S.Q. Eries's Blog, page 61

Writing Contest Alert: Pitch-A-Partner Festival and GLA “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest!

For those of you who:

Have critique partners and
Write middle grade or YA

check out  the Pitch-A-Partner Festival (PAPfest)! This contest is being hosted by RC Lewis, MarcyKate Connolly and Mindy McGinnis, an amazing trio of writers with whom I’ve had the privilege of swapping manuscripts.

The premise of their contest is that writers  pitch their critique partner’s project, and their team will decide whose pitching abilities are so strong that they’re interested in seeing the pitcher’s own project.

Agents participating in the PAPfest are:

Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary

Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Literary

Pooja Menon of Kimberley Cameron

Adriann Ranta of Wolf Literary

Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary

Tina Wexler of ICM

The contest begins Wednesday, Jan 23 at 8 AM EST! For more details about entering and the prizes, etc, go to Mindy’s website.

And just as a reminder for those with finished manuscripts  in either science fiction or YA, you have till the end of the month to enter the Guide to Literary Agents (GLA) blog’s 13th (free!) “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest.

Writing Contest Alert: GLA “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest!

For those with finished manuscripts  in either science fiction or YA,  the Guide to Literary Agents (GLA) blog is holding its 13th (free!) “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest. The judging agent, by the way, is Victoria Marini, an associate literary agent with the Gelfman Schneider Literary Agency.

HOW TO SUBMIT

E-mail entries to dearluckyagent13@gmail.com. Paste everything. No attachments.

WHAT TO SUBMIT

The first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of your sci-fi novel or young adult novel. You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with each entry.

Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any social media. Please provide a social media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc. and notes with your entry. For more details go to the GLA website.

PRIZES!!!

Top 3 winners all get: 1) A critique of the first 10 double-spaced pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) A free one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com ($50 value)!

For more details about the contest, go to the GLA website!

Manhwa Review: Aron’s Absurd Armada Vol. #1

An oft-used archetype in popular literature are pirates. Pirate stories are so numerous nowadays, you can find all sorts of buccaneers, ranging from romantic to sly to sinister, and now joining to the ranks of Captain Hook and One Piece’s Luffy is the idiot pirate Aron!

Back Cover Blurb

On a whim, Aron Cornwall decides he wants to live a pirate’s life of thrills, sailing on the high seas in search of distant lands and buried treasure. And when you’re the son of a duke, you generally get what you want. Accompanied by his reluctant manservant, Robin, Aron scrounges up a crew – including a cook who cannot cook, a transvestite assassin, and a boy (girl?) genius – and sets off on the craziest pirate adventure you’ve ever seen!

The RevieW

If you’re looking for an introductory manhwa (Korean graphic novel) for someone used to Western comic strips, consider Aron’s Absurd Armada. Buccaneers on the high seas and European-style royalty in castles comprise the characters and settings, and although story arcs last several pages, they’re presented in comic strip-sized bites.

The format is similar to the Japanese 4-koma with four panels read top to bottom, but Armada’s format is slightly wider. Occasionally, Kim divides panels into smaller sections to squeeze in more details. Each strip also includes a side illustration based on the main punchline. Some Korean cultural references are made, but they are explained with footnotes. In addition to the strips, a few arcs in full-page format are interspersed through the book. The entire manhwa is printed in color on glossy stock, and except for smudges on a couple pages, the print quality generally does justice to Armada’s elaborate period costumes.

The title is Aron’s Absurd Armada, but while the main character is Aron and he is absurd, he doesn’t really have an armada. Instead, as the back cover declares, Aron and company are pirates. But it would be more accurate to say Aron is a wannabe pirate with a crew of misfits compelled to follow him.

Most of the comedy stems from the fact that Aron has no business being a pirate. The son of a duke, Aron is a spoiled imbecile with zero fighting ability and no sense of responsibility. Wealthy as he is, he has no need for nor interest in obtaining booty. The one time his crew goes on a treasure hunt, he doesn’t bother to join them. He simply wants to be known as a pirate because he’s bored and thinks they’re cool.

Obviously, such an idiot can’t survive on his own. Thus we have Robin, Aron’s bodyguard. Beautiful and vain, Robin’s narcissism is only matched by his love for money. Between the sizable allowance received from Aron’s overindulgent mother and Robin’s unsurpassed sword skills, they keep the rest of the crew in line. That crew, by the way, consists of a girl whom everyone thinks is a gay boy; a transvestite assassin hairdresser; a brawny chef who can’t cook; and two flunkies who serve as the straight men for this ridiculous cast.

With this hodgepodge of characters, the plot is less action and adventure and more about the mental damage they inflict upon one another. In one arc, Aron’s ship has a run-in with the Marines, but it’s not so much a naval battle as it is about Aron putting the Marines’ lieutenant Luther, who just happens to be Aron’s childhood pal, into a pinch. By the way, this Luther is also the illegitimate son of an admiral; gets no respect from his subordinates; endures a peculiar bullying from his half-brother; and is madly in love with his half-niece who happens to be his ensign. That’s the type of craziness Armada has in store for readers.

I should mention that this title is rated older teen, partly because of violence and language, but also because the characters continually rip on one another about cross-dressing, sexual orientation, and BL (boys love).

Regarding the artwork, don’t let the front cover fool you. Kim does use deformed characters when the occasion warrants, but for the most part, illustrations are clean shojo-style artwork with a predominantly attractive cast. And although Yen Press presents this book as Volume 1 of Armada, it actually contains Volumes 1 and 2 of the manhwa as released in Korea and provides the character introduction pages used in both.

In Summary

Beware Aron the pirate! Actually, the ones that really need to look out are Aron’s misfit crewmates as their inept leader gets into one scrape after another. If you want to see all the havoc that one self-centered duke can cause country, family, and friends by charging onto the high seas with a gender bending crew, give Armada a try. And while the $18.99 cover price might seem a bit steep, the book is printed in full color and actually contains Volumes 1 and 2 of the original Korean releases.

First published at the Fandom Post.

Best Manga of 2012

So at the close of 2012, Chris, the editor over at the Fandom Post, asked his contributors to write a list of our top five for the year. That was a little challenging for me because I’m pretty bad about remembering exactly what I’ve read and when I’ve reviewed it. But after slogging through my manga pile and my 2012  reviews, these are the gems I pulled out.

1). Bakuman: Viz’s translation of this series is up to its 17th volume, and I still find myself eagerly anticipating each new release. A manga about mangaka might not sound too interesting, but the team of Ohba and Obata has turned Bakuman into a battle manga where the magazine Jump is the battleground their characters use to prove themselves. Although some of the recent challenges for Team Ashirogi have veered into the realm of unrealistic, the plot remains engaging and the main characters relatable even as they grow beyond their teenage years.

2) Bride’s Story: I love so much about this title – its historical setting, Mori-sensei’s exquisite artwork, its vibrant characters. It is a slice of life tale, meaning the story often slows to showcase different aspects of Amir’s culture, such as food and needlework, but a slower pace doesn’t mean a boring story. The bonds Amir forges in her new home draw readers in, and conflict between different tribes and European forces keep the tension up. The main reason Bride’s Story didn’t take first place is the age gap between Amir and Karluk. I don’t have a problem with their marriage per se; arranged marriages are the norm for many cultures. However, Mori-sensei draws Amir as a mature woman while Karluk looks like a little kid so there is a squick factor when Amir develops romantic feelings for him.

3) Spice and Wolf: Like many fantasy stories, Spice and Wolf has a medieval style setting with complex geopolitical elements, but what sets this manga apart is its economics bent. Knights, priests, and kings do exist in this world, but the main characters are a young merchant and his wisewolf companion, who is thoroughly knowledgeable about humans and their business dealings. The pair get into one exciting scrape after another in the pursuit of profit, and as you follow their adventures, you might just pick up some economics principles along the way.

4)  Bamboo Blade: A sports manga about a girls kendo team, this title is both uplifting and funny. Kendo may not be a mainstream American sport, but the quirky cast of Bamboo Blade presents it in a way even newbies can enjoy. Although it does go a bit overboard with its “alternative manga rendition” of events, you can’t help but get swept up in the characters’ enthusiasm as they strive to improve themselves.

5) 07 Ghost: A supernatural action title, 07 Ghost tells the tale of an underdog hero caught in an epic battle between good and evil. It’s definitely shonen fare, but female readers will appreciate the fine looking bishounen that make up the cast.  Go!Comi originally licensed the title but only released the first few volumes before they stopped publishing in October 2009. However, Viz Media has recently picked up the series so hopefully all the adventures of Teito and his friends will finally get translated to English!

First published at the Fandom Post.

Manga Review: Oresama Teacher Vol. #11

Mafuyu is a high school delinquent who wants to turn over a new leaf. So when she transfers schools, she thinks she’ll finally be able to live the life of a normal girl. There’s just one problem: her teacher  Mr. Saeki is a bigger delinquent than she is and is out to take advantage of her fighting skills!

Oresama Teacher is a shojo manga that offers humor of the silly variety. Volume 11 has recently been released, and you can read on for the review. (For those who are interested, you can click here for my reviews of earlier volumes).

Back Cover Blurb

Hayasaka has been gloomier than usual since he hasn’t been able to see Super Bun in a long time. Shinobu butts his ninja nose in and suggests Hayasaka and Super Bun go on a date for Christmas Eve. Mafuyu very reluctantly agrees to play “matchmaker,” and dons the rabbit mask to help cheer up her friend. But the date goes much better than she expected! How is she going to deal with Hayasaka now?

The RevieW

Volume 11 starts off with two holiday themed chapters. First, it’s Christmas time, and with Hayasaka in a funk after missing Super Bun’s last appearance, Mafuyu arranges for him to have a date with his hero. Tsubaki-sensei’s gotten some mileage out of Hayasaka’s Super Bun crush, but she milks it for what it’s worth by having a giddy Hayasaka and a self-conscious Super Bun/Mafuyu touring the town doing typical Christmas date stuff. Then it’s New Year’s at home with Mafuyu’s former minions Kangawa and Maizono. The humor in this chapter is a little more difficult for Western readers to understand as most jokes require knowledge of hot pots and Japanese New Year’s traditions, but you do get to enjoy Mafuyu having fun with her old pals.

After ringing in the new year, Tsubaki-sensei picks up with the next challenge to the Public Morals Club: Ayabe Reito. The arc begins well, presenting an enemy with an astounding strength that belies his nondescript appearance. His everpresent guitar case, bouts of illness, and the fact that he’s the only officer that wants out of the Student Council add to his mystique.

Mafuyu’s battles of late have been under the guise of Natsuo or Super Bun so it’s refreshing when Ayabe recognizes her actual capabilities. His directness forces Mafuyu to respond in kind and revert to the intensity of her gang leader days. Tsubaki-sensei truly draws you in as Mafuyu struggles to figure out how to take Ayabe down on her own. Once the secret behind his power is revealed though, it’s a bit of a letdown. The intensity disappears, and their duel devolves into a kind of silliness that leaves you wondering how Ayabe could have ever posed any kind of threat.

In Summary

After some holiday themed comedy, Tsubaki-sensei introduces the Public Morals Club’s next threat: the mysteriously powerful Ayabe. Unlike previous Student Council members, Ayabe recognizes Mafuyu for who she is and forces her to battle him with everything she’s got. But once Mafuyu figures out the trick behind his strength, the ultimate outcome of their fight is rather disappointing.

First published at the Fandom Post.

Manga Review: Otomen Vol. 13

There are many stories about tomboys, girls with boyish tendencies, but what about the opposite? In fact, what would you call a boy with girly interests? The manga answer is: Otomen!

For those unfamiliar with this series by Aya Kanno, “otomen” is a play on the Japanese word otome (乙女), meaning “young lady” or “mistress,” and the English word “men.” The plot centers around Asuka Masamune, the manliest guy in his high school.  However, he has a secret: the things he really loves are sweets, shojo manga, and sewing. He hides this part of his life from everyone until he meets Ryo Miyakozuka, the least feminine girl in school. Volume 13 of the series has just come out and you can read on for the review! (For those interested, you can click here for my reviews of earlier volumes).

Back Cover Blurb

Ryo ends up coaching a high school judo team, but women aren’t allowed at that school! She finds a way around this obstacle, but the real challenge comes when she finds herself facing off against… Asuka?!

The Review

With Asuka finally aware of his dad’s true identity, that leaves Kiyomi Masamune’s anti-otomen attitude and Asuka’s never-quite-dating relationship with Ryo as the main plot drivers for this series. In regard to the Asuka/Ryo romance, it’s been dragging for a while. In Volume 13′s opening chapter, even Ryo’s family expresses concern over the lack of progress between her and Asuka. For readers who’ve been feeling frustrated, Kanno-sensei finally delivers with a Ryo-centered arc in this volume.

The story’s set up to create tension between the couple when Ryo starts coaching judo at Odo Boys’ School but doesn’t tell Asuka. Yet despite Juta’s suspicions and the Odo team captain’s crush, you never really feel that Asuka’s relationship with Ryo is in any real danger, especially when Asuka immediately recognizes the “suspicious boy at Ryo’s house” to be Ryo herself, but it does push Asuka into mopey mode as he wonders if there’s truly anything between him and Ryo.

Ryo for the most part is oblivious–as usual–to the feelings of the men around her, but even she comes to the realization that her actions may have hurt Asuka’s feelings. The resolution is almost a parody of shonen “communicating through fists” with the two of them determined to “clash head-on” in the Odo-Ginyuri judo match. Fortunately for the romantics, a last-minute development changes the match from that of a couple wanting to work things out to a duel between boys interested in the same girl. And when Ryo finally does make up with Asuka, she does it in an unexpectedly romantic way. Sadly, Kanno-sensei cuts that scene short, keeping us from seeing Asuka’s response to Ryo’s Christmas gift, but she makes up for it with a Valentine’s Day chapter guaranteed to delight Asuka/Ryo fans.

In Summary

Finally, progress in Asuka’s relationship with Ryo! Kanno-sensei takes her time getting to it, working around a plot that has Ryo cross-dressing in order to coach a boys’ judo team, but readers get real confirmation of Ryo’s feelings toward Asuka at last. However, Ryo/Asuka fans will be even more thrilled with Asuka’s Valentine’s Day gift at the end of the volume!

First published at the Fandom Post.

Manga Review: Message to Adolf, Part 1

Osamu Tezuka is one of the giants of manga. While he’s best known for Astro Boy, he has an extensive list of works most Westerners are unaware of. But Vertical has recently made one more of his books available in English: his espionage thriller Message to Adolf.

Back Cover Blurb

It is 1936 in Berlin, Nazi Germany. A Japanese reporter named Sohei Tohge is covering the Berlin Olympic Games for the Japanese press. As he sits in the Japanese press box watching the many track and field events of the day, he receives a call from his younger brother Isao, who has been studying in Germany as an international student. The two make plans to meet as Isao mentions he has something of importance to share with his sibling. While Sohei initially thinks his little brother may have found a young frau, Isao’s tone is clearly that of one who is troubled by topics much heavier than romance.

When Sohei arrives at Berlin University, he finds his brother’s room has been through some sort of violent ordeal. A mysterious message was left on a note pad and a window was left wide open, and tangled in the branches of a tree directly below Isao’s window rested his dead body. Isao was murdered.

Sohei immediately attempts to investigate the murder, but all traces of his younger brother’s study in Germany have instantly vanished!

The RevieW

For those who know Osamu Tezuka only for Astro Boy, Message to Adolph will be a jarring shift in pace. There’s no science fiction here; this manga is a realistic political thriller set during the time of Nazi Germany and Japan’s invasion of China.

The story begins with newspaper correspondent and former college athlete Sohei Toge. He introduces himself as a “secondary character,” but at least for Volume 1, he is the star. While Toge is in Berlin covering the 1936 Olympics, his brother, an exchange student living in Germany, turns up dead. When Toge tries to investigate the murder, he gets marked by the Nazis and winds up in a desperate race to locate a set of documents that have the power to destroy Adolf Hitler.

The setting alternates between Germany and Japan, which at the time were allies. Having drawn the Nazis’ attention, Toge also gets targeted by the Japanese government and suffers torture under both the Gestapo and Japanese special police. Between that and the brutality inflicted upon Jews, Chinese, and suspected Communists in the story, Tezuka-sensei paints the political fanaticism that swept Germany and Japan as absolute evil.

As present-day readers, we have the benefit of history as we follow the story, but Toge seems almost a little too clear-eyed in his assessment of the German and Japanese governments. Granted, the Nazis torture him and the special police ruin his livelihood for being affiliated with a suspected communist, but the way he picks apart Hitler’s Nuremberg rally sounds more like modern commentary than the analysis of someone from that time.

Then again, Tezuka-sensei portrays Toge with a kind of superhero aura. He displays incredible physical strength as he outruns the Gestapo, leaps from balcony to balcony, survives electric shock torture, and endures brawl after brawl. At one point, he even manages to catch up to a moving train on foot despite a gunshot wound. He knows German and English, shows detective-like smarts, and possesses extraordinary tenacity. And for some inexplicable reason, almost all the women he encounters fall in love with him.

Tezuka-sensei’s plot and pacing are excellent, keeping readers constantly engaged as characters uncover clues, fall into life or death situations, and struggle to maintain their humanity under vicious regimes. Though much of the material is serious, especially Tezuka-sensei’s snapshots of key historic moments, Message to Adolph does include humor, often with a physical slapstick flavor (like Toge falling down stairs). One of the funniest moments is when Toge gets visited by a slew of international spies, all trying to outbid one another for the Hitler documents.

Toward the end of the volume, the spotlight shifts from Toge to two boys: Adolph Kaufmann, the son of a German consul and his Japanese wife, and Adolph Kamil, a Jew. The friendship between the Adolphs is intriguing enough, but Kaufmann’s enrollment in an Adolf Hitler School and Kamil’s involvement with the Hitler documents will leave readers eagerly anticipating the next volume.

Regarding artwork, the character designs lean toward the cartoonish end of the spectrum. As such, the violence depicted, while it is disturbing, isn’t as harrowing as more realistically drawn works. Also, because Tezuka-sensei created Message to Adolph in the early 1980s, illustrations include a lot of stippling and not much in terms of screentones. To convey shadows, faces and bodies are often inked in black, which conveys a very stark impression.

The book has a retail price of $26.95 US, but for that amount, you receive 648 pages bound in a sturdy hardcover format. Vertical did choose to print in left to right format though, which means that the artwork gets flipped.  In keeping with Tezuka-sensei’s older style, the cover has an old-school design in four colors (orange, yellow, green, pink) with a creepy sketch of Hitler’s face on the front. No glossary is included, but the translation, though awkward and stilted at times, can be followed without one.

In Summary

He’s no Astro Boy, but Sohei Toge is a compelling enough hero as he seeks to avenge his brother’s murder. The plot is packed with espionage, car and train chases, shootouts, and fistfights against Nazis and Japanese special police as Toge’s journey leads to a set of documents that can destroy Adolf Hitler. The story is oftentimes violent and intense but masterfully plotted and makes for an exciting read.

First published at the Fandom Post.

GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class Vol. #04 Manga Review

While most manga are written in chapter format that does not mean the comic strip is unknown to Japanese artists. Known as 4-Koma manga, four-panel comic strips aren’t nearly as widespread as their long-format counterparts, but they are no less entertaining.

One of the few 4-Koma titles translated to English is GA: Geijutsuka Art Design, a lighthearted series centered around five art students. Yen Press has recently released Volume 4 and you can read on for the review.

Back Cover Blurb

It’s time once again for art school, full of the spirit, love, and laughter of youth! Kisaragi and the GA girls return to class, shifting their focus to the history of Western fashion and textiles. But as with every serious art lesson in this department, crazy antics (not to mention a game of dress-up and a food fight) are never far off! And when the GA welcomes a new face – a transfer student from France – will the department’s regulars scare off the new girl and make her hightail it back to her homeland?!

The RevieW

The cover touts this volume as “GA History of Fashion,” and indeed there are five installments of “Fashion Lore,” color pages that provide a mini-history of Western clothes. It’s fun to see the characters in different outfits as they explain the designs of various eras, and the Professor looks absolutely exquisite in ancient Greek dress. They also cross-reference the Western styles with their contemporaries from Japan and other lands, and unless you’re well read on worldwide clothing terminology, you’ll find yourself flipping to the notes to figure out what they are.

For those who enjoy a bit of dress-up, you’ll also get to see the GA girls in Halloweenish costumes when Sasamoto-sensei has his class undergo a modeling/sketching exercise. The front cover is actually a color illustration of the GA girls in the outfits from that segment. Kiyuduki-sensei also takes the opportunity to show several other classmates in costume, and this arc includes two color pages.

If you’re still hungry for fashion, there’s yet another fashion-themed arc towards the end of the book. Instead of the Japanese GA girls exploring Western fashion, it’s a Western (French) exchange student, Marianne Van Tienen, learning about the Japanese yukata in textile class. The girls turn it into an interesting discussion on fashion, trends, and Western-Japanese fusion. However, you will need the translation notes as the girls use several Japanese terms in their jokes, one of which is a kanji pun.

As for the remainder of the book, it’s a mixed bag of general school silliness with various brief arcs focused on the Art Design Club, the GA third years, and even the teachers. There are four pages of translation notes, and yes, you will need them. For the most part, the explanations allow you to get the point of the narrative, but there were a few van Gogh jokes in the Uozumi-kun colorblind arc that I didn’t quite understand even with the notes. On the other hand, Noda’s adventures with the lost and found box, which was one of the more creative arcs, was laugh out loud funny thanks to Kiyuduki-sensei’s visuals of art tools wreaking havoc on the comic strip.

In Summary

The GA girls maintain their usual brand of silly classroom humor, this time with a fashion twist. For those who like learning about the history of clothes or seeing characters in different outfits, this is the copy to pick up. But be warned. Though the visuals are consistently cute, full understanding of the comic strips requires flipping to the translation notes as the topics range everywhere from Japanese ukiyo-e art to tetrachromacy to silver electroplating.

First published at the Fandom Post.

Manga Review: Oresama Teacher Vol. #10

Mafuyu is a high school delinquent who wants to turn over a new leaf. So when she transfers schools, she thinks she’ll finally be able to live the life of a normal girl. There’s just one problem: her teacher  Mr. Saeki is a bigger delinquent than she is and is out to take advantage of her fighting skills!

Oresama Teacher is a shojo manga that offers humor of the silly variety. Volume 10 has recently been released, and you can read on for the review. (For those who are interested, you can click here for my reviews of earlier volumes).

Back Cover Blurb

Yui might be a spy for the Student Council, but he still takes his duties as a member of the Public Morals Club very seriously! When he notices that the club has been a little stagnant lately, he decides to liven things up with some ninja training. But while he’s whipping Mafuyu and Hayasaka into shape, forces on the Student Council are working against him…

The RevieW

Yui’s been fraternizing with the Public Morals Club for a while now. He remains loyal to Miyabi, yet he gets along with Hayasaka and Mafuyu and helped them foil Kosaka’s plot in the previous volume. All of which begs the question, whose side is he really on now? Just as Mafuyu ponders that matter, Tsubaki-sensei introduces a new character who’s taken Yui’s “betrayal” to the Public Morals Club rather personally.

Enter Wakana Hojo. She and Yui share some history that Tsubaki-sensei describes in detail in Chapter 57. Wakana’s like Yui in that she’s fiercely loyal to Miyabi (though for entirely different reasons), and she’s the physical type (her weapon of choice is a bamboo sword). But while Yui’s simpleminded to the point of being an idiot, Wakana’s more complicated and so are her feelings for Yui.

The two face off when Wakana conducts the Student Council’s annual club audit. Unfortunately, the Public Morals Club has been lax in its record-keeping, and for such clubs, the only way to avoid being shut down is to take the Student Council’s stamp of approval by force. For Yui and Wakana, the fight for the stamp has an added layer of emotional complexity because Yui was originally supposed to be auditor. Despite her determined mindset, Wakana’s tough front slips whenever they clash, and though it’s obvious to others that her feelings for Yui are the cause, Yui’s too dense to recognize it.

In the midst of Yui trying to decipher the mysteries of female emotions, there are plenty of comedy and chase scenes with all manner of random clubs popping up to get approval. Super Bun makes an appearance, and Hayasaka, though he’s not the star of this volume, proves surprisingly resourceful in this arc. Tsubaki-sensei also throws in a moment of sexual tension between Takaomi and Mafuyu, but it comes completely out of nowhere and feels forced.

In Summary

Not surprisingly, Volume 10 kicks off with a new challenge for the Public Morals Club and a new Student Council enemy to go with it. What is somewhat unexpected is that Yui plays such a large role in these chapters. In addition to his usual spy wackiness, council member Wakana brings out a side of him that’s probably as close to sensitive as the Miyabi-obsessed, wannabe spy is going to get.

First published at the Fandom Post.

A Tour of Japanese Pop Culture, Part 12: Komazawa School Festival!

Our vacation culminated with a visit to the Komazawa Girls’ School Festival, a destination truly off the beaten track. For those unfamiliar with Japanese high school culture, these festivals or bunkasai are as commonplace as homecoming or prom in the United States. Watch any Japanese drama or anime with a high school setting, and you can pretty much count on a bunkasai episode. Having seen so many anime/drama depictions, we wanted to experience the real deal. Not all are open to the public, but thanks to an Okinawan friend, we found one scheduled at the time of our trip.

We knew nothing about Komazawa other than it was an all-girls school prior to our visit, and we were floored by what we found. Located in the affluent suburb of Inagi City, Komazawa is actually a middle school, high school, and university and definitely on the prestigious end. The campus is huge, boasting a gorgeous track and koi pond, and the girls bathroom was bright and shiny as a Yogurtland parlor.

Festival Decorations. And no, I have no idea what the McDonald’s pic is about.

But even though Komazawa is a high-class place, its bunkasai contained many of the elements we’d anticipated: various booths, handmade posters, high school boys coming to check out the girls. The main stage was in a courtyard surrounded by food stalls selling curry, noodles, hot dogs, tapioca drinks, takoyaki, and cotton candy. There were no plays the day we attended, but they had several music and dance performances.

Based on the three rock bands we saw, there’s some correlation between Japanese rocker wardrobe and cosplay. One band dressed like nurses, and another had a drummer that looked just like anime idol Hatsune Miku. We didn’t know any of the songs, but watching them play their hearts out to the cheers of their fans (a few in cosplay also!) was pretty cool.

As for the dancers, their performances looked like music video dance routines. The music was all canned, but most girls lip-synched as they did their best idol group imitations. Again, we didn’t recognize any the songs or groups, but they  drew a huge crowd and we had fun watching them.

Other festival entertainment included various game booths, most of which required 100 or 50 yen to play. In the gymnasium, however, the sports clubs had free games. From the looks of it, they were simply trying to promote their clubs. The kendo club had a whack-balloon-with-shinai (bamboo sword) game; the soccer club had a kicking game; the softball team had a throwing game; and the archery club had a shoot-the-balloon game (with a real bow!). We don’t really see kendo or Japanese archery at home so it was cool to see students in hakama showing people the proper way to hold a bow or shinai.

Over by the main school building, the students had rearranged and decorated their classrooms just like we’d seen on TV. In manga, you can pretty much count on a bunkasai with a haunted house or a butler/maid café. As it turned out, Komazawa had no maids; the closest we got was green tea and manju served by the kimono-garbed tea ceremony club in its tatami-floored classroom (though that was quite fun).

However, we did see one classroom swathed in black plastic sheeting. Thinking it was a haunted house, we went in. Inside was a maze made of cardboard and black plastic. But when we turned the first corner, instead of a student in a scary costume, we were greeted by a girl holding up a sheet with a question on it. As it turned out, it was a Halloween (?) themed quiz game! We encountered four more girls with questions in the maze, and fortunately it was multiple choice. In the end, I won a prize for getting three questions right while my husband got a smaller prize for one correct answer.

Apparently, challenges were all the rage for this school. Another class had a four-part challenge consisting of a timed chopsticks skills test, a throwing game, name that tune, and a model strut (yup, they had a little catwalk set up in the classroom). We had a lot of fun with that, thanks mainly to one girl who had a decent grasp of English. She was able to explain all the rules to us, though it took a bit of charades to get the idea of the model strut across.

Although that girl and her class were the most memorable for us, we enjoyed interacting with all the students. Some got quite shy when they realized we were from America while others got super excited and wanted to pose for pictures with us. You could tell they hadn’t expected random foreigners.

Neither did the faculty and parents. Several adults were lending a hand at booths or taking their families around. In particular, there were a bunch with children all wearing the same elementary school uniform. Prospective students, maybe? Anyway, occasionally my husband and I would be trying to decipher what a particular booth or display was about, and a parent or teacher would offer us an explanation in fluent English. As it turns out, many within this community go to university in the United States. And after helping us out, they  inevitably asked, “So why did you decide to travel here?”

Inagi City is over an hour by train from Tokyo, and school festivals are local events. My husband and I were pretty much the equivalent of foreign tourists to San Francisco taking a detour to Walnut Creek for a high school homecoming game. I don’t know if they thought we were nuts to make so much effort to visit Inagi for the reasons we did, but they all did their best to make our trip worthwhile.

Last minute purchase for the Americans!

The girls, I think, were amused by our presence. We stayed until closing, and by that time, a good portion of them knew they had Americans in their midst and waved as we went by. One group trying to sell the last of their festival merchandise rushed up to us in hopes that we’d make a purchase.

We bought two bags of their sugar butter toast snacks. They were trying so hard to make their sales pitch in English we just had to reward them.

Like I said, this experience was definitely off the beaten track, but it turned out to be the highlight of our trip, and we’re glad we could experience a bit of Japanese culture most foreigners don’t get to see.