Manga Bookshelf

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Manga Critic

No Guns Life, Vol. 1

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No Guns Life is a textbook example of  “robo noir,” a story that borrows tropes from Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon and transplants them to a not-too-distant future where old and new technologies rub shoulders, and damsels in distress might, in fact, be androids. The hero is Juzo Inui, a bodyguard-for-hire who has a strong moral code and an aversion to “humidity and kids.” Like the cyborg clientele he serves, Juzo’s body has been cybernetically enhanced, his head replaced with a giant revolver. Yes—you read that right. Juzo’s head can fire a round of ammunition, a creative decision that skirts the line between funny and horrific; only Juzo’s strong moral code makes the gun-as-head concept palatable.

And speaking of that moral code, volume one focuses on Juzo’s efforts to honor a contract with a fellow cyborg. That cyborg shows up at Juzo’s office with a 12-year-old boy in tow and a request: hide the boy from the Berühen Corporation, a powerful organization that manufactures top-secret weapons. With the police and Berühen’s goons on his trail, Juzo stashes Tetsuro with his friend Mary, a back-alley surgeon, and sets out to discover why Tetsuro is such a hot commodity.

While Juzo’s exploits are entertaining, No Guns Life is a mixed bag. On the plus side, the story is briskly paced and well drawn; Tasuku Karasuma creates a strong sense of place in his establishing shots, drawing a sprawling modern city that still has hole-in-the-wall office buildings, dingy basements, and crowded tenements, all populated by characters with memorable mugs. On the minus side, the story traffics in cliches, from the beautiful assassin who carries out her duties in a skimpy costume to the villains who deliver lengthy, exposition-dense monologues before pulling the trigger. The fight scenes, too, leave something to be desired; there are too many flash-boom panels that bury the action under sound effects and speed lines, leaving the reader to guess what’s happening. None of these shortcomings are fatal, but they emphasize the fact that No Guns Life is chiefly memorable because the protagonist looks like a Second Amendment poster boy, not because the story has something new to say about the boundaries between man and machine, or the ethics of human experimentation.

The bottom line: Fans of the anime will probably enjoy No Guns Life, but readers versed in sci-fi and noir conventions may find it too pedestrian to make a lasting impression.

A review copy was provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one will be released on September 17, 2019. Read a free preview here.

NO GUNS LIFE, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY TASUKU KARASUMA • TRANSLATED BY JOE YAMAZAKI • VIZ MEDIA • RATED T+, FOR OLDER TEENS (VIOLENCE, SCANTILY CLAD WOMEN) • 248 pp.

Go With the Clouds: North by Northwest, Vols. 1-2

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I’ve never used the word “shambolic” in a review before, but that was the first adjective that came to mind as I read Go With the Clouds: North by Northwest, a handsomely illustrated series that can’t decide if it’s a murder mystery, a coming-of-age story, an Icelandic travel brochure, or a Knight Rider episode. Go With the Clouds’ abrupt tonal shifts and plot twists left me scratching my head, but I was never bored or disappointed by Aki Irie’s narrative choices; if anything, the messy weirdness of the first volume was ingratiating, a reminder that sometimes the most interesting storytellers aren’t particularly disciplined.

The first volume is a bumpy ride, lurching from one idea to the next without warning. In the first five chapters alone, we learn that seventeen-year-old protagonist Kei Miyama is a detective-for-hire; has a younger sibling named Michitaka who’s the chief suspect in a double homicide; and can hear his car’s thoughts. (As befits a story set in Iceland, Kei’s car is very moody.) Though volume one ends with a dramatic confrontation over Michitaka, volume two barely acknowledges the murder investigation, focusing instead on a visit from Kei’s childhood friend Kiyoshi. The two spend an agreeable week touring the Icelandic countryside by car, visiting geysers, gawking at cliffs and waterfalls, and taking pictures. Michitaka makes the briefest of cameos, but is otherwise absent from volume two—a strange choice, given how urgent his storyline seemed in volume one.

Normally, this kind of narrative sloppiness if a turn-off for me, but Irie rewards the patient reader with complex characters, interesting bits of Icelandic lore, and—best of all—breathtaking artwork that captures the starkly beautiful landscape of the Golden Circle. Her linework is crisp and her use of tone sparing; in her most striking panels, we have a sense of how empty the Icelandic countryside really is thanks to her judicious use of white space. At the same time, however, she excels at detail work, giving the reader an intimate look at houses, cafes, churches, and—yes—car interiors. That same attention to detail extends to her character designs, which are an elegant blend of naturalism and stylization; you’d be forgiven for thinking that Kei looks more like a movie star than a moody teenager.

Her characterizations are likewise thoughtful. Kei, for example, isn’t defined solely by his gift; instead, it’s just a small facet of his personality that helps shed light on how attuned he is to his surroundings. The same is true for Kei’s grandfather, who’s initially portrayed as a stubborn curmudgeon but turns out to be more perceptive than his blustery persona might suggest, especially after Michitaka enters the picture. While several seemingly important characters are still in an embryonic stage of development—most notably Kei’s imperious neighbor Lilja—Irie’s ability to depict people in all their idiosyncrasies makes me confident that the supporting cast will be more fleshed out in future volumes.

I’d be the first to admit that the series’ pacing and narrative detours won’t be everyone’s cup of tea; I was initially put off by Kei’s one-sided conversations with his trusty jalopy, and frustrated by the sudden appearance—and equally sudden disappearance—of a Japanese investigator who is convinced of Michitaka’s guilt. By the end of volume one, however, I didn’t care; I felt that Go With the Clouds had transported me somewhere I hadn’t been before—in real life or my imagination—and was eager for another installment of Kei’s saga. Recommended.

GO WITH THE CLOUDS, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, VOLS. 1-2 • ART AND STORY BY AKI IRIE • VERTICAL COMICS • NO RATING

The Right Way to Make Jump

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Most books about the manga industry fall into one of two categories: the how-to book, which offers advice on how to draw proportionate characters, plan a storyboard, and buy the right pens; and the how-I-became-an-artist story, which charts the emotional ups and downs of breaking into the manga biz. The Right Way to Make Jump takes a different approach, pulling back the curtain on the production process.

Our guide to the manga-making process is Takeshi Sakurai, a spazzy, anxiety-ridden thirty-year-old who traded his dreams of becoming a professional manga-ka for a more predictable, less demanding life as an onigiri chef. Out of the blue, Sakurai receives a call from his former editor Momiyaxx-san about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to “create a non-fiction manga” that explains “how Jump is made.” After much hand-wringing and angst—and a friendly nudge from his cheerful, patient wife—Sakurai accepts the assignment, embarking on a series of factory tours and interviews to learn the nuts-and-bolts of publishing an issue of Weekly Jump. His odyssey takes him to a paper mill at the foot of Mt. Fuji, the editors’ bullpen at Shueisha headquarters, and VIZ’s corporate office in San Francisco, where Sakurai gets a first-hand look at how Jump is localized for different markets.

The book is cheekily divided into ten “arcs,” each of which focuses on a specific production step. The most interesting sections focus on the manufacturing process, explaining why Jump uses colored paper and how the magazines are cut, assembled, and bound. For readers who love the Discovery Channel—and I count myself among them—these early chapters are a blast, as they are studded with weird, wonderful facts about paper and machinery. (Among the most interesting: Jump paper dust plays an important role in Tokyo’s sewage treatment program.) The later chapters, by contrast, are less effective, as the editorial staff’s answers to potentially interesting questions are couched in polite, vague language that offers little insight into what they do; you’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes when a Jump staffer offers an essentialist justification for not hiring female editors, or chalks up the order of each issue to ‘intuition.’

Where The Right Way really shines is in Sakurai’s use of clever visual analogies to help the reader grasp the most  intricate parts of the manufacturing process. In “Platemaking,” for example, Sakurai creates a muscle-bound figure who represents the resin plate, a key element in the printing process:

The figure’s transformation neatly embodies the basic principles of creating a positive from a negative by comparing the process to suntanning—something that readers of all ages can relate to from personal experience.

As informative as such passages are, The Right Way can be a frustrating reading experience. Some chapters are briskly executed, achieving a good balance between education and entertainment, while others focus too much on slapstick humor, unfunny exchanges between Sakurai and Momiyaxx-san, and shameless plugs for Weekly Jump. Sakurai’s sardonic tone—expertly captured by translator Emily Taylor—helps mitigate some of these issues, but can’t always goose the tempo when Sakurai frets and fumes about meeting his deadlines; joking about your own shortcomings can be an effective strategy for ingratiating yourself to the reader, but not when you’re using those jokes to pad your weekly page count.

The overall structure of the book, too, leaves something to be desired. Though the first chapters focus on how the magazine is printed, the later chapters tackle a seemingly random selection of topics—Jump Festa, recycled paper stock, cover design, reader contests—suggesting that no one anticipated how long The Right Way would run in Weekly Jump. A topic-of-the-week approach is fine when readers wait for each new installment, but it makes for a chaotic, sometimes repetitive reading experience when collected in a single volume. The most logical strategy for organizing the tankubon edition would have been to start with the editorial process and end with the printing; not only does sequential presentation have obvious explanatory value, it also lends the material a compelling narrative arc, something that The Right Way to Make Jump sorely lacks.

Despite these shortcomings, I’d still recommend The Right Way to Make Jump, as it offers an all-too-rare glimpse of manga publishing’s less glamorous aspects, highlighting the contributions of professionals whose efficiency, creativity, and diligence have made Weekly Jump into a global phenomenon.

THE RIGHT WAY TO MAKE JUMP • ART AND STORY BY TAKESHI SAKURAI • TRANSLATED BY EMILY TAYLOR • VIZ MEDIA • 208 pp. • RATED T, FOR TEENS

The Poe Clan, Vol. 1

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Since its debut in Bessatsu Shōjo Comic, Moto Hagio’s The Poe Clan has proven almost as enduring as its vampire protagonists, living on in the form of radio plays, CD dramas, a television series, a Takarazuka production, and a sequel that appeared in Flowers forty years after the series finished its initial run. The Poe Clan’s success is even more remarkable considering that Hagio was in the formative stages of her career, having made her professional debut just three years earlier with the short story “Lulu to Mimi.” Yet it’s easy to see why this work captivated female readers in 1972, as Hagio’s fluid layouts, beautiful characters, and feverish pace brought something new to shojo manga: a story that luxuriated in the characters’ interior lives, using a rich mixture of symbolism and facial close-ups to convey their ineffable sorrow.

The Poe Clan‘s principal characters are Edgar and Marybelle Portsnell, the secret, illegitimate children of a powerful aristocrat. When their father’s new wife discovers their existence, Edgar and Marybelle’s nursemaid leads them into a forest and abandons them. The pair are rescued by Hannah Poe, a seemingly benevolent old woman who plans to induct them into her clan when they come of age. The local villagers’ discovery that the Poes are, in fact, vampirnellas (Hagio’s term for vampires) irrevocably alters Hannah’s plans, however, setting in motion a chain of events that lead to Edgar and Marybelle’s premature transformation into vampirnellas.

Though my plot summary implies a chronological narrative, The Poe Clan is more Moebius strip than straight line, beginning midway through Edgar and Marybelle’s saga, then shuttling back and forth in time to reveal their father’s true identity and introduce a third important character: Alan Twilight, the scion of a wealthy industrialist whose confidence and beauty beguile the Portsnell siblings. In less capable hands, Hagio’s narrative structure might feel self-consciously literary, but the story’s fervid tone and dreamy imagery are better served by a non-linear approach that allows the reader to immerse themselves in Edgar’s memories, experiencing them as he does: a torrent of feelings. Furthermore, Hagio’s time-shifting serves a vital dramatic purpose, helping the reader appreciate just how meaningless time is for The Poe Clan’s immortal characters; they cannot age or bear children, nor can they remain in any school or village for more than a few months since their unchanging appearance might arouse suspicion.

Hagio’s artwork further reinforces the dreamlike atmosphere through inventive use of panel shapes and placement, with characters bursting out of frames and tumbling across the page, freeing them from the sequential logic of the grid. In this scene, for example, Hagio uses these techniques to depict an act of impulsive violence—Alan pushes his uncle down a flight of stairs—as well as the reaction of the servants and relatives who bear witness to it:

While the influence of manga pioneers like Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori is evident in the dynamism of this layout, what Hagio achieves on this page is something arguably more radical: she uses this approach not simply to suggest the speed or force of bodies in motion, or the simultaneous reactions of the bystanders, but to convey the intensity of her characters’ feelings, a point reinforced by the facial closeups and word balloons that frame the uncle’s crumpled body.

Her method for representing memories is likewise artful. Through layering seemingly arbitrary images, she creates a powerful analogue for how we remember events—not as a complete, chronological sequence but a vivid collage of individual moments and details. In this passage, Hagio reveals why one of Edgar’s schoolmates has confessed to a theft he didn’t commit:

The final frame of this passage reveals the source of Killian’s pain: he witnessed another boy’s suicide. But Killian isn’t remembering how the event unfolded; he’s remembering the things that caught his eye—birds and branches, feet dangling from a window—and his own feelings of helplessness as he realized what his classmate was about to do.

As ravishing as the artwork is, what stayed with me after reading The Poe Clan is how effectively it depicts the exquisite awfulness of being thirteen. Alan, Edgar, and Marybelle feel and say things with the utmost sincerity, so caught up in the intensity of their emotions that nothing else matters. Through the metaphor of vampirism, Hagio validates the realness of their tweenage mindset by depicting their existence as an endless cycle of all-consuming crushes, sudden betrayals, and confrontations with hypocritical, dangerous, or bumbling adults. At the same time, however, Hagio invites the reader to see the tragedy in the Portsnells’ dilemma; they are prisoners of their own immaturity, unable to achieve the emotional equilibrium that comes with growing up.

One final note: Fantagraphics deserves special praise for their elegant presentation of this shojo classic. Rachel Thorn’s graceful translation is a perfect match for the imagery, conveying the characters’ fervor in all its adolescent intensity, while the large trim size and substantial paper stock are an ideal canvas for Hagio’s detailed, vivid artwork. Recommended. 

This post was updated on August 23rd with more accurate information about the current status of The Poe Family‘s serialization in Flowers. Special thanks to Eric Henwood-Greer for the correction!

THE POE CLAN, VOL. 1 • ART AND STORY BY MOTO HAGIO • TRANSLATED BY RACHEL THORN • FANTAGRAPHICS • 512 pp. • NO RATING

Ryuko, Vol. 1

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If you’ve been jonesing for a stylish thriller that doesn’t take itself too seriously, Eldo Yoshimizu’s Ryuko might just fit the bill: it has the pulpy soul of a Kazuo Koike manga and the brash attitude of a James Bond flick. And while Ryuko never quite achieves the simmering intensity or cohesion of Lady Snowblood and Crying Freeman, it does hold its own against Koike’s best work thanks to its audacious action sequences and cool-as-ice heroine who’ll stop at nothing to avenge her mother’s kidnapping.

Running in tandem with the kidnapping storyline are four —maybe five — other subplots, all connected to the Soviet-Afghanistan war. There’s gun-running and opium harvesting, Soviet malfeasance and CIA chicanery, and some other elements that, frankly, don’t make a lot of sense, though they provide sufficient justification for the imaginatively staged combat. Anyone hoping for a few helpful lines of expository dialogue will be frustrated, as the characters are so laconic they seldom utter more than a few words before throwing a punch or brandishing a gun.

The real star of Ryuko is Eldo Yoshimizu’s artwork, which deftly synthesizes Japanese and European influences without slavishly copying them. His female characters, in particular, have the undulating hips, flowing locks, and determined scowls of Leiji Matsumoto’s most lethal heroines, while the male characters’ appearances owe a debt to the rugged manly-men that stalked the pages of Hugo Pratt, Takao Sato, and Goseki Kojima’s adventure stories. Not surprisingly, Yoshimizu lavishes his greatest attention on Ryuko, swathing her in barely-there dresses and leopard-print catsuits–an artistic decision that makes her look cool, but seems impractical for dodging bullets and karate-chopping enemies.

But oh, Ryuko’s fight scenes! They’re worth the price of admission, as they showcase the full range of Yoshimizu’s talents as a draftsman, veering sharply between naturalism, suggestion, and pure abstraction. In this sequence, for example, we see the young Ryuko ambushing a group of Soviet soldiers:

In the first panel, the tank is drawn with utmost specificity, allowing us to appreciate its sheer mass and its weaponry. The subsequent panels, however, are more gestural than the first, as we glimpse Ryuko silhouetted against the explosion, her age and gender completely obscured by the brilliant flash of light behind her. In the final panel of the sequence, Yoshimizu uses two horses to frame the action, rendering them as bold patches of black, with just a suggestion of a nostril and an eye, their demonic appearance echoing Ryuko’s own fierce resolve. Other sequences, such as this one, are even more abstract, dispensing with a grid in favor of fluid, overlapping images; in a particularly effective gambit, Ryuko’s arm forms a kind of panel boundary between the first stage of the attack — a knee to the stomach — and the second, in which she flips and pins her opponent:

Even Ryuko’s hair plays an important role in helping us understand what’s happening in this confrontation. In the first sequence, her hair swings around her face and shoulders in a naturalistic fashion, but in the final panel, her hair looks like a furious nest of snakes, each poised to strike her victim. That shift is subtle but important, a nifty metaphor for just how quick and lethal Ryuko can be.

For all the verve with which these scenes are drawn, Ryuko‘s characters never quite register as flesh-and-blood people. Yoshimizu has provided them with backstories, but the characters’ behavior is so steeped in action-movie cliche that their motivations for shooting and punching are almost immaterial. The story’s breakneck pacing doesn’t allow anyone much time for introspection, either; the few flashbacks to Ryuko’s childhood separation from her mother are the only genuinely emotional moments in the story. Still, no one reads trashy thrillers for a deep exploration of the human psyche; they’re looking for an over-the-top story that serves up generous helpings of car chases, gun battles, and fist-fights, the more outlandish, the better. On that front, Ryuko performs admirably, infusing a shopworn revenge plot with the sensual swagger of old-school classics like Lady Snowblood and Lupin III. Recommended.

RYUKO, VOL. 1 • ART AND STORY BY ELDO YOSHIMIZU • TRANSLATION BY MOTOKO TAMAMURO AND JONATHAN CLEMENTS • TITAN COMICS • NO RATING (PARTIAL NUDITY, VIOLENCE) • 256 pp.

Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Vol. 1

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One occupational hazard of reviewing manga is the powerful sense of déjà vu that a middle-of-the-road series can induce. I experienced just such a flash while reading Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, a pleasant, decently executed shojo series that hit so many familiar beats I was tempted to pull out a bingo card and tick off the stock characters and situations as I plowed through volume one.

As in other supernatural romances — think InuYasha and The Water Dragon’s Bride — the plot is set in motion by the heroine’s abduction to the kakuriyo, or spirit realm. There, Aoi learns that her late grandfather was capable of traveling between the kakuriyo and utsushiyo (human world), a skill that gramps exploited to run up a tab at a supernatural B&B. Gramps pledged Aoi as collateral, promising her hand in marriage to Odanna, the inn’s proprietor. Odanna is — wait for it — a handsome jerk with an attitude so condescending that Aoi can barely stand to be in the same room with him. He’s also an ogre. (A real ogre, not a metaphorical one.)

Indignant at the prospect of marrying a monster, Aoi instead vows to settle her grandfather’s accounts by working at the inn, a vow made more complicated by the other demons’ refusal to hire human staff for even the most menial tasks. The creators have used Aoi’s predicament as an opportunity to graft elements of a cooking manga onto the main plot by furnishing Aoi with culinary skills so impressive that even denizens of the kakuriyo are wowed by her omelet rice and chicken stew. The inclusion of these scenes feels perfunctory, however, as they add little to our understanding of who Aoi is; if anything, these interludes serve mostly to foreshadow the inevitable moment in volume two or five when Aoi finally persuades the inn’s chef to update his menu with Japanese comfort food.

The real pleasure in reading Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits is the parade of ayakashi (spirits). The supporting cast seem to have stepped out of a Hyakki Yagyō scroll: there are kappas and tengus and oni, no-faced women and nine-tailed foxes, all drawn in a style that explicitly references the work of Utagawa Yoshiiku and Kawanabe Kyosai. When interacting with Aoi, these spirits morph into preternaturally elegant humans swathed in Edo-era couture. It’s an effective gambit, allowing illustrator Waco Ioka to emphasize her strengths — fabrics, textures, masks — while offering a plausible explanation for the demons’ uncanny appearance. (Looking through one of gramps’ photo albums, Aoi notes that the ayakashi‘s “faces look fake, like they’re pasted on.”)

Yet for all the joys of seeing the Night Parade of 100 Demons come to life in such a stylish fashion, I was so aware of the plot mechanics that I could never fully embrace Kakuriyo as a story. Someone less steeped in the conventions and cliches of shojo manga, however, might well find Kakuriyo a charming introduction to one of the medium’s most ubiquitous and appealing genres: the supernatural romance.

The verdict: Librarians working with middle school readers might find Kakuriyo a good addition to their graphic novel collection, as it’s largely free of provocative content (e.g. strong language, sexuality) but will feel more “adult” to readers in grades 6-8 than other T-rated romances.

A review copy was supplied by VIZ Media.

KAKURIYO: BED & BREAKFAST FOR SPIRITS, VOL. 1 • ART BY WACO IOKA, ORIGINAL STORY BY MIDORI YUMA, CHARACTER DESIGN BY LARUHA • TRANSLATED BY TOMO KIMURA • RATED T, FOR TEENS (FANTASY VIOLENCE) • 196 pp.

Versailles of the Dead, Vol. 1

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Kumiko Suekane’s Versailles of the Dead feels like a kissing cousin of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. It’s a clever and handsomely drawn manga that also inserts zombies into a well-known story for shock value: who knew the real cause of the French Revolution was an outbreak of “resurrection illness”? The net result, however, is so intentionally kitschy that it sometimes holds the reader at arm’s length, inviting us to appreciate the imagination and research that went into creating Versailles of the Dead without fully drawing us into the story.

You might reasonably think that the zombies were Versailles of the Dead’s most gonzo element, but you’d be wrong: it’s actually Suekane’s decision to invent a sibling for Marie Antoinette. This sibling — a twin brother named Albert — is Marie’s doppelgänger, a handsome lad with the same high cheekbones and pert nose as his infamous sister. En route to Marie’s nuptials, their carriage is ambushed by zombies, forcing Albert to impersonate his sister after she meets a gruesome end. Albert’s identity is quickly discovered by a handful of courtiers, all of whom are invested enough in preserving the status quo at Versailles that they conspire to look the other way, even when rumors surface that Albert beheaded his own sister.

Watching Albert step into the role of Dauphine is fun; he embraces the opportunity to manipulate courtiers through gossip and flirtation, exploiting rivalries within the court to his own advantage. The supernatural interludes, by contrast, sometimes feel like an afterthought, rather than a vital part of the story. Though the zombies are handled in a straightforward fashion, Suekane relies too much on flash-booms, jump cuts, and smudgy silhouettes to imply that certain members of the French court are possessed. Suggestion is an important tool for generating suspense, of course, but here it feels like a half-baked effort at world-building — what if there were demons in eighteenth century France, too? Not everything needs to be explained in a baldly literal fashion, of course, but the demonic angle feels like one accessory too many on a busy outfit.

If the supernatural intrigue is more afterthought than essential element, the artwork is sumptuous, capturing the opulence of Versailles without overwhelming the reader. Suekane’s secret? Lavishing attention on character designs rather than material objects, allowing the intricacy of the hairstyles, gowns, and frock coats to be the focal point of most panels. That approach gives her breathing room to draw the kind of subtle but important details that help establish the characters’ true natures. Albert, for example, never fully disappears into his sister’s clothes and wigs; the twinkle in his eye and the boldness of his carriage are conspicuous signs of his male upbringing, even though he looks ravishing as a woman. Other characters’ personalities are just as thoughtfully embodied through costume and movement. Madame du Barry, the Dauphine’s great rival, makes a dramatic display of her décolletage, framing her chest in a wreath of feathers that accentuate du Barry’s mature womanhood — a not-so-subtle attempt to assert her power and experience over a teenage interloper.

It’s this level of thoughtfulness that helped me soldier through the more clumsy parts of the story, where characters solemnly explain why Albert’s marriage must go forward for “the good of our two countries,” and Madame du Barry thinks in complete Wikipedia paragraphs. (Her internal monologues are surprisingly dull for such a canny strategist.) I’m not sure that all of the plot lines will eventually converge in a satisfying way — there’s a lot of supernatural silliness — but I find Albert a compelling character, a skilled political operator who revels in his ability to sow discord. Count me in for volume two.

VERSAILLES OF THE DEAD, VOL. 1 • STORY & ART BY KUMIKO SUEKANE • TRANSLATION BY JOCELYNE ALLEN • SEVEN SEAS • RATED TEEN (PARTIAL NUDITY, MILD GORE, VIOLENCE)  172 pp.

The Delinquent Housewife!, Vol. 1

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The Spouse With a Secret ranks among the top five narrative devices of all time, as it lends itself to so many different genres: horror stories, costume dramas, lurid thrillers. The Delinquent Housewife! puts a humorous spin on the concept, pitting a seemingly demure newlywed against her in-laws. Though her husband assures Tomugi that his family will embrace her as a cherished member, she isn’t so sure, as Tohru’s younger sister Yukari seems determined to prove to the rest of the Komukai clan that Tomugi is a poor match for Tohru.

Sustaining this premise is a delicate balancing act; if the author hides Tomugi’s secret from the reader or the other characters for too long, the story might become tedious, but if she puts that information out in the open too soon, the story might lose momentum. Nemu Yoko splits the difference, teasing the reader about Tomugi’s big secret for the first thirty pages before dropping a bombshell: Tomugi belonged to a bosozoku (bike) gang. Yoko wisely doesn’t put all her cards on the table, however, leaving the reader to guess how and why the clean-cut Tohru fell for Tomugi.

Yoko makes another smart choice in removing Tohru from the picture just a few pages into volume one, sending him on a mysterious business trip of indefinite length. Though this plot development is a capital-C contrivance, it serves two important functions: it hints that Tohru may be harboring an even bigger secret than Tomugi, and it forces Tomugi to interact with the entire Komukai clan. In particular, Tohru’s absence exacerbates the conflict between Tomugi and Yukari, who views her older brother in a hagiographic light; Yukari spends several chapters scheming ways to expose Tomugi’s culinary deficits, certain that Tomugi’s terrible cooking will be the demise of her marriage to Tohru.

While many of the comic devices are straight out of Moliere — eavesdropping at the door, sneaking around under cover of darkness — The Delinquent Housewife! never feels rote; Yoko puts just enough spin on familiar scenarios to make the jokes’ punchlines seem fresh. Grandpa Komukai, for example, presents like a befuddled old pervert but turns out to be more perceptive about his new in-law than the skeptical Yukari, while Tomugi’s bosozoku buddies prove a fount of useful information about housework. (Her friend Ami’s cooking lesson is a highlight of volume one, a gleeful marriage of foul language, insults, and no-nonsense tips for mastering kitchen basics.) Perhaps the most surprising thing about The Delinquent Housewife! is that Yoko is unsparing in her portrayal of Tomugi’s immaturity, depicting her as a self-pitying leech who’s still blaming her parents for her shortcomings. Yet Tomugi isn’t a monster; even in her worst moments, her interactions with Ami, Dai (Tohru’s kid brother), and Tohru suggest that Tomugi is, at bottom, someone who’s just looking for a family to call her own, even if she’s using questionable tactics to get one.

If I had any criticism of The Delinquent Housewife!, it’s that Tomugi’s tough-girl talk sounds stilted, see-sawing between Noo Joisey realness and teenage text-speak — a tonal problem that might be an artifact of the original script, rather than a by-product of the translation process. On the whole, however, The Delinquent Housewife! is a welcome addition to the Vertical Comics catalog, an energetic comedy that earns its laughs with thoughtful characterizations, appealing art, and juicy plot twists. Recommended.

THE DELINQUENT HOUSEWIFE!, VOL. 1 • STORY & ART BY NEMU YOKO • TRANSLATION BY DAVID MUSTO • VERTICAL COMICS • NO RATING • 192 pp.

Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vols. 1-2

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What if the world ended not with a bang or a whimper, but a shrug of the shoulders and a TL;DR? That’s the question at the heart of Inio Asano’s Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, a dark comedy about alien invasion.

Asano buries the lede, however, initially framing his story as a coming-of-age drama about Kadode and Oran, two girls on the cusp of adulthood. We learn about the aliens’ arrival in bits and pieces, through a 2-chan thread, a news bulletin, a string of text messages, and a sign tallying the day’s casualties. We also learn that Kadode’s father — a journalist — disappeared in the immediate aftermath of the attack, an event that has pushed Kadode’s mother to the brink of insanity.

The dramatic impact of these revelations is muted by Asano’s attention to the mundane rhythms of Kadode and Oran’s life: they study for tests, shoot the shit with friends, horse around with Oran’s older brother, and play video games until the wee hours of the morning, marking time until they graduate from high school. Like most teenagers, Kadode and Oran are morbidly curious about sex, fixating on a young teacher who does a poor job of establishing professional boundaries with his students. In private conversations, the girls tease each other about seducing Mr. Watarase, but when Kadode finds herself alone with him, she’s awkward and nervous, unable to carry out her plan. It’s to Asano’s credit that nothing happens between teacher and student, as he recognizes that Kadode’s interest is not in having sex with her teacher but in speculating what it would be like — in essence, she’s trying on the idea of an adult relationship, not actively seeking one.

A similar tension between maturity and inexperience plays out in other aspects of Asano’s narrative. Kadode, for example, is deeply invested in Isobeyan, a manga starring a dim-witted girl and a time-traveling Mushroomian with an “interdimensional pouchette” that yields amazing inventions: a brain bulb, a pair of skeleton specs. Though this manga-within-a-manga offers Asano an opportunity to showcase his technical virtuosity — Isobeyan looks like a Fujiko F. Fujio original — Isobeyan also highlights Asano’s knack for creating convincing teen characters, sympathetically portraying Kadode’s interest in kiddie manga as a survival tactic; she clings to Isobeyan because its jokes and stories offer her the consistency that’s otherwise missing from her chaotic home life.

Running in tandem with these domestic interludes are scenes of the media, government, and big business co-opting the invasion through incessant television coverage, carefully orchestrated public memorials, and merchandise, all promoting the idea that Tokyo should “never forget” about the tragedy while simultaneously encouraging residents to move on with their lives. Both volumes of Dead Dead Demon thrum with the activity of radio and television newscasts; through voice-overs and field reports, we learn the official version of events, but not what really happened on the ground. That same element of hollow reassurance informs a rally celebrating the successful demonstration of a new weapon. As people begin gathering, a chant of “Nippon!” ripples through the crowd. “Why are they all yelling ‘Nippon’?” one girl asked. “I dunno,” her friend replies, “But this is fun, so who cares?”

Asano’s art plays a vital role in suggesting the way in which the ordinary and extraordinary can coexist side-by-side. In this particular image, for example, Asano draws the undercarriage of the mother ship — its cannons, landing gear, and exhaust ports — with the same shapes and lines as he uses for the city below; it’s as if we’re viewing Tokyo on the surface of a pond, upside down and slightly murky:

Then, too, there’s a tension between the hard, industrial precision of such imagery and the soft vulnerability of the principal characters, as is conveyed by this panel in which Kadode and Oran’s view of the sky is completely blocked by the mother ship:

Though Asano’s character designs are naturalistic, capturing that liminal state between adolescence and adulthood with physical accuracy, Kadode and Oran’s faces are preternatually elastic, registering the full gamut of teenage emotions with outsized intensity. Many of the adults, by contrast, resemble Noh characters with impassive, mask-like faces that make them look… well, cartoonish, emphasizing the degree to which deception and denial have robbed them of their ability to express the fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness that the invasion has undoubtedly stirred in them. It’s a technique that Asano has used in other series — most notably Goodnight, Pun-Pun — and it works beautifully here, underscoring the absurdity of the characters’ situation.

What makes Dead Dead Demon more than just a stylish exercise in nihilism is the way in which Asano recognizes the lengths to which people will go to preserve their routines and personal comforts. Asano doesn’t frame that act as heroic resistance or conscious choice, but an atavistic need for order, especially in the aftermath of a catastrophe. For Kadode and her friends, though, that quest for normalcy takes a slightly different form, as they’re not yet old enough to have their own homes, jobs, and families; the things they cling to — like pop music and video games — offer only temporary comfort, pushing them to seek deeper answers about the alien invasion.

Lest Dead Dead Demon sound like a Terribly Serious Manga, it’s worth noting that Asano never falls into the misery porn trap that made Goodnight, Punpun such a punishing experience. Dead Dead Demon is nimble, funny, and sad, buoyed by a vivid cast of characters and a densely layered plot that allows Asano to explore weighty questions without casting a pall over the reader. For my money, it’s his best work to date, the ideal showcase for his phenomenal artistry and mordant wit. Highly recommended.

DEAD DEAD DEMON’S DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION, VOLS. 1-2 • STORY & ART BY INIO ASANO • TRANSLATION BY JOHN WERRY • VIZ MEDIA • RATED M, FOR MATURE AUDIENCES (VIOLENCE AND SEXUALITY)

Chio’s School Road, Vol. 1

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With the new school year underway, now seemed like the ideal time to review Chio’s School Road, a gag manga about an average teen with a rich imagination and a talent for getting into trouble. Think of it as a female answer to My Neighbor Seki or Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto!!, two similar comedies in which a high school student turns out to have some truly astonishing skills.

Chio’s School Road is built on a simple but sturdy premise: Chio Miyamo, an average high school student, goes to comic lengths to avoid embarrassment. And by “comic lengths,” I mean diving into dumpsters, hiding in a tree, and giving her best friend a passionate kiss to conceal the fact they were eavesdropping on the popular kids. To be sure, these kind of scenarios are standard comic fodder, but Tadataka Kawasaki takes the gags in such unpredictable directions that the payoffs are fresh and funny without frustrating the reader’s desire to see the dignity-challenged Chio prevail.

In chapter three, for example, Chio stumbles into an alley blocked by members of a biker gang. Her attempt to slip past them goes awry, leading to confrontation in which Chio inadvertently escalates the situation with a nervous stutter. “You pick a fight and then laugh? You got some balls!” the head biker declares, prompting Chio to reveal her “true” identity as Bloody Butterfly, an assassin who’s “out every night packing heat” in the mean streets of Tokyo. The joke, of course, is that Chio is recycling bits of dialogue from her favorite first-person shooter game, delivering her lines with the swagger of a yakuza foot solider — a swagger she can’t sustain as soon as she arrives on school grounds.

The only strike against Chio’s School Road is the fan service. In one particularly egregious sequence, Kawasaki draws a woman’s chest as if two balloon animals were tussling under her sweater. (Seriously, folks: breasts do not look like balloon animals. Not even on a braless woman. No, really.) These panels are noticeable in part because his draftsmanship is otherwise crisp and convincing, creating a vivid sense of the urban neighborhood where Chio attends school, and strong sense of the characters’ personalities. Still, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Chio’s School Road to fans of My Neighbor Seki and Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto!, as it delivers a steady stream of amusing, weird, and well-executed jokes. Better still, Chio earns its laughs honestly by reminding us that Chio isn’t ordinary at all; she’s just striving to be. Recommended.

Chio’s School Road, Vol. 1
Art & Story by Tadataka Kawasaki
Translated by Alexander Keller-Nelson
Yen Press, 160 pp.
Rated OT, for Older Teens (Sexual and bathroom humor; fan service)

Laid-Back Camp, Vol. 1

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Laid-Back Camp may be the most quintessentially Japanese thing I’ve read this year: it features cute girls doing cute things while imparting information about camping gear. There’s no real plot to speak of, just a meet-cute in the first chapter that introduces seasoned camper Rin to enthusiastic newbie Nadeshiko. Through one of those only-in-manga coincidences, Rin and Nadeshiko attend the same school, where two other girls — Aoi and Chiaki — are struggling to recruit members for their Outdoor Exploration Club. You can guess what happens next: Nadeshiko joins the club and, by dint of her Golden Retriever personality, brings the skeptical Rin into the fold.

Each chapter is built around a skill, a piece of equipment, or a location. In “Mount Fuji and Cup Ramen,” for example, Rin explains how to build the perfect campfire, calling dried pine cones “nature’s premier fire starter,” while in “You Can Only Go Camping If You Have the Gear,” the Outdoor Exploration Club pores over catalogs, debating the merits of down and synthetic sleeping bags. These passages are deftly woven into the fabric of each story, playing a natural part of the girls’ conversations as they plan camping trips. Dashes of humor and breath-taking scenery add welcome nuance to the storytelling, preventing it from tipping into edu-manga dullness or yon-koma hijinks. Best of all, Rin is a genuinely interesting character, a small, self-sufficient kid who likes solo camping trips. Though volume one doesn’t explain how she caught the camping bug, author Afro has done such a good job of fleshing out Rin it doesn’t matter; we can see how someone so introspective and independent would welcome the opportunity to be alone in nature. Recommended, even for those who prefer the Great Indoors.

Laid-Back Camp, Vol. 1
Story and Art by Afro
Translation by Amber Tamosaitis
Yen Press, 178 pp.
Rated T, for Teen

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, Vol. 1

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Since one in four Americans suffer from insomnia, it seems like there’s a natural market for Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, a manga about a character so determined to get a good night’s sleep that she’d risk death or dismemberment for forty winks. Sleepy Princess plays the title character’s insomnia for laughs, however, turning the heroine’s quest for the perfect mattress into a light-hearted romp, rather than an expensive ordeal involving black-out curtains, melatonin, and meditation videos. That the story is fun and breezy is nothing short of a miracle, though older readers may experience a twinge of jealously at Princess Syalis’ ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime once she has the right gear.

Author Kagiji Kumanomata handles the set-up with great economy: in just two pages, we learn the Demon King has kidnapped Syalis in a bid to conquer the human world. Though the Demon King stashes Syalis in a dungeon populated by fearsome beasts, Syalis quickly sizes up the situation and makes it work to her advantage. “Since I’m hostage, the Demon King has no intention of harming me,” she notes. “I have no duties to take care of here… And the food’s pretty tasty!” The one drawback to her new digs? “I haven’t been able to get a good night’s rest since I was brought here!” she exclaims.

A chance encounter with teddy demons leads to her first epiphany: her captors’ fur is the ideal stuffing for a comfy pillow. Before long, Syalis is roaming the castle in search of softer sheets, mosquito netting, and a more natural light source, the better to regulate her body’s circadian rhythms. Her dogged efforts to sleep longer or more soundly confound her jailers, who are astonished at how brazenly she takes what she needs; Syalis dies at least three times in her quest for the perfect sleep accessories. (Don’t worry; a handsome demon cleric is on hand to resurrect her mangled body.)

As with other one-joke manga, Sleepy Princess occasionally strains for laughs; an episode involving poison mushrooms falls flat, as does a spoof of Princess Knight. The chapters’ brevity helps keep the story from bogging down in bad jokes, as does Kumanomata’s consummate attention to detail; there’s always something funny happening, even if the gags are buried in the background or lurking on the edges of the page. An artful adaptation by Annette Roman helps bridge the translation divide, as do Susan Daigle-Leach’s marvelous sound effects. (If you’ve ever wondered what a posse of demon teddy bears might sound like, she’s got you covered.) Best of all, Kumanomata has barely scratched the surface when it comes to insomnia, leaving the door open for future quests, from finding the right bedtime snack to finding the right temperature for sleeping. Recommended.

SLEEPY PRINCESS IN THE DEMON CASTLE, VOL. 1 • BY KAGIJI KUMANOMATA • TRANSLATION BY TETSUICHIRO MITAYKI • ADAPTATION BY ANNETTE ROMAN • TOUCH-UP ART AND LETTERING BY SUSAN DAIGLE-LEACH • VIZ MEDIA • 174 pp. • RATED TEEN (13+) FOR FANTASY VIOLENCE

Shibuya Goldfish, Vol. 1

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Shibuya Goldfish falls somewhere along the horror continuum between Sharknado 3 and Jaws: it’s too competently executed to be a guilty pleasure but too predictable to be genuinely scary. Though the premise has serious camp potential, author Hiroumi Aoi settles for a pedestrian approach to the material, trapping his cast in a high-rise shopping center where death lurks around every corner. There are a few glimmers of imagination here and there, but the overall result lacks the visceral punch, humor, or sheer imagination of other entries in the Killer Fish genre.

The story begins in media res, with a shot of Hachiko — Shibuya’s most famous statue — stained in blood. We then cut to an image of a panting, wild-eyed teen staring incredulously at a monstrous goldfish feasting on a pedestrian in the middle of a busy street. “That day was the first time I ever saw someone die,” Hajime solemnly informs us, before a flashback reveals what led up to this gruesome scene.

I won’t lie: those opening pages are a tantalizing hook for a horror buff. Though Aoi doesn’t reveal where the goldfish came from, he sells the Fish-Gone-Wild concept by emphasizing the predators’ size, numbers, and blank-eyed stares, making us appreciate the sheer incongruity of Volkswagen-sized fish swarming through an urban landscape. The goldfish’s penchant for uttering intelligible phrases — “I’m home, mom,” one burbles — adds another layer of mystery to their existence: are they truly sentient or are they merely ghosts, back to haunt the owners that flushed them down the toilet?

Where Shibuya Goldfish falls short is the human dimension. Hajime is the only character who’s properly fleshed out, an earnest, slightly awkward high school student whose dreams of becoming a filmmaker are dashed by the catastrophe. The other characters are more placeholders than people, dropped into the story to generate conflict or provide useful information about goldfish behavior before dying. In recognition of their liminal status, Aoi only bestows names on a small fraction of the cast, one of whom — the beautiful, bitchy Chitose Fukakusa — is such a vile male fantasy that the introduction of two more competent, sincere female characters in chapters two and three barely erase the memory of Fukakusa’s manipulative behavior and panty flashes.

The other fundamental issue with Shibuya Goldfish is the artwork, which juxtaposes photo-realistic backgrounds and fish with generic character designs. The tension between these two modes of representation ends up robbing volume one’s creepiest scenes of their dramatic impact, as the full horror of what happens to several characters is muted by Aoi’s blandly rendered faces and bodies; the grotesque bodily deformations that make Junji Ito, Hideshi Hino, and Kanako Inuki’s work so arresting barely elicit a “yuck!” in Aoi’s hands. It’s a pity these moments don’t land with more oomph because Shibuya Goldfish flirts with an interesting idea: the notion that a pet as small, helpless, and disposable as a goldfish might be the downfall of humanity, punishing us for our reckless treatment of other living things. Perhaps Aoi will delve into the monsters’ origins in future volumes, but the so-so execution of these foundational chapters didn’t reel me in. Your mileage will vary.

SHIBUYA GOLDFISH, VOL. 1 • BY HIROUMI AOI • TRANSLATED BY KO RANSOM • YEN PRESS • 242 pp. • RATED OT (OLDER TEEN) FOR LANGUAGE, NUDITY, AND VIOLENCE

Manhwa 100

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As a reviewer, I’ve found Manga: The Complete Guide (Del Rey), Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga (Stonebridge Press), and Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics (Laurence King Publishing) indispensable references, whether I’m searching for information about a series’ publication history or looking for insight into a particular artist’s style. I hoped that Manhwa 100: The New Era for Korean Comics would provide a similar perspective on the Korean comics industry. Unfortunately, Manhwa 100 turned out to be an ambitious but poorly executed attempt to highlight the medium’s most popular, influential series.

In terms of organization and metholodgy, Manhwa 100 falls somewhere between Manga: The Complete Guide and Dreamland Japan, offering summaries of one hundred books, some of which have been translated into English. Each entry includes basic information about the series’ print run (e.g. number of volumes, magazine of serialization), its author, and its crossover into other media (e.g. videogames, television programs), as well as a plot summary and an assessment of the work’s artistic merit. Entries are grouped according to audience, with sections devoted to sunjeong (girls’) comics, boys’ comics, adult comics, and “webtoons,” comics that debuted online but were later anthologized in print.

We learn in the introduction that a committee of thirty industry professionals chose the books featured in Manhwa 100. The exact selection criteria are never satisfactorily explained, though it’s obvious the committee made a concerted effort to represent a broad spectrum of styles and subjects; no artist has more than one entry devoted to her work. Most books are of recent vintage, with only a smattering of titles released in the 1970s and 1980s.

And here I have a confession to make: I was sorely tempted to call my review “Manhwa 100: Cultural Learnings of Comics for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Korea.” Why? The text is awash in awkward phrases, grammatical errors, egregious typos, and ill-advised attempts to keep it real with slangy, conversational phrases that clash violently with the prevailing tone. The entry for Blue, a title by Lee Eun-hye, is typical of the book:

Comic book characters are used in many character merchandises now, but it was [sic] not very actively used in the 1990s. However, the comics of Lee Eun-hye were widely used in character merchandises, even in the 1990s. This is because the author has the knack of using colors as one of her main themes. As she said in her own words, “color in itself is a story.”

As she proclaims in Jump Tree A+, her previous work to Blue, the teenage years are the “Green Age.” Her new story, Blue, represents the young adult age. The color blue in the comic has two sides. It represents a bright fresh side of youth, and it also represents sadness and gloom. The twenty-somethings in the comic are both fresh and youthful, but at the same time lonely and nostalgic.

A rich man’s illigitemate [sic] son Seung-pyo, passionate dancer Hae-joon, his faithful follower Yeon-woo, smart but cold Hyun-bin, and strong charismatic rocker Ha-yun: Blue revolves around these five characters. The loneliness in Blue was sprouted from self-pity and narcissism. Like in many of her other comics, author Lee Eun-hye pushes her characters into their own narcissistic world disconnected from each other.

That is why Blue is beautiful. The earnest characters express their life honestly. And the poetic narration and symbolic monologues add to its beauty. In 1997, an OST disc, inspired by the comic, was…

Yes, the entry really does end with an incomplete sentence.

If I’m reading the text correctly, this confusing verbiage could be boiled down to three talking points: (1) Lee’s manhwa was among the first to inspire “character goods” (phone cards, figurines, stationery, keychains, etc.); (2) her books feature beautifully drawn, emotionally stunted characters; and (3) her books are popular enough to be adapted into TV shows, CD dramas, and the like. Though it’s obvious she views color as a metaphor for age and mood, it’s not clear how or if she uses color in her work–a crucial point, given the increasingly important role that color is beginning to play in manhwa. It’s also unclear what distinguishes Lee’s work from other sunjeong titles, as symbolism, emotionally-charged conversation, and interior monologues are staples of the medium, not personal idiosyncrasies.

If the book synopses are frustrating, the contextual essays are downright obtuse. With titles such as “Open a Manhwa Book, Become a Friend of Korea” and “Manhwa in America: The New World of Charms Yet to be Discovered,” their stilted language and boastful claims for manhwa’s international importance make them sound like Pravda articles. Anyone hoping for insight into the differences between manhwa and manga (or other sequential art traditions, for that matter) will be frustrated by the maddeningly vague, jingoistic text which acknowledges stylistic similarities between manhwa and manga while arguing for significant differences in subject and approach. As manhwaga Lee Hyun-se explains:

While the Japanese samurai pulls out his sword for the completion of his skill, the Korean warrior draws his sword in revenge of his family or to fight against his or her sworn enemy. The Japanese hero walks the glorified path of the hero, which is as clear as the blood he spills, but the Korean hero trudges, stumbling upon his own defects.

Lee attributes the difference in approach to Korea’s lengthy history of occupation, contrasting it with Japan’s long period of isolationism and political intrigue. “The endless internal strife of the Japanese builds up a sense of hubris and elitism,” he argues, “while being on the defense instills a sense of humility and compassion for others… The hero of Japanese manga is ‘I’ while the hero in Korean manhwa is ‘We.’” It’s an interesting but flawed thesis, akin to suggesting that Howard’s End and Finnegan’s Wake are utterly different because one was written by a British imperialist and the other by a downtrodden Irishman. Lee seems to forget that avenging one’s family (or village, or sweetheart, or mentor) is one of the most basic manga plotlines, transcending genre and time period. He also overlooks the important role of community in manga; for every Lone Wolf, there are just as many characters who discover their purpose when they join a particular group, whether it be the school council (a la Love Master A) or the Shinsengumi (a la Kaze Hikaru).

Given Manhwa 100‘s limitations, I’m reluctant to recommend it; anyone hoping for an indispensable reference or an introduction to Korean comics will find this book baffling. For those already enchanted with manhwa, however, I’d suggest reading Manhwa 100 in the same spirit that our grandparents and parents flipped through the Sears Roebuck catalog: as a book of possibilities, a wish list for readers who enjoyed Shaman Warrior, One Thousand and One Nights, Bride of the Water God, or Dokebi Bride. I’ve already spotted dozens of great candidates for licensing, from Be Good, a comedy about a gangster who goes back to high school at 40, to Buddy, a sports drama set inside the ultra-competitive world of women’s golf.

POSTSCRIPT, 2/3/09: I corresponded with the editorial staff at NETCOMICS, who explained that they had a contract with the Korea Culture and Content Agency (KOCCA) to distribute Manhwa 100 in North America. The book was written and produced by C&C Revolution, a private company. (No individuals are named as authors.) NETCOMICS is not responsible for the book’s editorial content, just for its distribution.

This review originally appeared at The Manga Curmudgeon on February 2, 2009.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking, Vol. 1

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Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: The Power of Negative Thinking may not be as relentlessly intertextual as Ulysses, but this Japanese import is nearly as rich in puns, social commentary, pop-culture parody, and allusions to TV shows, novels, movies, and manga. I can’t imagine adapting such a culturally specific text for Western audiences, yet the folks at Del Rey have made a game effort to do just that. Given the scope and complexity of the task, I think translator Joyce Aurino has produced an eminently readable script that captures the darkness and absurdity of Koji Kumeta’s original. I just wish it were, y’know, funnier.

The premise seems ripe with comic potential. High school teacher and profound pessimist Nozomu Itoshiki lands the gig from hell: an all-female class of stalkers, hikokimori, obsessive text-messagers, bossy perfectionists, panty-flashers, and perky optimists. Try as he might to escape his obligations, his students foil his repeated suicide attempts, compounding his sense of despair and driving him to more extreme, ridiculous measures.

Through a series of interconnected vignettes, we begin to grasp the true extent of Itoshiki’s negativity as well as the sheer nuttiness of his students. In “Zetsubou-Sensei Returns,” for example, Itoshiki instructs his students to complete a “Post Graduation Career Hope Survey” by listing the three dreams they’re least likely to realize, e.g. playing baseball for Yomiuri Giants, recording a best-selling pop album. His sour-spirited effort quickly backfires, however, when the school’s guidance counselor reads the responses and praises Itoshiki for encouraging his students to dream big. In “Before Me, There’s No One; Behind Me, There’s You,” Matoi Tsunetsuki, a.k.a. “super-love-obsessed stalker girl,” develops an unhealthy attachment to Itoshiki. Matoi pursues her teacher with steely determination, adopting his trademark yukata, building a shrine to him, and following him everywhere. The chapter ends with a brilliant stroke, as one of Matoi’s former love interests begins tailing her to find out who’s replaced him, only to discover a chain of stalkers trailing in Matoi and Itoshiki’s wake.

Unfortunately, many of the stories require too much editorial intervention to elicit real laughs, as Kumeta’s panels abound in the kind of small but important details that resist easy translation: brand name parodies, puns on famous literary works, misspelled words, and so forth. The story titles, too, require explanation; “Behind Me, There’s No One,” for example, is a riff on a poem by Kotaro Takamura, while “Beyond the Tunnel Was Whiteness” appropriates a line from Yasanuri Kuwabata’s Snow Country. Absent this rich network of cultural references, Kometa’s comedy loses some of its fizz, playing more like a mild satire of shojo manga conventions than a scathing commentary on contemporary Japan.

If the text sometimes disappoints, the artwork does not. Kumeta uses a stark palette with large patches of pure black and plenty of white space. His highly stylized character designs have a pleasing, geometric quality about them, as do the patterns in their clothing. Though his faces are the essence of simplicity— just a few lines and two dark coals for eyes—Kumeta animates them with skill, registering the full gamut of emotions from anger to joy. His students are virtually interchangeable, save for their accessories and hairstyles: a black eye and a sling for the class masochist, blonde hair and strawberry-print underpants for the class exhibitionist. Again, Kumeta’s economy of form works beautifully, underscoring the extent to which Itoshiki views all of the girls in the same light: as nuisances.

I wish I liked Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei better, as I think Kumeta is a terrific artist with a fertile imagination. But it’s awfully hard to laugh when 70% of the jokes require footnotes. (If you disagree, try this exercise: watch an episode of Seinfeld, The Chapelle Show, or South Park with someone who’s new to the United States. Then try explaining why the jokes work. You’ll quickly realize the degree to which the creators rely on your knowledge of literature, politics, movies, and pop music for laughs.) I’m also a little uncomfortable with the way Kumeta depicts the female students, as he skates a thin line between poking fun at stock manga characters and portraying teenage girls as desperate, manipulative, boy-crazed hysterics. I wouldn’t go as far as to label the text misogynist—that term seems much too strong—but I would feel more at ease with the material if Kumeta’s cast was comprised of troublesome girls and boys—equal opportunity neurosis, if you will.

That said, I’m not ready to declare Zetsubou-Sensei a dud; I’m just not sure how invested I am in a series that requires its own set of cultural Cliff Notes to decode.

This review originally appeared at The Manga Curmudgeon on March 4, 2009.