shut up and let me see your jazz hands

Well, the scanlation of this chapter is already out, so I don't know how much a summary is really needed, but since I already did the rest of the volume, I wanted to finish it up for completion's sake, if nothing else. ^_^;; And volume 23 will be out in just a couple weeks, so there's that to look forward to!

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 22, chapter 116 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Title: Real Clothes
Author: Makimura Satoru
Number of Volumes: 13
My Rating: 4/5

Summary: Kinue works at a department store in the futon section. She loves her job and loves finding customers the bedding that's just right for them, so she's initially disappointed when she gets transferred to the women's clothing department. Will she learn to love her new position as much as she loved her old job?

Review: I have enjoyed several of this author's other series (Oishii Kankei, Imagine, and Imagine 29), but this is the first thing by her I've read in a very long time, so I was curious how much I would enjoy her now that I'm a more critical reader. As you can see, I did end up enjoying it quite a lot, enough to give it four stars, but there is definitely stuff that bugged me, like the way everyone constantly insists that all women love clothes and shopping, and moments like when a male character makes some gross sexist statement about women and the female characters all agree that this is true and women are totally like that, but he shouldn't say so. -_-

That said, it's really cute. I liked how it wasn't just a story about people who love fashion and work in the clothing industry. It's about someone who initially is not sure about this whole fashion thing, but comes to love her job. It's about being a working woman in Japan and what that means.

I was hopeful when the story starts off with her having a boyfriend, that romance would not be part of the story and it would just focus on her job. I should have realised that wasn't going to happen, though, especially when her new boss is introduced as a good-looking guy who initially insults her (omg can we do away with this trope of the guy who is so obnoxious on first meeting?). However, it's not thirteen volumes of will-they/won't-they with the boss. She breaks up with her boyfriend fairly early on due to him not being as accepting of her career as he'd claimed, but it's a long time before she feels anything other than friendship for her boss, and romance does end up being just small part of the story, which is overall focused on her career and her female friends and female co-workers. (There is also a female boss who is also rude to her when they first meet and I was afraid it was going to be a Devil Wears Prada sort of situation, but it's not at all, and she ends up having a great relationship with this woman, too.)

So yeah. Definitely flawed, but if you enjoy manga about working women, I definitely recommend this one.


Can't imagine this ever getting an official release in the US, but it is being scanlated.

Title: Sasurai Emanon
Author: Tsuruta Kenji & Kajio Shinji
Number of Volumes: 1
My Rating: 4/5

Summary: Emanon is a young woman with memories going back to the first life on earth. But she's not immortal, rather the memories are passed on from mother to daughter, at which point the mother forgets who she was and the daughter becomes Emanon.

Review: I read Omoide Emanon a while back and thought the premise was intriguing but was annoyed at how the story was not about her, but about this dude she met and how meeting her affected him. So I was unsure when I started this one, but it turned out to be much more what I had been hoping for. There are two separate stories in this volume, both of which are much more about Emanon herself. I especially enjoyed the one where we get a lot of her backstory for this present incarnation of her (and a deeper look at what happens when the memories are passed on).

I translated this for Kotonoha, so not only do scanlations exist, I can guarantee they're good quality!


Title: Hideout
Author: Kakizaki Masasumi
Number of Volumes: 1
My Rating: 3/5

Summary: Seiichi Kirishima takes his wife on a tropical vacation, ostensibly to reconcile after the death of their child, but his real purpose is to kill her and start a new life. But when he chases her into a cave and encounters a murderous old man, he finds that he has become the hunted.

Review: The art is great, but the story was just eh. I would have liked it more if there hadn't been so much focus on trying to make the wife seem like the badguy. (He just wanted a family, but she was a coldhearted bitch who never even wanted kids and was glad when their son died! Bleh.) Also it feels like his change of mind in the end (trying not to be too spoilery) comes too quickly. I didn't dislike the ending, but it happened too quickly.

This was also scanlated by Kotonoha, though I wasn't the translator. (It's a good translation, though. I just read it to refresh my memory of the story.)


Title: NEET Onna to Shougaku 2 Nensei
Author: Shimizu Aki
Number of Volumes: 1
My Rating: 3/5

Summary: This is a collection of six one-shots, all but two of which (the title story and its sequel) are unrelated.

Review: I can't remember how I heard about this, but I had assumed the volume was one story and was kind of disappointed when it wasn't. The title story and its sequel are definitely the best stories here, though the others aren't bad. The title story is about an unlikely friendship between a college girl who's all but dropped out and barely leaves her apartment and a second-grader whose parents are getting divorced. The sequel revisits them five years later. If I'd read this before Kaleidoscope nominations, I might have nominated it (though seeing as it's not out in English, even in scanlation, makes it kind of unlikely anyone would have written it for me!) because it's totally femslashy.

Title: Another
Author: Kiyohara Hiro & Ayatsuji Yukito
Number of Volumes: 4
My Rating: 5/5

Summary: The death of a popular student named Misaki in 1972 became the start of a curse for Yomiyama Middle School's class 3-3, leading to multiple deaths of students and their family members every year. Twenty-six years later, Sakakibara Kouichi goes to live with his grandparents in Yomiyama and finds himself in class 3-3, along with a mysterious girl named Misaki whom no one else seems to see. When classmates start dying, Kouichi must figure out what's going on, and if possible, how to stop it.

Review: This series is based on a novel and has also been turned into an anime and a live-action movie. I enjoyed the story enough that I'm curious to see all the other versions as well (especially the novel, since it seems to be a little different in some aspects).

This was a good blend of supernatural horror and plain old mystery solving, which I like. I am not really that big a fan of horror or supernatural stuff if there's no mystery involved. (Though I was a bit annoyed that in order for the ending to be as big a surprise as it is, a key piece of information has to be withheld from the readers in a kind of unnatural way (that is then lampshaded). Other red herrings were much more natural and kept me guessing in a good way.)

Anyway! Good stuff! In the afterword, the mangaka said he had originally planned for just two volumes, but decided to flesh it out and I think he made the right decision. Two volumes would have felt way too rushed.

Both the manga and novel have been licensed for the US, but are not out yet. The manga has been scanlated (must be a member of the comm to dl), but based on some mistakes in their summary, I'm not sure what the quality is...

Title: Helter Skelter
Author: Okazaki Kyouko
Number of Volumes: 1
My Rating: 4/5

Baka Updates Summary: Through round after round of extensive plastic surgery and vigorous maintenance, Ririko has become the absolute manifestation of beauty, and becomes a wildly successful model, actress, and singer. However, soon, her body, unable to withstand the burdens of surgery, begins to crumble, and along with it so does her mind, as she plummets towards a frightening and inevitable end.

Review: I downloaded this (along with the other two) ages ago just on a whim, and they sat in my to-read folder until a friend recently messaged me on Facebook and asked if I knew anywhere to get free or used manga because this was being made into a movie and she wanted to read the manga. That prompted me to finally read it myself, and I really enjoyed it.

The focus on plastic surgery gone wrong here reminded me a lot of Morita Yuuko's Koi no Kiseki, which was written slightly before this, though while I kind of rolled my eyes a bit at Helter Skelter, it was nowhere near as over the top and ridiculous in that regard as Koi no Kiseki (no one's face melted off in a fire to reveal their pre-surgery face underneath!).

While this was originally meant to be continued, it was put on permanent hiatus due to a horrible car accident that has left the author unable to work even sixteen years later. However, I found the volume ended at a good place. It felt final enough to me, even as it ends on a "oh wow, reveal!" note. I'm definitely curious to see the movie.

While none of her manga has officially been released in English, this one has been fully scanlated (no guarantees of quality).

Title: Pink
Author: Okazaki Kyouko
Number of Volumes: 1
My Rating: 4/5

Baka Updates Summary: Pink is a manga about a Japanese girl named Yumi, a beautiful girl in her early 20s. During the day, Yumi works as a regular office lady , but by night, she works as a prostitute. Yumi needs her two jobs to make ends meet. She also needs the extra income to feed her unusual pet, a crocodile, which she keeps in her apartment. Working in an office is quite normal for young Japanese women, but keeping a pet crocodile, and being a prostitute makes Yumi stand out.

Review: Based on the summary, this one didn't seem that interesting to me, but I figured since I had downloaded three of her manga (the only three I've been able to find online), I would read them all. It started out slow, but I did end up really enjoying it. It's basically a mess of tangled relationships involving Yumi, her step-sister, her step-mother, her step-mother's boytoy lover who becomes friends with Yumi and Keiko (and then starts having a relationship with Yumi himself), and the boytoy's girlfriend (who doesn't know about either his relationship with Yumi or her step-mother). Oh, and of course the crocodile. It's pretty over the top and quite fun, though with a tragic ending.

This one hasn't been scanlated at all, that I can find.

Title: River's Edge
Author: Okazaki Kyouko
Number of Volumes: 1
My Rating: 5/5

Baka Updates Summary: Haruna Wakakusa and Yamada become friends after she saves him several times from her boyfriend's constant bullying. Through him she gets to know Kozue Yoshikawa, a fellow student who also models professionally. The three emotionally stunted teens' lives briefly yet intensely intertwine for one semester before splintering from the aftereffects of one disastrous night. For both Wakakusa and Yamada, their emotional awakening fosters an unlikely friendship between the two battered souls.

Review: This was hands-down the best of these three manga, and also gets massive props for having queer main characters in a non-romance story. (Helter Skelter does as well, though I kind of had issues with how that was portrayed.) Although this had a lot of dramatic things happen, it was the most realistic feeling of the three (though still pretty over the top in a lot of places). Just a really, really good teen drama that is about relationships of all sorts (both platonic and romantic) and how complicated and fucked up everything can get. While there was a lot of issue stuff (pregnancy, disordered eating, queerness, rape, bullying & abusive relationships), it wasn't at all an issue manga.

Oh! I just realised that the younger model whom Ririko is competing with is one of the main characters in River's Edge! Now I kind of want to go back and read Helter Skelter, because wow, she had this total innocent image there and it seemed like it was genuine, but after seeing her in River's Edge, that's not true at all. (And River's Edge was written first, so it's not like the innocent thing being an act was a retcon.)

This one also appears to be fully scanlated, and I highly recommend it.

First chapter of volume 22! My goal is to get at least half of this volume done this month, and so far I'm on the right track!

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 22, chapter 112 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Finally, the last chapter of volume 21! I'll be starting on 22 next month. :)

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 21, chapter 111 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Well, vol. 22 is out now, and I have scans of it, so hopefully I can finish up the last two chapters of vol. 21 fairly soon and get started on that! :D (I haven't had a chance to read it myself yet, though.)

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 21, chapter 109 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Woohoo! The last chapter of vol. 20! Hopefully I'll have some of 21 for you guys soon, too. And vol. 22 will be released on June 8th, so there's that to look forward to as well. :D

Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 20, chapter 105 by Tamura Yumi. Don't click through if you don't want spoilers. Download the raw here.



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Title: Christie High Tension (Young Miss Holmes)
Author: Shintani Kaoru
Number of Volumes: 7
My Rating: 5/5

Amazon summary: Christie Holmes is a prodigy. At ten years old, she's as familiar with the sciences and classics as any older student at Cambridge or Oxford. And her facility with logic is reminiscent of her uncle, the eminent Sherlock Holmes himself. So, what's a brilliant young girl to do when her parents are away in India, leaving her behind in the care of maids and servants? Solve mysteries, of course. Along with her giant hound Nelson, Christie's implacable curiosity leads her from one dangerous adventure to another, often joining forces with Uncle Sherlock and Doctor Watson on their famed investigations. Christie may look pint-sized, but her clever mind is never to be underestimated!

Review: As I was reading this, I couldn't help thinking that it sounded like something many people on my flist would really, really love, and the good thing is, it's available in English! (Or at least the first volume (which is vols. 1 and 2 of the original) is, with vol. 2 (containing the Japanese vols. 3 & 4) coming out in November.)

Christie is Sherlock Holmes' niece (Hplmes is her mother's brother) and also secretly related to Queen Victoria on her father's side. She's a ten-year-old genius who is shown to be Holmes' equal in intellect, if not in experience. When Holmes is unavailable, Scotland Yard relies on her. You might be tempted to call her a Mary Sue. But the stories are really well-written and engaging and the characters are all awesome. In addition to Christie, we also have her maids, Nora and Anne Marie, one of whom is a master of the whip and the other is a master markswoman. Oh, and her governess Grace is also awesome. Holmes and Watson do appear in most stories, but only in supporting roles. The focus is all on Christie.

At first I was disappointed that this was retellings of the original Holmes stories rather than Christie solving mysteries of her own, but I ended up really liking the premise, especially as the stories get further than further from the originals as the series goes on (and The Giant Rat of Sumatra, the final story in the series, is actually an entirely original story based only on one line in another Holmes story where he mentions something about a giant rat of Sumatra). Although these are the original Holmes mysteries, it's not about Christie secretly solving them instead of Holmes or otherwise outsmarting him or something. There are a few where he is busy with some other case and she solves them instead, but mostly it's about them both taking part in the case, with Holmes ahead due to his experience, but Christie also deducing stuff and coming to the same conclusions. And sometimes they are working on different angles and what Christie comes up with ends up giving Holmes the final clue he needs or whatever.

Anyway! Apparently there's a sequel series running now where Christie is a young adult, but it only started last fall and hasn't been released in tankobon form yet. I'm looking forward to it, though, as I really enjoyed these!

Oh, and while the premise may make you think it's shoujo, it's actually a seinen series, but it's not loli fanservice central or anything. There were a couple moments where it felt fanservicey, but 99.9% of the time not. Also it runs in the same magazine as Dance in the Vampire Bund (which is, on the other hand, almost entirely fanservice) and there is a crossover in one case, but you don't have to be familiar with Bund to enjoy the story.