Although similar in tone and approach to her Pink (but with a stronger, less episodic storyline), Kyoko Okazaki’s Helter Skelter may be more approachable. It’s a more recent work, for one thing, and the subject matter may be more sympathetic. Liliko is a top model, beautiful and well-built. She knows she’s in demand, so she treats those around her — so long as she’s not in public — like dirt. Her secret is that she’s a creation of plastic surgery, […]

Pink was originally published in the late 1980s, and I think it helps make sense of it — however much the story does make sense — to realize that culture had different expectations and obsessions then. It was the tail end of a decade devoted to consumerism and appearance and money, where everyone worked hard to afford the branded clothes and status symbols that showed you knew what mattered. Yet this story of young people on the loose in the […]

When I started reading Mitsuhisa Kuji’s Wolfsmund, I thought I was in for a medieval adventure focusing on spirited rebels attempting to reclaim their land (14th century Switzerland) from a harsh occupying regime. By the end of the first chapter, I was disabused of my assumptions in shocking fashion. Given the usual formulaic structure of many manga, it was a pleasure to be so surprised by a change in direction. This series is titled after the location, a militarized pass […]

Utsubora: The Story of a Novelist by Asumiko Nakamura is a visually striking puzzle of a story playing with parallelism. Shun Mizorogi is a noted author who, after a number of years blocked, has recently begun publishing again (a story called Utsubora, just as this one is). He’s also taken up with a beautiful young woman named Aki. At the beginning of the story, he’s just gotten a call from the police; Aki has jumped off a building and been […]

After releasing the historically important shojo manga Princess Knight by Osamu Tezuka, two years later Vertical brings out the sequel, The Twin Knights. It’s just as wacky and action-packed as its predecessor, and it has the same Disneyesque look. And just as before, there’s a cross-dressing princess. Princess Sapphire, the hero of Princess Knight, is now Queen of Silverland, and she’s just given birth to twins. However, the court nobles are already fighting about whether Princess Violetta or Prince Daisy […]

The Limit series, about a group of teens left in the wilderness after a fatal bus crush, concludes with this volume by Keiko Suenobu. I’ve found the pacing inconsistent in the past, so I’m not surprised that this seemed like an abrupt wrapup, but the overall impression I’m left with is how Japanese the series seems to me. By that I mean that supporting the group is the primary virtue. Hinata tries a drastic action to atone for some of […]

After being disappointed in the slow pacing of the previous volume, I was surprised to see how much happened in this new installment by Keiko Suenobu. Limit volume 4 opens with a death, which brings the suffering and precarious position of the survivors into sharp relief. From that point, it’s a fast read. Everyone’s screaming at each other, confused over what they don’t know about the people they have to depend on. Several characters even reach the point of doubting […]

It shouldn’t surprise me that I enjoyed the first volume more than this one. If you’re trying to build excitement, it’s a lot easier to keep introducing new twists and turns than to wrap them up in coherent fashion. Plus, there are a lot of years of war still to cover, although we do get quite the time jump on several occasions. I’m sure the experience would have been much different, and perhaps preferable, if I wasn’t reading all these […]