Manga Mondays - Yotsuba&! Vols 1-3

Yotsuba&! is a series by Kiyohiko Azuma, who also did Azumanga Daioh, which I really enjoyed so picking up Yotsuba&! was a no brainer for me. Did I enjoy the series? Hit the jump for my review and find out.

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Manga Mondays - To Terra... Series Review

The Manga Moveable Feast is a monthly, week long online virtual book club where people discuss an agreed upon manga series. This month's selection was To Terra..., a classic sci-fi manga, and, since I'm currently on something of a sci-fi binge, I went and got the series from my public library and decided to take part in the discussion. Hit the jump for my review of the three volume series.

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Manga Mondays - Nightschool: The Weirn Books Vol 1 & 2

Nightschool: The Weirn Books is an Original English Language manga series from Yen Press, which is serialized in their Yen Plus magazine, so I was familiar with it before I checked out these two volumes from the library and that familiarity was the reason why I decided to so. The issue of Yen Plus I bought included the 12th chapter of this series and I didn't particularly care for it at the time, but I did hear some good things about the series and, after reading these two volumes, my opinion on the series has definitely changed. Hit the jump for my reviews and find out why.

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Manga Mondays - Jormungand Vol 1 & 2

Jormungand is another shoot-'em-up series from Viz's Signature imprint that I picked since I was impressed their two other similar offerings – Black Lagoon and Dogs. The series follows a group of arms dealers and mercenaries and, fortunately, isn't a retread material or themes found in either Black Lagoon or Dogs. Hit the jump to see what I thoughts of the first two volumes.

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Manga Mondays - not simple and All My Darling Daughters

As I've mentioned before, I enjoy stories set during the Edo Period of Japanese history which lead me to check two manga - House of Five Leaves by Natsume Ono and Ooku: The Inner Chambers by Fumi Yoshinaga. I enjoyed both series and was impressed by their creators' work to look for more manga by the them which lead me to these two stand alone volumes. Neither of these series are part of genres that I generally care for but I was hoping that the authors' work would be strong enough to be enjoyable none the less. Did I enjoy these two series? Hit the jump for my reviews and find out.

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Manga Mondays - Black God Vol 2, Black Lagoon Vol 3 and 20th Century Boys Vol 2

Today I'm taking a look at some manga series that I've been followed up with beyond the first volume. They are, Black God, which I enjoyed but wasn't blown away by, and Black Lagoon and 20th Century Boys, two series which have really impressed me so far. Do the new volumes hold up as well as the previous? Hit the jump for my reviews and find out.

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Manga Mondays - Dogs: Prelude Vol 0 and Dogs: Bullets & Carnage Vol 1 & 2

Viz's Signature imprint is their line of manga designed for older readers looking for more mature content, similar to DC's Vertigo imprint, though with a far wider range of genres. They can range from a historical drama and epics, comedy, slice of life, or, in the case of Dogs, dystopian shoot 'em up action romps. At a glance, Dogs may look mature in the sense that it would consider the inclusion of violence, nudity and cursing "mature" and, although Dogs includes all three, it rarely succumbs to the immaturity often associated with those types of stories. Hit the jump for my reviews of the first three volumes of the series.

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Manga Mondays - Solanin

Normally, I don't read slice-of-life stories because I tend to find the whole genre a little boring. That said, there will occasionally be a slice-of-life book that catches my attention for one reason or another. Solanin was a slice-of-life manga that I was hearing a lot of positive buzz about and, since I was looking for some new manga to try out, I gave it a look. Hit the jump for my review and see what I though of Solanin.

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Manga Mondays - Black God Vol 1

Welcome back to another edition of Manga Mondays, my weekly manga review column. Yen Press is a manga publisher that puts out books that are a little more off beat than some of the other publishers like Tokyopop or Viz. Since I am always looking for something a little different, I gave a couple of their series a try. One of those series was Black God. Hit the jump for my review.

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Manga Mondays - Gantz Vol 1

Welcome to another edition of Manga Mondays, my weekly manga review column. This week sees my review for the manga, Gantz, which was recommended to me by a friend. After being told what it was about, I decided to give the series a try. Hit the jump to see what I thought of the first volume.

GANTZ Vol 1
Written by Hiroya Oku
Art by Hiroya Oku
Adaptation by Matthew Johnson

Gantz is about Kurono Kei and Kato Masaru, two high school students that are killed while trying to help a man who fell onto some subway tracks. Mysteriously, they end up in an apartment after dying. There, they encounter more people who have also recently died and, after a short time, are given a mission of sorts to track down and kill an "onion alien."

Although most first volumes, issues or trades are introductory in nature, Gantz seems to take it an extra step further with it's first volume. The author, Hiroya Oku, spends a lot of the volume introducing the characters, concepts and setting up some questions that will obviously be answered as the story goes on.

The volume isn't terrible or boring because of that, but it does feel like not much happens storywise. Kei and Kato 'die', they meet the rest of the cast, they spend a good deal of time trying to figure what's going on and then they go off and hunt the onion alien. I think what contributes to this feeling that stuff doesn't really happen is that they spend of a lot of time talking about it all, which is perfectly reasonable since they are trapped in an apartment for a while and are not really sure what's going on. I didn't find it uninteresting since Oku uses it to work on the characters, but it does leave the volume feeling a little light, content wise.

Gantz does have an interesting concept behind it though. As said before, a group of people who have all apparently died end up in an apartment with a black orb that tells them that their lives as they knew them are over. Eventually, they learn that they are part of a game where they have to hunt down aliens who hide on Earth. Oku is coy about it all which helps to create a nice sense of mystery around the whole thing. There are also some nice surprises that he works in as well. It's a solid concept and it definitely got me interested in checking out the second volume because Oku did a good job of getting me interested in it all.

The volume does spend a good deal of time with the characters and they are a pretty good cast. Kei is probably the most interesting of the bunch. He's your average, self absorbed high school student who is also kind of a jerk, which is probably why I like him. He isn't the typical heroic type you would normally see in this kind of story. He does have some good intentions, but they tend to also be based on his self absorbed nature. Kato is definitely a lot more noble though he seems to have problems with it at times. The two are definitely a good pair and they work well together, being opposites and all.

Oku also does a good job of introducing the rest of the cast and giving the reader a good feel for their personalities, but he doesn't really focus on them that much either. They are a pretty diverse group, personality wise, but there isn't really much conflict between them. They all go for the game show aspect of the story pretty enthusiastically and don't really question what is going on after that. Overall, they are a pretty good cast, but I don't find them that interesting.

I found the art to be pretty good, but there was nothing that really stood out to me either. Oku is competent with things like storytelling and his character work is good as well, but it all seems pretty average. His designs for the weapons and suits are pretty good though. The violence and gore are also handled well, even though there isn't that much of it. He does a good job conveying a sense of the violence without making it too graphic though there are one or two instances that could have been toned down a bit. The art does a good job of conveying the story but is nothing special in it's own right.

Verdict - Check It. Although the first volume is mostly introductory and a little on the slow side, the concepts and characters are interesting and Oku does a good job of building some intrigue around them.

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Manga Mondays - Black Lagoon, Vol 2

Of all the original manga I first sampled a while back, Black Lagoon was probably my favourite. It was fun and there was a lot of energy behind it. Does Black Lagoon Vol 2 manage to keep the elements made me love Vol 1 so much? Hit the jump to find out.

BLACK LAGOON, Vol 2
Written by Rei Hiroe
Art by Rei Hiroe
Adaptation by Dan Kanemitsu

Well, does volume 2 hold up or not? The answer would be yes and no. Volume 2 is a massive tonal shift from volume 1, but, surprisingly, it works. Very well, in fact. The first volume was, as it says on the back cover, "nonstop explosive action" with solid and engaging characters, but the second volume tones down the action, which is still there, and takes some time to focus on and flesh out the characters. The volume has a much darker tone than the first one, but it still works given the subject matter and general background of the title.

There are three stories in the volume. The first is Die Ruckkehr des Adlers, which involves wannabe Nazis and takes up half of the the book. The next is a Rock and Revy story and then the final two chapters start the Bloodsport Fairy Tale story, which continues into the next volume. All three stories have their own charms and work pretty well though, since it continues into the next volume, Bloodsport Fairy Tale feels mostly like set up.

Die Ruckkehr des Adlers involves the members of Lagoon Trades, the name of the company that Dutch hides his illegal activities behind, going down to a sunken Nazi U-boat in order to find a painting that their client wants. Things get complicated when a group of wannabe Nazis also show up in order to claim the painting. Gun fights and action follow. The story is divided between the action scenes and some down moments where Hiroe starts to develop some of the characters a little, mostly Revy at this point. Dutch also gets a decent amount of face time in the story and he is one of the more interesting characters in the book with a good amount of depth to him as well, so it's a little disappointing that he doesn't really play a large part in the rest of the book.

Normally, I don't like Nazis showing up in stories since, well, they tend to be shortcuts for evil doers. That, and they show up everywhere seemingly for that very reason. Luckily, though, Hiroe does tend to use them as some kind of comic relief and they mostly come off as morons. They are also never really presented as a serious threat and tend to be slightly comical, more a vehicle for the plot and character work than the focus of the story, so I can tolerate their presence here.

The next story deals with Rock and Revy and it really fleshes out the characters and their relationship. Hiroe does a really good job of playing the characters off of each other and getting down to what makes them tick. Hiroe does a really good job of playing off Revy's pragmatic cynicism against Rock's naive optimism. It's a nice look into how Rock has adapted to his new life while providing a little more insight into Revy. All around, it really helps to take the series beyond it's shoot 'em up roots and make it into something more. It also firmly establishes them as the main characters of the series and introduces some new supporting characters, the Rip Off Church, which is exactly what it sounds like - a church that rips off people with illegal activities and smuggling since the law doesn't look at the church for these kinds of things.

The final two chapters start the Bloodsport Fairy Tale story. It's about a pair of child assassins that are trying to kill Balalaika, the leader of Hotel Moscow (the Russian mob). Balalaika was a minor supporting character in the first volume, but she takes center stage in this story. She's a pretty interesting character and does a pretty good job of standing out from of the rest of the cast once Hiroe focuses on her. Overall, it's mostly set up and gets stuff in place for the rest of the story.

As said earlier, the volume is also darker in tone that the previous as Hiroe deals with some of the less glamorous aspects of the criminal underworld. It's nothing too bad and Hiroe does a good job in dealing with the tonal shift because he still keeps the feel of the first volume around and manages to get some great character moments out of the shift as well. All in all, it may not be same as the first volume, but Hiroe still does a great job with with it.

The art is pretty good as well. Hiroe has a dynamic style and easily handles both the character moments and action scenes with ease. His characters are really expressive and I do enjoy a lot of the facial expressions he uses. His action scenes are still as enjoyable as they were in the first volume. Hiroe manages to convey a sense of chaos while still keeping the scenes pretty orderly so they are not a giant mess. He is definitely becoming one of my favorite artists.

Verdict - Must Read. Despite telling different kinds of stories than those that were found in the first volume, Black Lagoon manages to retain a lot of it's charms and delivery some engaging and compelling stories that don't forget the action aspects of the series.

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Manga Mondays - Pluto Vol 1 and 20th Century Boys Vol 1

Recently, I've been reading more and more manga and, as such, I'm starting a new weekly column here at The Weekly Crisis called, you guessed it, Manga Mondays, where I will be reviewing one or two manga volumes. I hope you enjoy it.

One of the first manga I tried out was Monster by Naoki Urasawa. I enjoyed the first volume, but the fact that I knew there were 17 other volumes to read for that series was fairly off putting since I was getting so many other comics already. Eventually, I heard of two new series from Urasawa that were finally being released in North America - Pluto and 20th Century Boys. Wanting to read more work from Urasawa, I picked up the first volume for each series. Hit the jump to see what I thought about each.

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