MISC. MANGA, *Queen Bee

Chynna Clugston had already gained notoriety from her manga-styled Blue Monday comic, so she went on to create a graphic novel for younger readers through Scholastic Press. Queen Bee was intended to be an ongoing series, but merely made a single but critically praised release about the ups and downs of being a teenager in the mid-2000s.

Haley leads a semi-normal life, despite the fact that she has uncontrollable fits of psychokinesis, resulting in the occasional moving of objects with her mind. She doesn't seem to have a full grasp of her abilities as her spasms are caused from negativity, and for someone who obsesses about being popular, it does prey on her emotions. This makes it hard for her to make friends at her current school, but Haley lucks out when her mother has them move to a different town. At her new school, Haley manages to work her way into a clique called "The Hive". The psychic teen turns down interacting with the students she met when she first got oriented, and climbs over the clique head Anjelica to achieve her status as queen bee of the school. Haley's status is challenged when a fiery redheaded rival arrives named Alexia who also happens to have psychic abilities that rival hers. The two espers keep their special abilities aside to decide who deserves to reign as queen through a talent competition. Haley relaxes her anxiety over being popular thanks to her study partner Jasper, who helps her in her act, as well as showing her that hanging out only with the cool crowd isn't the only thing that counts.

Queen Bee differs from Clugston's Blue Monday as it takes place in modern day, where the prior was set during the early 90s. The manga style used here is more a reflection of the creator's style, and not an attempt to cash in on the anime craze that was dominating American culture in the early part of the century. The graphic novel is a fine addition to a young reader's library, and perfectly safe for all ages.

ANI-MOVIES: *The Case Of Hana & Alice

Where as the rotoscoping in The Flowers Of Evil didn't win much love, the same film style was used in this animated prequel to the live-action movie, Hana And Alice. The original movie's creator Shinji Iwai did this as his first animated project highlighting the origin of two schoolgirls' friendship.

A teenager going by the name of "Alice" because of a change in her family as her mother divorced her father after writing a tell-all book about him(a plot point that gets little expansion on it), and has moved to a new town. Her new school has a ghost story behind it in the seat she is assigned to in class which belonged to Yuda, a former student. The whole story turns out to be largely bunk as Alice befriends her shut-in neighbor Hana, who was the childhood friend of Yuda, and knew that he left due to a family affair, but sabotaged his goodbye from school because he used a method of gaining multiple girlfriends that she originally intended to confess her feelings for. Hana stung Yuda with a bee in revenge, and became a shut-in as she's afraid the sting might have had an allergic reaction killing him. Alice and Hana's quest to discover if Yuda is still alive by trailing his father home from work, of which leads to an entire subplot with Alice falling the wrong man for several minutes of the film. The two girls spend the night outside Yuda's apartment waiting to find out if he's still alive, and Hana opens up to Alice about how guilty she feels about possibly killing her old friend. Yuda turned out to be alive, and this gives Hana the strength to go back to school with Alice as her classmate.

The original Hana And Alice movie was more about a love triangle forming between the title characters and a boy they meet as they go onto high school. So, this prequel shows how this bizarre friendship was formed from two characters who don't even meet up until about halfway through the story. The effect of rotoscoping works splendidly with photo backgrounds and CGI animation giving hope for the future of this time honored technique. The story itself can drag at times, with several points which lead to nothing much in the overall narrative, like Alice's newfound love for ballet, or the scam of Yuda's death being used by someone to gain success at school as a fake psychic. It is possible to completely skip the original live-action movie, and still have an enjoyable enough time watching this slice of life story.

ANI-MOVIES, *Raya And The Last Dragon

During the height of the pandemic, Disney decided to release its latest theatrical non-Pixar CGI movie on streaming to successful results. Hoping to appeal to a more international market, Disney instead of making a production on an existing story like Mulan, it was decided to created an original amalgamation of several pieces of Asian folklore, similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Despite the blending of different cultures, Raya And The Last Dragon manages to pull their history in an single narrative that reflects defining myths, like a standard fetch quest for magical gems.

Set in the magical country of Kamandra(which is decidely absent of non-Asians), the humans used to have a union with the guardian serpent-like dragons that defend them from the shadowy Druun which turn people into stone. The remaining dragons managed to pull their magic together in a final stand against the Druun, with only one dragon surviving, and disappeared leaving behind a magic crystal which keeps the Druun sealed off from the rest of the world. The enchanted jewel lies in the nation of Heart, which wants to open its doors to the neighboring lands to create a newly unified country. But during the peace summit, the jewel is split into 5 parts, releasing the Druun, and dividing them each with their own jewels staving off the Druun. Jumping to five years later, Heart's princess Raya sets out to retrieve the other four pieces of the jewel by summoning the last dragon Sisu to help in her quest. Sisu is a water dragon that manages to gain different powers from each of the gems the collect, including being able to take on a human form. Along their journey, Raya and Sidu gain new allies, eash with their own reasons to rid the scourge of the Druun in order to return their loved ones back from stone. It turns out that the major element to making magic work in this world is the power of trust, as opposed to the power of "true love" which normally act as the remedy in Disney movies.

Raya And The Last Dragon is in most respects one of Disney's most ambitious CGI productions, with amazing character designs and sweeping animation. One of the few setbacks is in Sisu's dragon form which is a stark contrast to the human characters, appearing more like something out of My Little Pony instead of your average scaled Chinese dragon. There's also some influences from Hayao Miyazaki with the Druun and the giant rolling bug that Raya rides on. Raya's quest would make for a killer 80s Nintendo game idea, but as a full-length motion picture, it actually brings the concept of epic back to high fantasy intended for the whole family.