refers to grandmother and I really like the psychotic girl Masayoshi has a crush on. This is a two volume series and I most definitely will be getting the second one from the library. Highly recommended, as it’s a mix of the better parts of Inuyasha and Ghost Hunt.
Night of the Beasts volumes 1 and 2 by Chika Shiomi. Contains an kickass, entertaining heroine, a moody, hot man slowly turning into a demon and the family that’s trying to kill them.
I enjoyed this manga immensely and am sad that the library has no more of it. Aria, our heroine, is a normal school girl. She’s spunky, full of fight and a protector of the innocent and defenseless, especially girls. One day, people start dying of “feral dog” attacks, read demons, in her neighborhood. A man named Sakura appears at one of the deaths and steals a kiss from her. Later we find out that Sakura is a very, very distant blood relative to Aria and is destined to kill all 4,000 of his blood relations do to a curse that will turn him into a demon. Aria appears to be the only person who can save him, both from the demon and from his family that isn’t going to take being killed lying down.
I really, really liked the character of Aria; it was nice seeing a girl doing the ass kicking and the protecting for once. I hope that her falling for Sakura will not make her useless later in the series; it doesn’t seem so, though, as Aria gets her own demon, too! I liked Sakura, as well. He’s a saucy beast. And there were some nice supporting characters as well. Recommended for those who want some romance with their demons.
Peace Maker by Nanae Chrono. This is touted as being Kenshin but on the other side. Between the Shinsengumi, a spunky protagonist, his endearing worrywart of a brother, a sexy blade master who looks almost like a woman and may or may not be having a relationship with the other sexy piece of man meat in the series, gender bending spies and of course samurai battles, with surprisingly little angst, what’s not to love? The art in this is so very clean and all of the characters are great. I’m not going into a lot of detail, mainly because this was my favorite read out of the whole bunch and I really, really, don’t want to spoil for anyone. (I tend to get excited when I really love something and I don’t shut up).
It’s character driven, if a little slow on the action. But I think the art makes up for it. I’m really excited from volume two to come in. And this is a series, I’m definitely looking to buy.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
First book review of the year, yay!
King of Thorn by Yuji Iwahara
Yes, yes, technically I was supposed to have been reviewing everything that I’ve read this year thus far, but I’ve sorta forgot what I wanted to say about those other books which can be found here; you’re stuck with this as my first review of the year. Will all of you, waiting with baited breath I’m sure, get the other reviews? Maybe, but for now, let us discuss King of Thorn.
Shizuku and her twin Kasumi are infected by the Medusa virus, a terrible little bug that results in a painful, petrified end as the cells in the human body, well, petrify. Kasumi and 160 others are chosen by lottery to be put into cryo-sleep and awaken when there is a cure to the awful plague.
Kasumi and several others awaken to a world covered in thorns and filled with mutations? Dinosaurs? I don’t know, but they look hella cool.
Now the cryogenics facility that Kasumi was chilled (if that is the proper world for it) at is in/at a weird castle, built by an eccentric rich man, on an island. The rich man founded the whole cryo thing. We get now, the feeling that this is an episode of Lost except instead of polar bears, there are dinosaurs and giant killer bat-lizards. I think this is why I enjoyed this particular manga. It has that Lost vibe. Stranded strangers with a huge, puzzling, at time awkward, life threatening mystery to solve. Anyone who can take survivors on a deserted island and make it simultaneously more ridiculous than Gilligan’s Island but still keep it an enthralling drama has my attention.
Yuji Iwahara’s art has a sort of bleak despair about it. The characters are rounded, as are many elements of the background, and yet, despite its lack of angles, there is a starkness to the panels. This adds, not necessarily tension, but a sharpness of dimension that helps the soft characters feel endangered. I didn’t have to read and re-read panels like I usually have to because everything flowed so nicely. The balance of black and white done beautifully here. The art in my mind remains overwhelmingly dark, but the white spaces acted as a void that felt, at times, like the characters were going to step into and never come out of. I normally don’t notice these things. I’m not really picky about the art in a comic/manga I’m reading, but in an effort to be thorough, I paid attention. Hooray, me.
Anyways, King of Thorn has an interesting set of characters. Our heroine, Kasumi, is likeable and quiet. And brave. I love the quiet brave types. There’s a sleazy senator type, young, motherly woman, the cutest little boy ever, a man who may be black or Hispanic (it’s hard to tell, and he hasn’t been named yet) and a geeky guy with glasses. And then there is the big guy with the wicked tats. His name is Marco Owens. He looks like he belongs in Oz, but we are told he is a hacker. A good one. And unlike anyone else in the facility, he does not have Medusa. Dah dah duuuuuuuuuuh. In this first volume of the series, we’re given great insights into their future character development (although except for Kasumi and the guy with tats on the cover, no names), and, I think, glimpses into the conflicts that they will have with themselves and each other.
Overall, t’was a splendid little read, entertaining and engrossing. Recommended for those who like Lost, survival horror video games, and adventure books like The Land That Time Forgot.
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