Manga: Tail of the Moon, Volume 8

"Tail of the Moon" continues on with the adventures of Usagi and Hanzo Hattori. For those of you not familiar with this story, it's a fluffly romp through feudal Japan in which the Ninja clans of Iga are perpetually preparing for war, each clan aligning themselves with either the treacherous Nobunaga or the Budda-like Ieyasu Toukagawa. Usagi and Hanzo are, of course, aligned with Toukagawa. The story starts as Usagi is sent to a neighboring ninja village to become the wife of the clan head, Hanzo Hattori. Her main duty is described as bearing him a strong heir. Usagi is a Rubenesque teenager, who for the most part is not good for much other than bearing children -- okay, that's worth a lot -- sorry. Hanzo is a stoic ninja who initially shows no interest in Usagi and says he will not marry her until she becomes a ninja. Hanzo, of course, is gorgeous, so Usagi and every other single female swoons in Hanzo's presence. Usagi trains hard, but it seems that she's not cut out to be ninja. She is, however, an uncommonly good herbalist, which is great addition to a ninja village. And so the story goes with Hanzo, various relatives, and villagers going on adventures with Usagi as she tries to qualify to be a ninja. As things progress, Usagi's character strengthens and Hanzo heart melts -- it's so nice :).

Anyhow, in this volume Usagi is finally earns her ninja qualification, which is quickly revoked. To get it back, she is sent on a mission with Goemon, her childhood friend and initial fiancee. (Goemon is still in love with her.) On this mission Usagi and Goemon must pretend to be husband and wife and there's some tension, mostly in Goemon's mind about the situation. Usagi ends up in the base of the enemy without Hanzo and all seems lost ...

This was yet another fun volume of this series. I like how this series manages to move along without ever taking itself too seriously, while at the same time, being packed with adventure and heart. I like the little fan service drawings between the chapters. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment of this fun manga series.

Manga: Train + Train, Volumes 1 and 2

This manga series is from the same author as "Read or Die." It is the story of an unlikely couple, the raucous Arena and the mild mannered Reiichi. In this world children go off to board school trains. Reiichi and his childhood friend, Liae, travel to planet Deluca to board the general education train when, through a cultural misunderstanding, Liae pisses off a big lion-man-beast. Arena, who is on the run for various reasons saves the mild-manner pair from a serious beating before Arena's pursuers show up. Due to some complications, Arena and Reiichi get handcuffed together for 99-hours, and Reiichi is tricked and forced to board the "Special Train" that Arena has vowed to catch. Suddenly, Reiichi is faced with a life way outside the norm he thought he was destined for and so the adventures of Arena and Reiichi begin ...

So far I like this series a lot. I like Arena's spunkiness and Reiichi is turning out not to be the mild-manner wimp he had settled on being. It's nice seeing how in just two volume how much confidence and manliness Reiichi has developed. The side characters are weird, mainly for the sake of weirdness. They add to the atmosphere, but not to the story, which may be a drawback as the story progresses. Usually, I don't like it when the story take detours into the lives of the side characters, but this series is really too sparing with backstories for the accessory characters. The violence in this manga is well tempered -- not too much and not too little and it's not lost on the reader that these characters are in real danger. In the notes, the mangaka wrote he we was worried that pairing a male and female character together would eventually make this story become a romance. Personally, that is what I want to see. Well, I guess I'll just have to wait to se how this progresses.

If you like action and adventure, I highly recommend this manga series. I will give updates as I progress through the story.

New Manga: BlackBird

From the mangaka who brought us "Backstage Prince" comes another tale of a good hearted but weak female, Misao, and a bad tempered Tengu, Kyou, who disguises himself as a handsome guy. Misao has the misfortune of being able to see supernatural beings and now at the age of 16 has become the target of those supernatural beings who wish to eat her to gain eternal life or marry her to strengthen their clan. Kyou wants to marry Misao, but Misao doubts his sincerity and believes he only seeks to strengthen his clan. Kyou shows up in Misao's everyday life as her Math teacher at her high school (but of course). Anyhow, most of the stories revolve around various beasties attacking Misao and Kyou coming to her rescue followed by Misao asking herself why this guy bothers. Meanwhile Kyo seems to find some excuse to lick her, whether it's licking Misao's wounds to heal her, or licking her as a prelude to a kiss, or licking her in her dreams and so on ... Half of me continues to read this just to see how creative the licking can get ... (I'm sad, sad, sad person ...). Somewhere in here, there is a story, but I'm just so distracted by the licking that I haven't quite grasped it.

Anyhow, this is also being serialized in Betsucomi, which I just got a copy of today.

Review: Black God, Volume 1

When I saw this manga in the bookstore, I thought that it would be interesting. A loser of a guy gets in a fight to protect a homeless looking girl at a ramen stand loses his arm in the fight and wakes up the next morning with somebody else's arm. That was the first chapter and then from there it goes down hill fast. The rest of the manga seems to be one long and violent fight between the girl and some monstrous guy ... like I even care why. And it doesn't really matter, because the story does not give a reason for this fight other than this street thug asshole likes to fight strong opponents. It's pretty obvious I won't be continuing this lovely tale of violence and fan service, that is if you can call a panty shot while the heroine is being beaten mercilessly "fan service". 1/5 for a promising start and then a complete let down.

Wild Ones (Arakure), Volume 1

This is a delightful manga series about a girl, Sachie Wakamura, orphaned at the age of 15 who finds out she's a yukuza princess when her grandfather comes to retrieve her at her mother's funeral. She is assigned a personal body guard, Rakuto Igarashi, who also happens to be the student council president of the high school she starts to attend. Rakuto is a "princely" type guy who never really lets anybody get to know him -- so, of course, he's very popular with the girls at school. Rakuto is a orphan, too, who Sachie's grandfather has taken in and treated like family. Upon meeting, Rakuto treats Sachie very nicely which makes Sachie thinks he's weird, because, of course, normal people don't treat strangers as friendly as he does. But as you can guess, they met in the past and Rakuto has promised to protect his princess. Sigh ... it makes your heart pitter-patter. There's sweetness all around mixed with some light humor (mostly about the Sachie's new yukuza "family"), and a fair bit of action oriented violence. I enjoyed this first volume greatly enough to order the next 3 volumes from Japan. Fortunately, this is also being serialized in the "Hana to Yume" magazine, so I will be able to keep up with this series as it releases :).