xxxHOLiC, v12 (CLAMP)

Something resembling PLOT has arrived! It starts off with Watanuki’s birthday, and a sign of the hardship of being Yuuko (anything beyond feelings has a price). The next scene is Watanuki in a dream of Doumeki’s grandfather (Haruka) and discussion of the butterfly who dreamed he was a man or vice versa (was the butterfly the dream or the man). He then notices Sakura, and Haruka vanishes. There’s also a story about Kohane (the psychic girl from previous volumes) and her powers and their consequences and her relationship with her mother; she was on a show with several other psychics and saw more than the others and was accused of showing off and being a fraud. Watanuki spends the rest of the volume living his life and falling in and out of dreams at random times: some with Sakura, some with Haruka, one with a boy from a previous volume (the boy in the tree who was a lingering spirit, I think). As the volume continues, it gets more and more disjointed; unfortunately, it reminded me of bad manga translations until I realized that it was intentional. Watanuki actually accepts comfort from Doumeki at one point and manages to surprise Yuuko at the end.

One thing that really impressed me was that a couple of things I had vaguely noticed as I read or watched were things that Watanuki noticed and mentioned in this volume; Himawari and Doumeki are the only students ever shown, the only people he sees are those who come to the shop and those related to them, and background people (in the anime at least) were just blobs. They were the sort of things that could be put down to story-telling choices and not showing irrelevant things, and in the anime to lazy animators (though I think that might be the most likely reason for the background people being blobs; that’s not that uncommon), but they turned out to be relevant.

This seems to be a transitional volume; nothing much really happened, but it’s laying the ground for future revelations. There are a lot of discussions about dreams versus reality, tons of butterflies in conversation and art, and some hints about Watanuki, though I don’t know if I would have recognized those hints for what they were if I didn’t have a vague idea of what is to come (failed to completely avoid spoilers).

Sakura is unfortunately from volumes 18 and 19 of Tsubasa, which have not yet been released in the US (17 came out in May; 18 is scheduled for August and 19 for November), so I kind of skimmed her parts. According to amazon.co.jp, volume 13 came out last week (6/23); it doesn’t have a US release date yet. The novel will be out in October, though. I don’t know whether I should be patient and be better about avoiding spoilers (run if I see the words “Tsubasa” or “xxxHOLiC” anywhere) or give in and read ahead.

From Eroica With Love v9, Yasuko Aoike

The series itself is the adventures of the extremely repressed and homophobic (asexual, really; he’s not interested in women either, though he’s not as rude about it) NATO Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach, who often crosses paths with the extremely flamboyantly gay Earl Dorian Red Gloria, also known as the art thief Eroica. Generally, Klaus has a mission and runs into Eroica who is interested in the target for different reasons, and they end up working together. This series was started in the mid-70s and the style of the art is very different from any current series. The series was on hiatus for a while, but I think it’s still currently running (at least with occasional chapters). It is a fairly episodic series; each mission is a complete story (though the current arc started in v8 and continues into v10), but there are recurring characters and the past is occasionally relevant. There is a theory that the “Red” should actually be “Led”; his character design is similar to the 70s Robert Plant, and he has henchmen named James (with floppy black hair), Bonham, and I think there’s a Jones somewhere. The first volume features a trio of psychic teenagers and a crazy Interpol (?) agent; Klaus makes his first appearance at the end of that volume, and the teenagers are never seen again, thankfully.

I read v8 when it was released in January 2007 and have so have no idea why Klaus and Mischa the Bear Cub (KGB) are sitting in a bar in a small town in Spain trying to outdrink each other while waiting for their men; of course, being drunk, they start fighting eventually, much to the bartender’s dismay. Klaus is actually drunk, which surprised me; possibly his drunkenness is why he handed the important papers to the waiter for safekeeping (bad enough) without realizing that the waiter was Eroica in disguise (even worse). I think the papers are a KGB report that NATO somehow acquired; Klaus was to take it somewhere, Mischa wants it back, and Eroica wants to use it to trade for a painting. Eroica wants Klaus to chase him, so he goes to Rome and then to Egypt; the Major follows with some difficulty. Eroica’s accountant James sees an opportunity for income and makes several copies of the report with the intention of selling them to various agencies. Unfortunately, an outsider (who has a grudge against Eroica) gets one of the copies and wants to negotiate with all three; Eroica gets drunk and starts to do a striptease; and Mischa and Klaus convince him to steal the papers. All of them are planning to double-cross the other two and take the papers and run.

I do like this series; I giggled my way through reading this volume. There’s not a lot of character development, and they are all a bit one-dimensional, with their defining traits often exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness (James’ attitude towards money is an extreme example: he will do anything to get it and is extremely reluctant to spend it; he wears patched clothes by choice, he buys second-hand and out-of-date equipment, and his greed was the catalyst for part of the plot in this volume), The major’s occasional violence towards Eroica and Eroica’s acceptance of the violence does bother me a little, and I can’t help but wonder if Eroica’s obsession with the major is a case of wanting what he can’t have.

various manga

I’m not reading as much manga as I used to for various reasons, but am keeping up with a few series. I’ve let them pile up too much to want to post individually for each; I may do fuller writeups with future volumes of some of these.

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Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle v14-15 – CLAMP
CLAMP’s crossover/alternate universe version of their previous works. I think it is technically shounen of the endless quest for parts variety (wandering through worlds looking for Sakura’s feathers). I keep accidentally running across spoilers for this and xxxHOLiC and may eventually resort to other means of reading them. I’ve been meaning to stop reading this, but keep seeing volumes when I have coupons and am now more interested because of a spoiler I saw. I kind of wish I was more familiar with CLAMP’s other works so that I could recognize more of the background characters.

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Genju no Seiza v4-5 – Matsuri Akino (Pet Shop of Horrors)
This has gorgeous artwork, but kind of a generic plot. Fuuto Kamishina is a fifteen-year-old high school student; he father is famous photographer who vanished a few years earlier and his mother was living among the sherpa in the Himalayas. They have moved frequently since his father vanished. Fuuto sees a news item about the new king of Dhalashar, and soon after is accosted by a Garuda (half man, half bird that others only see as a bird) who claims he is the rightful king. Fuuto rejects this claim and tries to continue leading a normal life; unfortunately, he has always had various psychic powers (one of the reasons for the frequent moves) and those powers are rapidly increasing. He becomes friends with Professor Ichijo, who wants to believe in everything but who has no spiritual powers, and Mayu, who is wheelchair-bound, completely emotionless, and who has some powers. The stories are sometimes Fuuto using his powers to solve other’s problems, randomly astrally traveling by touching artifacts, and dealing with the various problems caused by being thought the next king of Dhalashar (astrally traveling and meeting the acting king and dealing with his various guardians and assassins being sent by the power behind the throne (several assassins end up as guardians)). One of the previous volumes featured a descendant of Abe no Seimei who has no powers and who wants to be an astronomer; the arc that begins in volume five has Fuuto, Seishun (the descendant) and three of his guardians sent back to the Heian era, where they meet Abe no Seimei and try not to affect history. I like this series much more than I expected. Fuuto is a typical obnoxious high school boy in the beginning but does change and grow as the story progresses (though he still acts the same); the current plot with Fuuto wanting to help those around him but being unable to because of the fear of paradox and the knowledge that he should not interfere with the natural progression was painful (in a good way), and I am looking forward to the next volume.

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Kamen Tantei v1-2 – Matsuri Akino
High school students Haruka Akashi (junior, female, a bit of a tomboy) and Masato Nishina (sophomore, male) are the only members of their school’s mystery club, and have written a novel that they entered in a mystery contest (using the name Taro Suzuki; they don’t want to be known as the authors). Weird things and mysterious deaths start happening around them, and a masked man randomly appears and gives them hints as to the solutions (and also gives them the hook for their novel: Kamen Tantei, the masked detective); in one case, he claims to be the author Taro Suzuki (with sunglasses instead of the mask). There are often supernatural elements to the cases; Masato can see ghosts (but can’t do anything about them), Haruka does not believe in them, and “Taro Suzuki” sent one on to the next world. Some of the stories also blur the line between fiction and reality; I wasn’t sure in one case if the story was their new novel or something happening in the real world, and another featured someone who was living in a fantasy world (which Masato and Haruka entered). This didn’t really work for me, and I don’t know why; I like her other works and this is the sort of thing that I like, but it didn’t really grip me. I didn’t really care about Masato or Haruka (and kept thinking she was a guy), but I am curious about the masked man; it is only four volumes, which is a point in its favor.

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Tramps Like Us v13 – Yayoi Ogawa
The story of a career woman (late twenties) and her pet Momo (a twenty-ish dancer) and her boyfriend Hasumi. I don’t know why Tokyopop chose that name, but I adore this series, even though there are several reasons why I shouldn’t (for one thing, I generally hate lying and secret-keeping, and Momo is a big secret). This is volume thirteen of fourteen, and everything is falling into place (and any mention of specifics would be spoilers for the final resolution). I will probably write up the series as a whole once the last volume is released (in February, I think).

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tactics v1-2 (ADV release) – Sakura Kinoshita and Kazuko Higashiyama
tactics v3 (Tokyopop release)
I reread 1-2 after watching v3 of the anime, 3 was just released. Kantarou is a folklore researcher and occult expert; he theoretically writes for a living, but is often distracted by the supernatural. Since childhood, he heard stories of a demon-eating tengu, and wanted to find it and name it Haruka; naming a youkai causes it to obey the namer. ADV released the first two volumes a few years ago, and then dropped it; there were some issues with their translation (most notably, Sugino’s gender). Tokyopop rescued the license and re-released the first two volumes with a new translation; I didn’t bother re-buying them but will buy the following, maybe. Haruka is now a demon-eating tengu instead of a demon-eating goblin, which is a slight improvement. The stories are mostly episodic (someone approaches Kantarou about a supernatural problem, Kantarou, with Haruka and often Youko (his kitsune housekeeper/maid), investigates and solves the problem while Youko worries about money (they are perpetually almost broke). There are recurring characters and vague hints of overall plot. The first story in volume three was kind of disjointed, but I think that was a fault of the original rather than the adaptation; I had a similar issue with parts of the ADV-released Matantei Loki Ragnarok (by Sakura Kinoshita). I’ll buy the next volume, but further will depend on what I think of that one; it’s kind of generic, and several of the characters annoy me (though not as badly as their anime versions).

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Vampire Hunter D: The Stuff of Dreams – Hideyuki Kikuchi
not technically manga, but is often filed with it. I bought the first novel, found the prose too purple for my tastes and gave it to my sister, who enjoyed it. I borrowed another one from her and did not finish it due to the writing style and the appalling amount of sentence fragments (which I might not have noticed if I liked the style or was more interested in the plot). She eventually stopped buying them because they mostly had the same plot, but sent me this one with a note that it was her favorite due to a different plot. I liked it well enough; either the style was less florid or I found the plot interesting enough that I didn’t notice it as much. I did like the wandering in and out of dreams, but I’m not sure which bits were reality and which were dreams. I am unlikely to read any more of these without a recommendation, though.

xxxHOLiC, v10 (CLAMP)

xxxHOLiC is the story of Kimihiro Watanuki, a high-school student who can see spirits (and they are generally interested in him). One day, he finds himself in the shop of Yûko Ichihara, who grants wishes for a price. She agrees to take this ability away from him once he has paid the price; Watanuki ends up as her housekeeper/cook/assistant, and finds himself dealing directly with spirits and other weird things. I posted a longer description of the series here.

The volume starts off with Yûko in a bathing suit (it is summer); a neko-musume (cat daughter?) comes to the shop complaining about the heat; Yûko gives her a hat that will help her stay cool; her payment is to guide Watanuki to a place where there is well water that has never been near a pipe. Watanuki and eventually Dômeki fetch water for Yûko over several days; Watanuki promises Himawari that he will not work too hard with a pinky-swear; this is the catalyst for the events in the rest of the volume.

This particular volume is mostly concerned with the question of Himawari; it has been obvious from the beginning that there is something odd about her, and it is eventually revealed. Her secret is a bit anti-climatic, but I’m glad to know what it was. Watanuki is definitely changing; his reaction to the events of this volume are very different than what they would have been even a few volumes ago.

This is one of my favorite volumes so far, mostly due to the revelation of Himawari’s secret and the obvious growth of Watanuki’s character. I’m probably going to reread the rest soon; there were a couple of references to earlier events that I don’t really remember (the person who looked like Syaoran and Dômeki’s grandfather).

xxxHOLiC (CLAMP) overview

xxxHOLiC is the story of Kimihiro Watanuki, a high-school student who can see spirits (and they are generally interested in him). One day, he finds himself in the shop of Yûko Ichihara, who grants wishes for a price. She agrees to take this ability away from him once he has paid the price; Watanuki ends up as her housekeeper/cook/assistant. Also in the shop are Maru and Moro; I’m not sure what they are, but they look like young teenagers, maybe. There is also the black Mokona, which is a created being, stuffed animal size (and was originally the annoying cute animal sidekick in Magic Knight Rayearth, though this one can speak). Watanuki has a crush on his (female) classmate Himawari, and sees his (male) classmate Dômeki as something of a rival and friend (though he would never admit to it). There is something strange about Himawari, and Dômeki lives in a temple, has strong spiritual power, but cannot see spirits, and is fairly immune to most of spiritual weirdness.

It is often episodic, with Watanuki running errands for Yûko (sometimes with Yûko or Mokona or Dômeki), but there are occasionally hints of an overall plot, and characters or items from the past often show up again in the future. Sometimes the stories involve normal people; sometimes they involve various spirits; most of them start with someone needing a wish granted and end up with Watanuki doing the work, with Yûko demanding food and drink in the background.

It also crosses over with CLAMP’s other current series Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle; Yûko gives the group the white Mokona, who has the power to detect Sakura’s feathers and to transfer them between worlds; it is also capable of communication with the black Mokona at the shop, and does so every once in a while. Yûko also occasionally is in the background manipulating events (for a price, of course) and talking with or about the shadowy background figures.

This is one of my favorite series; I love the artwork, and I am very glad that Del Rey is printing the color pages at the beginning of the volumes. I wish there was a way to scan the two-page color pictures at the front of each volume without ruining the book itself. Watanuki is occasionally annoying; he is the type of person who often freaks out and runs around flailing his arms and screaming (very annoying in the anime, but tolerable in manga form). Yûko appears to be self-centered (seems to be more concerned with her meals and drinks than anything around her) and occasionally is cryptic for the hell of it (which is something that always annoys me); she is more serious when Watanuki is not around, and clearly feels that she is acting in his best interests. Himawari doesn’t have much character; she seems nice (but a little distant) and is friends with Watanuki and Dômeki, but doesn’t seem to prefer either of them and finds there interaction amusing. Dômeki is the strong, silent type; he often acts as Watanuki’s protector (much to Watanuki’s dismay), and is also often cryptic (sometimes for the hell of it, sometimes to provoke Watanuki.

This series is currently running in Japan. As of the end of September, 2007, there are ten volumes available in English (Del Rey, volume 11 currently scheduled for February 2008), and eleven in Japanese (Kodansha, volume 12 currently scheduled for October 2007).