365 Days of Manga, Day 122: Hikkatsu! and I*O*N

HIKKATSU! (Hikkatsu: Strike a Blow to Vivify!) (ヒッカツ！) • Yu Yagami • Go! Comi (2007-2008) • Media Works (Dengeki Comic Gao!, 2005-2006) • 3 volumes • Shônen Postapocalyptic Martial Arts Comedy • 16+ (mild language, crude humor, violence)
In a semi-lawless future where electromagnetic waves are causing rampant mechanical breakdowns, one man wanders the Earth bringing order out of chaos–Shota, a driven young martial artist whose master technique is the “repair blow,” based on the time-honored principle of banging a broken TV to fix it! On his quest he encounters Momoko, a girl martial artist raised by pigeons, Kanji the money-grubbing slacker, and a variety of obsessed weirdos from the “enthusiast clans” (i.e. “prehistoric lifestyle enthusiast clan”, “bean gun enthusiast clan”) who dot the countryside. Much like Yagami’s Those Who Hunt Elves parodies fantasy manga, the story combines physical comedy and parody of the postapocalyptic sci-fi genre, as the characters wander around fighting mutants, robots, gangs and assorted idiots. In the final volume, things settle down a little for a melodramatic closing storyline. While not nearly as sophisticated and dense with jokes as Koji Kumeta (Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei!), Yagami’s work has a similar absurdist feeling, and at three volumes it ends before the one-note characters get too old. The art is clean and precise, with memorably weird images.

I•O•N (イ・オ・ン) • Arina Tanemura • VIZ (2007) • Shueisha (Ribon, 1997) • Shôjo Psychic Romance • 1 volume • 13+ (nothing offensive)
Teenage Ion Tsuburagi has an accident in the school laboratory and develops psychic powers. Soon, when she speaks the trigger word “Ion”, she can fly and use telekinesis–but does Mikado, the head of the school psychic club, really like her, or does he just see her as an experiment? Arina Tanemura’s debut manga, I•O•N is much more visually restrained than her later screentone-crammed works, for a plainer but altogether more readable look. Tanemura’s taste for turgid melodrama gives the story a little tension, making it one of the more entertaining “believe in yourself” shojo superpowers manga for young readers (despite Viz’s unnecessary 13+ age rating).

Today we have a double manga review because I accidentally re-posted an old review a few days ago. Moving on, today’s winner is Matt R. of Michigan. Congratulations, Matt!
Continuing the King of RPGs pre-launch hype… Deb Aoki of manga.about.com recently posted an interview with me and Victor Hao in which we talk about King of RPGs, video games, RPGs, manga and just about everything we could think of. Please take a look!