Saint Onii-san

This one title has been making the rounds on the Internet for a little while. I wish I had picked it up while I was in Japan so I could've realized just how offbeat this title is. Jesus and Buddha are roommates. In Japan. The two of them are trying to get back into society and understand modern life. So, y'know, Jesus stars a blog about J-dramas, gets confused for Johnny Depp at the convenience store. Stuff like that. Both Mangacast and Canned Dogs have a more detailed look at this series, which I'm not just going to rip them off, since I've yet to read it. Go check out the extensive piece at Mangacast, and some strips from over at Canned Dogs to get an idea of this title. It's in my Amazon cart as we speak.

Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge

"The girl is Yukisaki Eri. She is a girl who fights. She is like a beautiful warrior. She wears a fluttering sailor uniform... she fights! For what purpose? She fights for justice!" That's how Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge starts off, and that's pretty much how it goes for the manga's two-volume span. Eri fights against a demonic man wrapped in a cloak who wields a chainsaw and refuses to die, no matter how much Eri stabs, slashes, and mutilates him. He just keeps coming. But that's what makes her so attractive to the storyteller, Yamamoto.

There's practically no explanation given to the events going on in the first volume -- the manga deals mainly with fights, panty shots, and a budding romance between Eri and Yamamoto. Once we get into the second volume, the plot sinks downhill real quick. In a direct ripoff from Final Destination, the girl ended up cheating death when her whole family died in a car accident. So now Death is after her. The manga makes some big overarching statements about protecting the world from evils (and shows a picture of the Twin Towers) before Eri's final fight with Death.

The relatively absurd premise from the first volume makes this series worth reading, especially since it's so short. The full series has yet to be scanned, but there aren't many chapters left, if you intend to check it out -- however you'd do that. I wouldn't know the first thing.

Girls Saurus DX

Normally, harem series features a main character who is horribly indecisive about which girl he likes, ultimately choosing the plainest, most Japanese-esque girl out of the group. Girls Saurus DX (the original Girls Saurus was only 3 volumes, this reuses the story) features a main character (Shingo) who is horrifically afraid of women. He had a bad experience when the female lead, Haruka, confessed her love to him, only to be rejected because she was immensely fat and scary. When he rejected her, she beat him into a month-long coma, where he was barely recognizable.

Since then, Haruka has lost a ton of weight and is actually pretty. Anyways, Shingo is forced by the school nurse, the only woman who knows of his gynophobia, to join the boxing team -- which is an all-girls team. So, Shingo is constantly being assaulted by women, who run the gamut from the overly-athletic and manly, to the lolita, to the moe blob (who I hate with an unwavering passion).

And to explain the title: in order to cope with his fear, Shingo argues that all girls are dinosaurs, and that's why they're incredibly scary. I was hoping that in the manga, the girls would be portrayed by dinosaurs, but alas. This series follows the typical ecchi harem thread, but it's got itself enough of a twist to make it interesting and worthwhile to read.

My Balls

How much would it suck to have the Queen of Darkness sealed in your testicles, knowing that if you ejaculate, you'll unleash the end of the world? That's the pressure that's bearing down on Satou Kohta in My Balls, who has to go 30 days without ejaculating in order to save the world. Things are a little more difficult than just using self-control, because minions from the underworld have sent up a sexy lolita demon to seduce that precious seed out of Kohta's body. There's also the girl at work who he's interested in, and he finds out that she becomes a total nymphomaniac when she gets a little liquor in her.

So yes, in case you couldn't tell, this series is rather ecchi. As in, you shouldn't read this title in public, even if you are Dale North. Does the series have serious artistic merit, conveying a message about how it's right to wait for that one who's truly special no matter how tempting cheap throw-away sex may be? No, not in the slightest. This is meant to tickle your fancy and show you some barely-developed demon breasts.

Human Clock

I found this one earlier today, attempting to fill out the post with a fifth title. As I should have suspected, Wanted: Cheap Manga never disappoints. First they brought us Dance Kremlin Palace, and now they bring us the ultra-surreal Human Clock.

This series by Tokunan Seiichiro is by and far out there -- probably more so than anything done by Junji Ito or any other horror artist. The five chapter series details a middle school flunkie who stays in his parent's clock shop most of the day, and has a strange fascination with the machines; he's frequently referring to them as his "little friends." Suddenly, pieces of clocks start disappearing or falling down, as though they don't want to be used anymore. Eventually, some of them start coming to life.

Even in the short time it took me to read the series, it was just plain disturbing. A mixture of the far-from-normal art, the bizarre story, and the events of the final chapter, just leave me a bit uneasy. It's kind of hard to explain, but this is one to check out just to read something that's totally off its rocker in terms of weirdness.