Seimu Yoshizaki’s Kingyo Used Books (Viz) has been rightly (if harshly) criticized for its reliance on formula and simplistic sentimentality, so I thought it was worth noting that the third volume expands the boundaries of the series in some successful and satisfying ways.

For those who haven’t sampled the series online, it’s about a bookstore that specializes in manga. Customers come in and reconnect with an old favorite in ways that resonate with something that’s going on in their lives. It’s very affirming of fandom across the lifespan, and a little of that can go a long way, particularly in a fairly rigidly episodic format.

There’s a nice two-part story in the third volume that steps away from Kingyo and its customer-of-the-month fixation. In it, a salaryman leaves the corporate world to take over a manga rental library. Remembering a youthful transgression, he sets out to collect the books that were never returned to the library. He’s not punitive about it, but he’s willing to go to rather ridiculous extremes to reclaim some of the lost volumes.

It’s a nice change of pace. It also features (or possibly creates) another kind of shared fan touchstone that’s pleasant to see, even if Yoshizaki has manufactured it entirely. (Do Japanese people actually swap manga when they chance to meet each other abroad? I have no idea, but it’s a nice notion.) And the chapters give me fodder for another license request. (Jiro Taniguchi worked on a food manga? The mind reels.)

On the down side, an episodic structure sometimes promises a predictable number of duds. For me, the biggest disappointment in this volume was a piece spun around the manga of the wonderful Kazuo Umezu. It’s about a ladies’ man who sets his sights on a hardcore Umezu fan in spite of his aversion to horror. Given how distinctive Umezu’s work is, you’d think Yoshizaki might have tried to incorporate some of Umezu’s iconic weirdness into the piece. You’d think wrong. Nobody even wears a striped shirt.

But, stumbles and sentiment aside, Kingyo Used Books is never less than gently likable. I’m not sure it benefits from reading in big chunks, but you don’t have to, what with the SigIKKI serialization.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the editorial meetings following the publication of the first chapter of Kazue Kato’s Blue Exorcist (Viz), because they must have been intense. That first chapter is terrible – bland, boring, and baffling, a triple threat in the realm of bad shônen. Aside from being ably drawn, it didn’t have a single aspect that would make me want to read the second chapter if I was a follower of Jump Square, its original home.

Someone at Shueisha, and possibly Kato herself, must have agreed, because the series rights itself completely in the second chapter and stays on course for the remainder of the first volume. It’s downright weird to see all of your complaints and criticisms answered in the space of a month. Even Viz must admit to this, since the free preview of the series is from the second chapter, not the first.

Blue Exorcist is about the son of Satan, Rin Okumura, but this fact has been kept from him by his foster parent, Father Fujimoto. Things go very badly when Rin learns this fact, but the experience leaves him with a goal – he wants to fight demons as an exorcist, even though his chosen profession views him as a likely threat and thinks everyone would be better off if he just died. It’s an awkward situation, compounded by the fact that Rin’s teacher at exorcist school is his fraternal twin, Yukio.

It’s nice to see another fraternal relationship as the crux of an action manga, what with the days of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz) sadly numbered. Rin is rough around the edges, and Yukio is polished and restrained (and obviously much more studious than his elder twin). Beyond that, there are some dark undertones to their relationship. Yukio doesn’t have the burden of their demonic legacy, and he’s grateful for Rin’s protection throughout their sickly childhood. But Yukio is an exorcist, and his brother is half demon with very poor impulse control. It adds nice tension to the series.

It’s also nice to see Kato’s storytelling become sprightly and thoughtful after the first chapter’s muddle. There’s some solid resonance in the second and third chapters, and the supporting characters show a lot of promise. I’m particularly smitten with Mephisto Pheles, headmaster of the school for exorcists, the True Cross Academy. Mephisto looks ridiculous, both in human form and in those moments when he transforms into a dog (a West Highland White, if I’m not mistaken). He’s one of those grown-ups who seem more intent on amusing themselves than behaving in a strictly responsible fashion, and Mephisto certainly amused me, so I’d love to see more of him.

It seems like the fictional world of Blue Exorcist is moving towards some interesting coherence. The funny, quirky bits aren’t so ludicrous that they throw you out of the story, and Kato shows real flair in the more ostentatiously supernatural visuals. I wasn’t even bothered by the quasi-Catholicism of the whole affair, even though that’s almost always an indicator of a series I’ll despise. (For the record, that’s not due to any protectiveness for the Catholic church on my part. It’s just that manga Catholics are often the presented in exactly same kind of confusing cosplay fashion as manga vampires.) I didn’t find the demons very persuasive or interesting, but Kato seems to be building up a taxonomy.

Blue Exorcist really seems to have a lot of potential, which I never would have believed halfway through that first chapter. In fact, I’d suggest you skip that first chapter entirely, as its events are explained and reframed later (and better), and there’s really no reason to subject yourself to it. If you’re looking for an attractive shônen fantasy-adventure with a decent amount of wit and heart, it’s a likely candidate.

(These comments are based on a review copy provided by the publisher. You may remember that Blue Exorcist was a candidate in my first “readers’ choice” Previews experiment. Believe me, if it hadn’t shown up at random, I wouldn’t have bothered. It still sounds like a formulaic drag on paper.)

When running through the winners of this year’s About.Com Manga Readers’ Choice Awards, I realized I hadn’t actually reviewed the first volume of Kyousuke Motomi’s Dengeki Daisy (Viz). Since I expressed puzzlement over its win in the shôjo category over two very superior titles, I thought I should go into more detail. To be honest, I can’t muster much. It’s solid enough, but I find it lacking in some essential ways.

It’s about an orphan named Teru whose older brother has died. She finds solace in communication with a mysterious person named “Daisy” who texts her via a cell phone Teru’s brother left her. Teru gets grief from her well-to-do classmates, but she holds her own. She does wind up in service to the school’s weird handyman when she breaks a window, but the handyman, Kurosaki, is concealing a protective streak towards his indentured minion. Could this jerky loner be the mysterious Daisy?

I was surprised at how little mileage Motomi got out of that question, to be honest. She seems more interested in moving into a narrative groove where Teru acts impulsively, gets into trouble, is saved by Daisy, and doesn’t realize that her taskmaster is also her text-message angel. It’s sad that Teru’s spunk only goes so far and that she’s so prone to requiring rescue. It’s also one of my pet peeves when a character withholds knowledge that could empower another and enable them to make better choices but doesn’t.

It’s conceivable that Kurosaki could have a persuasive reason to keep Teru in the dark, but it feels very by-the-numbers by volume’s end. I admit I would find it a tough sell under any circumstances. It’s hard to invest much in the series when the driving relationship is unsatisfying and, in my opinion, badly constructed.

But I’d love to hear from Dengeki Daisy partisans, especially if they feel the problems I have with the series are mitigated in later volumes. What say you?

Of all of the series in Viz’s SigIKKI initiative, I think Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves is probably my favorite. It’s intriguing in a very delicate, oblique way, and it’s rare to be able to say that about… well… just about any kind of entertainment.

It’s about an out-of-work samurai called Masa who falls in with a gang of kidnappers. Masa isn’t a bad person, but he lacks confidence, and he doesn’t inspire it. He looks physically frail, and whatever good intentions he may have are outweighed by the harsh realities of his jobless existence.

Beyond necessity, the gang, the Five Leaves, have a kind of lazy allure. They aren’t violent, and they plan carefully to make sure they profit from their illegal activities. There’s Matsukichi, the spy who prefers to keep his own counsel. In the rest of his life, Ume owns a bar and looks after his daughter who’s just entering adulthood. Sexy, mature Otake views life with a wry curiosity. And Yaichi, their ringleader, has a shady glamour and a strange kind of affection for, or at least profound interest in, Masa.

They’re appealing individually and as a quintet. Ono has assembled the kind of cast I could happily read about if they just sat around and drank and gossiped (which they do a lot). But she finds surprising depths in all of them, and she shifts their relationships around in measured but heartfelt ways.

The second volume digs into Umezo’s criminal past as it encroaches on his present. Masa is recuperating with Ume’s former boss, Goinkyo. Two of Goinkyo’s former underlings are stirring up trouble, one reluctantly and one maliciously. There’s blackmail involved, and violence, but they’re secondary to the dynamics that fuel them. Fatherly Goinkyo seems to have a sense for people who aren’t cut out for a life of crime, and his observations resonate through the events and revelations of the volume. And, of course, there’s Yaichi, guarding his secrets and managing the state of his colleagues at the same time, while wanting to not seem like he’s trying very hard.

In that, he’s representative of the series itself. It kind of glides along, casting sideways glances at its characters that mask the sharpness of its observations. It’s sly, but it’s also very sincere. With an apparent absence of effort, Ono has crafted a cast and a set of circumstances that are deeply involving, even at a very low volume. Ono leaves you wanting to know everything there is to know about these intensely private people, even as you understand she probably won’t spill everything. As low-key as House of Five Leaves is, it’s also cumulatively stunning. I can’t get enough of its hidden depths.

It’s probably silly, but I always feel guilty that I don’t like Q Hayashida’s Dorohedoro (Viz) more than I do. I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what the barrier is for me, since there are so many things to admire about the comic.

Most notable is Hayashida’s sensibility, which she has in abundance. While stories about magic are usually filled with sparkle, she’s set-dressed hers in convincing grime and clutter. Her main setting is a world called The Hole, and the name isn’t ironic. It’s a filthy, often frightening place where average humans live and try and protect themselves from magic-using sorcerers who like to experiment on the non-gifted. But it’s also a strangely homey place. Sure, violence is routine, and you’re living at the whim of powerful beings with next to no conscience, but you can find good dumplings.

Hayashida applies the same gritty-but-not approach to her characters. Our hero, Caiman, is an amnesiac with the head of a lizard. He’s terrifying to look at, but he’s goofy and kind of sweet when he isn’t chomping his jaws down on the heads of sorcerers to see if they’re the one who left him with no memory and a reptilian noggin. He’s very solicitous of Nikaido, the tough girl who makes the dumplings and helps him with his various projects (like the head chomping). They have an appealing rapport, and they’re very protective of each other.

Even the villains have their virtues, mostly because they aren’t entirely focused on villainy. Sorcerer mobster En seems to have a dozen different agendas at once, any of which can be set aside for an adorable (but creepy) new pet. His enforcers, Shin and Noi, are kind of the cloudy, mirror version of Caiman and Nikaido, but with an added level of blithe certainty. They’re endearingly amoral, not even bothering to justify they’re actions. They like their lives, whether they’re eating lunch or slicing and dicing hapless humans.

So, with an interesting cast and a distinct vibe, what’s the problem? I think it’s in the storytelling, which can feel not fully realized. I find it difficult to invest in Caiman’s quest to find out what happened to him. Aside from a general (and justified) sense of being badly used, there isn’t much in the way of specific urgency to Caiman’s search for answers and vengeance. He’s certainly likeable, but his aims seem strangely small. They could represent the overall injustices visited on the denizens of The Hole at the hands of the sorcerers, but Hayashida doesn’t really go there. Keeping things relatively light is an interesting choice that works in a lot of ways, but I keep wishing she’d raise the overall stakes a bit.

On another storytelling front, the staging of certain sequences can be rather confusing, especially when a lot is happening at once. I love the look of the book overall – the environments, the character design, some of the witty ways Hayashida plays around with pacing – but I wish there was a more consistent level of clarity.

Since you can do so for free, at least with chapters that haven’t seen print yet, I’d certainly encourage people to read Dorohedoro. And I certainly wouldn’t recommend a whole lot of things that you can read for free, because time has value. But this series has a lot of strengths, and Hayashida seems to be a remarkable creator in a number of significant ways. Dorohedoro just isn’t as tight as I would hope, and it feels like it could be without losing any of its quirky appeal.

My recent brush with Bakuman (Viz) helped me realize something (probably after everyone else already got there) about Karuho Shiina’s Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (also Viz). Shiina is deconstructing shôjo manga as surely as Ohba and Obata are dissecting shônen. Of course, Shiina is telling a proper story with engaging characters at the same time, so she wins.

This became blazingly evident in the fifth volume. It begins with our heroine, socially inept Sawako, deep in conversation with Kurumi, who likes the same boy Sawako does and is trying to manipulate Sawako into stepping aside. In spite of her almost complete innocence in matters interpersonal, Sawako is incredibly hard to manipulate, and she’s just so damned nice. Kurumi is infuriated, at least partly because some part of her recognizes that Sawako is possibly more worthy of kindly Kazehaya’s affection than Kurumi is.

This isn’t an uncommon emotional beat for shôjo manga, but it rarely gets the degree of articulation it receives here. Kurumi must not only admit her resentment of Sawako, she must also explain to this foreign exchange student from Mars exactly why she resents her. And while the experience provides some kind of catharsis for the duplicitous Kurumi, it doesn’t entirely soften her feelings for Sawako. It does clarify them, for both Kurumi and Sawako, and they culminate in a glorious moment when Kurumi, pretense abandoned, beams at Sawako and declares them rivals.

It’s not just Kurumi being argumentative. It’s Kurumi being generous, helping Sawako understand. And it’s Kurumi liberating herself from a stifling public persona. Most of all, it’s Shiina celebrating the construct, the pairing of people who want the same limited resource (a title, a prize, a love interest) who both understand the other’s desire and respect their right to want it but realize that their ultimate happiness is mutually exclusive.

This is what I mean by deconstruction. Most mangaka would just go through the beats of this realization without underlining it so baldly, but the baldness is what makes Shiina’s approach soar. It’s like you’re Sawako, discovering all of these new things, except you already knew them, and yet the rediscovery is as thrilling as the first time you grasped them.

There’s lots of other stuff that happens in this volume, and all of it is charming and good, because Shiina wrote and drew it. But the definition of rivalry, old as shôjo and fresh as now, is the kind of emotional peak that represents the best of this excellent series. Bakuman is most intriguing as an instruction manual, and it’s savvy (but joyless) about what works in a certain type of manga. Kimi ni Todoke both defines and celebrates its own category’s building blocks.