Manga Impressions: Love Hina & Ikki Tousen

Without a DS Lite now (temporary I hope), I wonder what do you do when you are bored, stuck on a public transport and have no access to any entertainment that can speed up time? I guess I could play games on my PDA, but nothing good or original has been released for the past two year. I probably could read the free evening papers, but usually there is nothing there that I haven't already read on the web. And I am hopeless at reading paperbacks on moving transport.

Anyway I was sooo bored I read two mangas today (I hate TV anime). Apparently there are plenty of manga adaptations of video games now. I saw Devil May Cry and Suikoden III in Borders, but decided to get Ikki Tousen vol. 1 and Love Hina vol. 1 instead. Both features, uhm, plenty of manga nudity, but nothing reaching hentai level fortunately. So they are alright. I particularly like Love Hina 's relationship between Keitaro and Naru. It is a typical Shonen manga. Kinda like Ranma 1/2, so this is a series I will most likely follow (the whole series available in Tokyopop trade paperback English is readily available in many good book stores).

Ikki Tousen (Battle Vixen) however has plenty of action, but lack any emotional substance (at least in the first volume, although according to fans it does touch on the deep history of China, Japan, three kingdoms, whatever etc.). Consider this blurb from TOKYOPOP:

Hakufu Sonsaku, a young girl blessed with a large chest but a small brain, lives in the country with her mother. She is a Toushi, and as such she has a burning desire to beat people up, but her mother has forbidden it. Yadda yadda yadda.

Can you be more forward than that? It seems more geared towards creating a market so young people can buy quality resin figures of sexy manga half nude ladies kicking about with their panties exposed. Already I am tempted to get this, but they just had to go fudge it up by sawing a quarter of her leg out! Can't wait to see what happens in the next few volumes. ;)