Short Takes: Flower in a Storm and Rin-ne

This week’s Short Takes column looks at two recent VIZ releases. The first, Flower in a Storm, is a rom-com about a high school student with superpowers and the billionaire playboy who loves her; the second, Rin-ne, is Rumiko Takahashi’s follow-up to the award-winning, best-selling InuYasha. I admit that I didn’t have high expectations for either manga, but both turned out to be pleasant surprises, the first for its goofy, over-the-top premise, and the second for its playful skewering of the “I see demons!” genre. Read on for the scoop.

FLOWER IN A STORM, VOL. 1

BY SHIGEYOSHI TAKAGI • VIZ • 200 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Flower in a Storm begins with a bang: seventeen-year-old Ran Tachibana storms a classroom where self-proclaimed “everyday, ordinary high school student” Riko Kunimi is making plans with friends. Brandishing a gun, Ran declares that Riko is his bride-to-be, a pronouncement that doesn’t sit well with Riko, who tells him off, then jumps out a third-floor window, landing gracefully on the pavement below. That death-defying leap is our first clue that Riko is anything but an ordinary teen; as we soon learn, Riko possesses a variety of superpowers — strength, speed, agility — that would make her a solid addition to the Justice League. Riko, however, just wants to fit in with her peers, a desire fueled by the memory of a boy rejecting her because she “wasn’t normal.” What she doesn’t grasp — at least in the early going — is that Ran likes her precisely because she isn’t ordinary; he finds her strength and grit irresistible, even if he doesn’t express his feelings in the most constructive, socially responsible fashion.

What would a superhero comic for teen girls look like? Flower in a Storm offers one possible template, liberally mixing car chases, kidnappings, and assassination attempts with romantic drama. Riko has numerous opportunities to strut her stuff — leaping from a speeding convertible, subduing a gunman — but, in a nice touch, is reluctant to reveal her powers for fear of standing out in a crowd. Though Ran is a pure wish-fulfillment character — he’s handsome, rich, and brilliant — he’s an appealing one; like Tony Stark, Ran thinks big, plays hard, and travels in style, entering or exiting the story with an outrageous gesture or snappy line. At times, Flower cleaves too hard to shojo convention, with some tired, paint-by-number scenes: was it really necessary to send the characters to a cultural festival? Shigeyoshi Takagi does better when she’s staging a fight or poking fun at her characters, as those scenes have genuine comic zest. Flower isn’t perfect by any means — stronger, more distinctive visuals would help — but it’s a nice bit of escapism for female readers who like the idea of superhero comics in principle, but prefer heroines whose everyday struggles more closely resemble their own.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

RIN-NE, VOL. 3

BY RUMIKO TAKAHASHI • VIZ • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

What a difference a volume can make! The first volume of Rin-ne was light-hearted and entertaining, proof that Rumiko Takahashi is still the undisputed mistress of the supernatural screwball comedy: who else would dream up a romance between a shinigami and a human slated to become a mackerel in his next life? The second volume, however, was an unmitigated disaster, filled with clunky exposition, lame adventures, and embarrassingly transparent voice-overs of a “Oh, so that’s why no one can see him — he’s wearing the robe that makes him invisible!” nature. The third volume, I’m happy to report, makes a welcome return to form.

Takahashi starts things off by introducing a new character: Tsubasa Jumonji, a teenage exorcist who attended grade school with Sakura, and has harbored a crush on her ever since he discovered that she, too, could see ghosts. Tsubasa will remind readers of InuYasha‘s Miroku in affect and appearance — that is, if Miroku favored cowboy duds over monks’ robes — though Tsubasa’s primary function is to compete with Rinne for Sakura’s affections. Tsubasa, Rinne, and Sakura reluctantly join forces to combat an assortment of ghosts and demons, from a faceless girl who torments male art students to a damashigami who impersonates the hottest boy in school. Though the actual ghostbusting has a been-there, done-that quality, Takahashi scores points with some funny, unexpected twists along the way; anyone who can breathe comic life into the urban legend of Hanako-san deserves an award.

As of volume three, Rin-ne hasn’t quite found its sea-legs: is it an episodic, demon-of-the-week comedy, or is Takahashi laying the foundation for a more complicated story? I hope the answer is the former, as Rin-ne‘s best chapters take everyday high school situations and make them absurd by adding a dash of the supernatural. It’s a formula that Takahashi has perfected, and while it may remind readers of her earlier work, her distinctive, mischievous take on the “I see dead people” genre gives Rin-ne a personality of its own.

Review copy provided by the publisher.