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

[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