Manga Maniac

While I have basically stopped buying American comics (mainly because of a lack of a comic shop close to where I live), I still keep up with manga. I picked up two volumes this time around: Fruits Basket volume 2 and Hana-Kimi volume 1.

Fruits Basket continues to be very good. The differences between the manga and anime have become a bit easier to see. A good example is what happens when Tohru’s friends spend the night. The anime took that sequence and turned it into the single funniest episode of the series. It’s given much less time in the manga, but there is more character development, especially in a story that implies that Tohru may have met Kyo before but did not know it. I can’t wait for the next volume.

In addition, I picked up the first volume of Hana-Kimi (aka For You in Full Blossoms). Like the Azumanga Daioh manga, I first read this as a scanlation (a fan-made scan/translation of manga). It’s another shoujo series about a half-Japanese, half-American girl who moves to Japan to be close to her crush, a premier high-jumper. She cuts her hair and pretends to be a boy in order to enroll in the same prestigious boys’ school he attends. Hana-Kimi is a funny manga with a great cast of characters and some interesting twists. As I have read the first 2-3 volumes as scanlations, I must say that Viz did a nice job with the translation. However, there is one thing you should know if you are interested in getting it. This manga series is exclusive to Borders/Waldenbooks for a few months after each volume is released. This means that Volume 1 won’t be available to buy in comic shops or other bookstores until June. So, stop by Borders to get it now or put your preorder in now everywhere else.