The Seven Deadly Sins by Nakaba Suzuki

In Britannia, The Seven Deadly Sins, feared worries, have been exiled.  But when the king's guards, the Holy Knights, imprisoned the king and stage a coup, princess Elizabeth goes off to search for The Seven Deadly Sins, the only ones who could fight the Holy Knights.

Dammit, The Seven Deadly Sins.  I am so disappointed in you.  It all started off so promising.  "This is great," thought I.  A middle grade manga with action and adventure and a cool story.  But no.  No.  It is not to be.

Because of the groping and the breast grabbing and ass touching and obnoxious innuendo turns what would have otherwise been a delightful middle grade read into something I can't justify putting in my library.  And I am highly annoyed.

The first of the Sins Elizabeth comes across is Meliodas, who's apparently Wrath despite the fact he's perpetually cheery.  Elizabeth faints pretty much as soon as she gets in the door of Meliodas' tavern.  She was dressed in armor, so he's surprised to see she's a girl.  He proceeds to confirm the fact she's a girl by sniffing her (the drawing is him sniffing her crotch) and squeezing her breasts.

The first chapter has Meliodas rescuing Elizabeth from various near death experiences.  She keeps getting flung into the air.  Meliodas catches her, and every time he does, we get another breast grabbing picture.

Elizabeth is portrayed as naive and dense.  At no point does she tell him to knock off groping her.  She is just so grateful for his help.  At one point, they're searching for another one of the Sins in a forest.  Elizabeth says, "Something's touching my butt."  "Don't worry.  It's just me" (illustration of him with her hand under her skirt touching her ass)  "Oh, that's a relief.  I was scared for a second there" is her response.  Ew.  Gross.  Making me uncomfortable.  Meliodas has a talking pig, Hawk, who tells Meliodas to "stop," and "this is not the time," and "That shouldn't be a relief!"  I think having a character say those things is suppose to make the fact that those things are happening OK.  But it doesn't.  It doesn't stop it from being icky or from Elizabeth submissively taking it.

And it doesn't make it any better for a middle school librarian looking for manga.  I cannot put this in my library, and that's frustrating, because there's nothing wrong with the story.  Why'd the smarmy groping have to be put in?  It doesn't add anything.  Meliodas isn't even the Sin of lust.  At least then he'd have a reason (although not an excuse) for his actions..  All it accomplishes is limiting who can read this book.

The Seven Deadly Sins is rated T, which is 13+ but I don't think that's appropriate.  I mean, the story is definitely T, but the fondling puts it out of the T range.  Again, it's a shame.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Magic Within by Tania del Rio

Sabrina is a witch, and that means she not only has to go to regular school, but to magical school too!  Sabrina is torn between two very different boys: Harvey, a mortal who she's know since kindergarten and has had a crush on forever, and Shinji, and fellow warlock who's recently started going to Sabrina's mortal school too.  With her talking cat Salem, her friend Llandra, and her two fabulous aunts, Sabrina will navigate the confusing worlds of both high school and magic.

Meh.  Oh it was cute.  Fluffy and light.  Those that like shoujo manga will love this one.  In her introduction, Tania del Rio talks about being asked to do Sabrina and choosing to do it in the manga style.  She describes shoujo as "..aimed at young girls filled with romance, adventure, and beautiful, strong-willed heroines."  Well, I don't know about the "strong-willed" part.  It's appropriate that this comes from Archie comics, since Sabrina and her friend Llandra are Betty and Veronica like in there mooning over the same boy.

This book would not pass the Bechdel test.  I don't think Sabrina had a single conversation with her friends, her cat, or her aunts that didn't in some way involve her ever present dilemma over which boy she should chose.  Or, once she started dating Harvey, how Harvey wasn't acting enough like a boyfriend.

Only the Ring Finger Knows by Satoru Kannagi and Hotaru Odagiri

Wataru goes to a school where a ring makes a statement about the relationship you're in. Of course matching rings worn on the left ring finger mean that you're in a committed relationship. Wataru lives in ignorant bliss, as he wears a one-of-a-kind ring and therefore can't be claimed by anyone. Or at least that's what he thinks. But then there's a mix up of rings, and suddenly Wataru can't help wondering why the most popular boy at his school Yuichi has started picking on him and why he has the exact same ring as Wataru.

If you've read any shojo manga, then you'll be pretty familiar with the tropes in this novel. Oh! I want to make sure we're clear, this is a novel that was then turned into a manga a little later on because of the popularity of the novel. When I requested this from my public library I first of all assumed that there was only the manga, and then again incorrectly assumed that the manga came first and then the novel. Whoops!

I liked this, had a nice balance of angst, tribulations, and romance. Wataru's character has some understandable reservations about the relationship, and I appreciated the fact that Yuichi isn't always a cool collected dominant. Having said that this does remind me a bit of Twilight. It can't be helped! I mean Wataru is this little darling, who always questions his worth and idolizes Yuichi. He's rather oblivious to other's feelings like Bella, and tends to freak over little bumps in the road. Yuichi is a rather cool customer, who tends to emotionally dominate the relationship and always have an answer to everything.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just seemed to have connections.

There are a couple drawings throughout the book. They're lovely, of course there's lots of focus on hands. There's a blog called LaineyGossip that I like, and she talks about pretty hands as "tea pouring hands and poetry arms." I think that's an appropriate phrase for the boys in this book.

Overall quite adequately done.

After School Nightmare by Hokago Hokenshitsu

Mashiro seems to live a charmed life- he participates in kendo, is polite to everyone, and is popular with girls. Unfortunately Mashiro has a secret, while his upper half is male his lower half is female. This means he must keep everyone at arm's length, including his frustrating rival Sou and the cheerful androphobic Kureha. Mashiro isn't the only one with a secret, he discovers that the only way to graduate from his school is to participate in a game that is played through dreams. Players must find a key, but must fight and sometimes kill the other players. In this dreamscape, players are revealed as their 'true selves' and unfortunately for Mashiro his alternate dream form is a girl!

This was a trippy story. Some great horror elements, amazing sub-plots, back-stories, and characters. While this is considered a shojo (a piece of literature intended for high school girls with elements of romance and beautiful boys in it) Hokago Hokenshitsu twists all the themes and makes them more thought provoking, or at least makes you stop a moment and go "Huh." This is a dark story line, and nothing is as it seems. Which I guess is why I like it. I've read through volume two, and it's rather fascinating to see Mashiro's struggle between wanting to be seen as a boy, with all the societal empowerment that comes with being male, and taking care of Kureha; to his conflicting romantic feelings for Sou whom he has always considered a rival. Fascinating.

This manga series was published in America by Go! Media Entertainment and finished in volume ten back in 2008.

Steady Beat by Rivkah

Leah is frustrated with being compared to her perfect older sister Sarai and under appreciated by her overworked mother. But when Leah finds a passionate love letter for Sarai signed "Love, Jessica" she is thrown in a mental whirlwind and feels the need to discover who Jessica is and what this means for her sister.

The mystery thickens when Leah is contacted by an anonymous caller saying that he can explain the love letters. Leah misses her chance to meet with him when she is a car accident, but meets a family that is very different from her own with a handsome young man that tries to help her. It seems that Leah's life is about to get even more interesting as she tries to come to terms with her sister's sexuality and her own.

This series was the winner of the Manga Academy's Create Your Own Manga competition back in 2005 and it's a YALSA recommended title. Eh. The themes are excellent, I like the idea of Leah trying to understand her sister's love life while she figures out her own but the whole side-plots of soccer, mystery caller, and Elijah's family seems unnecessary. It was all rather trite, I don't really understand why the whole mysterious caller thing is necessary to the plot line. I also didn't like the artwork. Let's be honest, I could not do better and I am not a professional art critic, but I thought that the artwork was a bit amateur and cliche.

I guess my response could be summed up as being: The themes should make it an awesome high YA manga, but the plot and artwork dumb it down.

I feel kind of bad for saying it, but there it is.