Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Katherine Dacey

The Manga Review, 12/3/2022

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If you’re interested in writing about comics for a website that already has a sizable readership, there are a number of great outlets looking for contributors. Nola Pfau, Editor-in-Chief of Women Write About Comics (WWAC), took to Twitter earlier this week to encourage writers submit pitches. WWAC has won three Eisner Awards for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism, and welcomes “pitches from anyone along the marginalized gender spectrum—women, NB, agender, trans men.” You don’t need experience to submit an idea; WWAC prides itself on publishing new voices, and has “a proven track record of training new voices in comics journalism and helping them achieve success at other outlets.” Interested? Take the first step by visiting WWAC’s Pitch Us! page.

Also looking for writers is The Fandom Post, which is in need of an Anime/Manga Reviewer, and Anime Feminist, which is always receptive to pitches.

NEWS AND VIEWS

If you’re curious about Glacier Bay Books’ latest project, click over to The Comics Journal, which has just posted an excerpt from PANDORA, a collection of short stories by Hagiwara Rei. The stories, which are rendered in delicate watercolors, “simultaneously reflect on current events as well as the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.” [The Comics Journal]

Tony Yao reflects on the Cool Japan Fund‘s flawed efforts to promote Japanese pop culture here in the US. [Drop-In to Manga]

Journalist Madeline Blondeau posts a thoughtful reflection on transfeminine desire in Eguchi Hisashi’s Stop!! Hibari-kun. [Anime Feminist]

Get your holiday off to a good start by entering The Manga Test Drive’s Annual Holiday Review Giveaway! The winner will receive a $25 Right Stuf gift certificate. [The Manga Test Drive]

ICYMI: Justin shares his thoughts about “the good, the mixed, and the bad” at Anime NYC 2022. [The OASG]

The latest episode of Shojo & Tell focuses on Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku. [Shojo & Tell]

The Reverse Thieves name Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura their Manga of the Month. “For better or for worse Rumiko Takahashi’s later series always have a much tighter theme and flow,” Alain notes. “You have a fairly good idea what your going to get in any chapter of Inuyasha or Maison Ikkoku. But Urusei Yatsura feels much more like jazz in its freeform nature. One chapter could be a sexy comedy about aliens, the next is nothing more than a giant set up for a pun with folk creatures, and the next chapter a touching romantic interlude. The only main theme is that the Urusei Yatsura cast are horrible people who are very amusing when they are horrible to each other.” [Reverse Thieves]

REVIEWS

This week’s must-read review is Sarah’s take on The Gay Who Turned Kaiju, a collection of short stories about a teenager struggling to come to terms with his sexual orientation. “Some manga are so compulsive a read that you just have to keep feverishly turning the pages until you get to the end. The Gay Who Turned Kaiju is one of those special titles: well-written and aptly drawn,” she observes. “Even though several of the protagonists are far from sympathetic, especially in the way they treat Takashi, nevertheless they resonate as believable, complex individuals.”

 

Pick of the Week: Clear Moonlit Picks

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SEAN: My pick this week is The Food Diary of Miss Maid, because I have the first of many office Christmas parties this week and I will probably be overeating.

MICHELLE: This week is full of new volumes of series that I really should be reading. Witch Hat Atelier and Skip & Loafer are high on the list, but I think I’ll make Classmates my official pick, as I’ve been hearing good things about that series for years.

ASH: Most of what I’m planning on reading this week are new volumes of continuing series, but at least one print debut has caught my interest, too—my pick goes to In the Clear Moonlit Dusk!

MELINDA: I will admit to being kind of interested in Reincarnated as an Apple: This Forbidden Fruit Is Forever Unblemished!, because… I mean. Apple. But my pick is almost certainly In the Clear Moonlit Dusk, so I guess I’m going along with Ash this week.

KATE: It’s always a good day when there’s a new volume of Skip & Loafer!

The Manga Review: Black Friday Edition

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Yet another Anime NYC has come and gone, bringing with it a raft of licensing announcements from Azuki, Kodansha, Seven Seas, and Yen Press. While most reports from the show floor were positive, The Beat’s Ricardo Serrano Denis noted that the convention suffered from some of the same issues that plagued it before the pandemic. “One thing I thought was seriously underrepresented in the 2019 show was manga and anime booths, places to acquire them,” he noted. “For an anime convention, I felt the number of booths dedicated to the medium were on the slimmer side of things. Fast forward to 2022, a whole pandemic later, and those same shortcomings are still accounted for, perhaps even worse so.” Other attendees gave mixed marks to the panels, noting that the Spy x Family session lasted a mere 30 minutes, while the online ticketing for the Attack on Titan event was marred by computer glitches and limited seating. Still, many folks left satisfied. Summarizing her experience at Anime NYC, for example, Erica Friedman observed there’s more great yuri anime and manga than ever before, noting how many vendors were prominently displaying series such as Lilies and The Executioner and Her Way of Life.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Looking for a great deal on manga or anime? Krystallina has you covered with an extensive list of Black Friday deals. [The OASG]

Mary Lee Sauder jumps in the WABAC machine for a look at the ani-manga craze of the early 2000s. [Honey’s Anime]

Over at Women Write About Comics, Carrie McClain sifts through a batch of new releases from Seven Seas, including I’m a Terminal Cancer Patient, But I’m Fine, The Savior’s Book Café in Another World, and The Titan’s Bride. [WWAC]

The latest essay at Sports Baka focuses on Gunjo no fanfare (Fanfare of Adolescence), a series about “a rich ensemble of teenage characters who, except for their common goal to become jockeys, couldn’t be more different.” [Sports Baka]

The Mangasplainers are all business this week with an in-depth look at Division Chief Kosaku Shima, a salaryman manga from the 1980s. [Mangasplaining]

Psyche Kale exposes the not-so-hidden sexism of Claymore. “Consistently, when given the chance to treat its characters with grace, to give them control of the story, to have their struggles understood, to have their humanity appreciated, Claymore chooses to undermine itself with a juvenile emphasis on unnecessary carnage, a lack of interest in the inner worlds of the characters depicted, and a callousness to their emotional suffering. And it sucks,” they observe. “For many it was the first time they saw a female protagonist in an anime or manga that was allowed the spotlight, who could fight and kill as well as anyone else, who was allowed to get beat up instead of wilting like a dainty flower. There’s still merit in those experiences, and moments of the story where it knows what it’s doing and how to give its female characters that grace and to focus on their emotions.” [Anime Feminist]

REVIEWS

Rebecca Silverman reviews Be Very Afraid of Kanako Inuki, arguing that this short-story anthology feels more “like a sampler rather than a full collection in its own right,” but asserts that “Inuki is a creator worth knowing, and if you’re a fan of Kazuo Umezz and Junji Ito, this is well worth checking out.” Over at The Manga Test Drive, Megan D. takes Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto for a spin. “Pluto works as both a tribute to a classic and as a stand-alone mystery,” she opines. “You don’t need to be familiar with Astro Boy to understand the story, but if you do you’ll be able to appreciate just how Urasawa adapts it for modern tastes.”

Pick of the Week: Kaiju, Foxes, and Apocalypses

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MICHELLE: There are a lot of appealing BL or BL-adjacent works out this week. I need to get caught up on I Think Our Son Is Gay and Sasaki and Miyano (so that I can read the spinoff), and The (Pet) Detective Agency looks pretty cute too, but quirky and retro-looking BL will always win out with me in the end, and thus my pick this week is The Gay Who Turned Kaiju.

ASH: The Gay Who Turned Kaiju is certainly one of the highlights for me this week, and I will happily be reading the others Michelle mentioned, too. That being said, I really enjoy Tomihiko Morimi’s work and have been reading a fair number of short stories these days, so I’m actually going to make Fox Tales my official pick.

SEAN: My pick this week is the yuri-ish Touring After the Apocalypse, which really, really REALLY sounds like Girls’ Last Tour.

KATE: Touring After the Apocalypse. I don’t know that I have a particularly thoughtful or well-informed reason for choosing it, but I like the cover’s juxtaposition of two totally normal, cheerful people going about their business in a hellscape. That feels like a pretty accurate reflection of what 2022 has been like for most of us!

MELINDA: I suppose I am also choosing Touring After the Apocalypse as my pick this week. Even with so many titles coming out, my feelings echo Kate’s this this week!

The Manga Review, 11/18/22

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Last week, ICv2 publisher Milton Griepp sat down for a lengthy conversation with Dark Horse Comics’ CEO Mike Richardson. The two discussed the company’s history–particularly its early investment in manga–as well as current trends in graphic novel sales. Among Richardson’s most interesting revelations was that a significant portion of Dark Horse’s business is happening outside of comic book stores. “85% of our sales are found in traditional bookstores,” he notes. “We’ve been told by PRH (Penguin Random House) that we consistently outsell Marvel and DC in bookstores and it’s bookstores that have pushed Dark Horse sales over nine figures.” Richardson also expressed his frustration with the media’s tendency to report Diamond Distributor figures as an accurate indicator of comic book sales. “Last I checked, we had sold almost five million copies of Berserk,” he notes. “Yes, that’s what I said, and we have a number of books that have sold seven figures.  None of them are included in the Diamond market share because we don’t distribute our books through Diamond.”

NEWS AND VIEWS

Jocelyne Allen explains the appeal of Asada Nemui’s Sleeping Dead, a new entry in the growing sub-genre of zombie BL. “I honestly love every page of this,” she notes. “There’s really not a wasted panel, and while I’m not one hundred percent on board with the explanation for the zombie effect, I am here for the actual zombie action. The developing relationship between mad scientist and zombie is fascinating, especially with the bumps in the road as they each discover things about themselves, and I seriously can’t wait to see how this story resolves in the second volume, which came out only recently.” [Brain vs. Book]

VIZ has just added a new Shonen Jump title to its line-up: The Ichinose Family’s Deadly Sins. The story focuses on a middle-school student who’s reunited with his family after an accident wipes his memory. The catch? His family seems to harboring some big secrets from him! The first chapter is available online. [VIZ]

On the fifteenth anniversary of its original publication, Kara Dennison revisits the first volume of Takashi Okazaki’s Afro-Samurai. [Otaku USA]

Congratulations to SKJAM! Reviews for ten years of thoughtful manga, movie, television, and book reviews; that’s a milestone worth celebrating! [SKJAM! Reviews]

Morgana Santilli leads a spirited roundtable discussion of three shojo titles: MARS, Midnight Secretary, and Ouran High School Host Club. [Manga Machinations]

In the latest installment of Multiversity Manga Club, Walt Richardson, Emily Myers, and Zach Wilkerson recap chapters 956-981 of One Piece. [Multiversity Manga Club]

ICYMI: Hagai Palevsky deconstructs Yuichi Yokoyama’s Plaza. “Such a project is perfect for Yokoyama, as a cartoonist who is interested in the temporality and kinesis of comics and completely uninterested in narrative components such as emotion and character development,” Palevsky observes. “It is elevated by his careful balance between the overall simplicity of lines and the density of objects: he does not bother with overwrought rendering, making do with economic recognizability of objects and putting most of his efforts into a ‘clutter’ both tangible and sensory. There is a lot going on in every single panel, but there is always an order to it, a clarity that rearranges the space in the eyes of the cooperative reader.” [Solrad]

REVIEWS

Over at Okazu, Erica Friedman explains how you should read Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back. “Read it slowly. Pay attention to the details,” she advises. “It’s a slim volume, and not terribly complicated in terms of concept. In fact, I’d call this a very typical ‘the second story a manga artist does after their series goes mega-hit and they need to write about creating manga’ manga. But it is loaded to the gills with feels.” Also worth a look: Sarah offers a frank (and fair!) assessment of The Poe Clan‘s second volume, while Bradathon Nu critiques Tatsuki Fujimoto’s newest one-shot Just Listen to the Song. On the capsule review front, Masha Zhdanova looks at three new VIZ titles, while the gang at Beneath the Tangles offer short-n-sweet assessments of Rooster Fighter, The Remarried Empress, and Tower of God.

Pick of the Week: Quality Assortment

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MICHELLE: This may well be too far out of my comfort zone, but I’m still too happy that we’re getting danmei here to refrain from picking The Husky and His White Cat Shizun!

SEAN: I’ll go with the first volume of <i.Futari Escape, which seems to be a fun read for a quiet week.

KATE: I’ve been enjoying Naoki Urasawa’s Asadora!: it’s a period piece featuring a plucky heroine and crusty old pilot who will stop at nothing to save Japan from a Godzilla-like threat. The characters are all drawn in broad strokes, but the artwork is terrific and the story unfurls at such a brisk pace that it’s easy to forgive Urasawa a few narrative missteps. The last volume came out in… (checks notes)… April, so I’m primed and ready for volume six.

MICHELLE: I’ve been meaning to check out Asadora!.

ASH: I was really excited to learn that a rendition of Atsushi Nakajima’s The Moon Over the Mountain was scheduled to be released later this year, not realizing that it was part of a series. Now that I know that it is, I’m really looking forward to reading the series’ debut volume, Hell In a Bottle.

ANNA: Even though I am so far behind, I’m going to pick Requiem for the Rose King.

MELINDA: There are a number of interesting-sounding options this week, but I’m going with Requiem for the Rose King, too! I can’t resist!

The Manga Review, 11/11/22

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File this under Weird Twitter Kerfuffles: on Monday, manga-ka Kentaro Sato tweeted that “CEO Elon Musk has been posting my drawings without permission, so I’d like a usage fee of one billion. In dollars.” Musk had apparently re-tweeted a meme that used imagery from Sato’s Magical Girl Site, which is currently running in Weekly Shonen Champion. Though it’s not clear from context if the post was tongue-in-cheek, a number of Twitter users rallied to Sato’s cause, urging him to take action against Musk:

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There’s been no response from Musk so far.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Jocelyne Allen explains why she soldiered through the rocky first chapter of Kemutai Ane to Zuro Imoto. “I almost had to annoyance-quit reading this title,” she confesses. “But you know I love Battan’s sharp-nosed ladies with their cat eyes and strands of hair everywhere, so I kept pushing forward and found a lot more to like, including a much-needed window into Ran’s side of this story.” [Brain vs. Book]

Over at Shonen Flop, David and Jordan dissect the first chapter of Super Smartphone, a new Shonen Jump series. [Shonen Flop]

Artists Sally Madden and Katie Skelly devote the latest episode of the Thick Lines Podcast to Moyocco Anno’s In Clothes Called Fat.[Thick Lines Podcast]

ICYMI: Joe McCulloch dropped by the Thick Lines Podcast a few weeks ago to discuss Kazuo Umezz’s Orochi: Blood. [Thick Lines Podcast]

In the latest installment of Screentone Club, Andy and Elliot go to extremes–tonal extremes, that is, as they discuss Days on Fes and Franken Fran. [Screentone Club]

Erica Friedman praises Eike Exner’s Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History, which won the 2022 Eisner Award for Best Academic Work. “You’re probably familiar with orthodox manga history, tracing today’s modern sequential narrative art from Japan from early scrolls, through sketches of the Ukiyo-e period to (time jump) modern manga,” she notes. Exner’s book, however, “stops the story and asks us to look – really look – at that time jump, and at one of the factors that shaped Japanese comicking into what we know today as manga… Exner’s voice is readable and friendly, with a sense of genuine conviction, rather than an argument that was made to be made.” [Okazu]

REVIEWS

Johanna Draper Carlson gives a mixed review to Blue Box, characterizing the artwork as “adequate but not inspiring,” while praising the series for flipping the script. “What I liked most about this book was a boy developing a crush on a girl because of her determination and accomplishments,” she notes. “A lot of shojo has the girl being aggressively normal, even shy, with no reason to stand out, unless it’s due to her cuteness.”

New and Noteworthy

Complete and Ongoing Series

The Manga Review, 11/4/22

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This week’s biggest news story: Kadokawa has purchased Anime News Network. On November 1st, publisher Christopher MacDonald posted an open letter to ANN’s readership to reassure them that the site’s “editorial independence is contractually guaranteed,” and explain that the biggest changes would be in the site itself, not the content. “KWE will be investing significantly in ANN’s software development,” he noted. “A number of new projects will be launched, and a number of projects that have been stuck in development for way too long will be prioritized.” As expected, reader reactions were mixed, with some posting congratulations, and others voicing skepticism about having a major Japanese publisher as a corporate parent. “Yeah, gonna be tough to trust reviews for Kadokawa stuff now,” opined user Albion Hero. “You can say all you want about ‘we will keep our independence’ but its [sic] been long proven that companies that own sites and magazines don’t like those reviews to be critical of their products… Seen this same song and dance plenty of times in gaming media. All the staff say how good their new corporate overlords are, and how they will keep their independence and all. Then 2 years later all the staff is gone and the site no longer has their original integrity.” They concluded: “Would love to be proven wrong but I’ve seen this story too many times.”

NEWS AND VIEWS

Earlier this week, Seven Seas unveiled a fresh crop of licenses, among them Homonculus, a horror series from the creator of Ichi the Killer; Soara and the House of Monsters, a fantasy manga; and Cat on the Hero’s Lap, a comedy about a warrior whose efforts to save his homeland from destruction are thwarted by a cute cat. [Seven Seas]

In other licensing news, Azuki announced two new acquisitions: BLITZ, a sports manga set in the world of competitive chess, and Zombie Makeout Club, a horror manga about–you guessed it–a teenage zombie. [Azuki]

The October 2022 NPD Bookscan numbers are in, and once again Spy x Family, My Hero Academia, and Chainsaw Man dominated the Top 20 Adult Graphic Novels chart. [ICv2]

Bill Curtis posts a complete list of manga and light novels scheduled for a November 2022 release. [Yatta Tachi]

If you’re an avid sports manga enthusiast, you’ll want to check out the newly launched Sports Baka substack, where you’ll find essays on Hajime no Ippo, Dive!!, Days, Ryman’s Club and more. [Sports Baka]

The Manga Mavericks dedicate their latest episode to Red Sprite, a Shonen Jump title from 2019. [Manga Mavericks]

On the latest episode of Shojo & Tell, Ashley and Asher critique Skull-Faced Bookseller Honda-san. [Shojo & Tell]

Walt Richardson and Emily Myers dissect the October 2022 issue of Shonen Jump. [Multiversity Manga Club]

In keeping with the Halloween spirit, Gee and Ray explore the highs and lows of Junji Ito‘s extensive catalog. [Read Right to Left]

Parents, teachers, and librarians interested in learning more about yokai manga will find Brigid Alverson’s latest article for the School Library Journal a helpful resource; not only does she delve into the history of the genre, she also compiles a list of age-appropriate titles for kids, tweens, and teens. [School Library Journal]

Over at TCJ, Ritesh Babu and Ari Gardner interview Juan Albarran, a Spanish artist who’s currently working with Shoji Fujimoto on Matagi Gunner, a seinen action series about “an elderly rural hunter who proves unexpectedly skilled at video game first-person shooters, and soon becomes embroiled in the colorful world of e-gaming.” [The Comics Journal]

Max explains how BL manga such as Go For It, Nakamura! offered him an alternative model of masculinity. “I could be kind, thoughtful, and cute like the boys in BL anime and manga,” he notes. “Maybe some people wouldn’t understand, but I’d always have BL to reassure me that there was nothing wrong with me, and that it was okay to be myself.” [Anime Feminist]

REVIEWS

It’s a measure of how mainstream Hayao Miyazaki’s work has become that both the New York Times and the New Yorker commissioned reviews of Shuna’s Journey, available in English for the first time this month. Writing for the Times, Susan Napier declares Shuna’s Journey “eerie, enchanting, and surpassingly strange,” while Sam Thielman observes that “Shuna’s Journey moves and surprises because of the reader’s disorientation at being dropped into a world that is both generously detailed and miserly with explanations.”

New and Noteworthy

Complete and Ongoing Series

Pick of the Week: More Sports Manga? In This Economy?

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MICHELLE: Oh, man. I’m forced to choose between perennial fave Skip Beat! and a promising new sports manga. I reckon I’ve gone on record enough about the former at this point, so I’ll pick Blue Box this week.

SEAN: What Michelle said. Blue Box is my pick.

ASH: I’m definitely interested in Blue Box and am glad to see more than one series being brought back into print this week, but my official pick goes to Berserk. It may not technically be the end of the series, but it’s certainly an end of an era.

ANNA: I’m sorry I’m not going to deny my pick for Skip Beat! even with the temptation of a promising sports manga!

KATE: Blue Box for me as well–it looks like fun, and I can’t resist a good basketball manga.

The Manga Review, 10/28/22

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Over the last year, The Comics Journal has been translating essays by prolific manga critic Natsume Fusanosuke. The topics have run the gamut from Taiyo Matsumoto’s distinctive visual style to the enduring appeal of Sazae-san and Rumiko Takahashi’s role in bringing romance to shonen manga. The latest installment focuses on Miyaya Kazuhiko, a key figure in the gekiga movement who’s not particularly well known to Western readers. In their helpful introduction, translators John Holt and Teppei Fukuda compare Natsume’s essay to Tatsumi Yoshihiro’s A Drifting Life, arguing that both Yoshihiro and Natsume write their “autobiograph[ies] as a history of gekiga. For Natsume, Miyaya’s gekiga form the pivotal ‘chapters’ in his own life as a ‘manga youth’ (manga seinen), coming of age in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s.” That’s a helpful way of understanding the essay’s mixture of self-reflection and analysis; Natsume uses his personal experiences to show the reader what Miyaya’s work meant to Japanese readers during a period of immense social, cultural, and technological change.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Seven Seas announced that it will be publishing LUPIN III (Lupin the Third): Thick as Thieves – Classic Manga Collection, “a curated collection of some of Monkey Punch’s best stories and chapters of Lupin III from throughout the classic manga’s history.” The book will be available in digital and hardcover editions next summer. [Seven Seas]

If you missed the first issue of Glaeolia, fear not: Glacier Bay Books is currently raising money for a reprint. (N.B. The crowdfundr page is not yet accepting pledges; the site should go live this weekend.) [Glacier Bay Books]

Jocelyne Allen sings the praises of Japanese SF Comics, a collection of sci-fi stories by Keiko Takamiya, Osamu Tezuka, and Junko Sasaki. Someone license this, please! [Brain vs. Book]

Found on Twitter: Kiuchi Niboro’s manga memoir about his time in a Soviet POW camp. It’s a fascinating look at a forgotten chapter of World War II history. [tara_chara]

What does Space Brothers have in common with M*A*S*H? The Mangasplainers are big fans of both, and divide their latest episode between a discussion of Chuya Koyama’s sci-fi drama and a discussion of the beloved seventies sitcom. [Mangasplaining… er, M*A*S*Hsplaining]

Tom and Joe, a.k.a. the Anime Sickos, sit down with one of Twitter’s most popular manga influencers, Minovsky Article. [Anime Sickos]

The Manga Machinations crew dedicate their latest podcast to Franken Fran, Wonderland, and Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation. [Manga Machinations]

Scholar Kathryn Hemmann explores the relationship between dojinshi and Western zine culture, drawing on their own experiences “both as an indie zine maker and as someone who has participated in big anthology fanzines.” [WWAC]

REVIEWS

In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, this week’s featured review analyzes Junji Ito’s Black Paradox, just out from VIZ. Christoper Farris argues that the book isn’t “especially ‘scary’ in a traditional sense, noting that “[t]here aren’t a lot of page-turn jump-scares included, and even the idea of gnawing, anxious dread is tied more to a character’s interior development rather than tangibly imparted to the reader. Black Paradox instead mostly thrives on general conceptual weirdness, letting Ito cut loose with body horror in time with the broadening of the plot.”

Also worth a look is Megan D.’s review of Happiness, a vampire manga by Shuzo Oshimi (Blood on the Tracks, Flowers of Evil). “Happiness is at its best when it tries to visualize the terror and confusion of a vampiric transformation against one’s will,” she observes, “but it’s hard to shake the feeling that from this point onward Oshimi was starting to rely on a story formula that was starting to get a little repetitious and questionable in its gender politics.”

Pick of the Week: Magi, Skyscrapers, and Titans

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SEAN: Nothing really leaps out at me this week, so I’ll go with a known solid series and pick the new volume of The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

MICHELLE: The potential mystery aspect of Skygrazer is appealing, but I think I will also go with the tried and true and seasonally appropriate The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

KATE: Based solely on the cover design–OK, and the fact that Halloween is just a week away–I’m voting for Junji Ito’s Black Paradox.

ANNA: I’ll pick Skygrazer, it might not be as spooky as some of the other titles coming out this week, but I always enjoy reading mysteries in the fall.

ASH: I am absolutely interested in everything that’s been mentioned thus far, but I’m going to add one more to the list. While I don’t have as much time to spend on novels these days as I would like, I feel that I may need to make an exception for TITAN, so that’ll be my pick this week.

The Manga Review, 10/21/22

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“Manga won”–that was Heidi MacDonald’s pithy assessment of New York Comic Con 2022, as she noted how much the show was tilting towards Asian comics. “We all know that anime and manga soared during the pandemic but the exhibit halls of NYCC ‘22 were the in your face proof of that,” she opined, pointing to VIZ’s giant Luffy float as an example of how manga was crowding out tights and capes. “If the NYCC show floor was a diagram of nerdworld, comics publishers were the equivalent of an abandoned storefront,” she continued. “Against these massive displays for anime and collectibles, comics publishers were often just a pipe and drape table with some people signing.” For additional perspective on NYCC ’22, check out Heidi’s more in-depth report for Publisher’s Weekly.

NEWS AND VIEWS

If you missed the Best and Worst Manga panel at New York Comic-Con, fear not: MangaInLibraries has posted the panelists’ picks and pans. [Anime Planet]

Have you filled out the October Seven Seas Reader Survey yet? [Seven Seas]

Brigid Alverson has the deets on three new Seven Seas titles, all of which are slated for release next year. [ICv2]

Good news for Hunter x Hunter fans: the series returns from a four-year hiatus in November. [Anime News Network]

REVIEWS

This week’s must-read review comes to us from Renee Scott, who praises Josee, The Tiger and The Fish for “handl[ing] ableism in a realistic way” while offering readers “a beautiful love story that shows that nothing is beyond your reach if your passion is stronger than your doubt.” Looking for a good shojo title? Laura Grace posts a new installment in the ABCs of Shojo Manga, this time focusing on titles that begin with E.

New and Noteworthy

Ongoing and Complete Series

The Manga Review, 10/14/22

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Historically, New York Comic Con was the event for big licensing announcements, but in recent years manga publishers have focused more on promoting their best-selling series than on unveiling new acquisitions. While this year’s event yielded some licensing news–VIZ, for example, revealed that it would be publishing a new Spiderman manga–the bigger story is that many companies are casting their nets widely for new content. “One notable trend,” Deb Aoki observes, “is the growth of webtoons, including comics content originally from Korea and China, and original comics created by a wave of international creators featured on such mobile comics platforms such as Webtoon, Tapas Media, Manta, Lezhin, and Tappytoon.” Yen Press, in particular, was enthusiastically promoting its new Korean comics imprint Ize Press, which will release its first titles this fall. Will readers embrace Korean comics this time around? Hard to say, but given the current wave of teen interest in Korean music, television, and movies, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Yen Press will find a more receptive audience for manhwa than it did ten or fifteen years ago. Stay tuned…

NEWS AND VIEWS

For the second year in a row, Chainsaw Man won the Harvey Award for Best Manga, beating out Blood on the Tracks, Blue Lock, Cat + Gamer, Red Flowers, and Spy x Family. [The Beat]

Seven Seas announced three new additions to its spring 2023 schedule: Last Game, The Great Snake’s Bride, and A Story of Seven Lives. [Seven Seas]

Erica Friedman files a report from New York Comic Con. [Okazu]

Whether you’re new to manga or just want to refresh your library’s collection, Sara Smith has you covered. Join her for Manga 101 at this year’s SLJ Summit. [SLJ Summit 2022]

If you listen to only one podcast this week, make it the latest episode of Mangasplaining, which focuses on Jun Mayuzuki’s Kowloon Generic Romance. Come for the thoughtful commentary, stay for the fascinating history lesson on the neighborhood that inspired the story. [Mangasplaining]

Ashley and Asher jump in the WABAC machine for a look at Yuu Watase’s Absolute Boyfriend. [Shojo & Tell]

The latest Taiiku Podcast focuses on When a Cat Faces West and Reincarnated as a Sword. [Manga in Your Ears]

Ryosuke Arakane interviews Kazuo Umezu about his creative process as both as a painter and a manga artist. “Having a childlike spirit is a profound thing,” he notes. “It’s a great thing I picked up. My stories feature children, so there’s a connection… The difference between adults and children is that adults might think something is childish, but children might think the opposite.” [Tokion]

REVIEWS

Krystallina reviews Risky Business, a digital-only offering from Media Do. “Risky Business sounds like a gambling manga, but the only gamble is the one you take on this series,” she notes. “On one hand, the manga is very intriguing with all the manipulation and underhanded tricks going on. On the other hand, man, this manga has a high amount of unlikable characters.” Over at Okazu, Erica Friedman explains why she’s looking forward to more installments of She Loves to Eat, She Loves to Cook.

New and Noteworthy

Ongoing and Complete Series

Pick of the Week: A Bevy of Riches

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SEAN: This is a ridiculously stacked week for manga fans. Viz has a hot new Jump series in Dandadan, Seven Seas gives yuri fans what they’ve always wanted (women beating the shit out of each other) in Black and White: Tough Love at the Office, and Kodansha has both Last Gender *and* Shonen Note: Boy Soprano in the same week. That said, I’ll throw in with One Peace Books this week and Usotoki Rhetoric, because I love a good 1920s shoujo.

MICHELLE: Perhaps I’ll be disappointed by the mystery aspects of Usotoki Rhetoric, but it still looks so much my sort of thing that I have to pick it. Definitely honorable mention to Shonen Note, however.

KATE: I’m glad to see Drawn & Quarterly is keeping Shigeru Mizuki’s works in print, so my pick is Onwards Towards Our Nobel Deaths.

ASH: Usotoki Rhetoric has certainly caught my attention, too, but Shonen Note has been on my radar longer. I’ve been looking forward to it for awhile now, so I’ll make it my official pick (though I’ll be making a point to read both series!).

ANNA: Usotoki Rhetoric does look interesting, I shall make it my pick!

Emma Dreams of Stars: Inside the Gourmet Guide

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Before Yelp! and Open Table made it easy to find a good restaurant, you had two options: consult your local newspaper’s Arts & Leisure section, or buy a guidebook that ranked and sorted joints by price, cuisine, decor, and service. Zagat’s, for example, offered pithy, sometimes withering, assessments of restaurants that were capped by a starred rating, while The Fearless Critic used a ten-point scale that resembled the scoring system for a gymnastics meet. The most trusted—in the US, at least—was the Forbes Travel Guide, which employed an army of undercover critics to evaluate hotels and restaurants, and rank them on a scale from “average” to “one of the best in the country”. Though different in tone and format, all three owed a debt to a much older publication: The Michelin Guide, which was introduced in 1900.

The Guide was the brainchild of Édouard and André Michelin, founders of the Michelin Tire Company. At the time their booklet debuted, France was just beginning to embrace the automobile; the brothers hoped that distributing free copies might encourage people to buy their first car, as the Guide contained a wealth of information for the would-be motorist, including maps, auto repair tips, and lists of hotels, garages, restaurants, and attractions. In the 1920s, the Guide introduced its first rating system, eventually settling on a scale of one to three stars. The Guide also began hiring anonymous male inspectors to visit restaurants and hotels around Europe, reasoning that the nature of the job—travelling solo for weeks at a time—made it impossible for a woman to perform.

Enter Emmanuelle Masionneuve, who joined the Guide almost 100 years after Michelin introduced its star system. Masionneuve had an unusual path to becoming an inspector, training first as a lawyer and journalist before pivoting into the culinary industry. After working for three France’s most esteemed chefs—Michael Bras, Alain Ducasse, Alain Passard—she decided to put her food expertise to the ultimate test by auditioning for the Michelin Guide. Emma Dreams of Stars: Inside the Gourmet Guide, co-written with Julia Pavlowitch and illustrated by Kan Takahama, tells Masionneuve’s story.

In the early chapters, Emma functions both as a character and a reader surrogate. We follow Emma through every stage of her training, from her initial interview to her first solo trip, along the way gleaning interesting tidbits about how inspectors maintain their anonymity, interact with chefs and hoteliers, and avoid heartburn. (Eating rich meals all day isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.) Emma Dreams of Stars also explores Maisonneuve’s efforts to navigate the stuffy male culture of the Michelin Guide, where she’s reminded on a daily basis that she’s the only woman inspector. Though most of her male peers are collegial, she feels the weight of being a trailblazer, worrying that even the smallest mistake will jeopardize her future with the Guide.

Of course, Emma Dreams of Stars is also a story about French cuisine, and that front, the authors deliver exceptionally well. Throughout the book, there are lengthy discussions about the merits of various cheeses and wines, as well as numerous soliloquies extolling the virtue of simply prepared dishes, locally sourced ingredients, and regional specialties. Artist Kan Takahama does an expert job of rendering the food, using a soft palette that captures the texture and presentation of each meal in life-like detail. The same is true of her backgrounds; every setting demonstrates similar attention to light, pattern, and color, making it easy for the reader to feel the atmosphere of every restaurant and hotel that Emma visits, from a chic Parisian restaurant to a dim but cozy rural pub.

Whenever the shop talk threatens to stop the story in its tracks, Takahama breaks up the stream of chatter by breaking the flow of her tight, orderly grids. Characters burst out of the frame, allowing us to more fully appreciate their enthusiasm and resolve. As these panels demonstrate, Takahama has a great talent for faces, working in a naturalistic style that’s reminiscent of Naoki Urasawa; Takahama imbues each one of her characters with an individuality that speaks volumes about their age and experiences, as well their taste in food and wine.

Though Takahama’s artwork is stellar throughout the book, there are a few passages where the authors didn’t fully trust the images to tell Emma’s story—most notably when depicting her strained relationship with Thomas, her long-term boyfriend. The two never meet in person, but exchange increasingly tense voice mails and text messages that reveal just how much Thomas resents Emma’s growing independence. Takahama’s artwork does a great job of showing us how conflicted Emma feels, but the authors saddle these moments with heavy-handed voice overs that spell out what the reader can readily grasp from Emma’s facial expressions and body language: she’s determined to have a meaningful career on her own terms, even if that means leaving Thomas behind.

If these moments feel a little forced, Emma’s interactions with other female foodies do not. In one particularly delightful chapter, for example, the Guide dispatches Emma to the Côte Vermeille, where a chance encounter at the post office leads Emma to a lively farm-to-table bistro that’s off the beaten path. Emma’s guide and dinner companion is Natalie, a local vinegar maker. As Natalie and Emma chat about the terroir–the secret ingredient in Natalie’s concoctions–we can see how their expertise and enthusiasm helps them form an immediate bond; by the time they arrive at the restaurant, they’re chatting like old friends.

The same spirit of mutual respect animates Emma’s interactions with another culinary expert: Kanami, a travel guide who leads Emma through a whirlwind tour of Tokyo. Kanami explains the origins of particular dishes, challenges the Michelin rating for a famous restaurant, and takes Emma to the Tsukiji Market to see how local fishmongers transform enormous tuna into delicate morsels. Emma is humbled by the depth and breadth of Kanami’s knowledge, and vows to return to Japan so that she can “keep learning and growing.” By the time I finished Emma Dreams of Stars, that’s how I felt, too. I was reminded of how little most of us know about the food we eat, and pledged to develop a deeper, more thoughtful relationship with the meals I prepare, and the dishes I enjoy. Recommended.

EMMA DREAMS OF STARS: INSIDE THE GOURMET GUIDE • BY EMMANUELLE MAISONNEUVE AND JULIA PAVLOWITCH • ART BY KAN TAKAHAMA • TRANSLATED BY EAMON FOGARTY • KODANSHA COMICS • NO RATING • 192 pp.