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Phantom Thief Jeanne Review

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Phantom Thief Jeanne was a fairly intriguing manga title. The plot is nothing spectacular on the surface as it’s fairly generic and there isn’t anything really notable about the manga aside from the final arc. I can’t say that it has aged well and Sailor Moon does defeat it, but it’s always fun to compare a new magical girl series to established ones like Madoka Magica and Sailor Moon. It’s a fairly short series so it had to cut to the chase right away!

Maron was an ordinary girl until she was given a task by God. She was to hunt down the various demons that had taken control of paintings around the world and sometimes they would possess humans as well. In order to accomplish this task, Maron was given the ability to transform into a reincarnated Jeanne D’Arc. With her newfound magical powers and an angel to help guide the way, Maron was now ready for anything. Still, can she balance this duty along with keeping up with her social life? After all, there is a lot of romance in this series and she has to stay prepared!

As you may expect, the romance is one of the things that really hurts this series. I can’t even begin to describe just how poorly it is handled the whole time. For starters, the main guy is completely unlikable and one of those mean characters who you can’t sympathize with at all. His name is Chiaki and he is (seemingly) an agent of the Devil. He is here to stop Maron from accomplishing her task at any cost. That being said, he wants to have it both ways. Chiaki isn’t willing to turn good, but he also doesn’t want to stop liking Maron, which makes for a romance plot that just doesn’t work. Maron should just defeat him since he’s in her way. Although, her powers aren’t quite That impressive.

As Jeanne, Maron seems to gain some slight super strength. She has her magical chess pieces that she can throw to help vanquish the evil spirits and a lot of other magical abilities that wouldn’t really help much against an opponent, but still look neat at the very least. Luckily, most of the enemies aren’t that physical so these abilities will work out just fine. As a character, Maron is all right, but I just couldn’t find her to be that likable. Mainly due to the drama with Chiaki, but even beyond that, there’s just not much to her character. She’s a nice person as she’s the protagonist, but she never really developed her personality and she could lose sight of the mission from time to time.

Naturally, she’s an improvement over Chiaki, but there’s not much more to say about the guy that hasn’t been said already. He’s never willing to make the tough calls so I definitely wasn’t going to find him very likable! Maron’s friend, Miyako is all right. Her gimmick is that she really wants to capture Jeanne as she doesn’t know that Jeanne’s true identity is that of Maron. She’s essentially used for comic relief here although she has a half serious romance subplot with someone else, she basically denies it for the whole series, which is certainly good.

As for the Angels, Finn is Maron’s ally. For a while, she was a very good character, but then she decided to make a big move, which involves thinking about which side she wants to really be on and that really hurt her character. She had her reasons and there were a lot of twists, but it doesn’t change the fact that she nearly destroyed Maron and did make things very hard for the heroes. I like to think that she is now a true hero who will stand by the others, but it’s always hard to forget such treachery and it really did make her go from being a likable one to just dropping out of the ranks.

Her opposite was Access. He’s the dark angel who helps Chiaki and he wasn’t likable at all either. Like his master, he spends a lot of the time just flirting and he doesn’t take things very seriously. Perhaps it is because the series takes itself a little too seriously at times, but he really doesn’t help its case. That basically wraps it up for the main characters of the series as the main cast was actually quite small.

The main aspect of the manga that actually warrants some discussion is the end of it as the author decides to make a pretty bold move. A lot of manga titles like to have their all powerful beings who are gods that mess with the humans, but this was different. See, in a plot twist, we find out that Jeanne is actually a reincarnated Eve and the God is actually the real deal. He is God, not just a fake god who was made up for the series. Naturally, that’s a pretty tricky thing to include in the series. It’s great that a series is actually acknowledging the Bible and God, but then the portrayal must be on point and that didn’t happen.

There is a big twist about the Devil. He’s not a fallen angel, but he actually is God. See, God became lonely so he basically split into two entities and that’s how the Devil was created. Riiiiiight…….that was a pretty unnecessary twist. The series tries to make the Devil very sympathetic by the end as he just wanted a friend, but cmon…that’s just too much. God is also portrayed to basically be powerless in this series as Maron is the only person keeping him from being annihilated by the Devil. Why is Evil always so much stronger than Good in these things? So, the ending was certainly very bold, but it just didn’t work out. It’s very surreal to see God portrayed as a character in a manga series so that definitely earned the series a lot of originality points, but that’s about all I can say for it. It would have been easy to fix this. Simply not have God be on the verge of death and forget about the Devil plot twist. That would have quickly changed matters in an instant.

Ah well, at least that gave me something to think about as I was reading the series. Beyond that, it is just very generic and unfortunately it is not that good. I can deal with the characters being a little bland, but the romance plots were handled rather terribly and the action scenes were basically nonexistent. The series was only 7 volumes, but it did manage to contain a lot of events thanks to how big they were so I guess I can give it props for that. It’s still monster of the week for most of the series though. The actual plot didn’t help matters much either though.

The art is decent, but I’d say slightly below average. It’s one of those Shojo styles where it can be very hard to follow what is actually happening because of how chaotic the pages can become. It’s a decent artistic effect if you’re into that sort of thing, but I actually prefer the ultra simple art styles like Bleach or Hunter X Hunter. Those really let you follow the action with ease which is why you can sometimes read a Bleach chapter in about 2-5 minutes.
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Overall, Phantom Thief Jeanne is certainly one of the weaker Shojo series that I’ve read. It’s leagues above titles like Vampire Knight and Black Bird, but at the same time, I feel like this one should have been much better. In many ways, it is very similar to Zodiac P.I., but that one was simply better in every area. It was shorter, but had better characters and certainly had higher quality artwork. If you’re looking for a good magical girl title, then you should probably go with the classic Sailor Moon. If you want a fun Shojo title to read, then Zodiac P.I. is the way to go. Either way, Phantom Thief Jeanne just isn’t good enough to recommend. Of course, taking out the romance plot or simply improving it could have really helped, but alas, it was not to be.

Overall 3/10

Manga Dogs Review

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It is time to look at a manga trilogy that certainly didn’t last very long. The concept was intriguing, but I’m afraid that the execution left a lot to be desired. It all comes down to the format, which I shall delve into as the review goes on. I hadn’t read a Shojo title that was this down to Earth for a while so that was neat. It may not be the greatest experience or one that will be very memorable, but the series gave us its all!

The series revolves around a Jump author who is named Kanna. She has actually got a manga series in Weekly Shonen Jump, which is impressive. Unfortunately, it is near the bottom of the rankings every week so the series is very close to being cancelled. Balancing out her school life with her manga duties is no easy feat. Things get worse when she stumbles into a manga group where the other 3 members have no idea on how to create a real manga. This is going to be a long year all right!

Again, it’s a superb great good concept, but the format doesn’t work for me. The series is just a lot of really short stories/chapters that are combined into the volumes. While there is continuity, this means that it is practically a 4 koma series. It is different, but not by much and that style is still not my favorite. The heroes can have loads of adventures, but they are all over as soon as they have begun. Normal sized chapters would have really done wonders for the series, but it wouldn’t have saved it.

Another issue with the series is that the jokes are extremely limited. The author reuses the same gags over and over again. It can become very repetitive and I would argue that it wasn’t even funny the first time. Each character has their own quirk, which I’ll get into. Suffice it to say, Kanna may be having troubles with her manga, but the series that she is a part of is in greater trouble of failing. I should still mention some of the gags. A main one is that the three friends will decide that today is the day that they will seriously start to draw manga…and then they’ll give up. Rinse and repeat for just about every chapter. Throw in Kanna insulting them and you’ve got the formula down. Kanna is also constantly shocked by the plans of the three friends even though she should be immune to that by the end.

We’ll start off with Kanna. Her friends embarrass her and whenever she tries to insult them, they take it as a compliment. She also tends to almost fall for them on several occasions and this leads to some stressful situations. The worst trait of hers is probably that she constantly seems to think about romance, but then decides that a “2D guy” who is just right for her will never show up. So, she retreats into anime land, which is an unfortunate stereo type. If Kanna was actually very good at drawing manga things would be a little different, but her series is failing because she listened to her editor too much. Naturally, her author is very effeminate and always gives her advice for what he wants in the manga, even though the readers don’t want this.

The first friend is Fumio. He’s probably called something else by his friends since the name doesn’t strike a bell. I’ll just use his stage name, Prince. Prince wants to be a great manga author or so he claims, but he really just likes to mess around. Actually working on his manga is simply too difficult for the Prince and then he’ll just give up until the next chapter. He’s still better than Fujio though. Fujio has glasses so he is the brainiac of the group, but he’s not actually that smart. He merely acts smart and he’s just as bad at drawing manga as the rest of the characters. He likes to think of elaborate plans, but they’re too elaborate so he can never finish the first page. Even he is better than Shota though. Shota is a small kid who always comes up with devious plans, but they’re all talk. There’s not much too him though and he’s just like the other two friends. Another supporting character joins the crew after the first volume, but he doesn’t contribute all that much to the plot.

As you can see, the characters is one of the big areas that the series could not handle. I didn’t end up liking anyone. The old lady who decided to be the manga group’s mentor was decent as she kept things real. Beyond that, most of the characters are fairly generic or simply unlikable like the main ones. It’s too bad since it should usually be easy to make the main characters likable. That being said, it can be tricky in a comedy like this one, but it is still achievable. I would certainly expect at least one of the big characters to be cool.

The art for the series looks good so that is definitely a positive for the series. This is good as it would have been ironic if the series actually had bad art. Seriously, the series would have never lived this down and I would have been grinning from start to finish! The art is very clear so it is easy to read each page and that makes each volume go by very quickly.

The review likely sounds very negative, but the manga wasn’t terrible. It was under average to be sure and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but the series had its good moments. We even got a sense of danger for a minute or two as Kanna was kidnapped at one point. The problem is that this still can’t be taken seriously as the kidnapper is pretty cheap. Moreover, Manga Dogs should have simply taken a different route with the plot. Introducing a rival to keep Kanna on her toes would have been a nice start and we should have gotten some drawing competitions. The series may be a comedy, but that doesn’t meant that it shouldn’t have a plot. All good comedies still have some kind of plot going and it makes the series more engaging. It makes you wonder whether the author ever thought that the series would last for very long.

Overall, Manga Dogs didn’t do too well. The main reasons why it lost out were the unlikable characters and the limited gags. If you are going to make a successful comedy series, you need to have charismatic characters or a long list of jokes at the ready. You can’t keep using the same ones over and over again if you want readers to stay interested in the series. It was just hard to really get connected to the plot. The art was good, which gave Manga Dogs a chance to do something with itself. As I mentioned earlier, just adding in a rival or some excitement would have been nice. Maybe seeing more of Shonen Jump and what the other authors think of Kanna. Instead, the author focuses on the friends and their quirks, which didn’t work for me. It got repetitive after the first volume so you can imagine how bad it would have gotten if this had been more of a long running series. Instead of checking this title out, I recommend just reading Bakuman. It is like this one, but executed to perfection. Bakuman is still the most engaging non action manga of all time and it is a series that you should pick up ASAP! Manga Dogs will be a distant memory by the end!

Overall 4/10