Seirei Gakusha Kidan Reikyou Kaden and Boukun Tyrano-san

Well, I had to move my clock up today so I decided to read some time traveling manga to match. Let's begin with....

Seirei Gakusha Kidan Reikyou Kaden by Daisuke Higuchi

Genre: Fantasy Shojo
Length: 2 Volumes - 7 Chapters

Art and story (c) Daisuke Higuchi

          Its very typical of manga of its time (around the 2000s), the characters have long faces and the bodies are slim and long legged. It's very well drawn, the people are all distinguishable from one another and the clothes have good detail and patterning. The backgrounds are not there at all, to tell the truth, but it wasn't too much of a negative with this manga, as the rest of the art is really appealing. Action was a little stiff, but on the most part the body movement was easy to follow. This is drawn by the same mangaka that created Whistle! though I have only had cursory looks at that particular manga. I enjoyed the art the most on this story.
             Yuika Aoi has dreamed of his death for a long time, unable to help as he is defeated by his enemies and she is covered in blood. When an earthquake sends her into a strange dimension and she sees the man for real, she agrees to do whatever she can to help him this time. The man, Rei, who seems to be what is called a 'fairy doctor' is quickly saved but, when Yuika finally gets the chance to look around, she finds herself eighty years in the past! 
              This manga really suffers from lack of explanations. If you read through it and ignore the way it is clearly set up for a longer plot for about a volume and a half, its a fairly good shojo story, but once you think about all the stuff that was left out for it's hasty ending you get a lot of questions that will never be answered. It really sucks when such things happen, but I don't think that ruins Seirei Gakusha Kidan Reikyou Kaden completely, it just sort of makes the time travel element seem unnecessary. Yuika is pretty spunky, too, but you don't get much of her in action which is also a shame, instead you get her wishing she could help and then suddenly the ending happens. Her beau is also underdeveloped so their actual romance is lukewarm and a little too sudden. So, to sum up, its a good glimpse of a world that could have gone somewhere with a couple more volumes, but was cut down to only two volumes of rushing story.  Even the 'bad fairies' motivation is a little confusing, and they are supposed to be the bad guys, instead they are sort of faceless because several chapters were spent on a different plot line before everything shoehorned into the ending flashback. The few specials at the ends of volume one and two really help in cooling the confusion rage that follows

3/5 I can't hate it but I can hate it's wasted potential due to cancellation.



 And for some thing else that leaves more questions than it answers, like "Huh?" and "What?" and "Why was this made?" especially, is this one-shot:

Boukun Tyrano-san Story by Jouji Manabe and Art by Shii Miyone

Genre: Shonen

Length: One Chapter - 103 Pages

Art (c) Shii Miyone and story (c) Jouji Manabe

           Art wise this manga is a little hectic, but solid. The character designs are interesting to look at, at least the girls are, but the men are more generic. Clothes aren't anything special to look at, there are plenty of tones and detail, just its school uniforms for two thirds of it. The backgrounds are good and prolific for once. Listen, though, the art makes no difference to why you are going to try this thing out, okay, its pretty good but it doesn't matter. Trust me.

            Ralph, who's last memory is of an asteroid falling down from the sky, finds himself in a strange body and in a strange place. See, Ralph was king where he came from but is a curvacious high school girl now, made of soft flesh and who is missing his powerful tail. See, Ralph was a mighty T-Rex last he remembered. His was the world of lizards, but now he seems to be in the world of monkeys instead.

            I don't have the words to describe this manga in full, but I'd have to say I'm glad I read it. It may not be a stellar example of a manga since its kind of all over the place in pacing, but it is entertaining to say the least, and has lead me to a whole new type of manga I didn't know existed. Who knew that dinosaurs are a thing in manga? And are there more body swapping ones out there? I suddenly live in a world where I want to look that up?!?! All joking aside, it is fairly wordy for an action manga, and the scientific mumbo-jumbo is more than a little indecipherable, something about magnetic fields? Ralph understands your pain, though, so its obvious that even the author and mangaka knew it was a little hard to swallow. By all means though, give it a read, just don't expect a manga about a dinosaur time traveling into a high school girl's body to make much sense.

4/5 It gets this score on premise alone, I won't lie.

Yuika Aoi

Yuika Aoi