It is no secret that I love Chi, and it certainly ranks up there as one of my all time favorite series. I already own most of the comics in Japanese, and the anime earned the #2 position on my Top Anime of 2009 list last year. So I am expecting a lot out of this title when Vertical releases it later this month. In fact, I have never anticipated a comic’s English release more than I have with Chi’s Sweet Home.

And so I am thrilled to report that Vertical’s release is very, very well done.

So first, let’s talk about the magic behind the series itself.

The most obvious thing that one can say about Chi is that it is cute. And by cute, I mean that it is absolutely freaking adorable. The wide-eye kitty and the simplistic look of her human family is optimized to produce the most DPS (D’awws Per Second) possible within the manga medium.

But the secret to Chi’s success is not just about being cute. The story itself is very well done and told in a very smart way. Chi’s antics are typical of any cat, and any feline owner will easily recognize all the things she does and relate them back to their own real life kitty. But the magic in Kanata’s storytelling is the level of detail she pays to every little action, and her pacing and use of static panel shots ultimately pay off in some pretty hilarious moments.

We see in one panel that Mama has put the kitten in a little tub in order to be washed. As cat owners ourselves, we already know that cats and water do not mix, so something bad is about to go down. But unfortunately , Chi is unaware of this. Instead, we spend an entire page watching the innocent kitty look in wonderment at the showerhead. “Huh? What the-? What’s going on?” she asks ignorantly, eyes widened with the most adorable expression on her face. And then all of the sudden… “GYA!!!” Pure liquid terror strikes, and we know that the cat will never be the same again.

Chi stands out among manga conventions by being released with each page fully colored. Each chapter is done in black-in-white when it is serialized in Morning Magazine, but a layer of gentle watercolors in added for the comic’s graphic novel releases. The coloring make a huge difference in the look and feel of the comic. It is about as warm and welcoming as… well… a kitten.

The gentle colors, simplistic dialogue, and adorable images give off the impression of a children’s picture book. However, this comic is actually made for an adult male market in Japan. But it just goes to show that Chi has an appeal far wider then whatever limited demographic it can be assigned to in Japan, which is exactly the type of scope that Vertical is going for in America.

It should be noted that in order to make the book more marketable to that mainstream American audience, the pages have been “flipped” to read from left-to-right, and all of the sound effects have been replaced by English translation. There is not a single lick of Japanese left within the pages of this adaptation. This will indubitably annoy and outrage a lot of manga fans, but honestly, I think it is the best decision that Vertical could make with this title. If there is ever a manga that could appeal so broadly to a market outside of typical American otaku, it would be Chi.

But even with these alterations to make the comic more accessible to Americans, it should also be noted the amazing amount of effort Vertical put into making their version of Chi as identical to the Japanese release as possible. Vertical actually enlisted Kodansha and their in-house Toyokuni Printing Co. to have the English version of Chi to be printed using the same equipment that the Japanese version is.

The result is an English version that is a near duplicate to the Japanese version in terms of physical appearance. Both books are the same height and width, and both covers feature the exact same layout, only swapping the Japanese with the English.

But there is one aspect of the coloring that any hardcore Chi fan notice, and that is the background color. The Japanese edition adds an off-white egg shell coloring to the background, which gives each page the appearance of a soft and creamy texture. However, Kodansha neglected to add the artificial color to their printing of the English version, so we end up seeing pure white background. This takes away much of the “soft” feel of the Japanese version.

Again, that’s something that only hardcore Chi fans will notice, but it is noticeable. The sharp white background is a bit distracting at first, but I eventually got over it.

The English adaptation itself is both a bit of a blessing and a curse. As the LOLcat internet meme has taught us, cats do not have the best grasp of the human language. Chi had a very particular way of speaking in the Japanese version, and Vertical makes an honest effort of translating this to English. The result is that Chi says words like, “fwightening,” “mulk,” and, “kiwling,” which occasionally become quite difficult to understand. But at the same time, Chi’s language is also a source of absolute charm. I particularly enjoyed a scene in which a frightened Chi screams out, “Oh Nos!”

When it comes down to it, Chi has the potential to be that manga series that stands out among all the others in the US market. Random folks in Borders will see on the book shelf, open it out of curiosity, and instantly fall in love with it after skimming through the pages. Adults will buy it with the excuse that they’re only getting it for their kids, but will secretly be reading it with more enjoyment than any child would. The franchise has the kind of merchandising potential that would make Hello Kitty sweat a little.

* * * * *

The Good: Artist captures all the idiosyncrasies of feline behavior and delivers with perfect comedic timing. Adorable character designs and soft coloring looks warm and welcoming.

The Bad: Chi’s language is a little difficult to understand at times. Manga is flipped from Japanese. “Creamy” page texture missing.

Final Verdict: Cute, hilarious, and oozing with charm, Chi’s Sweet Home is pure delight for cat lovers of all ages and genders. Read it!

Review copy provided by Vertical Publishing.

There’s a reason why all the girls had dropped out of this tech school. The boys are very tough and fights often break out between the different classes. But amid all this chaos, there is one unwritten law that all the boys abide by, and that is the role of the bancho, or gang leader. Simply put, there is one bancho who rules over the entire student body, and in order to dethrone the leader and take his place at the top of this pecking order, you must knock the crap out of him in a fight.

Needless to say, the poor innocent Souka wants nothing to do with the feuding between the classes or power struggle of the bancho. However, because she is the only girl in school, all of the boys go out of their way to make her feel warm and welcomed. So she decides to stick around the school and eventually becomes friends with the cool Katou-kun. But one day, she accidentally knocks out the school’s current bancho, which means that she takes over as the new gang leader. Can the sweet girl actually rule over this student body of thugs and riffraffs?

My Darling, Miss Bancho is the first (and so far only) comic by shojo artist Mayu Fujikata. While her inexperience is evident on every page of this volume, it ultimately ends up being her greatest strength as CMX Manga releases another winner in this shojo title.

First of all, I am not sure exactly how much prior experience Miss Fujikata had before this series began its serialization in Lala magazine, but she obviously had not mastered her art skills quite yet. This comic looks hideous, and it is most obvious in the way she draws faces. Eyes and noses are drawn either too big or too small, and are often slightly off from where they are supposed to be. This leads to a very inconsistent look to the comic that does not settle down until the final chapters.

But while her art still needs some refinement, Fujikata’s inexperience totally pays off with her fresh and original sense of humor. Rather than filling the plot with melodrama, complex love triangles, flowery backgrounds, or anything else that defines the shojo genre, she simply allows herself to tell a funny story. A really freaking funny story.

She gets her inspiration from the “tough guy” shonen action genre and totally parodies it. Kind of like Cromartie High School, except without any of the really wacky surreal elements. She understands how to keep her humor subtle rather than screaming it out to the reader.

A majority of her jokes come out of random events occurring at the worst possible time for the characters, and Fujikata has just the right sense of comedic timing to pull this off. This is a refreshing change from the traditional tsukkomi-boké (straight-man, idiot) formula we see all too often in Japanese comedy. In fact, she even riffs on that traditional formula by instructing the readers to play the part of the straight-man themselves because none of her characters will play it for them.

She won me over with her unconventional writing style, so I was totally hooked on her story about this crazy high school full of boys and one female. However, as wonderful as it was to read, I had to take issue with the English adaptation and the way it handled one of the hardest concepts to translate between Japan and American high school systems.

You see, in America, we have four years of high school: freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior. Beside for just establishing seniority within a student body, these titles hold very specific cultural meanings. Being called a freshmen has a certain significance because you are considered new, naive, and inexperienced with life within the school. Likewise, being a senior implies that a person is at the very end of their education, and so has limited time remaining at the school.

The Japanese school system is different in that they only go to high school for three years. Rather than giving them titles, they are simply called first year, second year, and third year students. So in theory, their first year students would be just like our high school freshmen, and their third year students would be equal to our seniors. But then what does that make second year students, sophomores or juniors?

This was not clearly established in this translation as our hero of the story is simply called a sophomore while her class was feuding with the juniors. Does that make Souka a first year or second year student? That is a key bit of information missing. Being a sophomore implies a higher level of experience that you do not have in your first year of high school. I felt that this detail was critical in a story about hierarchy and power struggles within a school.

I believe that American manga readers are experienced enough with Japanese culture that you do not need to translate high school classes into American standards like that. If you just simply say first or second year, we will understand.

* * * * *

The Good: Fresh and original comedy.

The Bad: Poor artwork and an awkward translation.

Final Verdict: My Darling, Miss Bancho breaks from typical shojo conventions to tell a story that is really freaking funny. Read it!

Review copy provided by CMX Manga.

But rather than beating the life out of the girl, Miharu demands that Shinobu works off her debt to him by taking up a part time job at his grandmother’s kimono shop. And as the two work together passing out flyers for the shop, Shinobu begins to realize that Miharu isn’t actually as mean and intimidating as he looks. In fact, he’s actually quite a sweetheart.

Stolen Hearts is the American debut of shojo artist Miku Sakamoto, whose Nadeshiko Club will also be coming out later this year from CMX. While the art might seem like a bit of a turn off, Sakamoto fully redeems herself with one of the sweetest and most heartwarming romantic comedies I’ve ever read in manga form.

The heart of this comic is in the depiction of the budding teen romance between the two leads. The artist does not overwhelm you with mush, ultra-flowery backgrounds, or corny dialogue. Instead, she makes you subtly fall in love with each protagonist with just a fleeting look or a simple kind word. You will go for pages just reading a goofy comedy about school kids working a part time job, and then bam! Sakamoto hits you with a panel that will make you coo out, “Aww!” and smile.

And you actually do end up falling in love with the characters because they are awkward but caring teenagers. Shinobu is your average ordinary girl with nothing really that interesting about her, and Miharu very rarely shows any signs of being a “leading man” by any definition. But they both easily look past each other’s quirks and simply find a cute and kind partner in front of them, and I found this to just perfectly capture the essence of teen love into comic book form.

If I had to say anything bad about this comic, it would have to be in the visual department. The character designs are just plane ugly. The girl’s face is far too round and always seems to have a bewildered look going on. The lead man is even worst by being far too angular and skinny. The artist fails to make him come off as mean or intimidating when he’s supposed to be, nor kind and cute during the sentimental moments.

But besides for that, the one thing that really surprised me about Stolen Hearts was just how funny it ended up being. I think that CMX Manga’s translator on this book, Sheldon Drzka, is owed a lot a credit for this. Humor is the hardest thing to translate between Japanese and English, and most manga adaptations fail to do it. But Drzka’s natural sounding dialogue makes the text flow more smoothly for the English reader to take in all of the humor. His knack for arranging great comedic timing within the established word bubbles will ensure that you’ll be chuckling through out this entire volume.

* * * * *

The Good: A sweet and heartwarming love story that wonderfully captures the joy of teen romance. Very funny comedy back by a great English adaptation.

The Bad: Ugly character designs, especially with the male lead.

Final Verdict: Stolen Hearts is a romantic comedy and fully delivers on the romance and the comedy. Read it!

Review copy provided by CMX Manga.

But you gotta learn how to do it first, so students hone their craft in the Projectionist Department at their regular high schools. The World I Create is a series of short stories about these type of magical high school students. They find love and friendship with each other while still trying their best to make the grade and pass their classes.

The World I Create is a one-volume shonen title out of the CMX / Flex Comic partnership, and it is the first work of artist Ayami Kazayama to be released here in America. And while one might be expecting a whimsical tale about the magic of these projections, all we get is a sappy and overly-generic romantic snoozer instead.

The first thing you will notice about this series is that it is very cute. You can tell that Kazayama was going for a moé approach in her art and character designs.  Even though the setting takes place in a high school, all of the characters look far younger, which adds a very playful tone to the story.

I also really enjoyed the narrative structure of this one-shot volume. We basically have four completely separate stories that take place in the same school but center around a different pair of characters each time. While every chapter remains completely independent from the previous one, we see the old characters make cameo appearances later on to update the reader on what happened to them after their story ended. Then the volume ends with a bonus episode that features characters from all four stories goofing off together at the beach. It is a great way to maintain continuity within a series of short works.

But even with cute art and a unique narrative, the problem that ultimately kills this series is that none of these four stories are particularly all that interesting. They all basically go like this: A boy meets a girl, one of them develops a crush on the other,  the other one reciprocates the love, and then they all live happily ever after. That is it. It is as generic and boring as you can get in manga.

You would think that the wonderment and excitement of the “projectionist” magic would somehow spice up this tale, but it only plays a bit part in setting up a reason for the couples to meet. Instead of getting deep and beautiful visions created from the students and their imagination, we get a ton of corny and sappy romantic moments. While the art screams moé shonen, the story is pure generic shojo.

And not even good shojo at that!

* * * * *

The Good: Adorable artwork and interesting narrative structure between each chapter.

The Bad: Mundane stories and sappy romance.

Final Verdict: The World I Create is cute, but unfortunately, it just doesn’t have enough there to make it stand out as manga worth reading. Skip it.

Review copy provided by CMX Manga.

So now the man who (literally) wrote the book on manga in America is entering the genre himself with King of RPGs, the brand new OEL series that Del Rey will be releasing this month.

Shesh loves his MMORPGs. I mean, he really loves his MMORPGs, like dangerously loves them. And after a seven day marathon of “World of Warfare” left him hospitalized with months of therapy, he was forced to give up on his obsession cold turkey.

But on his first day after moving into his college dorm, he and his pal Mike are coaxed into giving tabletop role playing a shot in the school’s gaming club. But after a few rolls of the die, all of those old feelings begin coming back to Shesh. Before you know it, he has turned back into the King of RPGs, an unstoppable (and potentially dangerous) force in all of gaming.

Although I have been around a ton of geeks who play RPGs, I have never gotten into role playing culture myself. I’ve never roll the die in Dungeons & Dragons, played my deck in Magic the Gathering, or do… whatever the hell you do in those Munchkin games.

But that didn’t stop me from absolutely loving this comic.

Thompson’s story subtly draws on the very popular shonen franchise Yu-Gi-Oh!, which means “King of Games” in Japanese. Along with featuring a gaming protagonist with a split good-and-evil personality, both comics also make the fantasy worlds of the games “come to life” through the magic of manga storytelling. As the characters engage in gameplay, the story seamlessly jumps between the setting of the group playing around the table to the setting of the game’s story, complete with all the characters dressed up as their gaming persona.

However, Thompson’s comic ends up feeling more like the online video series The Guild than Yu-Gi-Oh! because it does not focus on the games, it focuses on the people who play them. A majority of the volume is spent in the real world where all the characters live out their normal lives, but they form bonds and friendships based on the opportunity to play more RPGs. Here is a group of American nerds doing the type of things that American nerds do best – totally geeking out and having fun while doing it. Because of this, the average American manga reader will find themselves able to relate to the story very well even without ever playing an RPG in their entire lives.

On top of all of this, you have a really funny book with a lot of great nerd-related humor. The “real world” antics of his characters often get as wild and as exaggerated as the games they play. There are plenty of parodies and riffs on real-life tabletop games, video games, anime, manga, and just general nerd culture. And Thompson even manages to make a very good observational joke on anime cosplayers and people who dress as gothic vampires that will really get you thinking.

But there is a major sticking point with King of RPGs, and that is the artwork by Victor Hao. This is Hao’s first published comic book, and it feels like the work of an amateur web comic artist. The images are too overdone with digital retouches. The perfect solid lines and massive amounts of digital screen toning takes away all heart and soul out of the artist’s drawings. And the heavily Americanized character designs feel more appropriate for Archie comics than Del Rey Manga, particularly in the facial expressions.

I also had a problem with how condensed the dialogue was in this story. One of the major difference between American and Asian comics is that you breeze through Asian manga far more quickly because the dialogue is so brief. There is no breezing through King of RPGs, it will take you quite a while to get through.

I felt like I spent a week just working my way through the first chapter, and it became very draining and began taking away some enjoyment from the story for me. I could understand this being a good thing for some readers, like they are getting “more bang for your buck” by fitting so much story into these pages. But if you are the type of reader that is used to the pacing of Japanese manga, prepare to spend a little extra time with this one.

But nitpicking aside, King of RPGs is such a wonderfully done comic, and it really should be on everyone’s “must read” list. It probably only ranks behind Dramacon as being the best OEL manga ever published here in America. Manga fans would probably take the genre far more seriously if there were more series of this quality out there.

* * * * *

The Good: A freaking hilarious and well written story that manages to speak volumes to our American nerd culture.

The Bad: Bad digital artwork and a little too much dialogue.

Final Verdict: For his first venture into OEL territory, Jason “King of Manga” Thompson strikes gold with his King of RPGs series. Read it!

Review copy provided by Del Rey Manga.

Only One Wish comes from Mia Ikumi, the artist behind the popular Tokyo Mew Mew magical girl series. But like Mew Mew, this series suffers from some serious issues that prevents it from being enjoyable.

To Ikumi’s credit, she makes some really cute characters. She really has a knack for short-haired females with big innocent eyes. She also has a really good sense of fashion, often putting together really cute outfits with interesting plaid patterns. This is one pretty looking comic.

However, the problem with Ikumi is that she really sucks when it comes to manga storytelling. Her narrative jumps all over the place and her paneling is way too crowded. This A.D.D. approach to manga writing makes it really difficult for the reader to follow along and comprehend the story. This is why I could not get into Mew Mew and it happens again in the first few chapters of Wish as well.

The latter chapters tend to be a lot more stable and normal, and we finally get to read a comprehensible series. Some of the stories have exciting climatic moments, and at times, this appears to be a comic worth reading. In fact, there is even a really good bonus story at the end with the Tokyo Mew Mew crew.

But ultimately, there’s just not enough here for me to be able to recommend this series. If you were a big fan of Mew Mew and did not have a problem with Ikumi’s congested paneling, then yeah, you probably could give this a shot. But when it comes to shojo, Only One Wish simply falls flat amid all the good series recently released in the US.

* * * * *

The Good: Very cute character designs and fashion. Some exciting moments. Tokyo Mew Mew bonus story.

The Bad: Paneling and pacing in the first few chapters are very difficult to follow.

Final Verdict: While Only One Wish has a few good moments, it is simply a generic and forgettable shojo series. Skip it.

Review copy provided by Del Rey Manga.

So when Del Rey sent me the second volume of Yokaiden for review, I faced a dilemma. The buzz over this title and its artist, Nina Matsumoto, had been extremely high, so I was really interested in checking it out.

Web comic artist Matsumoto practically exploded on to the scene when a manga-style drawing she did of the Simpsons made its way around the internets. She landed two key gigs from this drawing. The first was for the official Simpsons comic book where she penned a “Treehouse of Terror” special that parodied Death Note with Simpsons characters. The story, “Murder, He Wrote,” won her a coveted Einser award at the last San Diego Comic Con, which is quite impressive for a 24-year-old during her first year as a professional artist.

The other gig she got from the internet exposure was this OEL series from Del Rey, which too has received very high reviews from the manga community when the first volume came out last year. So I decided to give in to the hype and dive into the second volume from this award-winning artist. After all, I did the same thing when I reviewed Black Jack vol. 5 earlier this year without reading the earlier volumes, and I still enjoyed that series.

But unfortunately, it just didn’t work out that way for me this time. I just couldn’t get into Yokaiden no matter how much I wanted to.

Yokaiden tells the story of Hamachi, an optimistic nine-year-old boy who is fascinated by yokai – monstrous spirits in Japanese folklore. When his grandmother dies mysteriously, he ventures into the supernatural realm where he encounters a variety of monsters. They may look scary, but the boy discovers that they are really not all that bad. Along the way he is befriended by a talking lantern, a monster slayer, a kappa, and a talking fan… or what it an umbrella?

That right there is the problem with this volume. A small character profile section at the start of the book and one page of a highly condensed synopsis of the first volume serves as the “story so far” recap for new reader. This is just way too much info to even slightly comprehend, so the newbie is thrown into the middle the conversation with almost no ground to walk on.

The setting is not clearly established. We can tell that Hamachi is in a fantasy world, but did he come from modern Japan, old Japan, or somewhere not Japanese at all? The motivation for his journey is not quite clear. What does his grandma have to do with yokai? It looks like all he is doing there is wondering aimlessly only to talk to new monsters. And what is his relationship to the other characters? Who are the bad guys and who are the good guys?

This confusion and failure to convey the background really ruins the reading experience, and I found it difficult to find any of the positive attributes that other critics have found with this book.

The series has been praised for being an original fusion of Japanese and Western culture. The Japanese-Canadian artist calls the American cartoon The Simpsons her biggest influence and that she learned her craft from there. So I was looking forward to seeing that Simpsons influence in this OEL manga.

But Yokaiden has almost none of that western flavor in it. The story is buried incredibly deep into Japanese folklore, but it is not told with the familiar Japanese tone that we’ve come to expect with stories in this genre. This culture clash doesn’t combine well, and it comes off as being “fake” Japanese, like a North American otaku trying to write an authentic Japanese story.

Besides this tone, I just couldn’t connect with anything to this story, from the characters to the humor. But I know that this was all highly praised by other critics. When I posted this disconnect to the twitter community, the response I got from everyone – including the artist herself – is that I needed to have read the first volume to get what was happening.

So is it the artist’s fault that I couldn’t get into volume two? Is it really a requirement for a reader to have read the previous volumes of a manga series in order to enjoy it?

Well, no. The artist should not expect that of the reader. That goes against one of the fundamentals of manga writing.

The thing about Japanese manga is that most of them are serialized chapter-by-chapter in manga magazines. That means that the artist cannot expect the reader to have read all the previous chapters, as it is highly likely that the reader has missed a issue or is picking the magazine up for the first time.

The way the artist gets the newbie up to speed with the story is not done with a brief “story so far” recap, it is written into the story itself. There might be a little narration panel that gives the reader a one or two line gist of the premise, but not a complete synopsis of everything that’s happened up until that point. Whenever a character first appears in the chapter, something in the dialogue will reintroduce their personality to the reader and reestablish their relationship to the protagonist. And if there is a key event earlier in the timeline that the reader must know about to understand the current story, the artist will always flashback to that event.

“You need to read the first volume” is not a valid excuse because manga is made to be picked up at any time. And since Yokaiden is an OEL manga and is being marketed to the same audience who reads Japanese manga, it needs to be held up to this standard.

But this is just a rookie mistake made by Matsumoto on this, her first multi-volume manga series. It should be easy to fix in the next volume. She doesn’t necessarily have to worry about treating each chapter separately because Yokaiden is not being serialized in a manga magazine. But maybe every few chapters should work on reestablishing plot, characters, and relationships to help out the newbies who do not have access to the previous volumes.

That is why I am neither going to recommend for or against this title. I believe that I would have enjoyed this volume much better if I had been brought up to speed gradually instead of with a condensed recap. Nina Matsumoto didn’t win that Eisner award for no reason – she has got to have some serious talent.

It is a shame that this one flaw prevented me from seeing this talent with this one volume, but I still eagerly look forward to seeing what she does next in her professional career.

Review copy provided by Del Rey Manga.

The Lizard Prince

But it turns out that the lizard was quite the gentlemen, and Canary ends up falling head over heels for him on their first date. The prince is royally pissed that his mean plan did not work out, so he decides to take matters in his own hands and expose the princess to what was really happening. How will Canary react when she finds out her true love was really a lizard?

This is CMX’s second shojo release from Asuka Izumi after her manga adaptation of Ballad of a Shinigami last June. When I reviewed that title, I really enjoyed her storytelling and her surprising conclusions, so I am happy to report that she hits yet another home run with this fairy tale story.

First of all, this comic is adorable, especially with the character of the lizard. Izumi draws him as a very simple cartoonish figure that looks more like a worm than a lizard. This ends up contrasting the traditional shojo look of all the other characters in a fun and humorous way. Add on his kind and sweet personality and you can’t help but to also be charmed by the lizard prince.

Izumi also gets me once again with those surprise endings. The first chapter ends with such a twist that it changes the tone of the rest of the comic. The problem is that CMX spoils this reveal in their plot descriptions on the back of the book and on Amazon. So I recommend that if you can, avoid reading any other plot summaries outside of this review and just start reading this book. I am sure you will enjoy the book much better that way.

That is really the only gripe I can find with this comic. This was an absolutely delightful read. Even at the parts were I was afraid that it was about to go into cliched shojo tropes, Izumi manages to keep the tone fresh and entertaining. If you enjoy your shojo charming and light hearted, you really should check this one out.

* * * * *

The Good: Very cute story with nice development and one great plot twist.

The Bad: CMX spoils that big reveal in book descriptions.

Final Verdict: The Lizard Prince is a magically charming shojo fairy tale. Read it.

Review copy provided by CMX Manga.

While most of the folks who venture into the tower merely wish to take the treasure hidden within it, Jil has much bigger plans in mind. He wants to reach the top level and beat the evil Druaga himself. But his first guild fires him after he nearly gets them all killed in the lower levels. So he gathers another colorful band of warriors, mages, and other characters you’d expect from a typical fantasy story, and ventures on into battle.

If you remember a few weeks ago, I reviewed Blassreiter, one of the first anime series legally simulcasted on the internet while airing on Japanese TV 20 months ago. Well, Druaga was the other simulcast that aired that season, and just like Blassreiter, I absolutely loved watching this series on a 2-disc DVD box set from FUNimation.

As you start watching this series, you will immediately notice that it is funny. It is really freaking funny. In fact, the entire first episode is just one joke after the other. Most of the humor comes from the fact that this is based off of a video game, and that video games have silly and contrived plots. This is done perfectly with much sarcasm and hilarious contradictory statements:

“I don’t want to fight you. So if you insist on fighting… [draws sword] then you’re going to have to defeat me first!”

For the most part, the rest of the series does not have the same level of comedy as the first episode, but this does perfectly tell the viewer that this whole series is a very tongue-in-cheek fantasy story, and that you should not be taking it seriously. So once you can let go of this and give in to the silliness, you’re in for 12 episodes of good, entertaining anime.

The heart of Druaga’s appeal is in the characters. While all of them may be one dimensional video game archetypes, they all have their own charms and their interactions together are fun and comical. I found the female characters to be incredibly appealing, and the little bits of fan service involving them were far sexier than anything from the boob-fest that was Dragonaut last week.

But comedy and charm do serve as a distraction to the many flaws within this series, all of which come from the fact that there is not much going on story wise. There is probably three episodes worth of content in this video game plot, and they have managed to stretch it out across 12 episodes.  This ends up with very serious pacing issues that comes close to killing the momentum established in the first episode.

But the one thing that keeps the series going strong even with the bad pacing is the fantastic script and acting in the English dub. Comedy is hard to translate between Japanese and English, so the ADR writer has to be creative in their adaptation to keep the laughs coming. The folks at FUNimation has successfully done this with plenty of laugh out loud moments through out the entire series.

I am also really starting to take notice to dub actor Todd Haberkorn who plays the lead role of Jil in this series. After playing the title character of Sgt. Frog, this is the second time I have seen him in a funny leading role in recent memory, and he has been amazing both times. His comedic timing is dead on, and his high pitched voiced is perfect for cartoon character acting without ever becoming annoying or irritating.

* * * * *

The Good: Lovely characters, occasional fan service, and great humor enhanced by a fantastic English dub script and voice acting.

The Bad: Video game style storyline is contrived and silly. Uneven pacing through out the entire series.

Final Verdict: Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk is an entertaining tongue-in-cheek tale of epic arcade gaming proportions. Watch it!

Review copy provided by FUNimation Entertainment.

Kodansha is the largest publisher in Japan and puts out some of the country’s most popular manga magazines like Morning, Nakayoshi, and Weekly Shonen Magazine.

They shook up the American manga industry five years ago by going into an exclusive partnership with Random House to create Del Rey Manga. Thanks to Kodansha’s amazing catalog of works from artists like CLAMP and Ken Akamatsu, Del Rey entered the market with a bang, and is now considered to be the second largest manga publisher in America.

But over a year ago, rumors began circulating that Kodansha was going to be setting up their own manga division in America that would run separately from Del Rey. Personally, I’m cautious whenever something like this happens. When Toei Animation and Bandai Visual decided to bypass their American partners and enter into the domestic anime market themselves, it was disastrous. So, I was worried that a “Kodansha USA” would meet a similar fate in the manga world.

Well, the rumors turned out to be true, and the new domestic manga publisher, now officially called Kodansha Comics, released their first two manga volumes last month. They were Akira and The Ghost in the Shell, both originally released in America by Dark Horse Comics many years ago.

So considering that I have no idea who is running the new company or if they even had a PR department, you can imagine my surprise to see these two books magically arrive in my mailbox last week for review. And being that I’ve never read either of these series from Dark Horse in the past, I decided to see what this new publisher was all about with their first volume of The Ghost in the Shell manga by Masamune Shirow.

The Ghost in the Shell centers around the female cyborg Major Mokoto Kusanagi, a member of a Japanese covert operations unit known as “Section 9.” It is set in a world with nano-technology makes it very easy for humans to infuse their bodies with electronics and robotic machinery. Section 9 specializes in terrorist crimes against technology, such as hacking, viruses, and cyber-brainwashing.

While there are several different stories comprising this volume of manga, they all connect with an overarching story of the Puppeteer. The Puppeteer is a “ghost hacker”, a technique that goes beyond normal technology to take control of a person’s mind and implant them with false memories. Face to face with the elusive criminal, can the Major catch up him without getting her own cyber-brain overtaken?

Anime fans are probably all too familiar with the franchise. The 1995 film adaptation directed by Mamoru Oshii has been considered one of the most influential anime here in America, and was cited as an inspiration for the landmark Hollywood action film The Matrix. While a sequel by Oshii didn’t make quite the impact the original did, an anime TV series by Production I.G. entitled “Stand Alone Complex” was done magnificently well with two amazing 26-episode seasons.

So I’m going into this manga after familiarizing myself with what became of it years later in the anime world. And because of this, I regret to say that this outdated manga just does not live up to that level of greatness established in the anime.

The most obvious difference here is that the manga is goofy and comical. I’m not talking about the occasional joke or a comic relief character, the whole tone of the comic is goofy with the occasional action sequences. This affects everything – from the characters to the artwork to the overall plot. While Major Kusanagi is depicted as a tough-as-nails cool babe that would totally kick your ass any second in the anime world, she is a clown in the manga. The artist himself adds little goofy comments in the margins as well to further give off a tone of casualness with this story.

This comedic tone becomes very alienating to the Ghost in the Shell fan from the anime adaptations, but the comic does still contain most of the awesome action and criminal drama that we have come to known and love. However, sometimes the back story and the sci-fi explanations get a little too deep at moments. This translates to huge paragraphs of text with in the story, which screws up the flow of the comic and can often take a while for the reader to decipher and understand.

So how does Kodansha do with the launch of their US manga division?

Well, like I said, I have never read the Dark Horse releases, but according to those who have, Kodansha didn’t change a damn thing from the past versions. Flipped, censored, and edited, they are page-for-page the exact same thing you could have purchased years ago. But it is actually worse than that. Dark Horse later released an unflipped and unedited “2nd edition” version of this comic, but Kodansha still opted not to publish that and stuck with the older version instead.

There’s something very odd with how Kodansha is simply rereleasing all of the work Dark Horse did years ago under their new label. In fact, this volume begins with a letter from Dark Horse president Mike Richardson – dated this year – thanking Kodansha and the artist Masamune for allowing his company to do all the production work for them.

While I can appreciate that this version contains many pages rendered in full color, I can’t help but to think I would have preferred an unflipped, unedited version with a fresh new translation instead.

* * * * *

The Good: Great action sequences and deep criminal drama. Color pages are a nice treat.

The Bad: Artwork and tone significantly more goofy and comical than the anime. Text a little too dense for manga. Kodansha released the “flipped” and edited version originally done by Dark Horse.

Final Verdict: The Ghost in the Shell franchise has grown so much in its anime incarnations that the original manga simply fails in comparison to it. Skip it.

Review copy provided by Kodansha Comics.