Category: Reviews

5 Ai no Rule manga review – Ichijo Yukari

If I’d known 5 Ai no Rule was incomplete when I started it, I would have thought twice about reading it at all. I mean it was good and all, but it got cancelled right when things were getting good, and that’s always annoying. Luckily the author added an afterword that explains how things would have ended, but it’s still not the same.

Anyway, the story is about a girl named Maho Asano, dirt poor and working for a small publishing office. One day her sister Rie, who wants to be a model, runs into a guy named Takami in a bar who gives her a lot of money. When Maho goes to return the money she discovers he’s a top guy in a PR company, and he offers her a job as a copywriter in the new startup he wants to found.

So far, so good, but then things get complicated. It turns out Takami is an expert user and manipulator who is doing everything out of his own shady motives. To that end, when he discovers that Rie is in love with him, he pits her against his fiancee Yuri, with tragic consequences for both girls. Having discovered Takami’s true nature, Maho decides to stick around (you think she’d just quit her job and go back to the countryside but nooo) and “become a woman worthy of him”, I quote. The story ends with Takami on the verge of success, but having lost something very precious to him at the same time.

As expected of something written in 1976 the art is ancient, but the fashions still look good. Maho is a bland spectator of all the colorful drama going on and the reader never gets into her head, but the crazy happenings in the story more than make up for that. It started a bit slow but it really got going after a while, so it’s just too bad that Ichijo Yukari never got round to finishing it.

If you like afternoon soap operas like The Young and the Restless, this is pretty much the same thing without the sex. Enjoy.

Under the Rose vol 1 manga review

Under the Rose is a rather uninspiring manga by Funato Akira. It’s the story of a young boy in Victorian England named Lloyd King whose mother Grace dies suddenly, leaving him and his young brother Lawrence at the mercy of their angry grandfather. Luckily the boys’ father, a wealthy count, decides to take them in. However Lloyd is filled with bitterness, believing that their “father” had something to with their mother’s death. Lloyd’s lonely battle for the truth begins!

Well, that’s kind of how they describe the manga. It sounded really interesting, and I liked the cover so I gave it a shot. And the result was…decidedly average. The art wasn’t bad, wasn’t good either. The storytelling was okay, more slice-of-life than average murder mystery. The author does a decent job of setting up the atmosphere and easing the readers into it, but it isn’t nearly as engrossing as, say, Kaori Mori’s Emma, mostly due to the less accomplished art.

The real failing of this manga, though, was the characters. They’re very inconsistent, sometimes likeable, sometimes not, so it’s hard to tell whether the author wants you to like or dislike them. Before long you start detesting them completely. Lloyd is the main culprit here. In the beginning you side with him, then he acts like a complete monster so you’re like uhhh…then he gets a little better (and his brothers get worse) so you’re like “he’s not all bad”, then he dissolves into a childish, ignorant, indecisive, weak, easily-swayed kid and in the end you throw your hands up in despair. Several other characters make similar swings from good to bad to good to bad again, all over the span of one volume, so before you know it you don’t care about anybody.

In any case the mystery about Lloyd and Lawrence’s mother’s death is solved in volume 1, and I don’t like the other characters much, so there’s no real point in reading any more of this series, is there? If I do so I may write other reviews, otherwise forget it. Score? 4/10.

Brideshead Revisited book review

We’ve had Brideshead Revisited lying around the house for years so I finally picked it up last week. First off, I want more Evelyn Waugh. Second off, why hasn’t any writer written their own version of what happens next? Does Charles Ryder ever find happiness? Does Julia ever remarry? What becomes of Sebastian in the end, does a brilliant young man like him truly end his days as a porter for a monastery?

It’s such a tragedy, of no discernible cause. Why does Sebastian hate his mother so much that it drives him to drink? From all I can see his family is a bit odd, a bit eccentric, a bit cold to each other, but not to the extent that it would drive him to despair. But I guess the point of seeing things through Ryder’s eyes is to show that each family has its strange dynamics that no outsider can ever truly appreciate, no matter how long they spend with the family. And so in the end poor Charlie finds himself booted to the curb and the family goes on as dysfunctionally as ever. I can only hope they found some measure of contentment in their final decisions.

I hear there’s a movie and a TV series out now, but I don’t think they could capture the true magic of the book, because most of it depends on the power of your own imagination. I might give them a shot one day, though.

Infernal Affairs movie review

Quick Review
I watched this famous Hong Kong film starring Tony Leung and Andy Lau last weekend. Tony stars as Yan, a police mole deep within a triad gang. Andy stars as Lau, a gang mole high up in the police service. After a botched gang cocaine trade, both higher ups charge their moles with finding the identity of the other group’s mole. And so a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins.

First, spoilers for the ending. Quick! Look away! Yan dies, Lau gets away with everything.

The acting is brilliant, the music is really good. Lights, action, cinematography, everything about Infernal Affairs is brilliant except one thing…the plot. The characters are really too stupid for words. What bothered me the most?

1. Lau managing to get all sorts of information to his triad boss during a stakeout, with the rest of the police force sitting right by him. Eventually it’s revealed that the guy right next with him was in the triad too, which is why he got away with it, but at the time it really pissed me off.
2. Yan picking up his phone after Inspector Wong died. The first thing he should have done was trash that thing and hope the number couldn’t be traced to him. Better hope he had a special phone only for Wong affairs.
3. Yan trusting Lau immediately and going along with him, all while knowing of the existence of a triad mole within the police. Dumbass.
4. Yan having solid evidence of Lau being the triad’s mole and choosing to blackmail him with it instead of turning it straight into the police. THIS DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL! Did he have a deathwish? I can only conclude he had a deathwish.
5. Yan confronting Lau face-to-face before making arrangements to have the evidence sent to the police. This allowed Lau to get clean away with everything once Yan has been killed by a bad cop. What An Idiot!

The ‘Lau Wins’ ending evidently went down pretty badly because eventually they trotted the same actors out for Infernal Affairs 3 (Infernal Affairs 2 apparently does not deserve to be mentioned) where Lau eventually pays for his sins. Yah, whatever. Infernal Affairs was really gripping, but now that it’s over I don’t think I want to watch it again. But I was impressed by both Andy and Tony, so I’ll be looking for more films by them in the future.

Sgt Frog volume 1 manga review

I get bored at the salon a lot, so I’ve taken to bringing my own literature. Last week it was Sgt Frog volume 1.

Keroro, the frog sergeant in question, is an alien who comes to Earth as a scout in readiness for the invasion of the Earth. By chance he ends up in the Hinata family house where he is quickly captured. When a hilarious misunderstanding leaves him and his platoon stranded on Earth, Keroro is left to fend for himself as he best knows how…which means slaving for the Hinata household as their unpaid housekeeper!

Sounds like a sad tale, but it’s actually quite hilarious, mostly due to Keroro’s charm and upbeat attitude. Far from a shrinking violet he’s a tough-talking, mischievously insubordinate, choleric and has a crazy love for building Gundam models. Part of the humor comes from the disjointed fact that he’s an alien frog and yet loves modern things like iMacs and manga.

The human component is the Hinata family: Natsumi the bossy older sis, Fuyuki the easygoing little brother and their mother Aki. Personally I’m always more interested in the activities of the frog team, but the humans provide a good foil for their personalities to bounce off. It wouldn’t be the same manga without them.

Volume 1 starts Keroro’s abandonment on Earth. He later finds his subordinate Tamama (soooo cuuuuuuuute) who is living with Fuyuki’s classmate Momoka. The end of the volume introduces Moa, a.k.a. Angol Mois, the Lord of Destruction… currently disguised as a 14 year old girl who called Keroro “Uncle”. I can’t wait for volume 2!