X - Kai - Volume 1 Review

X – Kai – Vol 1


Manga-ka: Asami Tohjoh
Genre: Action/Drama
Publisher: Tokyopop


Summary:

Kaito Yagami is a florist by day in an old rundown shop, but he is really a ruthless assassin trying to make enough money to care for his older brother who became comatose after being burned in an accident.

He receives his assignments from the beautiful and mysterious Sugaru. However, despite that Kaito works as an assassin he is not without a conscience and compassion.

Sugaru appears at Kaito’s flower shop with a request for him to deliver Casablanca lilies—the flowers of death—whenever there is a new assignment. She comes to him telling him to deliver these death flowers to a young blind woman.

The client is a corrupt doctor who misdiagnosed the young woman causing her to go blind. He promised to marry the woman but was already engaged to another woman.

When finding some clues within the young woman’s medical file Kaito turns the tables on the doctor making the man wish Kaito had killed him rather than destroy him the way he did.

Posing as a gardener, Kaito’s next assignment takes him to the abode of a yakuza boss. He finds that one of the people working has only joined so that he could save his lover from her bad heart. Kaito couldn’t go through with his job as it may adversely affect the outcome of the young man and his lover. However, he later finds what really happened and he enacts his own form of justice.

When Kaito is framed for murders he did not commit he is forced to go back to the scene of a job he had done before it all happened to figure out if he was being watched. He is startled by a young boy with no name and decides to not only give him a name, which was Renge, but also take him home.

He learns that Renge was abused by his parents and other adults and has compassion for him. Sugaru is less than happy about Kaito keeping the boy and pressures him to put him in an orphanage.

Kaito ignores her and sets about finding out the real murderer who ended up being both a given and a surprise.

Review:

I have to say that I am a complete sucker for Asami Tohjoh’s artwork so I’m a little biased with the art! The story is a fantastic one certainly showing that you just never know who a person really is. Kaito reminds me of Seishirou Sakurazuka from the mangas Tokyo Babylon and X/1999 who was a veterinarian by day and ruthless assassin by night with no compassion. But he’s for another review!

Each chapter in the volume plays on the fact that Kaito is a compassionate assassin. There is always something within the situation that pulls at Kaito’s heartstrings that forces him to decide what he should do. Whatever he does directly impacts the people involved either in a good or bad way. It is as if that with each kill and each situation he makes right he is somehow redeeming himself from whatever he’d done in the past.

Kaito is constant in his beliefs and doesn’t waver in what he stands for. Of course, Sugaru is always there to remind him that he can’t just stop willy-nilly with his brother in the hospital. A florist salary can’t pay for the heavy hospital bills.

When he meets Renge he feels like he has a chance to change things. He has a chance to protect someone pure so that Renge does not have to become soiled like him--like being a big brother.

Kaito and Sugaru are continually developing throughout the manga and I certainly look forward to seeing how Renge develops in the next volume of X-Kai.

If you’re looking for something different and like action and drama—not bothered by nudity or a little shounen-ai here and there—then X-Kai would be a nice change from the ordinary.

Asami Tohjoh delivers a fantastic story with amazing art and is worth reading.

Hands Off! Vol. 1 Review

Hands Off! Vol 1

Manga-ka: Kasane Katsumoto
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Publisher: Tokyopop



Summary:

Hands Off! slides into the category as one of the cutest and funniest drama mangas I have read with just the subtle hints of shounen-ai.

Kotarou Oohira is a high school freshman bishounen who despises his effeminancy. He was made fun of in his previous school for his girlish figure and decides that transferring to another school would be in his best interest. He moves to Tokyo and lives with his cousin, Tatsuki Oohira, who he also goes to school with, and his grandfather.

Kotarou has a strange type of ESP that is transmitted through physical touch. He realizes there is much more to his power than he ever imagined when gives Tatsuki his so-called "gift".

Getting off to a bad start on the first day of school, Kotarou runs late and makes a rather odd impression on his classmates with his disheveled appearance. Kotarou meets his first friend, Yuuto Urushiyama, who helps him straighten up after class and takes him under his wing.

The trouble starts after he meets a cute girl named Reika. When Reika's sister, Chiaki, suddenly goes missing and the heroic kind hearted Kotarou takes it upon himself to search her out. Tatsuki and Yuuto jump in to help, discovering there is more to these sister's relationship that meets the eyes.

If their experience with Reika wasn't upsetting enough, Yuuto gets his just desserts for being such a ladies man and having more girlfriends than an Indian emperor has women in his harem. He is stalked by a crazy girl who sends confusing messages about her identity and tries to destory all those who get in her way.

Yuuto, Kotarou and Tatsuki have to find out her identity and the reason behind her dangerous actions before someone is killed. When they get closer to finding out the truth, Kotarou and Tatsuki get caught in the crossfire. And everyone is shocked when they find out just who is behind it all.

Act Three of Vol 1 quickly became a favorite of mine. The high costs of living in Tokyo force Kotarou to find a job to pay for the things that he wants. His first job brings him trouble, showing off his more clumsy side. However, his confidence is renewed when he bumps, and I mean that quite literally, into a college student named Shuichi. He gives Kotarou encouragement and comes to visit him every day.

Yuuto has his suspicions about this new male in Kotarou's world and Tatsuki begins to share those suspicions once his cousin doesn't come home after work. Using their ESP abilities, Yuuto and Tatsuki search for Kotarou, finding him in a most peculiar situation: dressed as Shuichi's dead sister and locked up in his house. Tatsuki snaps and Kotarou has to make sure that his cousin doesn't take things too far.

Each moment that passes in these males' lives only seems to fuel Kotarou's belief that Tatsuki hates him, despite all that he has done for him since moving in. Tatsuki struggles with his feelings towards his cousin and the power in which he had given him. Yuuto takes the role of the mediator in all of this, difusing conflict as best he can while making it worse at times.

Review:

If life can't be entertaining enough then school life certainly makes up for it. The clashing of personalities in the varying situations is quite amusing to read. While not everything can be play, life throws some of the most suckish things at you. Hands Off! ties all of that along with how the characters deal with such things in their own ways. You just can't help but feel sorry for these boys sometimes creating the ever wonderful aww factor to this manga.

I mean, really, who doesn't find it funny to have the most jacked up first day of school and end up having a fight with your cousin while the teacher is trying to introduce you to everyone? Better yet, who doesn't think it's funny to watch it all play out! And when these boys are down in the dumps you just can't help but want to rip them from the pages of the manga and hug them tight.

Each of the different situations in Hands Off! teaches you little lessons like don't judge a book by its cover, think before you act, having a bazillion girlfriends can be hazardous to your health one day, etc. in fun and dramatic ways and settings with loveable characters. It's always fun watching or reading the escapades of others, fiction or non; Hands Off! delivers that right into your hands.


The art is wonderful. The characters don't like like crappy sketches or clones. The art appears as though Katsumoto-san took the time to create each character carefully. Everyone has their own unique style which goes back to the characters not all looking like clones. I absolutely love the bad-ass, don't-even-think-about-talking-to-me look which Tatsuki was given. It's the perfect facade that meshes with his personality wonderfully, because we all know, deep down, Tatsuki cares. (collective aww...)


Yuuto and Kotarou were drawn in a way that fit their personalities too. Mr. Wonderful, Yuuto, definitely has the looks of a male that all the girls would flock to. This, combined with his goof ball personality and antics work well for him. Yuuto is handsome, sweet, a little out there but all around a good guy. What more could a woman want, right?


Kotaru is just simply adorable! You just want to pinch his cheeks! He's shy and naive while at the same time being head strong and kind hearted, but a little lazy sometimes. Kotarou fits in with the irresistibly cute boy crowd easily, almost like a Shuichi Shindou type character from Gravitation.



The art works well with the characters as well as the stories, it all fits in with what could be passed as "normal everyday stuff" in life for these three boys. So if you are ever in the mood for something different, something dramatic to give you a good chuckle, Hands Off! is your manga.


...What are you waiting for? Go get it!

Glass Wings Review

Glass Wings
Manga-ka: Misuzu Asaoka
Publisher: Tokyopop

Genre: Romance, Drama, Supernatural

Overview: Glass Wings is a compilation of three gothic love tales where purity and fate collides with the struggles of tragedy and the unknown and learning to endure life to love.

Tales: One with The Glass Wings, Firefly, Jion Princess

Review: Each of these stories is unique but all in the end deal with some sort of death, making these tales sad and compelling all at the same time. In One with The Glass Wings, the first and main story of the Manga, a boy named Hagane struggles with a deadly affliction that challenges his will to live and comes between him and his true love. Parts of the story gave me a surprise while others didn’t. Not much of a suspenseful story but lingered more on the obstacles of human morality and the capacity to love.

The story of Firefly was one I hadn’t come across in my early reading of Manga but I was never the less pleased by the story. Labeled a freak, the disfigured Yuinne runs from his kind and confronts his need to survive and his deep rooted desire to love, but who could love a human eating demon like him and how can he escape his destiny? It’s a sweet, slightly strange story that, even if you didn’t want it to, tugs at your heart strings and makes you want to hug Yuinne until he turned blue!

I think the last story in Glass Wings would have to be my favorite. Jion Princess started out upsetting for me, a young orphan named Soyogi is recruited to take on the Princess’ sicknesses and be nothing more than a vessel of unwanted illnesses and bad luck. As the story progressed it started to get better and better. The princess is told not to get to close with Soyogi and in the end you find out why and that was the creepiest part for me. You’ll have to read it and find you why though. Jion Princess was definitely something that I considered to fit the “save the best for last” statement.

Overall, Glass Wings had well written short stories and beautiful art that was almost reminiscent of Full Moon Wo Sagashite by Arina Tanemura. In each story the characters looked about the same, which was a bit of a disappointment for me but the unique costumes and the interesting stories made up for this upset. There are hidden lessons within the different stories that could be up for interpretation and used in daily life. They are examples of you just never know who you touch in this life, dead or alive.