Otakon 2009: Part 2

by Linda Yau
Photographs by Linda Yau etc.

Saturday: July 18

After the excitement of Friday, I wanted to attend MELL’s press conference, but because of circumstances was not able to. Instead I waited for Naomi Tamura’s autograph session. Caught some pictures of interesting cosplays. Slight changes to Otakon this year was that there weren’t any express tickets made available to fans, so people had to wait on lines irregardless.

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Otakon 2009: Part 1

by Linda Yau
Photographs by Linda Yau

Otakon 2009, a convention intended for the Otaku Generation or for the masses of fans that would converge onto the Baltimore Convention Center on an annual basis. This year the convention was held on July 17 to July 19 and the final count of the convention attendance was at 26,350 people, an increase from last year’s official 26,262 people.

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Yaoi Review: Steal Moon vol. 2

Steal Moon vol. 2
Story and Art: Makoto Tateno
Published by the Juné Imprint of Digital Manga, Inc.
ISBN13: 9781569701010
ISBN10: 1569701016

Review by I-hsiu Lin

Voyeurism taken to the next level.

In the first vol. of Steal Moon, street fighter Nozomi ends up as commodity in the peeping room internet site of ‘Digital Angels’. He later discovers that it is only a cover-up to distract a computer monitoring them from the moon, ‘Isis’. Teaming up with Hermes and Coyote (who placed him in this situation in the first place,) he finds himself wrapped up more and more with the conspiracy to take down the digital surveillance. Through it all, Nozomi falls for the enigmatic Coyote who in turn confesses his feelings for him. Just a bit more, Coyote promises that they’ll be free from observing eyes. But the situation turns to shock when during their final plan to shut down the moon’s computer, they had in fact turned it on. Hermes and Coyote had a plan of their own, but what about his feelings for Nozomi? “You may not believe me but…I still love you.”
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Real World

Real World
By Natsuo Kirino
Vintage International, 2009
ISBN-10: 0307387488
ISBN-13: 978-0307387486

Reviewed by Budd

Natsuo Kirino, a well known author in Japan, releases her second English translation with Real World. Real world follows four Japanese high school girls as they assist a boy that has just committed matricide in his escape.
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Manga Review: Gakuen Prince vol. 1

Gakuen Prince vol. 1
Story and Art: Jun Yuzuki
Published by the Del Rey Manga Imprint of Random House, Inc.
ISBN-10: 0-345-50895-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-345-50895-9

Review by Kris

Jyoshioka Private High School, a.k.a. as Jyoshi (or Joshi) High, was once an all girls school but within the last few years they’ve started admitting guys. The girls outnumber the guys like no other and so to try and keep things somewhat quiet, all of the guys are in S-class. Every girl in school wants to be in S-class, except Rise Okitsu. Rise’s goal in life at Jyoshi High is to be invisible. It seems that she was bullied in her old school and wants to avoid it in her new school so to hide her stunning good looks she pulls her hair up in pigtails and wears clunky glasses.
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Yaoi Review: Naughty but Nice

Naughty But Nice
Story and Art: Naduki Koujima
Published by the Deux Press Imprint of Aurora Publishing, Inc.
ISBN-10: 1934496588
ISBN-13: 978-1934496589

Review by Kris

Mr. Wakasa is Kakeru Kiba’s homeroom teacher. Everyone loves Mr. Wakasa, he’s handsome and kind. But Kakeru is a bit of a klutz. Because of this weakness of his he learns

that Wakasa is not the kind teacher he sees at school but is actually a bit of a jerk. What happened was Kakeru was out running errands for his mom when he saw someone that looked like his teacher being threatened by thugs. But this man was drunk and rather rude, so how could it be Wakasa? Just as the thugs go to punch out Wakasa Kakeru ends up distracting everyone, slips on a can, and pushes Wakasa into a river. Oops!
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Book review: Halfway to the Grave

Halfway to the Grave
Written by: Jeaniene Frost
Published by Avon
ISBN: 978-0-06-124508-4

Review by Lauren Lapinski

During this year’s New York Comic Con, I was fortunate enough to listen to Jeaniene Frost, along with a few other authors, talking about writing novels and changes they had to make to their own stories so it might capture an agent’s attention. She doesn’t disappoint since the first chapter starting off with her main character, Catherine, caught in a situation many of us wouldn’t want to be in. The character’s voice through out the story is very well done and is pretty much consistent for the whole book. The actions scenes are well written out and you can tell by reading the book that the author clearly did her research.
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Yaoi review: Live for Love

Live for Love
Story by Itsuki Sato
Art by Jun Mayama
Published by Juné Manga
ISBN-13: 978-1-56970-035-8

Review by April Kimm

Jun Mayama is the mangaka of “Love Pheromone,” “Kono Akuma Me!,” “Furueru Hana,” “Kuchibiru Kara Knife,” “Karei ni Shite Rifujin,” “Sexy Effect 96,” “Love Sexual,” and “Stop! In the Name of Love.” “Live for Love” is a yaoi manga with five chapters of the one continuous story.
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Yaoi review: Idol Pleasures

Idol Pleasures
By Fuhri Misasagi
Published by Deux
ISBN-13: 978-1934496671

Review by April Kimm

Fuhri Misasagi is the mangaka of “Curse Project,” “Kichiku Megane,” “Oyaji Kairou e Youkoso,” “The Next Door I Moved To,” “Beasts,” “Kimi ga Nokoshita Kimochi,” “Kimi to Kare to Watashi,” “Kimi wo Dakishimeru Ryouude,” “Kimi to Ayumu Nichijou,” “Yajuu Shugi,” “Ameiro no Ibasho,” “Cross Light,” “Gobousei no Saku Kisetsu,” “AB Motion,” and “Love Miracle.” “Idol Pleasures” is a manga with five chapters and an afterword by the author. It’s shonen-ai with implied soft yaoi.
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