Month: March 2024

The King’s Beast
by Rei Toma
published by Viz (ongoing)
2021 –

This is the most beautiful monochrome manga. Toma’s art is INCREDIBLE. And her people, especially her men, are SO GORGEOUS!

I am 61 chapters into the story (!), and there are more to come, but I’m impatient to gush about it. (I also want to say that the ears on the Ajin characters are not some fetish thing, so read without fear.) Viz has lovely previews of each volume on their website, linked above.

The story: our hero(ine) is Rangetsu. She is one of the Ajin, an human-oppressed group of people who happen to have some animal features like furry ears and tails. Ajin women are forced into prostitution; Ajin men have limited options as exploited laborers, but the most accomplished among them can work for the Imperial Family as personal servants or soldiers.

Rangetsu is a young girl; her twin brother went to work for the Imperial family, and was brutally murdered. Rangetsu vows to avenge her twin, but the only way to access the Imperial palace and investigate his murder is to present as a boy, become physically powerful, compete for a job there as an imperial beast-servant, and win. Only then, after devoting years of her life to this purpose, will she have a chance to use her position to avenge herself against the likely culprit, Prince Tenyou.

Rangetsu is hired into the palace, only to find Prince Tenyou to be (a) crushed over her brother’s death, and (b) shockingly beautiful. Tenyou wants to help Rangetsu (who is successfully passing as a boy despite being really, really pretty) find out what happened. How awkward it is for Rangetsu that the prince is so tender toward [her]. How awkward it is that the other (also gorgeous, ofttimes bitchy) princes are so… handsy.

The scenery is beautiful.

The architecture is beautiful.

The characters are beautiful.

I love the way Toma draws eyes. Many of her best eyes are subtle trapezoids, and the details in their irises are subtle washes. The main characters all have shapely eyebrows. Everyone of import also has good eyelashes, while their flowing hair goes on and on…

The story is high stakes – Rangetsu may be killed before she can discover who killed Sogetsu. And the other princes of the palace are shady. (Hot and shady.) Plus, the beast-servants of the other princes also have special powers, called arcana, making them extra-dangerous.

The vengeance story arc is a long one, but is very solid. This manga is a huge accomplishment, and is lovingly drawn. I’m looking forward to future issues.

Cross-dressing, palace intrigue, physical powers beyond those of humans, danger, Chinese palaces and gardens, eyes so deep you want to swim in them, confused longing, gorgeous men in flowing robes… Yes, I’m raving here: I highly recommend this manga.

Yakuza Lover
by Nozomi Mino
published in English by Viz (complete 12 volumes)
2021-2024

Volume 12 was just published this month, so I can write about this breathless, living-dangerously fantasy of an assertive college girl who falls in love with a handsome, high-ranking professional criminal.

Yuri wants a boyfriend, and after a stylish organized crime boss gets her out of a bad situation at a party, she seeks him out to return his coat… And is dazzled by underboss Oya’s good looks, pretty tattoos, wealth, henchmen, aura of power – and his DRAMA!

If you want an obsessive older guy who says he’ll see you next week IF HE IS STILL ALIVE, this is the series for the impressionable and unwise young version of you!

Yuri doesn’t have non-guy goals, so she gets purpose and unusual experiences out of this relationship. Oya is a possessive / obsessive boyfriend who is wild for her, providing immature intensity, approval, good sex, excessive gifts, and access to luxurious places she would never ordinarily experience. Their relationship also puts Yuri in sketchy situations, gets her kidnapped, leads to being threatened by thugs, alienates people close to her, and requires her to make adjustments to accept his criminal underworld and its drama.

Hardships only bring Yuri and Oya closer together. The more people in their circles object, the tighter they hold each other, and the more delighted they look together in bed.

The drama, danger, Yuri’s giant-eyed-open-mouthed surprise at everything, and Oya’s lovey-dovey excessiveness make for an over-the-top, entertaining story.

Absolute Boyfriend
by Yuu Watase
published in English by Viz / Shojo Beat Manga (33+ chapters)
2006-2008

Riiko is a lonely young woman who orders a “boyfriend” from a sketchy company based on a sketchy ad. And what does she receive? A human-sized box with a human-sized, very charming android with superhero-like powers! Night, as she names him, is programmed to perform intimate services… which Riiko is not actually ready for. And the company she ordered him from wants their money, or at least some data about Night’s seduction abilities, which Riiko doesn’t want them to have….

This is a comedy with high levels of silliness, plus romance elements. This story involves jealous childhood friends, androids who can cook, fantasies of what makes the perfect bf, sketchy salesmen prone to cosplay, forbidden technologies, elaborately drawn hair, one way tickets to Europe, and possibly first love. It was initially too silly / over the top for me, but I came back to finish the main story arc, and was entertained.

The Water Dragon’s Bride
by Rei Toma
published in English by Viz / Shojo Beat (complete – 44 chapters)
2017 – 2019

Unable to resist the gorgeous drawings of Toma’s most recent manga, The King’s Beast, I eagerly sought out her earlier work, The Water Dragon’s Bride. Here we can see Toma’s gorgeous men, with beautifully shapely eyes and long, flowing hair, represented with special elegance by the Water Dragon God.

Asahi is a little, contemporary, beloved girl, who is grabbed by the water in her parents’ garden pond (!!) and spirited away to another era. A boy of similar age named Subaru finds her in the forest near the lake (her pond’s ancient form) and takes her home to his village, where Asahi realizes something is… different. No, everything is different. No wires? No phones? No train station?

Subaru’s enthusiastic mother wants to take her to a special ritual, which, Asahi realizes too late, involves tying her to a rock and returning her to the lake.

Unlike the other girl-child sacrifices, Asahi is lucky: the Water Dragon God is… just bored enough to keep her alive (with tips from friends).

But she is still just a lost little girl, and her survival from this event would be suspicious to the superstitious villagers. Can she survive? Can she make it home to her own time and loving parents? Can Subaru hide her from his family? Importantly, can she hold the inhuman and generally indifferent Water Dragon God’s attention long enough to get his help?

This is a story of survival, friendship, politics, rivalries, ancient forest spirits, greed, war, community, superstition, spiritual darkness, hope, water-doors between worlds, years away from home (!), personal development, and Love with a capital L. I have a soft spot for stories about little girls falling into other worlds, which was my favorite genre as I was learning to write (though I included a frivolous number of talking animals in my stories, but still). Our favorite characters evolve, though the villages of humans… continue to disappoint in a way I find realistic. I got misty-eyed at the very end, which I didn’t expect.

Toma’s especially beautiful Water Dragon God and his special effects are lovingly drawn. I love this story (with serious stakes) and charming art, including the little round illustrations near the beginning of each chapter. I recommend it!

MAO
by Rumiko Takahashi
published in English by Viz (ongoing)
2021 – present

Rumiko Takahashi is a famous and prolific manga author, who I have been a fan of since our various California anime fans brought the animated comedy Ranma 1/2 to club meetings (back in the 80s/90s). I especially love her Mermaid Saga, which is dark and ambiguous. I’ve written previously about the anime based on Takahashi’s Inuyasha series, and have mentioned RIN-NE in passing; she structured these manga ingeniously to be easily serialized as anime.

Nanoka is a contemporary girl in Japan, being raised by her kindly grandfather and strange housekeeper after surviving a gruesome freak accident which killed her parents during her childhood. One day, near the scene of the accident, she takes a turn, travels back in time, and is almost immediately attacked… by monsters.

In this past, she meets the exorcist, monster-killer, and part time doctor to nice spirits, Mao. Distinctive-looking Mao, who bears a facial scar and fears he may be immortal, has been through some traumas he doesn’t recall clearly. A day of tragedy hundreds of years ago led to his friends trying to kill him, the destruction of a temple/school, and the death of the girl he loved – and he worries that he may have killed her himself.

Nanoka isn’t sure why she is in this past with Mao, but when trouble strikes and she picks up Mao’s cursed sword, she isn’t struck dead. What gives her this power to resist the curse, and what is her connection to Mao?

I’m 200 chapters in (!!!), and while Takahashi’s serialized-for-television structure persists, there is a sense of tangible progress on solving the mysteries that worry Mao. Yes, there are side quests, and a very large number of characters, but most connect to the mysteries Mao is attempting to solve. As a Takahashi fan, I’d say that MAO has more focused story-telling than Inuyasha (which had more side quests than goal resolution), and is more serious than RIN-NE (which is a school comedy about death and regrets – no, really). The tragedies that strike, and the cruelties that the characters experienced are serious, and they are marked by them – in many cases literally scarred, but also emotionally harmed. Answers to the mysteries that haunt them bring some relief.

This is an interesting story, and Takahashi keeps it progressing with more intensity than some of her other popular works. I am enjoying it.