Shinobi Life

Today the final chapter of Shinobi Life was posted, so I figured now would be a good time to do a review of the series!

Title:  Shinobi Life

Mangaka:  Shoko Conami

Length:  13 Volumes (Complete)

Available in English?  Yes, but only up to Volume 7.

Demographic:  Shoujo

Genre:  Romance/Fantasy/Drama/Action

How did I hear about it?  It came highly recommended by my friend.

Kagetora is a ninja from the Edo period and the loyal guardian of Beni-hime.  After they are separated by an explosion during an attack, he falls into a lake and into the future, just in time to accidentally foil the plans of 17-year-old Beni Fujiwara's would-be kidnappers in modern-day Japan.  Kagetora mistakes Beni for his princess and seems to think that the present world he is seeing is some sort of illusion brought about by the enemy.  Thus begins the story of Beni and her ninja boy.

Does that synapsis sound cheesy?  Good, 'cause it is.  Fortunately, the story expands far beyond its gimmicky premise. 

I'll start with the art.  I've often heard Conami-sensei's art described as "unimpressive."  I feel just the opposite though.  For whatever reasons, it really appeals to me.  Her art is simple, with less screentone and shading than has become common these days.  Her lines are angular and jagged, but somehow manage to retain their elegance.  My one complaint is that there isn't really a lot of background detail.  If you're gonna set some of your story in the Edo period, then dress it up!  Show us what your Edo looks like!  But alas, all we got was a bunch of trees.  She depicts actions very well though.  This manga had quite a bit of fighting in it, and it certainly didn't feel stagnant, as some manga action scenes tend to do. 

Okay, so there's screentone here, but look at the empty background!

Shinobi Life begins as your average shoujo romantic comedy with its trusty gimmick.  Our modern-day girl has her sexy ninja boyfriend, and we get to laugh as we watch Kagetora stumble through modern society.  Nyuk nyuk nyuk!  If that's all this manga was, I wouldn't have even bothered with it.  Don't worry, it gets better.  A lot better. 

More names are added to the cast, and it is discovered how one slips back and forth between the present and Kagetora's era.  With this, complicated character relationships are created, and twisty-turny, time-travelling manga is formed.  Any story that involves time travel is bound to be a tricky subject.  Conami tackles it with poise and a great deal of thought.  Is it perfect?  No.  But you can tell she put a hell of a lot of thought into this.  She creates several sub-plots, yet they all flow together like tributaries into a river.  Let me give you a glance at what all we have going on here.

1.  The romance between Beni and Kagetora.  After he learns that she is not his Beni-hime, he has to begin the process of getting to know her as a completely different person.  Meanwhile, Beni must battle through her constant self-doubt.  Does he love her?   Or is he just projecting his forbidden love for Beni-hime?  As they feel each other out, they must also endure the father's strong disapproval of their relationship.

2.  Rihito's relationship with this parents.  Rihito is Beni's fiance, arranged via her father.  While his connection to Beni is important throughout the manga, where his character really shines is in the development of his past.  We see the situation he has endured since childhood, and I was drawn in, eager to see how he would resolve his homelife. 

3.  Hitaki's rivalry with Kagetora.  Hitaki is also a ninja from the Kagetora's clan.  We first meet him in the past, and at first he seems only to want to kill Kagetora for being a rogue ninja.  However, as we flit between past and present and see both the 14-year-old Hitaki and the present one, we learn that there is a much deeper reason for his loathing of Kagetora. 

4.  The spy in the ninja clan.  As Beni lives with Kagetora's clan in the past (dammit, I can't think of the clan name.  Inui?  Something like that...), she learns that there has been a series of strange murders that could only have been committed from the inside.  As this plot unfolds, it holds deep ramifications for one of our main characters.

5.  The death of Beni's mother.  Beni has always been told that her mother's death years ago was an accident, but as we travel to different time areas, the people closest to Beni discover the truth of the circumstances surrounding her death.

All of that sounds like various sub-plots that may have little to do with each other.  I feel that many mangaka out there might have formed their manga into an arc-based shape, tackling one topic at a time.  The wonderful thing about Shinobi Life is that ALL of those plots tie together.  A new development in any of those plots affects all of the others.  The way they're woven together shows how much thought and effort Conami put into this manga in order to help it go above and beyond your average shoujo.  In fact, Kagetora and Beni end up separated from each other for a sizable chunk of the series.  Usually when this happens in a romance manga, the plot dries up, and the reader gets bored.  Not the case here.  There's always something going on.  I never felt bored at all.

I will say that the final chapter was somewhat disappointing though.  After everything the manga takes you through, the last chapter feels like an ending to a different kind of manga.  It's the ending to the quirky romantic comedy that this manga would have been if not for all of its, you know...substance.  I would have preferred something a little more meaningful.

That's one beautiful blood spray.

If you're looking for a shoujo series to tickle your fluttering heart, then look no further.  This manga has a high romance factor with plenty of steamy scenes.  However, if you're looking for something that offers much more than steamy romance, then you've found it here, too.  This manga has high drama and a surprisingly high action level, too.  I can't recommend this series enough. 

5 stars!  (I'm on a different computer, so I'll have to go fish out my stars' images again.  Too lazy to do it right now though)

Naruto Ch. 611 vs. Bleach Ch. 518 SPOILY SPOILERS!!

And now for the latest installment of my incredibly inconsistent Naruto vs. Bleach...chatty...bloggy...thing.  Whatever, who needs a title for it anyway, on to the show!

Naturally, there are SPOILERS.  If you don't want things SPOILED, then piss off! 

Naruto Ch. 611

Actually, this week's chapter wasn't too terribly exciting.  More fighting, blah blah blah.  Oh, but there was this though:

It looks like this chapter is leading somewhere.  Pretty much the whole Shinobi Alliance has arrived to kick Obito's ass.  Now Kishimoto-sensei, my dear, please take note of this.  If you're bringing all these mammajammas into the action, you need to deliver some major awesomeness.  I'm expecting battle of epic proportions.  Don't disappoint me, now!  I don't think there's much else to say about this one.  This chapter felt more like a lead-in for what's to come.  Oh, and btw, I was thinking just the other day that we haven't seen hide nor hair of Orochimaru since his revival.  I was kinda excited about that one.  I wonder when we'll get back to that.  This battle had better be so effin' awesome that I forget all about whatever's going on with our snakey friend.

Bleach Ch. 518

Ok, it hs seriously been months since I was excited about a new Bleach chapter.  This whole business with the Quincies has just made no sense.  The Quincies have been hiding out for two hundred years, biding their time and building their forces, and now they're back, and oopsie poopsie, whaddaya know, they just happen to be so strong that they can plow through vice-captain and captain level shinigami, and even kill off Yama-jii?  INCONCEIVABLE!  (Note, that word must be said with a Vizzini voice).  It's just weak story-telling.  I know that shounen manga requires one to have to suspend belief a little bit, but Kubo has done a fair job of keeping things pretty damn solid thus far.  Why drop the ball now? 

Hopefully, with the recent revelations, we're starting to see where this may be going.  We've got Quincy-Leader-Guy (CBF to remember his name...) paying a visit to Aizen, and let's face it, we knew he'd be back because 1) he's not friggin' dead, and 2)  Kubo wanted to end the series with Aizen's defeat and have him die.  The fact that he kept him alive after being pressured to keep the series going means that he still needs Aizen for whatever it is he's planning in this arc.  So I was expecting that to happen sometime, and that sometime is now.  Aizen has been a fun villain.  So far, the Quincies suck.  They've haven't been developed at all.  Perhaps something a little more interesting is about to go down. 

Then there's the reveal that Ichigo's mum was a Quincy.  That fact in itself isn't all that exciting, but it holds the promise that all this shit is gonna find its way back to Isshin Kurosaki and everything that went down when he lost his powers and left the Soul Society.  THAT'S what I wanna know about!  We already know that Isshin knows um...Ryuugen?  Was that his name?  You know, Uryuu's pops.  They know each other, so we know that Isshin knew at least one Quincy back in the day.  Simply put, I'm eager to see where all this is gonna go.

Now that I've said all that, lemme dig into this chapter.  First, there's this:

THERE!  In the second panel!  PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, tell me that's who I think it is?  Maybe it's just wishful thinking.  I've been waiting for ages for Grimmjow to come back.  It's gotta be him, right?  Grimmjow would totally call Ichigo a bastard, right?  And Ichigo's worried that he could be causing trouble for the good guys, so that means whoever it is must be a bad guy, right?  Well....Grimmjow was a bad guy...  And he's not dead.  And he's in my top five Bleach characters.  PLEASE BE HIM!!  Just the possibility that it could actually be Grimmjow made me break out my fangirl hands over this page.  Scary shit, man.

But that's not all!  Theeeeeen, there's THIS:

TSUKISHIMA!!  GINJOU!!!!  And Giriko, but whatever on him.  I have to say that somehow, I totally missed the return of those characters.  Um, hello Kim!  They were human they died.  In the Bleachiverse, where do humans go when they die?  The motherfucking Soul Society.  Where the hell else would they be?  Why the hell didn't I think they could come back?  I was disappointed when they died in the first place.  I wondered how we'd ever get the story of what happened to Ginjou. I mean, I knew the story would be told, but I had rather hoped that Ginjou would have been the one to tell it.  I'm so glad that they're back.  I'm sure you can gather that I rather liked them.  Not as excited about the return of Shukaku and Ganju.  I mean, they're alright.  It was fun and retro there for a minute.  Plus, since it's been friggin' years since Kubo-sensei has drawn them, it's interesting to see them rendered in his new, more-polished art style. 

Anyway, I came away from this chapter feeling a little giddy.  I'm looking forward to where we're going from here! :D

Massive Manga Update

Holy heart attacks, Batman!  Have I got some catching up to do!  The reason the reviews have stopped over the past few months have been largely due to computer woes.  It's still not resolved, but I believe that I can work around it.  There have been some great series that I really want to talk about it.  I've been absorbing so much manga that it is has been insane.  Where was I when I last posted?  I don't remember, and right now, I'm too lazy to go back and check.  I think I'll just stay on this screen and wing it.

First off, there was Boys Over Flowers, which has become one of my favorite shoujo ever.  Have I talked about this already?  If so, get ready to hear it again.  I loved the transformation of the characters in that series.  Sure, there are tons of manga out there about girls who meet assholes and end up falling for them, "changing" them in the process into Prince Charmings.  Bah, gimme a friggin' BREAK!  Boys Over Flowers (or Hana Yori Dango, for the Japanese title) takes its time transforming Tsukasa Domyouji from an arrogant, self-centered, violent jerk into...well, a man.  And not in the sense that Tsukushi (the heroine) set out to change him, because she doesn't try to do that at all.  Did you see the film As Good As It Gets, starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt?  In that film, Jack tells Helen, "You make me want to be a better man."  That, my friends, is how Tsukasa changes.  Tsukushi doesn't do a thing to him.  Because she's actually smart (a shoujo heroine?  Smart?  Ridiculous!!), she would never have ended up with Tsukasa if he had remained as he was.  No, his change was all because he wanted to do it.  He wanted to become someone that could stand by her through thick and thin.  In another refreshingly surprising twist, Kamio-sensei manages to execute this transformation without having him deviate from his original personality.  He doesn't become some sap.  He's still a smart-ass who enjoys a good bicker with Tsukushi, even in the end.  But Tsukasa the Man would never take it so far as to say something cruel to her or hurt her.  Le sigh... I've already started collecting this series.  I have 14 volumes so far!  Too many more to go...




Oh, Tsukasa... <3

 I've also started experimenting with various other manga.  I got my first taste of the great Osamu Tezuka-sama with Message to Adolf.  This five-volume series is being re-translated and released in two hardcover volumes by Vertical.  I have the first, and the second is due out in December.  I loved the first book.  Message to Adolf takes place in the years leading up to WWII (and I believe war breaks out in the second book).  It begins with a Japanese journalist at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.  His brother, who is attending a German university, is murdered, and his existence is erased entirely.  Now, the journalist (damn, why can't I remember his name right now?), sets out to find out what his brother was involved in and what lead to his murder.  Move forward to Japan a few years later.  The journalist is still trying to track down his brothers killers, and two new characters are introduced.  A young half-German, half-Japanese child named Adolf, whose father is a high-ranking Nazi, and Adolf's best friend, a German Jew whose family has been living in Japan to escape persecution, also named Adolf.  The lives of the two families and the journalist become intertwined as a secret is discovered that could tear apart the entire Nazi regime.  It's an incredible story.  I can't wait for the next book.  I did a pretty shitty job of summarizing it, so go check it out and read about it for yourself!

Surely, I could have looked up his damn name, when I looked up the pic...

I also picked up Red-Colored Elegy, an underground manga from 1972.  I read Jason Thompson's review of it in his House of 1000 Manga column over at Anime News Network, and I thought that I would give it a try.  It's so... something.  I like it, I really do.  It's something that I feel that I need to read a few times through to really appreciate everything.  It's very minimalist, in everything.  The art, the dialogue, the layouts.  It's about a couple barely eking out their lives and the trials they face together.  It sounds boring, but what makes it so interesting is its presentation.  I feel like if it were a film, it would directed by someone like Darren Arronofsky.  Not that RCE has his eerieness at all, but I think I feel like it would match his style of editing and scene-cutting. 

RCE, proving that less is more.

I've also taken my first taste of Fuyumi Soryo's ES (Eternal Sabbath).  It's a sci-fi seinen manga that explores the depths of the human psyche.  I've only picked up the first volume so far, but I'm super excited to dive into this one.  First off, I would like to say that I love Soryo's art.  I loved it in Mars, but here, she does away with the googly eyes, this being seinen and not shoujo.  I don't think I've ever fangirled over someone's art like this before.  There were some panels that I couldn't tear my eyes away from.  I just wanted to drink in every detail.  She's so good.  I can't wait for the next volume to make it here.

I love everything about her art.

Finally, I've also picked up Hot Gimmick.  Several months ago, I had this one on my reading list, but a friend of mine shot it down.  She advised me that I probably wouldn't want to read about a pathetic heroine who is bounces from one horrible relationship to the next.  I agreed.  I don't like that crap.  So I exed this one out.  Then I stumbled in to a Jason Thompson review, and he offered another perspective.  I began to get curious about HG again.  A quick look on Amazon told me that I could get the 12-volume series in 4 VizBig editions for a reasonable price, so I decided to take a chance and buy it without reading it.  I'm halfway through the series, and I love it.  Why?  Before I go into why I love HG, I think I need to visit a little series called Black Bird first.  I didn't like BB.  BB starred a weak, pathetic heroine who is portrayed as being strong.  Her love interest is a controlling and possessive man who is painted as some sort of fantasy ideal.  I really don't like that stuff.  I know people who like it, and to each his own, but it's just not for me.  I found it painful to read about those characters and see their story told as if their relationship is the kind girls should be fantasizing about.  Which brings me back to Hot Gimmick.  Hatsumi is weak and pathetic, but she's never meant to be anything else.  She can never say what she wants to in a confrontation and is incapable of standing up for herself.  She allows herself to be manipulated and loathes herself for it.  Ryoki is possessive and controlling of Hatsumi, and she hates him for it.  But she's also drawn to him because of those rare instances when he slips up and shows that he actually cares for her, even though she knows that he's no good for her.  This is a far more realistic depiction of relationships than what you usually see in shoujo.  Their relationship is fucked up and unhealthy, and that's exactly what it's supposed to look like.  It has been a really fun read so far.

Anyway, so that's a "quick" update.  Currently, I'm reading Ranma 1/2, and I've been reading this damn series for about two months.  It's good, sure.  It's been laugh-out-loud funny many, many times, but really, 38 volumes is too long for this one.  The formula gets old pretty fast.  This would have been a much better series if it were maybe 20 volumes.  I'm pushing myself forward though, slowly but surely.  I won't bail before I've finished it.