Review: MY LOVE STORY!! Volume 2

MY LOVE STORY!!, VOL. 2
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

STORY: Kazune Kawahara
ART: Aruko
TRANSLATION: JN Productions
ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane
LETTERS: Mark McMurray
ISBN: 978-1-4215-7145-4; paperback (October 2014); Rated “T” for “Teen”
192pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Kazune Kawahara is a manga creator best known for her romantic comedy shojo manga, High School Debut.  She also writes the high school, romantic comedy manga, Ore Monogatari, which is drawn by Aruko.  VIZ Media recently began publishing Ore Monogatari in North America as My Love Story!!

The series focuses on high school student, Takeo Goda.  He is a gentle giant, but he isn't the most attractive fellow.  He also has a giant heart, but girls won't have anything to do with him.  Then he meets Rinko Yamato, after saving her from a harasser on the train.  Yamato falls in love with Takeo and his life changes.

As My Love Story!!, Vol. 2 (Chapters 4 to 7) opens, Takeo is enjoying life with a girlfriend.  Now, that Takeo has a girlfriend, his friends also want to meet girls, so Yamato plans a mixer.  Everything is going well when some of the friends decide to start saying bad things.  Also, Takeo agrees to help out the Shuei High judo team, but that means time away from Yamato.  Will this relationship, which is still in its “honeymoon stage,” survive gossipy friends and sports tournaments?

[This volume contains an interview with series creators, Kazune Kawahara and Aruko.]

The My Love Story!! manga is a sweet high school shojo love story.  Reading it tickles my imagination; it's dessert for my brain.  That's all I can say about it for now.  I have to admit that I cannot help but love a volume of manga that includes four recipes for Japanese treats, sweet and savory.  Manga plus foodie culture – that's nice.

B

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

Review: TONOHARU: Part One

TONOHARU: PART ONE
PLIANT PRESS/TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS – @topshelfcomix

CARTOONIST: Lars Martinson – @larsmartinson
ISBN:  978-0-9801023-6-9; paperback (October 7, 2014)
128pp, 2-color, $14.95 U.S.

On and off since 2003, cartoonist Lars Martinson has been living and working in Japan.  Those experiences inspired his comic book project, Tonoharu.

Tonoharu: Part One is an original graphic novel written and drawn by Martinson and originally published in 2008 by Pliant Press (and distributed by Top Shelf Productions) as a hardcover book.  Although Tonoharu is a planned four-volume series, only Tonoharu: Part Two (2010) has been released since the first volume.  A softcover edition of Tonoharu: Part One was just recently published.

Tonoharu is the story of Daniel “Dan” Wells, a young American working in rural Japan.  The story focuses on Well's daily life and routine, which is largely dull and unimaginative, because Wells has not embraced his new home, nor has he even mastered the Japanese language.

A recent college graduate, Dan moves to rural Japan to work as an assistant English teacher.  There are other “foreigners” in the village of Tōnoharu, where Dan lives and works at the local school, but he has a difficult time connecting with them.  He eventually meets Constance, a young American woman he likes very much, but she teaches in another town and seems to already have a boyfriend.

The visual structure that Martinson creates merges style, rhythm, form, and design.  It is both visually appealing and revealing of plot, setting, and mood.  This allows Martinson to portray the story of Dan as one of a young man boxed in or perhaps boxing himself in after he moves to an alien environment.

Tonoharu is a tale of a stranger in a strange land, and Martinson lets the reader into that new world.  That is how we understand Dan’s dilemma.  He is lost and alone, imprisoned and isolated, mostly of his own doing.  Martinson presents a very open narrative which allows the reader to share Dan’s experience, which, in turn, allows me to interpret Dan's story in my own way.

Allowing the readers to grapple with Dan Wells on their own terms is what makes Tonoharu: Part One both interesting and appealing.  I hope this series continues.  This paperback release of Tonoharu: Part One includes an “Afterword,” written by Martinson in Spring 2014, in which he says that he is still a “couple of years” from finishing Tonoharu.

A-

larsmartinson.com
topshelfcomix.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

Review: HONEY BLOOD Volume 1

HONEY BLOOD, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Miko Mitsuki
TRANSLATION: pinkie-chan
ENGLISH ADAPTATION: Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane
LETTERS: Joanna Estep
ISBN: 978-1-4215-7337-3; paperback (October 2014); Rated “T” for “Teen”
192pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

There is a new vampire shojo manga from VIZ Media.  Entitled Honey Blood, it is created by Miko Mitsuki.  The series follows a high school girl and the mysterious writer of vampire romance novels who might also have a taste for blood.

Honey Blood, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 5) opens as a female high school student becomes the latest victim in a string of attacks.  In fact, all the victims are young women, and all have suffered massive blood loss, although none of the attacks, as of yet, have been fatal.  The victim is from the same school as  Hinata Sorazono, and everyone is on edge.

Everyone seems to think that the attacker is a vampire, but Hinata refuses to believe that vampires exist.  She even refuses to read the popular vampire romance novel, Until the Ends of the Earth, that is so popular with her best friend and with fellow students.  However, she discovers that her new neighbor is the novel's author, Junya Tokinaga.  She reluctantly becomes interested in this author with an old-world air about him, but as the attacks on young women continue, Hinata begins to wonder if Junya is somehow involved.

The Honey Blood manga is no Vampire Knight.  Honey Blood has some novel ideas about vampires, but it is as much about innuendo and heavy panting and sighing as it is about vampires – if not more.  Vampire Knight is edgy, dark, brutal, and tragic.  Honey Blood is about a high school girl getting mixed up with an older man, who is conflicted about being chivalrous.

This is not supernatural puppy love, but Honey Blood is closer to Twilight than to any other vampire manga recently released in North America (such as the dark, morbid, and weird Black Rose Alice).  Right now, I am not really impressed with it, but I suspect that once adversarial characters are introduced (such as a rival vampire and a rival love interest), Honey Blood will be like hotter blood.

B

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

Book Review: AFTER I'M GONE

AFTER I'M GONE
HARPCOLLINS/William Morrow – @HarperCollins; @WmMorrowBks

AUTHOR: Laura Lippman
ISBN: 978-0-06-208341-8; paperback (August 12, 2014)
352pp, B&W, $14.99 U.S.

After I'm Gone is a 2014 crime novel from Laura Lippman, The New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know.  A paperback original, After I'm Gone is the story of how one man’s disappearance echoes through the lives of the five women he left behind:  his wife, his three daughters, and his mistress.

Felix Brewer saw Bernadette “Bambi” Gottschalk at a Valentine’s Dance in 1959, and it was love at first sight.  Felix charmed Bambi with wild promises, and because of his lucrative, but largely illegal business ventures, he was able to keep some of those promises.  Felix, Bambi and their three little girls:  Linda, Rachel, and Michelle lived in luxury.  However, Felix eventually ended up convicted and facing prison time.  On July 4, 1976, Felix mysteriously vanished.

Felix also had a mistress, Julie Saxony a.k.a. Juliet Romeo.  Everyone, including Bambi, thought Julie knew where Felix or his money was.  However, on July 4 1986, Julie disappears.  Her remains are eventually found on or about September 23, 2001.

On March 2, 2012, twenty-six years after Julie first went missing,  Roberto “Sandy” Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective who works as a consultant for extra cash, opens a cold case, investigating Julie's murder.  Sandy is about to enter a tangled web that connects five intriguing women, with Felix Brewer at the center.  Sandy is determined to find the truth, but can he unravel about five decades of history and three decades of intrigue?

The mystery of Felix Brewer's whereabouts is really not especially important to After I'm Gone.  The murder of Julie Saxony makes this book crime fiction and a murder mystery, but the whodunit is not as important as the women of Felix Brewer.  Yes, it's the women of the missing man who are crucial to this novel.

The truth is that After I'm Gone is an exceptional work of fiction and a superb read, beyond being a good murder mystery and semi-police procedural.  I have read and listened to critics who have described things as “delicious.”  I didn't every think that I would describe something as delicious in a review, but...  The women of After I'm Gone are delicious characters.  My imagination dined on them for 300-plus pages and could have gobbled another 300 pages.

There is nothing about this book title or about its cover and graphic design that suggests the surprising tragedy and shocking plots twists that Lippman offers in this hugely engrossing novel.  If this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner is a better read than After I'm Gone, it will have to have been conceived by a divine mind.

A+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for October 8, 2014

DC COMICS

AUG140312     ARROW SEASON 2.5 #1     $2.99
AUG140355     ASTRO CITY #16 (DEFY)     $3.99
AUG140285     BATGIRL #35     $2.99
AUG140268     BATMAN #35     $4.99
AUG140271     BATMAN #35 COMBO PACK     $5.99
AUG140264     BATMAN ETERNAL #27     $2.99
JUL140253     BATMAN NOIR THE LONG HALLOWEEN HC     $49.99
AUG140359     COFFIN HILL #12 (DEFY) (MR)     $2.99
AUG140250     CONSTANTINE #18     $2.99
AUG140192     EARTH 2 #27     $2.99
JUN140265     EARTH 2 HC VOL 04 THE DARK AGE (N52)     $22.99
JUL140241     EARTH 2 TP VOL 03 BATTLE CRY (N52)     $14.99
AUG140187     EARTH 2 WORLDS END #1     $2.99
AUG140363     FBP FEDERAL BUREAU OF PHYSICS #14 (DEFY) (MR)     $2.99
JUL140250     GREEN ARROW TP VOL 02 HERE THERE BE DRAGONS     $14.99
JUL140242     GREEN ARROW TP VOL 05 OUTSIDERS WAR (N52)     $16.99
AUG140301     GREEN LANTERN CORPS #35 (GODHEAD)     $2.99
AUG140318     INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US YEAR THREE #1     $2.99
AUG140230     JUSTICE LEAGUE UNITED #5     $3.99
AUG140234     JUSTICE LEAGUE UNITED #5 COMBO PACK     $4.99
AUG140205     KLARION #1     $2.99
AUG140218     NEW 52 FUTURES END #23 (WEEKLY)     $2.99
AUG140212     NEW SUICIDE SQUAD #3     $2.99
AUG140348     SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #50     $2.99
AUG140323     SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 CHAOS #3     $3.99
JUL140256     SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 TP VOL 05 OLYMPUS     $14.99
AUG140258     SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN #12 (DOOMED)     $3.99
AUG140260     SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN #12 COMBO PACK (DOOMED)     $4.99
JUL140285     UNWRITTEN TP VOL 10 WAR STORIES (MR)     $14.99
AUG140262     WORLDS FINEST #27     $2.99

DC COMICS/DC COLLECTIBLES

APR140312     DC COMICS COVER GIRLS KATANA STATUE     $99.95
MAR140309     DC COMICS NEW 52 EARTH 2 HAWKGIRL AF     $24.95
MAR140301     JUSTICE LEAGUE CHESS SET     $249.95
APR140308     SANDMAN OVERTURE STATUE     $149.95
APR140320     SUPERMAN THE MAN OF STEEL STATUE BY SHANE DAVIS     $79.95

Marvel Comics from Diamond Distributors for October 8, 2014

MARVEL COMICS

JUL140734     ALL NEW DOOP TP     $16.99
AUG140863     ALL NEW ULTIMATES #9     $3.99
AUG140795     AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #7 EOSV     $3.99
AUG140788     AVENGERS #36 TRO     $3.99
AUG140718     AVENGERS AND X-MEN AXIS #1     $4.99
AUG140850     CAPTAIN MARVEL #8     $3.99
JUL140729     CAPTAIN MARVEL TP VOL 01 HIGHER FURTHER FASTER MORE     $17.99
JUL148456     DARK TOWER DRAWING THREE PRISONER #1 2ND PTG VAR     $3.99
AUG140868     GEORGE ROMEROS EMPIRE OF DEAD ACT TWO #2     $3.99
AUG140931     GUARDIANS 3000 BY ROSS POSTER     $8.99
AUG140933     GUARDIANS 3000 BY SANDOVAL POSTER     $8.99
MAY140930     HAWKEYE TP VOL 03 LA WOMAN     $15.99
AUG140824     HAWKEYE VS DEADPOOL #1     $3.99
AUG140865     MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #13 SYU     $2.99
JUL140738     MARVELS COMPANION TP     $39.99
AUG140859     MIRACLEMAN #12 (MR)     $4.99
JUL148457     MS MARVEL #3 3RD PTG MCKELVIE VAR ANMN     $2.99
JUL148458     MS MARVEL #6 2ND PTG MCKELVIE VAR     $2.99
AUG140752     NIGHTCRAWLER #7     $3.99
AUG140930     ORIGINAL SIN BY ADAMS OVERSIZED VINYL POSTER     $49.99
AUG140836     PUNISHER #11     $3.99
JUL148459     ROCKET RACCOON #3 2ND PTG YOUNG VAR     $3.99
AUG140811     ROCKET RACCOON #4     $3.99
AUG140855     SAVAGE HULK #5     $3.99
JUN140728     SHE-HULK TP VOL 01 LAW AND DISORDER     $15.99
AUG140929     SPIDER-VERSE BY YOUNG POSTER     $8.99
AUG140767     THANOS A GOD UP THERE LISTENING #1     $3.99
AUG140932     THOR 75TH ANNIVERSARY BY ROSS POSTER     $8.99
JUL140736     ULTIMATE FF TP STRANGEST EVER     $17.99
JUL148460     WOLVERINE #12 2ND PTG MCNIVEN VAR     $5.99
AUG140878     X-FORCE #10     $3.99
JUL140732     X-MEN TP VOL 03 BLOODLINE     $17.99

IDW Publishing from Diamond Distributors for October 8, 2014

IDW PUBLISHING

AUG140521     CITY THE MIND IN THE MACHINE TP VOL 01     $14.99
JUN140432     DANGER GIRL MAYDAY #4     $3.99
AUG140518     DEAD SQUAD #1     $3.99
AUG140451     GI JOE A REAL AMERICAN HERO #207     $3.99
AUG140506     HAUNTED HORROR #13     $3.99
AUG140472     KILLOGY HALLOWEEN SPECIAL ONE SHOT     $3.99
AUG140434     LOCKE & KEY TP VOL 06 ALPHA & OMEGA     $24.99
AUG140431     MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #24     $3.99
AUG140433     MY LITTLE PONY OMNIBUS TP VOL 01     $24.99
AUG140445     OCTOBER FACTION #1     $3.99
JUL140335     RAGNAROK #2     $3.99
MAY140539     RIPLEYS BELIEVE IT OR NOT ORIG CARTOONS HC VOL 01     $39.99
JUL140392     STAR SLAMMERS REMASTERED #7     $3.99
AUG140480     STAR TREK NEW VISIONS CRY VENGEANCE     $7.99
AUG140481     STAR TREK NEW VISIONS TP     $19.99
FEB140341     TRANSFORMERS LEGACY ART OF TRANSFORMERS PACKAGING HC     $49.99
JUL140317     TRANSFORMERS VS GI JOE #3     $3.99
AUG140442     V WARS TP VOL 01 CRIMSON QUEEN     $9.99
AUG140439     V-WARS #6     $3.99
AUG140441     V-WARS HUNDRED PENNY PRESS ED #1     $1.00
JUN140345     WINTERWORLD #3     $3.99
JUN140444     WONDER WOMAN COMP NEWSPAPER DAILIES HC VOL 01     $49.99
JUL140331     X-FILES CLASSICS SEASON ONE HC VOL 01     $29.99