Booklog: Manga Dump

[nebroadwe]

CLAMP, Tokyo Babylon 4-7 (tr. Ray Yoshimoto)

In Sumeragi Subaru's Tokyo, life and death is in the choices people make. Subaru makes his, but so does his sister Hokuto and his friend Sakurazuka Seishiro -- and the time is coming when all of them must stand the consequences ... Well, that was ... anticlimactic. The nature of Seishiro's "bet" with Subaru is revealed dramatically enough, but their confrontation is resolved by an unabashed deus ex machina and the immediate falling action seems unaccountably rushed -- I wanted more storytelling than I got. The coda that follows is heart-breaking, however, which makes up for a lot. All of the individual episodes in this series were well told; it's the overarching story with which I'm unsatisfied. The sum of the parts rather outshines the whole. Pity.

小林 深雪 (Kobayashi Miyuki) / 安藤 なつみ (Ando Natsumi), Kitchen Princess 1 (tr. Satsuki Yamashita, Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir)

When Kazami Najika's parents died, she was ready to die herself. But a boy helped her, feeding her a sweet dessert and telling her to smile as her parents would have wished. She's always wanted to return the favor, but will she find her mysterious rescuer at the elite Seika Academy? If you don't know the answer to this question, you haven't read much shoujo. The story-so-far is a slightly demented mashup of the Food Channel and Lifetime, and seems to be taking itself a lot more seriously than any narrative devoted to the heroine's search for her Flan Prince might be expected to. (No, really, that's what she calls him!) The art is swirly-sparkly and the panel divisions confusingly erratic. I'm going to show this to my godchildren and see what they make of it; it's too saccharine for me.

森 薫 (Mori Kaoru), Emma 1-3 (tr. Sheldon Drzka)

In Victorian England, everyone knows his or her place. Emma, rescued from the streets by ex-governess Kelly Stownar, is trained to be a maid. William, scion of a wealthy merchant family, will inherit the family business. Unless, of course, they fall in love and, against all expectation, defy convention by marrying ... This manga has been a bit of a challenge for me to read because so much of the story is carried by the art. I find myself having to slow down and look hard at each panel to catch the information the author gives in the characters' gestures and positions. The backgrounds are lovingly detailed; the author has a nice sense of time and place -- filtered occasionally through specifically Japanese rhetoric, but that make it all the more interesting to me as a cross-cultural product. It's also a breath of fresh air to see a romance which, despite its melodramatic premise (a forbidden love across a social divide!) is carried on, for the most part, without melodrama. And Hakim Atawari and his elephants are a delight. Everything is better with elephants. (The three Gilbertian maids on the boating expedition in volume 3 give him a run for his money, though.) Recommended to historical romance fans. I'm sufficiently intrigued that I may spring for the anime, as well ...

Comments

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that pushes me away from stuff like Mushi-shi despite all the good reviews. I'm finally giving in to the dark side and taking up XXXholic-the-manga, however, because I've been convinced that it does have a long-term story that I want to hear, but I'm still waiting to see if the anime just goes for the problem of the week.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

the only thing netflix had was the movie last I looked and the animation was...odd. I've thought about XXXholic but honestly CLAMP's art is not my style at all. About the only thing they did that I honestly really liked was Legal Drug

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I've seen the XXXholic movie -- the animation certainly is, um, sui generis, but I forgave it quite a bit for its fluidity and particularly for that sequence where Watanuki is wandering all over the house in search of the bathroom, because it exactly represented the structural logic of my dream houses (I don't know how many times I've ended up crawling through a far-too-narrow tunnel in search of some room, frex).

CLAMP's art is not my style at all

I go back and forth, myself. kanja177 and I agree that their action sequences are impossible to follow -- way too crowded with speed lines and swirls and things. Whoever does the impossibly leggy people doesn't win many awards from me, either. I prefer a bit more realism. (Arakawa-sama!) But since there's four of them, not everything they do looks the same. Their backgrounds are fantastic, which is something I pay a fair amount of attention to. (Tokyo Babylon is great for that.) Their characters are usually reasonably distinguishable from one another. So for me any particular CLAMP series is going to be a toss-up, but there's a good chance it'll land heads.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I did like the movie. I wasn't thrilled with it but I thought it was decent. it's the super-long gumby limbs that Clamp loves that really bother me.

I haven't been too thrilled with their story lines. The jury is still out on Tokyo Babylon and XXXholic but like I said I did like Legal Drug. i thought it was the least cluttered

also i hate guest spots from other series. Dunno why but I do

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

it's the super-long gumby limbs that Clamp loves that really bother me.

Ouch, yes. And the occasional knee misplacement. I always want to recommend a good orthopod.

I haven't been too thrilled with their story lines. The jury is still out on Tokyo Babylon and XXXholic but like I said I did like Legal Drug. i thought it was the least cluttered

I came to CLAMP via the anime versions of Cardcaptor Sakura and Angelic Layer, so we "met cute" before I had to deal with their more complex grown-up stuff. If I'd started with, say, Chobits (blech), I might never have given them the time of day afterward. Plots that turn on people failing at Life 101 do not thrill me.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Chobits is where I started and probably wouldn't have picked up legal drug if it hadn't been called Legal Drug

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Heh. Opposite reaction: I saw Legal Drug and thought, "Give this one a pass." :-)

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

so far it remains to me the most interesting thing they've ever done

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

What interests you about it?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

the story line. And I kept expecting the one whos name meant to disappear into the wind to do just that. but it's been a year since i read it so that's about what i can remember