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The Shipping News, 3/10/10

8 March 2010 5 Comments

When David Welsh and Johanna Draper-Carlson give high marks to a new series, that’s a sure sign I want to read it, and both have high praise for one of this week’s debuts, My Darling! Miss Bancho (CMX). The premise, as David notes, is a theme-and-variation on a manga staple: girl navigates the rocky shoals of an all-male environment — in this case, a tech-voch high school — and finds love in the process:

When her parents get divorced, Souka transfers to a technical school so she can start working as soon as possible and help support her mother. The school is such a strife-ridden place that all of the other girls have transferred out, leaving Souka swimming alone in a sea of testosterone and goofy gang violence. Just as she starts adapting, circumstances push her into the role of the school’s bancho, leader of all of its warring forces…

It’s a likeable, well-executed variation on a very common theme, and its clear-headed freshness keeps it from seeming derivative to the point of superfluous. [Manga-ka Mayu] Fujikata also gives good author’s notes in which she expresses pixilated amusement that her editor keeps letting her get away with this stuff.

In other words, it’s a little bit of Grease, Rock-n-Roll High School, and The Warriors, with a dash of Jyu-Oh-Sei and Ouran High School Host Club for good measure. Johanna describes Miss Bancho as “brain popcorn” — that is, “something entertaining that only occupies your attention while you’re reading it. No nutritional value, no lasting effects, but enjoyable while it lasts,” while Julie of the Manga Maniac Cafe likens it to a Calgon-infused bath:

Even though the delinquents really aren’t all that delinquent, My Darling! Miss Bancho offers up a goofy high school comedy that zips along with lots of energy.  The illustrations work well with the story, and at times reminded me of Nari Kusakawa’s work. This book doesn’t take itself very seriously, so if you need a little pick me up, this is a good go-to title.

Sounds like a winner to me!

Other good choices this week include the first volume of Arata: The Legend (VIZ), a time-traveling, gender-bending adventure from the creator of Absolute Boyfriend and Fushigi Yugi; the fourth volume of the rude, raunchy Detroit Metal City (VIZ); and the fifteenth volume of the glamorous, globe-trotting From Eroica With Love (CMX). Below, you’ll find the full list of what’s arriving at Midtown Comics on Wednesday; for an alternative list of this week’s comic arrivals, visit the ComiXology website.

5 Comments »

  • Upcoming 3/10/2010 « The Manga Curmudgeon said:

    [...] Back to the ComicList and sticking with CMX, DC’s manga imprint has some fine comics shipping on Wednesday. I posted a review of the first volume of Mayu Fujikata’s My Darling! Miss Bancho last week, and Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey rounds up some other early word of mouth in her look at this week’s arrivals. [...]

    # 9 March 2010 at 9:44 AM
  • Jade said:

    I’m looking forward to Miss Bancho too, it looks a lot like Wild Ones. Though the main stories can be fairly blah sometimes, the yakuza keep me coming back, so I’m hoping Miss Bancho’s delinquents can offer the same sort of charm.

    I’m not sure if I should pick up the new Venus vs Virus or not though. I’ve kept up with it, but there’s just something about picking up the last couple volumes that have seemed more like a chore than a burning desire to see what happens next.

    # 9 March 2010 at 3:09 PM
  • Katherine Dacey (author) said:

    I wasn’t wild about Wild Ones, though I did love the inept gangsters — they were definitely more interesting than the bland-as-toast leads. Maybe they could get their own spin-off!

    Is Venus Versus Virus worth a look? I haven’t read much of Seven Seas’ licensed manga, so I’ve been curious about it, especially since Venus seems to have more of a following than some of their other titles.

    # 9 March 2010 at 4:41 PM
  • Jade said:

    Wild Ones is my guilty pleasure impulse book as a last minute four-for-three sale pick. From that angle, I’m happy with a few gangster shenanigan scenes per book, but I’ve really grown to love when the main girl goes into full yakuza princess mode and runs her mouth.

    Venus vs Virus is a great shonen/shojo fusion in the vein of Chiho Saito or Chika Shiomi in particular. The art is beautiful in action; amazingly enough, the covers don’t really do it justice though they look nice enough. The first few volumes are neat, but I think the problem after a while is there just isn’t quite enough meat to the story or cast for as much plot juggling is going on. In the past volume or two, new developments have just dragged things out for me like the boat episodes on Gargoyles, but for as much as I love that cartoon, I can’t say something like that is necessarily a series killer.

    I also think VVV gets a bit of a bad rep as some loli book since it’s Seven Seas, but there’s really nothing creepy going on, everyone just looks really fancy, haha.

    # 10 March 2010 at 6:38 PM
  • Katherine Dacey (author) said:

    Thanks for the low-down on Venus Versus Virus, Jade! I’m going to see if I can track down the first couple of volumes on the cheap and give it a try. I have a special weakness for supernatural series in which all the characters wear elaborate outfits, possible because Tokyo Babylon was one of the very first manga I read.

    # 11 March 2010 at 8:45 AM

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