"Boys Run The Riot" Review

 

In light of the current brou-ha-ha over Dave Chapelle and Netflix and trans rights, let me just say right now that I am a trans ally.  True, I may not know many actual trans people myself, so I fear I still may mess up their pronouns every now and again, but I figure all I can do is ask politely, apologize if I’m wrong and try to remember for next time.

 

It probably doesn’t help that there are relatively few media out there with positive trans representation.  But, thankfully, this series Boys Run The Riot is there to at least give us one media outlet.

 

Ryoko Watari is a high school boy (inasmuch as they are a biological female who wishes to gender themselves a male and be treated as such).  He isn’t out yet, however, and feels every day as if he must carry this heavy secret within himself.  We as readers really get to see a lot of the depression, frustration and self-loathing that is sadly all too common among the LGBTQ community. 

 

He feels like he can’t bring up his insecurities and issues with anyone, for fear of their not understanding him and judging him for it.  He feels as if he can’t risk bringing any undue attention to himself at all, for fear of people getting too close and discovering his uncomfortable secret.

 

(And it helps that the creator Keito Gaku is himself a trans man, as well.  Apparently, a lot of Ryoko’s situation is taken right from his own real life.)

 

But one day the dumb but lovable delinquent Jin Sato transfers into Ryoko’s (or “Ryo’s”, as he prefers to be called) school and the two wind up bonding outside of class over their love of street fashion.  Jin, in sharp contrast to Ryoko, can’t help but stand out because of his massive size, delinquent looks and over-the-top directness and friendliness.

 

(If you’re smelling a sitcom here, then you’re half-right; it is, but it’s not so much “ha-ha” as it is a slice of life.)

 

And so begins Ryo and Jin’s quest to start their own clothing brand together.

 

Along the way, they meet up with Itsuka, the sole member of their school’s photography club, whose father was once a photographer, but quit in disgrace when said job failed to pay the bills.

 

This series is very gritty and realistic (not that that’s a bad thing), and I love the inclusion of a trans character to help enlighten the world.  Even more out of the ordinary is that Ryoko is a trans man, where many other trans character stories are involving trans women.  Not only that, but Ryo also appears to be sapphic, going by her reactions to classmate Chika.

 

And along the way, we learn valuable lessons about finding people who get you and standing up for yourself and sharing your truth.  And, as the cherry on top of the cake, we even get to learn a few things here and there about photography with an actual camera and all the steps that go into the creation of a clothing brand.

 

Granted, this series is entirely grounded in reality, but the story itself is so outside of my own straight, cisgender humdrum Midwestern life that I think I will hold onto it for a little while.

 

Definitely recommend.

 

I Came, I Chain-Saw, I Conquered

 

 

Quite a while aback, I heard wind of this series’ existence in the same video I talked about where I’d learned of Spy X Family.  The story itself appears simple enough on the outside, but, as with most fine nuts, the real meat of the item itself lies just below the surface.

 

Ever since his father’s suicide, young boy Denji and his pet devil, the chainsaw dog Pochita, have been laboring, doing any jobs they can in order to pay off the old man’s debt to the mafia.  Thankfully for us readers, the meat of this work is done by killing off other devils and selling their corpses.  This leaves little, if any money, for Denji and Pochita’s living expenses, so they content themselves with eating single slices of bread for their daily meals and living in squalor.

 

But, one day, the yakuza bosses turn to another devil for more power and the deal, needless to say, goes badly.  This new Zombie Devil promptly kills them all and uses their deceased corpses to kill Denji and Pochita.  But, somewhere between this world and the next, the two share their remaining life essences, healing Denji’s wounds and fusing him and Pochita together, turning him into…the Chainsaw Man!

 

From there, Denji is found by the gorgeous Makima and conscripted into a government devil-fighting force, with the promise of decent food if he stays.

 

The manga itself is pretty hardboiled, with its sharp lines and bloody violence.  It all feels very film noir meets horror movie, especially since the various devils are all thoroughly monstrous and often filled with body horror.  But there’s also a running theme of pets, loyalty and control running throughout.

 

Denji is worked like a dog and treated like a dog by the yakuza.  Pochita literally is a dog…ish…Even Makima compares Denji and his new coworker Power the female devil to new, trainable dogs she’s taken in.  And Denji, having lived the life he’s led, seems perfectly okay with merely keeping himself alive and clean and comfortable i.e. one could say that he’s mostly living for the “creature comforts”.

 

But this isn’t always a negative theme.  Denji and Pochita were both, one way or another, strays when they first met, and they took each other in.  The kindnesses they showed each other grew into a deep relationship of love.  The master protects the dog, and the dog protects the master.  Undoubtedly, this trend will also continue with Makima and Denji’s relationship.

 

Even Power becomes more sympathetic when she says her only real friend is a stray cat she took in, and (Spoiler Alert), she winds up betraying Denji to the Bat Devil near the end of Vol. 1 in exchange for the safety of her beloved cat.

 

I will admit that I have never actively owned a pet for myself that has ever survived for an extended length of time.  My frogs escaped and all my fish died.  My brother and I have even failed to take proper care of a plant if it wasn’t already in the ground.

 

Maybe we’re both way too up ourselves.

 

But my point is that I fully understand and can both empathize with and romanticize it.  There’s something about pet animals that you just can’t get with your fellow humans.  You feel like an animal will always listen to you and not judge, even if it’s just you anthropomorphizing them and they can’t actually understand a word you’re saying.  Animals are much more likely than people to repay the kindnesses you show to them, and less likely to do the opposite i.e. less likely to attack you in revenge for the abuses you put them through.  An animal will accept you just the way you are, never offering you any unwanted advice or ordering you to change, and all they ask for in exchange is for food, love and kindness…

 

I’m sorry…I’m getting all choked up here, just writing this…

 

P-Pick up a copy of Chainsaw Man today!

 

(sniff)

Don't Bother Toying With Miss Nagatoro

 

Long ago, I picked up the first volume of this manga at my local bookstore simply because it was new and the girl on the cover is cute.

 

Long story short, an unnamed shy and nerdy boy who’s grown used to being bullied one day becomes the target of the cute and sadistic Nagatoro.  What follows are several short “comedy” chapters where she mercilessly insults him, belittles him and dangles pleasant things in front of him, only to cruelly rip them away and laugh at him for thinking he could actually get them in the first place.  I liked the first volume well enough, to the point where I actually made purchase of it on Amazon Kindle, although strictly because I liked the unique dynamic.  It was a kind of relationship I had never seen before.  And, again, Nagatoro is cute.  Plus we got a ton of fanservice.

 

But, even if all of this is meant to be “encouragement” for our male protag to change his life and become stronger and more confident, the way Nagatoro goes about it is almost guaranteed to only make him feel worse.  Sometimes people need to hear some harsh truths in order to improve themselves, but Nagatoro is simply taking the piss.  The best relationships have a good give-and-take between the two parties, where they make up for each other’s weaknesses and help each other grow.   

 

But, having recently read Volume 2 on my last trip to the bookstore, there is still no sign that either one is maturing or growing as one would ideally want them to.  Nagatoro just gets to have her fun abusing our poor hero and he, for one, just barely seems to grow a spine by the end of Volume 2.   

 

The series has recently gotten an anime adaptation, which I suppose is good for them, but I will not watch it, other than the occasional clip on Youtube, just to see what Nagatoro’s voice sounds like.  Call me self-delusional, but I would never allow myself to get into an abusive relationship like this one and, if I had a Nagatoro in real life, I would run away as soon as I saw her and tearfully yell at her to leave me alone.  I have no time for negativity.  Negativity is not productive.

 

But at least Nagatoro is cute…

Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun Review

 

Find the answers to the school’s seven mysteries and something will happen.  That is the legend at this currently unnamed high school.  One of these mysteries is the wish-granting ghost, Hanako of the Toilet.  They say she will grant your wish, but you must give up something precious in return.  Heroine Nene Yashiro enters the haunted girls’ bathroom and summons Hanako, only to discover that he’s actually a boy.  But, thankfully, everything else is true.  The boy-crazy Nene states her wish to have her latest crush Minamoto fall in love with her.

 

The duo’s initial love plans all fail because Hanako is new at this and very straightforward, seemingly preferring not to use supernatural means to grant such minor wishes.  But then Nene finds a magic mermaid scale of Hanako’s that will bind together whatever couple eats it in two halves.  She eagerly eats her own half, but then unfortunately discovers that Minamoto loves someone else and then she transforms into a fish.  Then, because apparently fish are the servants of mermaids, a demonic one appears to come take her away.

 

Hanako turns out to be surprisingly strong, especially for a recent legend and manages to drive the mermaid off.  He grants Nene her wish to be human again, but at the cost of her becoming his servant when he eats the other half of the mermaid scale.  This binds the two of them together and makes her the half of a couple that she’s always wanted to be.  It also leaves Nene going through an H2O Just Add Water situation where she grows fish scales whenever she gets wet.

 

Hanako acts as a local sheriff and diplomat for the supernaturals of the school, being that he is one of the Seven Mysteries alluded to in the intro.  He and Nene work to not only keep the peace between the school’s students and supernaturals to make sure neither side winds up hurting the other, but also make sure that the rumors that the monsters must follow never dip into dangerous territory.

 

For, you see, supernaturals are bound to follow and act out the stories that people tell about them and, if they don’t, they will begin to lose their connection to this world and return completely to their own, never to return.

 

I follow Yen Press on Twitter, and it often seems that they’re shouting some news about the latest volume of this series (and possibly the anime, but don’t quote me), so I figured I’d see why.

 

That plus the fact that this is the first new manga series that my local library has gotten in months.

 

But, frankly, I don’t see why the series is so popular.  The characters are all stock and the story doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere.  The tone of it all is very XXXHolic, which I did enjoy up until it started trying to have a story and to link up with Tsubasa Chronicles wherever it could, when it used to be just fine as a collection of short, spooky horror stories.  (There’s an irony there, for sure.)  But Hanako-Kun is neither spooky nor deep, at least not to such a degree as XXXHolic was.

 

(sigh) I miss that series, back in its glory days.

 

The one thing I can say about Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun is that the art style is also very XXXHolic, but in a good way, with lots of darkness and fine details and shadows and occasionally smoke or otherworldly designs whenever something supernatural shows up.

 

That being said, I, for one, would consider giving this series a hard pass.

 

Maybe next time I post, the library will have gotten something better.  Or who knows-Maybe by then the pandemic will be over and I can fulfill my year-long dream of spending an entire day at the bookstore again!

 

Not 100% On This One

 

 

Sigh...The quarantine continues to roll on, affecting every facet of our lives.  Not the least of which is my manga blog.

 

I'll admit: I did pick up this manga once before, but put it down after two or three pages because of how dumb some of the humor was and how absolutely horrific the art was.

 

I'm talking about Mob Psycho 100.

 

Now, the story itself is more or less okay: Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is a rather unremarkable man.  He has little facial expression or personality and is the kind of person who just blends into the crowd, hence the nickname.

 

He is also a super-powerful psychic, something that fraudulent "psychic" Reigen Arataka is not, which is why the latter must employ the former to do all the actual work for him while he works on the flim-flamming and credit-taking side of things.

 

That right there was one of the big reasons why I put it down back when I first discovered it in the bookstores possibly over a year ago.  Hearing Reigen's unfunny, slapdash explanations for why he always gets his predictions wrong and how he can still be of "help" came off as more annoying than anything, like a lying child trying to make up a story on the fly as to who "really" broke the vase.

I didn't really find any of the humor in Mob Psycho 100 funny, per se, and none of the characters felt relatable or like anyone I should sympathize with.  I mean, sure: I am a compulsive liar with a flat and unexpressive face, but that doesn't mean I see any of myself in Reigen or in Mob.

 

No serious threats are established in Volume One, but, from what I've read online, it seems to be shaping up into an action-comedy manga, likely with more focus put on the comedy than the action.

 

And the art looks like it could have been drawn in crayon.

 

Mob winds up defeating an ugly mind-controlling ghost with visions of godhood in this one (one of whose followers you can see with Mob in the above screenshot), and it looks like "Lord Dimple" will be sticking around for a while as the series' ugly-cute mascot.

 

Needless to say, the story is intriguing enough at this point to be the sole reason to continue, casually glossing over the unfunny humor and bad art.

 

But I will still continue with reading this manga if I can, whenever the bookstores open back up, if only to see where it's going and whether or not it's worth sticking with.

A Blue Moon Has Risen Again!

 

 

Hello, readers.

 

Guess who's pounding away at the keys of a brand-spanking new laptop, little internal motor just purring away?  I'll give you a hint: he's the man sitting at the keyboard and the one writing this to you right now.

 

And, in more important news: A shopping trip yesterday led me in the direction of a far-off library, so as best to combine with our trip to the big-box store.  Not expecting to find much, I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of Spy Family Vol. 1 on the shelves.

 

 (And, yes, I know there's an X in there between Spy and Family, but, until I hear otherwise from an official source, I'm going to pronounce it and write about it in the same way as we do Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter Hunter, without the X.)

In a world that greatly resembles 20th century Europe, the neighboring nations of Westalis and Ostania are currently engaged in a sort-of-Cold War involving espionage.  Westalis' top agent is a cool and professional man known only by the codename Twilight.  In order to get close to a reclusive rabble-rouser (cool alliteration completely unintended), Twilight's managers have tasked him with taking both a wife and child (as his own fake family, not as hostages) in order to get close to him at the private school his child goes to.

Unknowingly joining Twilight (alias Loid Forger) in this endeavor are the socially-clueless Yor (the sham wife) and the adorably precocious Anya (the daughter).

Oh, but what's this-Yor is secretly an assassin and Anya's secretly a telepath?!  And none of these fake family members know any of these secrets about each other?!

 

Why, what wacky hijinx will ensue!

 

In all seriousness, this manga series is actually better than I thought it would be, and I already thought it would be pretty good (for a reason that I will mention below).  The art is good, the action scenes are simple enough to follow and the humor is en pointe in the standard Japanese style (everything is going smoothly until something outlandish occurs out of nowhere and then we laugh at it).

 

But the character work is where Spy Family really shines.  Twilight is more than just an efficient and professional spy-he's a man from a war-torn country who had a rough childhood and wants to make sure no one else in Westalia winds up with a childhood as rough as his.  Yor at least appears gullible enough to believe the strange lies that Twilight comes up with for his spy-related escapades, is embarrassed to have once worked as a whore, and does all of her assassin work to help pay for and educate her unseen little brother.  And Anya is as well-written as any average, non-magic kid: book-dumb and eager to live with Twilight and Yor because she sees living with them as an adventure.

 

(Albeit because she's a mind reader and knows right away that they are a spy and an assassin, respectively.)

 

And there may be even more just waiting to be discovered behind these facades.  For example, Anya is stated to have gained her powers from an accident at a research facility, which she escaped from.  She has also been adopted out of the orphanage where Twilight finds her many times, but always to be returned for unknown reasons.  Plus she has surprisingly little state/social data, even for an orphan.

 

 But they all slowly grow to love each other.

 

In conclusion, let this image tell you more about the tone of the story than I ever could...

 

During a firefight to escape his enemies, Twilight liberated a stolen diamond ring.  But he lost it.  Instead, he makes his proposal with the firing pin from a hand grenade.  He makes his marriage vows, however fake, to Yor as he almost casually flings the grenade into the enemy, overlaid with the image of a proper man placing a proper ring on a proper woman's finger, culminating just as the grenade explodes.

 

Now that...that is art, my friends.

 

PS: As I said earlier, I already knew of this manga's existence, from a Youtuber I follow named Mother's Basement.  Check him out in the link below, and maybe watch his "Must Read Shonen Jump Manga" video to learn more about this and other new noteworthy Shonen Jump manga: https://www.youtube.com/c/mothersbasement/videos