Manga Summary: Penguin Revolution Volume 5

First off, let me say, for those of you out there who like "Penguin Revolution", Tsukuba Sakura has another great manga series called, "Land of the Blindfolded". Check it out, if you haven't already. Okay, back to "Penguin Revolution." In this volume we find out the secret behind "Yoko Oka", "Ryo, and, Ayaori and the connection they share. Ayaori and Yakari sorta go on a date and Yasuoka, a competing talent agency, drugs and then tries to blackmail poor Ryo. The chapter ends with all of peacock's talent in an exciting new movie, closing with the potential rising stardom of Ryo. As usual this is a pleasant read. There are hints, now of a possible love triangle between Ayaori, Yakari, and Ryo. Perhaps Ayaori is cluing in on Yakari being girl, although, I thought he already knew and was just playing along. But the events in this volume, suggest maybe not. He might be totally clueless. Hopefully, it won't take too long for the next volume to come out.

Manga Summary: Kagetora Volume 8

Ahh, "Kagetora", this fluffly little pubescent male fantasy entertains me so much with its innocence. In this volume, Kagatora's brother, Taka, drops in for a visit. He tells Hime that she must score a hit on him within 24-hrs or her strict grandmother is going to come and reinforce her training. Oh, no, if Hime's grandma comes, then Hime's relationship with Kagetora will be threatened. What's an unathletic Rubenesce teenage girl to do? After that, it's off to an amusement park, where Taka acts like a typical older brother and gives Kagetora much grief. It got a chuckle out of me. Onto another episode in which Hime freaks out because she's gained a little bit of weight. Will Kagetora find out? (Will Kagetora even care?). The second half of this volume features some extra comics like you would find in supplemental editions of the big manga magazines (La La DX, for example). They play like regular chapters, so I don't understand why they are called out specially. Anyhow, one is about Hime doing martial arts while drunk, another involves hime going out on a date with a boy from Jr. High, the third is an onsen chapter, and the last one is a Valentines day story. All of the chapters are sweet as usual. And now I wait for Volume 9.

Manga Review: King of the Lamp

I was anticipating this manga because I enjoyed "Tenshi ja Nai". I was sorely disappointed. This is the second worst manga I have read behind "Fall in Love Like Comic." Basically this manga is a series of very bad short stories that center around a lecherous king who, after taking 1000 of his countries most beautiful women into his harem, was enslaved inside a magic lamp. To gain his freedom he must help 1000 women improve their love lives. The basic story pattern is as follows: girl loves hot guy from afar. Girl makes a stupid wish to be with that guy. In a case of mistaken identity or intention, the sought after guy tries to rape the girl. The girl makes a second wish and possibly a third and the guy realizes he "loves" the girl and then they have sex. Sigh ... I would have been pissed at this great offense to women-kind, except the stories are so poorly written that I was laughing hysterically while reading this manga. UGH, it was bad! There are some extra stories after the 3 cases of "King of the Lamp". "I'll Kill you with a Kiss" was half-way okay. I give this 1/5 because I did read through it all, laughing the entire time, though.

Tokyo Pop Widget Removed

My experiment is over. Removing the widget was easy within Blogger. I just went to my Template tab and removed the entire "page element" from my blog template. I apologize again if I annoyed anybody.

Manga Review: Pearl Pink

I finished "Pearl Pink" by Meca Tanaka last weekend and I think I was satisfied with the way it ended. If you read my initial write-up after reading the first volume, I was concerned about the direction this manga was going when the main female character, Tamako, decided that she wanted to be an idol. I think it played well for me because I felt that the story didn't deal so much with Tamako becoming an idol, so much as how Tamako and Kanji deal with Tamako's pursuit of stardom. I think the most important part of this was Tamako forcing her independence from Kanji and her mother's stardom and Kanji letting Tamako go for the sake of her career and their relationship. Sometimes that can tough, and I think the stress of being apart for long periods and the general wanting to the know at all times about the well being of a cared about person were shown well in this manga. Kanji also had to grow-up and become independent from his father and his father's business for Kanji's sake, as a person, and for the sake of the business he will one day inherit.

I felt the business about the identity of Tamako's father came out of nowhere and really didn't move me because it felt so inconsequential to the story. I think it would have worked better for me if that part of the story had been introduced earlier and with more impact, rather than as an afterthought.

I give this 4 volume manga series 4/5. Oh and another thing, this manga sorta has the same feel as "Faster than a Kiss" -- more like a "-lite" pre-cursor to try out the idea of relationship between a older, somewhat career decided adult male and female student love interest and to play with the idea of a guy who has a fetish for dressing up girls in costumes. In many ways Kanji is like Ojiru, but without the bad history.