Recent Reads! " Summer Wars" Part 2

Title: Summer War's Part 2
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

"Summer Wars" Part 2 was a lot more fun than Part 1. My husband again criticized the series for not faithfully representing the IT profession, to which I reminded him again that no one wants to see a manga about real IT work and workers because they are BORING. Again I recommend readers let "Summer Wars" take you into its world and just go with it.

The thing I ended up liking the most about "Summer Wars" is even though the events that are taking place on a global scale, the story itself is focused on the relationship between the members of one family and one couple. The family must come together to solve the global problem and Kenji and Natsuki must grow up and discover their true strength so they can lead in Granny Sekai's place. It's got action and sci-fi, but at the same time it's grounded in a sweet old-fashioned slice-of-life scenerio. And to top is off, the pacing is very good. I couldn't put the book down until I was done.

In summary, I give "Summer Wars" Part 2 an A, and the series as a whole an A-.  I highly recommend this series and I encourage you to purchase it to send Vertical the message that this is the kind of stuff we like. More please!

Link to review of "Summer Wars" Part 1

What I read Last Week: Manga Reviews!

I did quite a bit of pleasure readying last week, so I have four books to write about now.  I'll do full reviews for two book and quick review for the other two as they are follow on volumes to series I've been reading on an ongoing basis.

Title: Summer Wars, Part 1
Artists and Story:  Mamoru Hosoda and Iqura Sugimoto
US Publisher: Vertical
ISBN: 9781030130150
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

First Impression:  The cover makes it look like slice-of-life. I don't like slice of life, but this is Vertical, so I bet this cover totally misrepresents the actual train wreck of a story inside.  Whoa! What?!  This isn't a trainwreck?!!! It's actually a nice slice-of-life story with sci-fi elements.  I really like this!

Breakdown:

Artwork -- A: It's nice and simple.  The facial expressions are telling, the characters look distinct, the characters actually look their age, and backgrounds are nicely detailed. The color pages are really pretty (it helps that I love sunflowers).

Presentation -- B+:  I love the front and back covers. They are very telling of the story -- this is a slice-of-life story with sci-fi elements.  The color pages are gorgeous and the translation reads smoothly.  The drawback is the lettering. It looks amateurish.  I don't like manga with cased fonts used for the main dialog.  On top of that, the line spacing is too wide on some pages.  I think the inconsistency of line spacing is what bothered me the most.

Story -- B+: This is a typical loser-boy pursues a girl who he thinks is out of his league shounen story.  The main character is a loser even though his math skills are second in the nation, and the girl is just pretty and popular.  What's best about the story in this part is the interaction of the main character, Kenji, and his love interest's grandmother. The grandmother is the star of this part, and I wish there was some back story about her.  The sci-fi elements involve computer hacking in a virtual world. I just accepted the representation of the mechanics of this world because if it were realistically represented, it would be boring.  Anyhow, on the whole the pacing is good and Kenji and Wabisuke's interaction with the grandmother are quite interesting.

Overall -- B+:  This is a pleasant read with enough mystery to keep the reader wanting more. I highly recommend this title to Crimson Flower readers.
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Title: Crimson Empire
Story and Artist: Quinrose and Hazuki Futaba
US Publisher: Seven Seas
ISBN: 978-1937867232
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

First Impressions: Meh... it looks like typical Quinrose.  The first chapter is really interesting. Can we continue with Sheila's back story, please? Meh... who are all these bishies that are being thrown into the story? What the heck is going on? Where did these bishies come from? @_@