Takaya Natsuki - Phantom Dream, vol. 01-02 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

Otoya Tamaki is the son of a family destined to battle jaki, evil emanations/spirits that arise out of humans' negative emotions. Volume 1 is mostly one-shots about assorted jaki, with a chapter or two at the end that kicks off the main plot. I think the main plot concerns a rival family, branch families unconvinced of Tamaki's suitability as the

Comments

[lnhammer]

I bounced off the first volume, when I tried it. The art and (especially) character designs left me too whirly with confusion to keep up with it.

If the larger plot gets more interesting, though, I may try it again.

---L.

[oyceter]

Yeeeaaaah... I would recommend holding off for now. The art is really so bad! And I'm hanging in there more for the glimmers of potential, as opposed to something substantively good.

[jinian]

I think I will let you read more and tell me about it rather than reading it myself!

[oyceter]

That is probably an excellent idea! Ha, not that this is very high on my tachiyomi list...

[umadoshi]

Oh, volume 2 is out? Yay!

I like the thematic similarities to Fruits Basket, since I find it interesting to see how Takaya-sensei developed her approach to them, but it's really not subtle. Right now I'm interested in the fact that Those With Wings doesn't seem to have much thematic overlap so far, but Dream and FB and Hoshi wa Utau all seem to. (I'm also increasingly amazed at how solid FB was right off the bat, since I didn't think the first [double] volume of TWW was much stronger than DreamThe really obviously sexual nudity startled me too, since most of the characters who're explicitly lovers in FB had such incredibly mild sexual contact where the readers could see

[oyceter]

Oh! I didn't realize you were doing this one! Cool.

Yeah, my impression was that all the terms would be confusing anyway, even in English, just because they seem to mean such specific things in the world.

I started reading some of TWW, and nothing caught me... the art is just as bad, although there are fewer of the issues with terminology. And even though it touches on different themes, I wasn't particularly interested in those themes! Or possibly I just didn't hit the part where there's an actual plot arc, as opposed to one-offs. And I wanted more about the relationship between Kotobuki and Raimon; they seemed to partner up waaay too quickly.

But yeah, I'm really amazed FB looks and reads the way it does, unless TWW somehow magically improves later on. Because the difference is really very stunning.

[umadoshi]

Yep! And being such a Takaya fangirl, I'm inordinately happy about it. *^^*

I do think they're very specific. The translated options we had for, say, "jaki" were "evil spirit" and "demon", neither of which really works, and "shugoshi" seems to be a very particular type of exorcist (or a title), rather than just corresponding to the word. And then "higoshi" just unpacks to something like "defenders of the shugoshi", and on and on it goes. Whee!

So far TWW isn't doing a whole lot for me (although I still wish I'd gotten to work on it. ^^;), but I'm hoping to find it more engaging as it settles into the story. I trust her not to keep it too episodic, so it may go somewhere more interesting.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that Fruits Basket was one of those once in a lifetime achievements, but that doesn't mean I respect her work on it any less. No one gets to be that brilliant all the time.

[oyceter]

*nods* I haven't been keeping up with Hoshi wa Utau (up to v. 3), but I do think it has a lot of potential. Maybe it is not paced as well as FB because it's starting with the angst very soon, but I'm really intrigued by the seeming lack of magic and I love the heroine's angst.

[meganbmoore]

*skips spoilers due to not having read vol 2 yet*

My reaction to the nudiy was "no what wait really?" Then I remembered that it's implied in Fruits Basket that 2 charcters were having sex at I think 14...

[oyceter]

Yes! And I do not disapprove of teenage sex at all; it is just so not the norm in shoujo this early on in a series that I was very surprised. I mean, usually when you see it in shoujo, it's many volumes into a relationship and it's a Big Plot Point, not something just floating around in the background. I like it though; it's very refreshing.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah. I'm not sure what i think about it yet beyond it being proto!Fruits Basket, but I do like that it starts with them already in a relationship that seems fairly secure, with the complication being that his family will make him marry someone else, even though that isn't a preferred plot of mine. I'm curious to see how Tsubasa: Those With Wings is.

[rachelmanija]

...I still can't believe that I assumed the sex was metaphoric!

[oyceter]

I do not blame you! It is not the sort of thing one expects on the tenth page of a series by the Fruits Basket mangaka... even if Furuba does have some scenes of its own (though not in v. 1).