It's probably about time to reiterate the ground rules of this Book-A-Day scheme: this time, I'm writing a review of a book every single day...though, three times so far, I've written more than one review in a day. (So I'm now running three days ahead -- but I'm still playing fair, writing the review and setting it to post and then not looking at it again until it does post.) I don't necessarily read a book every single day, though I am running at 6-7 books a week, and had a backlog of 21 books when I started. And, yes, a lot of them are graphic novels-- it doesn't take any less time to review them, though reading them does generally go quicker. But I haven't particularly changed the books I'm reading since starting Book-A-Day; I'm just making myself get to write about them faster.That's all preface to note that I'm writing this review late on a Saturday evening after a very busy day, so I'm picking out something that I don't expect have a whole lot to say about, in hopes that I'll be done faster....
I reviewed the first volume of Cat Paradise -- a manga series about a special high school that not only allows each student to have one cat as a pet on campus, but is secretly the home of a superpowered student council that protects the earth from the resurgence of ancient demons -- for ComicMix about six months ago, and this volume is more of the same kind of thing. It is one of those quintessentially Japanese series, suitable for anyone hoping to better their Manga Bingo scores (cats, high school, theme high school, cute animals, transformations, demons, demon-fighting, and several more show up here), that will strike the uninitiated as a flurry of oddities that seem almost random.
But Iwahara has a scratchier, more expressive art style than is standard for this kind of story, and his monster designs are impressively creepy. There's nothing particularly original or new in Cat Paradise, but it's a solid example of the demon-fighters-in-school story, and so I can recommend it to anyone who likes that kind of thing. (It's not as twee and ooh-what-a-darling-pussy-cat as the cover might lend you to believe.)
Oh, and I'm pretty sure the guy on the cover has his hand in his pocket and isn't copping a feel of the ass of the girl behind him. But this is manga, so I can't be 100% sure.
Book-A-Day 2010: The Epic Index
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Listening to: Bat For Lashes - Trophy
via FoxyTunes
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