My Week in Manga: August 30-September 5, 2010

My News and Reviews

I was away on an extra-long-weekend-mini-vacation this past week. I didn’t do much but read, play video games, and enjoy the outdoors of northern Michigan, including walking across the Mackinac Bridge—the third longest suspension bridge in the world. So, not really much news-wise other than my posting schedule is going to be a little off while I catch up.

Before I left, I did manage to get my review up for the first volume of Saemi Yorita’s Brilliant Blue. Also posted this past week was my first Bookshelf Overload, featuring my empty wallet and acquisitions for August.

Quick Takes

Challengers, Volume 1-2 by Hinako Takanaga. Challengers is Takanaga’s debut manga series. I am quite fond of Takanaga’s work, particularly her art, so it’s interesting to get to see her early style. Challengers is a cute, romantic, boys’ love comedy. I like the characters, and while the main couple (Tomoe and Kurokawa) is endearing, it’s really the secondary characters that make the series so much fun. My favorite is probably Isogai, Kurokawa’s meddling office-mate and best friend, although Tomoe’s violently homophobic brother Souichi is pretty fantastic as well.

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka, Volumes 8-14 by Tohru Fujisawa. I took a huge stack of GTO with me up north and it was pretty much all I read while I was up there. So far, the series and the anime have stuck pretty close together, but it’s nice that a few chapters and story arcs unique to the manga are starting showing up. I really do enjoy Onizuka’s crazy antics and enthusiasm for what he calls being a teacher. He may be a little unorthodox to say the least, but his students definitely learn something from him even if it’s not on the standard curriculum.

Brave Story: New Traveler (PSP) I recently read and enjoyed Miyuki Miyabe’s Brave Story so I figured I’d give one of the video games based on the story a try. Brave Story: New Traveler is your pretty standard random-encounter RPG. It has a nice fighting system with animations unique to each attack. However, the monsters can get repetitive (as can the battle music). The thing I really enjoyed is how the game incorporated elements and characters from the original story—you even have the opportunity to play Wataru and his friends at one point. The main quest is very similar to the book’s plot but different enough to be interesting.