Battlemouth

A new monthly Japanese manga magazine has hit the shelves. Well, not fully Japanese manga, it also has Korean manhwa and original English manga. It is called Yen Plus. The magazine has two covers for each side. The first side is Korean manhwa and English manga which read left to right. The other side features Japanese manga which is read right to left. So how is it? Are the series good? Well I am here to give you an in-depth look.

The first side consists of Maximum Ride, Nightschool, Pig Bride, Sarasah, One fine day, and Jack Frost. This is the Korean manhwa and English manga side. We get one chapter of each series aside from One fine day, which has two due to the short chapters. Here is a quick look at each.

English manga:

Maximum Ride: Max and a bunch of other people with wings go out one day to pick strawberries. Then a group of beasts called “Erasers” show up and kidnap the little kid named Angel. Well, that is all that happened in the first chapter. So since nothing really happened, I can’t give you the full detail on what it is about. My bet is that the good guys with wings will have to fight the Erasers. I didn’t think the art was anything special. The art on the cover of the issue was better. A bunch of things just felt out of proportion. The series has potential.

Initial thought: It would be nice if characters weren’t named “Angel”, “Fang”, and “Gazzy”. I can’t take that seriously.

Nightschool: Speaking of bad art, Nightschool is next. So demons go to school at night it seems. The whole chapter felt like an incomplete idea. It just felt like a chapter of nothing. It looks like there is a deeper story and the creator either doesn’t know or just doesn’t want us to know. Usually that is a good thing because it keeps someone interested, but it would help if I was able to care about any of the characters. The art isn’t so great. There are some pages that look fine. Others though, not so much. As for potential, the series seems like it may have depth, but not anything special.

Initial thought: So this is why I don’t read English manga…

Korean manhwa:

Pig Bride: The title should tell you that this isn’t going to be good. It is better than the last series though. Si-joon keeps dreaming about an event that happened when he was 8. In this dream he got lost in the woods and ran into a girl wearing a pig mask. He is forced to marry this girl who lets him go but vows to return on his 16^th birthday. Well, he turns 16 and she shows up. So what is to unfold will be told in the next volume. Finally, art that seemed tolerable. I can see people being interested in this.

Initial thought: Better than I thought it would be.

Sarasah: Now this has to be for females only. I was not interested at all. Girl likes guy. Guy annoyed by girl. Girl doesn’t give up. They argue. Girl falls down stairs. I don’t give a crap.

Initial thought: Keep it away from me!

One fine day: An owner with a pet dog, cat and mouse. The pets will often appear as children wearing either dog ears, cat ears, or a mouse costume. Each chapter focuses on the curiosity of the animals. Pretty much shorts to entertain with art that fits the series. If you are in to these types of cute things, you may want to check it out.

Initial thought: Cute, but not for me.

Jack Frost: Noh-A’s first day of Amityville High School goes terribly wrong when she loses her head, literally. She seems to be caught in the middle of a fight between districts. So she watches as her head sits on the ground a battle between the North and the West. Now this story sets itself up correctly. It leads you into knowing more is going on, but gives you enough to have some fulfillment before the chapter’s end. The art is the best of the whole side.

Initial thought: Seems like it may be cool. Check it out!

The second side felt the opposite. Literally, you flip the magazine over to start reading the second side. On this side there is Soul Eater, Nabari No Ou, Sumomomo, Momomo, Bamboo Blade, and Higurashi When They Cry. Each has one chapter aside from Bamboo Blade, which has two due to length. So here is a peek at these series.

Soul Eater: Maka, a scythemeister, and her partner Soul Eater, the weapon, are off to get 99 human souls and one witch soul so Soul can become a Death Scythe. I could go more into the chapter, but I know personally that the series develops into something more. Also, the art to me is just awesome. I love how the moon looks. I forgot how much the art has developed since chapter 1.

Initial thought: Check it out! I want more!

Nabari No Ou: Miharu Rokujo is hassled to join the school’s Nindo Club. Believing that ninjas actually exist and are after Rokujo, Aizawa and Kumohira won’t leave him alone. Rokujo doesn’t believe a word until he sees Aizawa and some ninjas for himself. Rokujo is an amusing character. He will have counters for what people say and is portrayed with wings and a devil tail after he delivers his line. The art is fine as well.

Initial thought: I am interested in continuing this series.

Sumomo, Momomo: Momoko is a girl who is told by her father that she can’t master the family technique due to being a girl, so she must wed a strong man and give birth to a strong offspring. So she finds someone who she knew as a kid who she believes to be strong, but happens to be weak. The art is good most of the time, but the series doesn’t seem that interesting. It is your basic girl has crush on guy story.

Initial thought: What the hell is this junk?

Bamboo Blade: Kojiro is low on cash and looking for an easy way out. He is a Kendo club coach that is low on members. He makes a bet with a rival that if his team can beat another, he will get a year’s worth of sushi. The catch is that it needs to be an all-girls team. So now he is trying to put a team together with just girls. With a few funny humor moments, I found the series not really that interesting. I have no problem with the art.

Initial thought: Passable.

Higurashi When They Cry: This series knows how to tease. You start off with Keiichi and a bunch of girls in his class. It is the usual harem set-up. He thinks it is a nice simple town until he hears about a murder. Asking those he knows, gets questionable responses. I don’t know if it is the fact that it pulled a 180 on me, but I dug it. Give this series a chance. I didn’t have problems with the art either.

Initial thought: Surprisingly good! Worth a read!

The magazine cost $8.99 an issue. It is monthly and may be worth a check-out. I am interested to see how a few series develop before placing final judgment on them. The translation in this magazine seems far superior than to that of Shonen Jump. The dialogue in Yen Plus doesn’t sound like it was translated, had words taken out, and then given to a 12 year old to be completed as a Mad Libs game. I also like the translation notes at the end of the chapters. So it isn’t a bad magazine as far as that goes.

Overall, the magazine itself may be setting itself up for disaster. It tries to cover something everyone would like, and I believe it is risky. Say you just like one or two series. Well, would you pay $9 a month for one chapter for each of those three series? If you like 4, maybe due to 4 of these sized chapters is enough to fill up a volume which costs about the same. It would have been nice if maybe they tried a magazine that had a target audience before trying to throw in a bunch of series that don’t blend well together.