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manga: var. shoujo by Nari Kusakawa
Aug. 14th, 2010 09:22 amThe Recipe for Gertrude, Palette of 12 Secret Colors, and Two Flowers for the Dragon, are three shoujo series by Nari Kusakawa from the now defunct CMX line WHY DC WHY? I’ve only read the first volume of each, but The Recipe for Gertrude and Palette of 12 Secret Colors are both completely available in English until the stock runs out, while all but the last volume of Two Flowers for the Dragon were released before the line was pulled.
The Recipe for Gertrude is about Gertrude, a demon who’s over a century old, and made up of parts of other demons. He’s looking for the “recipe” that made him, and other demons are looking for him to get his body parts back. The key to the recipe is Sahara, a human girl who gets caught up in Gertrude’s adventures, despite not knowing anything about the recipe herself.
Palette of 12 Secret Colors is set on an island nation where wizards manipulate colors by transferring color from one object to another, including themselves. The main character, Cello, is inevitability bad at magic, but discovers she has the unique ability to draw color to her from anywhere, and proceeds to have adventures, usually accompanied the conveniently-young school doctor.
These two were a lot of fun, and I’m definitely getting more before the series go away forever. Sadly, Two Flowers for the Dragon wasn’t nearly as fun and didn’t have any really fun twists on typical shoujo setups like the other two. Shakuya is the princess of a desert kingdom who was engaged to Kuwan, the handsome captain of the guard, after her first fiance, Lucien, disappears. When Lucien returns with amnesia, it’s decided that she’ll marry whichever one she’s more in love with after a year. Each of her hands has a tattoo representing each engagement, and the tattoos grow as her feelings do. Shakuya is dim but gutsy, Kuwan is supposed to be appealing because he’s detached and more mature than Shakuya, and Lucien because he’s flirty and doesn’t understand the concept of personal space. None are bad characters, they’re just…really typical, and the growing tattoos feel more like an invasion of privacy than anything else.
I suspect part of it is that, unlike the other two, it’s pretty much a straightforward love triangle, as opposed to “yes, these two will obviously hook up in the last volume but there are demons and thieves and mysterious men with glasses and secrets, and those are more important!” which seems to be Kusakawa’s strength.
The Recipe for Gertrude is about Gertrude, a demon who’s over a century old, and made up of parts of other demons. He’s looking for the “recipe” that made him, and other demons are looking for him to get his body parts back. The key to the recipe is Sahara, a human girl who gets caught up in Gertrude’s adventures, despite not knowing anything about the recipe herself.
Palette of 12 Secret Colors is set on an island nation where wizards manipulate colors by transferring color from one object to another, including themselves. The main character, Cello, is inevitability bad at magic, but discovers she has the unique ability to draw color to her from anywhere, and proceeds to have adventures, usually accompanied the conveniently-young school doctor.
These two were a lot of fun, and I’m definitely getting more before the series go away forever. Sadly, Two Flowers for the Dragon wasn’t nearly as fun and didn’t have any really fun twists on typical shoujo setups like the other two. Shakuya is the princess of a desert kingdom who was engaged to Kuwan, the handsome captain of the guard, after her first fiance, Lucien, disappears. When Lucien returns with amnesia, it’s decided that she’ll marry whichever one she’s more in love with after a year. Each of her hands has a tattoo representing each engagement, and the tattoos grow as her feelings do. Shakuya is dim but gutsy, Kuwan is supposed to be appealing because he’s detached and more mature than Shakuya, and Lucien because he’s flirty and doesn’t understand the concept of personal space. None are bad characters, they’re just…really typical, and the growing tattoos feel more like an invasion of privacy than anything else.
I suspect part of it is that, unlike the other two, it’s pretty much a straightforward love triangle, as opposed to “yes, these two will obviously hook up in the last volume but there are demons and thieves and mysterious men with glasses and secrets, and those are more important!” which seems to be Kusakawa’s strength.