Otomen volume 1 manga review

Asuka Masamune is a man with feminine interests: shoujo manga, sewing, cooking, etc. But having been brought up to suppress this instinct and be manly, can he ever show his true self to his crush, Ryo Miyakozuka?

Uhh, of course he can. Some mangaka might have tried to drag this situation out and have Asuka hide his secret for as long as possible for the lulz, but within a few pages this guy is sewing for Ryo and then cooking increasingly elaborate boxed lunches for her. By the end of Otomen chapter 1 everyone in the school knows about this “secret” and both he and Ryo have decided they like each other.

So obviously, this manga should have ended after chapter one. It would have made a great one shot, with everything was out in the open and nicely wrapped-up by the end of it. After chapter one the rest of the volume was all manufactured drama and forced comedy, none of which worked for me. Also it’s really annoying having that Juta Tachibana “friend” of theirs following them everywhere, getting in their way at every step. They’d be fully dating already if he would just butt out. Three’s a crowd, dude!

Anyway, I like your art but knowing when to stop is part of being a good mangaka, Aya Kanno. Stop milking this cow and get a new one. 4/10

Oh, and on a personal note the typesetting was really annoying. Not only did they use my most hated font, Anime Ace, but they also switched fonts between AA and Wild Words from bubble to bubble and page to page for seemingly no reason at all. Very poor showing, Viz.

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.

Ayumi Hamasaki

Known as the Empress of J-Pop in certain circles, Ayumi Hamasaki is almost certainly the most successful female j-pop artist to date. She’s been outsold on an album-by-album basis, but in terms of consistent success there’s nobody that can hold a candle to her right now. She was actually the first artist in Japan to have an album debut at number-one for 11 consecutive years!

It’s a mystery really. She can’t sing that well, in fact her voice is kinda bad. She can’t dance that well. In spite of lots of plastic surgery, she’s not that pretty. She doesn’t look very friendly or down to earth, in fact I’ve heard rumors of her being a bit of a diva. So why is she so successful? Search me. I’m not a fan, though I respect her accomplishments.

Born in 1978, Hamasaki spent several months running around Shibuya doing goodness knows what before being discovered in a nightclub by famous producer Max Matsuura, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In spite of her massive success, she does nothing for me personally. I have no Hamasaki songs in either my album or mp3 collection. Nevertheless there are two songs she has that I kinda liked, Seasons and Dearest, which was used as the ending song for Inuyasha (where most western fans first found out about her). Apart from those…meh. Next!

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.

Solomon’s Judgment

Two women came before wise King Solomon, dragging between them a young man. “This young man agreed to marry my daughter,” said one. “No! He agreed to marry MY daughter,” said the other. And so they haggled before the King, until he called for silence. “Bring me my biggest sword,” said Solomon,” and I shall hew the young man in half. Each of you shall receive a half.” “Sounds good to me,” said the first lady. But the other woman said, “Oh Sire, do not spill innocent blood. Let the other woman’s daughter marry him.” The wise king did not hesitate a moment. “This man must marry the first lady’s daughter,” he proclaimed. “But she was willing to hew him in two!” exclaimed the king’s court. “Indeed,” said wise King Solomon. “That shows she is the TRUE mother-in-law!”