Please let me talk to the jury. You know, true love, it can’t be a crime. But she said “Z, don’tcha know? You must get a broke heart in this courtroom before they let you go.” Why? Why me? She said: “They do it to everybody. They don’t want you to be happy, can’t you see? That’s the jury, the jury, the jury of love.” Let’s witness The Rising Stars of Manga, by Tokyopop.
Synopsis:
Manga’s popularity is exploding and Tokyopop continues to lead the sales charts and the manga industry by implementing America’s first national manga talent context. Artists from all over the nation seized the opportunity to compete for cash and other fabulous prizes and ten winners were selected from many hundreds of submissions. Their works are featured in a one-of-a-kind manga that has no equal. A Tokyopop exclusive.
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
The Rising Stars of Manga is a series of books born out of a contest run by Tokyopop for amateur manga creators to submit their stories for a chance of being published. Well, I say “manga”; technically, it’s OEL, or Original English Language, manga, as they were created by Western artists in English rather than being translated from Japanese. While some purists would deny that counts as “real” manga, I’m going to be more lax in my standards: Tokyopop is calling it manga, so that’s good enough for me.
Incidentally, I’m just crediting “Tokyopop” on the attribution line because there’s no other name on the cover. Goodreads says this volume was edited by Mike Paniccia, but I’m not sure exactly where they got that information; the closest I can find is an interior page giving Mark (not Mike) Paniccia as Senior Editor. It also lists Bryce P. Coleman as Associate Editor and Jill Freshney as Managing Editor, so I’m not sure why Goodreads singled out Mike/Mark. In any case, I’ve gone with company rather than individual names before when author/editorship wasn’t clear (such as, for example, the Star Vs. The Forces of Evil books attributed to the Walt Disney Corporation), so I’m not breaking new ground here. Goodreads also omits the “The” at the beginning of the title, which is clearly visible on the cover; don’t know what’s up with that. I tend to use Goodreads as a reference a lot and usually defer to its authority, but there comes a time when a man has to strike out and do his own thing.
With that out of the way, let’s finally get to the stories themselves.
The Grand Prize Winner is “Devil’s Candy” by Priscilla Hamby and Clint Bickham. It’s about a devil named Kazu who creates a Frankenstein-like zombie girl named Pandora as a school project for his anatomy class. When another student’s project, pissed off at being rejected by the teacher, leads monsters in an attack on the school, Pandora proves powerful enough to protect Kazu. This was a strong entry, with a very colorful cast of characters and good moments of both action and comedy; it’s a deserving contest winner, and I’m unsurprised that it’s one of creations that went on to achieve success in expanded form (as the still-ongoing webcomic Devil’s Candy, available online here).
First Place Winner is “Van Von Hunter: Circlet of Necromancy”. This is another series that found success in multiple forms: as a webcomic and as manga volumes, which I’ve already reviewed, and as a newspaper comic, which I’ve been unable to find archives of but do retain some fond memories of. “Circlet of Necromancy” delivers the same style of Slayers-esque action-comedy as the other Van Von Hunter works, so it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed it just as much.
“The Little Match Girl” by Hans Tseng is an adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson story. It changes things up having the girl see happy memories whenever she lights a match; but really, it’s just as maudlin as the original. I was never a fan of the story, and this version of it doesn’t change my mind.
“Trickster” by Bridget E. Wilde is about Bianca, a Trickster of the Coyote Clan, who is capable of causing chaos with a snap of her fingers. What does she use this grand cosmic power for? Petty school pranks. And what is the story actually about? Romantic tension between her and a fellow Trickster named Andrew. As I’m not a fan of romance, this did nothing for me.
“Emmalyne’s Mansion” by Michael Vega is about a little girl named Emmalyne who is sent by her parents to stay at a mansion owned by her grandparents. While there, she falls through a mirror into a magical world where she has an adventure. This was decent, though it suffered a bit from the art style making the action scenes hard to follow.
“Pest” by Kyle Hoyt is about Addie, a young woman who has moved to an apartment in the city. A large hungry monster decides to move in with her, but Addie ends up siding with it against the exorcist who comes to hunt it. Decent.
“Sitting Ducks” by Ben Seto sees a girl named Noelle pressure her friend Zack into entering a manga contest, which he loses. Well, that was pointless.
“Ophelia’s Assassination: Veritas” by Kelli Hoover is a yaoi about angels with symbolic names. Definitely not my kind of thing.
“Zero” by Tracy Cox is about Zachary “Z” Jones, a soul singer who became a hit with his song “Jury of Love”. Despite his fame, he feels empty and tragedy befalls those around him. I didn’t really get it.
“The Proper Magic” by Jon Lyons is about Teraz, a trader of technological artifacts in a post-apocalyptic society that dwells within a decaying space colony. Because he possess the only remaining working flyer, an order of monks seeks his help in deposing a king who has gained control of a microwave emitter weapon. This was some good classical sci-fi, a strong one to end the collection on.
So overall, that’s 3 good (“Devil’s Candy”, “Van Von Hunter: Circlet of Necromancy”, “The Proper Magic”), 2 average (“Emmalyne’s Mansion”, “Pest”), and 5 bad (“The Little Match Girl”, “Trickster”, “Sitting Ducks”, “Opehelia’s Assassination: Veritas”, “Zero”). Unfortunately, being a bit weighted towards the negative side, I can’t really say this is the strongest collection. Not to take anything away from the good ones, of course; it’s just that they’re in the minority. Hopefully future volumes will be more balanced.
Final Rating: 2/5
