Anime Boredom - Tail of the Moon manga reviews

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First Look at Tail of the Moon

Thank you for Shojo Beat, VIZ.
At a mere six dollars a pop I can pick up a manga title per month that comes just about as close as a title can come to my place, and provide something to review every month.
This month two new titles have come to my favorite anthology, one a preview while the other replaces one of Shojo Beat’s old titles… more on that in my review of Backstage Prince. This is my review of Tail of the Moon.

Are you reading Shonen Jump? Fan of Naruto? Sent your obligatory hate mail to X-Play because you hate it how they criticize Naruto no matter how annoying English Voice Dub Naruto is… gimme a woodchipper, I have one annoying punk in an orange jumpsuit to feed into it… BELIEVE IT!

That is not to say I hate Naruto… I just hate English Voice Dub Naruto (with a voice that can break glass or drive me crazier than a Mazie Hirono campaign slander ad (yes, oh Mazie, Bob Hogue “supports the president”… stay away from the Mazie! Stay away from the Mazie!! The Mazie!! The… oh, you don’t live in Hawaii. Ok.)
Why talk up Naruto? Because Naruto is a ninja in training (or was… I don’t know where the series is now and what’s up with him…) and this title features a female ninja who is having trouble achieving the first part of her dream… the being a ninja thing, forget being a ninja in training.

Another old school Japanese era title (which is abit of a surprise that this isn’t going to be the new permanent title since Shojo Beat’s last old school Japan title Kaze Hikaru left this month for Backstage Prince), you find yourself in Hojiro (in the southern Iga Region) in the 8th year of the Tensho era (aka the year 1580) during the summer. The days are hot, the main character is slipping, and the main character is sadly named Usagi… which fits for a ninja wannabe but we can’t let go to the fact that one of the most notable Usagis in Japan is Sailor Moon (who suffered from occasional deplorable traits that no ninja would wish to emulate).

Anyway for someone named “Usagi” she sure doesn’t seem all that agile, barely one page into her preview and already she’s falling over a rock and hitting the ground hard. Usagi, as you guessed, lives in a ninja clan and wants to be a ninja… too bad she fails all her entrance exams, skips ninja training, is way too lazy when she thinks the job is beneath her, and seems to have fallen so far down the scale in terms of her skills even her own flesh and blood (great) grandfather has given up on her and seemingly doomed her to be a babymaker for some local branch leader of the clan… yeah, nice. Maybe it has to do with that whole chucking her sickle she was supposed to be cutting grass with towards a tree only to miss said tree and almost bury said sickle into the head of said walking grandfather as he passed by said tree… wonder why he’s so put out with her.

However since it looks like she’s not going to fight the job she, along with her small little companion (that look like a young boy with a tail though I bet he’s not what he seems) are off to see her future husband and… and… gee isn’t her job basically the plot for an Adult Only hentai porn?!? Marry him and get knocked up by him?? You’re kidding!! However when she is saved by the handsome future husband (Hattori Hanzo) she realizes just how much she really wants to get it on with him… though she at first doesn’t realize it’s her future husband so through a bit of a misunderstanding she’s dragged right in front of him without realizing it’s him until it’s too late and the embarrassments begin!

Embarrassment turns into bizarre stalker mentality when she gets harshly put down by a non-marriage minded Hanzo only to have Usagi throw herself at him (badly) and declare she ain’t leaving until her knocks her up… say what? Hanzo needs to find ye’ olde district judge and have him create the first Japanese restraining order… quickly.

It’s only a preview, and the full review won’t come until I pick up the first Volume of this series, but I like what I see and I’m looking forward to seeing more. Stay tuned for a full review in the coming weeks.

First Look at Backstage Prince
At a mere six dollars a pop I can pick up a manga title per month that comes just about as close as a title can come to my place, and provide something to review every month.
This month two new titles have come to my favorite anthology, one a preview while the other replaces one of Shojo Beat’s old titles… Kaze Hikaru.

That title was finally getting good! Why didn’t they pull the plug on, oh I don’t know… Baby & Me (a weak title in comparison to the better written and crafted “Aishiteruze Baby”). Once our main character hit puberty and things started to get weird the title was starting to get better… well too bad it looks like the title is graphic novels only now.
But since complaining about it won’t change it let’s look at the new replacement title in this first look at Backstage Prince.

Akari didn’t believe in scoring the hot guy… until she maims a hot guy by cracking his ribs with her bookbag, ends up following his cat home to the Kabuki theater he works at, and becomes his assistant over the whole guilt trip of bruising his ribs with her bookbag in the first place (all because she was swinging her bag wildly while denouncing the evils of hot guys). This somehow, as the first chapter rolls along, grows into love because by the end of the story you think they were the only ones meant for each other… yeah, that won’t stay the same once the next chapter comes along I’m sure of it.
Otherwise it seems love is as easy as breaking the ribs of the one you love… as long as you don’t accidentally kill them in the process. (Can this officially be called Mortal Kombat love… I mean she did maim him and all, which is short of a fatality isn’t it?)

Well, pending lawsuits, assault and battery charges and the hollow dark cry of “FINISH HIM!“ aside, it seems Akari is not going to find an easy road to love just because she got her foot through the door, and her tongue through his mouth, by maiming her future love interest with a wildly swinging bookbag, we have first things first. First things first… she has to learn not to fall asleep during the kabuki performances, or at the very least do it in a means that is not so obvious to the untrained eye… y’know, lolling your head about, drooling all over yourself, snoring, etc.

It seems that she just had to fall for a guy whose doing something she probably couldn’t care less about, much less understand without lots of training or at least lots of hand holding from Ryusei… hmm… that might work out after all, especially in the end when it looks like she’s willing to learn not to be bored by kabuki just to be with him.

Somehow even if she gets him to teach her kabuki theater this whole possible relationship thing is just not going to be easy, even if she suddenly hits it off right with the brooding human hating actor in this first story (and trade spit through French kisses), because next issue (Shojo Beat V. 2, Issue #11) already promises a rival for his… his… I can’t exactly call it affections since he’s not supposed to be the soft cuddly sort… uh… his something.

But this is just the beginning. Look for the full review in a few months (maybe by the beginning of 2007). See you then.

Tail of the Moon

Tail of the Moon Reviews

First Look at Tail of the Moon