Slightly Biased Manga

The fact that no volume of this series ever lived up to the first, coupled with the fact that every subsequent volume seemed like a lame attempt at fanservice, left me not too excited about the ending to this series.  I put off reading it for quite some time.

A lot of the problems I had with the last volume reappeared, which is that the characters spend a LOT of time sitting around talking about how much they like each other instead of doing anything, and a lot of time is spent see-sawing between Yasuna and Tomari.  This volume takes this to an insane level, and it made me want to take back any nice things I may have said about the plot twist at the end of volume 3.

I just… I just didn’t care about these characters that much.  I think the way their feelings developed was very well done, but they still somehow lacked depth as characters, or at least depth enough for me to sit around listening to their feelings for this long.  I couldn’t tell you what depth was missing, and I couldn’t tell you why it was I didn’t care about them, but there’s the problem.  It wouldn’t be a problem so much if anything else was going on, but it is literally just the three main characters sitting around talking about their feelings, mostly to themselves.

The one thing I do want to give the series credit for, other than a great first volume, was the fact that it definitely paired two of the girls together in the end.  I was totally shocked when this happened, because even for 3/4 of this volume, I was totally convinced that the three would wind up “together forever,” a casualty of reader popularity not allowing the writer to pair off the characters.  It happens though, and I was very impressed.  It doesn’t really change any of the characters, or their feelings, but it made me feel better, at least.  To be fair, there were also some genuinely touching moments between the pair, which surprised me since this was something the series had failed at right up to the end, plus it meant the characters are at least developed enough for me to enjoy the cute romance scenes between the two.  I was pleased.

There are some loose ends tied up among the classmates (and some surprisingly funny Ayuki side stories), and then the series just finishes, along with an explanation of its title.  The cute romance scenes at the end were good, as was the pairing, but I think most people would do well to read the first volume (because, I promise, it’s very good) and then stop there.  Wel, it was also unique for me, at least, for being the only multi-volume yuri-focused manga series I’ve read.

Much to my surprise, I found this volume in Borders the other day when I went in to get a magazine.  I was debating over whether I wanted to spend my lunch money on it that day since I heard that the ending was very disappointing.  It is a really great story though, I’ve absolutely loved every volume of it so far, and when I flipped it over to read the summary on the back, I found a ringing endorsement from… myself, which will win me over 100% of the time because I’ve got a huge ego.

Anyway, I would be lying if I said that I was happy with the way things worked out.  I would also be lying if I said that the series ending wasn’t very satisfying.  Right away, the volume starts out with a really lovely conversation with Heewon.  I… can’t decide if I actually really like or really hate Heewon, but she’s a great character all the same, and you have to admire her for following Joonha around all that time.  She was my last choice for Joonha all the way through, though.  Things don’t wrap up with her 100% how I expected, and I also kind of liked that.

The conversation between Joonha and Jinhoo that followed, along with any other parts with Joonha and Jinhoo, made this volume worth every penny.  Jinhoo is my hands-down favorite, and all the reminiscing the pair do with one another scores even more points.  It’s also all very well done.  I still hate Jinhoo’s girlfriend though, and I’m very disappointed with the somewhat lame device that went into play at the end of the last volume.

There’s a lot of Taehyun in this volume.  I like Taehyun well enough, but it’s a shame he came in last place for Joonha for the entire length of the series.  Even though I liked Jinhoo better, Taehyun didn’t deserve all the grief he got.  He’s also a very good character, and I probably would have favored him had he appeared in any other series.

I was kind of disappointed with the way things ended, but after reading the author notes in the back of the volume, I respected the ending a lot more.  She mentions that the ending is exactly what she had pictured from the beginning of the series, and even though readers wound up liking a different pairing better, she had to stick to her guns in the end because she liked it best that way.  She also mentions that the character that won wound up in dead last place in popularity polls, she only ever received one or two comments from readers that actually liked them, and even her assistants hated that character’s face whenever it showed up.  I frown upon endings that pander to the readers (or at least I do when it’s obvious, the pandering is probably a big reason why a lot of series are left open-ended or romantic matches are never resolved at the end of things), so reading that the author stuck with what she had in mind made me feel very good about the ending.

So is Click good all the way through?  YES!  Yes, yes, yes.  It’s one of the best gender identity series I’ve read, and it actually treats the subject a lot more seriously than normal (”normal” being the students who fake their gender to get into a school of the opposite gender, or generally any comedy series, or Cheeky Angel).  Add to that a really great set of characters with a well-defined romantic triangle, and you get this, which is just fantastic.  I wouldn’t call it a classic of girl comics, and I certainly would recommend the likes of Peach Girl or Paradise Kiss over this, but it’s not too far below those ones, you can be sure.  If you like shoujo, it’s an excellent read, and does what it set out to do in only 8 volumes.

I could not be more pleased with the direction things are taking.  Since it looks like it’s a given that Griffith will reappear, I’m looking forward to another scene like before.  I’d like to think such things just happen whenever the Cenobites appear.

As for what goes on in this volume, I’m definitely liking basically everything about Father Mozgus.  He does some of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen all because he just hates sin and people he percieves to be sinners.  Apparently any sin can justify him hanging you from the ceiling or doing any number of Bosch-like tortures, and the allusions to “Garden of Earthly Delights” pleased me greatly.  His prayer regiment was suitably insane, and the way he endears his torturers to him as well as repelling the Holy See Knights and absolutely everyone else is handled wonderfully.

The leader of the Holy See knights, Farnese, is also getting less and less annoying each time she appeared.  I thought she would appear much later to antagonize Guts, but it looks like she’ll be sticking around, and the more that gets revealed about her, the more twisted she seems.  She’s not too twisted, not in a fanatic way, but she just has quirky traits that are revealed every now and again.  Here, we find out she can masturbate to people being burned at the stake.  I can’t say that’s something I’ve ever seen before.

Casca plays a role again, somewhat minor so far, but she shows up in the camp of refugees and is helped out by a group of prostitutes who have to protect her from being raped against her will.  I like that the girls were willing to accept her as she is.  She also gets to be the center/catalyst for something awesome at the very end of the volume.  I hope it leads to what I think it will, a… summoning.

There’s some devil worship and another orgy scene towards the end.  Once again: I’ve never seen anyone who can draw an orgy as beautifully as Kentaro Miura.

So here’s the end of the Sanctuary arc!  Hooray!  The identity of the Master of Sanctuary, as well as how he wound up in his position and what happened to that gold knight that was mysteriously killed all those years ago, all is explained, and far more coherently than I would have given this series credit for.

The first part of the fight is between Ikki and the Master, and then Sena steps in for one final stand.  Of course good wins out in the end, but one wonders what the second half of the series is about since all five of the main characters are apparently dead.  Death seems to be only a temporary situation in this series, though, so I assume everyone will be back next volume with not a whole lot of explanation given.  That’s mostly why I like this series.  Well, there will be an explanation.  They come back to life because their cosmos are just too big to be believed, I guess.

There’s a short story at the end about Hyoga and some Siberian adventures he has.  Gotta love little girls flash-freezing themselves in blocks of ice as a method of showing sadness.

There’s also a really nice reference in the back listing all the characters in the series so far, be they bronze, silver, gold, master, or just little girls.  It’s useful since I have a hard time remembering names and ranks.

Really, the best thing about this volume is the interview between Hiruma and Agon in the first chapter.  Both of them are so evil that they make the questions the high school girl asks them very entertaining.  The interview continues in the between chapter segments for the rest of the volume.  The answers for the star players from the other teams in the tournaents are also displayed… usually they’re all pretty amusing, but Hiruma often takes the cake.  The best question is something like “what was the most amount of money you ever spent on something,” and while most answers were along the lines of different amounts for shoes and workout equipment, Hiruma just said “an island.”  For some reason, that just struck my funny bone the right way.

After just a little bit of preliminary buildup, the game between the Devil Bats and the Nagas commences.  It’s decided that Yukimitsu will play in this game, which made me feel great since he’s so often shoved to the side and just WANTS IT so bad.  The Nagas make light of both him and Natsuhiko before the game starts, and it would please me greatly if both of them wound up being key to the defeat as opposed to the more standard Monta and Sena approach.

The Naga’s defeat is not looking so likely at this point, though.  Their star player, Agon, is just too good.  He’s got a history with Sena and Kurita, and is extremely arrogant and also just has god-given talent for any physical activity.  He seems to be defeating Deimon rather soundly through the entire first half of the game.  He even gets a few hits in on Hiruma, which is sort of amazing.

Things leave off on a not-too-reassuring note from Hiruma at the end of the volume.  But I’m still looking forward to what Yukimitsu will get to do, so maybe good things will happen.

Told you there’s be more Berserk this weekend.  I’d read the rest of the volumes I have back to back in a marathon again, but I find them easier to write about when taken individually so I can keep the story segments straight.

Hm.  So it turns out that the leader of the Holy See knights can experience pleasure in pain.  Let’s hope she never gets her hands on the Lament Configuration a behelit so she can summon the Cenobites.  It’s not like a character with an affinity for BDSM necessarily means that Kentaro Miura saw Hellraiser before writing the plot to this series, but its just one more similarity.  And the parallels in other areas ARE too much for me to believe there is no connection.

Aside from that, the part with that woman was really great.  Of course, the night creatures came after Guts while he was being held prisoner, and he had to take the leader as a hostage to make a clean escape.  The creatures… get them anyway, and possess the woman.  She… she does things.  Mostly to Guts’ sword.

The focus shifts back out into the entire country after that, where it’s revealed that there’s a horrible plague killing off a lot of the villiages, and things go back to the kingdom that the Band of the Hawks fought for when Griffith was a good guy, before the King went insane.  There’s a… dream most of the survivors are having about a golden hawk saving them.  It coincides with something else in the story, and it makes me wonder how Griffith will play a part in the story, if at all.

Guts has a dream as well, one that causes him to go back to check on Casca.  He’s forced to remember what happened to her after a demon possesses a horse that nearly rapes the leader of the Holy See knights.  He has to come to terms with a few things when he goes back to see her and the people who were keeping her safe, then he has to prevent something he saw in his dreams.  It looks like this will unfold over the next two or three volumes at least.

Also, the leader of the Holy See Knights swears up and down she’s going to destroy Guts since he saw her humiliated (through no fault of his own).  They’re sticking around, and joining them is an Inquisitor who is good at finding heretics.  Really, it seems like his forte might be torture, which is good news for us.  His face is drawn in such a way that it looks like a mask until he gets really angry, then it looks like a hamburger or something.  It’s remarkable.  He’s got people that torture for him, but in what looks like a taste of things to come, we see some people broken on the wheel (a subject I just read a book about, funny enough, and could not picture despite my best efforts - it’s the type of thing you have to see because it doesn’t quite make sense described in words), and at one point, one person gets hit so hard their eyeballs come out of their sockets.

Promising stuff.

Um.  This series still isn’t very good at telling a coherent story.  I haven’t read it in awhile, and I had a hard time getting back into the swing of things because the first story (about Green becoming a singing sensation) read like it had panels missing in the beginning.  You have to allow it this though, because otherwise you will not enjoy it at all.

Most of the volume deals with Shirayuki’s dark side, once again.  This time, Heaven gets in on the action a little bit, and it’s revealed that Prince is slowly killing himself by using his remaining power to keep her dark side in check.  Angels come down from heaven to monitor her, heaven plays tricks on Prince, and Shirayuki winds up having to stand trial for being a witch.  The last chapter contains the trial parts, which were actually kind of good.  At least for Go Go Heaven.  We also get to see adult Prince again, at least for a little bit.

The story is still very jokey and full of gags while kind of maintaining this semi-serious plot and romance.  It still doesn’t work, but I still kind of like it for its plot and romance despite the fact it is admittedly very bad and hasn’t improved very much over the course of five volumes.  I think younger girls would enjoy this a lot more than me, though.

I kind of spoil this volume, except if you’ve seen the cover to this volume at all, you already know what I’m talking about.  Plus it’s Dragonball.  But you’ve been warned, just in case.

Well, this was about what I thought it was going to be.  The end of the battle with Cell and… well, Goku saying goodbye.  Akira Toriyama explains that there was just no other way to handle the situation, but it seems to me that perhaps Goku could have made his decision quicker and saved himself.  But boys will be boys, I suppose, and it made for a good end to the fight, but I could have used a little more sadness.

Actually, the part that came right after Goku’s sacrifice was my favorite part of the fight.  Cell distorting into all those weird shapes and being blown up multiple times is really all I needed in my manga volume.  Later, there’s time travel, and while I still can’t make much sense of the time travel element (literally, the story details just do not make sense to me), I figured I was better off not thinking about it.  It doesn’t pause to consider such details anyway, and like I said, blowing stuff up is enough for me when it comes to this series.  The fighting is still pretty great, still better than most new series, so… yes.  I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s bad.

As much as I really like reading this series, I’m not so fond of the competition between Jan and the spoiled rich boy.  I figured it was over at the end of last volume, so I wasn’t really anticipating an entire volume more of it, let alone two more volumes.  But it’s still good, because it’s offering more opportunities for crazy stuff than the Taoist Gogyo story did.

I think the thing I love most about this series is that it’s not ashamed of using conveniences and coincidences in the most obvious ways possible, which is hilarious to me.  A good example is when the rich kid makes his and Jan’s battle sort of impromptu out in front of Gobancho, and a busload of Chinese tourists smell something good and wander over just in time to judge.  Later, they come back, this time with some French tourists, because now there’s some French elements to the rich kid’s cooking.  There is a total lack of irony in the story when these things happen, and I love the take-it-or-leave-it way this stuff comes up.  I just do.

The dishes are also somehow more and more insane every time.  The pidgeon blood pie and deer tendon dishes are still standouts in my mind… but somehow, Jan winds up doing something for each match that apparently few chefs in the world can do.  Somehow, this is never enough to win him the battle in and of itself, but only worth commenting on once or so, just so you know its a special skill.  Somehow though, his opponent inevitably does something that makes everyone ooh and aah.  Please, ignore Jan!  He’s only using Dragon Tears!  He’s only roasting a whole duck on a spit!

He’s also still a huge jerk, which is a big plus.  There’s some in-between moments here too, parts where Jan isn’t competing, and I could always use more of those.  I especially like the parts with him and the male apprentice chef.  It’s good to know that even Jan has a friend.

This series really is just too good.  I took too long a break between volumes, I forgot how good the art is and how much I liked the story.  This volume isn’t even all that good compared to some of the other stuff that’s happened, but I still read the entire thing with my mouth hanging open in awe.

This wraps up the story about the valley of lost children… much how you would expect, actually.  There’s lots of fighting, the main insect-elf morphs and has a showdown with Guts which is insane violent, and Puck and the little girl hang around and get in the way.  I’m never quite sure how I feel about Puck, his gags often seem out of place, but sometimes he has some really good moments in the story, two in particular in this volume alone.  But normally he’s just drawn as a caricature yelling at Guts or whatever.

The fight in this volume was great.  It makes you realize just what a grueling trial Guts is going through.  No sleep, no time to heal, just constant fighting, bloody, time and time again.

The Holy See catches up with him.  I’m sort of glad I turned out to be wrong as far as why they were seeking him out, turns out he’s just being pursued since he leaves a trail of corpses wherever he goes.  I can understand that.  They catch him at his weakest moment, and he warns them that holding him hostage is not going to go well for them… and they’re right.  Their leader is kind of annoying, which makes it feel good when Guts takes her down a couple notches as far as calling her a hypocrite, etc.  I wanted to read the next volume RIGHT AWAY, but I thought it would be better if I wrote about this one first.  So yes.  I bought five volumes together this time, expect them all this weekend, because this series is FANTASTIC.