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Love Hina volumes 5 and 6, by Ken Akamatsu, Kodansha International Every time I start reading another volume of Love Hina, I always ask myself why I'm doing so. It's basically a teen sex comedy, but without the sex. Here's the brief summary: Keitaro Urashima is a "drifter" who is trying to get into Tokyo University (roughly like the Harvard of Japan), but he's kind of an idiot, so he always fails the entrance exams. He goes to visit his grandmother at her lodge to get his mind off his failures, only to discover that it is now a woman's dormitory run by his aunt. Through many wacky adventures that involve walking into the girls' rooms when they're changing, falling into the hot springs while the girls are there (you don't wear clothes in Japanese hot springs, it seems), and other zany antics, Keitaro ends up as the caretaker at the dorm, and over the course of the story you see him developing a deeper relationship with one of the girls. I should also note that while Keitaro ends up in many compromising situations, you, as the reader, don't actually see anything. There are many other things going on, of course. I could try to explain what goes on in volumes 5 and 6, but that would be covering a LOT of ground, as there are a bunch of things going on. I've tried a number of times to write a concise summary of the stories in these volumes, but it just takes too long. Basically, through a number of bizarre adventures, Keitaro and Naru Narusegawa are realizing that they are in love with each other. Of course, in good comic tradition, whenever they are about to admit this to each other something stupid happens. Seriously, most of the humor in Love Hina is of the physical variety. Keitaro gets used as a punching bag by the girls most of the time, and the violence is all done in a way-over-the-top Japanese style where Naru will punch Keitaro and you'll see him flying hundreds of feet through the air. Nobody could survive such treatment, of course, but Keitaro gets through it all without any noticeable scratches. Which gets us to why I even read this thing. I have come to the conclusion that there are three real reasons. First, the art is fantastic. It's cartoony, but yet it's not. I can't really describe it well, but I could look at it all day. Second, I really like the characters. Well, most of them anayway. I want to find out what happens to them! Will Keitaro and Naru get together? Will Kitsune ever stop being a drunken slob? Will Shinobu get over her crush on Keitaro? What happens to Mutsumi? Inquiring minds want to know. Third, this whole thing is really Japanese. Even though TokyoPop is producing real "American" versions of Love Hina, I read the Kodansha bilingual comics produced in Japan that I import from there. This is really interesting because Kodansha prints the kanji and kana (Japanese characters) next to the English text, so people who are learning one language can see how it is written in the other. Pretty fascinating. But on top of that, because this is a "regular life" comic, you can pick up on a lot of cultural things that you won't learn without spending time actually living there. For example, the whole "Tokyo University" thing with the entrance exams and everything is something that just isn't in the American experience, but is something that all Japanese go through. Stuff like that. And that's pretty fun. |
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Love Hina volume 5, by Ken Akamatsu, 2002, TokyoPop If you've been around here since the beginning (or just poked around through the archive below) you should notice that I have read a TPB with this cover before. I've also read Love Hina volume 5 before. So what gives? Well, I had started reading this series through Kodansha's bilingual comics that they published in Japan to help Japanese speakers learn English. I had planned on continuing with that route, but I then learned that Kodansha never published the entire series in bilingual format. Therefore, if I stuck with them, I'd never get the full story. Luckily, TokyoPop has been publishing American printings of the comic, and they've even kept the right-to-left original page format, so it's been real easy to adjust to the new publisher. It turns out that the TokyoPop books are a) cheaper and b) larger, so I'm pretty happy with this decision. Because the books have a larger page count, this book five only contains one story from the end of Kodansha's book six. The only complaint I have about the TokyoPop editions is that the print quality is darker and not as detailed. Other than that it's a real good "bang for the buck" value. But what about the story? Well, it's standard Love Hina fare, and if you haven't liked the previous books, you're not going to like this one. But if you have, then this book is worth your time. Keitaro and Naru's relationship continues to progress at its standard molasses-slow pace, and of course they end up in all sorts of compromising situations, which end up with Keitaro getting beat up just like always. There is good development of Motoko and Sarah in the stories here, which was cool because I really like Motoko, but she's been so one-dimensional in the past. It was good to see a story dedicated to her and her past. Seta also makes a couple appearances, and I can see that there's more to him than was originally thought. |
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Love Hina book 6 by Ken Akamatsu, 2002, TokyoPop Love Hina might be becoming my favorite current comic series, beating out even Oh My Goddess. Then again, maybe it's just a phase. Whatever the cause, I have read yet another Love Hina book. I feel like I'm running out of new things to say about the series, so this might be the last time I make note when I read future volumes. This volume does contain a very large plot point, which comes up at the end of the book. I won't give it away to you, but let's just say that it involves the young girl Keitaro made his promise to. Also, Naru and Keitaro's relationship continues to progress. I think he actually got beat up less this time around. On top of that Mutsumi shows up again, and she's just as crazy and insanely cute as always. Add to that all the standard Love Hina craziness, and that's pretty much the book. I do have some more things to add. First, the TokyoPop TPBs are nice because the cover illustrations actually match the stories in the book. What a concept! Second, the "cover" illustration to story #50 in this book is the best character montage yet for the Love Hina crew. Motoko, especially, looks great; the picture really shows her own emotional progress. OK, that's all. Go read the stupid books, already. |
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Love Hina volume 8, by Ken Akamatsu, 2003, TokyoPop Another few months, another Love Hina book. So what do I have to say about this one? Well, it has solidified for me that Motoko is my favorite of the Hinata girls. There's also so much "fan service" that it was pretty ridiculous, even for the standards of earlier volumes in the series. I'm really not sure what else there is to do with the story, as the whole Tokyo University thing seems to be resolved. Maybe everything falls to pieces again in the next volume? Or maybe there's a whole new story arc. Maybe there's a story arc dedicated to Motoko! Oooh! That would be worth buying. |
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Love Hina volume 14, by Ken Akamatsu, Tokyopop I haven't written about a Love Hina book in a long time, as I ended up basically saying the same thing about each book. Love Hina is my guilty pleasure. There isn't anything redeeming about this series, but the characters are so good I couldn't stop reading it. And now, with volume 14, it is finally over. As is evidenced by the cover, Naru and Keitaro finally get together for real. The bulk of this book is their final stumbling steps towards making a real commitment to each other, and interestingly enough it is Naru that has inhibitions about the whole thing, as she starts thinking that she isn't really meant to be with Keitaro. The actual wedding doesn't take place until the epilogue, which takes place four years after the main story ends. Showing that Ken Akamatsu can't stop designing characters, he comes up with a new girl to come to Hinata house and get involved in wacky hijinks right before the wedding. Interestingly enough, she has some of the same initial experiences that Keitaro had. One of the neat things about the epilogue stories is seeing how the characters have aged. Shinobu is all grown up now, as are Sarah and Su. I didn't like the way that "older" Motoko was drawn, but oh well. Bottom line, I don't have to feel guilty about reading Love Hina anymore. Or, I don't have to feel guilty about it until I start reading the books again, which will probably happen eventually, as the characters, dirty lechers that they can be, are just so well designed that I can't resist. |
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Legends of Camelot, edited by Joe Martin, 1999, Caliber Comics This series consists of five different comics, all telling an independent story related to either King Arthur or the Knights of the Round Table. The individual titles are Excalibur, Sir Balin and the Dolorous Stroke, Merlin, The Enchanted Lady, and Quest for Honor. I really don't know what order the books were published in. Back when they were first published I bought a copy of Quest for Honor off the rack. It was interesting, and I kept an eye out for more, but I never found any. A couple years later I checked online at Mile High Comics and found the other titles, so I bought them. However, I never actually read the rest of them until last week; they just went into a storage box. I've been in a comics mood lately, though, so I recently pulled these suckers from the box and dove into them. It turns out they are a mixed bag, which has its good and bad points. Each book has a different writer and artist doing it. This gives each book a different feel than the rest. I liked the approach, but some people might want more coherence in the story-telling. I also like how each title is a stand-alone story, so if you just found one or two issues you could read those and have yourself a good time without being left at a cliff-hanger with no way to find out what happens next. My two favorite issues (pictured at the left), are Excalibur and Sir Balin and the Dolorous Stroke. Excalibur tells a story of how Arthur gets the sword, and it is told in a different way than I've heard before. Sir Balin and the Dolorous Stroke tells a cool story about Sir Balin (duh!) and a quest he inherits from a dying knight to hunt down a cowardly foe who strikes from shadows without honor. I liked this story a lot, and it takes some cool turns before the climax. The other issues were OK, but they weren't as entertaining as the first two. I actually didn't really care for the art in The Enchanted Lady or Quest for Honor very much; a little too minimalist for my taste. I much prefer the more realistic art in Excalibur. But, with such a varied style of art among the books, you will probably find something to your taste here in this collection. If you have any interest in the King Arthur of Camelot legend, I recommend checking these books out, just to get some different takes on the stories you've heard before. You'll also get to hear some new stories that can shed additional light on things. All told, a pretty neat collection of books, and they are especially good for people who don't normally read comics, as most people can get into stories at Camelot. |
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Low Orbit anthology, by various artists, 2007, Image Comics Let me begin this review by stating that this book was almost a complete waste of my money. I am generally a sucker for this kind of book, as it gives me a chance to discover new talent that I might be unfamiliar with. The risk, of course, is that I will pick up a book that stinks, and this one stinks pretty hard. It isn't that the artists are bad, but most of these people can't write proper stories. Either there really isn't a coherent plot, or the stories just end in the middle of the action with no closure. There are two exceptions to this rule. The first is the story Little Medusa's Big Day Out, which is a complete story about a little medusa girl that turns people to stone or eats them. It was not my thing. The other is the story Icarus three, which was the only story in this book that I enjoyed. The art was good, the story was coherent and complete, and it left me wanting more. Unfortunately, when I went to the artist's website as noted inside this book, the page didn't exist. That is just stupid. Why put your URL in print when you don't actually have a web site? Are these people idiots? Don't waste your money on this book. |