With less than a week before I return to my homecountry, I've more or less decided to do my final shopping sprees tomorrow and during the weekend. I want to stock up on DS games and a few more Japanese books. I've also been reading quite a bit lately, since work calmed down. 

Anata wo shinjiru by Noriko Miura. A 160 pages long published first by Desert Magazine, its a story about a teenage girl who's life has become a living hell because of her alcoholic father. Her mother seems to love her little brother better than her and she feels a lot of preasure because of the circumstances of her family. She's definitely more grown-up than the rest of the girls in her class. She lately feels some sort of connection with one of the bad guys in school, who has been showing kindness to her younger brother lately. He takes both of them to the zoo after the father breaks his promise due to being hangover. Anata wo shinjiru means I belive in you, and its a very hard read because of all the feelings involved. But the characters and the circumstances is well described and I was really touched by the story. There's also one of Miura-sensei's short stories in this book. 






Kiseki no riyuu is another oneshot by Noriko Miura. The story, Reson for a miracle, is not as strong as Anata wo Shinjiru, but still has many good points. Kazuki survives a carcrash, but his club teacher and upper classman dies. His classmates all believe he doesn't care, but actually he is so torn by grief and selfaccusations that he has shut off all his feelings. A christian girl, Mana, seems to be able to see the real Kazuki behind his shell, but will his womanizing stand in her way? Also a good base for the story with Kazuki's feelings of not being able to live up to the life that he was given when his friend's ended, and the post stress that causes him nightmares. There's also a few short stories, which are nice but much lighter writing, seing as they come from the time when Miura-sensei still wrote for Bessatsu Friend, aimed at younger readers, and not Desert. 







Hokago - Kindan no Lesson volume 1-2 by Noriko Miura is her now ongoing story in Desert Magazine. Its a story about retaliation and deals with the corruption of the Japanese police and how it puts people in danger. Mizuki, who's father is a police, falls for the new teacher and starts a relashionship. But her teacher seems to be connected to her father in some way. Hokago seems like just another lovestory at first, but when the whole corruption business starts coming into play, I suddenly found myself really interested in the upcoming story. The biggest difference with this comic compared to her other oneshots is the amount of sexscenes. Its not graphic or detailed, but much more frequent than usual since the teacher-student relashionship is mostly a sexual one. 







Gin ni naru by Mari Okazaki. Since Suppli became so famous once adapted to a TV-series by Fuji TV, it seems also to have made it possible ot make a cinema feature of Shibuya Maruyama-chou, Mari Okazaki's take on the way Love hotels are used in modern relationships. But her latest girls manga in Cookie (famous for Nana) is about figure skating. Okazaki-sensei draws from her own experiences as a kid, when her family moved to Canada for the sake of her father's work, and she used to practice figure skating in her backyard. This whole book actually feels like she's slightly going back to her roots. The drawing style is still different but some of those amazing backgrounds are back again. Okazaki-sensei has realized early on that backgrounds shouldn't just be copied from a book, but can be used to emphaze the story and the feelings of the characters. I still consider Shutter Love and BX her most amazing works, but Gin ni Naru is a step in the right direction. I wouldn't mind to see a continuation later on either. 

The end of the book features a short story, drawn 8 years ago, and I have to say that I prefer her drawing style back then to be honest. Really amazing. I have read the same story in one of her older books, so I have no idea why they've put it in this edition as well but I guess it fits. I can't really describe the story without spoiling, but its about a girl who visits a young couple on the verge of breaking up, causing them to rethink a lot of things in their relation to each other. Just brilliant, and I hope Okazaki-sensei can get back here soon. 


Watashi no...Megane-kun vol 1-3 is a really weird love story by Amu Sumoto. Its just so much love and still its not about love. Its more or less two psychotic kids who love eachother too much to be healthy. The girl, Chouko, used to bully her neighbour Taichirou because she was jellous of the other girls who talked to him. She wanted to keep him all to herself and made the other kids hate and bully him to keep him just to herself. So Taichirou grew up to hate Chouko, but also to love her. He loved her through all these years of bullying, and needless to say, it messed them both up a great deal. I have seldom seen two lovers being so possessive of each other in a comic before. Its almost scary. Sometimes you feel ilke Taichirou is putting too much preasure on Chouko, until you realize (again) that she's just as messed up as him. They just creep me out and the writing is really bad sometimes. Still, its brilliant! I can see how this went on for 7 volumes, because I really haven't seen anything like it before! I don't recommend reading too much of the time though because the couple's feelings for each other can be really heavy to read from time to time. A really dark, romantic shoujo manga that makes Mars by Fujimi Soryo look like a walk in the park. 

Umi ni Ochiru Tsubame by Chie Shinohara. I wanted to check out one of Shinohara-sensei's comics for older readers. She has a huge bunch of long running hits behind her, like Red River, Purple Eyes in the Dark and more. Lately, she's been mostly writing shorter stuff and this one, The swallow dives into the sea, is serialized in Petit Comic, a ladies comic magazine which only publishes oneshots and shortstories in order for the readers to easily get into the magazine. Umi, the first story, is 2 episodes and has a very grown-up feeling. Panel one is by the way a copy of the first panel in her older comic Sanninme ga Kieta (The 3d person has dissappeared). I discovered this by a coincidence. But I liked all the short stories in this book, though it wasn't on par with her older stuff. 

After all these girls manga, here's finally a seinen manga review, xxxHOLiC vol 10 by Clamp.  

Watanuki is lately becoming a really great character, supported by the easily likable Doumeki. In some ways, this manga is everything that I hoped that Legal Drug would be, only with better story. Its getting obvious that Clamp took the concept from Legal Drug, which is on hold for who knows how long, and put it into work in xxxHOLiC instead. Only the male leads look more hot together in this story. Watanuki is almost as adorable as Subaru in Tokyo Babylon from time to time, especially when he takes off his glasses. Also, this volume finally reveals Kureha's secret. Fiiiinally, after all this time of hinting. Its good, but I felt kind of let down by all the build up which it all failed to live up to. 

I also finished volume 4 and 5 of Hourou Musuko, see previous review, and they were just as great as before. I'd like to see Yuki and her boyfriend show up more though. Such a wonderful series! I've caught up now so I might try out some of Takako Shimura's older stuff in the meantime.