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review 2020-02-02 02:57

Glass Wings (manga anthology) by Misuzu Asaoka, translated by Emi Onishi

Glass Wings is an anthology containing three unrelated stories, the first of which is the longest.

"Glass Wings"

Hagane is trapped by his own tainted blood, called "death blood." Death blood kills any living thing it touches, which Hagane learned to his horror when he accidentally killed a random girl he met by getting some of his blood on her. Now he lives with Tsubaki, a woman who claims to love him but who keeps him trapped in her home. Tsubaki has another captive, Ruriha, who Hagane finds himself drawn to. Will it ever be possible for Hagane to find love and happiness, or will his tainted blood continue to bring nothing but pain to himself and those around him?

I disliked the whole volume, but of the three stories, this one was probably my least favorite. The artwork was terrible - difficult-to-follow action, badly utilized screentone, a less-than-solid grasp of anatomy, occasionally odd facial expressions, etc. A bit too amateurish for a published work.

The story itself was great big gobs of sadness and suffering that somehow left me feeling nothing for the characters. At best, I felt bad for the bunny (you'd think Ruriha would have known better than to keep a pet around). And I absolutely was not expecting all the incestuous stuff -

Tsubaki was Hagane and Ruriha's mother and was therefore in love with her own son, and Hagane was in love with his sister.

(spoiler show)

I'm not sure Asaoka really thought this "death blood" thing through. If a person with death blood gets injured and falls into a body of water (which happens in this volume), you'd think absolutely everything in the water would die considering how potent the blood is.

"Firefly"

Yuinne needs to eat raw dead flesh in order to survive. After a traumatic incident, he vowed to only eat the flesh of beings that died of natural causes. He escapes the group of corpse eaters he was living with and tries to abide by his own rules but finds himself drawn to Mia, a kind human girl.

I suspect that this story was created after the first one, because the artwork was a bit better. Even so, it was still terrible. Once again, the main character was cursed/tainted in a way that hurt anyone who got close to him. Unlike Hagane, Yuinne didn't have even a single person he could get near without them eventually ending up dead.

The writing was awful. My favorite worst line: "My suffering is exploding pain!" (128)

"Jion Princess"

Soyogi is an orphan who is turned into Yura's yorimashi, a physical double who is supposed to take on all of that person's bad luck and sickness. Yura treats Soyogi terribly, but since Yura is also the only person who acknowledges that Soyogi is a human, Soyogi doesn't really mind. In fact, she cares deeply for Yura, even though Yura refuses to believe it. Unfortunately, the delicate balance of the two girls' lives shifts when Yura is forced to leave Soyogi's side for a while.

This was probably the best story of the bunch, although the character relationships were deeply messed up. Yura behaved abominably towards Soyogi, and Soyogi's devotion to her was entirely based on the fact that Yura behaved somewhat better towards her than everyone else did. It was abusive, and I disliked that Asaoka tried to twist it into something like romance by the end.

I'm still not sure whether Soyogi's existence actually improved Yura's health in any way, or if it was all a lie on the magical doctor's part. After all, it wasn't like Yura was 100% healthy, even with Soyogi around.

All in all, this volume wasn't very good, and it somehow left me feeling nothing despite its massive amounts of tragedy. On the plus side, at least each story was a slight improvement over the ones that came before it.

Extras:

A postscript by the author. Asaoka wrote briefly about putting more effort into Hagane and Ruriha's bodies than their faces (which explained some things) and about Tsubaki's background info and shipping her with Hagane (seriously? she was abusive, horrible, and also

Hagane's mother

(spoiler show)

).

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

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text 2020-02-02 00:18

Reading progress update: I've read 128 out of 192 pages.

Familiar Diversions

"My suffering is exploding pain!"

So much melodrama.

The art is better in the second story - I suspect it was written/drawn some time after the first, but I can't find any confirmation of that. Unfortunately, despite the slightly better art and 100% less incest, this still isn't good.

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text 2020-02-01 20:30

Reading progress update: I've read 101 out of 192 pages.

Familiar Diversions

This looks like another volume I'll be able to offload without a single twinge of regret.

This is composed of three stories. I just finished the longest one. The artwork was terrible, and the story itself was over-the-top tragedy + incestuous love triangle. It's pretty bad when a character's only "romance" options are his sister or his mother.

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text 2013-08-10 19:48

Glass wings

purplewolf91212

Glass wings review

Art: The art is stunning and rich, rich fluid lines that are shojo but not soft like vampire knight more like fruits basket shojo. Hard lines but inviting the kind of art that makes you want to flip back and look at a scene again A

Characters: The first set of characters we meet is from Glass wings Hagane, Ruriha, and Tsubaki Hagane is a broken boy who just wants to be loved and finds that love in Ruriha. Ruriha in turn is a girl who has found her perfect some one in Hagane and loves him dearly. Tsubaki is the older woman who has a sick obsession with Hagane and wants him to love her and only her by any means nessary. With the short (100 pages) amount of time you read about them these characters while standing to be fleshed out a bit more were surprisingly well done you really cared for Hangne and Ruriha and feared and hated Tsubaki if given the chance these characters could have been even better but for what you get they are pretty fleshed out

The next set of characters are from Firefly yuinne is a very complex character for such a short amount of pages. He despise what he is and what he “has” to do to live and he rather starve himself then do it he brings up some “Why Does God hate me?” monolog and is basic the woobie of this story the kind of character you want to see at peace in some way and just give a hug. There is a girl and another demon but they are not as detailed beyond hunter bad guy stereotype and female character stereotype

The last characters are from the story Join princess Yura is a brat with a doppelganger who is obsessed with her if the story wasn't so confusing the characters could have been better perhaps. However as it stands the characters in firefly were confusing, flat, and you just didn't care for them all that much.

The characters over all were well done give or take the last pair the first two stories had strong enough characters that are recoverable and if expanded been remarkable B+

Story: The first 100 pages of this manga is a three parter of a story calledGlass wings if fleshed out into its own series Glass wings could have been even better then it was as it stands it was good story. A boy named Hagane finds no point in living and tries to kill himself instead he is found and brought into the care of Tsubaki although care may not be the right word. Hagane then finds and falls in love with Ruriha or she finds him either way they fall in love. If this story was its own series some plot hole-esq questions could be answered such as are they related? What exactly happened to that girl? As well as just some plain old issues with being able to fallow the story. Chapter two and chapter three should have been switched around as it is now they escape but then they are back with tsubaki.. the transition is jarring and confusing. But over all this was a sweet/dark interesting love story that made you want to read more

The next story is called Firefly while it has an open ending it feel more complete as a short story compared to the first one a corpse eating demon and finds a village and spoilers if anymore is said up till the end it was going well then the last page came and it is a face drop and an “oh” it could have ended better on a more solid note but for what it was it wasn't that bad solid plot at least with soild characters and flow.

The last story is Join princess Is about an orphan girl who becomes a scapegoat for this brat named yura and her obsessed lesbian/sisterly love towards yura. The last story was confusing, disconjointed and the weakest of the three nothing about it made you care and it was just weak. Join princess was the worst compared to the other two.

Similar to the characters the first two stories are great wonderful in fact. Glass wings could have been an amazing stand alone. Over all the first two stories make up for the last lack luster story B+

Cover: Drool worthy hot guy spectaculurarly drawn. A Hot guy with red eyes and white/gray hair he is in a light blue shirt with his hands up and bandanged with white wings coming out of his back. The cover over all is very cohesive with the blue over all the jagged font of the title really stands out and brings your eye to the cover over all magnificent B+

Rating: T for teen

Company: Tokyopop(out of business)

My rating : 4 of 5. This would have been the rating anyhow but the last story really made it so. I Loved the first story though I really want to know why it took up so much of the space compared to the last two I think if they wanted to do that they should have made it even and givenFirefly two chapters as well doing away with join princess all together. I Loved Glass wings wow I still think tif given a longer book (Ie. Their own book) and more detail and flipping chapters two and three around it would be a seires I fallow fully it was well done and a good story it was just missing some things here and there. This is the longest review I've written for a manga in a long time I think.

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review 2013-08-10 19:48