Manga reviews
Jun. 24th, 2006 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaI'll add ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
canis_m-style metadata later, just need to get the blurbs written as I'm way backlogged and the list is beginning to appear daunting. XD;
Title: Gorgeous Carat Galaxy
Author: Higuri You
Sequel to Gorgeous Carat 1-4, which I'm certain I blogged about, but probably dating back to 2001-2002. XD; It's one of Higuri You's lighter, ahistorical series. I haven't the gumption for a lengthy description (plot is ridiculous anyway) but French aristocrats, gentlemen thieves, kidnappings in the Casbah, that sort of thing. Shoujo with light BL elements. Contains one of the most useless ukes in shoujo/BLdom, though not only do I find it impossible to get annoyed at Florian, I have the same fondness for him as one might have for a very pretty and very stupid Persian cat - maybe it's the fact that the other characters are perfectly aware he's good for nothing but decorative purposes, like a Ming vase. Seme is an art thief so it's not hard to see his stance. XD Oh, and of course Florian is a v. kindhearted person etc.
(I have a tendency to slip and call him Louis, out of Anne Rice. Not so much canon as fanon; also he's much blonder.)
Am not surprised the continuation didn't run for very long as the plot she went with is just sort of sub-Count Cain. ^^; That is to say, the story is there but the atmosphere is never 100%. The issue is endemic to Higuri You, I think she squees at "darkness" but her own soul is free of the twisted corners and fissures of insanity it takes to come up with the effects of a Yuki Kaori or CLAMP. Even Eleanor - who is a classic Cain-type tragic femme fatale - mostly flits here and there with pert looks and swings of her shawl, and never looks mad or despairing so much as vague.
Plot summary for people who have read Gorgeous Carat: Florian is abducted and chained up by a girl. NO FOR REALS.
Title: Aishichatta no
Author: Hoshino Lily
Schoolboy fluff oneshots from 2000-2002, which I think was the period that institutionalised the schoolboy fluff oneshot as commercial cliché (the platonic ideal fetishized by SSBB, anyway XD). That, er, tells you all you need to know. Was going to file it under "pleasantly disposable" but a couple of the stories did ping for me emotionally, as well they ought since I own more Hoshino Lily than any other BL mangaka by now. I like her WAFF semes. They usually have high EQ, and a combination of assurance and wry self-awareness.
I do roffle at the portrayal of high school as a haven of cheerful inhibition-less heterosexual promiscuity, where boys and girls trade sexual favours as casually as cellphone charms, and the main pairing's romantic scooshyness is more an aberration in context than the m/m itself. The effect is perverse largely because Hoshino Lily has one of the sharpest design senses of all BL (and indeed shoujo) mangaka, slanted toward what Kristin once called "hardcore cute". Her modern-day characters, especially female ones, look like fashionable "mascot" cartoon characters printed on t-shirts for 12-year-old girls. Her fantasy or exotica is something else again. Every time I open "Alone in my King's Harem" I'm taken aback at how beautiful and intricate the art is. The lingering sense of round/clean/plastic/cute makes it easy to overlook the debt that book owes to Beardsley, say, or Kay Nielsen.
Not that Hoshino Lily's drawn anything like it before or since. That sort of thing is the fruit of a good editor saying "Go ahead and create what I know you're capable of." I hope whoever it is still works at whatever-Biblos-is-now.
Title: Ristorante Paradiso
Author: Ono Natsume
Het, shokku. Well, no - I knew it was het when I bought it, but it bears noting. XD This is the Italian-politicians-and-gelato mangaka from an earlier review; I sort of waffle between classifying this book as indistinguishable from her BL apart from one-third of the characters being female (and lack of politicians or gelato, natch), and declaring it a wholly other, never-encountered beast. Probably a bit from column A and a bit from column B. It differs from her BL insofar as yaoi fanfic differs from dream novel, is the thing: kinks are still out in full effect, only now the point of identification lies solidly with the heroine, which is not the same as reading a BL yomikiri in which the uke is 30 years older than the seme. There's plenty of literary precedent for older male protagonists who idealise young girls as objects of sexual desire; there's no literary precedent at all for young female protagonists who idealise older men as objects of sexual desire, the keyword here being object. One ends up in deconstruction of patriarchy territory. =_=
Actually it's as much the portrait of a mother-daughter relationship as anything else, and an understated coming-of-age story. A little like Almodóvar, one of those European "life happens" movies. Definitely not shoujo, at any rate. I almost want to get the magazine this runs in just to see if it is the New Ladies, but I suspect it's Opera's sister publication and... yeah.
Title: Marunouchi Rhapsody
Author: Nekota Riko
As with the Hoshino Lily one can tell these are relatively older stories (pre-2002), but Nekota Riko's drawings always seem to waffle between 'awkward' and 'uniquely pretty', I'm not sure if it's possible to speak of a stylistic evolution. XD She always has the same character archetypes too. The uke is always a perfect subordinate (secretary, assistant, servant boy etc. of unruffled competence) or a pushy, scornful brat with well-hidden issues - sometimes these categories overlap. Semes are either Atobe Keigo or Yuki Eiri. ...I should write out a description, as I don't suppose fandom has anything to do with it, but the shorthand encompasses so well in this case. XD
It's a tough book for picture readers. The narratives tend to evolve through multiple flashbacks and ill-delineated fantasy sequences. Also Reijin doesn't do much furigana, and Nekota has a penchant for deprecated kanji that matches the flat, decorative quality of her artwork. It all adds up to a nagging sense of old-fashionedness, even in the obviously modern-day stories - and much of Nekota is set in a nebulous, unstated maybe-Taisho reminiscent of Mushishi, so. When she does comedy it's quite funny (often as a result of background detail rather than dialogue/action proper - I laughed aloud a couple of times at the characters' t-shirt designs), but when she does angst it's devastating. A couple of stories in this collection are heartbreak through and through, with no wistfulness or ambiguity to soften the blow.
canis_m-style metadata later, just need to get the blurbs written as I'm way backlogged and the list is beginning to appear daunting. XD;Title: Gorgeous Carat Galaxy
Author: Higuri You
Sequel to Gorgeous Carat 1-4, which I'm certain I blogged about, but probably dating back to 2001-2002. XD; It's one of Higuri You's lighter, ahistorical series. I haven't the gumption for a lengthy description (plot is ridiculous anyway) but French aristocrats, gentlemen thieves, kidnappings in the Casbah, that sort of thing. Shoujo with light BL elements. Contains one of the most useless ukes in shoujo/BLdom, though not only do I find it impossible to get annoyed at Florian, I have the same fondness for him as one might have for a very pretty and very stupid Persian cat - maybe it's the fact that the other characters are perfectly aware he's good for nothing but decorative purposes, like a Ming vase. Seme is an art thief so it's not hard to see his stance. XD Oh, and of course Florian is a v. kindhearted person etc.
(I have a tendency to slip and call him Louis, out of Anne Rice. Not so much canon as fanon; also he's much blonder.)
Am not surprised the continuation didn't run for very long as the plot she went with is just sort of sub-Count Cain. ^^; That is to say, the story is there but the atmosphere is never 100%. The issue is endemic to Higuri You, I think she squees at "darkness" but her own soul is free of the twisted corners and fissures of insanity it takes to come up with the effects of a Yuki Kaori or CLAMP. Even Eleanor - who is a classic Cain-type tragic femme fatale - mostly flits here and there with pert looks and swings of her shawl, and never looks mad or despairing so much as vague.
Plot summary for people who have read Gorgeous Carat: Florian is abducted and chained up by a girl. NO FOR REALS.
Title: Aishichatta no
Author: Hoshino Lily
Schoolboy fluff oneshots from 2000-2002, which I think was the period that institutionalised the schoolboy fluff oneshot as commercial cliché (the platonic ideal fetishized by SSBB, anyway XD). That, er, tells you all you need to know. Was going to file it under "pleasantly disposable" but a couple of the stories did ping for me emotionally, as well they ought since I own more Hoshino Lily than any other BL mangaka by now. I like her WAFF semes. They usually have high EQ, and a combination of assurance and wry self-awareness.
I do roffle at the portrayal of high school as a haven of cheerful inhibition-less heterosexual promiscuity, where boys and girls trade sexual favours as casually as cellphone charms, and the main pairing's romantic scooshyness is more an aberration in context than the m/m itself. The effect is perverse largely because Hoshino Lily has one of the sharpest design senses of all BL (and indeed shoujo) mangaka, slanted toward what Kristin once called "hardcore cute". Her modern-day characters, especially female ones, look like fashionable "mascot" cartoon characters printed on t-shirts for 12-year-old girls. Her fantasy or exotica is something else again. Every time I open "Alone in my King's Harem" I'm taken aback at how beautiful and intricate the art is. The lingering sense of round/clean/plastic/cute makes it easy to overlook the debt that book owes to Beardsley, say, or Kay Nielsen.
Not that Hoshino Lily's drawn anything like it before or since. That sort of thing is the fruit of a good editor saying "Go ahead and create what I know you're capable of." I hope whoever it is still works at whatever-Biblos-is-now.
Title: Ristorante Paradiso
Author: Ono Natsume
Het, shokku. Well, no - I knew it was het when I bought it, but it bears noting. XD This is the Italian-politicians-and-gelato mangaka from an earlier review; I sort of waffle between classifying this book as indistinguishable from her BL apart from one-third of the characters being female (and lack of politicians or gelato, natch), and declaring it a wholly other, never-encountered beast. Probably a bit from column A and a bit from column B. It differs from her BL insofar as yaoi fanfic differs from dream novel, is the thing: kinks are still out in full effect, only now the point of identification lies solidly with the heroine, which is not the same as reading a BL yomikiri in which the uke is 30 years older than the seme. There's plenty of literary precedent for older male protagonists who idealise young girls as objects of sexual desire; there's no literary precedent at all for young female protagonists who idealise older men as objects of sexual desire, the keyword here being object. One ends up in deconstruction of patriarchy territory. =_=
Actually it's as much the portrait of a mother-daughter relationship as anything else, and an understated coming-of-age story. A little like Almodóvar, one of those European "life happens" movies. Definitely not shoujo, at any rate. I almost want to get the magazine this runs in just to see if it is the New Ladies, but I suspect it's Opera's sister publication and... yeah.
Title: Marunouchi Rhapsody
Author: Nekota Riko
As with the Hoshino Lily one can tell these are relatively older stories (pre-2002), but Nekota Riko's drawings always seem to waffle between 'awkward' and 'uniquely pretty', I'm not sure if it's possible to speak of a stylistic evolution. XD She always has the same character archetypes too. The uke is always a perfect subordinate (secretary, assistant, servant boy etc. of unruffled competence) or a pushy, scornful brat with well-hidden issues - sometimes these categories overlap. Semes are either Atobe Keigo or Yuki Eiri. ...I should write out a description, as I don't suppose fandom has anything to do with it, but the shorthand encompasses so well in this case. XD
It's a tough book for picture readers. The narratives tend to evolve through multiple flashbacks and ill-delineated fantasy sequences. Also Reijin doesn't do much furigana, and Nekota has a penchant for deprecated kanji that matches the flat, decorative quality of her artwork. It all adds up to a nagging sense of old-fashionedness, even in the obviously modern-day stories - and much of Nekota is set in a nebulous, unstated maybe-Taisho reminiscent of Mushishi, so. When she does comedy it's quite funny (often as a result of background detail rather than dialogue/action proper - I laughed aloud a couple of times at the characters' t-shirt designs), but when she does angst it's devastating. A couple of stories in this collection are heartbreak through and through, with no wistfulness or ambiguity to soften the blow.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 01:59 am (UTC)I
WHAT
ARE YOU SHITTING ME?
oh god that's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 03:57 pm (UTC)In a nutshell. I'd always wondered about the exact nature of that 'no there there' I sensed in her series but couldn't be arsed to read enough to figure for myself.
Mind you, she's not the only Japanese who squees at darkness for its looks without any real sense for the substance. I find it hard to take darkness in most mangaka seriously, and yes that includes Yuki Kaori. Possibly my age, but they all come off as goth kids from the upper middle class.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 04:34 pm (UTC)