Posts Tagged ‘shounen’

Flowers of Evil, Vol. 1, Japanese Cover

#19 – Flowers of Evil by Shuzo Oshimi

May 8, 2012 | Reviews | 5 Comments

Aku no Hana, Flower of Evil
by Shuzo Oshimi
Serialized in Shounen Magazine
Licensed by Vertical

A young boy falls in love with prettiest girl in class and makes a crucial mistake.

A girl witnesses the young boy’s act and uses it against the boy’s fragile heart.

Another girl longs to save the boy.

This shounen title about adolescents and their control issues may have a lot of contemporaries but it is immature to assume that this story is nothing but erotic fanfare. Unlike Sundome and Nana to Kaoru, Flowers of Evil understands that ‘strength’ comes from great insecurities and weakness. However, this ‘strength’ is not about climbing mountains and emerging victorious. This involves strength in crossing the dark side of the mountain and how to bask in it — nourishing our personal demons.

#17 – Solanin by Inio Asano

April 16, 2011 | Reviews | 5 Comments

Solanin by Inio Asano
Serialized in Shounen Sunday
Published by Kodansha and Viz.

There are times when we just want the world to stop.

There are times when we try to ask the meaning of our lives.

There are times when we wish to find these dreams filled with meanings.

There are times when we find the strength to find these dreams… only to see life take its chances away from us.

Solanin is a manga about the hopes and dreams of couple in want of a particular change in their life. This is perhaps a life we once dreamed of. This is also the manga that reminds us what is real.

From the Japanese edition, Shinpachi introduces his girlfriend, Momo, a Gintama rip off of Love Plus

There are some things meant only for Japan

April 14, 2011 | Blog | 13 Comments

As soon as the new season of the Gintama anime started, I noticed a couple of tweets asking whether the Gin Tama¹ manga was cancelled since the US Viz release of the 23^rd volume was declared as the final volume. The manga is still going strong in Japan and when I checked my 23^rd volume, it didn’t have a joke on being the last volume. Hence, I was surprised with the blurb in the same way that I was surprised that this even happened at all. How did one of Japan’s most popular titles close its pages in the US? Perhaps I should first ask: how did Gintama get translated in the first place?