Anime Review: Tengen Toppan Gurren Lagann

Whew. It's been quite awhile since my last post here, and it hasn't been for lack of anything to write about. If anything I've actually had the opposite problem: I've been watching so much new anime lately that I haven't had a chance to write about them or figure out where to start. Well now I do, a series that I enjoyed so much that I can't NOT write about it while it is still at least somewhat fresh in my mind. If I talk (or chat as the case may be) with you on a semi-regular basis there's a good chance I've already mentioned this series to you. Even if I have, and especially if I haven't, here's what the whole thing boils down to: Gurren Lagann is awesome and you should go watch it now.

In a couple of words, "Gurren Lagann" is about Giant Robots. The good guys run around in giant robots, the bad guys run around in giant robots, and everyone fights everyone else in giant robots. Now I'm only speaking about the anime that I remember watching (which is admittedly the tiniest fraction of what's available), but it seems a lot of giant robot shows recently either: have elaborate and complicated socio-political environments and plotlines (pretty much any "Gundam" series ever and "Code Geass"); or have main characters that are adolescents with more baggage than all of LAX airport. This is a gross generalization, but it seems that gone are the giant robot shows of old where it seemed everything was simple, stylish, and larger than life. "Gurren Lagann" hearkens back to these robot shows in the same way that "Shaun of the Dead" pokes fun at and pays homage to zombie movies.

The setup is as follows: Simon and Kamina are two youths living day to day in an underground village digging tunnels outward and down so that the village can expand. Though the two dream of going to the surface (with Kamina doing most of the dreaming and Simon just kind of tagging along) they are forbidden and their attempts end in failure and punishment. One day, Simon (who is apparently some kind of digging genius with his hand drill) makes two astounding discoveries digging around in the dirt. One is a small glowing drill bit and the other is a smell mecha. Shortly after making this discovery the roof of the village collapses and in falls a buxom girl armed with a huge rifle fighting a Giant Robot. The girl, Yoko, teams up with Kamina and Simon and using the small mech that he found, defeat the villain and ascend to the surface.

On the surface this seems like a fairly straightforward plot and you may be wondering what's so special about it. And that's part of it, the story is a straightforward tale of two dreamers and the path they take. The other thing I've not mentioned yet is what the mechas actually look like. They're humanoid, with human looking arms and legs, but they have no head. Instead, the entire torso is one big face with eyes and a mouth that mimics the pilot inside to generally comedic effect. And the mech that Simon finds and pilots? It's about 4-6 ft. tall compared to the 30-50 ft height of his opponents and its special weapons are drills that sprout from its hands, or replace its legs and feet, whatever the situation seems to require. And the homage/parody thing I mentioned earlier is best represented by a gag in the second or third episode involving "combining" mechas to increase their power. You'll just have to see it.

Well setup and mechas are two important ingredients of a good Giant Robot show, but any anime ultimately lives or dies based on its characters, and on this count "Gurren Lagann" doesn't disappoint. Kamina in a lot of ways is the living embodiment of the series and its spirit and he's loudly outspoken, supremely confident in his and Simon's abilities and believes so much in his dream, his friends and his own ability that he comes up with some crazy ideas. I don't want to say too much for fear of spoiling the surprise, but Kamina, with his boundless machismo and optimism, is an energetic and charismatic enough character that soon he has inspired humans all across the surface to join his banner and fight against their mysterious oppressors, the beastmen. And although Simon comes close to the whining protagonist archetype that bugs me so much, Kamina's presence and his own inner reserves force him to come through in the clinch and ultimately make him a much more likeable character. The story starts out fairly light hearted, but as the series progresses it beccomes more serious and mature as its own characters mature, but never completely loses the element of fun. After all, this is a series where a special attack is named "Super Galaxy Boomerang Megat Cutter" without the slightest bit of shame or irony.

I've gone on and on and could probably continue to do so if I'm not careful, so let me wrap up now before I wear out your patience. "Gurren Lagann" is definitely a Gainax show. The art design, the high level of quality and the blend of humor and action and drama bring to mind good memories of shows like "Gunbuster" and "FLCL". Basically, if anything I've described sounds even the remotest bit interesting, or if you enjoy giant robot action, you owe it to yourself to give "Gurren Lagann" a try. I hear that it's currently airing on the Sci-Fi channel as part of their Anime Mondays block, though it's somewhere in the second arc of the story. However you do it, check it out.

EDIT: If you're curious, one of the guys at the Anime News Network has an interesting column comparing "Gurren Lagann" to some of Gainax's older works and drawing parallels. An amusing read if nothing else. Read it here.

Manga First Impressions: Psycho Buster

Alright, straight from the file of "I read it online so why the hell not?" I bring you, dear reader, my first impressions of the manga series "Psycho Buster". So far I've only read the first 10 chapters (maybe 2 full volumes?) so please keep in mind that a lot of this is just my "knee-jerk" reaction to this series so far.

The story revolves around four "prodigies" (the translation's term, not mine) who are on the run from their handlers, called "farmers". All four of them have some kind of psychic ability and their leader, a powerful clairvoyant, predicts that they must entrust their fate to someone named "Kakeru". Kakeru turns out to be just a regular high school student: he loves video games and has absolutely no extraordinary attributes. After being attacked by the "farmers" shortly after meeting the 4 prodigies, Kakeru decides to help out where he can and, specifically, to protect the lone female in the group who he quickly develops a crush on. At first, Kakeru seems to have no power himself, save for extraordinary luck. For example, when the chief antagonist is about to shoot him in the head, the bullet is deflected by a piece of falling debris as the house begins to collapse, but only in the villain's vicinity. A couple more lucky breaks and his own quick thinking helps Kakeru protect his new friends from some of the psychic soldiers the farmers send after them, but apparently there is a deeper secret that Kakeru unknowingly hides: one fully known by the clairvoyant and eventually the villain.

This is honestly about as far as the story gets in these first ten chapters (with some minor omissions on my part) and the audience is given a glimpse of the true power that Kakeru holds. The problem is it doesn't make any sense. Now although this series is licensed in the US, I first ran across translated scans of it online so that is what I'm reading. The site that hosts these scans has occasionally had problems putting pages of the different series in their proper order, so I don't know how much of my confusion is due to the translation, possible order mistakes, and how much is the actual plotting. The way the power manifests itself seems to disregard ordinary notions of story flow and no explanation whatsoever is given beyond "it happens". I can't go into details without giving away spoilers so you'll just have to read it for yourself and see what I mean. Maybe in subsequent chapters this will be explained, but for me the discontinuity was almost enough to make me put down the series and stop. You want to entice the reader with mystery, not beat them in the head from behind with a seeming non-sequitir.

The art style doesn't have anything particularly unique in it but the characters are all well drawn, the action scenes flow well and are smartly choreographed and the characters are distinct enough so that mixing them up is a non-issue. The "wtf" moment about Kakeru's power aside, this seems like an interesting series and I will be following it, if only to see if the explanation they concoct is sufficient to explain what happened in chapter 8. :-p

-ZK

Anime First Impressions: Blade of the Immortal / Soapbox: The Manga was Better

This is kind of rare for me, but I've decided to do a "knee-jerk reaction" post detailing my first impressions of the new "Blade of the Immortal" anime. If you don't read manga on a regular basis or you only read Naruto and the other stuff that comes out of Shonen Jump, you may not have heard of Blade of the Immortal. Written and drawn by Hiroaki Samura, the series is still ongoing in Japan (as far as I know) and for years the English adaptation has been done by Dark Horse comics. The story is set sometime during the height of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan and starts by following two main characters: Manji and Rin. Manji is a former samurai who killed his lord after realizing that he had killed, on his lord's order, a group of innocent farmers who had intended to report the lord's corruption to the shogunate. Sometime after that, his body became host to colony of "blood worms" that instantly regenerate any wounds he receives, to the point of regenerating serious head wounds and re-attaching severed limbs. In order to atone for his murder of 100 good men and finally be allowed to die, he resolves to murder 1000 evil men. Rin is a young girl whose father runs a small sword dojo. After her father and mother are brutally murdered by Anotsu Kagehisa and his Itto-ryu, she swears vengeance and, following someone's recommendation, hires Manji as her bodyguard. It's a little more complicated than that, but I'll leave it to you to read the series and see for yourself.

Now the first episode of the new anime series covers the events of the first chapter of the manga, which runs about 40 pages. Not a whole lot of material to cover, just Manji's basic introduction, explanation of the blood worms, and why he's decided to kill 1000 evil men. The first episode covers everything that happens in the manga, but it somehow ends up feeling kind of disjointed. The beginning of the episode adds an entirely new scene that shows Manji killing the peasants and then killing his lord. Actually it shows a samurai killing some peasants, and then a silhoutte from outside of someone being beheaded inside a feudal lord's house. The manga covers this through simple exposition right before a fight and the anime does the same because the brief sequence at the beginning conveys no real information so it ends up feeling kind of superfluous. Additionally, the episode spends a few minutes showing Rin and then hinting at what happens to her family, and even shows Anotsu talking with a representative of the government about having his dojo officially endorsed. The only reason I know this is from having read the manga because no context is given for either of these little sequences and no proper introduction is even given for the characters in them, so it feels a bit like a shoe-horned cameo. Since this stuff takes up time though, the rest of the events in the episode end up feeling kind of rushed and the transitions a bit disjointed.

One of the most striking things about the manga, and one of the things I've both loved and hated about it, has been the artwork. His characters forego the huge eyes present in most manga and anime in favor of more realistic proportions (although the relative size of the iris is still highly variable depending on emotion and situation) and all of the artwork has an almost, sketchy quality to it. Obviously the sketchiness wouldn't translate very well to animation, but the character designs so far seem fairly faithful to their source. Manji seems to differ the most, being a bit beefier than his manga counterpart and having a slightly stronger jaw-line (I'm not sure how I feel about either change yet). Let me move onto personality so long as I'm griping about Manji. This stems from some kind of personalized image of what Manji acts and sounds like, but the character protrayed in the show didn't quite fit the bill for me. I don't know how much Dark Horse may have strayed from the tone of the original script in their translation, but their version of Manji always struck me as a bit more laid-back, or at the very least more cynical and sarcastic. The anime's Manji seems more despondent, more remorseful of his situation. Not necessarily a bad thing I suppose, but I kind of liked the cocky, smart-ass edge that Manji seems to have in the translated manga. For example, when he's complaining about being immortal one of the first things he mentions is how sloppy his sword skills are getting since he knows his opponent can't kill him. I guess in general between Manji's attitude and some minor scenes that the anime chooses to omit, the manga had a slightly more light-hearted feel despite the violence and serious subject matter.

Speaking of violence, let's now move onto the fights. The animation quality of the series seems to be fairly high so the one or two fight scenes shown in this episode look fairly good. It even seems to emulate the big full page or double page spread finishers of the manga. In those finishers, the loser is shown coming apart (literally) in some way, with their arms falling off or their head chopped into some strange pattern, with the winner striking some kind of "just-finished-a-technique" type pose against a beautiful background of flowers or something. When Manji goes in for the finishing blow in the big fight of the episode, a series of shots showing different wallpaper/kimono style backgrounds flashes through to represent each time Manji strikes. Obviously the series tones down the most graphic violence, so although you see cuts appearing on the guy's face, you don't see it fly apart at those seams. An understandable concession, but it looked cooler in the manga. :-p

Which brings me to my final point: the music. According to ANN, the music is written by Kou Ohtani, who has also done the music for series like Haibane Renmei and games like Shadow of the Colossus. An excellent composer who's capable of writing some moving and haunting stuff, but the music in this episode just felt kind of mismatched. Granted, the audio on the fansub that I was watching wasn't great, so that may skew my opinion towards the negative, but it seemed like there was always some music playing, even when a scene might have been better served by silence, and that especially during the fight or action scenes the attempt to try and ratchet up the tension and the energy just falls a little flat.

Ok, so I've spent the last who-knows-how-many words ragging on this series based on one episode, exactly the kind of behavior that I usually refrain from. But once in awhile every fan is allowed to gripe about all the things he perceives to have gone wrong with some adaptation of a beloved franchise, whether it's Trekkies moaning about the newest Star Trek series, book fans griping about the latest movie adaptation, or Star Wars fans bitching about the prequels. And don't get me wrong, I'm still going to watch this series and now that I've seen the first episode, I'll try to adjust my expectations so I can watch it and judge it on its own merits instead of constantly comparing it to the source material. But I do really enjoy this series and just this once I had to indulge in this impulse. And for the record, the manga usually is better than its anime counterpart. :-p

-ZK

Reader Poll: Endings

Hey all. It's been awhile since my last post and I've had several things that I've felt that I should write about, but somehow none of them got further than that. So instead of a review of some sort, I thought I'd solicit the opinions of all 5 people who read this blog. Or that at least I'd try to.

So I wanted to ask you about story endings. In a general sense, which kind of endings do you like best: happy endings, bad endings, or the bittersweet/tragic endings? For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to set the following definitions. Happy endings involve the hero or protagonist successfully overcoming his trial/conflict/obstacle and living happily ever after. Bad endings are the opposite, the hero tries and fails. The bittersweet endings involve the hero succeeding, but losing his life in the process or losing something dear to him.

Please leave your answers and thoughts in the comments.

-ZK

Anime Review: "Bleach the Movie: Memories of Nobody"

Well it's been a couple of days longer than I'd intended, but here I'm finally writing my review of the first Bleach movie, "Memories of Nobody". Now, if you have been even remotely interested in anime in the past few years, there's a good chance you've heard of Bleach. Set in contemporary Japan, the story centers around 15 year old high school student Ichigo Kurosaki (using western naming order). With his naturally bright orange hair, he's had to deal with assumptions that he's a delinquent for years and so has developed a kind of hard, take-no-shit attitude, but he remains a very caring and kind person despite his perpetual scowl. However, the thing that really sets him apart from his peers is his ability to see and interact with spirits. He's been able to see them and speak to them for as long as he can remember but his life takes a sharp turn when he meets up with a shinigami (lit: death god, translated as "Soul Reaper") and his family is attacked by an evil spirit called a Hollow. Through a certain sequence of events, Ichigo gains the powers of a Soul Reaper to protect his family and the series follows him and his growing cast of allies as they strive to get stronger to defeat a cast of increasingly more powerful enemies.

If this plot summary sounds kind of familiar, that's because in the most general sense it follows the structure of dozens of shonen type action-adventure series that came before it. But both the manga and the anime have enough style, humor, and plot to make it compelling nonetheless. Now the problem with movie spinoffs of these kind of long running (nearly 180 episodes in Japan) series is that they occupy some kind of nebulous other-space in the series canon. The movies assume that you've already watched the show, so little or no attempt is made to introduce established characters to new viewers. On the other hand, long running fans of the anime sometimes dislike these movies because they take place at a time in series canon where there should have been no time for these kinds of shenanigans. This problem seems especially pronounced if they also follow the source manga and they have very clear expectations of what the plot flow in the anime should look like. "Memories of Nobody" falls into this same area, so if you are either new to the series or a continuity fanatic, consider yourself warned. Additionally, minor spoilers follow in the review, FYI.

In "Memories of Nobody", a strange dimensional space bridging the Soul Society and the living world spells possible catastrophe for both while in the real world Ichigo must deal with the appearance of an unknown type of spirit and a mysterious Soul Reaper named Senna. Eventually it is revealed that the new spirits and the dimensional space are the products of a nefarious plot masterminded by some newcomers in strange armor, but honestly that stuff is all kind of glossed over really quickly. The meaning of the new dimension and the danger it poses is explained in a five-minute lecture using kid-like drawings and most of the villains (I think there are about 6) don't even get names let alone any meaningful dialog or screen time. Senna is the only new character to get any kind of development and half of the movie seems to be Senna and Ichigo hanging out. Needless to say, Senna is more than what she appears and is somehow central to the villain's plans (vaguely defined in objective or motivation), so the bad guys snatch her up. What follows is a series of fights as backup from Soul Society arrives to support Ichigo in his bid to save Senna. This sequence is basically nothing more than fan service as you get to see some of the different squad captains use their special abilities to dispatch underlings in short 2-3 minute fight sequences.

Now my description of the movie may sound a bit critical, but let me get one thing out of the way: I really enjoyed this movie. The animators had a larger budget to work with and it really shows, especially in the fights at the movie's climax. And although initially a bit obnoxious, I grew to care about Senna's character and her plight as the story fleshed her out, though admittedly I'm a bit of a softy at heart. What I dislike is the movie's pacing. As you're watching it keeps things moving at a pretty good clip so you never really get bored, but once all is said done and the credits roll, you can't help but feel that everything moved maybe a bit too quickly. The villains may as well have been cardboard cutouts and the only purpose they really served was as cannon fodder, and to put Senna in danger. I'm kind of rambling at this point, but I expect my villains to have a little more substance, especially with the pedigree of baddies from Bleach. Additionally, Ichigo's main allies, his human schoolmates and comrades, get a 5 minute cameo in the whole movie. I personally like these guys more than some of the Soul Reapers, but since their moves are not as flashy and you can only reasonably showcase a handful of characters, I grudgingly acknowledge why they were sidelined.

Being a theater showing in America, the movie was dubbed and dubbed well, in my opinion. All the regulars from the TV dub reprised their roles with Jonny Young Bosch as Ichigo and Michelle Ruff as Rukia. Dubs have come a long way in terms of quality compared to when I first started watching anime and I like to give them their fair shake, if only because it allows me to multi-task while watching anime. A few years ago, and maybe even today, the question of dubs vs. subs was a contentious one and maybe someday I'll post a soapbox with my take on the issue. But it's getting late, so I'll end this slightly rambling review with this recommendation: if you like Bleach then I would highly recommend watching this movie at least once. If you don't like Bleach, there's a good chance you've never seen it so go watch it. Right now.

-ZK

Quick Checkin, or, Soapbox: Movie Manners

Hey. Just a quick update to let anyone reading that I'm still alive. I just got back from a showing of the first Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody at a nearby theater (nearby being a relative term) and had a lot of fun. Expect a review to be coming in the next few days, but for now I'm tired and don't have the energy to write one as I have work in the morning. However before I go to bed, there is something that I need to get off my chest, so get ready for my first soapbox. It's about some of the antics that went on in the theater before and during the movie.

When I first showed up at the theater, I was honestly a little surprised by the number of people that were in the theater. The room was maybe half full (if that), but it was still a lot more than I had expected to show up. Maybe I'm still getting used to the idea that anime and manga fandom is fairly large and rapidly growing, but whatever the case I was surprised and a little pleased to see that many people there. However it quickly became clear that most of them, or at least a VERY loud portion, were middle schoolers or MAYBE high schoolers. Not surprising. I was in middle school when I started watching anime and honestly what demographic is most likely to think of cartoons as a regular source of entertainment? American anime fans are well known for being enthusiastic about their hobby, but unfortunately other stereotypes that I've encountered peg us as being extremely outspoken, lacking in basic social graces or awareness, and perhaps TOO enthusiastic. Sadly some of the patrons at the theater tonight only reinforced these stereotypes.

Before the movie, they were shouting at each other and holding a conversation across 8 rows of seats. A portion of it seemed to pertain to particular anime series, but the vast majority of it consisted of inside jokes and references that, while incredibly amusing to this group of apparent friends, were completely lost on the rest of us in the theater. And yet, they felt the need to broadcast these comments for the sake of everyone in the theater. Just because the movie hasn't started yet doesn't mean that you are given free reign to be as loud as you want. You are still in a public place, in the presence of strangers who honestly don't really care that you saw a video online replacing the dialog from a scene of Naruto with an audio clip from The Waterboy. Please be aware of this and be aware that many people are not as tolerant as I am.

Next was the movie itself. There was a group of very loud fans (both genders) who felt the need to scream or holler when they favorite character came on screen or to make snarky remarks (and lame jokes) to each other in regular conversation volume during the movie. Again, please remember that you are in a public place and that you must be courteous to your fellow moviegoers. In the past I too have been guilty of adding MST3K type commentary to movies and do you know what happened to me? A very large, very intimidating man in row in front of me turned around and politely asked me to "Shut the hell up." When you are talking out loud or screaming during the movie, two things happen. First, any kind of immersion the movie has created is instantly shattered as I am ripped violently back into the real world by your shenanigans. Second, I can no longer hear what the characters are saying. It might be something unimportant like, "I've got your cheeseburgers" or some exposition of vital importance, but I will never know because you were too busy squealing or being an asshole. This kind of behavior may be acceptable when you're watching a movie at home with your friends, but please don't assume that the rest of us in the theater want to hear your clever commentary over the movie's audio track.

To make it clear, I (and a couple other patrons) did voice these same opinions (although with far fewer words) during the movie to the troublemakers, so this isn't just some after-the-fact whining because I didn't want to do anything in public. However during the drive back home (and it's not a short one) I kept stewing about this stuff and just had to write something about it. In summary, your enthusiasm for anime is great and I whole heartedly support it. Just temper it a bit with some consideration for other people and put a little thought towards appropriateness. That's all I ask.

-ZK

Manga Reviews: Koi Kaze & Living Game

Good grief it's been a long time since my last post. I blame a variety of factors, most involving various conflicts of schedule and just about anything else that deflects responsibility from me. At any rate, today I've decided to give a 2-for-1 type review: "Koi Kaze" and "Living Game". Neither of these series is available domestically as far as I know and I just happened upon translated scans of them while browsing around the internet. It has been a month or two since I read these series and I'm writing this from memory, so I will say that least 80% of what I write will be true, with the rest having some probability of being a little muddled. So with that out of the way let's get started.

Living Game

This series is an older one, it's publishing run was from 1990-1993, and is a fairly cute slice-of-life/romance/comedy story. The main character is 25-year old salaryman Raizo Fuwa who is struggling to deal with the Japanese real estate boom and eventual recession of the '80's and early 90's. He lives in a small cramped apartment where he can't move without bumping into anything, and he works in a small cramped office with four other people where there is barely enough room to fit their desks. But change is on the horizon as he manages to find a new, larger apartment and his boss finds a new larger office and even hires on a new employee. Through a series of events both the new office and the old office get demolished, so the company begins to use Fuwa's apartment as a temporary office space, leaving it nearly as cramped as his old place was. To top if all off, the new employee is a 15-year old girl named Izumi who moves to Tokyo from the country and so has no real place to go. After her initial attempt to rent a place on her own ends with the building being demolished and since Fuwa is so worried about her, he agrees to take her in and let her live in his apartment. The rest of the story, split up over 10 volumes and three years of story time, follows the blossoming relationship between Fuwa and Izumi and their individual growth. There are other characters that pop in fairly regularly like Fuwa's friendly ex-girlfriend who crashes at his apartment every time she has a fight with her rich husband and runs away, the rich husband, and a couple more because what's a romantic comedy without some zany characters?

If I were to pick one word to describe this series, I guess that I'd have to go with "charming". It's hard for me to peg a single thing about the series that I really enjoyed because it all comes together so well that it's hard for me to pick it apart, but since I am writing a review I will at least try. As you can see from the image above, the art and the character designs are simple and clean characterized by lots of soft round shapes and the characters are easily distinguishable from each other and fairly cute. Throughout the story the characters appearance change to help convey the passage of time in their world so while Izumi looks like a schoolgirl when she first shows up on Fuwa's door (as pictured), she finishes the series looking like a much more mature woman. The art style and the usually subtle humor creates an upbeat and slightly silly mood that carries through the entire series, and even when the mood turns serious the two keep the series from getting too dark which is a welcome to "Koi Kaze", which I'll talk about a little later.

Another positive note for me, was this was one of the rare series where I didn't really hate anyone in the cast. Fuwa is kind of whiny at the start, but onlike some other protagonists who just seem to be whiny on principle, he has a legitimate reason to gripe (his home being taken over by his office) and he proves early on to be a reliable person in a pinch (despite constantly being called irresponsible) and has a good heart. As the series progresses and life forces him onto new paths that he'd never considered he manages to find something that he's passionate about and grows to rise to the new challenges thrown his way. Izumi starts off as just a cheerful young girl who seems ready and willing to help, but she occasionally acts as a compassionate counterweight to Fuwa's big city callousness in a handful of situations and she grows as she comes to terms with her feelings for Fuwa, the reason she ran away from home to Tokyo, and what exactly she wants to get out of life. All in all, the characters are very believable and relatable and the relationship between Fuwa and Izumi stays chaste, but emotionally deep, for the vast majority of the series. I tend to get a bit emotionally invested myself in series that I enjoy and so when I started the series I had some niggling issues with the ages of the protagonists and the nature of their relationship, but by the end they seem to be so genuinely in love with each other (and Izumi is old enough) that I finished the series pleased with the way everything had developed and ended. If you're looking for a charming little romance that's light on angst and moves at a decent clip without getting bogged down in years of limbo (Ah My Goddess! I'm looking at you) I'd recommend reading "Living Game".


Koi Kaze

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to think of this series now that I've finished it. It's one that I picked up on a whim without carefully reading the little plot synopsis. The premise goes like this: Nanoka and Koshiro are siblings who were separated when their parents divorced 10 years ago and they haven't seen each other since. Because his house is closer to her new high school, Nanoka decides to move in with Koshiro but they meet by accident and go on a date and some sparks fly, only later to realize that they are really brother and sister. Now this is more or less what I had to go on when I started reading so I was expecting some kind of light-hearted comedy or something, I don't really remember. One thing that the summary neglects to mention though are the respective ages of the brother and sister. Koshiro is 28 and works at an omiai company (meetings for marriages basically) and Nanoka is a 15 year old high school student.

Like "Living Game," "Koi Kaze" is a seinen series (young male adult) which explains the ages of their protagonists and I have to admit that "Koi Kaze" is fairly well written. After about chapter 3 I started having issues with the course the story and the characters seemed to be following, but I kept reading because I really wanted to know where everything was going to go. As I said near the end of my "Living Game" review, I have some problems with a 20-something year old guy hooking up with a 15 year old girl, but that series defused that particular feeling by being relatively light hearted and chaste. "Koi Kaze" has much less humor in it and maybe as a result, some of the stuff that happens seems a lot less innocent. For example there's a scene not long after Nanoka moves in where Koshiro walks in and sees the laundry basket with Nanoka's underwear. He's spent most of the day trying to reject the notion that he has romantic (or sexual) feelings for his little sister so what does he decide to do? He grabs a pair of her panties, crouches in the corner and starts sniffing them. Nanoka walks in at this point and because she didn't see what he was up to, she's startled by his extreme reaction. The whole series kinda plays out like this with Koshiro struggling with himself because he knows his feelings are not acceptable and the fact that she reciprocates his feelings doesn't help things at all. This internal conflict within Koshiro is probably the central element of the series and makes for a compelling read but I found myself in a situation where I couldn't think of an ending that satisfied me. The author has made it so that they're feelings for each other are powerful enough that if they conform to social conventions then there will be much heartbreak and pain all around. But if they flaunt society and act true to their feelings, I can't feel good about it because incest (and especially pedo-incest) is something I feel very strongly against. Koshiro's generally creepy behavior and his dirty looking sideburn/beard... thing does nothing to dispel the weird pedo-vibes I got from the guy. I won't say which way it ended, and if you don't mind reading something you disagree with, I'd say give it a whirl. I enjoyed reading it once, but I highly doubt I'll ever read it again. On the other hand, if you have absolutely no problems with the scenario the manga cooks up, don't contact me. Ever. Seriously.

-ZK