Seinen Archives - Animefangirl!

Also dropped: Soul Eater, Rokka no Yuusha, Ping Pong

Continuing from the last post, some more things I dropped recently:

Soul Eater: Not my cup of tea. I think I’ve outgrown shounen action shows or something, because the violent action in the first few minutes didn’t thrill me in the least, and then the attempts at… humor? with Maka’s dad or whoever just made me roll my eyes. I turned it off before the halfway mark. I’m not going to bother reading the manga or any summaries either. Tsugi!

Rokka no Yuusha: Meh. Not interested. I made through the whole of episode 1, which is more than I can say for the other two shows in this post, but that’s about it. The fast pace of the first episode was good – demon revives instantly, party starts to come together, all good, but the dense rash main character and the coy (but really strong, honest!) princess didn’t interest me enough to make me want to continue. One episode is enough.

Ping Pong: The main character’s voice and attitude turned me off completely. I know he’s supposed to sound bored and lifeless, and I’m sure hundred of voice actors were auditioned and several takes were made in order to get him to sound like a dead fish, but he just rubs me the wrong way 100%. I’ve heard good things about Ping Pong so I might read the manga where I don’t have to deal with any annoying voices and the super slow pacing. The anime, though, is not for me.

Kaoru Mori Anything and Something manga review

Kaoru Mori: Anything and Something is a collection of short stories and illustrations by Kaoru Mori, author of popular period pieces like Shirley (haven’t read), Emma (read and loved) and Otoyomegatari/A Bride’s Story (haven’t read).

At time hilarious, at others heartwarming, this collection of short stories penned by one of Japan’s most talented artists is a perfect addition to any library! A young girl discovers that new glasses give her a whole new perspective on the world, a bunny-girl waitress learns to cope with her male customers with dignity, an introverted art student inspires her fellow club members even as she takes inspiration from them, and more! Fans of Mori will enjoy seeing concept designs and historical notes from her award-winning series, as well as Mori’s own brand of enthusiastic commentary throughout.

I really enjoyed reading Emma, but I don’t particularly consider myself a Mori fan. I haven’t bothered to check out her other stuff, though part of it is just me waiting for A Bride’s Story to complete (waiting for Emma every month was torture).

Fans of Mori’s work will definitely be satisfied with over 200 pages of art, stories and commentary, including plenty from her most popular works, but does Anything and Something have anything to offer part-time fans like me? In other words, how well do the art and stories stand up if you’re not looking at them through fan-colored glasses?

Honestly? Not that well. Out of the 11 short stories included in the compilation, only three of them: To Come to See, Baggy-Chan and the two Claire stories were any good, in my opinion. Welcome to the Mansion, Master! was not bad, but the premise (ordinary guy in extraordinary situation) is played out and she didn’t add anything new to the mix.

Kaoru Mori fireplaces — Everything you never wanted to know about fireplaces.

The other stories were mainly blatant excuses for fanservice, and Mori is quite honest about that in her comments on the stories. She wanted to draw bunny girls, hence Burrow Gentleman’s Club. She wanted to draw a woman in a sexy swimsuit on a tatami, hence The Swimsuit Bought Long Ago. And I’m not sure what all those pages with a girl sticking her butt in the reader’s face were about, but I’m sure she wanted to draw that too.

For fans the bigger point of interest will be first the collection of detailed sketches and artwork in the second half of the book and also her in-depth articles on the history and evolution of corsets and fireplaces… yes, corsets and fireplaces. She also includes comments on all her illustrations as well as plenty of her signature zany foreword/middleword/afterwords.

If you’re not a Kaoru Mori fan, though, then like me it’s something you might read once and think “Well, that wasn’t bad. I wish the ladies wore more clothes, though” and promptly put it out of your mind. There’s nothing too wrong with it, but it’s mostly recommended for: people who like Kaoru Mori / people who like fanservice / people who like very detailed art / people who are interested in Victorian England. That’s about it.

Tetsuwan Girl manga review

Yup, you guessed it. Another baseball manga. I didn’t have much luck with Tetsuwan Girl, though. I made it as far as volume 4-ish, skimmed around a while till volume 6 then dropped it.

Story: A girl named Tome becomes a baseball star (only not really). The manga is set in 1949, with Japan under occupation. And since author Tsutomu Takahashi seems to be an avid right-winger, the whole manga is just an excuse to go “Oh poor Japan, what did we ever do wrong, those mean, mean Americans!” I haven’t read a manga this self-pitying in a while.

Art: Not bad. Nothing remarkable. Very ‘modern seinen’ if you know what I mean.

The sports action: What sports action? Actually the Tokyo Candys team Tome belongs to do play two matches, both of which I skimmed because they weren’t very interesting. In fact they weren’t interesting at all, because they were just vehicles for the author’s “Japan strong! America mean!” agenda.

Any other comments: The “repair Japan’s tattered pride through baseball” story could have been good with more compelling characters. Tome is hard to relate to because the author doesn’t delve under her skin. “Boo hoo, my parents died so I want to shine” is all the motivation we’re given, and then she trains hard for a month or two and is suddenly the best pitcher in Japan? How low-level must Japanese female baseball be?

Besides, she gets the majority of her ‘fame’ for actions off the field like appearing naked on a billboard, attacking reporters and just being ‘wild’ in general. Her baseball skill is just by-the-by. Her character is shaky as well, sometimes tough, sometimes fragile, trash-talking an opponent then crying because she lost. It would be one thing if she was five years old, but she’s 20-something.

Then again if she was five that would be a blessing, because then even a Japanese author wouldn’t make her do nonsensical things like hop into bed with a guy once, suddenly decide he’s her fiance when he’s never proposed, then try to abandon her career to go see him. Whatever happened to him, anyway?

In most baseball manga there are other characters you can latch onto if the main one disappoints, but this isn’t one of those. Other major characters are just as poorly-depicted as Tome. Either that or they appear, get built up briefly and then completely disappear for long stretches of time, like the catcher Kurosawa or that other girl Tome started out with or the Mr. Royal guy who suddenly shows up all “Revenge!” after being out of the spotlight for goodness knows how long. Eventually you just stop paying attention to everyone except Tome.

And you can’t even root for the Candys to beat their opponent, because as I’ve said their opponents are almost always Americans and they’re almost always caricatures: blond-haired, blue-eyed, good-looking, arrogant. See Exhibit 1 on the right. The only prominent black character is drawn fat, ugly and frog-like. There’s your representation for you. On the other hand the black ‘Mama’ is good while the blondes are brash, boastful and racist through and through, just ripe to be taught a good lesson about the toughness and resilience of Japan, oh how great almighty Nippon is! It’s that kind of manga.

tl;dr Yet another manga where girls playing baseball is treated as a cheap novelty. You might enjoy if it you like the main character or enjoy America-bashing and Japan-praising. Otherwise Tetsuwan Girl is a failure as a serious manga and brings baseball into disrepute by dragging in unnecessary jingoism and dramatic hijinks while downplaying the actual game. Did not enjoy/10

Watashi no Koshien volume 4 & 5 (skimmed)

Yup, as I suspected volume 3 was the end of Watashi no Koshien‘s run of quality. The manga continues for another 2 volumes and manages to achieve its initial objective, but the light had gone out and it was just a bitter angry manga till the end. Still the ending doesn’t feel abrupt, so I suppose it was meant to be a 5-volume series from the start. I’m all for the rare, short baseball manga, but this was just crap.

Not that I’m 100% qualified to say so, since I read about a third of volume 4, skipped through to the end and skimmed most of volume 5 as well. All I wanted to know when I started 4 was whether Wataya had repented of her selfish abuse of her charges, but not only had she not repented but the writers had decided “This is no longer an issue, okay?” and done an arbitrary time-skip to the next academic year. Plus all the angry team members suddenly love to practice and think Coach Wataya is the best thing since sliced bread. Explain? They don’t owe you any explanations!

Then 4 new students show up (recruited due to Wataya’s passionate efforts). The coach’s new plan is revealed: pamper and promote these new students to make the older students jealous, desperate and exceedingly grateful for every moment of playing time she chooses to bestow on them. In a better-written manga this would come across in a more charitable “trying to motivate everyone to do their best” kind of way, but as usual Shihono Wataya comes across as stubborn, scheming, self-centered and inconsiderate.

After that the team has a game against the best school in their prefecture, even better than the one they played last time. Aaand I stopped reading. Skimmed. They drew. More jealousy and bickering between team members. Somehow they all learn to get along and appreciate just how wonderful Shihono really is. Then the Koshien prelims start and they win all their matches and go to Koshien, the end.

Final verdict: That was… pretty bad. The art is nice, the baseball action is interesting and clearly drawn and most of the characters are passable but when the main character is selfish, self-righteous and is portrayed as someone who can do no wrong even when she is clearly wrong, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the manga is like. I saw some parallels between this series and Ookiku Furikabutte and I can only hope the latter doesn’t fall apart as quickly and as completely as Watashi no Koshien did.

Watashi no Koshien volume 3 review

Sometimes it comes as a shock when a manga is cancelled. Sometimes it’s more of a mild surprise, because you could see the series declining but you didn’t think it was that bad yet. And then sometimes, as in the case of Watashi no Koshien, you can pinpoint the exact moment when the whole series began to fall apart. Volume 3 is the clearly the beginning of the end for this series, though it will continue to limp along for another two volumes before the merciful end.

To explain I’ll have to spoil a bit so spoiler warning. So, the Kugunari Nine manages to pull of a major upset at the beginning of this volume, defeating Seiryo 2-1. However the coach of the team they’re facing next was watching the game, and he’s picked up on some of pitcher Kouhei’s habits. While they’re practising hard to defeat Kugunari, Kouhei and his troops have let a little success get to their heads and are spending their days singing karaoke and their nights playing video games.

The problem starts after they (predictably) lose by a called game in the 5th. See they didn’t just lose, they also embarrassed coach Wataya in front of her former teammates, and she is mad. How mad? So mad that she orders them to run 40km from the ball park back to the school. You could argue that she didn’t force them – merely told everyone who wouldn’t do it to quit the team. But why does it have to be an either-or thing? And why does it have to be so radical? What is this supposed to change? There are so many things wrong with that scenario. In the end not a single member manages to complete the course.

The parents are naturally outraged and the PTA bans Wataya from coaching the team any more. But here’s the issue. It would be one thing if this was a deconstruction of the hot-blooded shounen training-from-hell genre, but instead the writers actually try to justify Wataya’s behavior! Forcing tired, out-of-shape kids to run 40 km with no food and no water since morning just because they lost a match and embarrassed you? In a tournament they didn’t even want to play but you made them to? And by her own admission Wataya did it because “she was angry” and because “it’s necessary if we want to go go Koshien”!

Now the “My, not Our Koshien” part of the series title starts to come out – it’s Wataya’s dream to go to Koshien again because of her dead buddy. The team members don’t even know about that stuff. Yet they’re the ones who have to play the game, they’re the ones who have to do the training. They’re just her tools, to be kicked around and tossed aside if they don’t work as she desires. To end to the volume she refuses to apologize because “If I apologize then it means I was wrong.” Uh, but you were wrong. “If I apologize then it means I can’t do it again.” Uh… you mean you want to do it again? Yes, yes she does.

And as I said this is all portrayed as right and proper and necessary if the team want to go to Koshien (which, as I said, they don’t). Some of the team members skip school for the next school days, not because they’re sick but because they’ve got a good excuse to. And that is used as justification to claim “See! It wasn’t that bad, was it?” That’s like stabbing someone and seeing him walking the next day and saying “See, being stabbed wasn’t that bad, was it?” It’s not for you to decide! Then the team manager decides she’s going to run the same 40km course, again to prove it wasn’t that bad. Again, that’s not for you to decide!

I suppose Watashi no Koshien could still salvage itself at this point. Maybe Wataya could learn that Koshien isn’t a dream you impose on people but a dream you share with others. And then they’ll all live happily ever after. The writers could also use this as an opportunity to discuss what, if anything, discipline should be administered to a team that loses because they’ve been slacking (but if they win after slacking then it’s a-okay), how much training is too much, what lengths a coach should go to motivate his/her team and other such pertinent questions of that nature. It’s not going to happen though – if it was certain in-story characters wouldn’t be going to such lengths to defend Wataya’s actions.

Honestly I’m not feeling very motivated to continue. But there are only 2 volumes left to the end (cancellation?) so maybe I’ll see it through. I’ll decide later.