Title: Nagasarete Airantou Author: Fujishiro Takeshi Release: Monthly Status: Ongoing Genre: Slice of Life, Ecchi, Harem, Romance, Comedy Art: A Originality: B Story: B Characters: S Humor: A Action: B
Impression: This is the story of Tohouin Ikuto, a young man running away from home who gets lost out at sea and ends up on an island where there are no human males due to an incident several years before and their lifestyle is like that of people before westernisation really kicked in. As such, all (well almost) the young girls on the island are hopelessly unaware of the normal way of interacting with guys but that doesn't stop them from trying to pursue Ikuto to marry him. Oh and there is no way to get past the whirlpools isolating the island from the rest of the world. The idea sounds a lot like something out of a pervert's fantasy so as expected there is quite a bit of fanservice thrown around. Most of the time it's mixed in with jokes involving Ikuto's constant nosebleeds and the girls' lack of experience but it rarely gets in the way of the humor. Right from the start, it's the humor that takes first priority in the manga and not the fanservice and as such we get a very good balance of jokes and story ideas acted out by a great cast of hilariously unique characters. Even animals get in on the act in the story as about a couple of dozen chapters in, Ikuto starts to understand what they're saying and they begin to speak using normal speech bubbles. Unfortunately, after 88 chapters, the story really isn't going nowhere aside from the usual getting closer to the main girl developments but aside from that it's quite a fun read and the author has yet to lose his great sense of humor.
Title: Hyakko Author: Kato Hiruaki Release: Monthly Status: Ongoing Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy Art: B Originality: B Story: A Characters: S Humor: A Action: B
Impression: This about, at first, a group of four girls who attend an K-Uni elevator school with a ridiculously huge campus. As the story progresses it transitions slowly from just the four girls to them and the people they know. Strangely enough, it's not done in the traditional 4Koma format that most manga of this nature take so there's not as many jokes per chapter. There is however a wide variety of them spread over each chapter and occasionally, there will be some plots that keep the readers curious like the relationships between characters and the activities they are involved in like the recent school festival arc that features some nice battles. The art starts off very shaky but eventually the author finds his own style and we end up having drawings decent enough to bring good fanservice and actions scenes. The strongest point about this manga is the wide array of unique characters and the author's ability to give each one the right amount of screen time and focus. I can't really say there's anything about it that bugs me other than the fact that we are missing chapters between 8 and 20.
Title: Mel Kano Author: Towa Oshima Release: Monthly Status: Ongoing Genre: Seinen, Romance, Comedy Art: A Originality: B Story: B Characters: A Humor: B Action: A
Impression: This is about a couple of teenagers who find each other as online lovers through an online social service. However, as people have young kids over and over again, they discover that the other is not who they imagined it to be. Seems a bit like a cliche but when you add the fact that they're both Tsunderes and not exactly the most sociable people, you get what seems to be a love comedy whose main driving force is the comedy between two. It might have remained as a love comedy but as the story develops we learn more about the world behind the social site and the problems that the public relations group have to deal with. The regular love drama stuff happens too but both the ideas and the characters are good enough to keep readers interested in what's going to happen. It doesn't really do anything new in the field of romance manga but at least it doesn't employ the same tired old cliches that many many shoujo manga fall victim to. I still can't understand why Special A had the need to keep reminding readers of the concept and main characters even though it had been serialized for over a year.
Yesterday, Thursday 27th of August, was my birthday and the night before it I made a wish right before I went to sleep. A little childish or possibly a sign of insanity but stating it out loud on my bed seemed to have some effect on my birthday.
You see at approximately 11.00 pm on the 26th, I was about to go to sleep when I remembered that the next day was my birthday (I’ve really been busy lately). My birthdays usually end up the same every year with my mom wishing me a happy birthday in the morning and us all eating either at a RBC restaurant or at home with my grandma’s stew and cakes. Because I felt like it would be nice to have a change of pace this year. So by saying “I want something interesting to happen tomorrow. Something interesting, not problematic. Interesting”, I tempted fate and got my wish.
It started right from the moment I woke up for Sahur. For some reason I woke up a few minutes later than the rest of my family and I’m usually the first one down to Sahur – so far I have been since Puasa started this year. Then I dozed off till 5.40 am which is when I go and take my shower. While I was waking myself up with hot steaming water, I suddenly felt a small sting on my collarbone. I scratched at it for a bit and found a black crusty thing squashed under my finger. I wondered what it could have been and felt another sting on my neck. I patted my hand and found that there was a still moving ant on my hand. Not knowing where they were coming from I tried washing myself from head to toes to get any other ants on me off. It took another couple ants to realize where the source was exactly. The ants were coming from INSIDE the showerhead. Apparently a small nest of ants had made the inside of the showerhead I use everyday their home overnight. Took ten minutes after I came back home from school till I was certain that I managed to wash out all the ants. At that moment I just knew it was going to be an interesting day.
After making sure that there weren’t any ants on me, I got out of the shower and noticed that the sky was more reddish than usual when it should have been blue. It didn’t have anything to do with the time I got out since I finished at the same time as usual. While I was walking around, I happened to see that there were cars parked outside my house for some reason. It was only later when I left for school at 7.00 am that I found out that my next door neighbor just died of cancer a few hours ago, quite possibly around Sahur. OK… That was DEFINITELY a sign. Adlan and Afiq were really surprised when I told them that – Adlan more so because I told him that I made a wish and that it seemed to be coming true and that I told him about the death after it occurred to me that it completely slipped my mind when I was proving it to him. Not sure if he was more surprised at the death or that I actually forgot about it. I remember Chris was really surprised that Shaminan’s seizure during our AS levels last year didn’t bother me at all while we were doing our Stats paper.
My departure at 7.00 am would usually end up in me being late but traffic was unusually light for the normally jammed Jerudong area so I made it on time to school. Once I got there I was taken by surprise that we were following the normal Thursday timetable instead of the H1N1 approved Saturday schedule(Our school cancelled clubs on Thursday to minimize risks and alternated with other days’ schedules). I was also told later by Colin that there was an unusually high number of people coming in late when he went down to send in the class register. I had a really surprising morning yesterday.
Then right before the Tadarus session that was replacing CCA time, I messaged my dad that I had to stay back till 1.00pm. The reason for that was because Khai wanted me to transfer some of Adlan’s stuff into his pen drive but Adlan went home right after the Tadarus session anyway. Right before I could go off to find a room to write up the manga reviews I set up, I learned that we actually were going to be having extra class till 1.00 pm. Sigh… another coincidence to add to many others today. While I was in class I think I managed to consciously manipulate either the shape of the lens in my eyes or dilate my pupils more so I could see the projector’s image better. I also have to say that the weather was actually quite nice too. The sun was bright but didn’t burn as hot as it usually did, the wind refreshingly cool and the sky looked absolutely magnificent with just the right balance of light blue and white. There were even rain clouds in the distance that looked just right in the distance. Unusually perfect weather on my birthday, never happened before.
Nothing much happened later that afternoon other than us leaving for my younger brother and sister’s school earlier than usual. My mom only seemed to remember that it was my birthday while she was at work too. We even walked to the stalls even though my dad prefers to drive to the stalls instead. I didn’t get to eat the food I bought till Sahur though. There was a Tahlil event at my neighbour’s house so I had Sungkai over there. Again something odd happened. While we were reading Yasin, the vases and bowls on this cabinet I was sitting next to suddenly started shaking hard enough for it to make a rattling sound. What’s weird about that was that I was sitting in a corner in a carpeted room and I was the closest one to it and I didn’t even touch it while it happened. I tried shaking it a bit with my arms and legs but none of those things shook enough to make a sound. If it was near the air conditioner or near the parking space it’d be easy to explain but they had a central air-conditioning unit, the kind they use in office buildings, right in the middle of the relatively wide room and the nearest car was at least ten meters away.
After we finished praying and reading, we all went and ate at the tents prepared outside with catered food waiting for us. I’m impressed by how fast Bruneians can set up a gathering, I mean the man only died half a day ago. It started raining the moment I stepped out of the house but there wasn’t anything strange about that. At least not compared to other weird weather coincidences that have happened to me in the past. After I finished eating, I went back home. Apparently my family went back ahead of me to finish the stuff we bought so they only ate a little bit of the catering while stuffed myself full. On my walk back I heard some strange whispering like someone was saying something into my ear. It's been a while since something related to "that" happened to me. Nothing out of the ordinary happened later that night unless something happened while I was asleep.
So here is a summary of all of the things that were out of routine for my birthday:
Woke up late for Sahur
Ants laid a nest in my showerhead overnight
My neighbor died a few hours before I left for school
Unusually light traffic in a normally traffic heavy zone
Made it on time to school when I left really late
Lots of people were late coming to school
The weather was unusually perfect
I stayed back only to find out I really had class
Parents only remembered it was my birthday after work
I attended a Tahlil on my birthday
Vases shook for no reason
Heard odd whispering noises while walking in the rain
No celebration on the actual day
After having all this happen to me on my birthday and breaking the usual routine I’d have to say I got my wish. I had an interesting day and it didn’t trouble me too much. Do you think so too?
Title: Umineko no Naku Koro Ni Author: Natsumi Kei, Ryuukishi 07 Release: Monthly Status: Ongoing Genre: Fantasy, Mystery, Seinen Art: A Originality: A Story: A Characters: B Humor: B Action: A
Impression: This manga was adapted from the first chapter of Ryuukishi 07's second visual novel, Umineko no Naku Koro Ni. It's about a series of murders on an island in the middle of astorm owned by a prestigious family called the Ushiromiya clan. In total, there are 18 people on the island and according to an ominous epitaph in the family mansion, starting with six people everyone will be killed in order to revive a mythical witch that was supposed to have given the family head the gold he needed to make the clan what it is at present. While the first chapter of the visual novel is said to be of the mystery genre only, the sucessive chapters are meant to be fantasy as the main meat of the story is a duel between Beatrice the Golden Witch and Ushiromiya Battler about whether or not the murders were done by magic or not. This is only the set-up of the complete story but that doesn't make it a dull read. The art style is perfect in capturing the creepy nature of the plot and there are plenty of improvements over the anime to be found in the manga like extra details and more faithful scenes. Unfortunately, the pacing is painfully slow for such a good story and I've already spoiled myself with the anime. I am looking forward to seeing the end of the manga though as I've heard that the anime wasn't completely faithful at the end of its first chapter.
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