Itsudatte My Santa by Ken Akamatsu

Merry Christmas a day early! I probably will not get to post a manga review next week since Christmas is proceeded by a sibling's birthday and then its family time for New Years eve and New Years day which leaves little time to actually sit down and read let alone the hour or so it takes to write a review and format it to my liking. So again I say,

but adding:

Itsudatte My Santa by Ken Akamatsu

Art and story (c) Ken Akamatsu

Genre: Shonen, Ecchi
Length: One Chapter – 47 Pages




           This is the same mangaka as Love Hina so, it looks just like Love Hina unsurprisingly. Roundish faces, dark eyes with out much detail and thick eyebrows are the basic look. The bodies are rather thin, and the women wear clothes that are expressly drawn to be revealing; you can bet your sweet bippy there are lots of panty shots that’s for sure. Otherwise,

the clothing is baggy and unremarkable along with the mostly empty backgrounds. There's a lot of blush lines, too, but nothing too distracting. Overall it is good, I'd categorize, but not really remarkable.
           Born on December 24, and named Santa by his parents, one boy sits alone on Christmas eve people watching instead of being with anyone even though its his birthday. That is when a strange girl appears, claiming to be a real Santa Claus and promising him she'll spend the whole night with him!
           I started this manga sure I had read this story before, but after a few pages, and a look through past posts, I think I was mistaken and I've only heard the name before. In any case, I haven't written a review of it so I went ahead and did so. First off let me begin with my usual triad against this type of ecchi manga. While this isn't as bad as Inaba Rabbits, because it isn't a harem manga, the fact that it's written by the mangaka who is the king of harem, the jokes and humor are the same and the “story telling” is similar. When I was in high school (ten years ago! Time sure does fly when you're reading manga) Love Hina was a very popular manga and anime, and I believe it is still fondly remembered and read by a lot of budding manga readers and old

school readers alike. I was never one of those, and while I did read the whole set because several of my friends did, I did not care what happened to any of the characters. Now, I'm not against ecchi manga, even if it seems like I am every time the subject comes up but the fact of the matter is typically if the manga is a comedic ecchi the funny and revealing jokes replace real character development and action ecchi usually just use nakedness gratuitously because (I have to assume) that men enjoy the extra sexuality. So, if there is one think I dislike it is the loss of story telling for gimmicks. CGI movies that are all flash and no story irk me to no end, starting with Avatar all the way up to the more recent Hobbit movies, and its a trend that continues. I know I've complained about it everytime I've reviewed a manga that I felt shortchanged itself by falling in that sort of development and just cruised along floating on the premise alone instead of delving into the actual development of story. So, to come back around to the actual review and you can stop here if you skimmed through all that long winded personal feelings, this manga not only being ecchi but also written by the same author as Love Hina brings up a lot of dislike from me before I even began reading it. Trying to say unbiased, the story is cute and fun, though it is very cliched. It also moves at a fast pace and crams lots of naked/panty shots in as often as it can. I suppose for a Christmas themed manga it was a quick seasonal read but its pretty forgettable. The jokes are pretty funny, such as the supposed Santa Claus being only able to pull fish out of her magic backpack, and the slap stick humor keeps the pace and story light as well. If you like Love Hina style manga you'll probably like it, its a good example of humorous ecchi and there are several nude shots for anyone looking for them. Its just not a genre I particularly like so its hard to for me to recommend it.



2.5/5 But there's a lot of bitter personal feelings mixed in.

The Flustered Shabby Santa Claus by Kana Yamamoto

It is officially the eve of Christmas eve, I've got a short post for today and a slightly longer one for tomorrow. I'm not hopeful about finding winter reads next year though, but I hope this won't be the last year of Winter Wonderland posts. I found a new Santa gif though:

 

The Flustered Shabby Santa Claus by Kana Yamamoto


Genre: Josei
Length: One Chapter – 17 Pages


           The art has personality, but also seems a bit sketchy, especially the backgrounds that come and go, so it gets an okay score in the visual category. The faces have a lot of emotion, and the hair has good movement though the styling just looks rather trendy instead of stylized

to the mangaka. The clothes also fit well on the bodies and have enough detail to pass as regular clothing. Judging by such a short story is kind of hard but the look doesn't shift through out.
           When a man is caught sneaking out of an apartment in the middle of the night on Christmas eve by a girl on the adjacent balcony, he knows his luck has run out, but instead of calling foul she actually seems to think he's Santa Claus instead of a thief! Can he appease her well enough to get away?
           Awwww. That sums up this story completely, a cooing of cuteness, and considering the length that is a good outcome. I mean it takes all of five minutes to actually read it, so the story is very short and to the point but in a good way. The characters of both people are given, as well as how their motivations bring them together in the story. In fact it may not end just the way you think it will, and there is one panel in particular that really gives your heart strings a strum, so it has good originality along with the right holiday feeling. Its warm and its cute, a perfect short read for the season.


4/5 Its not amazing but its a nice short story.

Seishun Otome Banchou! by Shizuru Seino

The last of the Shizuru Seino trio today, I would have gotten it all done last week but my internet was down and I had some shopping to do. I got a lot of updating done on My Manga Malady today, though, including switching to the winter theme (although, technically, it is not officially Winter until the 21st) and fixing some of the old posts from before I knew how to better utilize Blogger. Of course, I don't utilize it properly now, either, but I'm slowly improving, I think. I found a nice page that shows the HTML codes for colors, actually, and I can have a wider variety of highlighting for the post titles. Which makes me happier than it should, considering I could have done that right from the beginning had I thought to Google it then instead of now. Oh well.



Seishun Otome Banchou! by Shizuru Seino

Art and story (c) Shizuru Seino

Genre: Shojo, Comedy
Length: 3 Volumes - 13 Chapters


            The look and feel of this manga is very polished, compared to Girl Got Game, its come a long way. Considering this manga came out in 2013 a long way is used literally, but it also has updated after all the years between, too. The eyes may not have a lot of variety but they

definitely show expressions well. The hair, too, has a lot of personality and the way it comes down over the forehead is very cute. By which I mean it has updated from the very angled hair from way back in Girl Got Game. The clothes aren't really that interesting to tell the truth, something that hasn't changed, but they fit the bodies well and have nice, crisp lines. The backgrounds are there, even if they are mostly tones, and I don't really remember there being a lot of blank but its around. I'd say the backgrounds are normal. The blush lines are the type to be all across the face, but they are not distractingly there for no reason and after three other manga with the same type of blush I've grown accustomed to it. I honestly can't think of a bad thing to nit pick on here, so its pretty darn good.
           Mihane Hirata has the nickname “Satsujinki” which means “murderer” simply because she has a scary face. Its basically become a complex now that she is in high school and has all but given up finding love. She does, however, have a crush who she wishes she had the guts to confess to. When she's caught staring and Touma, her crush, confronts her because he thinks she is glaring, Mihane blurts out her confession! Feeling embarrassed as he starts to turn her down, she insists they get to know each other with a trial date before he responds and to her surprise, he agrees?
           Girl Got Game always made me laugh out loud, not many manga really get me to do that, but the trend continues with this manga. Its a masterful mix of love story and comedy. It

That small laugh is perfect.

doesn't have the same heavy sections that Girl Got Game had, the story is evenly matched with silly gags and drama. I'd go so far to say that it's the best manga I've read in a while. Of course, it being a shojo, you immediately know how the story is going to go but Mihane is so odd that you get lots of turns around a strange corner. Mihane, though, can also get a little annoying because her personality doesn't change enough fast enough but considering her face isn't something that she can really change and having heard all her life how ugly she is the eventual turn around is quite uplifting. Touma is also a great personality, especially when matched with Mihane, he has his own quirks and problems. Seeing the two grow is a pleasure, they match each other so well. Plus, he treats her kindly right from the beginning and it really gets the story off to a good start and keeps the couple from growing stale. Seishun Otome Banchou! is an off shoot of another Shizuru Seino manga called Junai Tokkou Taichou! (called Love Attack in the English release) with Mihane being the two title character's daughter. In fact, I'd have liked to see Mihane's parents, as half of Mihane's problems have to be because the two of them raised her in the first place. The sad part is, I've only read the very beginning of Junai Tokkou Taichou! because the scans quit being translated (due to the English release and lack of interest, I believe) and the English adaption was canceled after six of the full thirteen volumes. Junai Tokkou Taichou! is the manga with the direct connection to Girl Got Game, as well, since Kyo meets Mihane's father as a coworker and helps her decide to go back at the end of volume nine. Off topic ramblings aside, Seishun Otome Banchou! is a fine manga by itself, with it's own in-jokes and WTF moments. In certain moods and chapters, its better than Girl Got Game. And just in case I didn't use them enough to be confusing in the rest of the article: Seishun Otome Banchou! Junai Tokkou Taichou! Junai Tokkou Taichou! Seishun Otome Banchou! Girl Got Game.



5/5 Good story and good laughs.

Fixing your face would be a good start...

Heaven!! by Shizuru Seino

Part two of the Shizuru Seino threesome. I'm still pretty light in the Christmas manga department, so I'm going to just do one next week and then one on Christmas itself. Unfortunately they are both one-shots so the reviews won't be very long but I blew through the Christmas manga long ago. I hope by next year I'll find a few more like I did this year...

*sigh*

Heaven!! by Shizuru Seino

Art and story (c) Shizuru Seino

Genre: Shojo, Supernatural
Length: 3 Volumes – 12 Chapters



           Like Girl Got Game, there is a little bit of messiness and looseness to the art at the beginning of this manga, but it settles quickly and gets into a good groove for what it will look like for the rest of the serial. The gags and the resulting expressions are, from what I remember, different than what is in Girl Got Game, too, there are things that are similar sure, but there are elements to the art and story that are separate from it as well. One that remains the same is the point and arm shake that people do, as illustrated by the below picture:

But otherwise there isn't a lot of things that remind you of the other story as far as the art goes. I don't remember any times that the characters looked the same as any of the others from the previous manga, either. Even the background characters that all looked the same in Girl Got Game have changed. The side characters are pretty thin in this story though and are quickly forgotten and turn to background characters at best. The backgrounds are a little lacking, and the clothes aren't spectacular in look or on the fit of the body frames. Still, the art is very clean and fun. Heaven!! was written pretty much right after Girl Got Game and they do share similar standards, but there is definitely some improvement and lots of differences in the art.
           Rinne is a strange girl who can see and exorcise ghosts with a giant paper fan, a

technique she cultivated with her own experience. Masaharu is one of her classmates, a delinquent who dyes his hair and scares everyone in class. The two have nothing in common except that they are the two who get in the most trouble, but one day, while chasing a spirit, Rinne accidentally involves Masaharu when he saves her from getting hit by a truck. Neither are hurt, but somehow Masaharu is separated from his body in the process. Unsure how to put a spirit back, Rinne promises to help except a spirit decides to take the uninhabited body for himself and stick Masaharu into a stuffed animal. From there, things really start to get mixed up...
           Of the three manga that I read this week from this author, this one is the most ridiculous, which is a pretty hard thing to achieve considering the madcap antics that go on in every single set of stories. Its also a little more rough in the progression of some elements. Rinne's shamanic powers are definitely thrown aside after the first volume and not brought back until the very end of the third one, making this manga more of a slice of life manga, albeit a bizarre one, than a supernatural manga. All the same it is enjoyable to

read and the short length makes it a good afternoon read, too. The trio of characters mesh well, and there's never a time where nothing is happening, even if it isn't anything but gags instead of actual story. Besides, who wouldn’t want to see a delinquent trapped in a pink monkey-shaped stuffed animal while his beautiful face is paraded around by a sex crazed god who came down from heaven? Obviously, not me, although it isn't as well pulled off as Girl Got Game's premise; its actually rather strange, the way things progress I mean. Some spoilers ahead, but the love story does not go like you may think it does at the beginning. Rinne does come off as annoying to some people, though, who can't stand her personality. Negative feedback I saw were mostly complaining that Rinne is too shallow of a character to be likable. Which is true, she is very shallow at a glance, still, maybe its because of the vehemence I had for Duck Prince's much worse handling of selfishness or that her reasoning for not understanding is that her gift has led to her not even knowing what friendship is, but I don't think its really true that she's totally self absorbed as she admits to loving him very quickly after she first denies it. Even when it could get cruel or mean for the poor boy in the monkey body, it stays light. For me the biggest problem is more of the ambiguous coupling at the end, but I always complain when they don't state right out who is going out with who so I think that’s probably a personal irk more than anything. Typically, people like Girl Got Game better, and I'm no different, the characters are completed faster and the hijinks are funnier in the previous manga, but Heaven!! still has a lot to love, even if it isn't as flushed out as the other, its a completely original type of story and there's never a dull moment or a crazy coincidence that puts a smile on the lips.




4/5 Not as good as Girl Got Game (Power!!) but still freewheeling fun.

Uhhh, that's not normal, bro.

P.S. All the sites I've looked on say that this manga is a spin off of Girl Got Game, but I am unsure of the actual connection to each other. Perhaps I'm missing something? If anyone who reads this sees the reason it's called a spin off, please tell me. I think it might be background characters, as if its the same school as in Girl Got Game (though the uniforms are different so I don't think that is it) but I can't find a concrete answer anywhere and I'm unwilling to state it outright with out knowing concretely what the connection is. I can be pretty clueless sometimes when it comes to small details because I read things too fast, so I'm just not sure at all. 

Girl Got Game!! by Shizuru Seino

Uhg, ugh, shopping crowds make my blood pressure spike. I'm not a people person on the best of days, let alone when no one else is trying to be courteous. Why do I always have to be the one move aside or look before I come out of an aisle with my cart? Looking at you lady with kids crowding my personal space who thinks going to the other end of the rack and looking at stuff before me will make me move faster.



Girl Got Game!! by Shizuru Seino

Art and story (c) Shizuru Seino (Sorry for the poor quality)

Genre: Shojo, Sports, Gender Bender
Length: 10 Volumes – 36 Chapters (plus 2 extra chapters and 3 one-shots)



           The art only has a few hiccups at the beginning but the large majority of it is professional and consistent. The eyes are large and clear and display a lot of emotion,

the faces change shape a little after the first volume but it seems like a natural progression. The hair is varied, mostly drawn with thick lines and angles, but the background people tend to all look the same. The clothes are a bit baggy, but since they are mostly school uniforms and tracksuits that really doesn't make a difference. The hands are a bit oversized, and most of the characters look really tall, as they are basketball players, but there's not really a lot I can complain about. It's a little generic of its time (early 2000's) but there's plenty of personality in it, too.
           Kyo Aizawa is thrilled to be going to a school renowned for it's cute girl's uniform, but unbeknownst to her, her father had much different reasons to be happy she is going to the school. He's a basketball fanatic, and high school was supposed to be Kyo's final release from the sport, but her dad has a lot of explaining to do when her clothes arrive and they are a boy's uniform. Foisting his b-ball dreams on her, and forging her school paperwork, Kyo's father sends her to school as a boy to join the renowned men's basketball team. Can Kyo keep her secret, even though she'll be living in a dorm full of boys?
           Girl Got Game, which is the English release name as apposed to the original title of Power!!, is one of the first manga I read all the way through. I borrowed it from a friend

and laughed my ass off through out the whole thing. Inexplicable name changes aside, it's an excellent manga to start on but its good to read at any point in a manga obsession cycle and even though its been over ten years since my first reading (showing my age much?) I still laugh when I read it, too. There's not a lot of stories that make me laugh out loud, but this mangaka has that ability. Also, interestingly, several of her other manga are related, as well, for extra interest. Two of the related ones I plan to review after this one, unfortunately the one directly related to this manga isn't available in scans and the English release was dropped so it's only half published, but the others are good, also, and all share the same humor. Now, comedy manga aren't always known for their strong plot lines, so I'm not going to try and bluff it just because I like this manga so much. Although, considering all the weird and wacky stuff that happens, the plot is actually pretty good. The progression of the main character and the love interest continues as you go and even though things get real dramatic real fast around volume seven, it hardly loses his humor and once the dramatics are solved it makes up for the drop in zany with extra zany hi-jinks. The ending is so over the top, it almost seems like a different manga all of a sudden, though the extra chapter at the end helps with the sudden separation. Kyo is an interesting character, its easy to see, through the art and the story, how she gets away with pretending she's a boy and annoys the hell out of her roommate. Her love interest is so grouchy and you can't help feeling sorry for the boy for falling for Kyo, but you can also see how well they get along, too. There aren't any points that drag, either, once you get through the very beginning. I'm probably all over the place in this review simply because I'm so familiar with this particular manga, but I can't help myself its a complete package.


5/5 Its got its problems but it deserves top marks because its so amusing read after re-read.