I just got this press release in the mail about a new Del Rey and Marvel hookup. Wolverine!

The series will be written by Antony Johnston, author of the Alex Rider graphic novels Stormbreaker and Point Blanc. The manga will be illustrated by Wilson Tortosa, artist of Tomb Raider and Battle of the Planets.

The manga chronicles the history of Wolverine, a mutant best known for his adamantium claws. Logan, a rebellious teen training in a remote school in the Canadian wilderness, has no memory of his life prior to being found in the forest near the school. But that forgotten life is about to come after him with a vengeance in this shônen thriller. (Shônen manga is aimed at boys through their teens and focuses on action.)

Wait! Hold up! So it’s a manga if the story is written by a British guy and illustrated by a Filipino guy? Hmm. I think this is another case of a company trying to call their work manga when they might really mean “manga-inspired.” But who’s to really authoritatively say what qualifies as manga? Well, the press release also described manga:

Manga, the Japanese term for comics, is a Japanese cultural phenomenon that accounts for nearly half of all the books and magazines sold in Japan. Read by men and women of all ages, manga covers a wide variety of themes including adventure, romance, fantasy, and more. Manga has experienced incredible growth in the US and Canadian graphic novel market in the past few years. According to industry source ICv2 manga sales reached between $170 million and $200 million in 2006.

So under Del Rey’s description, manga is just the Japanese term for comics. I dunno if I buy it… This is just as bad as calling that one title “The Manga Bible.”

I’m probably somewhat biased for a Wolverine manga anyway, seeing as how I’m currently a student at the University of Michigan and our mascot is Wolverine. Well, ok, it’s the animal, not the X-Man, but I really think we should just adopt Wolverine as our official mascot. He’d totally pwn that wimp, Brutus.

Here’s a review of Ah! My (Dearest Devil Princess)-bits.

Book Blurb:
A box that grants three wishes is a dream come true. At least that’s what Keita thinks, until he opens the box and finds a girl inside. But this is no genie—Maki’s a devil princess and she’s come to take Keita’s soul! But she can only take his soul after he makes his third and final wish.

As a sheltered demon with little knowledge of how to be evil, Maki must rely on her trusty guidebook to learn the nefarious arts and trick Keita into using up his wishes. Until the, Maki’s going to live with Keita until he can’t stand living anymore!

Review:
My Dearest Devil Princess starts out painfully generic as Keita opens a box, causing Maki to plop out, Keita to touch her boob, and eventually, Maki becomes his live-in “girlfriend.”

So it’s kind of like Ah! My Goddess except with a devil, or Chobits except with a devil, or any other string of manga that you can think of that pairs a loser-type guy with a hot chick who, under some string of circumstances, must live with him.

The thing about My Dearest Devil Princess (let’s just call it MDDP) is that while the setup is pretty standard, there’s enough originality that makes up for it. So yeah, we get a lot of “haha, Maki’s a noob at human life” jokes here and there. She prefers to be naked like, all the time and flies without even thinking twice about it!

Beyond that there’s the sexual innuendo jokes. The “but you’re the first one to open by box, my first time!” jokes. And then there’s the random jokes like where Maki shows up in Keita’s bag, miniature sized. He tries concealing her, but not before the two otaku types jump him and ask if he’s “into figures.” Didn’t something similar happen in Midori no Hibi?

Also, I want to point out that like in Fate/stay night, Maki needs her mana recharged by Keita after she uses her powers. But instead of JAMMING IT IN, she just needs some of his blood. Apparently Keita’s dad is fine with Maki living in their house as well as her tendency to drink his son’s blood. He must’ve been hypnotized or something.

One note about the art: there’s a heck of a lot of panty shots. I mean, whenever Maki is wearing clothes there’ll be a panty shot (otherwise her hair will be strategically covering stuff up). The other girl characters seem to get some interesting camera angles as well. I approve!

The first volume basically introduces the characters and gets things set up. Keita seems to be really protective of Maki, even though she’s technically trying to reap his soul (“but she’s still a girl!”). Natsuki, the girl who sold Keita the demon box, seems to be a principal instigator in causing trouble. She’s actually one of my favorite characters (probably because she wears glasses). There’s also the track team senpai and the class rep who actually does an “Oh HO HO HO HO” laugh. Oh, and the (flat-chested) angel who actually seems more evil than the devil. It’s a fairly complicated cast.

By the end of this first volume, there’s some pretty interesting plot points being laid down. I won’t give it all away, but suffice it to say that a particular “love polygon” should provide some good humor in future chapters. So far Keita has used up one wish. I have no idea how this manga can end “happily” but I guess we’ll see what happens later.

Many thanks to Broccoli Books for sending me a review copy of My Dearest Devil Princess Volume 1!

Fairy Tail commits some kind of language crime by way of a bad pun. A really bad pun. In the title!

Book Blurb:
Cute girl wizard Lucy wants to join the Fairy Tail, a club for the most powerful wizards. But instead, her ambitions land her in the clutches of a gang of unsavory pirates led by a devious magician. Her only hope is Natsu, a strange boy she happens to meet on her travels. Natsu’s not your typical hero – he gets motion sickness, eats like a pig, and his best friend is a talking cat. With friends like this, is Lucy better off with her enemies?

Review:
So the first thing I noticed right off the bat is that the art for Fairy Tail is um… unique. I thought it looked a lot like One Piece and so I figured the artist is the same. But One piece is still running, and will probably run forever, so how could that mangaka keep up with two super long running manga, right? Apparently Hiro Mashima did Groove Adventure Rave, which I liked a lot. Also, it’s said he got his inspiration for his art style from Eiichiro Oda who actually is the author of One Piece.

As far as the plot goes, there really isn’t much right now. Unlike other manga where the protagonist will go on adventures in order to reach their goal, Lucy sort of joins Fairy Tail after the first chapter. So much for epic journeys. Actually, a lot about this manga seems unconventional. You’d think Lucy would be an underachieving, flat-chested heroine, but instead she has a huge chest (a plus) and she might actually be a bit powerful as well. Granted, a lot of her summons talk back, but she can sort of defend herself.

This first chapter basically introduces the characters. Natsu is the ultra powerful wizard who acts carelessly but still gets the job done. Lucy is the newcomer who gets to learn about the weirdness of Fairy Tail. Happy is the flying talking cat that mostly says “aye.” All pretty generic characters (minus Happy, I guess). The other members of Fairy Tail are all fairly generic as well. But I guess the important part is how the manga actually plays out.

The humor in Fairy Tail is fast and weird: just my type. For example, one of Lucy’s summons is Taurus. But Taurus happens to be a totally built male cow (with multiple nipples) who seems to be obsessed with Lucy’s udders. Yeah, okay, the humor isn’t quite highbrow but it works. Fairy Tail seems to borrow a lot of cues from various gag manga, complete with the bulging eye jokes. It’s not quite at Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo levels, though.

Conclusion:
Overall, Fairy Tail is pretty enjoyable. I’d probably label it a shounen-ish gag-ish random-ish manga. I guess Rave was sort of the same way, huh? As a bonus, Plue shows up in one of the chapters, but I’m not sure how much of a presence he’ll have. We can’t possibly have a cat sidekick AND a dog(?) sidekick too, right? Apparently Fairy Tail is getting a 2 volume release so I could totally just read the second volume right now. If I had time.

Thanks to Del Rey Manga for sending me a review copy of Fairy Tail Volume 1!

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away (though in this case it’s the closest galaxy to the Milky Way at least)…

Book Blurb:
Cosmoralia’s Prince Ithaca is about to wed Princess Lilia of Ayodoya and be crowned Astralta III. The apparently favorable celestial bearings mean he will be no mere monarch but holy king of a new “papacy”. Alas, the peaceful inhabitants of Planet Astria have no clue that they’re next in line for invasion by a ruthless machine force–a threat that seems to metaphorize the inherent perils of politics and desire in this multilayered saga. The tension slowly mounts to an unbearable pitch in this ominous first volume of three.

Review:
Andromeda Stories is the followup manga to Takemiya Keiko’s To Terra… The setup invokes memories of Star Wars. We’re reading about events that occurred 2.2 million years ago in the distant galaxy of Andromeda. The setting is a mix of traditional fantasy and high tech sci-fi. There’s dragons and robots, magic and guns. Unfortunately, this mix just comes off as seeming really, really cheesy.

The basic storyline is that some evil civilization has infiltrated the peaceful inhabitants of Cosmoralia. We slowly realize along with the inhabitants that their political figures are being manipulated by evil robot spiders from outer space! Cosmoralia’s only hope lies with an unnamed swordswoman who has fought the enemy before, and the newborn prince Jimsa, who happens to be just a toddler at the end of this volume. I’d say Cosmoralia’s F’ed!

To be honest, I couldn’t really get into this manga. Maybe it’s the whole dragons + robots thing messing with my mind. At the end of the volume (around 200 pages) I felt as though the story had only finished being introduced. But this is only a three volume story, so we’re 1/3 in and not much has really happened. While the idea of people with swords totally getting pwned by robots and lasers plays to the 12 year-old in me, I’m not sure how the whole thing will play out on paper. Luckily, I have the two remaining volumes, so I’ll just check those out and see for myself.

To sum it up, this first volume is very, very slow. The story seems a bit cliche (maybe it wasn’t when it was first published, but if so, it hasn’t aged all that well). At least the art is good. There’s no difficulty in interpreting the story from the art, if only the story was a bit more interesting… Hopefully things will pick up in Volume 2.

Many thanks to Vertical Inc for sending me a review copy of Andromeda Stories Volume 1!