Scanlation Get: Oniisama e...

Now for something far less manly but equally 70's-tastic as my last few posts with the title Oniisama e... by Riyoko Ikeda. This author may sound vaguely family with some, as she was the creator of Rose of Versailles, which is her most famous title. (Apparently the anime version of Rose of Versailles still airs today in France). She has written a number of historical titles but Oniisama e... is not one of them. This title oozes with the 70's from every single page, in ways only a shoujo manga can also. Shoujo tends to have more fashionable looking clothes and as times change, often these clothing designs don't age so well. I can think of a few exceptions (Paradise Kiss being one of them) but this makes many of an older shoujo manga special...very, very special.

This is the story of Nanako a normal young girl who comes for a fairly well to do, but down to earth, family. She and her best friend Tomoko end up going to an elite all girls high school together. This school in true classic shoujo fashion is filled with beautiful but nasty evil bitches. (Thought your high school had malicious cliques? It's just peanuts compared to these girls and their spiteful backstabbing). What these girls are obsessed with in this school is the "Sorority". Only the schools top elite are asked to enter this club. Nanako mysteriously receives and invite to Sorority and in an “offer you can't refuse” situation she joins. This starts a roller coaster ride of melodrama as Nanako is sucked into this world that she doesn't fit into and doesn't necessarily like all that much.

This is the manga that has a huge check next to the trope of the lesbian all girls school. Nanako develops a serious crush on upperclassmen Rei Asaka nicked named "Saint-Just sama" in the school. Rie is a bit butch and is often seen smoking and skipping school. Rei has some serious emotional probables which are part of the fact because of the person she is infatuated with. Nanako also has girl who is infatuated with her named Mariko. A lonely girl with some serious issues because of her strange home life that clashes with the girls at school.

At this point in my mind the story is a bit of jumbled mess because I read the manga over a very long period of time and I had watched the anime first. I think this is one of the cases where the anime out does the manga. The anime from 1991 directed by Osamu Dezaki (he also directed the Rose of Versailles anime and many, many others...look him up) adapts and expands the story. You really get more of a feel for the characters and their motivations in the anime. It is almost like the manga is the abridged version, smashing everything together and speeding up the pacing. Also notable for the anime is the look has been updated and while it is still dated looking it is far less so as more generic clothes were chosen for the girls to adorn then in the manga.

I also can't get away without mentioning this series must have heavily influenced my favorite anime Revolutionary Girl Utena. Nanako is a girl pulled out of her depth into a world she can't even begin to understand. Much like Utena's experience with the student council. Her friend Tomoko is the normal girl of the story, much like Wakaba, who begins to feel left out as her friend flies into a society she can only dream of. I can even draw more comparisons with the anime, but this is a manga blog so I must digress. If you are a serious fan of Utena though, I highly suggest checking out either version of this title.

Now have said the art is dated, and it is, but that doesn't mean it isn't well drawn. The clothes and such are very “retro” and the art style is “classic” shoujo but it still looks very pretty. Everyone is drawn well, are fluid looking, and make great melodramatic faces when called for. The girls who are supposed to be boyish push a great androgynous line. The layout is very shoujo with less defined panels but the pages seem to be much more full then in a lot more modern titles. If one can get past the dated look it really is a great treat to look at.

Oniisama e... is worth taking a look at for so many reasons, if you liked Riyoko Ikeda other works; if you are a fan of Revolutionary Girl Utena and want to see some of its roots; if you wanted to read on of the classics; or want to read some shoujo that has some female characters with back bone (and are not boring doormats for men). I'm sure there are many others also. As it has been fully fan translated and it is only three volumes, just o do it.

Scanlation Get: Cutie Honey

Continuing on the Go Nagai theme I figured I would talk about Cutie Honey (sometimes spelled Cutey Honey) this week. Now, I love Cutie Honey my first look into the series was the OVA Re: Cutie Honey. I really love this anime and have gone on to watch some of the 70’s series, some of the 90’s OVA and TV series, the live-action movie, and the live action TV show. I’ve enjoyed each in their own way (Ok the 90’s OVA is kind of boring) but I still really like Re: Cutie Honey the best out of all of them. Though, with so many adaptations I was really interesting in seeing the source material that has spun off so much entertainment. When the Cutie Honey manga finally got a fan translation, I was very excited. Sadly, I was left a bit disappointed.

The original manga seems like it can’t make up its mind if it wants to be a full on parody or not. Honey goes to an all girls school where the teachers are creepy looking, mean, and lesbians who are hot for their students. The students don’t fare much better. Some of the girls look like they beat the ugly into the ugly stick. One even looks like a hulking man. Ideally this would be hilarious given the trope of the girl’s school with all the pretty girls who are evil conniving bitches. Here they are all ugly, delinquent, bitches. Just hilarious...oh wait no...it's not at all, not at all. Moving on…

The main story element seen in all the adaptions is Honey’s father is a scientist who is murdered by a mysterious organization known as Panther Claw. It also turns out Honey is an android and can change into different forms for fighting. Now she is out to get Panther Claw who are creating all sorts of havoc.

I did like in manga she only had several forms, over the years it’s just come down to Honey can change into pretty much anything. We also meet a few of the re-occurring characters in the series like her friend Aki, sometimes love interest Seiji, and a few others. It was interesting to see that in this version Honey needs a lot of help from her friends to fight off Panther Claw. In some ways I like this but it also makes here seem so much less of a strong female character. Which is what I liked about Honey so much.

My main complaint of the is with the evil group Panther Claw. They are evil for evil’s sake and I’m fine with that but they just seem so stupid. They killed Honey’s father and want Honey herself because she has a device (which has a different name for every translation out there) that can turn air into pretty much anything. So what do they want to do with it? Make diamonds…yeah really. I know they are a group of female criminals. but that is so lame. At the level of over the top this manga has you need bigger goals. Also, as with villains who want to make tons of gold all you do is make it worthless and destroy the world economy. Now, if destroying the world economy was the goal, or to make an über death ray, I could get behind it. The, I just want to make diamonds and that is why I am doing horrible things and murdering people, just isn’t reason enough for me. Now, even though this manga is full over violence and titties it was done for young boys so I can be a bit forgiving but I don’t think it would have taken much more to make the villains’ reasons less dumb.

I was also disappointed with the art and panel layouts. I thought the art wasn’t the same quality as Devilman which was a year earlier (and which is saying a lot). The panels and layout are much more generic and nowhere as interesting from what I have seen in other Go Nagai titles.

I didn’t hate Cutie Honey but I think I had built it up so much over the years I was expecting great things, which I did not get. It is worth a read to see the origins of a character that has had a lot of evolution in 30 plus years. I was expecting Devilman caliber of work and what I got was interesting fluff. There are a number of different manga series for Cutie Honey that take place after this one. I would really like to check those out someday and see how they compare.

Scanlation Get: Honey & Honey

Scanlation Get! is going to be topic I will try and update every week. Where I will suggest a scanlation only (at least at the time I suggest it) manga you may have not heard of.

This week is Honey & Honey which could be best described as a realistic look at lesbian life in Japan with some of the most unrealistic and cute art you could see. It is made up of short slice of life stories about a lesbian couple Sachiko and Masako. You see things like how they meet at an all female mixer after being dumped, and hanging out with mixed friends gay, straight, and transsexual. It's an interesting peak at lesbian life in general but also an inside look of what being gay in Japan is really like versus what we see in manga and anime all the time. This is no girls crying out Onee-sama in an all-girls school in this story.

The art in this can be off putting to some. Though I found the art very cute myself. All of it is done in a style that looks like maybe a good at drawing ten to twelve year old did and colored in crayon. I think it adds a nice touch of sweetness to the stories.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes true to life slice of life stories.