My Week in Manga

My Week in Manga: May 22-May28, 2017

May 29, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

As has been previously mentioned, a couple of weekends ago I attended the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (which I’ve apparently been going to for five years now). It took me a little longer than I had originally planned, but I did finally manage to post my random musings on TCAF 2017. In the post I write about some of the major highlights of the trip and attempt to summarize prominent themes that emerged during the panels that I attended. Last week I also spent a fair amount of time with my family in Ohio. I was already planning on going down for the long weekend, but that weekended turned out to be much longer than initially anticipated–my maternal grandmother passed away on Tuesday, so I left town on Thursday instead of Saturday. While the occasion was a sad one (though not entirely unexpected), it was wonderful to see so much of my family and everyone is doing really well considering. I also got to hear some great family stories and learned a bit more family history than I previously knew.

Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t really online much at all last week and was all sorts of distracted, so I’m sure there are plenty of things that I missed. However, The OASG had a great feature on Kazuhiro Fujita’s The Ghost and The Lady which combines a review and an interview with Finola Austin, the cultural consultant for the English-language edition of the manga. Seven Seas also made another series of interesting and exciting manga license announcements: Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale by Kikori Morino, Fauna and the Dragonewts’ Seven Kingdoms by Kiyohisa Tanaka, Ultra Kaiju Anthropomorphic Project by Shun Kazakami, Saint Seiya: Saintia Shō by Chimaki Kuori, and Leiji Matsumoto’s original Captain Harlock.

Quick Takes

Girls’ Last Tour by Tsukumizu. There is a fairly common conceit in manga and anime which can basically be described as cute girls doing things. Though I’ll still happily read it, it’s a category of manga that doesn’t especially interest me and I don’t usually intentionally seek it out unless there’s an additional hook of some sort that I am curious about. In the case of Girls’ Last Tour, it was the manga’s post-apocalyptic setting and a recommendation from a friend that caught my attention. And I’ll admit: I enjoyed the first volume much more than I expected I would and definitely plan on reading more. For the most part I find Tsukumizu’s artwork appealing, although in general the character designs are less inspired than the backgrounds. Chito and Yuuri are two young women traveling together across the wasteland in search of food, fuel, and the comforts of home. At this point in the manga it’s unclear what brought about the end of civilization or even how many survivors there are. (Chito and Yuuri spend most of the first volume alone together, but at one point they do meet and briefly team up with a mapmaker, so they aren’t the only ones left.) The backstory may never be fully explained as Girls’ Last Tour is mostly about Chito and Yuuri’s everyday lives. Girls’ Last Tour is a surprisingly delightful and charming series although it it has a melancholy air to it as well.

My Monster Boyfriend edited by C. Spike Trotman. Smut Peddler started as a series of minicomics before blossoming into a series of anthologies. My Monster Boyfriend is the first thematic Smut Peddler project as well as being the first Smut Peddler anthology to feature full-color artwork. The stories in My Monster Boyfriend are also longer than the ones included in the series’ previous installments–the anthology features ten erotic comics, the work of fourteen different creators. Unlike most of the comics anthologies that I’ve recently read, I was actually already familiar with most of the contributors to My Monster Boyfriend. The volume has a great lineup and I was not at all disappointed with the collection. I was particularly pleased to see the representation of a wide array of genders and sexualities. My Monster Boyfriend continues the sex-positive, queer-friendly trend of Smut Peddler. Considering the volume’s motif (inhuman men and their sexual partners), all of the stories included are fantastic by nature. However, there is still wonderful variety in style, approach, and genre. Some of the stories are comedic while others are quite serious; some comics lean towards horror while others tend towards romance. My Monster Boyfriend can in turns be sweet, scary, and sentimental.

My Week in Manga: May 15-May 21, 2017

May 22, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Other than the usual My Week in Manga, I didn’t manage to post any other features at Experiments in Manga last week. This was largely expected since I’m still catching up from my trip to the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. I have, however, been working on writing up some of my random musings about this year’s festival and hope to have those ready to post within the next few days. There is one thing that happened last week that I’d definitely like to share with everyone, though: the artwork that I commissioned from KaiJu was finished!

The illustration is of the characters Sachi and Kadoyuki from Lianne Sentar’s Tokyo Demons, a series which I love very, very much. I’m also quite fond of KaiJu’s original work as well, some of which I’ve previously reviewed here at Experiments in Manga. The creative team’s current comic is Novae which is absolutely wonderful and well-worth checking out.

Elsewhere online: Lilian Min talks to Jane Mai and An Nguyen about their new book So Pretty / Very Rotten in the article The Complex Femininity of Japanese Lolita Fashion. One of Tofugu’s most recent podcasts, Interpreting for Osamu Tezuka, features Frederick L. Schodt. Also at Tofugu, manga translator Zack Davisson has some advice for learning Japanese. Speaking of Davisson, he’ll be translating two of Seven Sea’s recently announced acquisitions: Go Nagai’s original Devilman manga series (this is huge!) as well as Go Nagai and Team Moon’s Devilman vs. Hades manga. In other licensing news, Viz Media will be releasing Hinodeya Sankichi’s Splatoon manga.

Quick Takes

Flying Witch, Volume 1 by Chihiro Ishizuka. I was only vaguely aware of Flying Witch before Vertical Comics licensed the manga; although I haven’t actually watched it, a twelve-episode anime adaptation of the series first aired a little over a year ago. Flying Witch is a manga about Makoto, a fifteen-year-old witch who has moved to the country to stay with her relatives while she completes her magic training. She’s a bit of an airhead and has a terrible sense of direction, but she’s earnest and kind and quick to make friends with the locals. The focus of Flying Witch is on the everyday lives of Makoto, her relatives, and friends. It’s a gentle and harmless manga that much of the time isn’t even about magic though it can still occasionally be charming. The manga’s artwork, much like the story itself, is functional but not particularly distinctive and even the worldbuilding is somewhat lacking. Flying Witch isn’t a bad series, but it didn’t really grab me, either. Granted, I don’t have a particular interest in witches. However, I did really like the series’ countryside setting. Additionally, The Harbinger of Spring, a nature spirit introduced in one of the final chapters of the first volume, was a fascinating addition and easily my favorite part of the manga.

Jane Eyre adapted by Crystal Silvermoon Chan and illustrated by SunNeko Lee. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre holds a very special place in my heart; I first read it in high school and it remains one of my favorite novels. To varying degrees, I’ve enjoyed the numerous films, novels, comics, and other works inspired by Jane Eyre that I’ve encountered as well. And so I was very curious to read one of the most recent adaptations, Chan and Lee’s Jane Eyre comic from Udon Entertainment’s Manga Classics line. (This is the same creative team which worked on the adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, one of Manga Classics debut titles.) Though overall Lee’s artwork is attractive, I wasn’t entirely satisfied by the character designs of the leads–Jane as a young woman doesn’t look much older than when she was a child, and Mr. Rochester comes across as too traditionally handsome. Other than that relatively minor complaint, Chan and Lee’s Jane Eyre remains true to Brontë’s original and is an enjoyable and very accessible rendition. Some small changes have been made, as Chan describes in the essay about the adaptation process, but all the major characterization and plot points remain. The volume also includes additional historical background information. Now I really want to reread the novel again.

Sherlock, Volume 1: A Study in Pink by Jay. I believe Sherlock is the very first manga to be released by Titan Comics, recently followed by Yano Takashi and Kenji Oiwa’s Assassin’s Creed: Awakening. The fact that Titan isn’t a typical manga publisher and hasn’t released many manga may partly explain why Jay’s adaptation of the BBC’s television series Sherlock was first released in English as six individual comic issues before being collected into a single volume. Titan’s catalog largely consists of comic adaptations of Western television and video game franchises, so Jay’s Sherlock fits in nicely with the rest. Sherlock is a modern reimagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, A Study in Pink influenced heavily by Doyle’s novel A Study in Scarlet. It’s been a while since I’ve actually watched A Study in Pink, but Jay’s interpretation does seem to be a very faithful one, including character designs that are based on the show’s actors, most notably Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Martin Freeman (Watson). Some of the action can be a little difficult to follow, but otherwise I largely enjoyed Jay’s version of A Study in Pink. However, because it is such a close adaptation and nothing much is added or taken away I’m not entirely sure who the best or intended audience for the Sherlock manga would be; most people would likely be satisfied with the original episode.

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Volumes 10-12 by Miki Yoshikawa. From the beginning Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches wasn’t without its problems, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the manga. However, I’m now starting to find the series somewhat wearisome even though there are some things that are quite well done and that I still like about it. With these three volumes, Yoshikawa brings the second major story arc of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches to a close and begins yet another one. To the Yoshikawa’s credit, each time the story is more or less restarted it makes logical sense, but at this point it feels like the series is being stretched out far longer than it was originally intended. (I suspect that Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches may be a victim of its own popularity and success.) The first story arc was highly entertaining, but I wasn’t as impressed with the second and the third hasn’t instilled much confidence in me that it will greatly improve. On top of that, the manga’s fanservice has become more and more forced as the series has progressed. Where at one point it was incorporated well into the story, more recently the fanservice is haphazard at best. Because at first I did greatly enjoy Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches and appreciated its gender play and themes of friendship, it saddens me to see the series’ decline.

My Week in Manga: May 8-May 15, 2017

May 15, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

The Bookshelf Overload for April was posted at Experiments in Manga last week; otherwise, things were pretty quiet. Initially I had an in-depth feature scheduled for this week, but I’ll probably end up pushing that back to next week instead. I spent last Thursday through Sunday in Canada with the family for vacation and the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) which I’ll be writing up like I have in years past. We had a great time, although not everything went exactly as planned.

Speaking of TCAF, Heidi MacDonald, Brigid Alverson, Deb Aoki, and Erica Friedman were apparently all sharing a hotel room for the event. I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but they took advantage of that fact by recording a podcast in which they (and eventually Robin Brenner and Eva Volin as well) discuss a wide variety of topics including manga, queer comics, food, libraries, and more: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4. I only found out about the details after I got back home, but once again some people had trouble crossing the border between the United States and Canada in order to attend TCAF. In one notable case, Anne Ishii, one of the folks behind Massive and Gengoroh Tagame’s interpreter and translator, was detained for over two hours before eventually being allowed to enter the country.

A few things from elsewhere online last week: Anyone who picked up the Attack on Titan choose-your-own-path book from Kodansha Comics will want know about the corrections and errata that were recently released online. Kodansha also confirmed it would be releasing the Neo Parasyte M manga anthology (a sort of companion volume to Neo Parasyte F which I greatly enjoyed). In other licensing news, although an official public announcement hasn’t been made, The OASG received some confirmation that Udon Entertainment is currently “deep into the localization” of Rose of Versailles and Sugar Sugar Rune. No release dates have been set yet, though. Seven Seas hasn’t mentioned any release dates for its most recent set of licensing announcements, either, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see Okayado’s MaMaMa: Magical Director Mako-chan’s Magical Guidance, Mintarou’s DNA Doesn’t Tell Us, Tekka Yaguraba’s Sorry For My Familiar, Hiroaki Yoshikawa’s Crisis Girls, Tsuina Miura and Takahiro Oba’s High-Rise Invasion, and Coolkyoushinja’s Mononoke Sharing all released first.

A couple of Kickstarters that have recently caught my attention, too. Chromatic Press’ latest campaign is raising funds to print the first volume of Magical How? by Eurika Yusin Gho (aka Eyugho). Though on occasion I’ve mentioned Magical How? on Twitter, I haven’t really wrote much about the comic here at Experiments in Manga. (Or at least not yet.) It’s a pretty fun series though, a sort of magical girl/boys’ love mashup with energetic, full-color artwork and lots of humor. The other project I specifically want to mention is for the second volume of Beyond, a queer speculative fiction comics anthology. If successful, the project will also allow the award-winning first volume (which is great) to be reprinted.

Quick Takes

Captive Hearts of Oz, Volume 1 written by Ryo Maruya, illustrated by Mamenosuke Fujimaru. One of the most interesting things about Captive Hearts of Oz is that the English-language release is actually the first time the manga has been published; rather than licensing existing content, the series is a direct collaboration between Seven Seas and the creators. Captive Hearts of Oz is Maruya’s debut work in English, but Fujimaru already has a notable presence due to the numerous Alice in the Country of… manga that have been translated. I suspect that it’s intentional then that Captive Hearts of Oz has a similar vibe to those series. Interestingly, there’s no explicit romance in the series yet although the manga is reminiscent of an otome game. Dorothy has simply been swept into an unfamiliar world where she meets a number of unusual people, many of whom just happen to be attractive young men. Captive Hearts of Oz is a somewhat unusual reimagining of a Western classic which may (or may not) have more depth to it than initially appears. At the very least there’s something dark and mysterious going on, although after only one volume it’s not entirely clear exactly what that is. The narrative is frustratingly disjointed in places, but I am curious to see how Captive Hearts of Oz continues to develop.

Goodnight Punpun, Omnibuses 4-5 by Inio Asano. At this point in Goodnight Punpun, the series’ titular protagonist has entered early adulthood and his life largely remains a directionless disaster not entirely of his own making. He’s not completely blameless, though. I find that I have to time my reading of Goodnight Punpun very carefully. The manga has a very pessimistic worldview with which I can very easily identify, so if I’m already feeling mentally or emotionally exhausted, it’s usually a good idea for me to wait to tackle the series. On the other hand, it can sometimes be extremely cathartic to completely acknowledge the unfairness and darkness of the story and its real-life parallels. Either way, Goodnight Punpun is an incredible and powerful work, but it’s also very hard-hitting. Asano seems to be very aware of this and very aware of some of the related criticisms that have been leveled at the series. I, for one, have at times questioned whether or not all of the pain and suffering in Goodnight Punpun ultimately serves a purpose or if the manga is simply reveling in gloom and despair. I’ll admit that I’m still not sure and probably won’t be convinced one way or another until the manga’s conclusion, but Asano does directly recognize those concerns by having the creative work of some of the series’ characters similarly criticized.

So Pretty / Very Rotten: Comics and Essays on Lolita Fashion and Cute Culture by Jane Mai and An Nguyen. I don’t have a particular interest in fashion, so if it wasn’t for the fact that I make a point to follow the work of Nguyen (aka Saicoink) I might not have gotten around to reading So Pretty / Very Rotten for quite some time. That would have been a shame because So Pretty / Very Rotten is both a terrific and fascinating work. I was certainly aware of Lolita culture previously, but I can confidently say that I have a much better understanding of it and even appreciation for it after reading So Pretty / Very Rotten. The volume examines numerous topics related to Lolitas–history, culture, fashion, identity, gender, expression, community and more–through approachable and accessible essays, both personal and academic (the Lolita lifestyle is one of the areas of Nguyen’s research), as well as through comics and illustrations. It’s a mix that works quite well. The essays are informative and the comics are cute and engaging, effectively demonstrating the concepts addressed through visual narratives. So Pretty / Very Rotten also includes an interview with and essay by Novala Takemoto, a prominent figure in Lolita culture who is probably best known in North America as the creator of Kamikaze Girls.

The Whipping Girl by Nuria Tamarit. I’m not entirely certain, but I believe that The Whipping Girl is the first published solo comic by Tamarit, an illustrator from Valencia, Spain. Even if it’s not, I certainly hope that there will be more in the future if for no other reason than Tamarit’s striking artwork is gorgeous. Color pencils are prominently used to illustrate The Whipping Girl and the effect is lovely. Writing-wise, the work isn’t quite as strong; The Whipping Girl feels like it ends rather abruptly, even considering that it’s a short comic to begin with, but it’s still an enjoyable tale. The story largely follows Agape, the whipping girl of Prince Dalibor. He’s a bit of a jerk, intentionally behaving improperly in order to get back at Agape who is generally much more capable than he is. She finally gets so fed up with the whole situation that she decides to make a run for it. Neither she nor Dal are able to anticipate the complete extent of the repercussions of her actions, and both are surprised to discover how close their bond really is. Overall, The Whipping Girl is a very satisfying comic with beautiful artwork, expressive characters, and a great sense of humor. Agape in particular is a delight, an intelligent, strong-willed young woman with an attitude.

My Week in Manga: May 1-May 7, 2017

May 8, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga, the winner of the Queen Emeraldas manga giveaway was announced. The post also includes a list of some of the manga available in English which are at least partially set in space. Otherwise, it was a fairly quiet week. I’m still very busy at work, training for the new job, but things are largely going well on that front. Later this week I’ll be leaving for a long weekend in Toronto for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, so hopefully I’ll still be able to remember everything that I’ve been learning when I get back.

Elsewhere online, Brigid Alverson recently reported back on manga at the C2E2 conference for Publishers Weekly. The Anime Feminist continues to host interesting features on manga; most recently freelance translator Jenny McKeon took a look at yuri manga. The San Diego Comic-Con is fast approaching which means that this year’s Eisner Award nominations have been announced. As usual, most of the nominated manga are found in the Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia category (Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano, Orange by Ichigo Takano, The Osamu Tezuka Story by Toshio Ban, Princess Jellyfish by Akiko Higashimura, and Wandering Island by Kenji Tsuruta) but Takeshi Obata’s artbook Blanc et Noir was also nominated for Best Comics-Related Book.

Quick Takes

Cigarette Girl by Masahiko Matsumoto. Although touted as the first collection of Matsumoto’s work in English (which may technically be true), Cigarette Girl is actually the second volume of manga by Matsumoto to be translated. Granted, Cigarette Girl was likely to be the first licensed (it was first announced by Top Shelf back in 2010), but it didn’t end up being released until 2016, two years after The Man Next Door was published by Breakdown Press. Matsumoto, like Yoshihiro Tatsumi (who provides the introduction to Cigarette Girl), worked in the gekiga tradition of manga. Cigarette Girl collects eleven of Matsumoto’s short gekiga manga, originally created for several different magazines in the early 1970s. Most of the stories could be considered romances of one sort or another. While an exploration of love isn’t necessarily the focus of the volume, the manga are all about relationships between people and often those relationships between men and women have a romantic bent to them. The stories in Cigarette Girl tend to be fairly quiet and focus on the everyday life of everyday people, but they’re also rather quirky and surprisingly funny, too. I enjoyed Cigarette Girl a great deal and would definitely be interested in reading more of Matsumoto’s work.

Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 1 by Canno. Lately, most of the yuri and other lesbian-themed manga translated in English are currently being released by Seven Seas, but other publishers have been starting to explore (or re-explore) the genre as well. One of Yen Press’ most recent yuri offerings is Canno’s Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, an ongoing series about the lives and loves of the students at an all-girls school. So far two main couples have been introduced and the short manga between chapter breaks implies that most of the background characters are in one way or another paired off together as well. As for the lead couples, first there is Ayaka and Yurine, the school’s top students. Ayaka is used to being first academically but finds that no matter how hard she tries, Yurine’s natural genius is tough to beat. Yurine, bored with how easy everything is for her, is delighted to finally have someone that she can consider a rival. While Ayaka and Yurine currently have something of a love-hate relationship going on, the affections of the second main couple are much sweeter and more clearly romantic–Ayaka’s tomboyish cousin Mizuki has been in a close relationship with Moe for years.

Nichijou: My Ordinary Life, Volumes 1-2 by Keiichi Arawi. I’ve heard great things about Nichijou, both the original manga and it’s anime adaptation and so I was fully expecting to enjoy the series. But while I tend to like absurd humor, for whatever reason the offbeat comedy found in the first two volumes of Nichijou just didn’t work for me. Or at least not consistently. While many of the gags fell flat, there were definitely individual bits that I found to be extremely funny. Some even made me laugh out loud. I was frequently amused by the manga as well as delightfully bemused. But as a whole, Nichijou seems to lack real substance. Granted, that’s not necessarily a bad thing and may very well be part of the point. The series mixes the mundane with the strange and completely unexpected, but that randomness can be difficult to follow at times. On top of the nearly nonexistent narrative logic, action and movement isn’t always conveyed clearly by Arawi’s artwork. As a result, the series’ humor can be difficult to interpret. Even so, Nichijou is admittedly silly and entertaining. But I was very surprised to discover that I didn’t enjoy the manga more than I actually did; it seems like it should haven been a series I loved.

Sweetness & Lightning, Volumes 3-5 by Gido Amagakure. As I’ve mentioned many times previously, I love food manga and Sweetness & Lightning is no exception. The series is an absolute delight. There’s the food, of course, which I find appealing, but perhaps even more so I enjoy the manga’s focus on friendship and family. Granted, all of this is all tied together in the story–food is what brings people together, creates connections, and deepens relationships. Preparing and sharing a meal is shown as a way of expressing love for another person. Food can also help keep memories alive. Inuzuka keenly feels the loss of his wife and their daughter Tsumugi misses her mother dearly. But as they learn to cook together, recreating family dishes and traditions, they can still be close to her even though she is gone. There are moments of intense sadness but there is also a tremendous amount of joy in Sweetness & Lightning. Amagakure’s illustrations are very expressive, finding an easy balance between these moods. In addition to more exaggerated expressions, the artwork also captures subtle changes. As Tsumugi grows older, for example, her character design matures slightly as well. Sweetness & Lightning is a wonderful series.

My Week in Manga: April 24-April 30, 2016

May 1, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga I posted two features in addition to the usual My Week in Manga. First up was the monthly giveaway. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, so there’s still time to enter for a chance to win the first volume of Leiji Matsumoto’s Queen Emeraldas. All you have to do is tell me a little about your favorite space manga (if you have one). Also posted last week was the long-form manga review for April. I took a look at The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún, Volume 1 by Nagabe. The manga was one of my most anticipated debuts of 2017 and it is easily one of my favorites to be released so far this year. Last week was also the first week at my new job so I was rather preoccupied and busy with settling in there and so wasn’t online all that much. However, I did catch an interesting feature on the recent josei renaissance over at Anime Feminist. The article is written by Megan from The Manga Test Drive, one of the manga review blogs that I make a point to follow and particularly like.

Quick Takes

Ghost Diary, Volume 1 by Seiju Natsumegu. My experience reading Ghost Diary was a little odd. I can’t say that I was overly impressed by the first volume while I was reading it, but by the time I reached the end I found that I actually had enjoyed myself and was interested in reading the rest of the short series. The individual elements of Ghost Diary aren’t particularly original, but as a whole it’s horrific fun. In some ways the manga feels like it’s a mashup of other existing stories which deal with the supernatural and the occult. Even the illustrations reminded me of other works, in particular some of CLAMP’s darker series. I was actually expecting Ghost Diary to be much more serious than it actually was. The manga definitely has a disturbing side to it, but to me it comes across as a dark comedy more than anything else. It’s both goofy and grotesque. The story follows Sukami Kyouichi, the youngest son in a long line of exorcists whose older sister (also an exorcist and far more powerful than he is) mysteriously disappears after he angers a god due to his inexperience, ineptitude, and ignorance. Now he’s desperately searching for her which proves to be a very dangerous venture.

Princess Jellyfish, Omnibus 4 (equivalent to Voluems 7-8) by Akiko Higashimura. At this point the Princess Jellyfish manga has progressed much further along in the story than the content that was adapted for the anime series (which was my introduction to the work). So far, my love for the series has yet to diminish. In this omnibus the women of the Amamizukan apartments (along with Kuranosuke) somehow manage pull off a successful fashion show which is intended, in a roundabout way, to save their home from being demolished and redeveloped. However, for that to work, their success will have to extend to actually launching the Jelly Fish brand as well, and reality is much more challenging than a dream. Princess Jellyfish is intentionally outrageous and comedic in the telling of its story but the underlying heart of the manga is believable earnest. I find the manga’s style of humor to be immensely entertaining, but probably what I enjoy most about Princess Jellyfish are its characters and their relationships with one another. I especially liked how Shuu and Kuranosuke’s brotherly affections were developed and portrayed in these two volumes.

Twinkle Stars, Omnibuses 1-2 (equivalent to Volumes 1-4) by Natsuki Takaya. Probably like most people, my introduction to Takaya’s work was through the series Fruits Basket, a landmark title in the North American manga industry. It would seem, then, that Takaya’s next major series, Twinkle Stars, would be an obvious license choice, but the manga only began to be released in English relatively recently. Other than the fact that Takaya was the creator, I actually didn’t know much about Twinkle Stars before reading it. The series turns out to be an incredibly compelling and emotionally resonant work even if some of the story developments do seem a little convenient and trope-worn. The lead of Twinkle Stars is Sakyua Shiina, an endearing highschool third-year whose outward cheerfulness goes a long way to hide her inner struggle with depression and self-worth, the result of a troubled family life. Fortunately, she now has people in her life who care for her dearly. Under some rather peculiar circumstance she meets and ultimately falls in love with Chihiro, a young man who likewise is left dealing with the aftermath of past tragedies. At times Twinkle Stars can be absolutely heartbreaking but this countered by the immense kindness that is also exhibited in the series.

Witchlight by Jessi Zabarsky. Before being edited and published in a collected edition with additional content, most of Witchlight had previously been released as a series of individual comic chapters. Described as a shoujo adventure, Witchlight is a delightful fantasy comic about the close bond of friendship and love which slowly develops between two young women as they travel together on a quest. They don’t start out on good terms, though. Sanja is kidnapped by Lelek, a candle witch who demands that she teach her how to use a sword. Lelek is searching for a part of herself that has been lost and magic isn’t always enough to protect her. While being abducted isn’t exactly a promising beginning to a relationship, Sanja is more curious than afraid and her good nature and openness has a positive influence on the untrusting Lelek who has kept her heart closed off from others for so long. Lelek and Sanja’s emotional journeys are the most important aspects of Witchlight, but their physical journey is also wonderful to watch unfold as they encounter other cultures and and types of magic. The characterizations, worldbuilding, artwork in Witchlight are all lovely.

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa. I find the cover design and even the title selected for the English-language edition of Ogawa’s Kamoku na shigai, midara no tomurai to be somewhat misleading. Revenge, although it does make a few appearances throughout the volume, is not at all an overarching theme. And while there is death and violence, most of the gruesomeness implied by the cover occurs off-page. That being said, Revenge is a marvelously disconcerting work of subdued horror. Everything in Revenge is told from a first-person perspective, giving the collection a surprisingly quiet and contemplative atmosphere which becomes increasingly dark as the volume progresses. The individual stories can all be read and function well on their own, but what makes Revenge such a phenomenal collection is how they are all entangled with one another. Often the connections are tangential–similar turns of phrases and references are used, main characters and plot points from one story appear and reappear in the backgrounds of others, and so on–but sometimes they have a profound impact on the interpretation of the various narratives. A close, careful reading of Revenge is rewarded with the revelation of a complex, strange, and surreal web of the macabre.

Your Name directed by Makoto Shinkai. Originally I thought I would be waiting to watch a home video release of Your Name but the film actually ended up being shown at one of my local theaters and a friend invited me out to see it over the weekend. Your Name is a beautiful film, both visually and thematically, and not quite what I was expecting. (Granted, I’m not entirely sure exactly what it was that I was expecting.) To me it almost feels like three different films have been merged into one. Initially Your Name is about Mitsuha and Taki, two young people who don’t really know each other but who have started to spontaneously and erratically switch bodies when they fall asleep. But when the switching suddenly and unexpectedly stops, the film changes its focus to Taki as he tries to locate Mitsuha, keenly feeling the absence of the close intimacy that the two understandably developed over time. From there the urgency of Your Name increases even more as Taki uncovers the truth and he and Mitsuha struggle to prevent further disaster and loss. In part a romantic comedy, in part a meditation on love and spirituality, and in part (it would seem) a response to the Fukushima disasters, Your Name largely remains cohesive even while bending and shifting between genres.

My Week in Manga: April 17-April 23, 2017

April 24, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Well, I didn’t manage to post my in-depth manga review for April last week after all. Today I’m starting in a new position at a different library, meaning that last week I spent most of my time tying up as many loose ends as possible at my previous job. This included writing a lot of documentation. And since I was doing so much writing for work, by the time I got home I didn’t want to do anything but read, so that’s what I did. (Which goes to explain why I ended up finishing Cixin Liu’s excellent novel The Three-Body Problem much sooner than I had originally anticipated.) But never fear, I’ll be posting my review of Nagabe’s The Girl from the Other Side later this week in addition to the monthly manga giveaway.

In other news, Seven Seas continued its string of licensing announcements, adding Orikō Yoshino and Z-ton’s light novel series Monster Girl Doctor, Kazuki Funatsu’s Yokai Girls manga, and Saki Hasemi and Kentaro Yabuki’s To Love Ru and To Love Ru Darkness manga to the slate. Recent announcements from Viz Media included Sankichi Hinodeya’s Splatoon manga, a Hello Kitty coloring book, picture books of Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke, as well as the My Little Pony: The Movie artbook. Kodansha Comics had a couple of announcements to make recently, too, such as the upcoming release of full-color hardcover edition of Gun Snark’s Attack on Titan: No Regrets (I’ve previously reviewed the series’ first English-language release) and a hardcover omnibus edition of Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel Alita. (The series was originally published in English by Viz Media but has been out-of-print for quite some time.)

I also came across a few other interesting things last week: Over at The OASG, Justin interviewed Mariko Hihara and Kotoyo Noguchi, two independent manga creators in Japan. Noguchi also had some questions to ask in return. Frederik L. Schodt (whose work I greatly enjoy) was recently profiled at Nippon.com. The article takes a look at his involvement as an ambassador for manga over the last four decades. Caitlin from I Have a Heroine Problem presented a panel called “Is This Feminist or Not? Ways of Talking about Women in Anime” at Sakura Con 2017 and has made her slides available. A very nicely designed site called Persona Problems offers criticism of Persona 5‘s English localization and delves into translation theory and practice that even people who don’t play the game may find interesting. Finally, the author and designer Iku Okada has started a series of autobiographical essays called Otaku Girl and Proud which explores Japanese gender inequality and identity and how popular culture can impact that experience.

Quick Takes

Dorohedoro, Volumes 17-20 by Q Hayashida. Despite being one of my favorite ongoing series currently being released in English, I seem to somehow always forget how incredibly much I love Dorohedoro. I tend to forget how tremendously horrific the manga can be, too, mostly because it simultaneously manages to be surprisingly endearing. Hayashida’s story and artwork is frequently and stunningly brutal, gut-churning, and grotesque, but Dorohedoro also carries with it a great sense of humor. Granted, the comedy in Dorohedoro tends to be phenomenally dark. Lately, as Dorohedoro continues to steadily progress along what I believe will be it’s final major story arc, the series has become fairly intense and serious, but it remains exceptionally weird and has yet to completely lose its humor. The plot of Dorohedoro does meander a bit and because it’s been so long since I’ve read the previous volumes I’m sure that I’ve forgotten a few important details as the story takes multiple convoluted turns along the way. Ultimately, it doesn’t seem to really matter though since the world and characters of of Dorohedoro follow and operate under their own peculiar sort of logic; Dorohedoro doesn’t need to make a lot of sense in order to be bizarrely enjoyable.

FukuFuku: Kitten Tales, Volumes 1-2 by Kanata Konami. Before there was Chi’s Sweet Home there was FukuFuku Funyan, Konami’s cat manga which started in the late 1980s. The series featured an elderly woman and her cat FukuFuku. More recently, Konami created FukuFuku: Kitten Tales, a spinoff of FukuFuku’s first series which, as can be accurately assumed by the manga’s title, shares stories from the loveable feline’s youth. While Konami’s artwork in FukuFuku: Kitten Tales is black-and-white rather than being full-color and the manga is only two-volumes long rather than being twelve, the series is otherwise very similar in format to Chi’s Sweet Home. It’s actually been quite a while since I’ve read any of Chi’s Sweet Home, but FukuFuku: Kitten Tales feels like it might be a little more episodic as well. However, it is still an incredibly cute series. Each chapter is only six pages or so but manages to tell a complete story, accurately portraying the everyday life and antics of a kitten. FukuFuku: Kitten Tales isn’t especially compelling or creative as far as cat manga goes, but it is an adorable series which consistently made me smile and even chuckle from time to time.

Magia the Ninth, Volume 2 by Ichiya Sazanami. I enjoyed the first volume of Magia the Ninth immensely. I’m not really sure I could call it a good manga per se, and I don’t think I would necessarily recommend it broadly, but personally I got a huge kick out of it. That being said, I can’t say that I’m surprised that the series only lasted two volumes. (I don’t know for certain, but I get the feeling that Magia the Ninth was cancelled.) What did surprise me was how well Sazanami was able to pull everything together to conclude the manga in a coherent (and almost satisfying) fashion when obviously it was intended to be a series on a much grander scale. To be honest, Magia the Ninth probably would have done much better for itself if the manga had had that level of focus from the very beginning. Magia the Ninth is a strange and somewhat goofy little series about demons, magic, and music. While the series wasn’t always the most comprehensible, it’s stylishly drawn, has tremendous energy, and even manages to effectively incorporate legitimate music history into the story. Magia the Ninth may not have lived up to its potential, but I had fun with it.

The Prince in His Dark Days, Volumes 2-3 by Hico Yamanaka. More and more of The Prince in His Dark Days seems to revolve around Itaru, but at this point I would still consider Atsuko, who is serving as Itaru’s double, to be the real lead of the manga. Unfortunately, Atsuko is casually threatened with sexual violence on a regular basis in the series which frankly makes me uncomfortable. In general, the power dynamics in The Prince in His Dark Days tend to be fairly disconcerting. It doesn’t really help when other characters’ try to play it off as a joke, either. If anything, it only seems to emphasize the fact that so many of them are unrepentant jerks. I know that I’m supposed to empathize with some of their personal struggles, but I find it difficult to spare a lot of sympathy for entitled assholes. However, the themes that Yamanaka explores in The Prince in His Dark Days are of tremendous interest to me, most notably those of gender expression and sexual identity. I also appreciate the manga’s melancholy mood and the slow blossoming of love in unexpected places. There’s only one volume left in The Prince in His Dark Days and despite some of my reservations about the series I am curious to see how it ends.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. If my memory serves me right, The Three-Body Problem is actually the first contemporary Chinese novel that I’ve read. It initially came to my attention when it became the first work in translation to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Interestingly, when The Three-Body Problem was translated into English by Ken Liu, the order of the chapters was restored to what the author originally intended and a few additional changes were made in consideration of some of the real-world scientific advances that had developed since the novel was first published in China. As a novel that leans heavily on hard science, I found The Three-Body Problem to be fascinating. (At one point in my life, I actually considered going into theoretical physics.) But what makes The Three-Body Problem so compelling are the social aspects of the narrative. In particular, China’s Cultural Revolution and the characters’ responses to it play a critical role in the story’s development. The Three-Body Problem is the first book in a trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past, and so while largely being a satisfying novel on its own, it’s obviously only the beginning of a larger work. I definitely plan on reading the rest.

My Week in Manga: April 10-April 16, 2017

April 17, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga was relatively quiet, but I did post the Bookshelf Overload for March. As mentioned in that post (and I think sometime prior to that as well), I’m currently in the process of changing jobs, so I’ve been a bit preoccupied to say the least. (If you follow me on Twitter, this largely explains my sporadic appearances there.) This week is my last week in my current position, so I’m understandably pretty busy with meetings and tying up loose ends and such. I still plan on finishing up and posting my review of the first volume of Nagabe’s The Girl from the Other Side sometime this week, but it will probably be towards the end.

Over the last week, Seven sees announced a couple more new licenses: Yoshikazu Takeuchi’s Perfect Blue novels (which were the basis for Satoshi Kon’s anime film of the same name) as well as Jin and Sayuki’s manga series Nirvana. Yen Press also had a slew of announcements: Natsume Ono’s ACCA 13 (probably the one I’m most excited about), Kudan Naduka and Nakoto Sanada’s Angel of Slaughter, Matoba’s As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Rihito Takarai’s Graineliers, Afro’s Laid-Back Camp?, Mufirushi Shimazaki’s The Monster Tamer Girls, Koromo’s A Polar Bear in Love, Matcha Hazuki’s One Week Friends, Fuse’s Regarding Reincarnating as Slime light novel (Kodansha Comics has licensed the manga), both the light novel and manga of Carlo Zen’s The Saga of Evil Tanya, Okina Baba’s light novel So I’m a Spider, So What?, Keiichi Shigusawa and Tadadi Tamori’s Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online, Abec’s Sword Art Online Artworks artbook, Reki Kawahara and Shii Kiya’s Sword Art Online: Calibur, Mai Tanaka’s Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School, Kakashi Oniyazu’s Though You May Burn to Ash, and Ryousuke Asakura’s Val X Love.

As for crowdfunding efforts, Digital Manga will be launching its most recent Juné Kickstarter sometime later today in an effort to publish print editions of some of Psyche Delico’s manga which were previously only released digitally. (This is in addition to recently announced print licenses of Psyche Delico’s Even a Dog Won’t Eat It and Choco Strawberry Vanilla.) Another Kickstarter project to keep an eye on is Retrofit Comic’s Spring 2017 collection which includes Yuichi Yokoyama’s Iceland. (In general Retrofit Comics releases some great books, but this will be the publisher’s first manga to be translated.) Finally, the wonderful people behind Queer Japan are currently raising funds for the film’s post-production as well as some of the non-profit organizations featured in the documentary.

Quick Takes

Dawn of the Arcana, Volumes 7-13 by Rei Toma. I enjoyed the first part of Dawn of the Arcana a great deal and so was looking forward to reading the rest of the series. As the manga progresses it becomes less reliant on the standard fantasy tropes that form its base, although it never escapes them entirely. However, even considering this, Dawn of the Arcana is still a satisfying and enjoyable series. The story’s most dramatic plot twist I guessed at long before it was actually revealed, but there were still developments and directions that the story took that managed to surprise me. At times it felt like Dawn of the Arcana was only scratching the surface, as if the manga was only providing a summary version of a much more complicated narrative. The characters and story have depth to them, but not everything is thoroughly and completely explored, much of the more nuanced interpretations being left to the readers to form. I really liked Dawn of the Arcana. It can be heartbreaking–the characters’ struggling with circumstances that have no easy resolutions–but also thrilling as they find ways to take control of their own fates.

Murciélago, Volume 1 by Yoshimurakana. I was forewarned about the violence, gore, and otherwise explicit nature of Murciélago, so I was well aware of what I was getting myself into by picking up the manga. Murciélago is ridiculous, absurd, extreme, over-the-top, and a great deal of fun if someone doesn’t have a problem with the series’ aforementioned blood and brutality. Interestingly, the risqué lesbian sex scenes which both open and close the first volume, while being deliberately lewd, scandalous, and outrageous are also entirely consensual and in a way are bizarrely one of the more wholesome aspects of the manga. The lead of Murciélago is Kuroko Koumori, a dangerous, murderous, and lecherous woman who has been sentenced to death for her crimes. Kuroko is a monster and is portrayed as such. (She’s an awful person, but I really like her as a character.) The only reason that she’s still alive is that the police have indefinitely postponed her execution in order to take advantage of her impressive skills as an assassin. So, yeah, Murciélago definitely isn’t a series for everyone, but I certainly plan on reading more of it.

Triton of the Sea, Omnibus 2 (equivalent to Volumes 3-4) by Osamu Tezuka. It has been a very long time since I read the first half of Triton of the Sea. So long ago in fact that I had forgot that I hadn’t actually finished the series yet. Fortunately, the manga was pretty easy to pick up again. I seem to like Triton of the Sea best when the story centers its focus on family. In the first omnibus, it was Triton’s relationships with his human family that really captured my attention and in the second it was his experiences as a new father that most delighted me. (It probably didn’t hurt that the baby merfolk were super cute.) Triton of the Sea is also a story of revenge. Triton is determined destroy the Poseidon clan for the sake of his people who have been nearly driven to extinction, his desire for retribution blinding him from seeing other courses of action that might allow the two clans to establish a lasting peace. This of course only serves to continue the cycle of violence that puts him and his loved ones in danger. Triton of the Sea isn’t Tezuka’s strongest or most notable work, but I did appreciate the themes that Tezuka was exploring with the series.

Wandering Island, Volume 1 by Kenji Tsuruta. The premise of Wandering Island is fairly simple: Mikura Amelia is a pilot for an air delivery service based in the Izu Islands that she and her grandfather established together. When he unexpectedly passes away, she understandably takes it pretty hard. While in mourning she discovers package among her grandfather’s belongings with an address on it that shouldn’t exist, leading Mikura to become obsessed with a search for a mysterious, disappearing island. Although there are some wonderful scenes of Mikura in flight, there’s not really much action in Wandering Island. Instead, the manga is rather leisurely paced with a contemplative and melancholic feel to it. Wandering Island is also beautifully illustrated, Tsuruta’s artwork being one of the series’ highlights. I love how Tsuruta is able to capture a sense of place and the people who live there. I’m not sure when or if the second volume of Wandering Island will be published in English (the Japanese edition itself isn’t even scheduled to be released until next month), but I would definitely like to see it translated.

Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima by Hideo Furukawa. Fukushima has been on my mind lately which reminded me of the fact that I had yet to read Furukawa’s Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure, one of the first major literary responses to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters associated with March 11, 2011. The work is rather curious, but it’s also worthwhile and powerful. In part it’s a sequel of sorts to Furukawa’s novel Seikazoku (The Holy Family), which hasn’t actually been released in English. However, familiarity with that earlier work isn’t at all necessary. Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure also delves into the history of Fukushima as a whole, both before and after 2011. But perhaps most importantly, it’s an incredibly personal memoir. Though he was away at the time, Furukawa was originally from Fukushima. Soon after the disasters struck, he traveled back to the area in order to witness the aftermath of the events himself. A fair amount of the volume is devoted to Furukawa’s profound experiences while on that trip, combining fiction, history, and biography in a compelling way.

My Week in Manga: April 3-April 9, 2017

April 10, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga the winner of the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid manga giveaway was announced. The post also includes a list of some of the manga available in print in English which feature dragons. Also posted last week was a guest review by my friend Jocilyn. She was inspired to write about Canno’s Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 1, the most recent yuri manga to be released by Yen Press. As mentioned previously, I’m currently working on my own in-depth review of the first volume of The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, A Rún by Nagabe. It looks like I should be on track to post it sometime next week.

Elsewhere online, Seven Seas has completely revamped its website, adding new features like browsing by genre, launching a newsletter, and so on. It looks great and what’s more, there will be a regular survey which provides readers an opportunity to give feedback and submit license requests. As part of the launch of the new website, Seven Seas also announced a few new licenses: Touki Yanagimi and Youhei Yasumura’s Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon, Shin Mashiba’s Yokai Rental Shop (I loved Mashiba’s Nightmare Inspector, so I’m really looking forward this one), and an omnibus of Fumiyo Kouno’s In This Corner of the World (Kouno is the creator of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms which is also excellent).

In other publishing news, some of Kodansha Comics digital-only titles were recently called digital-first, so there may yet be hope for print editions of some of the manga. I missed (or maybe forgot about) the initial announcement, but Titan Comics will be releasing Ravina the Witch? by Junko Mizuno in English later this year. (Ravina the Witch? was originally released in French in 2014.) In sadder news, Bruno Gmünder recently announced its bankruptcy (again). I’m not entirely sure what this will mean for the publisher’s past and future comics releases, including the Gay Manga line, but they might not stay in print long. (I’ve featured some of Bruno Gmünder’s releases here before; I’ll be sad to see them go if the publisher folds.)

As for a few of the interesting Kickstarters that I’ve discovered lately: Emily Cheeseman is raising funds to release the print edition of Gawain and the Green Knight, a beautiful webcomic that she’s been working on since 2015. I wasn’t previously familiar with the work of Elise Schuenke, but Living Space looks like it should be another great queer-themed comic. And speaking of queer-themed comics, the initial campaign for the Tabula Idem tarot anthology wasn’t successful but the creative team has revised and relaunched the project. Finally, anyone interested in Weird Al may be curious about Kelly Phillips’ comic memoir Weird Me about her experiences as the webmaster of a Weird Al fan site in her teens. (Weird Al’s music was a major touchstone for me growing up.)

Quick Takes

Dissolving Classroom by Junji Ito. Lately there has been a resurgence in manga by Ito being released in English. In many cases they’ve actually been re-releases, but there have been a few newly-translated manga being published as well, Dissolving Classroom from Vertical Comics being the most recent example. I love Ito’s brand of horror manga and Dissolving Classroom was originally serialized in a josei magazine, so the volume was an obvious candidate for one of my most anticipated releases of the year. As expected, I thoroughly enjoyed the manga, but Dissolving Classroom didn’t end up leaving as strong of an impression on me as some of Ito’s earlier works. The loosely connected stories in Dissolving Classroom follow the demise of the people who meet Yuuma, a young man whose constant apologizing will literally make a person’s brain melt, and his incredibly creepy little sister Chizumi. Neither of the siblings are quite what they initially seem. Yuuma in particular comes across as a troubled but largely benign individual; very few people actually realize what’s going wrong before it’s too late. Dissolving Classroom is bizarre but certainly not the strangest manga that Ito has created. The visuals aren’t as shockingly memorable as some of Ito’s other series either, but they are still successfully disconcerting.

Everyone’s Getting Married, Volume 1 by Izumi Miyazono. While josei manga have recently become more common in translation (a trend that I would love to see continue), there still aren’t all that many to be found. I’ve generally enjoyed the josei manga that I’ve read in the past and I like to show my support for new releases, so I made a point to try Everyone’s Getting Married. Asuka is well-admired for her successful career, but what she really wants in life is to get married and become a housewife. When her boyfriend of five years unexpectedly dumps her, she suddenly finds herself looking for a new long-term relationship. That proves to be more difficult than she expected and unfortunately for her most likely candidate is Ryu, a man who has made it very clear that he has no interest in marriage. I’ve growing a little weary of high school romances, so I found Everyone’s Getting Married to be a wonderfully refreshing change of pace; I enjoyed reading about adults and their lives and relationships for once. I also like Asuka a great deal. She’s independent, knows what she wants out of life, and is willing to work hard for what is important to her. I’m looking forward to reading more about her and reading more of Everyone’s Getting Married.

Ghost in the Shell, Volume 1.5: Human-Error Processor by Masamune Shirow. While I had previously read the first and second volumes of Ghost in the Shell, I had never actually read the manga’s third volume, something that I didn’t realize until Kodansha Comics recently re-released the entire series in a deluxe, hardcover edition. Even though it was the third volume of Ghost in the Shell to be collected and released, the events of Human-Error Processor take place between the first and second volumes (thus being numbered 1.5). The episodic chapters focus almost entirely Section 9 and the cases that group is investigating. A few intriguing new characters are introduced, but sadly the Major only makes the occasional guest appearance. Out of the three Ghost in the Shell volumes, Human-Error Processor is the most straightforward and easy to follow. While that’s something that I would generally welcome, the volume was somehow less interesting as a result even if it was more readable. As with the previous volumes in the series, some of the most interesting parts of the world-building in Human-Error Processor are actually only found in the footnotes instead of being directly incorporated into the manga.

Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez. It was the bold, vibrant colors and gorgeous illustrations of Nightlights that initially caught my attention. Alvarez is a Columbian illustrator; Nightlights is her first comic and my introduction to her work. Nightlights is about a little girl, Sandy, whose imagination takes flight at night. She gathers together small, mysterious, glowing lights and uses them to create anything that she can dream of. Come the day, she spends her time alone drawing what she has seen. It’s an innocent enough premise, but Nightlights can actually be pretty dark and some of the comic’s themes are fairly heavy. Nightlights could be described as an all-ages comic, but some younger readers might find it scary in places. There is also a depth and nuance to the comic and its narrative that only more mature readers will likely pick up on. Although the stories are notably different, Nightlights actually reminded me a little bit of the animated film The Secret of Kells which I likewise greatly enjoyed. Each in their own way the works are fairytale-like, telling stories about imagination, creation, and the unknown. Nightlights was a beautiful comic and I sincerely hope to see more work from Alvarez in the future.

Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung by Min Kym. In 2010, Kym’s Stradivarius was stolen from her in a London cafe. The violin was an integral part of her identity, not just as a musician but as a person, and its loss was devastating. Her burgeoning career as a soloist came to a sudden halt. The violin was recovered three years later, but circumstances didn’t allow Kym to reclaim the instrument as her own. Ultimately she had to put it up for auction, losing it once again. In part, Kym’s memoir Gone was written in an attempt to process these traumatic events, rediscover who she is, and move forward with her life. Telling her side of the story she recounts growing up as a child prodigy–as the youngest daughter, her family’s devotion to her talent as a violinist was at odds with their South Korean heritage–her development as a musician, and her relationships with the Stradivarius and the people around her. Gone is an incredibly heartfelt and personal memoir but it can be somewhat discursive; Kym’s style of writing is very informal and at times even chaotic. Her voice as an author isn’t as clear as her voice as a violinist, but her passion and pain resonates throughout Gone. Complementing the release of Kym’s memoir is a companion album available from Warner Classics.

My Week in Manga: March 27-April 2, 2017

April 3, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

As regular readers of Experiments in Manga know, on the last Wednesday of every month I host a giveaway of some sort (usually manga-related) for which participants have a week to submit their entries. This time around the monthly giveaway is for the first volume of Coolkyousinnjya’s surprisingly delightful Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. The winner will be announced this coming Wednesday, so you can still enter for a chance to win if you haven’t already. Also later this week, look for another guest review by my friend and fellow yuri manga fan Jocilyn. Elsewhere in the Manga Bookshelf sphere of blogs, The Manga Critic has started a monthly manga review index. There have been similar features in the past, perhaps most notably at MangaBlog, and I’ve always found them incredibly useful and valuable, so I’m glad to see Kate Dacey taking it on. Also in general, I highly recommend the content at The Manga Critic–Kate’s actually one of my major inspirations when it comes to manga blogging.

As for other interesting things I’ve come across recently: Chic Pixel’s Anne Lee has posted a really fantastic list of bibliographic resources for those curious about the academic study of boys’ love. (I’ve read quite a few books and articles myself, and even reviewed Jeffery Angles’ Writing the Love of Boys: Origins of Bishōnen Culture in Modernist Japanese Literature at Experiments in Manga a few years ago.) And if that’s not enough of BL studies for you, J. R. Brown has posted the slides from her Anime Boston panel “Boys’ Love, Otome Culture, and Gender” which covers everything from the origin of shoujo manga to gay comics and more. On their own the slides are fairly informative, but I’m looking forward to seeing the annotated version, too.

Also at Anime Boston, Viz Media made quite a few licensing announcements. Some were digital-only while others were digital-first or print-only. Here’s a quick list of the books that will eventually make their way into print: Kenta Shinohara’s Astra Lost in Space, Abi Umeda’s Children of Whales (I’m particularly curious about this series), an omnibus edition of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s Death Note collecting the entire series and a bonus epilogue in a single volume, Nisioisin’s Hikaru Nakamura’s novel Juni Taisen: Zodiac Warriors (I’m not familiar with the novel, but the creators involved have certainly caught my attention), Kenji Taira’s Naruto: Chibi Sasuke’s Sharingan Legend, Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu’s The Promised Neverland (which is supposed to be fantastic), a collection of nine Junji Ito stories and accompanying material selected by Ito himself called Shiver (always glad to see more Ito being released in English), Maki Enjoji’s SP Baby, and Sui Ishida’s artbook Tokyo Ghoul Illustrations.

A couple of Kickstarter projects recently launched which may be of interest as well: All the Anime/Anime Limited is joining forces with Studio 4°C to create a home video release of Masaaki Yuasa’s directorial debut Mind Game. Digital Manga has entered the fray again with a campaign to release more of Osamu Tezuka’s manga in print: Ambassador Magma, Dust 8, The Euphrates Tree, Metamorphose, Say Hello to Bookila, The Thief Inoue Akikazu, Wonder 3, and Yakeppachi’s Maria. It looks as though the print runs will be very limited and Kickstarter may be the only way to get a hold of some of the titles. (I have to admit, I certainly have my qualms about Digital Manga’s business practices in general and over-reliance on crowdfunding specifically. The quality of Digital Manga’s releases has really gone downhill over the last few years, too. Honestly, I’ve lost most of my confidence in the company as a publisher, but it’s managed not to completely go under yet.)

Quick Takes

Dawn of the Arcana, Volumes 1-6 by Rei Toma. I generally enjoy epic fantasy of the shoujo variety, so I’m not entirely sure why it’s taken me so long to finally get around to reading Dawn of the Arcana. So far, I’m enjoying the manga tremendously. Nakaba is a princess who has been married off to a prince of the neighboring kingdom despite her questionable ancestry in a half-hearted attempt to secure peace between the two countries. But instead, gifted with the ability to see both into the past and into the future, Nakaba may find herself in the unlikely position of leading a revolution. Dawn of the Arcana does come across as a rather typical example of high fantasy–all the way down to the heroine’s fiery red hair–but even though it hasn’t really made itself stand out yet, the manga is a solid series. I greatly enjoyed the manga’s mix of court and political intrigue, action, and complicated interpersonal relationships. Much like the story, the artwork tends to be somewhat standard although attractive. Toma’s backgrounds are generally fairly sparse, but the details put into things like the characters’ clothing is lovely. I definitely look forward to reading more of Dawn of the Arcana in the very near future.

Hana & Hina After School, Volume 1 by Milk Morinaga. I believe that Morinaga is currently the most well-represented yuri manga creator available in English. So far, five of Morinaga’s manga have been translated, the most recent being Hana & Hina After School. Interestingly, in Japan the manga was serialized in a magazine aimed at a general audience rather than one specifically catering to yuri fans. The titular Hana and Hina are two young women working part time at a store specializing in cute character goods even though their high school forbids its students from holding jobs. The story follows their relationship as they become friends and slowly realize that their feelings may evolve into something else. Like most of Morinaga’s other manga that I’ve read, Hana & Hina After School tends to be rather cute and sweet. The series is enjoyable and pleasant even if it is at times a little silly and somewhat unbelievable. However, the end of the first volume does introduce some sobering concerns when Hina is confronted by a few of her classmates homophobia, an unfortunate reality that many yuri manga tend to gloss over or ignore entirely in favor of pure fantasy. (Granted, that fantasy is important to have, too.)

Scum’s Wish, Volumes 1-2 by Mengo Yokoyari. I wasn’t initially planning to pick up Scum’s Wish, but after reading a few positive reviews of the series I decided to give it a try after all. The cover art of the first volume is deliberately provocative, but the manga isn’t nearly as salacious as it might imply. In fact, the series can actually be surprisingly contemplative. Scum’s Wish is a manga about unrequited love. Almost every character in the series is pining for someone with whom an involved romance would seem to be impossible or at least inadvisable, resulting in a complex web of personal relationships fraught with loneliness and anguish. (There is one heck of a love polygon going on in Scum’s Wish and nearly everyone who is introduced is connected to it somehow.) Hanabi is in love with Narumi, her childhood friend who now also happens to be her homeroom teacher. Mugi is in love with Akane, a music instructor who used to be his tutor. Recognizing that they are suffering under very similar circumstances and hoping to ease some of the pain, Hanabi and Mugi agree to find comfort in a relationship together. Neither one of them is in love with the other, but they are both aware of and take advantage of that fact.

Deep Red by Hisashi Nozawa. Although perhaps best known as a screenwriter, Nozawa was also recognized as an accomplished novelist. Deep Red, which earned Nozawa an Eiji Yoshikawa Prize in 2001, is his first novel to be released in English. Kanako is the only survivor of the mass murder of her family, simply because she happened to be away on a school trip when her parents and two younger brothers were killed. Understandably, their deaths have left a great wound, but Kanako isn’t the only one left troubled and hurt–the life of Miho, the daughter of the murderer, has also been irrevocably changed. At times, Deep Red is uncomfortably voyeuristic and there’s a peculiar fixation on Kanako’s body and sex life with her boyfriend. I was never entirely convinced by Kanako as a character, either. However, Deep Red does provide an interesting psychological exploration of hate, anger, and misplaced revenge. The novel is instantly engaging. However, the middle portion of the narrative is repetitive and does drag a fair bit; I admittedly started to lose my interest and patience with the story. But once Kanako becomes obsessed with and decides to pursue Miho, Deep Red picks up speed again and the novel’s ending is very satisfying.

My Week in Manga: March 20-March 26, 2017

March 27, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

I actually managed to post another review at Experiments in Manga last week! That makes two weeks in a row, which hasn’t happened in a very long time. My goal of writing one review every month still remains, but when a month with five Wednesdays (like March this year) comes along, I’m going to try to do a second in-depth review or feature. That way, every week will have at least two posts, the usual My Week in Manga along with another feature of some sort. Anyway, as for the review that was posted last week, I took a look at Akira Himekawa’s The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Volume 1 which I enjoyed a great deal. The manga stands well on its own so someone doesn’t have to be familiar with the original video game it’s based on to enjoy it. The manga series is also notably darker than Himekawa’s previous all-ages adaptations of The Legend of Zelda video games.

Elsewhere online, I came across a few interesting interviews to read. Over at Viz Media’s blog, speculative fiction author Taiyo Fujii talks a little about Orbital Cloud, his most recent novel to be translated into English. (I previously read and reviewed Gene Mapper, Fujii’s debut work of fiction which I rather enjoyed, so I’m looking forward to reading the award-winning Orbital Cloud.) Through the Painting is in the process of translating a 2013 Tokyo Manga Lab interview with Haruko Kumota, creator of the manga series Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju. (Kodansha Comics is releasing the series in English; it’s one of my most anticipated debuts of the year.) Finally, on the occasion of Yen Press’ recent release of Canno’s Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Brigid Alverson interviewed Erica Friedman about yuri manga for Barnes & Noble. And speaking of Yen Press, the publisher announced a few manga licenses last week: Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World, Chapter 3: Truth of Zero by Tappei Nagatsuki, Shinichirou Otsuka, Daichi Matsuse; Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Sword Oratoria by Fujino Omori, Takashi Yagi; Hybrid x Heart by Masamune Kuji, Riku Ayakawa; and Gabriel Dropout by Ukami.

Quick Takes

The Ghost in the Shell, Volume 2: Man-Machine Interface by Masamune Shirow. It’s been well over a decade since I first read Masamune’s The Ghost in the Shell manga. While I had vague memories of the first volume, I remembered virtually nothing about the second. Kodansha Comics’ recent re-release of the series in a deluxe, hardcover edition provided an ideal opportunity for me to revisit the manga. (The deluxe edition presents the manga in right-to-left format with the original Japanese sound effects for the first time; it’s also supposed to have bonus content, but I’m not exactly sure what that additional material is supposed to be in second volume.) Upon rereading the second volume of The Ghost in the Shell, I think I know why I had trouble recalling anything about it–the manga seems to be more show than substance. At times I would find that I had stopped reading the seemingly nonsensical text entirely and was just turning pages and looking the artwork, much of which is in color. There is a story in there somewhere, as well as some interesting worldbuilding and philosophizing, but most of that seems to be happening in the copious footnotes rather than in the manga proper.

A Land Called Tarot by Gael Bertrand. Originally serialized in the Island comics anthology, A Land Called Tarot was recently released in a standalone hardcover collection with additional content. Except for a few sound effects, A Land Called Tarot is actually a wordless comic. There is no dialogue or narration, so readers must rely entirely on Bertrand’s artwork to interpret the characters, story, and setting. Fortunately, Bertrand is more than up to the task. The artwork in A Land Called Tarot is absolutely gorgeous. The cover design is actually somewhat misleading–the interior illustrations are marvelously detailed and beautifully colorful. The lack of words in the comic invites readers to pay even more attention to the artwork and to explore the nuances of the fantastic world that Bertrand has created. The comic follows an adventurous hero, the Knight of Swords, as he travels across the land and meeting its people, his journey taking him through both time and space. There are moments of action and battle, but there are also moments that are peaceful and serene and sometimes even little lonely. A Land Called Tarot is a wondrous delight. I unequivocally loved the comic hope to see more work by Bertrand in the future.

My Neighbor Seki, Volumes 5-7 by Takuma Morishige. I’m not really sure why I’ve fallen behind reading of My Neighbor Seki because I enjoy the series a great deal. The manga remains consistently delightful and is wonderfully charming. My introduction to the series was through its anime adaptation; the chapters in these three volumes happen to be released or serialized around the same time that the anime was being produced. The author’s notes seem to imply that the manga wasn’t initially anticipated to become as long as it now has (the series is actually still ongoing, as far as I can tell) but the anime understandably revitalized interest in My Neighbor Seki. I like both versions of My Neighbor Seki, but there’s more in the manga that was never adapted. I continue to be impressed by Morishige’s inventiveness and imagination in creating new and clever scenarios for the series’ characters. Not much has changed from the beginning of My Neighbor Seki, although occasionally Seki isn’t the only one actively participating in the games he plays instead of paying attention in class. His mother has been introduced, too. I hope to see her again as one of the recurring characters.

Of the Red, the Light, and the Ayakashi, Volumes 2-3 by Nanao. While I enjoyed the first volume of Of the Red, the Light, and the Ayakashi, especially its ominous atmosphere and the sense of foreboding it inspired, it’s taken me quite a while to finally get around to reading more of the series. Now I’m regretting my delay, because the next two volumes are just as enticing as the first, if not more so, and if anything the series is getting stronger as a whole. Granted, there’s still some annoying awkwardness surrounding some of the characters’ conversations in which they seem to talk around important topics and information simply because the reader isn’t supposed to know the details about them yet. But even with this fault, Of the Red, the Light, and the Ayakashi manages to remain engaging. Part of this is due to the series’ air of mystery and the way in which Nanao is able to stretch out the story without being manipulative. For example, an important reveal in the second volume which in many other stories would have been the major plot twist is simply one in a longer string of steady developments. Several more questions are raised for every one that is answered in the series; I am incredibly curious to learn more.

My Week in Manga: March 13-March 19, 2017

March 20, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga I posted an in-depth review of Ichi-F: A Worker’s Graphic Memoir of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant by Kazuto Tatsuta. It’s an important and fascinating manga which reveals the day-to-day lives and work of the people who are directly involved with the ongoing cleanup following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters in Japan. On a related note, a while back I also reviewed Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill’s Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster which provides a fairly comprehensive and approachable overview of the disasters themselves as well as some of the initial recovery efforts. As for future in-depth reviews, I’m currently working on one for Akira Himekawa’s The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Volume 1 which I hope to post sometime later this week. (That would mean two reviews from me this month!) Initially I was planning to write a quick take on Nagabe’s The Girl from the Other Side, Volume 1 for today’s post, but I loved it so much that I want to delve into it more deeply, so expect to see a more comprehensive review for that manga in the relatively near future as well.

Quick Takes

Erased, Omnibus 1 (equivalent to Volumes 1-2) by Kei Sanbe. Although I haven’t actually watched it yet, Sanbe’s Erased manga was first brought to my attention due to its recent anime adaptation. I’ve heard very good things about it and so when Yen Press started releasing the original manga in a hardcover, omnibus edition it immediately caught my attention. Satoru Fujinuma has a peculiar ability which causes him to spontaneously travel back in time. Usually it happens just before some tragedy is about to occur, allowing him to try to prevent it, although doing so can sometimes cause problems for him personally. When a particularly traumatic event occurs, Satoru unexpectedly finds himself nearly two decades in his past, giving him the opportunity to try to stop a series of kidnappings and murders that haunted his childhood. While I found the story’s premise intriguing from the very start, it actually took me a little while to get into Erased. But by the end of the first volume I was hooked and by the end of the first omnibus I couldn’t wait to read more. (Also, fun fact!: Sanbe was one of Hirohiko Araki’s assistants and worked on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.)

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Oracle of Ages by Akira Himekawa. Despite being a fan of The Legend of Zelda, I haven’t actually read very many of the video games’ manga adaptations. However, the Legendary Edition of Himekawa’s The Legend of Zelda manga that Viz Media has recently begun releasing may very well change that. With the handsome book designs, larger trim, color pages, and previously unreleased material, the new edition of the series is tremendously appealing. Oracle of Seasons/Oracle of Ages is the second volume in the Legendary Edition to be released, adapting the two linked video games of the same name. I haven’t actually played the Oracle games so I can’t comment on the adaptation itself, but the manga is fun and energetic. The series is aimed at younger readers which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but the story and characters can occasionally come across as somewhat simplistic as a result. The antagonists in particular seem to lack nuance and tend to be evil for evil’s sake. But as a whole the Oracle manga are enjoyable adventures, following a young Link, a warrior of destiny but still a knight-in-training, as he tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life even while he’s saving the kingdom.

Samejima-kun and Sasahara-kun by Koshino. Currently, Samejima-kun and Sasahara-kun is the only boys’ love manga by Koshino to have been released in English in print, but I enjoyed it so much that I hope there will one day be more translated. For a while there Samejima-kun and Sasahara-kun had gone out-of-print, but it’s more-or-less available again. (Digital Manga seems to be using some sort of print-on-demand service to restock titles lately; sadly, though adequate, the production quality isn’t quite as good.) Samejima and Sasahara are both college classmates and coworkers at a convenience store. Everything seemed to be going along fine between them until Samejima confesses that he has fallen in love with Sasahara, thereby putting their friendship in danger. At first Sasahara tries to ignore the development, wanting to just remain friends, but he comes to realize he enjoys the attention, if only he could get Samejima to believe him. Their relationship (as well as the eventual sex they have together) is endearingly awkward–Samejima obviously cares about Sasahara and vice versa, but they also annoy the hell out of each other in a way that only the closest friends can do. They’re an argumentative couple, but the manga’s humor makes it work.

Now with Kung Fu Grip!: How Bodybuilders, Soldiers and a Hairdresser Reinvented Martial Arts for America by Jared Miracle. It would be understandable, if inaccurate, to assume from its title and description that Miracle’s Now with Kung Fu Grip! is a work of popular history. I personally found the subject matter to be interesting and learned quite a bit, however the book is difficult to recommend to a casual reader. While Miracle’s style of writing isn’t overly academic, it is incredibly dense and as a whole the volume seems unfocused. Most people will do well to simply read the book’s conclusion which provides an adequate summary, foregoing the rest of the content unless more explicit detail is desired. The cover image, taken from the Chinese martial arts film Fearless, is somewhat misleading as well as the book is almost exclusively devoted to Japanese martial arts and the ways in which they’ve been incorporated into American culture. Now with Kung Fu Grip! is less about martial arts themselves and more about their social and historical contexts and the mythologies and stories that practitioners construct around them. In particular, Miracle ties the evolution of Japanese martial arts traditions in America to their commercialization and to the changing interpretations and expectations of idealized American masculinity over time.

My Week in Manga: March 6-March 12, 2017

March 13, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Every month I post a Bookshelf Overload feature which takes a quick look at some of the manga and other media that make their way onto my shelves at home. And so last week I published February’s Bookshelf Overload. As I mentioned in that post, I’m currently working on an in-depth review of Kazuto Tatsuta’s Ichi-F: A Worker’s Graphic Memoir of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. I expect that it should be ready to post later this week (that’s my intention anyway), but I’m also incredibly busy right now getting ready to change jobs. Taiko performance season is also steadily ramping up, and the Lion Dance troupe is still getting regular performance requests, so I’ve had a bunch of extra rehearsals and less downtime in general, too. Still, the writing is slowly but surely happening!

Despite being so busy and not being online as much as usual, I did come across a few interesting reads last week. Jennifer Robertson (who I’ve actually briefly met before) recently wrote for Salon about Japan’s long history of blurred sexualities and gender-bending. Brian Hibbs takes his annual look at the BookScan numbers for comics and graphic novels for The Beat. The analysis includes a section specifically devoted to the manga being released in English. Finally, in what I think is terrific news, more of Yen Press’ digital-only titles will now be getting print editions, too! Look out later this year for Homura Kawamoto and Toru Naomura’s Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler, Higasa Akai’s The Royal Tutor, and Sakurako Gokurakuin’s Sekirei. Finally, a Kickstarter campaign was launched to publish anime director Yasuhiro Irie’s manga Halloween Pajama in English.

Quick Takes

The Ghost in the Shell, Volume 1 by Masamune Shirow. It’s been a long time since I’ve read Shirow’s The Ghost in the Shell. The series was actually among one of the first manga that I encountered. My introduction to the franchise was through Mamorou Oshii’s animated film Ghost in the Shell which probably remains my favorite interpretation of the story and characters. I actually often find the manga to be very difficult to follow. Shirow has some great, thought-provoking and intriguing ideas, but the flow of the story can be extremely disjointed at times. A live-action American Ghost in the Shell film will soon be hitting theaters, so it makes sense that Kodansha Comics would take advantage of the opportunity to re-release the original The Ghost in the Shell manga in a beautifully-produced deluxe hardcover edition. This “definitive” version is being presented in right-to-left format with Japanese sound effects for the first time. I’m fairly certain there are more color pages included, too, but the volume does lack some of the additional textual content found in previous English editions. The controversial lesbian sex scene has also been excluded at the creator’s request which does cause some slight narrative confusion.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, Volumes 5-6 by Izumi Tsubaki. I love Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun so incredibly much. This series, along with My Love Story!!, is something that I can always count on to make me happy. I find myself constantly smiling while reading Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and on more than one occasion have even caught myself laughing out loud. At this point the manga series is far enough along that almost all of the content is new to me. (My introduction to Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun was through the anime adaptation which is likewise an absolutely wonderful series.) There are new scenarios and even new characters–Nozaki’s younger brother and his judo teammates have become more prominent as one example–but those that were previously established are never forgotten. The good-natured humor in Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun remains consistent throughout the manga. Most of the hilarity is the result of the fact that none of the characters quite manage to be on the same page as any of the others and the ridiculousness that ensues because of it. The quirky characters themselves are incredibly endearing, too, even if they’re not particularly nuanced.

Ten Count, Volume 2-3 by Rihito Takarai. Well now, that escalated quickly. From the very first volume Ten Count presented itself as a dark psychological drama, but if anything its intensity only increases as the series progresses. The relationship between Shirotani and Kurose is an incredibly unhealthy one which only becomes more troubling as sexual elements are introduced to it. Kurose, whether or not he realizes it or intends to be, is abusive, manipulative, and controlling. He pushes Shirotani, often without consent or consideration, to his limits and beyond. Shirotani does have some personal breakthroughs but heartbreaking glimpses into his past and into his current emotional and mental states reveal a man who is conflicted and struggling with his own self-worth. Frankly, I find Ten Count to be disturbing and unsettling, verging on psychological horror rather than romance. At this point I can’t really envision things turning out well. (Honestly, I’d probably feel disappointed or even somewhat betrayed if Takarai manages some sort of romanticized happy ending.) To me Ten Count is still immensely engrossing, but I certainly can’t blame anyone who would want to avoid the series.

Dragnet Girl by Yasujiro Ozu. I recently had the opportunity to see Ozu’s silent film Dragnet Girl in a theater narrated by a professional benshi and accompanied by music cued by a prominent local DJ. There was even a brief lecture beforehand which I wasn’t expecting but found interesting. I enjoyed the production as a whole immensely–it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime events–but I also specifically enjoyed the film itself. (I really ought to seek out more of Ozu’s work.) Dragnet Girl is a gangster film which largely follows Tokiko and her boyfriend Joji, a retired boxing champion and current small-time crime boss. Hiroshi, a promising young hoodlum, joins the boxing gym and their gang. His older sister Kazuko worries about him and so tries to convince Joji to make her brother leave. Some romantic entanglements and turmoil ensue, but eventually Tokiko and Joji decide to leave their life of crime together but only after they pull off one last heist for the sake of Kazuko. Dragnet Girl is available from Criterion, collected together with two more of Ozu’s silent crime films, Walk Cheerfully and That Night’s Wife. It won’t quite be the same as watching it “live,” but it’s wonderful that there’s a home release readily available at all.

My Week in Manga: February 27-March 5, 2017

March 6, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week at Experiments in Manga the winner of the Tokyo ESP manga giveaway was announced. The post also includes a list of some of the manga available in English about psychics and/or espers. That was it for the blog, but as I previously mentioned, I had an all-day job interview last week which took up a fair amount of my time and attentions. Well, it turns out that they liked me, and I liked them, so it looks like I’ll be starting in a new position at a different library in May. It’s both very exciting and very nerve-wracking, but I think (hope!) it’s a good move for me. My day job will still have absolutely nothing to do with manga, though.

Elsewhere online last week there was ICv2’s annual Manga Week. A number of interesting manga-focused articles and interviews were posted, including a mention of some of Vertical Comics’ most recent licensing announcements: Arakawa Under the Bridge by Hikari Nakamura (the one I’m most excited for), Gundam Wing: The Glory of Losers by Tomofumi Ogasawara, Helvetica Standard by Keiichi Arawi, and Voices of a Distant Star by Makoto Shinkai and Mizu Sahara (technically a rescue as the manga was originally published in English by TokyoPop back in the day). Kodansha Comics recently made some announcements at ECCC. In addition to adding even more fantastic series to its digital initiative, Kodansha Comics is working on a Ghost in the Shell anthology similar to the Attack on Titan Anthology released last year. Should be interesting!

Quick Takes

Anonymous Noise, Volume 1 by Ryoko Fukuyama. I will pretty much give any manga a try if it’s even tangentially related to music, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that I would be interested in Anonymous Noise. The series follows Nino Arisugawa (called Alice, by some) who loves to sing. Expressing herself through music is an important part of who she is, but perhaps more importantly it’s how she connects to the people who mean the most to her. First there was Momo, Nino’s close childhood friend with a proclivity for making bad puns, and then there was Yuzu, who helped soothe Nino’s heartbreak with his own music when Momo’s family unexpectedly moves away. But after developing feelings for Nino, Yuzu suddenly disappears from her life, too. Fast forward a few years and the three of them are attending the same high school, although initially they don’t realize it. Most of the first volume feels like a prologue more than anything else, so I’m curious to see the direction the story proper will take from here. In addition to music, it seems that unrequited love will also be a major theme of Anonymous Noise. Complicated feelings of love, longing, loss, and loneliness set the tone for the series.

Big Kids by Michael DeForge. Due to my interest in alternative and independent comics, I’ve been aware of DeForge’s work for quite some time. However, I’ve never actually read any of DeForge’s comics until picking up Big Kids. To be honest, I think I was probably a little intimidated since DeForge is such a highly acclaimed and well-regarded artist. I recently came across Big Kids on display at my local comic book shop where flipped through a few pages before putting it back. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it and so ultimately brought a copy home with me. The small volume’s bright yellow cover burned itself onto my retinas, and it’s content has burned itself onto my soul. I’ve read through the comic several times now and I still can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know that I completely understand everything about it, but Big Kids is a work that is both surreal, verging on abstract, and powerful. In part, the comic about growing up. After being dumped by his boyfriend, Adam wakes up one day to discover that he has become a tree. The world itself is still the same, it’s just that Adam now views it from a vastly different perspective. But while being a tree has its benefits, there’s also a sense of sadness and loss associated with it.

Haikyu!!, Volumes 6-9 by Haruichi Furudate. Out of all of the sports manga currently being released in print in English, Haikyu!! is definitely one of my favorites. Admittedly, I was a little worried that as the series entered its first tournament arc and became more focused on the games themselves I would lose some of my enthusiasm (I’m not especially interested in volleyball), but my fears appear to have been mostly unfounded. Occasionally Haikyu!! will get a little bogged down in the particulars of volleyball, but this is usually completely offset by the series’ incredibly engaging characters. I’m immensely enjoying seeing them grow and evolve not just as players, but as people. I absolutely love the manga’s approach to and emphasis on teamwork. Some of the characters are prodigies, but it is made very clear that a single person cannot win on their own. Often it’s the unassuming, “ordinary” players who dramatically shift the course and tone of a game. Everyone has their own talents and abilities and everyone has an important role to play. Haikyu!! may be a series about volleyball, but its themes and message are much more universal than that. The manga has great positivity and energy which makes it fun to read, too.

My Week in Manga: February 20-February 26, 2017

February 27, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

In a few more days and March will be here and in a few more days the winner of the Tokyo ESP manga giveaway will be announced. Never fear though, there’s still a little time left to enter for a chance to win the first omnibus in the series! Simply tell me a little about a favorite psychic/esper from a manga. (A quick note: Normally I announce giveaway winners on Wednesday mornings but, because I have an all-day job interview on the 1st, this time the announcement will likely be made sometime on Wednesday evening instead.)

As for some interesting things I came across last week: The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo has created an online archive of early Japanese animation. An English-language version of the site is currently in the works, but even if you can’t read Japanese if you click around enough you’ll find the some of the videos available for viewing. The University of Michigan’s Center for Japanese Studies recently hosted two master rakugo artists–Yanagiya Sankyo and Yanagiya Kyonosuke–and has posted a video of one of their events. The video includes a brief introduction to rakugo, a demonstration and performance, and a question and answer session.

There are also a few podcasts worth mentioning (though I haven’t actually had the opportunity to listen to most of them yet): The most recent episode of Comic Books Are Burning in Hell is devoted to the late Jiro Taniguchi. Tofugu started a podcast not too long ago and recently talked with Alexander O. Smith about What Makes a Good Japanese Translator? (Smith does a fair amount of video game translation but translates novels and manga as well. He’s also one of the founders of Bento Books.) Vertical Comics recently started a podcast, too, and the first episode of the Mangocast is now available for listening.

As for crowdfunding efforts for queer comics, the end of February has seen quite a few Kickstarter projects launch: The Husband & Husband campaign is hoping to publish the first volume of the cute and funny webcomic in print. The Dates anthology, which focuses on queer historical fiction, is back for a second volume. (Though I haven’t written a quick take for it yet, I have the first volume and it’s great.) The Go Get a Roomie! project is raising funds to print the second volume and reprint the first volume of the webcomic. And finally, Digital Manga’s most recent Kickstarter has launched–Juné Manga is working with Velvet Toucher, a Japanese artist living in the United States, to release Eden’s Mercy.

Quick Takes

Guardians of the Louvre by Jiro Taniguchi. I’ve read most but not quite all of Taniguchi’s manga that has been released in English, but his recent passing reminded me that I hadn’t yet read Guardians of the Louvre, the latest one to have been released. One of the most remarkable things about Guardians of the Louvre is its full-color artwork. The volume is actually part of the “Louvre Collection,” a series of comics commissioned by the Louvre that feature the museum and its collections. (Hirohiko Araki’s Rohan at the Louvre is part of the same series.) Taniguchi is an extremely versatile creator; while some of his manga are action-packed, others are more introspective. Guardians of the Louvre is definitely one of the latter. The story is a quiet and contemplative exploration of art and inspiration, following a manga creator who is visiting Paris on his own for a few days. He falls ill soon after he arrives but pushes through in order to visit the Louvre. And so when he seems to start slipping through time, meeting artists and historical figures associated with the museum, not to mention the embodiments of some of the works housed there, he’s never quite sure how much of his visit is based in reality and how much is a fever dream.

He’s My Only Vampire, Volumes 1-3 by Aya Shouoto. While I don’t actively avoid vampire manga, I also don’t actively seek it out. Usually there has to be something a little “extra” to catch my attention. In the case of He’s My Only Vampire, I had decided to seek out more of Shouoto’s work available in English while waiting for more of The Demon Prince of Momochi House to be released. He’s My Only Vampire is kind of an odd series and at this point the manga doesn’t seem to have a clear direction. It’s as if Shouoto is either trying to do too much at once with the story or hasn’t quite decided where it should go yet. It can still be pretty entertaining from time to time, though. Shouoto’s artwork, even though anatomy seems to occasionally go out the window, can be lovely and sensual, too. So far the best part of the manga is the three main characters–Kana, the strong and spunky heroine, Aki, the titular vampire and Kana’s long-lost childhood friend, and Jin, a high-school delinquent who has recently discovered that he is at least part werewolf. Personality-wise and the relationship-wise they’re all sort of goofy and their interactions can be quite amusing. The story is taking some darker turns, but I think I prefer its humor.

Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Volumes 1-4 by Shinobu Ohtaka. I know quite a few people who love Magi and have heard plenty of great things about the series but despite those facts it’s still taken me this long to finally get around to reading the manga. Magi more or less starts out as a dungeon crawl which, while highly entertaining, isn’t exactly the most compelling narrative for a series that’s already over thirty volumes and still ongoing. But after the first dungeon crawl (and I suspect that there will likely be more of those in the future) Ohtaka begins delving into the characters and their motivations while exploring the vast world in which the live. In part Magi is inspired by One Thousand and One Nights but Ohtaka does not strictly adhere to those stories and characters, instead creating a complex world that is reminiscent of but distinct from that work. Magi really is a great series, with plenty of magic, mystery, and adventure; I can easily understand why it’s so well-loved. The artwork is clear and attractive, the settings and characters are interesting and well-realized, and the story, worldbuilding, and action are engaging. I also particularly appreciate that the women can be just as badass as the men in the series and in some cases are even more so.

NewsPrints by Ru Xu. My introduction to Xu’s work was through the beautifully illustrated webcomic Saint for Rent. However, NewsPrints is her debut graphic novel. Published by Scholastic the comic is aimed towards middle grade readers but it can be appreciated by older readers, too. NewsPrints, while still being very approachable, actually tackles some pretty weighty subject matter–war, propaganda, identity, and so on. The comic is about Blue, an orphan who is hiding the fact that she is a girl so that she can work as a newsboy for the Bugle, one of the only newspapers that actually reports the truth. The Bugle has taken in and cares for other orphans as well, but Blue is afraid that she won’t be able to hide her secret much longer and may lose her newfound family because of it. The city she lives in has very firmly entrenched ideas about what is and is not appropriate for girls to do. Blue is embroiled in an extremely dangerous situation when she meets and becomes friends with Crow who is also hiding a secret, one that could greatly influence the course of the war. Though NewsPrints tells a complete story the ending is left fairly open. Apparently a sequel is currently in the works; I’m very curious to see where Xu takes the comic next.

My Week in Manga: February 13-February 19, 2017

February 20, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Hooray! I managed to write and post another in-depth review at Experiments in Manga. Even if I’m not writing as much as I once was, it still feels pretty good to get back into the (slow) swing of things. Anyway, last week I took a look at Jen Lee Quick’s dark fantasy Western Gatesmith, Volume 1. The comic is off to an intriguing start though it can also be a little frustrating. The series is currently on break, but I hope that there will be more soon.

As many people are probably aware, the prolific and versatile mangaka Jiro Taniguchi passed away earlier this month. Despite not being particularly well known in English, a fair number of his manga have been released in translation. Kate Dacey of The Manga Critic has a nice guide to Taniguchi’s work for those interested in what is currently available. At The Comics Journal, Taniguchi was the subject of a recent article by Joe McCulloch and an obituary written by Zack Davisson. Other comic sites like The Beat have recently honored Taniguchi as well. I’ve read most but not quite all of Taniguchi’s work in English, my personal favorites being A Distant Neighborhood and his collaboration with Baku Yumemakura The Summit of the Gods. Way back when there was a Manga Moveable Feast devoted to Taniguchi, too. Some of the links are no longer work, but many of the features can still be tracked down.

In happier news, SuBLime announced three new licenses last week: Akane Abe’s Am I In Love or Just Hungry? (digital-only), Scarlet Beriko’s Jackass!, and Tsuta Suzuki’s A Strange and Mystifying Story. (I’m very curious about Jackass! and I’m very happy about A Strange and Mystifying Story which is actually a license rescue. The first three of seven volumes were originally published in English by Digital Manga; I remember quite liking them.) The Toronto Comic Arts Festival has started announcing its featured guests for the year which will include Gengoroh Tagame among other fantastic creators. The OASG talked to Kodansha Comics about the licensing of Chihayafuru. While still probably unlikely, a print edition of the series isn’t completely off the table. As for Kickstarter campaigns for queer comics that have recently caught my attention, Megan Lavey-Heaton has launched a project to print the third volume of Namesake.

Quick Takes

Blood Blockade Battlefront, Volumes 1-7 by Yasuhiro Nightow. I wasn’t initially planning on reading Blood Blockade Battlefront–I wasn’t a huge fan Nightow’s Trigun–but I kept hearing great things about the anime adaptation and then I came across a “complete” set of the manga on super sale, so I picked it up. The series is actually ten volumes long; supposedly Dark Horse has plans to release the final three at some point. In general the manga tends to be fairly episodic, so even if the rest of the series isn’t translated at least readers aren’t left with an unresolved story. It wasn’t until partway through the second volume of Blood Blockade Battlefront that the series started to click with me, but once it did I found myself really enjoying the manga. Its mix of goofy everyday life and action-heavy sequences actually reminded me a bit of Cowboy Bebop. The manga is essentially about a semi-secret group of monster hunters working in what used to be New York before it was destroyed by the sudden appearance of an interdimensional portal. The character designs of the main cast are sadly simple and plain compared to the series’ fantastic setting and creatures, but their distinctive personalities mostly make up for that.

The Box Man by Imiri Sakabashira. The North American manga industry is primarily focused on publishing more popular, mainstream works, but occasionally an alternative or independent work is released as well. The Box Man was originally serialized in Ax, an alternative manga magazine in Japan which was the basis for the Ax: Alternative Manga English-language anthology. Examples of Sakabashira’s work can be found in that anthology and in the earlier collection Sake Jock, but The Box Man is his first long-form work to be translated. Granted, there’s very little dialogue that actually needs to be translated–for the most part the manga is an entirely visual experience. Even the story is fairly limited in scope. The narrative follows a kappa-like cat accompanying a man on a scooter who is transporting a box which turns out to contain something rather peculiar. The strangeness of The Box Man doesn’t end there, but the point of the manga seems to be less about telling a story and more about creating a visual spectacle. The artwork incorporates popular culture references (some of which I’m sure I completely missed) and at times can be rather bizarre, violent, or erotically-charged.

Giganto Maxia by Kentaro Miura. Though it certainly has its problems, Miura’s Berserk is one of my favorite series. I have been significantly less enamored with the other manga by Miura that have been released in English–specifically his collaborations with Buronson Japan and King of Wolves–but I was still very curious about Giganto Maxia. Whether it’s intentional or not, the dark fantasy manga shares some similarities with Attack on Titan and Terra Formars and also appears to be heavily influenced by professional wrestling. Miura’s artwork in Giganto Maxia is tremendous but the story, while it isn’t awful, struggles to match the caliber of the illustrations. I almost wonder if Giganto Maxia was originally intended to be longer than a single volume since so much about the manga’s world and characters are left unexplained in the end. Giganto Maxia does more or less tell a complete story, but it feels like a single episode taken from the middle of a larger narrative. At one time a slave forced to battle to the death in a gladiatorial arena, Delos is now fighting against the empire itself. Joining forces with Prome, a powerful spirit who takes the form of a young girl (and who is constantly trying to get him to drink her “nectar” ), Delos can transform into the mythic titan Gohra in order to do battle.

Lake Jehovah by Jillian Fleck. Lake Jehovah, Fleck’s debut graphic novel, first came to my attention due to the fact that Jay, the comic’s protagonist, is genderqueer. While themes of identity, gender, and sexuality are integral to the comic’s story they aren’t the primary focus of Lake Jehovah. Instead, the comic is about the end of the world, both literally and figuratively. Human civilization has already succumbed to multiple apocalypses but Jay unexpectedly becomes the prophet for the next impending disaster while dealing with even more personal and existential crises. Jay struggles with intense depression and anxiety which slowly destroys xis relationship with xis fiance. Eventually she leaves, no longer able to cope with Jay’s instability, and Jay is left recover and come to terms with everything alone. Lake Jehovah actually handles the topic of mental illness better than many other comics I’ve read. It’s an emotionally tumultuous work, tempering despair with humor as the characters search for meaning in their lives even while everything is falling apart around them. Some turn to sex or drugs while others find comfort in poetry or art. Lake Jehovah is a somewhat strange but undeniably compelling comic.