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Otomen volume #4: Asuka is still a charmer but to me this volume was mostly boring filler. As happens in a lot of animanga series, the supporting cast gets larger and larger, but Otomen's supporting cast isn't getting filled with interesting characters. You guys know how much I love some supporting cast characters in other series, but too many of these are pale shadows of Asuka. Worse, stories involving them keep pushing out more progress on the main line of Asuka and Ryo and Tachibana. The long beach cafe story had almost nothing to do with Ryo or Tachibana and had very little reason for Asuka to be involved much either. The story introducing mysterious and boring flower boy was far more about new guy than our leads.
Plus, using supporting characters to further draw out the storyline makes our leads come off worse. I can't believe Ryo continues to be that clueless about Asuka's feelings for her even if she is "the guy" in the relationship. If the series let us know that she realizes but is playing clueless because she just wants to be friends and wants to avoid an emotional scene I'd feel much better about it, but the series doesn't let us know much about Ryo's inner life and thoughts. The one section in volume #4 I liked was Ryo's father going to Asuka to find out what girls like, Asuka happily taking advantage of an opportunity to go to places he wouldn't be able to just for himself, the dad admitting that he did this for Ryo because he sees some deficiencies in how he raised her after his wife died, and Ryo saying in the end that she wanted her dad to continue teaching her how to be "the manliest man" and her dad being so happy about that.
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D.Gray-man volume #16: The battle scenes have so much dense linework that I can't tell what's going on in them, which means I only skimmed a lot of this volume. For me, this is a big letdown after #15.
I'm still O.o over the character who looks like Hitler. It's not like he needs his villainy thus far underlined.
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xxxHOLIC volume #14: There are some interesting ideas floating around in here, but not much actually happens. It leaves me with mixed feelings.
Plus, using supporting characters to further draw out the storyline makes our leads come off worse. I can't believe Ryo continues to be that clueless about Asuka's feelings for her even if she is "the guy" in the relationship. If the series let us know that she realizes but is playing clueless because she just wants to be friends and wants to avoid an emotional scene I'd feel much better about it, but the series doesn't let us know much about Ryo's inner life and thoughts. The one section in volume #4 I liked was Ryo's father going to Asuka to find out what girls like, Asuka happily taking advantage of an opportunity to go to places he wouldn't be able to just for himself, the dad admitting that he did this for Ryo because he sees some deficiencies in how he raised her after his wife died, and Ryo saying in the end that she wanted her dad to continue teaching her how to be "the manliest man" and her dad being so happy about that.
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D.Gray-man volume #16: The battle scenes have so much dense linework that I can't tell what's going on in them, which means I only skimmed a lot of this volume. For me, this is a big letdown after #15.
I'm still O.o over the character who looks like Hitler. It's not like he needs his villainy thus far underlined.
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xxxHOLIC volume #14: There are some interesting ideas floating around in here, but not much actually happens. It leaves me with mixed feelings.