Psyren by Iwashiro Toshiaki

When it comes to manga, my taste stays pretty firmly in the shonen (teen guy) and seinen (adult male) camps.  Even though I’m a girl I don’t typically respond well to the titles marketed to my demographic.  I prefer more action and adventure than most of the girl stuff usually provides.  I’m also not overly fond of how women are portrayed in manga in general.  There are exceptions to every rule of course, but for the most part I pick up a manga when I’m looking for an adventure that won’t make me think too hard.  When I feel like I need a brain vacation with a lot of action Psyren is a great option.  And it’s one of the better offerings in the shonen genre.

In the series main character Ageha Yoshina is pulled through a public phone into a mysterious, monster-filled world known as Psyren.  He is joined there by Sakurako Amamiya, a girl in his class, and several other random characters, many of which don’t last very long.   The air on Psyren awakens psychic powers in those who are lucky enough to survive their first round in the wasteland.  Unfortunately the characters must master those new powers quickly since they can be pulled back into Psyren at any time.

Many manga in the shonen genre tend to follow the Dragon Ball formula of story writing.  Step 1: Character discovers hidden powers.  Step 2: Character learns to control hidden powers.  Step 3: Character goes up against foes.  It’s a very simple process which is repeated often and requires the main character to always discover some new power or well of inner strength in order to defeat stronger enemies.  It starts getting old after a while.  Especially with all of the pages and pages devoted to training.  Psyren tends to gloss over the training or at least makes it more interesting by making it about fighting smarter rather than fighting harder.  The story also grows more complex as time goes on.  Not only are new characters added to the story, the truth of Psyren and its implications for the future of the world are revealed.  The characters are actually kind of forgettable in this one.  Psyren is all about the action and the growing plot.  Pick up Psyren if you’re looking for some action without too many tedious training sequences.

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Black Butler by Yana by Yana Toboso

Most manga begin by firmly establishing their story in the first few chapters.  They introduce the main characters and lay out the rules for the world they are operating in.  Instead of keeping with this common practice Toboso decided to use the first few chapters of Black Butler to totally fake-out the readers.

My husband read the first few chapters of this series and thought the series would be a little like Benson with the ultra-competent butler Sebastian overseeing a staff of fools.  The first chapter features Sebastian saving the day after a cook, maid, and various other staff members manage to destroy all of his carefully laid dinner party plans.  In the second chapter he teaches his twelve year old master how to dance.  In the third and fourth chapter the young master is kidnapped so Sebastian tracks down and slaughters his kidnappers, revealing that Sebastian is much more than a simple butler.  He’s also an immortal demon contracted to serve Ciel Phantomhive on his quest to avenge the deaths of his parents.

It’s at this point that the story morphs into something that is part mystery, part horror, part drama, and part comedy.  That’s a lot of genres to juggle, but somehow Toboso manages to make the story work.

Overall this is a fun title for those who enjoy supernatural mysteries (without the romance).  A Jack the Ripper mystery storyline makes an early appearance in the series and meets a satisfying conclusion.  The jokes are good even if some of the puns are lost in translation.  The action is also entertaining and the series features some fantastic artwork.  Don’t let the slow-start and genre fake-out in the first volume stop you from reading this one.

Black Butler is here!

Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba

If you have paid any attention at all to graphic novels and manga in the last five years you’ve probably at least heard of Death Note. The twelve volume series seamlessly combined dark fantasy with detective drama to form one of the most popular manga from the last few years. It kept readers on the edge of their seats and spawned an anime adaptation and several live action movies. It’s also the reason why I was so surprised when I picked up a copy of Bakuman, the latest series by the creators of Death Note.

Both Bakuman and Death Note are high quality productions. The artwork is first rate and the stories are enjoyable. But where Death Note was dark and fraught with ethical dilemmas, Bakuman is light and occasionally romantic. The story actually begins with two junior high students, Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi, an artist and a writer who decide to join forces to produce manga. Their ultimate goal is to eventually have their manga adapted as an anime. There are small detours in the story, mostly involving the love lives of the two main characters, but the story mostly centers on their professional life and partnership.

I have no idea how accurate this series is as a portrayal of the difficulties of making it as a mangaka in Japan. I can only assume that writer Ohba and illustrator Obata drew directly from their personal experiences in the field to produce a work that is both realistic and enjoyable. This certainly isn’t the most exciting manga out there. The only battles that take place are professional rivalries that spill on to the pages of Shonen Jump. More often than not rival authors and illustrators end up joining the growing cast of colorful secondary characters. Still, anyone that has an appreciation for the creative process will enjoy watching these two likable main characters navigate their way through the competitive world of manga.

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Hetalia: Axis Powers by Hidekaz Himaruya

Ever since Germany found Italy hiding in a box of tomatoes during World War I he’s had trouble getting rid of the guy.  Germany tried encouraging him to escape but Italy just left for a few minutes to talk to some girls before wandering back into his cell.  He was hoping to never see Italy again after the war was over but Italy just showed up looking for work.  He might make a decent ally for World War II if he would just stop manufacturing white flags.
This manga is not politically correct or historically accurate.  It makes light of tragedy and insults just about every country that has ever existed.  But at least it’s funny.  Hetalia breaks out every stereotype in the book in creating their anthropomorphic country characters.  Japan is quiet and reserved, but extremely good at manufacturing miniatures.  England and France disagree with each other just on principal.  Italy is obsessed with pasta while brash America loves cheeseburgers.  Every country is more than a little clueless.

I wouldn’t recommend this title for anyone who is easily offended, but if you enjoy offbeat humor with historical roots this might just be the series for you.  It often switches between full chapter stories and four panel shorts, allowing the jokes to fly fast and furious.  There’s a good reason why episodes of the animated adaptation are only about five minutes long.  Personally I love political humor, have a healthy appreciation for history, and don’t mind slightly insulting satire so this one had me rolling in the aisles.  If you enjoyed OMG WWII on Facebook, give this one a shot.

It’s Here!

Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori

I’m not usually a fan of girly shojo manga.  More often than not it seems like the main character is a flighty, awkward girl who somehow ends up in the middle of a love triangle.  She’s the damsel in distress who often needs to be saved from her own klutziness, a catty rival or some mysterious danger.  (Yes, I’m looking at you, Tohru and Momo.)  That’s probably why it took so long for me to pick up Ouran High School Host Club.  With its purple cover and abundance of pretty boy characters it appeared to be the same old shojo.  I wish I had tried this one out sooner.

Ouran High School Host Club is the story of Haruhi Fujioka, an honor student at Ouran Academy.  While searching for a quiet place to study Haruhi stumbles across the school’s host club.  It takes Haruhi about two minutes to incur an eight million yen debt to the club which must be worked off by joining the club and entertaining the young ladies of the school.  The situation is complicated by the fact that Haruhi is actually a girl.  A fact that all the club members go to great lengths to hide throughout the series with hilarious results.

Haruhi may be the most likable female character to ever come out of shojo manga.  She’s smart without being smug.  Genuine instead of simpering.  She acts as the perfectly calm center of the storm of ridiculousness that is the rest of the host club.  The ultra-rich male members of the club provide a stunning amount of comic relief with their outlandish behavior.  From the initial fear of drinking instant coffee to one member’s private police force, their pampered pasts provide hours of entertainment.

Though Ouran High School Host Club does eventually become a romance, the story focuses more on comedy and friendship, making it approachable for both sexes.  My husband even enjoys the cartoon (catch it for free on Hulu).

Join the club at your library!

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Do not read the summary of this book in the library’s catalog.  I’m serious.  Don’t do it.  I read this book when it first came out before I read any real description of the plot, and I have to say that I enjoyed the book so much more because of that.  The Adoration of Jenna Fox features a slow reveal.  One that is necessary to the plot and the character of Jenna herself.  The catalog record seems to give a little too much away.  It also features the new book cover, which I don’t like as much.  I like the one with the blue butterfly more.  It’s prettier.

At the beginning of the novel seventeen-year-old Jenna awakens from a year-long coma to begin her life anew.  Really anew.  She can’t remember anything of her life before the coma.  Not even the car accident which she has been told landed her in the hospital.  Jenna is surrounded by family, friends conspicuously absent, watched and babied on her road to recovery.

Hopefully without giving too much away, I will say that this is a science fiction book.  It takes place in a near, though unidentified future.  Jenna’s everyday surroundings aren’t terribly different from our own here and now.  Jenna’s reactions to the situation in which she finds herself are genuine and believable, even in the most overwhelming circumstances.  I really enjoyed following Jenna on her journey of self-discovery.

Though Jenna’s story is interesting and engaging on a personal level, the book also raises some very interesting ethical questions that we as a society may someday face.  That’s where the science fiction side of the story comes in to play.  I would recommend picking up two copies of this one, one for you and one for a friend, so you can talk about the questions raised in this novel.  Make sure you don’t let your friend read the description either.  It’s much more enjoyable to let Pearson slowly reveal the truth of Jenna Fox.

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King Dork by Frank Portman

My favorite band of all time is The Sadly Mistaken.  Their first album Kill the Boy Wonder left me in awe of their musical dexterity and vocal power.  Guitarist Moe Vittles never ceases to amaze me.  And Sam “Noxious” Fumes truly kills on bass and landscaping.  It really is too bad that they don’t exist.  They’re just a note in an appendix of a novel.  At least it’s a really good novel. 

King Dork chronicles the sophomore year of Tom Henderson, a high school loser.  There’s plenty of good fiction out there about high school boys (Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar, Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman, My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger, etc…), but none of those other books I’ve come across seem to deal with someone as messed up and insightful as Tom Henderson.  Throughout the book Tom ruminates on his future as a rock superstar, hot chicks, his near-empty social life, semi-hot chicks, the mystery that is his dead father, his relationships with his living family members, and the identity of the hot chick who made out with him recently.  He has a lot on his mind. 

Admittedly, the last paragraph makes the plot of this book sound like an absolute mess.  There are many strands to this plot and I can only say that they do eventually all tie together.  And not in the usual, clean, fairy-tale-ending way.  Tom’s story is believable.  His life and reactions, challenging and funny.  He actually reminds me of many of my friends from high school.  He kept me laughing and thinking throughout the book, but at no point did author Frank Portman make me feel like Tom couldn’t be a real American teenager.  And I also loved the multiple appendices in the back, featuring a glossary of terms and a list of possible band names.  Hilarious stuff.  It would be a good idea to pick this one up soon.  Especially since the movie is supposed to come out sometime this year.  It’ s always satisfying to tell people that you read the book first.

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Feed by M.T. Anderson

Titus went to the moon for spring break but it turned out to completely suck.  Like any other overdone vacation spot, the moon is full of clubs that were popular last year, but now look kind of faded and lame.  The one bright spot for Titus is when he meets the fascinating Violet and manages to convince her to tag along with him and his slightly useless friends as they go in search of fun.  What they find is a terrorist attack that lands them all in the hospital.  The attack doesn’t leave them physically injured, but they are temporarily cut off from the feed. 

The feed is a computer network accessed through neural implants.  It’s used to chat with others, watch TV, even go to School™.  With over 73 percent of Americans using the feed daily, most from birth, being cutoff is akin to missing an appendage.  While in the hospital waiting for their feeds to be repaired Titus and Violet form a connection that they carry with them back to their regular lives on Earth. 
 

Anderson’s vision of the future is disturbing, only made more so by the helplessness of the main characters.  Even when he does realize the very wrongness of his surroundings, he still does little to nothing to try to affect change.  Violet’s attempts at rebellion are not only ineffectual, they are also detrimental to her very existence.  Perhaps it is the reactions and attitudes of the main characters that make this work one of the more approachable dystopian novels around.  Titus is no rebel leader seeking to overthrow and unjust government.  He is not especially gifted in any way.  He is no hero.  The world he inhabits is also laughably absurd at time.  When people begin developing skin lesions in reaction to overexposure to the feed people not only don’t attempt to remove them, many have more artificially implanted.  One of the favorite feedcasts is called Oh? Wow! Thing!, a name that makes me mentally cringe and giggle at the same time.  For maximum enjoyment of this fascinating novel be sure to download it from Overdrive to enjoy the many voices of the feed.

Check out The Feed.

Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

When I was in high school my family hosted a foreign exchange student from Spain for a semester.  Other than the fact that he would only eat roast beef sandwiches, there really wasn’t anything very extraordinary about him.  After reading Tales from Outer Suburbia I really wish we had hosted Eric, the tiny exchange student from the second story in this collection.  The teacup-sized visitor of unspecified origins would have been a remarkably charming houseguest.  I’m certain I would have loved explaining postage stamps and drains to him.  Unfortunately Eric comes from the imagination of Shaun Tan and is not available for visits.

Eric is not the only Tan creation I wish really existed.  I wish I had an inner courtyard to enjoy in my home.  My family and I would love to while away the hours in such an idyllic setting.  I await the day when I turn on the news and the weatherman reports a downpour of discarded poetry.  Most of all I would like the vacant lot on my street to become the home of an oddly perceptive water buffalo who will always be able to solve my problems by literally pointing me in the right direction.

Tan’s stories are melancholy, whimsical, and uplifting by turns, yet all are united by a vague feeling of loneliness.  The most beloved characters disappear without explanation.  The most extraordinary events are experienced in isolation or in the company of few others, making me hope that the events described are rare rather than nonexistent.  It certainly would be something wonderful to live in a world where such things can happen.

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I am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak

As the years have rolled onward, the likelihood that I will finish reading a book that fails to interest me has steadily approached zero.  The number of pages I am willing to read before I abandon a book has likewise decreased as I grow more impatient and the demands on my free-time overwhelm me.  It is for these reasons that I am very happy that Markus Zusak told me to read his book in the very first line.  “The gunman is useless.”
Indeed the gunman is useless.  So useless that he not only fails to hold up a bank, his escape is thwarted by an 18 year old cabbie.  Ed Kennedy, the 19 year old cabbie, is only marginally less useless than the gunman but at least he manages to stop a robbery.  Ed enjoys a short period of local celebrity before the messages begin to arrive.

    The messages arrive on playing cards and tell him to be certain places at certain times.  The messages point to people who need help but never say exactly how Ed should help them. 
Ed Kennedy is an unlikely hero to say the least.  There’s nothing really exceptional about him.  He has no direction to speak of and his defining characteristic seems to be his unrequited love for his best friend Audrey.  That Ed is so flawed and seemingly worthless makes his story all the more interesting.  It is easy for Superman to swoop in to save the day.  It is much more difficult for an awkward teenager to do so.  Especially in a situation where a villain is not readily apparent.

The first time Ed becomes a hero it is mostly due to coincidence and opportunity.  Every time thereafter his heroic acts are deliberate and planned.  Ed’s later heroic deeds will never appear on the news, but they are what really make him a hero.  Reading this book made me want to be a hero too.  Not an “on the news” hero, but an everyday hero.  Steeped in anxiety and flaws.  And all the more heroic for it.

Reserve it here.