Helter Skelter

(ヘルタースケルター)
Mangaka: Kyoko Okazaki
Categories: josei, drama

"A word before we start:
laughter and screams
sound very much alike."

Summary: Years (and yens) of plastic surgery turned top celebrity Ririko into the beauty icon that she is. However, as her body starts to show signs of deterioration (think Michael Jackson), she descends into despair and becomes hellbent into making other people's lives as miserable as hers. The appearance of a younger and fresher face at her modelling agency and the engagement of her rich lover to another adds insult to the injury. More often than not, the object of Ririko's bullying is her pushover-of-an-assistant, Hada-chan.

Comments: Ririko is both the protagonist and antagonist in this story. Although she's a real bitch (haha!) and she ends up destroying herself, you can't help but pity her.

Although I'm not a fan of Okazaki-san's art, the intro illustrations are eye-candy. I can't say the same for the drawings in the actual story. The art itself is atypical of Japanese manga but once you get passed that, you'll find a story riveting for its relevance to today's issues.



There are no superheroes with preternatural powers in this manga, just women's vanity and society's obsession with beauty.

Warnings: has some nudity and sex scenes
Scanlator: Mangascreener

Yakitate!! Japan

(焼きたて!!ジャぱん)
Mangaka: Takashi Hashiguchi
Categories: shounen, comedy

Summary: Have you ever tasted french bread that can make you feel like a Frenchman? Or animal-shaped bread that can actually make you act like an animal? Or bread so good that it can literally send you to heaven? Azuma Kazuma, thanks to his extraordinarily warm hands and intense passion for his craft, is that good a baker that he can make such wonderful tasting bread.

Inspired by a zealous baker he met when he was a young boy and his grandfather who initally refused to eat bread because it's no substitute for rice, Azuma strives to make the perfect Japan (pan is another word for bread so Ja-pan is pun for Japanese bread), bread that can replace rice as staple food. In his quest, he tries to join renowned bakery Pantasia and participates in numerous baking contests. Think typical shounen manga tournaments but instead of sports or martial arts, you have baking (hehe!).



Comments: A manga about bread may sound dull at first but the ridiculous themes of the baking tournaments, Azuma's crazy opponents, and how our hero overcomes each challenge are entertaining. The silly reactions of the people who taste Azuma's bread are also hilarious. Please set aside whatever prejudices or misconceptions you might have about this manga. The story is hardly boring so you might want to give it a try :)

Scanlator: Snoopy Cool

Masterlist

reviews arranged alphabetically;
* indicates a personal favorite

Glossary

(common terms in the anime/manga world)

aneki - older sister; see also onee-chan

aniki - older brother; see also onii-chan

anime - Japanese animation

baka - idiot, moron, stupid; may be used as a noun or as an adjective

bishi, pl. bishies - see bishounen

bishoujo - good-looking girl/s

bishounen - literally means pretty boy; refers to good-looking men

-chan - see -san

chibi - a child; a cute person; also refers to a drawing style which has oversized heads and exaggerated facial expressions on small round bodies; also synonymous with super-deformed or SD; see this page for examples

cosplay - the act of dressing up as an anime/manga character

doujin, doujinshi - fans of a series sometimes draw their own manga, a doujin, based on the story and using the characters of the original

ecchi - perverted; usually has suggestive sexual situations but may not always be graphic; some people consider ecchi and hentai as one, others consider ecchi as a milder version of hentai

fansub - an anime subtitled by fans

hentai - explicit, graphic sex; for mature viewers only; sometimes interchangeable with ecchi

josei manga, also jousei or jyosei - manga geared towards mature, adult women

kawaii - cute; not to be confused with kowaii

kowaii - scary; not to be confused with kawaii

-kun - see -san

licensed - a series being licensed means that a certain company has bought the rights to distribute it in the United States. Knowing how extremely fussy copyright laws are around here, the anime/manga can't be distributed around the internet any more.

manga - Japanese comics/graphic novels; usually read from right to left unless specified otherwise

mangaka - a person who writes mangas

manhwa - Korean comics

manhua - Chinese comics

-nee (suffix to a person's name), nee-chan - see onee-chan

-nii (suffix to a person's name), nii-chan - see onii-chan

one-shot - manga usually composed of one to a few chapters, rarely exceeding one volume; a short story

onee-chan, onee-sama, onee-san, etc. - older sister

onii-chan, onii-sama, onii-san, etc. - older brother; also aniki

otaku - an overtly obsessed anime/manga fan; usually needs rehab

-san, -sama, -chan, -kun - honorifics; suffixes attached to a name to show respect; similar to the English Mr. or Miss; see Wikipedia's discussion on the Japanese honorific for usage instructions

scanlate - scan + translate; a scanlator is someone who does the scanlating; a scanlation is the act and/or product of scanlating

SD, super-deformed - see chibi

seinen manga - manga geared towards mature, adult men; sex and violence are prevalent themes but may not always be present

sensei - a teacher or a doctor; may also be used as a suffix

shoujo, also shojo - girl/s; shoujo anime/manga is geared towards girls and typically has sweet, mushy love stories

shoujo-ai - stories about girls who love other girls; milder than yuri; compare with shounen-ai; don't mistake for shoujo manga

shounen, also shonen - boy/s; shounen anime/manga is geared towards young boys and often contains action/adventure stories; common themes include but are not limited to competition, martial arts, fighting, superheroes with supernatural powers, and sports; "Dragon Ball," "Naruto," and "Slam Dunk" are good examples

shounen-ai - stories about boys who love other boys; milder than yaoi; compare with shoujo-ai; don't mistake for shounen manga

slash (/) - a romantic pairing, usually yaoi in nature; sometimes a cross (x) is used instead

super-deformed, SD - see chibi

tankoubon - a full manga volume released in book form; i.e. manga is usually released chapter by chapter in weekly magazines. When there are enough chapters to form a volume, they are re-released as tankoubons.

yaoi - gay men getting it on; compare with yuri and shounen-ai; usually a sub-group of josei manga

yuri - lesbians getting it on; compare with yaoi and shoujo-ai

see also Usenet Manga Glossary

Further Reading

• Manga @ Wikipedia
• What is Manga?
• The Librarian's Guide to Anime and Manga
• What are Manga and Anime?
• Manga vs. Anime
• Manga Nation