Bride of the Water God

Title:  Bride of the Water God
Korean Title:  Habaek-eui Shinbu
Manhwaga:  Yun Mi-kyung
Length:  14 Volumes (Ongoing)
English Translation?  Yes, 10 volumes so far by Dark Horse Comics.
Demo/Genre:  Shoujo (or whatever the Korean equivalent of shoujo is)/Fantasy/Historical/Romance/Drama)

How did I find out about it?  Not sure...I think I just kept seeing the name pop up on mangareader and decided to click on it one day.

To end the long drought that has caused much suffering in a small village, a girl is sacrificed to be the bride of the Water God, Habaek (gee, I wonder where the title for the manga came from).  That girl is Soah, and though she hears that the Water God is a monstrous being, she is shocked to learn that he is a small child and that Water Country is a beautiful place.  As she becomes accustomed to life in Water Country, she meets a young man named Mui and falls for him, not realizing that Mui and Habaek are one and the same.  A curse placed upon him forces him to lose his powers and bear the appearance of a child during the day and return to his true form at night.  Living in the world of the gods, Soah learns that all is not peaceful and the power struggles threaten to envelop the new life she has adopted.

I want to begin by saying that the artwork is drop-dead gorgeous.  I don't think that I've ever read a more beautiful manga/manhwa.  I may not be overly fond of the style in which the faces are drawn, but everything else in this manhwa is laced with elegance.  The costumes, the backgrounds, and the environments are all intricately detailed.  This series is well worth the read if only to appreciate the art.

The story is slow.  No point mincing words.  I like the story, but I think if about 40-50 chapters had been cut and the story condensed, this manhwa could have been something spectacular.  None of the characters stood out as particularly "awesome" to me, though I did like Soah and Mui.  I was more enthralled by the style of the characters.  I love the manner of speech.  It's so regal and elegant.  Every move these characters make seems to be full of grace.  That, combined with the plot, yields a positive reaction from me.  While the plot is slow, I love the intrigue.  Who is pulling whose strings?  Exactly whose side is everybody on?  What are their true goals?  The fact that this series can keep me interested in the answers to these questions is good.

While it's not one of my favorites, I do think fondly of BotWG.  Will I be collecting it?  I'm not yet, but I think I really would like to someday.  I have some others on my "must have" list though that I need to nab before I move on to this one though.

Bleach

Title:  Bleach
Mangaka:  Tite Kubo
Length:  53 Volumes (Ongoing)
English Translation?  Yes, 38 volumes so far by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shounen/Fantasy/Action/Comedy

How did I hear about it?  Um...how would I not hear about this one?  It's only one of the most popular manga in the world...

For as long as he can remember, Ichigo Kurosaki has been able to see spirits.  His life changes when he meets a certain spirit, a girl named Rukia Kuchiki.  She explains that she is a Soul Reaper (actually, a "shinigami."  I wish they had left that word untranslated in the English manga/anime.  Shinigami sounds better to me.).  Soul Reapers are the ones who are responsible for guiding the dead to the Soul Society (this story's version of the afterlife) and for cleansing fallen souls known as "hollows."  She is injured while trying to simultaneously fight a hollow and protect Ichigo and his family.  To give them a fighting chance, she transfers some of her powers to Ichigo.  Unfortunately, he absorbs all of her powers.  Until she can regain what she lost, she has Ichigo carry out her duties in her stead.  Everything is hunky dory until two other Soul Reapers arrive to take her back to the Soul Society to stand trial for granting her powers to a human.  And thus begins a story involving many characters, plot twists, conspiracies, and a hell of a lot of action.

As is common with most long series, the artwork shifts as time progresses.  I didn't dislike the art in the beginning, but I much prefer the art's later stages.  This manga has a huge cast, and I love how unique all of the character models are.  I believe that took a great deal of imagination on Kubo-sensei's part.  Not to mention the fact that so many of these characters are given pasts and histories.  While he might not go into detail with a lot of them, I thought that it was great just to see where each of them came from.  It's very easy to neglect these little details, but Kubo-sensei managed to create such an intricate web of characters that the reader can interact with emotionally.  That's one of the many things that I adored about this series.

Is the plot perfect?  No.  Despite its flaws though, it's still very well-done.  One can easily tell that Kubo had a good idea of what the big picture was going to be as he moved along with Bleach.  I read it all online first, and now I've been re-reading as I'm collecting it.  I'm constantly discovering little details that I missed the first time around that really show how unified the whole series is.  I love it when you can do that.  The introduction spans roughly the first fifty chapters, then you finally enter the first true story arc.  The story moves fluidly from arc to arc, never losing its momentum, which is quite the accomplishment considering its massive length.

The main cast is very solid.  Ichigo is a pretty typical shounen hero.  However, as the manga continues, I feel that he really begins to shine.  Yes, he always wants to do what's right.  Yes, he cares very much about the safety and well-being of his friends.  But we also start to see his flaws.  He's very confident in his abilities, and yet it almost seems that's he's confident because he's so insecure.  When something happens to one of his companions, he takes all of the blame himself.  He believes that it happened because he wasn't strong enough or wise enough to prevent it.  This really weighs on him, and so when he finds himself in a battle, he doesn't give himself the option of losing.  He has to win.  He pushes himself to his limits every time, and not because he believes so strongly in his cause that he'll do anything to achieve it.  More because losing means that he has failed his friends, and that is simply not an option.  I don't think I explained what I'm thinking very well, but I'll just say that to me, Ichigo is both simple and complex because of this.  We don't really start to see these things until the second major story arc.  That doesn't mean that Ichigo is boring and one-sided until that point.  It means that he is constantly growing throughout the series.  We don't see everything he has to offer right away.

Another character whose development I was very impressed with is Orihime.  She is the bright, bubbly, ditzy, big-breasted (of course) classmate of Ichigo, who happens to be in love with him.  I am usually immediately turned off by these types, but not with her.  For a large chunk of the series, she was just "okay" in my books.  But again, we see that when that second arc hits, Kubo-sensei dives into these characters and expands them.  Orihime has negligible offensive capabilities (at least in the scope of the powerful enemies they are fighting at this point), but her strengths lie in her defensive powers.  She can create an almost impenetrable shield and has the ability to reverse almost any injury.  Thus, she almost always finds herself being protected.  She wants to be by her friends' sides, but in battle, all she can do is hang out in the back, making her an easy target.  This could make her an easy character to hate, but instead, we really start to see her emotions shine through.  There comes a point where she is given a choice, and this choice allows her to do the protecting for once.  We start to see how much she believes in her friends, and how she doesn't want to be a burden to them anymore.  She loses her ditzy visage and becomes an emotionally strong character who would go to the ends of the earth to save her friends.  Again, I'm having difficulty putting it into words.  If you've been reading my reviews, then you've probably already figured this out.  Anyway, I found Orihime's character development to be excellent.  She went from being pretty low on my list to being in my top five Bleach characters.

I feel like I could talk all day about Bleach, but I think I'll end it here.  Suffice it to say, this series has achieved its popularity for a reason.  It's a great shounen.  I think even those who are not typically shounen readers will enjoy this one.  Look out for the anime though.  While it's very well done as well, it has tons of filler arcs in it that break up the momentum terribly.  I definitely recommend reading it as opposed to watching it.  Will I be collecting this one?  Yup.  As of the time of this writing, I have 25 volumes of Bleach.

This series is still ongoing in Japan, and only just a few weeks ago, a big announcement was made:  Bleach is entering its final story arc.  I'm excited!  I'm a little sad that it probably only has a couple of years left on the series, but at the same time, I'm excited because I know that this is going to be a great arc that will answer a lot of questions.

Blank Slate

Title:  Blank Slate
Japanese Title:  Akusaga
Mangaka:  Aya Kanno
Length:  2 Volumes (Completed)
English Translation?  Yes, both volumes have been released by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shoujo/Drama

How did I hear about it?  I dunno... I think I might have just stumbled across it on Amazon or something...

I'm not sure how much I remember about the plot.  It hasn't been too terribly long since I read it, but it's just that it didn't stick to me very well.  I remember thinking that it was almost a really great manga.  It's definitely not your average shoujo.  Let's see what I remember (too bad there's no wikipedia page to help jog my memory).  The story is about a man named Zen who has no memory of his past.  Hmm...I don't really remember much beyond that.  Zen has a very dangerous set of skills.  I remember that a bounty hunter who was after him became drawn into his world and wound up being his partner in crime, of sorts.  Sorry.  Fuzzy memory is fuzzy.

I remember more about what I thought after reading this manga than what I actually read.  It was very interesting to see a shoujo of this type.  BS was mysterious and dangerous with no trace of romance.  It was a very interesting concept, but unfortunately, it was too short.  I thought that if it had been just four volumes long, instead of two, that maybe there would have been enough time to develop the characters a little bit more.  I remember that there were plot points that were supposed to have a large impact, but because the characters never really became three-dimensional, that impact just doesn't hit with the force it needs (as evidenced by the fact that I can't remember a damn thing about it).  I doubt I'll be collecting this one.

It certainly wasn't a bad manga.  I remember enjoying it, at least.  It's just that beyond its unique take on shoujo, it doesn't stand out.  I would call Blank Slate "almost, but not quite."

Black Bird

Title:  Black Bird
Mangaka:  Kanoko Sakurakoji
Length:  14 Volumes (ongoing)
English Translation?  Yes, 12 volumes so far by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shoujo/Fantasy/Romance/Drama

How did I find out about it?  It hangs out in the Top 40 list at mangareader.net.

Misao has been able to see youkai (demons) her entire life.  As she nears her sixteenth birthday, their attacks become more and more bold.  There to save her is someone she never thought she'd meet again:  a childhood friend whom she fondly remembers as her first love, Kyo, who is now a handsome twenty-year-old.  She learns that Kyo is also a demon and the head of his clan.  He has come back to make good on a promise he made to her as a child, which was to marry her.  He reveals to her that she is a rare human known as the Senka.  This means any demon that consumes her blood will gain great power.  It is also said that wedding and bedding her will bring great prosperity to a clan.  But does he truly love her or just want her for the sake of his clan?

Human girl falls for otherworldly man... Yeah, that's been done before.  But as cliche as it sounds, I really thought it would be right up my alley.  However, this series just didn't do it for me.  The problem wasn't the premise.  It was the characters.  I know that many people love this manga, and that's great.  I would never antagonize someone for not sharing my opinion.  To each his own, right?  I'm just saying that personally, this wasn't my favorite, and now I shall tell you why.

First, we have Misao.  At first, she's resistant to Kyo because she's not sure if he genuinely loves her or if he's just out to gain power for his clan.  Once she's convinced, she resists no more and falls completely in love with him. This is fine.  My issue with Misao is how helpless she is.  She truly plays the damsel in distress.  These demons are out to consume her, yet she never really tries to defend herself.  She finds herself constantly in danger and consistently fails to offer any kind of resistance.  I'm a sucker for stories where the knight in shining armor performs the daring rescue at the last minute, but I feel that protecting Misao is a full-time job.  Kyo definitely has his work cut out for him.  I will say this for Misao though.  She grows more spine as the series moves along.  Rather than learning to physically defend herself, she does begin to show initiative as the plot thickens.  She doesn't cower in fear when it comes to Kyo's malevolent older brother.  She stands up to the man who threatens her and Kyo's relationship.  I was glad to see that, and I did gain a little more respect for Misao.  She just hasn't quite won me over yet.

Moving on to Kyo.  I don't doubt that he truly loves Misao.  He does prove throughout the series that his love is genuine.  He went to great lengths just to be able to marry her, and he proves time and time again that her safety is his top priority.  I just didn't like the way he was written.  His personality seemed very disjointed to me.  Sometimes he's aloof and seems too preoccupied to pay attention to Misao, then he'll suddenly be incredibly smitten, lavishing attention on her and becoming quite jealous and over-protective of her.  Sometimes he's very smooth and romantic with her, but then he'll suddenly be harsh with her or tease her almost to the point of cruelty.  Ok, so "cruelty" is a little extreme.  More specifically, he often teases her, dangling his affection just out of reach, to the point where she's in tears, then he reveals he was "only joking" and just wanted to get a rise out of her.  I call that being an asshole.  I just felt that overall, his personality bounced from one extreme to the other with no fluid transition between any of his moods.  I just haven't been able to bring myself to like Kyo.

I know I was fairly harsh with the series right then, but honestly, I don't hate it.  I still read the new chapters as they are scanlated.  I'm actually liking it a bit more lately.  I really do like the story.  I just wish the characters worked a little better for me.  If Misao had demonstrated more strength and spirit in the beginning, and if Kyo were toned down just a bit and smoothed out, I think I could really love this series.  As it stands right now though, I'm just not in love.  Currently, I have no plans to collect this one.

Oh, and one other thing... the artwork is very beautiful, no?  I really loved the art.

Beast Master

Title:  Beast Master
Mangaka:  Kyousuke Motomi
Length:  2 Volumes (Completed)
English Translation?  Yes, both volumes have been released by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shoujo/Romantic Comedy

How did I find out about it?  I'm a huge fan of Motomi's Dengeki Daisy, and I thought I would look into some of her other works, too.

When a new boy with gleaming black eyes transfers to her school, Yuiko's classmates avoid him in fear.  Fortunately, she had already had a brief encounter with him, and she suspected that he wasn't all that scary.  She befriends the boy, Leo, and learns that he was raised by his dad in the wild.  As such, he's not great at socializing even though he's a very nice boy.  There's one catch:  when he's in danger, he goes on a rampage at the sight of blood, even having killed a leopard in the past.  He and Yuiko strike up a somewhat awkward friendship, and as she gets to know him, she learns the secret of his family that saw his father pulling him from the country.

This will be a short review, simply because I don't have a great deal to say about a two-volume manga (some of which was filled with a couple of one-shots by Motomi-sensei).  First off, I'm gonna go ahead and say it:  this series is a little odd.  Leo is very sweet, and Yuiko is plenty quirky.  But a boy who goes a bit mad at the sight of blood?  In the real world, it would never work.  Good thing this isn't the real world, now, isn't it?  It was a very sweet manga.  I love Motomi-sensei's art style and her sense of humor, both of which were up to par here.

All in all, despite its strange premise, the series was cute and sweet.  The characters were fun and entertaining.  The romance was predictable, yet adorable.  It was definitely one of the stronger short series that I've read.  Would I collect it?  Yes, and I already have. :)

Basara

Title:  Basara
Mangaka:  Yumi Tamura
Length:  27 Volumes (Completed)
English Translation?  Yes, all volumes have been released by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shoujo/Sci-Fi/Romance/Adventure/Drama

How did I find out about it?  My college otaku buddy recommended it to me!

The story takes place in the future in a post-apocalyptic Japan.  The country is now run by a powerful Emperor and his four sons.  In a small village, it is prophesied that the "Child of Destiny" will be born.  When twins are born, the people of the village assume the male child, Tatara, to be the fated child.  The other twin, Sarasa, is raised living in her brother's shadow.  When they are fifteen, the Red King attacks their village, kills their the village chief (their father), and beheads Tatara.  To steady the villagers, Sarasa cuts her hair and claims to be Tatara, stating that it was Sarasa in disguise who was murdered.  With very few people knowing that she is really Sarasa, she begins her quest to seek revenge upon the Red King for destroying her family, but her journey soon grows to encompass the future of all of Japan.  Along the way, she meets a confident (coughegomaniaccough) young man at a hot spring.  When she's with Shuri, she's able to be herself, and the two soon fall in love, neither one realizing that they are in fact enemies, since Shuri is actually the Red King.

The artwork took some getting used to.  It did tidy up a bit as the series progressed, but it was never what I would call "beautiful."  I hesitate to label it "ugly," though.  It's just...a little unconventional.  As I read Basara, I grew accustomed to it and really came to appreciate it (and I still believe that Shuri is a handsome man!).

The series was maybe a little slow to start, but once it got going, I was completely swept up in it.  I loved the sheer scope of it.  As Tatara, Sarasa must travel all over Japan in search of the Four Swords in hopes of uniting the various peoples of the country in her battle against the tyrannical rule of the Kings.  This manga really had a sense of adventure, and I loved that about it.

What was truly the highlight for me though was the lead characters and their romance.  In the beginning, Sarasa's only goal is to slay the Red King.  She trains, she leads her people, all in the hopes of having a face-to-face encounter with him.  After that, she figures she'll just tell everyone the truth about who she really is, then try to start a new life.  However, as she proceeds along her journey, she realizes that it can never be as simple as that.  The Red King isn't the source of their problems, and her people have come to rely on her (or on Tatara, rather) to bring about a change in the world for the better.  She knows that it's selfish to pursue only her own revenge and ignore the suffering of not just her village but of all of Japan.  Something else we also see in Sarasa is her psychological struggle.  She's never allowed to be herself.  In the eyes of the public around her, she must always be Tatara.  She can't even relax around those few who know her secret because they are constantly pushing her forward with things like: "What's next?"  "Where do we go?"  "Think of what Tatara would do."  No matter who she's with, she can't behave like a girl, she can't be herself...except for when she's with Shuri.  She met him by chance, and he had absolutely no reason to make a connection between her and Tatara, so she was free to be Sarasa around him.  Likewise, as the Red King, he finds it refreshing to be around a girl who treats him like a regular man, so he doesn't feel the need to reveal that he's royalty to her.  I really loved Shuri.  Yes, he was over-confident and could be a real pecker sometimes, but he truly was a kind and just man.  Why did he kill her family if he's so "kind?"  A means to an end, which brings me to my next point.  Without realizing it, Tatara and the Red King had the same goals.  They just sought them in different ways.  Shuri hated the way his father and brothers ran the country.  He wanted to do away with them and anyone else who stood between him and the throne.  Once he had gained the crown, he planned to revamp the way Japan was run and make it a better place for the people.  Any lives lost along the way were merely a price that had to be paid.  The legends surrounding Tatara as being one who could topple the royal family made him an obstacle that had to be removed if Shuri were to seek the throne.  On the opposite side, Sarasa/Tatara also sought to make Japan into a place where its people could live in peace.  However, she loathed the loss of life and naively hoped for a way to change the world without throwing away lives (except for the Red King's, of course).  Though they did not know each other's identity, their ideals bled into one another.  Shuri came to value human life and seek more peaceful ways of going about his agenda, and Sarasa learned that she cannot fall apart when blood is shed in a war.

I feel like I said a lot there, but I only scratched the surface of what I loved about this manga.  Was it perfect?  No.  The side characters left something to be desired.  There were a couple that interested me, but for the most part, many of them felt like they were only there to move the plot along.  Nevertheless, I loved this story.  Will I collect it?  Yeah, I plan to.  It will be difficult though.  A couple of volumes have reached "very rare" status.  I still haven't decided yet if I'm insane enough to spend $100 or more on a single volume of manga.  Maybe I'll just collect what's reasonable and then search like mad for a drop in price on those two volumes...I dunno.  I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

As a side note, the music nut in me often stumbles upon songs that fit the situation (in my opinion, at least).  My favorite song for Basara was TRANSMISSIONS' "My World."  For me, it was Sarasa's theme, mostly for the second half of the manga.

Banana Fish

Title:  Banana Fish
Mangaka:  Akimi Yoshida
Length:  19 Volumes (Complete)
English Translation? Yes, all have been released by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shoujo/Action/Drama

How did I hear about it?  My trusted college otaku buddy made the recommendation!

Near the end of the war in Vietnam, an American soldier loses it and guns down many of his fellow men, only able to utter the words "Banana Fish" over and over again.  Fast forward to New York City in 1985 as that soldier's younger brother Ash, now 17, still struggles to find out what "Banana Fish" means and what happened to his brother.  Ash has lived a difficult life as the pet of Papa Golzine, a powerful man who peddles young boys, and now leads a network of gangs in the city.  Joining the investigation is a journalist and war buddy of Ash's brother, Max Lobo.  Max has connected with a Japanese friend who has come to New York with his assistant, Eiji, to do an article on American gang life.  The group finds themselves sinking deeper and deeper into the secrets behind "Banana Fish" that leads to some of the country's most powerful people.

I feel like that was a very difficult summary to write.  How do I cover the gist without revealing too much?  I really enjoyed this manga.  I wasn't impressed with the artwork.  Like most long series, the style did shift and develop as the years passed, but it was never one of my favorite styles.  That aside, it looked delightfully 80s, which I loved.

Though BF is a shoujo, it crossed over to a pretty wide audience.  There're  no flowers and romance to be found here.  Instead, it's guns and conspiracies.  I believe its classification as a shoujo comes from the relationship between Ash and Eiji.  While there's no romance between them, they share a very close bond that exudes overtones of shounen-ai while never quite crossing into that territory.  So if boy's love isn't your thing, don't write the series off.  If it is your thing, then don't get your hopes up because nothing ever really happens.

The story was great.  You'll find yourself caught up in the investigation along with Ash, as he uncovers the big picture, piece by piece.  Where this story truly shines however, is in the characters.  I adored Ash and Eiji.  Ash has only ever known abuse, betrayal, and violence.  As such, he cares for no one and is well-versed in how to survive.  An injury forced Eiji to give up his dreams in Japan, and now he's thrust from a peaceful life into Ash's world.  Though they come from different worlds and have lived different lives, they understand each other and form an unbreakable bond.  Throughout the series, you watch Ash slowly thaw out as he learns to care for and protect his new-found friend.  On the other hand, Eiji grows and develops into an emotionally strong person who is there to be a pillar to Ash.  I also loved that Eiji slowly became able to protect himself by developing survival skills.

Overall, this was a great manga.  Great character relationships, an exciting plot, an interesting setting.  There's a reason that it's on many lists of classic titles.  While it wasn't the pinnacle of awesome for me, it was still a pretty sweet read.  Also, the ending is bittersweet, and the final volume contains a very nice epilogue that was actually a one-shot spin-off.