Title: Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase Volume(s): 10 Creator(s): Keitaro Arima Format: Unflipped; Right-to-Left Publisher: Tokyopop MSRP: $9.99 Genre(s): Fantasy Rated: Teen (13+)

 

CONSUMER ADVICE

Parents will most likely want to keep this series out of kids’ hands. There is enough profanity, violence, and sexual situations to make this series a bit too much for some kids. Not only that, but I think this series might bore kids to death, and ew don't want THAT right?!

For awhile now, the big publishers in the manga business have been Viz Media and Del Rey. Last year, these two manga companies were at the top of their game, releasing books to record sales due to anime tie-in's, great marketing strategies, and - most importantly - picking series that were of (mostly) high quality. These two companies released so many blockbuster hits, that Tokyopop, the company responsable for making manga mainstream in the first place, seemed to quitely get sweeped under the rug. I realized that there was a problem when I got several shipments of manga in the mail, and almost none of them were Tokyopop books (and the Tokyopop books I DID get were of series I had already reviewed, so those didn't count). "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" is the first new series I've bought from Tokyopop in a long time. It was also a blind purchese. The back of the book claims this is a huge franchise, with anime, drama CD's, and merchendise galor in Japan, but I have not seen any of this stuff myself. I also knew nothing of the story when I bought this.

This was a blind buy through and through. "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" is a series about many things. It's a series about a legend of an old castle (called Schswarz Quelle). It's a series about a photographer (Kouhei Midou) who goes to this castle to find out if the "ghost stories" are true. It's a story about an abandoned girl (Hazuki), who attempts to make Kouhei her slave. It's a story with vampires, ghosts, the series even throws in some magical cats for good measure. Basically, this series has everything you could want for an instant classic. There's just one thing that becomes apparent early on in the series: It's boring. There, I said it. "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" is very, very, VERY boring! I picked up this book, read a chapter, put it down, picked it up again, read another chapter, and so forth. And the only thing that was going through my mind the whole time I read was book was "this book can not possibly be any slower." It didn't. In fact, midway through the book, there is an attempt to pick up the speed by having Kouhei find Hazuki's long lost mother (who trapped in some crystal ice or something like that). At this point the series picks up by making Hazuki a nagging brat, and forcing Kouhei to, more or less, tolerate her behavier. Other points of interest are that Kouhei has a lifelong friend named Hiromi, Kouhei commits himself to helping Hazuki on every odd quest she goes on, and there is a deeper plot hinted at with the girl and the cat. Or something like that.

The problem with "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" is that for a series that throws a bunch of stuff at the reader, it doesn't give the stuff very much flow. Things happen, and the cast seem all too casual about the supernatural things that happens to make us believe they are happeneing. This story is bored with itself. It's read other series that offer all the contained elements in this book, and it can tell that those interpretations are much better. This series has all the ingrediants to make a hit, but can't find itself to make taco's. Either the meat feels undercooked or the cheese tastes wrong, but nothing special is coming from the flavor. The problems with this book are obvious. The characters aren't interested in each other, so neither are we. The set-up is something we've seen before. The artwork feels uninspired, as if the person drawing this didn't have his heart in it. I can't tell whether this is a good or bad translation, because the dialog also seems bored with itself, and I'm not sure whether it was that way in the Japanese version or if the translater just hated working on this series. With "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" we see not a labor of love, but someone doing his job to make money. Lately manga companies have been good about including the artists mini-rants at the beginning of the books.

This looks so familiar it's sad (and why is the girl on the left cross eyed).

Akira Toriyama talked about what it was like working on "Dragon Ball" when he had a cold. Kazuki Takahashi would spill his guts about all the cool games he'd been playing in "Yu-Gi-Oh!" In this book, author Keitaro Arima talks about how his cat hasn't been neutered yet. Somehow this rant entry is more entertaining then the actual book he's writing. Maybe he'd be better off writing a comic strip instead of a serial. Back when Tokyopop revolutionized manga, making blind purcheses was easy. Some series that were blind purcheses were "Kodocha," "Paradise Kiss," "MARS," "Kare Kano," and "Love Hina" (okay, that last one is stretching it). The thing about these titles is that even the bad titles were at the very least interesting. "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" makes it look like Tokyopop is scrapping the bottom of the barral, as if they have run out of good series to pick up. This is sad. Del Rey keeps picking up all these series that I've never even heard of, from authors whose names may never be famous, and some of these books are brialliant. Tokyopop should really know better then to look at "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" and say "this looks like something worth licensing." Poor Tokyopop. No wonder Viz and Del Rey pulled ahead of them in terms of sales and popularity. The comic racks should be stuffed with wonderful stories with imagination and fun to be had, and "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" seems like a series that is going through the motions.

It doesn't go out of it's way to be bad, but it's so bored with itself, the the reader can't read this is one sitting. For pete sake, the pacing in "Megatokyo" is faster then the pacing in this book, and we only get three pages of that series a WEEK! I'm going to give this series an F. I know that in the most technical terms, this should be a D, and I'm torn by this information, but this series reminded me of something I forgot about writing reviews sometimes. Reviews are not about technical stuff. Oh, they are about that to an extent, but it only matters if all the stuff works well together. The iPod is successful not because of the technology, as that technology is in a ton of other MP3 players. No, the reason the iPod is popular is because the parts work well together, it looks cool, and it's a fun device to play with. "Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase" has all the ingrediants in here, but nothing interesting ever comes from them. It is this reason the series receives an F, because it has no interest in itself, and therefore has nothing to interest the reader in.

- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -