Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Manga Critic

Dawn of the Arcana, Vols. 3-5

by 4 Comments

On the surface, Dawn of the Arcana looks like a Harlequin romance. Its flame-haired heroine is feisty and impetuous, torn between her feelings for the man who raised her and the man she was forced to marry. Both men are keen to “own” her — their word, not mine — and are willing to go to ridiculous extremes to prove their devotion, even setting aside their differences to honor her requests. And true to Harlequin form, the heroine frequently struggles to reconcile the circumstances of her marriage and her growing feelings for her jailer-husband.

Peer beneath its romance-novel trappings, however, and it quickly becomes clear that manga-ka Rei Toma is actually writing a pretty nifty fantasy-adventure as well, one with interesting moral dilemmas, parallels with contemporary geopolitics, and multi-layered characters whose behavior frequently deviates from the Harlequin playbook.

In volume three, for example, Nakaba’s mother-in-law attempts to dye her hair black, lest visiting dignitaries realize that the new Belquat princess hails from Senan. Toma might have used this scene to provide Caesar an opportunity to publicly declare his feelings for Nakaba, or demonstrate Nakaba’s ability to endure hazing with noble forbearance. Instead, Toma transforms this act of fairy-tale cruelty into a moment of self-actualization: Nakaba seizes a sword and defiantly gives herself a fabulous pixie cut — er, short, boyish locks — denying the queen the satisfaction of humiliating her in front of the royal family.

That act resonates throughout the next three volumes, as Nakaba sheds her girlish braid and girlish indignation in favor of a stronger, more active role in defeating Belquat’s royal family. Though Nakaba’s new ‘do leads to some predictable exchanges about “looking like a boy,” both Loki and Caesar admire her determination: red hair symbolizes more than just her country of origin, but also the struggles that helped define her as a person.

As appealing as such scenes may be, they highlight the series’ main drawback: the artwork is too plain and spare for a story with such vivid characters. Though the principal characters’ costumes are rendered in considerable detail, the supporting cast resemble Renfair extras, with faintly old-timey clothing and long tresses. Worse still are the backgrounds: with their perfect right angles and unvaried lines, they look like stills from an ancient Nintendo game, rather than a representation of a specific time and place. That sterility isn’t a deal-breaker, but it does reinforce the impression that Toma hasn’t quite developed the artistic chops to fully realize her vision.

Despite its artistic shortcomings, Dawn of the Arcana remains an appealing mixture of fantasy and romance, offering just enough sword fights, scenes of female empowerment, and emotional entanglements to appeal to fans of both genres.

Review copies provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

DAWN OF THE ARCANA, VOLS. 3-5 | BY REI TOMA | VIZ MEDIA | RATING: TEEN (13+)

Dawn of the Arcana, Vols. 3-5

by

On the surface, Dawn of the Arcana looks like a Harlequin romance. Its flame-haired heroine is feisty and impetuous, torn between her feelings for the man who raised her and the man she was forced to marry. Both men are keen to “own” her — their word, not mine — and are willing to go to ridiculous extremes to prove their devotion, even setting aside their differences to honor her requests. And true to Harlequin form, the heroine frequently struggles to reconcile the circumstances of her marriage and her growing feelings for her jailer-husband.

Peer beneath its romance-novel trappings, however, and it quickly becomes clear that manga-ka Rei Toma is actually writing a pretty nifty fantasy-adventure as well, one with interesting moral dilemmas, parallels with contemporary geopolitics, and multi-layered characters whose behavior frequently deviates from the Harlequin playbook.

In volume three, for example, Nakaba’s mother-in-law attempts to dye her hair black, lest visiting dignitaries realize that the new Belquat princess hails from Senan. Toma might have used this scene to provide Caesar an opportunity to publicly declare his feelings for Nakaba, or demonstrate Nakaba’s ability to endure hazing with noble forbearance. Instead, Toma transforms this act of fairy-tale cruelty into a moment of self-actualization: Nakaba seizes a sword and defiantly gives herself a fabulous pixie cut — er, short, boyish locks — denying the queen the satisfaction of humiliating her in front of the royal family.

That act resonates throughout the next three volumes, as Nakaba sheds her girlish braid and girlish indignation in favor of a stronger, more active role in defeating Belquat’s royal family. Though Nakaba’s new ‘do leads to some predictable exchanges about “looking like a boy,” both Loki and Caesar admire her determination: red hair symbolizes more than just her country of origin, but also the struggles that helped define her as a person.

As appealing as such scenes may be, they highlight the series’ main drawback: the artwork is too plain and spare for a story with such vivid characters. Though the principal characters’ costumes are rendered in considerable detail, the supporting cast resemble Renfair extras, with faintly old-timey clothing and long tresses. Worse still are the backgrounds: with their perfect right angles and unvaried lines, they look like stills from an ancient Nintendo game, rather than a representation of a specific time and place. That sterility isn’t a deal-breaker, but it does reinforce the impression that Toma hasn’t quite developed the artistic chops to fully realize her vision.

Despite its artistic shortcomings, Dawn of the Arcana remains an appealing mixture of fantasy and romance, offering just enough sword fights, scenes of female empowerment, and emotional entanglements to appeal to fans of both genres.

Review copies provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

DAWN OF THE ARCANA, VOLS. 3-5 | BY REI TOMA | VIZ MEDIA | RATING: TEEN (13+)

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Suki

by

The brilliant sociopath, the hooker with the heart of gold, and the naïf are my three least favorite character types, the first two for their tiresome ubiquity in popular culture, and the third for being tiresome: when was the last time you read a story about a sweet, innocent person that didn’t make you feel horribly manipulated or horribly jaded? Imagine my surprise, then, at discovering CLAMP’s delightfully odd series Suki: A Like Story, which revolves around a brilliant but impossibly naive teenager who trusts everyone, reads picture books, and talks to teddy bears. I thought I’d be tearing my breast in agony by the end of the first chapter; instead, I quickly succumbed to Suki‘s charms and even suppressed a sniffle or two in the final pages.

Suki succeeds, in large part, because the supporting cast has the same reaction to sixteen-year-old Hinata Asashi as the reader. Hina’s boundless enthusiasm endears her to best friends, Touko and Emi, though both roll their eyes at her inability to read social cues or grasp ulterior motives. Touko, in particular, is keen to protect her pal; as we learn in the second volume of the series, Hina has been kidnapped nine — count ’em — times over the course of her short life. (Hina’s dad is rich and willing to pay ransom for the safe return of his daughter.) Though an ordinary person might be deeply scarred by such experiences — or least more suspicious of strangers — Hina remains cheerful and oblivious to signs that a tenth abduction might be in the works.

Those signs include a string of odd coincidences: the long-vacant house next to Hina’s is suddenly occupied by a handsome young man who just happens to be Hina’s new homeroom teacher, Shiro Asou. Shiro just happens to be around whenever Hina is in need of an escort, or rescuing. And Shiro just happens to conduct clandestine meetings when the class goes on field trips. The ever-vigilant Touko quickly suspects the worst, but Hina interprets Shiro’s gruff yet solicitous behavior as concern, and develops a chaste crush on her sensei.

Watching Hina come to terms with her feelings is a painful but believable process. At first, she revels in any opportunity to spend time with Shiro, whether they’re raking leaves or walking home from school. Later, she begins to see parallels between their relationship and the relationship between two characters in a favorite picture-book series. (More on the series-within-a-series gambit in a minute.) In the final chapters of the book, Hina develops a more realistic idea of who Shiro is, eventually telling him how her feelings have evolved from youthful naivete to adult maturity. “At first, I fell in love with you because you did so many things I loved,” she confesses. “But from now on, Asou-san… whatever you do for yourself… I’ll love you for that.”

That Hina’s epiphany is facilitated, in part, by reading a children’s book may strike some readers as hopelessly twee. Suki — the name of the story-within-a-story — isn’t subtle; using bears as surrogates for Hina and Shiro, Suki charts the budding friendship between a small, chatty bear and her large, bespectacled neighbor. The parallels between the main plot and the story-within-the-story are obvious, but they serve an important purpose, reminding us that Hina is struggling to reconcile new, adult feelings with her decidedly child-like worldview.

Art-wise, Suki: A Like Story is one of CLAMP’s simplest — one might even say plainest — series. Tsubaki Nekoi’s style is much less Baroque than her cohorts’; she favors ordinary street clothes over epaulets and garter belts, and more realistic physiques over exaggerated shoulders and sharp chins. By shedding the fanciful trappings, Nekoi focuses the reader’s attention on faces, allowing us to fully register how each character is feeling. Nowhere is that more evident in the way Nekoi draws Touko. Touko is by far the most mature girl at Hina’s school, and the one most attuned to signs of adult malfeasance. Though Touko voices her concerns, the sadness in her face reveals a level of understanding that might be rooted in her own experiences, not just Hina’s:

Though Hina has a much more innocent personality than Touko, Nekoi resists the temptation to draw Hina as a child; Hina is clearly meant to be a teenager, given her size and athleticism. Hina’s transparent facial expressions, wide-eyed enthusiasm, and sudden, darting movements, however, hint at the discrepancy between her chronological and emotional ages; she bounces and skips and claps her way through the story, reacting with intense glee at even the briefest exchange with Shiro:

The art isn’t perfect by any means. Shiro’s proportions, for example, often look wrong: he has a tiny head and an enormous frame, and is so much taller than the other characters that he’d be NBA draft material in real life. Suki, the book-within-a-book, is also problematic. It’s quite possibly the dullest picture book I’ve read, a series of simple drawings accompanied by large, undifferentiated blocks of text. I certainly wasn’t expecting Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (or A Kiss for Little Bear), but the flat, unimaginative illustrations make it harder for the reader to imagine why someone Hina’s age would find the story so compelling:

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Suki is that Hina’s realistic coming-of-age story is embedded within a thriller. The suspenseful elements of Suki are handled with skill and restraint, even if they are a wee bit ridiculous. (OK, a lot ridiculous: who allows their frequently kidnapped sixteen-year-old daughter to live alone with her teddy bears?!) The few action scenes are brief but crisply executed, adding some much-needed variety in tone and pacing to the story. If the ending is a little too tidy, CLAMP avoids the trap of pandering to the reader’s expectations of what should happen; there’s a note of melancholy in that final scene, joyous though Hina may be.

Readers curious about Suki: A Like Story won’t have too much difficulty tracking down used copies on eBay or Amazon; the complete series will set you back about $20-30.

SUKI: A LIKE STORY, VOLS. 1-3 • BY CLAMP • TOKYOPOP • RATING: TEEN (13+)

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Suki

by 8 Comments

The brilliant sociopath, the hooker with the heart of gold, and the naïf are my three least favorite character types, the first two for their tiresome ubiquity in popular culture, and the third for being tiresome: when was the last time you read a story about a sweet, innocent person that didn’t make you feel horribly manipulated or horribly jaded? Imagine my surprise, then, at discovering CLAMP’s delightfully odd series Suki: A Like Story, which revolves around a brilliant but impossibly naive teenager who trusts everyone, reads picture books, and talks to teddy bears. I thought I’d be tearing my breast in agony by the end of the first chapter; instead, I quickly succumbed to Suki‘s charms and even suppressed a sniffle or two in the final pages.

Suki succeeds, in large part, because the supporting cast has the same reaction to sixteen-year-old Hinata Asashi as the reader. Hina’s boundless enthusiasm endears her to best friends, Touko and Emi, though both roll their eyes at her inability to read social cues or grasp ulterior motives. Touko, in particular, is keen to protect her pal; as we learn in the second volume of the series, Hina has been kidnapped nine — count ’em — times over the course of her short life. (Hina’s dad is rich and willing to pay ransom for the safe return of his daughter.) Though an ordinary person might be deeply scarred by such experiences — or least more suspicious of strangers — Hina remains cheerful and oblivious to signs that a tenth abduction might be in the works.

Those signs include a string of odd coincidences: the long-vacant house next to Hina’s is suddenly occupied by a handsome young man who just happens to be Hina’s new homeroom teacher, Shiro Asou. Shiro just happens to be around whenever Hina is in need of an escort, or rescuing. And Shiro just happens to conduct clandestine meetings when the class goes on field trips. The ever-vigilant Touko quickly suspects the worst, but Hina interprets Shiro’s gruff yet solicitous behavior as concern, and develops a chaste crush on her sensei.

Watching Hina come to terms with her feelings is a painful but believable process. At first, she revels in any opportunity to spend time with Shiro, whether they’re raking leaves or walking home from school. Later, she begins to see parallels between their relationship and the relationship between two characters in a favorite picture-book series. (More on the series-within-a-series gambit in a minute.) In the final chapters of the book, Hina develops a more realistic idea of who Shiro is, eventually telling him how her feelings have evolved from youthful naivete to adult maturity. “At first, I fell in love with you because you did so many things I loved,” she confesses. “But from now on, Asou-san… whatever you do for yourself… I’ll love you for that.”

That Hina’s epiphany is facilitated, in part, by reading a children’s book may strike some readers as hopelessly twee. Suki — the name of the story-within-a-story — isn’t subtle; using bears as surrogates for Hina and Shiro, Suki charts the budding friendship between a small, chatty bear and her large, bespectacled neighbor. The parallels between the main plot and the story-within-the-story are obvious, but they serve an important purpose, reminding us that Hina is struggling to reconcile new, adult feelings with her decidedly child-like worldview.

Art-wise, Suki: A Like Story is one of CLAMP’s simplest — one might even say plainest — series. Tsubaki Nekoi’s style is much less Baroque than her cohorts’; she favors ordinary street clothes over epaulets and garter belts, and more realistic physiques over exaggerated shoulders and sharp chins. By shedding the fanciful trappings, Nekoi focuses the reader’s attention on faces, allowing us to fully register how each character is feeling. Nowhere is that more evident in the way Nekoi draws Touko. Touko is by far the most mature girl at Hina’s school, and the one most attuned to signs of adult malfeasance. Though Touko voices her concerns, the sadness in her face reveals a level of understanding that might be rooted in her own experiences, not just Hina’s:

Though Hina has a much more innocent personality than Touko, Nekoi resists the temptation to draw Hina as a child; Hina is clearly meant to be a teenager, given her size and athleticism. Hina’s transparent facial expressions, wide-eyed enthusiasm, and sudden, darting movements, however, hint at the discrepancy between her chronological and emotional ages; she bounces and skips and claps her way through the story, reacting with intense glee at even the briefest exchange with Shiro:

The art isn’t perfect by any means. Shiro’s proportions, for example, often look wrong: he has a tiny head and an enormous frame, and is so much taller than the other characters that he’d be NBA draft material in real life. Suki, the book-within-a-book, is also problematic. It’s quite possibly the dullest picture book I’ve read, a series of simple drawings accompanied by large, undifferentiated blocks of text. I certainly wasn’t expecting Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (or A Kiss for Little Bear), but the flat, unimaginative illustrations make it harder for the reader to imagine why someone Hina’s age would find the story so compelling:

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Suki is that Hina’s realistic coming-of-age story is embedded within a thriller. The suspenseful elements of Suki are handled with skill and restraint, even if they are a wee bit ridiculous. (OK, a lot ridiculous: who allows their frequently kidnapped sixteen-year-old daughter to live alone with her teddy bears?!) The few action scenes are brief but crisply executed, adding some much-needed variety in tone and pacing to the story. If the ending is a little too tidy, CLAMP avoids the trap of pandering to the reader’s expectations of what should happen; there’s a note of melancholy in that final scene, joyous though Hina may be.

Readers curious about Suki: A Like Story won’t have too much difficulty tracking down used copies on eBay or Amazon; the complete series will set you back about $20-30.

SUKI: A LIKE STORY, VOLS. 1-3 • BY CLAMP • TOKYOPOP • RATING: TEEN (13+)

My 5 Favorite CLAMP Manga

by 19 Comments

I’ve read almost every CLAMP title available in English, from X (or X/1999, as we called it in back in the day) to Gate 7, and while I can’t claim to love them all, there is a core group of manga that I’ve read, re-read, and recommended to other fans. I make no special claims of excellence for these series, though I will say that these manga impressed me with their technical brilliance, genre-bending narratives, and beautiful artwork, if not their stellar endings.

MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH (Dark Horse; 2 volumes)

It’s easy to forget that Magic Knight Rayearth ran in the pages of Nakayoshi, as it adheres so closely to the friendship-effort-victory template that it almost passes for a Shonen Jump title. A careful reading of MKR, however, reveals it to be a unique fusion of shojo and shonen storytelling practices. On a moment to moment basis, MKR reads like shojo: the heroines denigrate their academic prowess, swoon over the only cute boy to cross their path, and extol the value of “heart” in defeating their enemies. The intense and protracted battle scenes, however, scream Naruto — or maybe Gundam — as the girls are pushed to their physical and emotional limits while casting spells, swinging swords, and piloting giant robots. That CLAMP reconciles such tonally different genres into a coherent whole is an impressive narrative feat; no matter how many times the heroines utter dippy or painfully sincere sentiments, their tenacity in combat makes them every bit as bad-ass as Naruto, InuYasha, or Ichigo Kurasaki. -Reviewed at The Manga Critic on July 22, 2011.

LEGAL DRUG (Tokyopop; 3 volumes)

I hesitate to use the word “intertextual” to describe Legal Drug, as that term is so heavily freighted with academic associations. But intertextual it is, as Legal Drug takes place in a universe that’s been carefully mapped out in prior works such as Angelic Layer, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Suki. Major and minor characters from Chobits and Suki wander in and out of the story, providing comic relief and commentary on the budding relationship between Rikuo and Kazahaya, two handsome young errand boys for the Green Drugstore. As in xxxHolic — a series in which Rikuo and Kazahaya make guest appearances — the supernatural frequently intrudes on mundane existence, giving rise to scenes of sublime comedy and surreal grace. An odd mixture of melancholy and whimsy, with a soupçon of shonen-ai.

CLOVER (Dark Horse; 1 volume)

Clover is a gorgeous train wreck, an unholy marriage of shojo, steampunk, and science fiction that almost — almost — gels into a coherent story. The plot revolves around a class of psychically gifted individuals known as Clovers, who have been rounded up, tested, and sorted into categories based on their abilities. The most powerful — Three- and Four-Leaf Clovers — have been imprisoned, as they pose a threat to humanity.

In the small fragment of story that CLAMP completed, the Clovers’ abilities are hastily sketched; the few demonstrations of their powers are less-than-awe-inspiring, and the government’s reasons for fearing them poorly explained. But oh, the atmosphere! Anyone who remembers what it felt like to be fourteen will recognize the Clovers’ magnificent isolation, as they struggle with feelings of loneliness, rejection, and desire; that they’ve been singled out for being different (and special!) only heightens the emotional intensity of their dilemma. The artwork, too, is a feast for the eyes, with inventive layouts and sensual character designs that rank among CLAMP’s finest. Even CLAMP’s use of soggy, overwrought song lyrics as a narrative device contributes to the story’s moody beauty, if not the pantheon of great love songs.

SHIRAHIME-SYO: SNOW GODDESS TALES (Tokyopop; 1 volume)

Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales is testament to CLAMP’s Borg-like ability assimilate any genre or artistic style and make it into their own. The three stories that comprise this slim volume are folkloric in tone and subject-matter, but expressed in a visual language that’s a beautiful synthesis of shojo manga and ukiyo print-making; the characters — with their pointy chins and artfully tousled hair — inhabit stark landscapes reminiscent of the Kishi and Shijo schools. If the overall mood is more subdued than xxxHolic or Tokyo Babylon, the stories are nonetheless moving in their directness and simplicity. The first, “On Wolf Mountain,” is the strongest of the three, exploring how one girl’s quest for revenge is transformed by the discovery that her enemy is, in fact, more courageous and generous than she ever imagined. The other stories — “The Ice Flower” and “Hiyoku no Tori” — read more like entries in Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan and Other Strange Stories, but are nonetheless effective parables about sacrifice. An out-of-print gem.

X (VIZ; 6 volumes)

On many levels, X is a bad manga: the characters are underwritten, the storytelling is lazy, and the dialogue is comically awful. (Don’t believe me? Check out Party Like It’s 1999, a Tumblr blog dedicated to exploring X on a page-by-page basis.) If you can look past the 90s hair and the tin-eared dialogue, however, what you’ll discover is a fierce apocalyptic drama that boasts some of the best end-of-the-world imagery in any manga not written by Katsuhiro Otomo. Oh, and blood. Buckets of blood.

The battle scenes are kinetic and violent, executed with a gory zest that’s difficult to resist. The dream sequences, too, are suitably shocking: characters are dismembered, crucified, impaled, and engulfed in flames, often right before their loved ones’ eyes. I hesitate to suggest that X‘s body count is a victory for women, but it is a sharp and welcome rebuke to the idea that female readers strongly prefer conversation and character development to butt-kicking and carnage. – Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 10/16/11.

So, readers, I turn the floor over to you: what are your favorite CLAMP titles? Which manga do you recommend to friends and new fans? Inquiring minds want to know!

Polterguys, Vol. 1

by 9 Comments

If you’ve ever watched Iron Chef, you know that some competitors prevail by transforming the day’s theme ingredient into dishes of astonishing originality and complexity, while others win by making everyday dishes—say, mac and cheese or fish sticks—with such consummate skill that they elevate comfort food into cuisine. I don’t know what kind of cook Laurianne Uy is, but if I had to hazard a guess based on her writing, I’d say she fell into the second category of culinary magicians. Polterguys, her print debut, isn’t astonishing for its novelty, but for its masterful presentation of a familiar story.

That story goes something like this: nerdy high school girl Bree seeks a fresh start in college. Bree soon discovers, however, that college isn’t the haven she imagined it would be. Her roommate is loud and messy, and her classmates are more interested in partying than studying. When presented with the opportunity to live on her own, off-campus, Bree jumps at the chance. The house she rents, however, is already occupied… by five male ghosts. And cute ones, at that.

What prevents Polterguys from reading like a supernatural retread of Ouran High School Host Club is Uy’s ability to adapt the reverse-harem concept to an American setting. The college town in which the story takes place bears a strong resemblance to Berkeley, CA (or perhaps Palo Alto), and the characters who inhabit the town look and sound like American college students. Her ghosts are pleasingly diverse, running the gamut from all-American jock to dread-locked scientist. Best of all, Uy’s protagonist has a depth and complexity that many shojo heroines lack; Bree is smart and capable, but her prickly behavior, fierce work ethic, and inability to relate to her peers make her seem like a real person, rather than a wallflower who’s just waiting for a hot guy to fall in love with her. (She’s also appealingly quirky, hanging a picture of Dr. Sanjay Gupta on her dorm wall for hunkspiration.)

Polterguys also benefits from a tightly scripted story. Uy handles the exposition crisply, using an emotionally charged scene to frame the action: we meet Bree, watch her move into her college dorm, then see her collapsed, sobbing, in the rain several weeks later. The story then jumps back to the beginning of her first semester, showing us the sequence of events that led to that tearful moment. Though Uy covers considerable territory in her first volume, completing one character’s story arc and establishing another (presumably to be addressed in the second volume), the narrative never feels rushed; Uy steadily increases the dramatic tension, building to third-act climax that’s both sad and satisfying.

Art-wise, Polterguys may remind readers of Dramacon and Nightschool — not because Uy’s style resembles Svetlana Chmakova’s, but because Uy, like Chmakova, employs an artistic vocabulary that’s a distillation of shojo manga conventions, rather than a slavish imitation. Uy’s character designs are a great example: though they’re heavily stylized and simplified, they owe as much a debt to Archie as they do to Ouran; the only obvious nod to shojo manga is embodied in a pair of twins who have a bad case of Manga Hair. (Both sport spiky, skunk-striped fetlocks.) In another departure from standard shojo operating procedure, Uy draws Bree as a slightly awkward, geeky figure — bespectacled and freckled, favoring Carhart pants over cute outfits — rather than a blandly pretty teen.

The Polterguys with Bree (front right). Image copyright Laurianne Uy.

Perhaps the best compliment I can pay Polterguys is that it’s an old story told well. Uy’s witty script and appealing characters leave a fresh impression, even when the plot itself does not; Polterguys is one of the most unabashedly fun new comics I’ve read this summer. Recommended.

Where to Read and Buy: Readers curious about Polterguys can read the entire first volume at Laurianne Uy’s website. Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign and a 2012 Xeric Grant, readers who would like to own a copy can purchase PDF and paper copies through her website. Polterguys is also available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Apple Bookstore.

Review copy provided by the artist.

Sakuran

by 11 Comments

The oiran, or Japanese courtesan, is a product of seventeenth century Japan. Like the geisha who eclipsed them in popularity, the oiran were not simply prostitutes; they were companions and performers, trained in a variety of arts — calligraphy, music, flower arranging — and prized for their ability to converse with powerful men. Though confined to the official pleasure districts of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka, they were highly visible, formally parading through the streets in elaborate costumes, attended by a retinue of maids.

As a potent symbol of the new, hedonistic culture of urban Japan, the oiran were frequent subjects of ukiyo-e, or “floating world” prints. Artists such as Suzuki Harunobou emphasized the oiran’s refinement, the rarefied world in which they operated, and, in their more explicit shunga prints, the bodily pleasures they offered.

Moyocco Anno’s Sakuran presents a less romanticized image of the oiran, documenting one girl’s rise from maid to tayuu, or head courtesan. We first meet Kiyoha as an eight-year-old child: orphaned and undisciplined, she chafes against the strict rules inside Edo’s Tamagiku House, making several unsuccessful attempts to escape. Shohi, Kiyoha’s mistress, is one of the few people to recognize Kiyoha’s potential: not only is Kiyoha quick-witted, she also boasts a porcelain complexion and delicate facial features, both highly prized assets in a courtesan. Shohi’s method for grooming Kiyoha for her new role is less tutoring than hazing, however, a mixture of slaps, insults, and mind games designed to teach Kiyoha to behave in a more dignified fashion.

Anno’s artwork is uniquely suited to the subject matter: it’s both starkly ugly and exquisitely beautiful, capable of conveying the anger and suffering beneath Kiyoha’s carefully manicured appearance. When we first meet Kiyoha, for example, Anno draws her as a “dirty little turnip” with a snot-stained face, unkempt hair, and an ill-fitting yukata. Though Kiyoha undergoes a remarkable transformation over the course of the manga, we are frequently reminded of what she looked like when she first arrived at Tamagiku. Kiyoha’s face contorts into a grotesque, child-like mask whenever she feels wronged or vulnerable, and she frequently reverts to a feral posture when eating, as if her bowl might be snatched from her hands.

In this sequence, for example, twelve-year-old Kiyoha interrupts a transaction between a shinzu (the lowest ranking courtesan of the house) and a lecherous customer. Kiyoha’s motives for intervening are unclear, since her relationship with the shinzu in question is never carefully delineated. As she tussles with the customer, however, we see Kiyoha’s childhood survival instinct emerge in full force, overriding Shohi’s etiquette lessons:

One of the things this sequence also emphasizes is the discrepancy in power between the low-ranking courtesans and the house clientele; any violation of established protocol could result in severe reprisal. Anno infuses this scene with special urgency by using blunt, contemporary speech in lieu of the archaic language that verisimilitude might demand. It’s a welcome departure from the tortured, Fakespearian dialogue that plagues the otherwise brilliant Ooku: The Inner Chambers, focusing the reader’s attention on visual signifiers of class and gender — eye contact, body language, clothing — rather than honorifics and awkward syntax.

Perhaps Anno’s greatest achievement is her ability to capture her characters’ physical beauty and sensuality without reducing them to objects. Even the most erotic images are carefully framed as business transactions: the dialogue reminds us that the oiran are performing for their customers, creating an illusion of sexual and emotional intimacy for the sake of money, while their customers’ grim expressions and sweaty bodies remind us of their determination to get the most bang for the buck (so to speak).

If Sakuran sounds like a hectoring treatise on prostitution, rest assured it’s not. Anno creates a vibrant, fascinating world, teeming with people from every walk of life. Though her female characters have limited agency, they nonetheless find opportunities to exert influence over their customers, improve their social standing, and choose their own lovers.

Kiyoha embodies all the contradictions and complexities of her environment: she’s impetuous, competitive, and unmoved by her peers’ hardships, yet she has a great capacity for feeling — and transcending — pain. That Kiyoha is, at times, a repellant figure, does not diminish her appeal as a character; we appreciate the mental toughness that her job demands, and admire her efforts to push back against its limits. It seems only fitting that the story ends not with the outcome that a modern reader might choose for this fierce woman, but with one that reflects the heroine’s own clear-eyed understanding of what she is. Highly recommended.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.

SAKURAN • BY MOYOCCO ANNO • VERTICAL, INC. • 308 pp. • RATING: MATURE (VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE, AND SEXUAL NUDITY)

Sakuran

by

The oiran, or Japanese courtesan, is a product of seventeenth century Japan. Like the geisha who eclipsed them in popularity, the oiran were not simply prostitutes; they were companions and performers, trained in a variety of arts — calligraphy, music, flower arranging — and prized for their ability to converse with powerful men. Though confined to the official pleasure districts of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka, they were highly visible, formally parading through the streets in elaborate costumes, attended by a retinue of maids. As a potent symbol of the new, hedonistic culture of urban Japan, the oiran were frequent subjects of ukiyo-e, or “floating world” prints. Artists such as Suzuki Harunobou emphasized the oiran’s refinement, the rarefied world in which they operated, and, in their more explicit shunga prints, the bodily pleasures they offered.

Moyocco Anno’s Sakuran presents a less romanticized image of the oiran, documenting one girl’s rise from maid to tayuu, or head courtesan. We first meet Kiyoha as an eight-year-old child: orphaned and undisciplined, she chafes against the strict rules inside Edo’s Tamagiku House, making several unsuccessful attempts to escape. Shohi, Kiyoha’s mistress, is one of the few people to recognize Kiyoha’s potential: not only is Kiyoha quick-witted, she also boasts a porcelain complexion and delicate facial features, both highly prized assets in a courtesan. Shohi’s method for grooming Kiyoha for her new role is less tutoring than hazing, however, a mixture of slaps, insults, and mind games designed to teach Kiyoha to behave in a more dignified fashion.

Anno’s artwork is uniquely suited to the subject matter: it’s both starkly ugly and exquisitely beautiful, capable of conveying the anger and suffering beneath Kiyoha’s carefully manicured appearance. When we first meet Kiyoha, for example, Anno draws her as a “dirty little turnip” with a snot-stained face, unkempt hair, and an ill-fitting yukata. Though Kiyoha undergoes a remarkable transformation over the course of the manga, we are frequently reminded of what she looked like when she first arrived at Tamagiku. Kiyoha’s face contorts into a grotesque, child-like mask whenever she feels wronged or vulnerable, and she frequently reverts to a feral posture when eating, as if her bowl might be snatched from her hands.

In this sequence, for example, twelve-year-old Kiyoha interrupts a transaction between a shinzu (the lowest ranking courtesan of the house) and a lecherous customer. Kiyoha’s motives for intervening are unclear, since her relationship with the shinzu in question is never carefully delineated. As she tussles with the customer, however, we see Kiyoha’s childhood survival instinct emerge in full force, overriding Shohi’s etiquette lessons:

One of the things this sequence also emphasizes is the discrepancy in power between the low-ranking courtesans and the house clientele; any violation of established protocol could result in severe reprisal. Anno infuses this scene with special urgency by using blunt, contemporary speech in lieu of the archaic language that verisimilitude might demand. It’s a welcome departure from the tortured, Fakespearian dialogue that plagues the otherwise brilliant Ooku: The Inner Chambers, focusing the reader’s attention on visual signifiers of class and gender — eye contact, body language, clothing — rather than honorifics and awkward syntax.

Perhaps Anno’s greatest achievement is her ability to capture her characters’ physical beauty and sensuality without reducing them to objects. Even the most erotic images are carefully framed as business transactions: the dialogue reminds us that the oiran are performing for their customers, creating an illusion of sexual and emotional intimacy for the sake of money, while their customers’ grim expressions and sweaty bodies remind us of their determination to get the most bang for the buck (so to speak).

If Sakuran sounds like a hectoring treatise on prostitution, rest assured it’s not. Anno creates a vibrant, fascinating world, teeming with people from every walk of life. Though her female characters have limited agency, they nonetheless find opportunities to exert influence over their customers, improve their social standing, and choose their own lovers.

Kiyoha embodies all the contradictions and complexities of her environment: she’s impetuous, competitive, and unmoved by her peers’ hardships, yet she has a great capacity for feeling — and transcending — pain. That Kiyoha is, at times, a repellant figure, does not diminish her appeal as a character; we appreciate the mental toughness that her job demands, and admire her efforts to push back against its limits. It seems only fitting that the story ends not with the outcome that a modern reader might choose for this fierce woman, but with one that reflects the heroine’s own clear-eyed understanding of what she is. Highly recommended.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.

SAKURAN • BY MOYOCCO ANNO • VERTICAL, INC. • 308 pp. • RATING: MATURE (VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE, AND SEXUAL NUDITY)

The Flowers of Evil, Vol. 2

by 12 Comments

Do you remember the first time you tried to impress someone on a date? I do: I was fifteen, and thrilled that an older boy had invited me to dinner. (He drove a Mazda two-seater and quoted lines from Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, which, in 1988, made him a god.) My strategy for wooing him was to describe, in excruciating detail, the nuances of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, from the opening tableau to the final notes. I was convinced that if he could see my passion for something as dark and powerful as that ballet, he’d understand who I really was, and fall in love with that person. (Needless to say, we didn’t go on a second date.)

Kasuga, the earnest hero of The Flowers of Evil, finds himself in a similar situation at the beginning of volume two: Saeki, the classmate whom he’s loved from afar, has finally consented to go on a date with him. As they wander the aisles of his favorite bookstore, Kasuga confesses to Saeki that Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal “changed how I see the world. I felt as though I’d been an ignorant fool my whole life.”  It’s a cringe-inducing moment — not because Saeki mocks Kasuga, or recoils from him, but because Kasuga has exposed himself in such a clumsy, sincere, and godawful manner.

That sincerity is nearly his undoing. Throughout the volume, Nakamura goads Kasuga about Saeki, reacting with fury when Kasuga asks Saeki to enter into a “pure, platonic relationship” with him: how dare he pretend to be normal? Nakamura then redoubles her efforts to reveal Kasuga’s “perversion,” currying favor with Saeki while pouring poison in Kasuga’s ear. But to what end? The final scene of the manga offers some interesting, and surprising, hints at Nakamura’s true agenda while suggesting that Kasuga might, in fact, have more in common with her than he’d care to admit. I won’t reveal what happens, but will venture to say that “orgiastic” is an apt description of those last glorious, frenzied pages.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.

THE FLOWERS OF EVIL, VOL. 2 | BY SHUZO OSHIMI | VERTICAL, INC. | 168 pp.

The Flowers of Evil, Vol. 2

by

Do you remember the first time you tried to impress someone on a date? I do: I was fifteen, and thrilled that an older boy had invited me to dinner. (He drove a Mazda two-seater and quoted lines from Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, which, in 1988, made him a god.) My strategy for wooing him was to describe, in excruciating detail, the nuances of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, from the opening tableau to the final notes. I was convinced that if he could see my passion for something as dark and powerful as that ballet, he’d understand who I really was, and fall in love with that person. (Needless to say, we didn’t go on a second date.)

Kasuga, the earnest hero of The Flowers of Evil, finds himself in a similar situation at the beginning of volume two: Saeki, the classmate whom he’s loved from afar, has finally consented to go on a date with him. As they wander the aisles of his favorite bookstore, Kasuga confesses to Saeki that Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal “changed how I see the world. I felt as though I’d been an ignorant fool my whole life.”  It’s a cringe-inducing moment — not because Saeki mocks Kasuga, or recoils from him, but because Kasuga has exposed himself in such a clumsy, sincere, and godawful manner.

That sincerity is nearly his undoing. Throughout the volume, Nakamura goads Kasuga about Saeki, reacting with fury when Kasuga asks Saeki to enter into a “pure, platonic relationship” with him: how dare he pretend to be normal? Nakamura then redoubles her efforts to reveal Kasuga’s “perversion,” currying favor with Saeki while pouring poison in Kasuga’s ear. But to what end? The final scene of the manga offers some interesting, and surprising, hints at Nakamura’s true agenda while suggesting that Kasuga might, in fact, have more in common with her than he’d care to admit. I won’t reveal what happens, but will venture to say that “orgiastic” is an apt description of those last glorious, frenzied pages.

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.

THE FLOWERS OF EVIL, VOL. 2 | BY SHUZO OSHIMI | VERTICAL, INC. | 168 pp.

Jiu Jiu, Vol. 1

by 11 Comments

My childhood bookshelves were filled with stories about wolves and the girls who loved them, so Jiu Jiu sounded like pure Kate Bait. Not only did Jiu Jiu feature wolves — two, to be exact — it also featured the kind of angry, conflicted heroine familiar to me from years of reading books like Sasha, My Friend. As an added bonus, Takamichi, the heroine, wasn’t just a frustrated teen adjusting to a new school and new classmates; she was a demon hunter who dispatched ghouls with the chilly efficiency of a robot, aided by Snow and Night.

But oh, the execution! Jiu Jiu is a riotously busy manga, with layouts that look more like a junior high school student’s scrapbook than a conscious ordering of panels. Author Touya Tobina draws cute wolf pups, but her command of human anatomy is poor; her characters’ rubbery limbs barely seem anchored to their torsos, resulting in odd pretzel configurations whenever they embrace or fight. Her use of screentone and pattern is similarly problematic: though the dark palette helps dramatize Takamichi’s inner turmoil, it also obscures many nicely observed moments, seldom allowing those images to stand alone, unadorned, for the reader to contemplate.

The other problem is the ever-present threat of romance. Snow and Night aren’t ordinary wolves; they’re shape-shifters who transform into handsome teenage boys. As much as they view Takamichi as their mother and mistress, there’s a strong whiff of eroticism in their interactions with her. Takamichi, of course, doesn’t yet perceive her pups’ romantic designs on her, though it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to see that living with two attractive wolf-men might  invite emotional and physical entanglements beyond the occasional game of fetch. By placing so much emphasis on Snow and Night’s hotness, however, author Tobina seems to be laying the foundation for a much less interesting story, one in which the heroine must chose between two cute guys, rather than forge her own destiny.

Where Jiu Jiu redeems itself is in the individual characterizations. Takamichi, for example, reminded me a lot of how I was at sixteen: moody, isolated, and eager to mask my insecurities with belligerence and swagger. Her hot-and-cold relationship with Snow and Night also rings with truth, as she vacillates between nurturing them and sternly rejecting them, re-enacting her fraught relationship with her father in the process. Snow and Night, too, are a marked improvement on the standard-issue shojo prince. Yes, one is blonde and outgoing while the other is bespectacled and introspective, but both characters’ personalities betray their canine DNA; who but a dog would think a frisbee was the ideal birthday present for a human?

For all the skill with which these characters are realized, however, Jiu Jiu still frustrates more than it entertains. The author’s visually frenzied layouts and frequent recourse to emotional manipulation make volume one a bumpy ride, with too many unwarranted shifts between comedy and heart-tugging drama. (Does anything say “emotional manipulation” quite like the sight of a whimpering puppy?) I’m still clinging to the hope that Jiu Jiu will improve in future chapters, if for no other reason that I haven’t outgrown my love of stories about tough girls who run with wolves.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media LLC.

JIU JIU, VOL. 1 • BY TOUYA TOBINA • VIZ MEDIA • 200 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Short Takes: Olympos and Utahime: The Songstress

by 8 Comments

When I first spotted the cover for Olympos, I had a nagging feeling I’d read something else by Aki, but couldn’t remember the title. A quick surf of the internet and presto! I had my answer: Aki also wrote Utahime: The Songstress, which DMP released in 2009 to strong reviews. In preparation for reading Olympos, I tracked down a new copy of Utahime. I had a vague notion of reviewing both books, then decided that the two-books-one-author concept would make a swell basis for a Short Takes column.

Which title did I like better? The answer might surprise you.

OLYMPOS

BY AKI • YEN PRESS • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Have you ever spotted a stunningly attractive person at a party, only to discover that he or she was a crashing bore? (Or worse, a boor?) If so, you may experience a few pangs of deja-vu while reading Olympos, a beautiful manga with a shapeless script.

Early in the story, the Sun God Apollo kidnaps Heinz, a human whose dearest wish is to marry his childhood sweetheart. Apollo offers Heinz a chance to perform a task in exchange for Maria’s hand — a task far more difficult than it initially seems. That sounds like a decent starting point for a cat-and-mouse game between Apollo and a plucky mortal, but Heinz soon disappears from the narrative altogether, creating a vacuum that’s never satisfactorily filled. Other figures from Greek mythology wander in and out of the story — Zeus, Poseidon, Artemis, and Hades all pop by for a cup of coffee and a little prophecy — but the endless stream of chatter grows tiresome.

That’s a pity, because Aki’s sensual linework is ideally suited to the material. Olympos is one of the few graphic novels in which the gods are so physically perfect, so pansexual in their appeal, that one can imagine why the gods bristled at the suggestion that any mortal might surpass them in beauty. Consider Hades, god of the underworld: Aki renders him as lithe man with goat horns, cloven feet, and a long mane of hair. For all his animal parts, however, Hades is undeniably attractive, moving with the grace of a Bolshoi dancer and meeting the other characters’ gazes with eyes that are both terrifying and alluring. The other gods are executed with similar care; even Poseidon, who’s portrayed as a bearded buffoon, has a handsome, agreeable face.

Some readers may find these drawings so appealing that the aimless script won’t spoil their enjoyment of Olympos. Others may find — as I did — that no amount of sensual imagery can hold their interest while the gods hold forth on the meaninglessness of their existence.

Review copy provided by Yen Press.

UTAHIME: THE SONGSTRESS

BY AKI • DIGITAL MANGA PUBLISHING • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Is gender destiny? That’s the question at the heart of Utahime: The Songstress, which takes place in a kingdom in which utahime, or “song princesses,” preserve the fragile peace through the power of their singing.

The story focuses on a trio of characters: fraternal twins Kain and Maria, whose mother is an utahime, and Thomas, whose father is the head of the nearby village. Kain, Maria, and Thomas’ relationship is shown at several stages, beginning with Kain’s return from a self-imposed exile of ten years. We then jump back in time to explore the characters’ childhoods, watching them come to terms with the ugly truth about Kain and Maria’s mother: she’s a virtual prisoner, jealously guarded by the local townspeople to ensure that their village remains safe and prosperous.

If you can soldier through the first few pages — which, I grant, are a mess — you’ll find an intimate story that focuses as much on the characters’ interior states as their actions. Aki allows her characters room for growth and reflection; though Kain and Thomas have a predictably antagonistic relationship as children, their shared concern for Maria overrides that hostility in adulthood. Aki also makes good use of her setting to explore the relationship between gender and destiny; if only women are allowed to be songstresses, what happens when a young man is born with the requisite voice?

If the artwork isn’t as lush as Olympos‘, it nonetheless makes a strong impression. Aki devotes the most attention to character designs, giving each cast member a distinctive appearance and an elastic, expressive face capable of registering subtle shifts in mood and energy. Her backgrounds, by contrast, are very sparse, making use of an occasional prop to establish the setting: a table and a few rickety chairs for a saloon, a high window and a iron frame bed for the utahime’s home.

That artistic restraint serves her story well, firmly establishing the characters’ emotional states without excessive reliance on dialogue and thought balloons. As a result, Utahime‘s script is leaner and more focused than Olympos‘, gently but insistently leading the reader through a series of effective (and affecting) scenes that help us appreciate the utahime’s plight. Recommended.

Drifting Net Cafe, Vol. 1

by

It takes nerve — nay, stones — to update Kazuo Umezu’s bat-shit classic The Drifting Classroom. That’s exactly what Shuzo Oshimi (The Flowers of Evil) has done in Drifting Net Cafe, however, substituting a nebbishy salaryman for Sho, the original series’ twelve-year-old protagonist, and an Internet cafe for Sho’s school. The results are a decidedly mixed bag, suggesting that some texts lend themselves to revision, while others are too much the product of particular author’s imagination to warrant re-telling.

As in the original series, the story begins with a snapshot of the hero’s daily life: 29-year-old Toki has an argument with his pregnant wife, Yukie, then goes to an office job he dislikes. On impulse, he stops in an Internet cafe on his way home from work, where he bumps into Tohno, a girl he loved in middle school. The two begin comparing notes on their current lives when an earthquake plunges the building into darkness. When no one arrives to lead Toki, Tohno, and their fellow customers to safety, the group makes a terrifying discovery: the cafe has been transported from Tokyo to a wasteland from which all evidence of human civilization — roads, buildings, people — has been expunged.

To his credit, Oshimi takes enough time to establish Toki’s routine and personality for the reader to appreciate what’s at stake if Toki doesn’t find a way to return to his old life. None of the other characters, however, are fleshed out to the same degree. Yukie is portrayed as a howling grotesque, at the mercy of her hormones; Tohno is saintly and brave; and the other cafe customers are assigned one or two defining traits, depending on their gender and age. Thin characterizations are a common problem in disaster stories; authors are often reluctant to bestow too much humanity on characters who are destined to become monster food or cannon fodder, lest the audience find the story too dispiriting. Oshimi, however, takes that indifference to an extreme, creating a supporting cast of repellant, one-note characters whose comeuppance elicit cheers, not tears.

The other great drawback to Drifting Net Cafe is Oshimi’s lack of imagination. Though Oshimi is a competent draftsman, he shows little of Umezu’s flair for nightmarish imagery. Consider the way Oshimi renders the cafe’s final destination:

The wasteland, as imagined by Shuzo Oshimi in Drifting Net Cafe.

It’s not a badly composed image; Oshimi makes effective use of the tilted camera angle to convey the characters’ disorientation, and uses a few charred trees to suggest that something powerful scoured the landscape clean. When contrasted with the original version, however, it’s clear that Oshimi’s image elicits a much tidier, less emotional response than the repulsive, molten moonscape that Sho and his teachers discover just beyond the school gates:

Umezu’s vision of the wasteland, from The Drifting Classroom.

Oshimi’s monsters, too, betray his tendency to favor blandly polished imagery over inspired, if crudely rendered, boogeymen. Late in volume one of Drifting Net Cafe, for example, a creature resembling a typical Star Trek parasite attacks a female character, latching onto her thigh. It’s a memorable scene, tapping a similar vein of body-violation horror as Alien and Prometheus, but the monster’s quick defeat makes it seem more like a pretext for fanservice than a genuine menace. Umezu’s monsters, by contrast, take a variety of forms — giant insects and lizards, creepy aliens with bulbous foreheads, giant metallic serpents with grasping hands — all of which seem like the products of a feverish child’s imagination, rather than something copied from a TV show or straight-to-DVD movie.

The characters’ conflicts, too, seem smaller and less compelling than they did in Umezu’s original, which pitted Sho and his classmates against their teachers. The Drifting Classroom‘s adults quickly become deranged with grief and fear, leaving the children to fend for themselves in a hostile environment. Sho and his classmates spend several agonizing chapters struggling to accept the fact that none of the adults are in charge anymore; the students’ first attempts to defend themselves against crazed teachers and giant bugs end in catastrophe, a gruesome reminder of their misplaced trust in the adults.

In Oshimi’s version, however, all the characters are adults. They challenge one another’s leadership, squabble over resources, and indulge their worst impulses, sexual and otherwise. Though some of these scenes pack a visceral punch, most simply reinforce the idea that Toki and Tohno are the only decent folk among a group of unpleasant, self-interested urbanites — not exactly the stuff of high-stakes drama, even if one character finds himself on the business end of a pocket knife.

Where Drifting Net Cafe improves on the source material is pacing. The Drifting Classroom unfolds at a furious clip; characters are maimed or menaced in every chapter, and speak at decibel levels better suited for the Bonnaroo Music Festival than everyday conversation. Oshimi, on the other hand, varies the narrative tempo of Drifting Net Cafe: some chapters are packed with important revelations and dramatic confrontations, while others are more leisurely. These quieter chapters are among the most unnerving, however, as we watch the characters size up each others’ weaknesses, like sharks circling a wounded seal.

Though conceived as a tribute to The Drifting Classroom, Oshimi’s work is more likely to appeal to readers who haven’t read the original, or who find Umezu’s distinctive artwork dated and ugly. Long-time fans of Classroom are likely to find Oshimi’s update slick but soulless, as it relies more heavily on low-budget disaster movies than the original source material for its characters and conflicts.

DRIFTING NET CAFE, VOL. 1 • BY SHUZO OSHIMI • JMANGA • 251 pp. • RATING: MATURE (18+)

Drifting Net Cafe, Vol. 1

by 6 Comments

It takes nerve — nay, stones — to update Kazuo Umezu’s bat-shit classic The Drifting Classroom. That’s exactly what Shuzo Oshimi (The Flowers of Evil) has done in Drifting Net Cafe, however, substituting a nebbishy salaryman for Sho, the original series’ twelve-year-old protagonist, and an Internet cafe for Sho’s school. The results are a decidedly mixed bag, suggesting that some texts lend themselves to revision, while others are too much the product of particular author’s imagination to warrant re-telling.

As in the original series, the story begins with a snapshot of the hero’s daily life: 29-year-old Toki has an argument with his pregnant wife, Yukie, then goes to an office job he dislikes. On impulse, he stops in an Internet cafe on his way home from work, where he bumps into Tohno, a girl he loved in middle school. The two begin comparing notes on their current lives when an earthquake plunges the building into darkness. When no one arrives to lead Toki, Tohno, and their fellow customers to safety, the group makes a terrifying discovery: the cafe has been transported from Tokyo to a wasteland from which all evidence of human civilization — roads, buildings, people — has been expunged.

To his credit, Oshimi takes enough time to establish Toki’s routine and personality for the reader to appreciate what’s at stake if Toki doesn’t find a way to return to his old life. None of the other characters, however, are fleshed out to the same degree. Yukie is portrayed as a howling grotesque, at the mercy of her hormones; Tohno is saintly and brave; and the other cafe customers are assigned one or two defining traits, depending on their gender and age. Thin characterizations are a common problem in disaster stories; authors are often reluctant to bestow too much humanity on characters who are destined to become monster food or cannon fodder, lest the audience find the story too dispiriting. Oshimi, however, takes that indifference to an extreme, creating a supporting cast of repellant, one-note characters whose comeuppance elicit cheers, not tears.

The other great drawback to Drifting Net Cafe is Oshimi’s lack of imagination. Though Oshimi is a competent draftsman, he shows little of Umezu’s flair for nightmarish imagery. Consider the way Oshimi renders the cafe’s final destination:

The wasteland, as imagined by Shuzo Oshimi in Drifting Net Cafe.

It’s not a badly composed image; Oshimi makes effective use of the tilted camera angle to convey the characters’ disorientation, and uses a few charred trees to suggest that something powerful scoured the landscape clean. When contrasted with the original version, however, it’s clear that Oshimi’s image elicits a much tidier, less emotional response than the repulsive, molten moonscape that Sho and his teachers discover just beyond the school gates:

Umezu’s vision of the wasteland, from The Drifting Classroom.

Oshimi’s monsters, too, betray his tendency to favor blandly polished imagery over inspired, if crudely rendered, boogeymen. Late in volume one of Drifting Net Cafe, for example, a creature resembling a typical Star Trek parasite attacks a female character, latching onto her thigh. It’s a memorable scene, tapping a similar vein of body-violation horror as Alien and Prometheus, but the monster’s quick defeat makes it seem more like a pretext for fanservice than a genuine menace. Umezu’s monsters, by contrast, take a variety of forms — giant insects and lizards, creepy aliens with bulbous foreheads, giant metallic serpents with grasping hands — all of which seem like the products of a feverish child’s imagination, rather than something copied from a TV show or straight-to-DVD movie.

The characters’ conflicts, too, seem smaller and less compelling than they did in Umezu’s original, which pitted Sho and his classmates against their teachers. The Drifting Classroom‘s adults quickly become deranged with grief and fear, leaving the children to fend for themselves in a hostile environment. Sho and his classmates spend several agonizing chapters struggling to accept the fact that none of the adults are in charge anymore; the students’ first attempts to defend themselves against crazed teachers and giant bugs end in catastrophe, a gruesome reminder of their misplaced trust in the adults.

In Oshimi’s version, however, all the characters are adults. They challenge one another’s leadership, squabble over resources, and indulge their worst impulses, sexual and otherwise. Though some of these scenes pack a visceral punch, most simply reinforce the idea that Toki and Tohno are the only decent folk among a group of unpleasant, self-interested urbanites — not exactly the stuff of high-stakes drama, even if one character finds himself on the business end of a pocket knife.

Where Drifting Net Cafe improves on the source material is pacing. The Drifting Classroom unfolds at a furious clip; characters are maimed or menaced in every chapter, and speak at decibel levels better suited for the Bonnaroo Music Festival than everyday conversation. Oshimi, on the other hand, varies the narrative tempo of Drifting Net Cafe: some chapters are packed with important revelations and dramatic confrontations, while others are more leisurely. These quieter chapters are among the most unnerving, however, as we watch the characters size up each others’ weaknesses, like sharks circling a wounded seal.

Though conceived as a tribute to The Drifting Classroom, Oshimi’s work is more likely to appeal to readers who haven’t read the original, or who find Umezu’s distinctive artwork dated and ugly. Long-time fans of Classroom are likely to find Oshimi’s update slick but soulless, as it relies more heavily on low-budget disaster movies than the original source material for its characters and conflicts.

DRIFTING NET CAFE, VOL. 1 • BY SHUZO OSHIMI • JMANGA • 251 pp. • RATING: MATURE (18+)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Vol. 1

by

The opening pages of Puella Magi Madoka Magica suggest a dreary retread of Sailor Moon: Kyubey, a talking cat, appears before Madoka Kaname, a perky yet otherwise unremarkable school girl, and asks her, “Would you like to change destiny?” Our first clue that Puella has something nastier up its be-ribboned sleeve occurs midway through the first chapter, when transfer student Homura Akemi confronts Madoka with a dire, if cryptic, warning: “You should never consider ‘changing yourself’ in any way,” she tells Madoka. “If you choose not to heed my words, those things that you hold dear will all be lost.” Homura then attacks Kyubey, accusing him of using “dirty tactics” to persuade Madoka to make a contract with him.

Though all the trappings of a traditional magical girl manga are in place — the costume changes, the cute familiars, the teamwork — Puella charts a darker, more violent course than other translated examples of the genre. Homura and Madoka operate in a world where magical girls routinely die; though their powers are formidable, magical girls are worked to the point of emotional and physical exhaustion. Moreover, their contracts are signed under duress; Kyubey frequently appeals to girls in desperate circumstances, using their vulnerability as leverage. (In exchange for battling witches, he explains to Madoka, “I fulfill one wish. Any wish you want!”)

In short, Puella manages to have its cake and eat it, too, faithfully adhering to the genre’s conventions while offering an explicit critique of its underlying message of courage and selflessness. The story is the antithesis of a wish-fulfillment fantasy: the powers that Kyubey bestows come with responsibilities that are too difficult for a young, inexperienced person to bear. Throughout the manga, we see examples of magical girls who have become competitive or embittered by their experiences, at risk of becoming witches themselves. We also meet girls who regret the haste with which they made their contracts, as their wishes were fulfilled at the expense of friends and family members.

As sharp as Puella‘s genre critique may be, the artwork is a disappointment. The character designs are faithful to the original anime, but the magical elements look smudgy on the page, the product of too much dark grey screentone. The anime’s surreal fight sequences have lost their visual punch as well. Creatures that looked strange and menacing in color have been defanged, reduced to cute video game monsters floating above the picture plane.

Most of the fight scenes have been compressed into a few pages, further curtailing their impact; we barely have time to register who the opponents are before one of the magical girls has eliminated the threat. As a result, the volume’s climatic scene lacks emotional resonance. Though the characters have repeatedly discussed how dangerous their vocation is, the fight is so fleeting and impressionistic that the stakes seem too low to yield such a devastating outcome.

If the artwork lacks the personality of a Magic Knight Rayearth or Cardcaptor Sakura, however, the actual story is on par with the best translated examples of the magical girl manga. Like the aforementioned CLAMP titles, Puella Magi Madoka Magica treats the magical girl as a character worthy of complexity and genuine interiority; the Puella girls may engage in magical combat, but they’re painfully aware that saving the world can be an ugly business — even if they’re wearing smart costumes.

Review copy provided by Yen Press.

PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA, VOL. 1 • STORY BY MAGICA QUARTET, ART BY HANOKAGE • YEN PRESS • 144 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)