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Jul 28, 2025
Grenadier is the story of Rushuna, a gunslinger stranded in a fantasy land based on feudal Japan, trying to find a way to cross the ocean and return to her own homeland. On the way, she fights injustice wherever she finds it. It’s not an unusual plot for a western, but for the twist that she’s trying to /get back/ to the old west.
The characters are not particularly memorable. The two leads, Rushuna and Yachan the samurai get the most development; Rushuna’s vulnerability combined with her top-notch shooting skills and her concern for others is very endearing. Yachan feels like a stock character of the
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time, a man with a strong sense of honor, on a training journey to become the greatest samurai. I wish there was more i could say.
The art is alright, scratchy in that early-2000s-shonen way. It is very fanservicy with its female characters, focusing heavily especially on Rushuna’s chest and underwear. Personally, i found it off-putting, but at the time that sort of thing was considered a plus, and i’m sure there are still straight men who enjoy these depictions of female characters.
Grenadier wasn’t really my cup of tea, but it was a fun read for what it was. if you enjoy adventure stories with plenty of boobs and butt fanservice, this is the manga for you. If you’re looking for something heavy on the story, with strong character development or deep takes on the world it’s in, i would recommend something else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 28, 2025
There’s not much to say about this final volume of the Miriam trilogy. It is very much an epilogue to the previous installment, Stop Time & Wait for me; the story is essentially that Miriam wants Douglas to act romantic and some guys he pissed off in Stop Time want revenge. It would not be able to stand on its own. Miriam does have some cute outfits, which may be the main appeal of Romantic Dream. For me, the Miriam trilogy is a prime example of a story starting out strong and then fizzling out.
If you’ve made it this far in the Miriam trilogy, then
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you might as well read this series too, for the sake of closure, but if you haven’t been feeling it, Romantic Dream adds nothing to the story and you wouldn’t miss out by skipping it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 28, 2025
Stop Time & Wait For Me is the second installment of the Miriam trilogy. It takes place nine years after the first part, with Miriam now in her late teens and Douglas and friends as adults. Without giving any spoilers, Miriam stumbles upon a criminal conspiracy and loses her memory in an accident; Douglas then has to find her and find a way to restore her memories.
Amnesia as a plot device is fairly common and rarely done well. I’m not saying writers can never use it, but it has to be handled with care to keep the readers’ interest. In this case, the amnesia feels
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trite and lazy and is really only there to force Douglas to figure out how he really feels about Miriam. Everything else in the story was shaped around this one plot point, making it far more romance-centered than the first part.
That’s not so say i didn’t enjoy it; Stop Time had plenty of action to keep me happy, and those scenes were very well-written. The characters were just as fun, and the new characters meshed well with the already established world. (Miriam has a reputation!) If you liked the first part and want to see what happens in the future for Miriam and Douglas, or if you wish the first part put more emphasis on romance, by all means continue on to this one. But i personally didn’t like it quite as much.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 28, 2025
The first installment in the Miriam trilogy, this is the story of a little girl who will do whatever it takes to protect the ranch where she lives and its owner. She forcibly recruits three young drifters to help fend off the corrupt businessman trying to put the moves on her guardian and the ranch’s owner, a young woman named Grace. All kinds of hijinks ensue. It is in some ways a typical Western, but it bursts with life and energy.
Miriam is an absolute go-getter. She’s learned to take on a lot of responsibility at an early age, from having to look after her father
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who was addicted to both alcohol and gambling. The three drifters, Douglas, Card, and Joel, are well-defined and fun; the villains are suitably terrible. Grace i think is where the writing drops off; she’s pretty bland, with no real distinguishing characteristics.
The art is very 80s shojo. It’s not bad by any means, the visuals are great, but when you’ve read a lot of shojo from the 80s and 90s this style of art tends to all look the same. It doesn’t make itself visually distinct from its contemporaries. Whether that is a plus or minus depends on how you feel about the style. I personally like it.
The target audience for a manga like this is probably small, but i fall squarely into it. It was immensely enjoyable both as a shojo and as a Western; i’m excited to read the two sequels. If, like me, you’re into shojo manga that contains action and adventure, this is well worth the read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 12, 2025
Let’s talk about queerbaiting.
Queerbaiting is when an audience is led to believe a work of fiction will feature prominent LGBT characters, and/or center LGBT story arcs, when in actuality those elements are barely there, or even implied rather than actually included. It’s a term i am very reluctant to use. I’ve heard some others in the LGBT community advocate for straightbaiting, in which straight people are led to believe a story will be about them until it’s revealed at the end that nope, it was queer all along! I’ve seen this done a few times, and i can’t say i’m a fan. The problem with
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straightbaiting is that it feels like queerbaiting right up until the last moment; i’m not convinced that final relief is worth the emotional strain that the earlier parts of the story cause.
With that in mind, let’s talk about Babanbabanban Vampire.
The main character of this series is indeed a gay vampire, and it appears to be marketed as a BL story, but it’s very hard to trust. It feels, rather than a gay story, more like the gay vampire is a plot device to get a straight couple together. The manga runs in a magazine that isn’t known for telling queer stories, and given the context of the anime thus far, available chapters of the manga, and the magazine carrying the story make even the pun of interpreting BL as “Bloody Love” concerning. Even if you overlook the elements that could be interpreted as straightbaiting, the vampire Ranmaru’s relationship with human boy Rihito is incredibly disturbing. Ranmaru’s favorite type of blood to drink is that of 18-year-old male virgins, and the story revolves around him living with Rihito’s family and attempting to preserve Rihito’s virginity until he reaches the age of 18, when Ranmaru will then drink his blood. It plays very strongly into the current queerphobic dogwhistle of “members of the LGBT community being pedophiles grooming children.” The way Babanbabanban Vampire seems to be promoting this belief is incredibly harmful and insidious. The art is excellent, but even the best art doesn’t make up for bad writing. I’m honestly not even sure who this is targeted to; homophobes will avoid it due to the purported BL element, and the LGBT community will be put off by the apparent queerbaiting and homophobic dogwhistles. Straight women who fetishize gay men, maybe…?
Even at its best, Babanbabanban Vampire seems to be focusing on the wrong elements of its story. The fact that Ranmaru is based on a historical figure, and the frequent references he makes to his relationships with other famous historical figures, are incredibly intriguing. I’d have preferred for it to be about Ranmaru’s (historically factual!) relationship with Oda Nobunaga, who perhaps surprisingly does not fit Ranmaru’s preferred type – when Nobunaga died, he was 48 years old the way we in the modern world measure ages, 50 the way he would have measured his own age, and hardly a virgin. He had a whole lot of kids, only one of whom was adopted. And yet he’s the one Ranmaru thinks of when asked about past loves. Ranmaru’s later escapades with the Bakumatsu-era revolutionary Sakamoto Ryouma are also more interesting than his current relationship with Rihito.
I hope i’m wrong. I hope that Babanbabanban Vampire is indeed straightbaiting rather than queerbaiting, and the elements that seem homophobic are resolved in a comfortable way. But i can’t trust it. I’ve been burned too many times before, and i cannot recommend this series to my fellows in the LGBT communities or allies.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Nov 26, 2024
This isn’t something i would have chosen to read on my own. It was sent to me by mistake when i ordered a secondhand copy of another manga, and i figured i might as well read it. So how does it do?
Honestly, not great. Overall, this manga is pretty bland and uninspired. It starts out quite vague, with lead character Naruse waking up several days in a row at his coworker’s place after a night of heavy drinking; the third morning coworker Kita pretends they had sex as a joke, and then they both start to develop feelings for each other.
I was a little worried
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going in that it would turn out to be copaganda, but Kuwabara was willing to show a cop beating up a suspect as early as chapter two for no other reason than to soothe his own (the cop’s) hurt feelings. So that’s something, i guess? At least the manga knows police brutality is a thing. There is, however, no real overarching plot beyond the development of Naruse and Kita’s relationship. Even that has no drama, intrigue, or excitement.
As for characters, well. Kita is a misanthrope, and it’s established early on that he’s interested in Naruse because he’s like the one person Kita doesn’t hate – that old “I hate everyone but i don’t hate you” scenario. (Which, honestly, relatable.) The author carries that character trait through, as well – Kita’s dislike for others is clear, and he has no idea how to build a functional relationship because he has no experience in that area. It’s not like some stories where the author will tell you a character hates everybody without writing them that way. The author does try to delve a little bit into his character. Unfortunately, that’s all the characterization this manga has. Everybody else is bland as shit, with no personality i was able to discern. Kita says that Naruse doesn’t bore him, but i don’t see why not. It’s not like there’s anything interesting about him.
I’m sure some of you reading this are thinking, “Morgan, you’re asking too much of a one-volume yaoi manga! You can’t expect them to have stories or character development!” I disagree. I’ve read enough one-volume yaoi that excel in those areas (Amasakaru by Moka Azumi, Stranger by Hayate Kukuu, and Midare Soumenishi by Kazuma Kodaka come to mind) that i have little patience for any manga whose author doesn’t seem to care about the story they’re telling. Even the artwork is best described as lackluster, though at least the men don’t have fish lips. The oneshot at the end of the volume was a little more interesting, because it actually had a bit of a story to it, but not enough to really carry it.
“So what about the porn?” i hear you ask. I’m sure that’s what most of you are here for, and i’m sorry to tell you there was one sex scene, barely depicted, and certainly nothing to get off to. If you’re looking for good porn in a one-volume yaoi, i point you again towards Amasakaru.
Overall, i was unimpressed. It’s alright if you want something mindless to read to kill some time, but i would hardly recommend it. This was a poor substitute for Gorgeous Carat: Galaxy; i won’t be keeping it in my collection.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 13, 2024
Genghis Khan: To The Ends of the Earth and the Sea tells the story of Chinggis Khan’s early life and rise to power. (I use the preferred Mongolian spelling of Temujin’s title both out of respect and because it’s easier for English speakers to tell how it’s pronounced this way. It starts with a soft G like in ‘general’, not a hard G like in ‘get’.) So how does it do?
Honestly, not well. Chinggis Khan had a long and storied career, and even focusing just on his early life, it’s far beyond the scope of a single-volume manga. To the Ends of the Earth and
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Sky is centered on his relationship with his anda, his sworn blood brother, Jamuka, but in an extremely disjointed way. The manga hits the major events, more or less, but without any real attempt to connect them to each other in a cohesive narrative. If i hadn’t spent several years studying the Mongol Empire out of my own interest, i would have had trouble following the story.
In a similar vein, the characters are left undeveloped – there’s no sense of who they are as people, except perhaps for Temujin himself, and certainly no explanation of why they’re fighting. The idea to show their feud through the eyes of Temujin’s firstborn son Jochi and Jamuka’s son was an interesting one, and one i would have loved to see done well, but the way it was written is clumsy at best. The author’s note at the end of the series says that this was their first manga, and it shows.
Overall, this manga is one of those stories that was beyond its author’s ability to write. While the art was excellent and well-suited to the subject matter, i wanted to like this manga a lot more than i actually did. It’s worth checking out if you have an interest in the Mongol Empire, as i do, but i wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read at least one biography of the real Chinggis Khan. (Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford is a good place to start.) Those who are familiar with the history behind To the Ends of the Earth and the Sea might find Jochi’s perspective interesting, or they might be frustrated by the large gaps in the narrative. I felt both, so i’ll leave it up to your discretion.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 30, 2024
Et Cetera is the story of a girl who dreams of becoming a Hollywood starlet, but in order to get there she has to team up with a shady missionary and fight her way through the American West using the magic gun her grandfather left her. It draws its powers from the animals of the Chinese zodiac, and the shots vary based on what animals happen to be around. It has a twin gun based on the Greco-Babylonian zodiac that operates in the same way; both are fairly standard shonen fare. After a few volumes, a crime syndicate based in New York, hunting for both
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guns, is introduced, providing an impetus and intensity the story might not otherwise have had.
Baskerville is not anyone’s idea of a missionary. He wears his hair long, he cheats at cards, and he has a decidedly unholy interest in Mingchao’s Eto gun. At first i thought it was because Mingchao is a Daoist that she doesn’t recognize how unlike a Christian priest he is, but she genuinely assumes that everyone around her is who they say they are and trusts them without question – Benkate is another character Mingchao really should be more suspicious of. I find her naivete endearing rather than annoying, but i can see other readers going the other way. Some of the supporting characters get a great deal more development than others; Fino and Alternate are great, while Benkate, Yaghi, and most of the other characters including the villains are little more than cardboard cutouts. Still, they fit together well in the story Nakazaki is trying to tell.
The art is very messy, in that patented early-2000s-shonen way. Mingchao is adorable, but many of the adult characters have weird and off-putting proportions. (Such as the women’s snakelike torsos. And the men’s torsos. Basically what i’m saying is this artist can’t draw bare torsos.) It does get ecchi at times, but it flows so naturally – you know those scenes are there for fanservice, but they feel like an organic part of the story rather than something that was shoehorned in.
Normally i’m a stickler for calling out historical inaccuracy, but the manga put a disclaimer in the first chapter acknowledging that Hollywood wasn’t founded until well after the time period depicted, and frankly, i could see a girl of Mingchao’s era wanting to be an actress; it would just be heading east to Broadway instead of west to Hollywood. I can forgive that, since it is quite a fun story. On the other hand, there are short stories like the one about a boy and his mother who raise cattle but don’t brand them, and then act surprised and offended when their cattle are claimed as mavericks. (By common consensus among cattle ranchers of this period, unbranded cattle were up for grabs.) Mingchao was right to tell them off for not “putting their names” on the cows. The geography of this series is difficult to keep track of; it took until the appearance of a map in volume five for me to realize that the entire story didn’t take place in California. Even when they start identifying settings, though, there is no strong sense of place.
There is one aspect of the story that quite bothered me, that i suspect the average reader would gloss right over. The second volume introduces a character named Luriele, a young girl in a group of traveling performers who used to be a dancer. She had to stop dancing after an accident lost her the use of her legs, everyone believes permanently, and Mingchao is quite supportive of her desire to one day dance again. That all is fine, but the way it’s ultimately handled is that the damage to Luriele’s legs was purely a mental block, and as soon as Luriele is given a strong enough impetus to walk without her crutches again, she has no trouble at all moving the way she did before. Her muscles didn’t even atrophy. It’s horrible and ableist and cheap, and i can’t get past it, even though she was only a minor character.
You may have noticed my complaints are focused on the early part of the story; this is because the first few volumes, about Mingchao and Baskerville wandering through the west, are meandering and make it easy to zero in on any problems. Once the manga introduces the syndicate and our heroes have to fight them, the story becomes much more focused and enjoyable, a smoother ride overall, though i think some of the penultimate-chapter reveals were also a bit questionable.
Don’t come here for a serious Western or historical accuracy, because this manga is silly as all get-out. But Et Cetera is a fun read if you don’t think seriously about it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 23, 2024
Shinigami Alice is the story of Masaki, a teenage girl who gets attacked while walking home late at night, and Hinageshi, the assassin who kills her attacker. Although Hinageshi is required to kill any witnesses to her work, she spares Masaki on a whim, and the two of them continue to be thrown together. When Hinageshi’s organization sets out to punish her for letting a witness live, Masaki shelters her, leading to the two of them ultimately protecting each other in different ways.
The setup to how they come together is slightly different than in the oneshot, and i find i prefer the series version. The
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emotions feel more real. Hinageshi doesn’t understand why she chose to spare Masaki’s life, and tries to figure it out. Masaki can’t forget the mysterious girl who saved her life, but unlike the oneshot doesn’t become instantly obsessed. She’s drawn in more slowly, and that gives Hinageshi a chance to develop her own feelings. While both versions ultimately have the same theme, the series does better at expressing that theme, having the time to build up to Masaki’s final line about Hinageshi’s viewpoint.
The characters are pretty great, considering that they only have two volumes to develop in. while Masaki seems like a normal girl on the surface, she carries her own darkness in her heart, which allows her to connect to Hinageshi in a way a truly ordinary schoolgirl would not. (I do appreciate that the author explains why she lives alone, something i’ve gotten used to other yuri leaving unaddressed.) Hinageshi has become an emotionless killing machine through her life as an assassin, but due to her contact with Masaki, she slowly regains her sense of humanity, and i enjoyed watching the two of them fall in love despite their better instincts. The third major character, Camellia, is a yandere. Like Hinageshi, she turned out warped due to growing up as an assassin, but instead of shutting down her emotions, she feels them too strongly. Her obsession with Hinageshi makes sense in the context of their shared past, and i found her wish at the end of the series quite moving.
Normally i don’t like the sort of cutesy artwork Shinigami Alice uses, but in this case i think it gives a lovely dissonance to the dark subject matter. Hinageshi in particular looks like a Victorian doll, and seeing that cute face splattered with blood makes for a great visual.
The author mentions in a note that they were asked to write something with a similar vibe to the anime Noir, and i have to say that they succeeded. It’s a shame MAL doesn’t allow you to recommend a manga on an anime’s page, because as someone who loved both series, i would recommend them to each other’s fans. This is a charming tale of murder and love, and honestly, anyone not afraid of dark elements in fiction should check it out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 16, 2024
Gorgeous Carat: Galaxy does not pick up where the first series left off, but an unspecified amount of time after the man characters’ return to France. There’s no reference to the North Africa arc at all, as if the previous two and a half volumes hadn’t happened at all. This was disappointing for me, as a great deal happened in those volumes (over half of the original series, for those of you keeping track at home); events that would have had a permanent impact on Florian, Ray, and their relationship. There should be no going back to the way things were before, but the only
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change appears to be the rumors going around society about the nature of Ray and Florian’s relationship.
The story itself feels more like an arc from an overarching series than an independent sequel. A relative of Florian’s going through hard times contacts him in the hopes that his sugar daddy (?) can help out by buying a few heirlooms. Florian convinces Ray to go check it out, and the two of them plus Laila travel to the remote mountain estate. They meet the daughter of the previous master of the house, Eleonora, who has developed a fixation on Florian since his last visit ten years earlier and wants to steal him away from Ray. Her story is without question a tragedy, so modern readers who want everything to be fluff will want to steer clear.
I think the main reason anyone would pick Galaxy up after the first series will have done so because they want to see the progression of Ray and Florian’s relationship. In that regard, Galaxy is absolutely a disappointment. It’s a pretty good mystery/action story, but with very little space to let the characters breathe or emote. Their relationship is still quite ambiguous, with no real character development for anyone other than Eleonora. Even the attempt to connect this volume’s storyline to the Black Hand plot from the previous series feels quite clumsy. I did like Galaxy, but i can’t help wishing for more; the pacing was too fast to develop properly. Even letting the same story spread out over two volumes would have let it breathe and better convey what these characters are going through. There’s still a couple more sequels after this, though, so maybe they will bring some closure to the overarching story of Gorgeous Carat.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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