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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

moto hagio

The Manga Review: San Diego Comic-Con 2022 Edition

July 29, 2022 by Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

This week’s edition of The Manga Review focuses primarily on San Diego Comic-Con. Before I get to the SDCC links, though, I wanted to talk about a New York Times article that appeared on July 23rd: “Comics That Read Top to Bottom Are Bringing in New Readers.” As you might guess from the headline, the article explores the growing popularity of Tapas and Webtoon, both of which are attracting substantial audiences, particularly among women under 25. The numbers are impressive; authors George Gene Gustines and Matt Stevens note that over 40 million women are active on the Webtoon platform, while a full two-thirds of Tapas’ users are women. I did a spit-take, however, when the authors boldly asserted that web comics were “tapping into an audience the industry had long overlooked: Gen Z and Millennial women.”

That statement ignores the fact many of these readers grew up with comics such as Sailor Moon and Fruits Basket as well as Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants and Dogman, Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, and Kazu Kibushi’s Amulet. Though DC Comics and Marvel are clearly important players in the comics market, Scholastic, VIZ, Kodansha, Yen Press, and Seven Seas serve a bigger readership than the Big Two, and have been doing so for over a decade. That point wasn’t lost on many of the people that Gustines and Stevens interviewed; creators and executives alike acknowledged the popularity of manga with American readers. The article’s authors, however, never acknowledge how much the old paradigm–of “Wednesday Warriors” buying floppies at the local comic ship–had changed before Tapas and Webtoon had a presence in North America. Anyone with vivid memories of visiting Borders or Barnes and Noble in the early 2000s could attest to the fact that girls were enthralled with manga, and viewed it as an appealing alternative to tights and capes.

OK… I’m hopping off my soapbox.

NEWS FROM SDCC 2022

Junji Ito’s Lovesickness beat out Chainsaw Man, Kaiju No. 8, Robo Sapiens: Tales of the Future, Spy x Family, and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead for the title of Best U.S. Edition of International Material–Asia. I was surprised to see that this year’s field was so heavily focused on Shonen Jump titles; there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging popular series, but given how many other interesting projects were released in 2021, it seems odd that the nominating committee didn’t cast a wider net. [The Beat]

File this under About Damn Time: shojo manga pioneer Moto Hagio was finally inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame, joining Osamu Tezuka (2002), Goseki Kojima (2004), Katsuhiro Otomo (2012), Hayao Miyazaki (2014), and Rumiko Takahashi (2018). [The Beat]

Also taking home an award from SDCC was illustrator Hidetaka Tenjin, who won the Inkpot Award for his work on such franchises as Macross, Gundham, and Space Battleship Yamato. [Anime News Network]

No SDCC would be complete without Deb Aoki’s Best and Worst Manga Panel. She was joined by Brigid Alverson (ICv2, School Library Journal, Smash Pages), Siddarth Gupta (Manga Mavericks), Laura Neuzeth (YouTube, TikTok), Ryley Moore (The Omnibus Collector), and Jillian Rudes (mangainlibraries.com). Looking over their master list, I was relieved to see I wasn’t the only person who thought Crazy Food Truck was kind of terrible. [Mangasplaining]

Square Enix recently announced two new manga acquisitions: My Clueless First Friend, a manga about a gloomy girl and the perky boy who befriends her, and Daemons of the Shadow Realm, Hiromu Arakawa’s latest fantasy series. Both series will debut in spring 2023. [Anime News Network]

Seven Seas just added twelve new manga and light novels to its 2023 schedule, among them Yumi Tamura’s Do Not Say Mystery and a new edition of Wataru Yoshizumi’s shojo classic Marmalade Boy. [Seven Seas]

REVIEWS

Are you reading Helen Chazan’s work? Her writing is terrific, and may be the best thing that’s happened to The Comics Journal in an age. Her latest review focuses on Yamada Murasaki’s Talk to My Back,  a story about a middle-aged woman struggling with her role as housewife and mother. Chazan observers that Murasaki “confronts the reader with a woman’s life, a common woman’s inner world. Each chapter is a meditation on the sheer will it takes her housewife to survive under normalized abuse and oppressive demands, and the brief moments of beauty and humor that make survival possible.”

Also worth a look: Manga Bookshelf’s own Anna N. weighs in on Nina the Starry Bride, while the Anime UK News crew compile a list of their favorite CLAMP manga and anime.

  • Aria the Masterpiece, Vol. 2 (HWR, Anime UK News)
  • Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle, Vol. 1 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 18 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • Dr. STONE, Vols. 21-22 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Fairy Tail, Vol. 3 (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • Fort of Apocalypse (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • A Galaxy Next Door, Vol. 2 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Hi, I’m a Witch and My Crush Wants Me to Make a Love Potion, Vol. 1 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • I Belong to the Baddest Girl at School, Vol. 4 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • I Can’t Believe I Slept With You!, Vol. 2 (Erica Friedman, Okazu)
  • I Think Our Son is Gay, Vol. 3 (Sarah, Anime UK  News)
  • Kageki Shojo!!, Vol. 6 (Jaime, Yuri Stargirl)
  • Let’s Go Karaoke! (Isabelle Ryan, SOLDRAD)
  • The Liminal Zone (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • My Dad’s the Queen of All VTubers? (Megan D. The Manga Test Drive)
  • Our Colors (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Outbride: Beauty and the Beasts, Vol. 1 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Penguin & House, Vol. 2 (Sarah, Anime UK News)
  • Ragna Crimson, Vol. 5 (Grant Jones, Anime News Network)
  • Run on Your New Legs, Vol. 1 (Kate, Reverse Thieves)
  • Slasher Maidens, Vol. 1 (Harry, Honey’s Anime)
  • Summer Time Rendering, Vol. 3 (Erica Friedman, Anime News Network)
  • Yashahime: Princess Half Demon, Vol. 1 (Justin and Krystallina, The OASG)
  • Yokaiden, Vol. 1 (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 20 (Krystallina, The OASG)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: clamp, Eisner Award, Hiromu Arakawa, Junji Ito, moto hagio, SDCC, Seven Seas, square enix, webtoons

The Manga Review, 5/27/22

May 27, 2022 by Katherine Dacey 2 Comments

Everybody’s talking about Tokyopop this week, as the publisher that brought us Mixx, Sailor Moon, and Rising Stars of Manga celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary. To mark the occasion, Brigid Alverson interviewed Tokyopop founder Stu Levy about the company’s history. “Not a single person believed it would work—and frankly many called us crazy,” Levy recalled. “Even internally, most of my team was against it—or at least wanted to test it. My view was we either had conviction and went all-in or we didn’t. Testing wouldn’t work because retailers would always favor the left-to-right reading books if they had a choice—so there would never be a true test of its potential. So, I bet the company on it.” Over at Drop-In to Manga, Tony reflects on how Tokyopop titles such as Chobits and GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka helped introduce him to the joy of reading manga. “I know there’s a lot of criticism towards its founder, Stu Levy, and a lot of it is warranted,” he observes. “But I still respect Tokyopop for showing Japanese manga publishers that America can be a hotspot for manga during a time when that wasn’t the case.”

NEWS

Moto Hagio has just published a new installment in her on-again, off-again vampire saga The Poe Clan. The newest storyline, Poe no Ichizoku: Ao no Pandora, takes place in present-day Munich. [Anime News Network]

Mari Yamazaki’s Olympia Kyklos will resume serialization in Grand Jump next month. The story follows the adventures of an ancient Greek potter who’s accidentally transported to the 1964 Tokyo games. C’mon, this needs to be licensed STAT! [Anime News Network]

Are new chapters of Hunter x Hunter on the horizon? [Variety]

Brace yourself for more H.P. Lovecraft: Dark Horse will be publishing Gou Tanabe’s adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth in a single omnibus edition. No word yet on a release date. [Anime News Network]

Earlier this week, the employees of Seven Seas Entertainment announced that they’d formed their own union, United Workers of Seven Seas. In a statement on their website, union organizers explain the rationale for their decision: “The company has grown exponentially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But with rapid growth comes growing pains, and we, the workers of Seven Seas, have been shouldering much of that pain. We find ourselves overworked, underpaid, and we do not currently receive the benefits otherwise typical of the publishing industry.” [ICv2]

FEATURES AND INTERVIEWS

Are you interested in learning more about the roots of contemporary Japanese culture? Kathryn Hemmann offers a great list of “popular-audience books that are smart and specific yet still accessible to a casual reader,” from Matt Alt’s Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World to Tara Devlin’s Toshiden: Exploring Japanese Urban Legends. [Contemporary Japanese Literature]

Jocelyne Allen swoons over the gorgeous artwork and soapy plot lines of Ashita Niji ga Denakutemo. [Brain vs. Book]

Over at Women Write About Comics, Carrie McClain highlights some of Seven Seas’ best new releases. [Women Write About Comics]

The folks at Anime Feminist want to know which unfinished or cancelled Tokyopop series you’d like to see rescued. [Anime Feminist]

Bill Curtis wins the award for best headline of the week with How to Ease Your Big Burly, Hairy, Glistening, Beer Swillin’, Iron Pumpin’ DUDE Self Into the Wonderful World of Shojo & Josei Manga. Amen! [Yatta-Tachi]

Speaking of josei, the Mangasplainers dedicate their latest episode to an in-depth exploration of Fumi Yoshinaga’s All My Darling Daughters. [Mangasplaining]

Congratulations to the Manga Mavericks crew: they just celebrated their 200th episode with a roundtable discussion about Tatsuki Fujimoto’s one-shot Goodbye, Eri. [Manga Mavericks]

Lucas DeRuyter revisits Death Note, a series he “took super seriously” as a teen viewer. “When I watched Death Note as a teenager I definitely hadn’t lived enough to recognize it as camp; nor did I have as firm of an understanding of my own sexuality as I do today,” he observes. “I thought I’d be returning to a problematic fave, but was delighted to realize that Death Note is camp. Accidental, ostentatious camp that, in its attempts to create a dark and edgy power fantasy, stumbles so spectacularly that it tears down some of the worst kinds of people and beliefs around today.” [Anime Feminist]

REVIEWS

Reviewing volume five of Kageki Shojo!!, Yuri Stargirl raises a good question about the state of shojo and josei licensing in North America. “Has the industry just become dominated by trite, superficial storytelling and bland art that can’t decide if it’s moe or realistic?” she asks. “Or is what gets translated to the US market so limited, that they pick lowest common denominator titles to publish even though there are a lot of higher quality ones in Japan going untranslated?” Meanwhile, Megan D. takes a look at one of the weirder titles DMP ever licensed, Bambi and Her Pink Gun, while Rebecca Silverman reviews Erica Friedman’s new book By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga. “If you are a fan of yuri or simply want to understand what the deal is with any of the genre’s elements or major texts, I’d highly recommend reading this book,” Silverman argues. “It’s both an analysis of and a love letter to the genre, both academic and accessibly readable, and worth your time.”

  • Aoba-kun’s Confessions (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • As the Gods Will: The Second Series (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Bootsleg (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Vol. 14 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • BTOOOM! (Megan D. The Manga Test Drive)
  • Cat + Gamer, Vol. 1 (darkstorm, Anime UK News)
  • Chikyu Misaki (Megan D. The Manga Test Drive)
  • Days on Fes, Vol. 5 (Antonio Mireles, The Fandom Post)
  • Fly Me to the Moon, Vols. 10-11 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • A Galaxy Next Door, Vol. 1 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • Genju no Seiza (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • I Cannot Reach You, Vol. 4 (Sarah, Anime UK News)
  • The King’s Beast, Vol. 6 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible, Vol. 1 (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • Let’s Go Karaoke! (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?!)
  • Let’s Go Karaoke! (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • Lost Lad London, Vol. 1 (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • Lost Lad London, Vol. 1 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?!)
  • Love and Heart, Vol. 1 (Kaley Connell, Yatta-Tachi)
  • Mieruko-Chan, Vol. 5 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Mizuno and Chayama (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?!)
  • My Boy, Vol. 9 (Sarah, Anime UK News)
  • O Maidens in Your Savage Season, Vols. 6-7 (Helen, The OASG)
  • Ode to Kirihito (Ian Wolf, Anime UK News)
  • Our Fake Marriage, Vol. 8 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • Paradise Residence (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Prince Freya, Vol. 6 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?!)
  • Rent-A-Girlfriend, Vol. 12 (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • Sasaki and Miyano, Vol. 5 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?!)
  • semelparous, Vol. 2 (G-Man, Okazu)
  • Solo Leveling, Vol. 4 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Spy x Family, Vol. 7 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • St. Dragon Girl (Megan D. The Manga Test Drive)
  • Strawberry Fields Once Again, Vol. 3 (Rai, The OASG)
  • Witch Watch, Vols. 1-2 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: death note, fumi yoshinaga, H.P. Lovecraft, Hunter X Hunter, Josei, Mari Yamazaki, moto hagio, Seven Seas, Tokyopop, yuri

The Manga Review, 5/13/22

May 13, 2022 by Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

April sales figures are in, and manga continues to dominate the NPD Adult Graphic Novels list. Though the list includes some perennial favorites–Berserk, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia—Spy x Family saw a big jump in sales after its anime debuted on Crunchyroll last month. ICv2’s Brigid Alverson points out that  “April marks the fourth consecutive month that manga has completely filled the chart of the top 20 Adult graphic novels in the book channel.” Manga sales aren’t quite as robust in comic book stores, but three titles made ComicsHub’s Top 20 Graphic Novels for April: Chainsaw Man (4), Kaiju No. 8 (16), and Spy x Family (20). For additional insights into the current state of the manga, check our Madeline Dunnett’s recent post at Anime News Network.

MANGA NEWS

Kodansha just announced the winners of its 46th annual Manga Awards. [Anime News Network]

With less than three weeks to go, Sam Sattin and Guruhiru’s Kickstarter campaign for Unico: Awakening has exceeded its pledge goal of $50,000. The story is “an homage to the God of Manga’s original messaging of social welfare and eco-consciousness.” [Kickstarter]

Good news for Moto Hagio fans: Fantagraphics will be re-printing the first volume of The Poe Clan this summer. While there’s no official release date for the new edition, the long-awaited second volume will be released on July 26, 2022. [Fantagraphics]

Drawn and Quarterly will be publishing Nejishiki, an anthology of short stories by Yoshiharu Tsuge. Look for it in stores in April 2023. [Drawn and Quarterly]

Earlier this week, Yen Press announced that it will publish Sho Harusono’s Hirano and Kaguira, a spin-off of Sasaki and Miyano. [Yen Press]

Brace yourself: Seven Seas just announced even more new manga licenses! Among the most promising are Polar Bear Café: Collector’s Edition and Ex-Yakuza and Stray Kitten, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a former mobster indulges his softer side by rescuing a cat from the streets. [Seven Seas]

Over at The OASG, Justin and Helen round up the latest anime, manga, and licensing news. [The OASG Podcast]

FEATURES AND INTERVIEWS

Patricia Thang takes issue with the marketing label “manga-inspired,” arguing that “To call a comic ‘manga-inspired’ is akin to me saying, ‘Here’s a painting I did! It’s art-inspired! You’d think (or at least hope) I was joking, right? Because what in the fuck would that even mean?!” [Book Riot]

On the most recent Manga in Your Ears podcast, Kory, Helen, and Apryl dissect two manga by Naoki Urasawa: Sneeze, a short story anthology, and Asadora!, his latest series. [Manga in Your Ears]

Andy and Elliot dedicate the latest episode of the Screentone Club to City Hunter and Goodbye-Eri. [Screentone Club]

Walt Richardson and Emily Myers review the April issue of Shonen Jump. [Multiversity Comics]

The Mangasplainers turn their attention to Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler, “the smash hit seinen manga that pits trust-fund-teens against one another in battles that cause embarrassment and ecstasy, skirting the line between schadenfreude and sadism!” [Mangasplaining]

As the spring anime season kicks into gear, Silvana Reyes Lopez recommends fifteen “unmissable” manga adaptations, from Chainsaw Man to Kakegurui Twin. [Book Riot]

Wondering what to read after Black Clover wraps up later this year? Christian Markle has a few recommendations. [Honey’s Anime]

Brianna Lawrence argues that Death Note Short Stories is more than just a sequel or a companion to the original series; it’s a thoughtful exploration of “how the government would react if such a terrifying weapon was available.” [The Mary Sue]

In an interview with TCJ’s Alex Deuben, Ken Niimura discusses his latest work, Never Open It: The Taboo Trilogy, which re-tells three of Japan’s most famous folk tales. “What I like about these stories… is that they’re pretty open ended,” Niimura explains. “They can be interpreted in many different ways. For example, there’s what’s considered to be the standard version of ‘The Crane Wife,’ but there are actually different versions depending on the region, the era, with many differences to the characters, the ending, etc…” [The Comics Journal]

REVIEWS

Readers in search of “hallucinogenic” stories might want to check out Keiichi Koike’s Heaven’s Door: Extra Works. “In some of these stories, the scale is pure Akira, but the detail and fluidness of the line are absolutely Moebius,” reviewer James Hepplewhite opines. Speaking of over-the-top manga, Megan D. revisits one of the most ludicrous series Tokyopop ever published: The Qwaser of Stigmata. (No, really; this manga goes to eleven.)

  • After School!, Vols. 1-2 (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Apollo’s Song (SKJAM, SKJAM! Reviews)
  • A Bride’s Story, Vol. 13 (Sakura Aries, The Fandom Post)
  • Bungo Stray Dogs Wan!, Vol. 1 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • A Centaur’s Life (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Dead Mount Death Play, Vol. 7 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Death Note Short Stories (Joseph Luster, Otaku USA)
  • Death Note Short Stories (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Dissolving Classroom (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Dr. STONE, Vol. 21 (Marina Z., But Why Tho?)
  • Eclair Bleue, Eclair Rouge, and Eclair Orange (Jaime, Yuri Stargirl)
  • Hinowa ga CRUSH!, Vol. 6 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • Hinowa ga CRUSH!, Vol. 6 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • I Want to Be a Wall, Vol. 1 (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • Little Miss P: The Fourth Day (Demelza, Anime UK News)
  • Love of Kill, Vol. 7 (Krystallina, The OASG)
  • Made in Abyss (Harry, Honey’s Anime)
  • Magic Artisan Dahlia Wilts No More, Vol. 1 (Justin, The OASG)
  • The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, Vol. 1 (Sakura Eries, The Fandom Post)
  • Marionette Generation (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Moriarty the Patriot, Vols. 6-7 (King Baby Duck, The Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • The Music of Marie (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Our Colors (Publisher’s Weekly)
  • Our Teachers Are Dating, Vol. 4 (Erica Friedman, Okazu)
  • Our Teachers Are Dating, Vol. 4 (Jaime, Yuri Stargirl)
  • The Royal Tutor, Vol. 16 (Sakura Eries, The Fandom Post)
  • Seimaiden (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)
  • Spy x Family, Vol. 7 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch, Vol. 1 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Walkin’ Butterfly (Megan D., The Manga Test Drive)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: death note, Drawn and Quarterly, Fantagraphics Books, Manga Sales Analysis, moto hagio, Naoki Urasawa, Osamu Tezuka, Seven Seas, Shonen Jump, The Poe Clan, Unico, yen press

Shojo & Tell: Moto Hagio Edition

September 28, 2019 by Katherine Dacey

To celebrate the release of Moto Hagio’s The Poe Clan, Shojo & Tell host Ashley MacDonald invited me to join her for an in-depth conversation about three of my all-time favorite manga: A, A’, They Were Eleven, and A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. We mulled over plot developments, discussed problematic passages, and agreed that “Iguana Girl” may be the biggest tear-jerker in the Hagio canon. (Seriously–I can’t read it without getting the sniffles.) Ashley just posted the episode, which you can check out here:

For more insight into the manga that we discussed, I recommend the following essays and reviews from The Manga Critic vault:

  • The Poe Clan, Vol. 1
  • A Drunken Dream and Other Stories
  • Manga Artifacts: A, A’ and They Were Eleven
  • An Introduction to Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra (essay explores Takemiya’s work in the context of the shojo manga revolution of the 1960s and 1970s)

I want to thank Ashley for the opportunity to chat about Hagio, and for doing such a terrific job of editing our conversation! If you’re not regularly following Shojo & Tell, I encourage you to check out the archive, as Ashley is a thoughtful host with a knack for choosing great manga and great guests. Recent contributors include Aisha Soleil and Rose Bridges discussing Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High School Host Club, Asher Sofman discussing CLAMP’s Tokyo Bablyon, and Manga Bookshelf’s own Anna Neatrour discussing Meca Tanaka’s The Young Master’s Revenge. Go, listen!

 

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Classic Manga, Magnificent 49ers, moto hagio, Sci-Fi, Shojo & Tell

The Poe Clan, Vol. 1

August 15, 2019 by Katherine Dacey

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

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Classic Manga, fantagraphics, moto hagio, The Poe Clan, Vampires

My Week in Manga: August 28-September 3, 2017

September 4, 2017 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week saw the end of one month and the beginning of another, which means the most recent monthly giveaway is currently underway at Experiments in Manga! Partially in honor of the seventh anniversary of Experiments in Manga (but largely just because I feel like it) this is a giveaway for four volumes of manga rather than just one. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, so there’s still time to enter for a chance to pick up a Variety of Vertical Comics: the first volumes of Ryo Hanada’s Devils’ Line, Chihiro Ishizuka’s Flying Witch, Riichi Ueshiba’s Mysterious Girlfriend X, and Keiichi Arawi’s Nichijou: My Ordinary Life. (I tried to make sure there was a good assortment of the types of manga currently being released by Vertical.)

Quick Takes

Cells at Work, Volume 2Cells at Work, Volumes 2-4 by by Akane Shimizu. I enjoyed the first volume of Cells at Work tremendously, but I did wonder just how long Shimizu would be able to carry the series’ conceit without it becoming tedious. I’m still not entirely sure, but apparently for at least four volumes because I still find myself highly entertained by Cells at Work. I’ve even learned a few things about the human immune system that I either didn’t previously know or had forgotten. (It’s been a long time since I’ve taken an anatomy or physiology class.) While there are a number of recurring characters–the anthropomorphized personifications of the various types of cells and organisms found in the human body–there’s not much of an overarching story or any real character development. Cells at Work is an episodic series with each chapter’s plot generally following some variation of the same theme: the body becomes compromised and an immune response is triggered because of it. Shimizu’s approach to the subject matter is to make it as epic and frequently as comedic as possible. The artwork is great, too. Cells at Work can be spectacularly violent, but it can also be surprisingly endearing. I continue to enjoy the series a great deal and look forward seeing more of Shimizu’s mayhem.

Otherworld Barbara, Omnibus 2Otherworld Barbara, Omnibus 2 (equivalent to Volumes 3-4) by Moto Hagio. It’s been around a year or so since the first half of the award-winning manga series Otherworld Barbara was released in English, long enough for me to have forgotten some of the nuances of the story. Granted, I’m not sure that I was necessarily picking up on all of the nuances to begin with. I definitely enjoyed Otherworld Barbara, and am very glad that it has been released in English, but I will admit that the manga can be frustratingly confusing and difficult to follow at times. (Perhaps I should try reading the series all in one go.) Otherworld Barbara is a very strange series and there’s a lot going on in it. Arguably a bit too much. Among many other things genetic experimentation, the search for immortality, Martian wars, dreams which impact reality and influence the future, existential crises, psychic confrontations, disastrous relationships, and precarious family dynamics all contribute to the narrative’s chaos and occasional lack of cohesiveness. In the end everything does successfully come together in a way that largely makes sense, but it does take some seemingly convenient plot twists for it all to happen. Even so, I found Otherworld Barbara to be immensely intriguing.

Wolfsmund, Volume 7Wolfsmund, Volumes 7-8 by Mitsuhisa Kuji. While it seemed like Wolfsmund had reached a natural ending point in the sixth volume, apparently Kuji had always intended the manga to be longer than that; with eight volumes, Kuji was able to reach the series’ conclusion as it was originally envisioned. Wolfsmund is an incredibly violent and frequently gruesome manga based on the historical conflict between the Swiss Confederacy and the Habspurg-led Austrian occupying forces in the early fourteenth century. The series culminates with the Battle of Morgarten, a pivotal moment in the history of Switzerland. That battle and the various skirmishes that lead up to it are brutal and legitimately gut-wrenching. Kuji does not at all shy away from showing the blood and gore associated with pre-modern warfare. The atmosphere that Kuji creates is exceptionally dark, heavy, and oppressive, the few moments of hope overshadowed by desperation and despair. However, the members of the Confederacy’s peasant army show astounding devotion to their cause even when faced with overwhelming odds. I can’t say that I was ever emotionally invested in Wolfsmund, but it was a gripping retelling.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: Akane Shimizu, Cells at Work, manga, Mitsuhisa Kuji, moto hagio, Otherworld Barbara, Wolfsmund

Otherworld Barbara, Vols. 1-2

August 29, 2017 by Michelle Smith

By Moto Hagio | Published by Fantagraphics

otherworldIt’s 2052 and Tokio Watarai, a dream pilot, is coming home to Japan for the first time in three years. Although his ex-wife and son are in Japan, he’s actually returning for a job involving a girl who’s been sleeping for seven years since being found with her parents’ hearts in her stomach. Her name is Aoba, and when Tokio enters her dream it’s all about an island called Barbara in which kids can fly and cannibalism factors in to funeral rites. Soon, he learns that his son, Kiriya, actually invented Barbara. So how is Aoba able to dream about it?

That introductory paragraph actually simplifies the story greatly. There’s also Tokio’s horrid ex-wife Akemi and the creepy priest Johannes whom she loves and who could possibly be Aoba’s grandfather but also head of an American orphanage in which cloned children were created, including one called Paris who comes to Japan and believes Kiriya might be a boy he knew called Taka. There’s Kiriya’s massive angst, his dreams of Mars, his dream conversations with Aoba, the girl Laika who fancies him, a psychiatrist who treated Aoba who is killed by a tornado she created, his identity-swapping and cross-dressing fraternal twin children, anti-aging research (potentially conducted upon the residents of Barbara) including a suit that turns Aoba’s grandma into a young woman who calls herself Marienbad and has a fling with Tokio, Daikoku’s ominous hinting that Kiriya will kill Tokio someday, parental regrets, etc.

By the end of the first volume, so very many plot threads are in the air that I was not at all sure that Hagio-sensei would be able to make everything make sense in the end. To use just one example: If Barbara is just a dream—and, indeed, no such island actually exists—then how is it possible that the blood of its residents is used for anti-aging medicine? And yet we see evidence that such advances are already in the works. And because of all this plot stuff, there’s not a lot of time for building solid relationships. There is angst aplenty, especially courtesy of Kiriya, but the whole Marienbad/Tokio hookup, for example, is just extremely random. The strongest bond, though, is definitely the love Tokio feels for his son and his regret over having been a crappy father.

Happily, the second volume does make with the answers, starting almost immediately. Not everything is answered with absolute certainty—one particular narrative thread takes a completely unexpected and surprisingly poignant turn. Even 90% of the way through, I would’ve said there was no way Otherworld Barbara would be able to make me cry, and yet it did. I won’t reveal how, but I loved the devastating consequences of a desperate act on Tokio’s part, and how it led him to have faith that Aoba’s dream of Barbara really could be shaping a vision of the future. That ending makes everything else worthwhile. Too, I enjoyed the contrast between Hagio’s uncomplicated, light-filled artwork and the dark and weird story she told.

Ultimately, Otherworld Barbara is definitely worth reading. Thank you, Fantagraphics, for releasing it!

Otherworld Barbara is complete in two 2-in-1 editions.

Review copies provided by the publisher

Filed Under: Josei, Manga, REVIEWS, Sci-Fi Tagged With: moto hagio

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

October 31, 2016 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Although I was finally around for most of last week (as opposed to traveling and being busy with family stuff and such like I was for previous two weeks), all that was posted in addition to the usual My Week in Manga feature was the monthly manga giveaway for October. Experiments in Manga is currently following a more relaxed posting schedule which, while it does still frustrate me that I’m not currently able to post more, is better than not posting anything at all. Anyway! There’s still time to enter for a chance to win the first two volumes of Gido Amagakure’s Sweetness & Lightning. All you have to do is tell me a little about your favorite dad or father figure from manga.

Seven Seas was celebrating its twelfth anniversary last week and announced a slew of new licenses including Yurino Tsukigase’s Otome Mania!!, Aikawa Shou’s Concrete Revolutio, Isaki Uta’s Generation Witch, Aoki Spica’s Beasts of Abigaile!, Nozomu Tamaki’s Don’t Meddle With My Daughter, Hachijou Shin’s Red Riding Hood and the Big Sad Wolf, Aosa Tsunemi’s Akashic Records of the Bastard Magical Instructor, Shiramine’s Tales of Zestiria, and Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness (which is probably the manga that I’m most curious about). Also of note, it looks as though Seven Seas might be getting back into the light novel game and the first print run of Kore Yamazaki’s The Ancient Magus’ Bride, Volume 6 will be accompanied by a booklet with a bonus chapter.

Not to be outdone, Yen Press announced three new acquisitions: Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui, the original novel, manga adaptations, and spinoff novel of Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name, and No Game No Life, Desu! by Yuu Kamiya and Kazuya Yuizaki. Also, Bento Books is preparing to release some more manga, including second volume of the Math Girls adaptation and the first two volumes of Female Math Major. After a bit of a mishap the first time around, the relaunch of Digital Manga’s most recent Kickstarter is well on its way to raise funds to release several of Osamu Tezuka’s short manga collections: Under the Air, Melody of Iron, and The Crater (which has its own history of mishaps separate from Digital Manga’s). Other Kickstarters that have recently caught my eye include the queer, supernatural, erotic comic Letters for Lucardo and the supernatural horror-comedy comic Not Drunk Enough.

Quick Takes

Fairy Tail: Blue Mistral, Volume 3Fairy Tail: Blue Mistral, Volume 3 by Rui Watanabe. Out of all of the various Fairy Tail spinoffs (and to some extent even Fairy Tail itself), Blue Mistral is the manga that I’m most enjoying so far. I find this particularly interesting because out of all the series, Blue Mistral is the one aimed at a demographic farthest from the one that technically I belong to. I believe Blue Mistral is currently the only shoujo version of Fairy Tail (or at least is the only one to have been published in  English at this point) and the magazine in which it was originally released is generally geared toward middle school girls. However, this audience is fitting for a series which follows Wendy Marvell, Fairy Tail’s twelve-year-old dragon slayer magic user. Although other characters from Fairy Tail do make appearances in the series, Blue Mistral is absolutely about Wendy and her adventures apart from the rest of the guild. In this particular volume, she spends much of her time posing as a boy for her own safety as she investigates the disappearances of a group of young women in the town of Aiya. After joining the town guard, she comes to discover that the circumstances are much more complicated than they first appeared. Romantic feelings play an important role in the story, but generally the romance occurs between characters who are not Wendy. Her heart does beat a little faster from time to time, though. Blue Mistral, even with all of the danger that Wendy must face, continues to be a generally upbeat, fun, and charming series.

Forget Me Not, Volume 4Forget Me Not, Volume 4 written by Mag Hsu and illustrated by Nao Emoto. Although by and large I have been enjoying Forget Me Not, the third volume managed to frustrate me immensely. However, the fourth volume worked much better for me. Serizawa’s romantic relationships and attempts at romantic relationships continue to be utter utter wrecks (which considering the premise of the series is entirely expected), but at least he’s finally gained some more maturity and is able to begin to understand his own feelings. The fourth volume also delves into Serizawa’s family history which reveals some of the likely reasons that he has so much trouble forming relationships to begin with–raised by his mother after his father abandons them for another woman, he hasn’t really had a good model to follow. That’s actually something that I really appreciate about Forget Me Not. Many series which focus on romance and love tend to idealize them when in fact relationships of any sort take a tremendous amount of work. Serizawa is in the process of learning this, and it can be painful to watch as he not always successfully navigates his romances, but he is making some progress, slowly recognizing what he needs is not necessarily what the other person needs. What is missing from the fourth volume of Forget Me Not is its connection to the series’ hook, the reason why Serizawa is currently looking back on his disappointing love life; I’m hoping that the series will explore this again soon.

The Gods LieThe Gods Lie by Kaori Ozaki. Even though it was never fully released in English, I loved Ozaki’s Immortal Rain (or Meteor Methuselah as it was originally titled). And so when The Gods Lie was licensed, I was understandably thrilled that I would have the opportunity to read more of Ozaki’s work. Other than the fact that I recognized the creator, I didn’t actually know anything about The Gods Lie. However, I was very happy to discover that it was just as beautifully drawn and emotionally resonant as Immortal Rain. Ozaki’s storytelling in The Gods Lie is just as strong if not stronger, too. It’s also a more mature work aimed at a more mature audience, seinen rather than shoujo. The Gods Lie is a heartwrenching and devastating manga. The themes that Ozaki explores with the work are pretty heavy and hard-hitting–death, abandonment, and desperation being some of the most prominent. But there’s also love and righteousness to be found. Interpersonal relationships and families, both good and bad, provide the manga’s center. The story takes place during a very limited span of time, primarily over the course of Natsuru Nanao’s sixth-grade summer vacation, but the events that occur will have a tremendous impact on the young man. Natsuru’s characterization is incredibly well done. In part The Gods Lie is a cutting coming-of-age story. Natsuru changes and matures in very believable ways, losing some of his innocence while gaining a better understanding of and dealing with some of the world’s more unfortunate realities.

Otherworld Barbara, Omnibus 1Otherworld Barbara, Omnibus 1 (equivalent to Volumes 1-2) by Moto Hagio. Fantagraphics doesn’t currently have a huge line of manga (and sadly we may never see the rest of Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son translated), but the works it does publish are quality ones. I was very excited for the release of the first half of Otherworld Barbara; the manga was one of my most-anticipated titles for 2016. Although Hagio is a very influential creator in Japan, not much of her work has been published in English. I’ve loved everything that has been translated but have a particular fondness for Hagio’s science fiction. Otherworld Barbara is very much a part of that genre–it’s even one of the few manga to have won the Nihon SF Taisho Award–but it also includes strong elements of fantasy and the supernatural in addition to some significant family drama. Dreams, reality, past, present, and future all overlap with one another in Otherworld Barbara. Tokio is a dream pilot with the ability to enter other people’s dreams, gaining insight into their psyches in the process. Often he’s called upon to use his ability to help with criminal investigations, but more recently a group of researchers has asked him explore the dreams of a young woman who has been asleep for seven years. Surprisingly, his estranged son seems to somehow be tied to her case. The deeper Tokio probes, the more strange coincidences he uncovers, and the more dangerous the situation becomes for him and everyone else involved. I’m immensely curious to see how the story plays out.

Filed Under: FEATURES, My Week in Manga Tagged With: Fairy Tail, Forget Me Not, Kaori Ozaki, Mag Hsu, manga, moto hagio, Nao Emoto, Otherworld Barbara, Rui Watanabe

The Most Anticipated Manga of 2016

January 4, 2016 by Katherine Dacey

We’re kicking off 2016 with a look at the manga titles and trends we’re most excited about. Joining me and Brigid is manga journalist and critic Deb Aoki, former guide to AboutManga.com, current host of Manga Comics Manga, and Publishers Weekly contributor.

What new manga are we looking forward to this year?

New Fruits BasketBRIGID: Fruits Basket! Natsuki Takaya’s tangled tale of a cursed family was one of the first shoujo manga I ever read, and I’m looking forward to re-reading it with a more experienced eye (and a better translation).

The other upcoming manga that everyone seems to be looking forward to is Princess Jellyfish, which Kodansha is publishing in double-sized omnibus volumes. This josei title about a bunch of nerdy girls living in their own rooming house sounds like it will be a lot of fun.

In terms of continuing series, I loved the first volume of Planetes and I’m looking forward to more. It’s a smart science fiction story with likeable characters and thoughtful storylines, and Dark Horse’s new edition is a beautiful two-volume omnibus that really feels like something special. I can’t wait to read more of Hiroya Oku’s Inuyashiki, about two humans given extreme superpowers in a freak accident—one uses them for good, one… doesn’t—and Yoshitoki Ōima’s A Silent Voice, an amazingly powerful story that’s about bullying but also about alienation and redemption. One more: Your Lie in April, which has kind of slid under the radar, a shonen romance about musicians that, like A Silent Voice, goes beyond the standard shonen romance tropes and has relatable characters experiencing real emotions.

On a general note: When I was compiling my lists of the best new and ongoing manga series of 2015, I was struck by how many really good manga debuted in 2015. From all accounts, 2016 is going to be even better.

haikyuuDEB: I’m most excited about the trend where manga publishers are taking chances on titles and genres that were once considered the third rail/extra risky to license, like sports manga. Super excited about the Summer 2016 arrival of the first volumes of Haikyu!! by Haruichi Furudate and Kuroko’s Basketball by Tadatoshi Fujimaki from Shonen Jump/VIZ Media! I love Haikyu!! a lot — been watching the first and second seasons on Crunchyroll over and over again. the characters are really wonderful — it’s delightful to see the team grow and reach new heights every time. It’s got lots of heart and humor as well as exciting sports action. It’s now one of my all-time faves!

I’ve also been enjoying the recently released Yowamushi Pedal by Wataru Watanabe, a manga about a hapless anime otaku who discovers that he has a talent for bicycle racing. Big ups to Yen Press for publishing this fairly long series in double-sized volumes.

queen-emeraldas-smallAnother example of manga publishing biz in the US dipping their toes into riskier fare is the upcoming publication of three classics: Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda from Udon Entertainment, Queen Emeraldas by Leiji Matsumoto from Kodansha Comics, and Otherworld Barbara by Moto Hagio from Fantagraphics Books.  For too long, the classics that are the foundation of manga in Japan have been largely unavailable in English. I’m hoping that these titles succeed so we can someday get more.

Also super excited about having more manga by Asano Inio available in English. Solanin and What a Wonderful World! are go-to recommendations for anyone who loves indie comics and is curious about manga. Now VIZ Media is publishing the mind-bending Goodnight Pun Pun, and A Girl on the Shore, coming from Vertical Comics. Both should be on your pre-order lists, as these are beautifully drawn, thought-provoking books that everyone will be talking about in the months to come.

rose-of-versailles-udonKATE: I share Deb’s excitement about classic manga. It’s a risky undertaking for any publisher, especially when so many readers are young (under 20) and not particularly curious about the medium’s roots. It will be interesting to see if UDON can pitch Rose of Versailles to the Shojo Beat crowd; though the artwork is a little dated, the melodrama, costumes, and kick-butt female lead have obvious parallels with titles in VIZ, Kodansha, and Yen’s catalogs. Who knows? It could be a surprise hit.

Speaking of vintage titles, I’m ecstatic about Drawn & Quarterly’s new Kitaro volumes. D&Q will be releasing these previously untranslated stories in slimmer, kid-friendly editions–a departure from their 2013 Kitaro release, which screamed “prestige project!” I think that’s a smart move: adults with an interest in Shigeru Mizuki’s work will buy it in almost any format, but younger manga fans need a length and trim size that reflects their own reading habits.

Another title on my must-read list is Jiro Taniguchi’s Guardians of the Louvre, which NBM Publishing will be releasing in April. The previous installment of the Louvre series–Hirohiko Araki’s Rohan at the Louvre–was the ultimate otaku two-fer: a ghost story and a standalone chapter in the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure saga. Taniguchi’s book will undoubtedly be a more sober affair, but one I’m anticipating with the same eagerness: I can’t wait to see how Taniguchi integrates the museum’s famous collection into his story.

fukufukuIn the just-for-fun department, I Am a Hero, a zombie thriller from Dark Horse, is near the top of my list, as are VIZ’s Haikyu! (mentioned by Deb above), Vertical’s FukuFuku: Kitten Tales, and the final installment of DC Comics’ Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga. I’m also looking forward to Wandering Island, a story about a gutsy young woman who runs an air mail service in a remote corner of Japan. The illustrations are by Kenji Tsurata, the creator of the criminally under-appreciated Spirit of Wonder, which was published by Dark Horse in 1998.

Last but not least, I’d also make a plug for The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Anime and Manga. This visual biography clocks in at a hefty 900 pages, highlighting important periods in Tezuka’s career as an illustrator and animator. Its author, Toshio Ban, worked closely with Tezuka in the 1970s and 1980s, giving Ban a unique perspective on his subject. As an added bonus for American readers, Stone Bridge Press brought in Frederick L. Schodt to do the translation.

How about conventions—does anything look particularly tempting?

DEB: I’m always curious to see what Toronto Comic Arts Festival will be bringing as their guests this May. Last year was Gurihiru and Aya Kanno, prior years brought Konami Kanata, Moyoco Anno, Akira Himekawa, Usamaru Furuya, Est Em, Natsume Ono and Yoshihiro Tatsumi to name just a few. I don’t know what they have planned, but I know it’ll be worth the trip!

As booth space and tickets get harder and harder to get at San Diego Comic-Con, Anime Expo in Los Angeles has turned into the Japanese content biz must-go show. I’ve noticed that more companies from Japan are buying booths, and see lots of meetings / business being conducted at the show.

It’s great that AX is getting bigger and bigger, but I worry that it creates a situation where the anime/manga world becomes even more segregated/separated from the general pop culture community that converges at Comic-Con and similar American shows. This is especially irksome because it seems like most of the Western comics / pop culture press corps basically ignore / don’t report on / don’t attend Anime Expo or any of the announcements that come out of this show.

This pisses me off because anime/manga matter more than ever — especially as its fandom tend to skew younger, are more active, and more interested in all kinds of entertainment from US and Japan compared to their counterparts on the superhero side of the comic shop. So much for my “be less crabby in 2016” resolution… ;-)

KATE: I had a blast attending shows like New York Comic Con and Wondercon in the late 2000s. The last time I attended NYCC, however, I felt that the show had taken a much sharper turn towards the television, film, and gaming industries, and was losing its identity as a comics convention. The manga publishers were still there, of course, but it was harder to circulate and interact with editors and sales reps because of the enormous crowds. That experience pretty much soured me on going to any more big conventions. TCAF always sounds like a blast, but the timing never works for me; I’m always knee-deep in final exams and student papers when it rolls around!

BRIGID: I echo Deb’s concern about AX, but it does seem like this year, the news was spread across a broader swath of conventions—and many of the new licenses, including Fruits Basket, were announced on Twitter. The presence of so many people from the Japanese publishers—not just creators but editorial staff as well—was very noticeable this year and shows that the publishers are taking the American audience seriously. It also enhanced the experience to see, for instance, the editor of Noragami explaining the process of how it went from sketches to finished page. I’m looking forward to more of that at the larger shows as well as the more intimate experience at the smaller shows, where the creators and their readers are not so far apart.

Any predictions about the industry?

DEB: Almost all signs point to a healthier, more robust manga publishing business in 2016, which is a great thing. I don’t see the same rush to publish anything and everything vaguely manga-ish (even crappy manga) that I saw prior to the crash of the late 2000’s — publishers seem to be making more careful choices, more calculated risks. The fact that they’re taking any risks at all — by expanding genres, offering their stories via more digital channels and doing more simulpub/same day as Japan releases, is a good sign.

I’m also intrigued/encouraged by the efforts being made by Japanese manga publishers to welcome submissions by creators from outside of Japan, like Comics Zenon’s Silent Manga Audition contests and the Japanese edition of Shonen Jump’s latest contest to get published in their online magazine, Jump Plus. It’s no secret that many up-and-coming comics creators from around the world are inspired by manga, so it’ll be very interesting to see what happens when more of these creators get exposure in Japan and guidance from Japan’s top-notch manga editors.

magus1KATE: I’m consistently impressed by Seven Seas’ tenacity and business acumen, but not so impressed with the actual titles they license. Last year, however, Seven Seas published The Ancient Magus’ Bride and acquired Orange, neither of which fit the profile of a typical Seven Seas manga; if anything, both seemed like the kind of titles that CMX used to license. That gamble has paid off with Bride, which recently cracked the NY Times Manga Bestseller list. My prediction: Seven Seas will continue to make bold licensing choices in 2016, even as vampire-monster girls remain their core business.

BRIGID: I see publishers taking manga more seriously as the audience expands. While the “pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap” attitude that made Tokyopop and Viz’s Shonen Jump lines such a success ten years ago works well with teen readers, who gobble up manga in quantity, publishers are starting to cater to older readers who want a somewhat better experience. The oversized omnibus isn’t that much more expensive than single volumes, but it allows for a more satisfying reading experience, and publishers often include extras like better quality covers and color pages. Viz’s new edition of Monster, Dark Horse’s Planetes, and Yen Press’s Emma are all examples of this, and Kodansha gets a shoutout for not only its superb editions of Vinland Saga but its deluxe Attack on Titan Colossal Edition. This seriousness goes beyond production values to the licensing of quality manga that might not have found a market in earlier years, including Inuyashiki and Naoki Urasawa’s Master Keaton.

gekiga01If any publishers are reading this, I have a very specific licensing request. There’s a small French publisher called Lezard Noir that is publishing some amazing manga in French; I spoke to the publisher when I was in Angouleme two years ago and was really impressed with his line, which includes Minetaro Mochizuki’s Chiisakobé, Bonten Taro’s Sex & Fury, and Masahiko Matsumoto’s Gekiga Fanatics. I’m not the only one—every year at least one of his books is picked as an official selection by the Angouleme festival. I’d love to see some U.S. publishers pick up these titles in a similar format—I think they would have a lot of appeal to those older, more sophisticated manga readers.

Filed Under: FEATURES, MANGABLOG Tagged With: Drawn & Quarterly, fantagraphics, Kodansha Comics, Leiji Matsumoto, Most Anticipated Manga, moto hagio, NBM Publishing, Ryoko Ikeda, Seven Seas, Stone Bridge Press, Udon Entertainment, Vertical Comics, viz media, yen press

BL Bookrack: The Heart of Thomas

January 19, 2013 by MJ and Michelle Smith 7 Comments

heartofthomasMICHELLE: Thanks for joining us for the first BL Bookrack column of the new year. This time we’re doing something a bit different and devoting this month’s column to Moto Hagio’s The Heart of Thomas, which is one of the most historically significant works influencing the boys’ love genre in Japan, and the most historically significant one currently available in print in English.

But, y’know, I feel like bestowing this weighty mantle upon the work could overshadow the fact that it’s very dramatic, emotional, and romantic. It seems best to me to take it on its own terms.

MJ: I agree, Michelle—which isn’t to say that The Heart of Thomas doesn’t earn its historical weightiness! Its influence is significant for good reason. But perhaps what I found most striking about it is just how much it has to offer without any knowledge of its significance at all. And though understanding its context is important and worthy discussion, there are plenty of critics on hand to do just that. Here in our column, I’m personally more interested in discussing it… well, as itself. If that makes sense.

MICHELLE: My thoughts exactly!

I suppose we ought to start with a summary, which is gonna be a toughie, but here goes…

The Heart of Thomas begins with the suicide of thirteen-year-old Thomas Werner. In love with his classmate, Juli, Thomas sees this act as a way to “bring him back to life.” The two had been classmates at a German boarding school called Schlotterbach, and we meet Juli on the morning the students have reconvened after Easter vacation, where news of Thomas’ death spreads quickly. After a letter from Thomas lets Juli know the death was not an accident, he’s plunged into turmoil, which only worsens when a transfer student named Erich—who bears a strong physical resemblance to Thomas, though with a much pricklier personality—arrives on the scene.

(click images to enlarge)

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The three primary characters—in addition to Juli and Erich, there’s also Oskar, Juli’s roommate—have all been broken in some way, and the story revolves around their intertwining relationships and the secrets each keeps hidden. Each one is complex, and each one becomes completely beloved to the reader by the end.

MJ: I think for a story like this, that’s a perfectly good summary! And by “a story like this,” I mean a story that is almost entirely focused on its characters’ feelings and their relationships to each other—and themselves—with very little investment in plot, outside of a few significant events. That these few events are almost entirely deaths (including Thomas’ opening suicide) and other tragedies might make the book sound rather melodramatic, and I suppose on the surface it is. But in the story’s boarding school setting, this is somehow completely appropriate. In this highly structured environment, largely removed from their families and the rest of the outside world, the boys at Schlotterbach thrive on those big moments—the few sensational events that make their way in from the world—and without enough of those, they must create whatever else they can on their own.

MICHELLE: In his introduction, translator Matt Thorn writes that Hagio at one point had attempted to remake the series with female characters (to appeal to female readers), but found pressure to make things more realistic and plausible and it just didn’t work. There had to be a feeling of “other” about the characters and the setting in order for her to be able to tell the story she wanted. And once I read the manga, I had to agree that it would not have worked otherwise.

Too, while on the surface it might seem/be melodramatic, when you get down to it… it’s really all about Juli’s ability to accept forgiveness and forgive himself. And that’s not melodramatic at all.

MJ: Also, the idea that the story’s emphasis on dramatic events makes it unrealistic I think deliberately ignores what it is to be an adolescent. Even teens and pre-teens who go to regular, modern public schools essentially live in their own society that is very much separate from the rest of the world, and it’s a society that is, frankly, terrifying. I think adults often willfully forget this (and who can blame them?) but it’s true. The public tragedies are real (one of my high school teachers killed himself in the middle of our senior year—and doesn’t everyone have some kind of tragic story like this that affected their entire school?) and the private ones are even more so. Regardless of the precise circumstances, is Juli’s struggle to accept himself as a whole person really alien to any teen?

MICHELLE: Now you’re making me remember the public tragedies of my youth, some of which I’d forgotten about!

This seems like a good time to focus on Juli for a bit, since he’s really quite interesting. We don’t get all the details, but Juli’s German mother seems to have married a German citizen of Greek heritage. Juli looks a lot like his father and his unusual black hair generates a lot of commentary, from admiring classmates to his hateful grandmother, who still clings to ideals about German purity. (I did wonder what year this was supposed to be, but I believe West Germany is referenced at one point, so it’s got to be after 1949 and, thus, World War II.)

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Grandma also bears a grudge because she had to take on the debts left behind when Juli’s father passed away. This fills Juli with the desire to change her attitude by becoming as successful as possible and paying her back. To this end, he attempts to become the perfect student. And for a while, he does quite well. He’s admired, he’s loved by Thomas, he loves Thomas in return, but there’s a darkness in him that leads him to accept the invitation of a creepy older student to meet him in a certain room on campus. The secret of what went on there is the last to be revealed in the story, so I won’t divulge it here, but the end result is that he’s utterly filled with self-loathing and cannot accept that Thomas really means it when he says that he loves him and coldly rejects him in public.

Oskar alone among the students knows what has happened, and has been assigned to share a room with Juli and watch over him. He’s therefore privy to the facade Juli struggles so hard to maintain and the cracks that form when Juli learns that Thomas sacrificed his angelic self for him. It takes a long time before Erich’s emotional frankness and Oskar’s example of forgiveness combine to allow him to finally admit the truth of his love for Thomas and to understand that Thomas would forgive him anything. Now he can forgive himself.

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MJ: Related to this, I have to just make a comment here regarding Thomas vs. Erich, because while Erich’s ability to express his feelings openly is part of what ultimately saves Juli from his own self-loathing, Thomas was just as open about his feelings with Juli—yet his way of trying to save Juli I think only broke him more. In the end, I think it’s Erich’s rebellious, combative nature that makes the difference. After Juli’s horrible experience, he can’t believe that Thomas would love him, and he feels the same disbelief about Erich’s open confessions of love. But where Thomas’ solution was to sacrifice himself, Erich’s is to fight (and fight hard), and it’s this that finally gets through to Juli.

I bring this up specifically because this is a column about BL, and there’s a (much-deserved) stigma around older works involving same-sex relationships that end in suicide. But (aside from the fact that this story actually begins with the suicide) where The Heart of Thomas really stands out here is that, from my perspective, it views that kind of sacrifice as… well, ultimately pointless. Throughout the story, even to the end when Oskar persuades Erich to remain at school rather than retreating to his stepfather’s house, Hagio makes it clear that running away is not the answer. We’re given the romantic option of viewing Thomas’ sacrifice as beautiful and selfless, but we’re clearly shown that Erich’s instinct to fight against that sacrifice is the way to really bring Juli back to life.

MICHELLE: Very well said! I also wonder if part of it is that Erich, playing the part of Thomas surrogate (a role which he tries hard to escape, but which might actually help Juli in the end) represents someone who can love Juli and not be hurt by the sins and darkness Juli is burdened by. Erich is strong, smart, and feisty. He believes in love and in God, and despite his pretty looks, he’s not fragile but instead resilient. That’s why, in the end, Juli can confess what happened to Erich and yet feel absolved, in a way, by Thomas.

MJ: Speaking of that connection, there’s a fairly creepy scene late in the manga where Erich has been invited to visit Thomas’ family whom he discovers wish to adopt him. Erich wisely declines the Werners’ offer to become a stand-in for their dead son, but afterwards he regrets turning down the opportunity to see Thomas’ old room as he discovers more and more the feelings and philosophies they shared in common. It’s an important realization, because it’s this that allows Erich to put aside his resentment towards Thomas for looking so much like him and dragging him into so much drama, in order to be able to help Juli, and also himself. Understanding that the emotional honesty that made fitting in at Schlotterbach so difficult could actually be an asset I think is pretty huge for Erich.

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MICHELLE: Definitely. In general, it’s a treat watching Erich mature over the course of the series. Another important moment comes when his mother passes away and he suddenly and viciously regrets his own selfishness in opposing her marriage. It would’ve made her happy, but he clung to her and held her back. Later, when he’s able to finally see the good in his stepfather and accept a home with him, it’s a very touching moment. Knowing he has this secure future (where he’s wanted for himself, not for any resemblance to Thomas) gives him the strength to not only commit more fully to studying at school, but to be forthcoming with his feelings for Juli.

MJ: I agree, it’s a real treat watching him grow up, especially as early on he seems the least likely character to be helping anyone else heal.

So, let’s talk about Oskar a bit. He’s actually my favorite character in the book, probably because he’s the least like me. Heh. Oskar is a terrible student who smokes, skips class, and is generally considered to be a screw-up, but he’s also utterly confident, incredibly insightful and fantastic in a crisis. He’s the guy you want in your corner because you know he can handle anything life throws at him with elegant competence, up to and including things like discovering that his father murdered his mother (or that he’s not actually his father at all). If I wrote Heart of Thomas fanfiction, it would all be about Oskar.

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MICHELLE: Oskar is my favorite too, and became so pretty much immediately. He’s just got this air of… languid sorrow about him. He reminds me of someone from Fruits Basket, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s Momiji. He’s popular and has charisma to spare, but he’s also known tremendous family grief. When he came to the school (around age ten, I think), he’s described as having grown-up eyes and speaking with grown-up words. He’d seen and experienced so much that he was really no longer on the same level as his classmates. Recognizing the “difference” in Juli was something that drew them together.

Did you know that Hagio actually wrote a one-shot about Oskar’s life prior to entering school? It’s called “Houmonsha.” Hope we get that in English at some point!

MJ: I did not! Oh, how I want to read that!

I can see the Momiji comparison (especially older Momiji—Oskar is by no means cuddly), though I’d also suggest that I think Oskar is the most overtly sexualized of the main characters in the story. Hagio writes him and (especially) draws him as a sexual being, with an attractive swagger and abundant bangs, and I’m pretty sure he even gets the most action of anyone in the story (which has, overall, not much action by modern BL standards). While both Thomas’ and Erich’s love for Juli is portrayed in a very pure, innocent light, Oskar’s feelings are allowed to display a bit more ambiguity, and though nothing actually sexual ever happens between them (despite a rumor spread at one point by a jealous younger student), he’s the only one of all Juli’s admirers with whom one could imagine that it might.

MICHELLE: I hadn’t thought about that before in those terms, but maybe some of that sensuality is what I was picking up on with the term “languid.” It also probably has something to do with being a year older than the others; he’s also interested in girls (well, at least enough to flirt with the ones in town) where some of the others aren’t yet.

Talking about the action or lack thereof… are there really any honest-to-goodness on-the-lips kisses in this series that are not brought on by anger or extortion? Ante witnesses Oskar performing mouth-to-mouth and names a kiss as the price for his silence, Erich wrangles a kiss from Juli later, too, and comments upon its bitterness. The only real kiss Juli ever bestows is one on Erich’s cheek right at the very end of the series.

MJ: The closest I can remember to anything like that is actually not on the lips. There’s a really interesting moment on the day that Oskar takes Erich in to town to learn about girls. The two get into some heated discussion about Thomas that ends with Oskar warmly embracing Erich, kissing him, and holding him in a way that really does not feel platonic while comparing Thomas to Amor, the god of love. It’s a strangely intimate little moment.

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Modern BL, of course, tends to include much, much more sexual content than can be found in The Heart of Thomas, but very little of it can hold a candle to Hagio’s work when it comes to musing on the value of love.

MICHELLE: Oh yes, I’d forgotten about that moment. If you were to write an epilogue starring Oskar, what do you think the chances are of he and Erich ultimately ending up together? For Erich, it’d mean another important relationship in his life that began on the basis of a shared love for someone else, but it seems at least possible to me.

MJ: Yeah, actually, that’s the likeliest actual couple in the story as far as I’m concerned, though I’d see it as something a ways in the future, for sure. I might write some sort of awkward future meeting between Oskar and Juli, after Juli has left seminary, but for romance? I’d go Oskar/Erich all the way. In a way, I think the relationship you describe is the one they already sort of have, and what’s kind of surprising about it, is that it feels healthier than one might expect. During that final scene where Oskar is convincing Erich to stay with him (and all of them) at school, there’s an unexpected sense of joy on the page—unexpected by me, anyway. Juli’s leaving, but it’s not the end of the world for anyone, including Oskar and Erich, and that sort of real optimism about their futures without him just took me by surprise. It was kind of awesome, really.

MICHELLE: I felt that, too. It is a new beginning, for everyone involved. You know, it was probably very wise of Hagio to never write a sequel wherein Oskar and Erich do get together—I mean, there must have been some sort of fan demand for this!—because she might’ve had to address the “what happens when school ends?” question. Now we can simply imagine them together instead of knowing they ended up moving on and marrying, et cetera, however poignant that may be.

MJ: Yes, given the time and place, Oskar and Erich’s story as a couple probably ends much less romantically than we’d like. We’re better off with fanfiction, I’m guessing. Which I now want to write. Oops?

Speaking of joy, I feel like we need to spend at least a few minutes here just talking about Hagio’s artwork because… oh, the glory of her artwork! You know I’m a sucker for classic shoujo in general, but Heart of Thomas is just exquisite in every way.

MICHELLE: It really is, and I definitely kept thinking throughout, “Oh, I bet MJlikes this page!”

There were quite a few pages I liked and made note of along the way. Page 157, with that top panel of the memory of Thomas haunting Juli and then in panel three morphing into Erich. Page 201, a color page wherein Juli looks dapper and elegant and Erich looks a little Bohemian or something with his interesting cross-legged pose. Page 241, where Thomas’ outline dominates the page while Juli narrates about how loving Thomas filled him with terror…. I could go on and on.

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MJ: Yes, yes! What’s hardest here is trying to choose! I have particular love for a sequence early on—which I almost hate to bring up, because I know the panels leading into it are a source of pain for Matt Thorn, who surely loves this book more than anyone—but there’s an incredible scene on pages 29-31, in which Juli is dreaming about Thomas throwing himself off the bridge into his arms, that is just spectacularly eerie and expressive. Hagio’s emotional imagery is so clear throughout—she truly shows us her characters’ hearts through the artwork.

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MICHELLE: I also really admired that, even though you’ve got all these kids in identical uniforms, some of whom have similar hairstyles, I was still never confused as to who I was looking at. (This also goes for Erich and Thomas, who share the same face!) And she didn’t achieve this distinction through wild appearances—though a couple of the older boys do look very unique—but just sheer drawing technique.

MJ: Yes, she pours so much characterization into body language and facial expression! It’s exactly the sort of work I long to point out to manga detractors who complain about big-eyed generic illustrations, in part because the characters indeed do have big eyes, which Hagio uses to great advantage. I could look at this book forever, and it’s possible I might.

In case it isn’t obvious to anyone reading this, I loved this manga with my whole heart. And I’ll admit that’s not exactly what I expected. I expected to find it visually beautiful and worthy as a classic, but I also expected it to be very dated and I thought the story might not appeal to my tastes as a modern fan. Instead, I found it to be both beautiful and emotionally resonant to an extent I’ve rarely experienced—especially in BL manga. This is a book I’d wholeheartedly recommend to any comics fan, without reservation. It’s an absolute treasure.

MICHELLE: After experiencing some disappointment with the story of Princess Knight, another historically significant work whose English release I had long desired, I was a little worried myself, but I needn’t have been. The Heart of Thomas was even better than I’d hoped. I hope it does well for Fantagraphics!

MJ: I hope so, too! Thank you, Moto Hagio, Matt Thorn, and Fantagraphics, for giving us the opportunity to read this gorgeous work.


All images copyright 2007 Moto Hagio, new edition copyright 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

More full-series discussions with MJ & Michelle:

Moon Child | Fullmetal Alchemist | Paradise Kiss | Tokyo Babylon (with guest Danielle Leigh)
The “Color of…” Trilogy | One Thousand and One Nights | Please Save My Earth
Princess Knight | Fruits Basket | Wild Adapter (with guest David Welsh) | Chocolat

Full-series multi-guest roundtables: Hikaru no Go | Banana Fish | Gerard & Jacques | Flower of Life

Filed Under: BL BOOKRACK Tagged With: fantagraphics, matt thorn, moto hagio, the heart of thomas, yaoi/boys' love

My Week in Manga: March 19-March 25, 2012

March 26, 2012 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

Last week was the Jiro Taniguchi Manga Moveable Feast and so I made a point to take advantage of that fact. I posted my second in-depth manga review for March, taking a closer look at Taniguchi’s most recent work to be released in print in English, A Zoo in Winter. I also borrowed and read all of the Taniguchi manga that my library had, resulting in Library Love: Jiro Taniguchi. It’s been a few months since there has been a Library Love post. I’m planning on continuing the feature on a bimonthly basis, so look for the next one sometime in May.

Last year I reviewed the first issue of Monkey Business and I’ve been looking forward to the next volume ever since. It looks like the release date has been pushed back from mid-March to sometime in April. In the meantime, the Monkey Business website is now available and the second issue can be preordered! Completely unrelated, someone pointed out Symphony of the Blood to me. From what I can tell, it’s fan created concept art for an Osamu Tezuka fighting game. It is awesome and I would totally play it if it actually existed.

This past week I also came across a few interesting articles about the state of the manga industry. I always enjoy reading Dan Kanemitsu’s work; this time he has a great piece Analysizing the State of the Anime and Manga industry in 2012, specifically in Japan. Over at ICv2 there were two articles focusing on the US side of the industry: Manga after Borders and an interview with Dark Horse’s Carl Horn. (It also sounds like Dark Horse will be releasing more manga from Blade of the Immortal‘s Hiroaki Samura, which I’m very excited to hear!)

Quick Takes

A, A′ by Moto Hagio. The problem with reading Hagio’s science fiction is that it makes me want to read more of Hagio’s science fiction, and I’ve already read everything that’s currently available in English. I loved A, A′. Originally published in Japan in 1981, it is a collection of three stories, two of which are somewhat related. All three stories feature “unicorns,” a race of humans initially bio-engineered for space travel in the 21st century who have since become increasingly rare. The back cover calls A, A′ “science fiction with a romantic twist,” which is fairly accurate. Hagio incorporates themes of love, gender, sex, and sexuality into her stories. The relationships between people, romantic and otherwise, are very important.

King of Thorn, Volumes 2-6 by Yuji Iwahara. Having previously read Iwahara’s Cat Paradise, I can’t say that I was particularly surprised by the somewhat convoluted plot of King of Thorn. This is not to say that I don’t like the series. In fact, I am quite fond of it. I also happen to really like Iwahara’s artwork. It’s just that he never seems content with a simple story and tends to introduce plot twist after plot twist. King of Thorn ended up going in some very unexpected directions, but the ride is thrilling. King of Thorn may not always be particularly original (even Iwahara states that many of the story elements are “ripped off” from elsewhere), but it’s still a lot of fun. Plus, the series gives one of the characters, Marco Owen, plenty of opportunities to run around being a badass.

Mister Mistress, Volume 1 by Rize Shinba. I have no idea why this series is called Mister Mistress other than being a silly title for a silly boys’ love manga. Rei is an incubus who feeds of the sexual vitality of young men. And what better source of energy than a horny, sex-obsessed teenager who’s constantly masturbating? At first Rei only appears in Fujimaru’s dreams, but eventually he amasses enough energy from Fujimaru to physically manifest. Although Fujimaru is understandably disconcerted by this development, his sexual fantasies continue unabated, heightened by Rei’s magical powers. Shinba’s artwork is attractive and the series has a sense of humor. I mean, even Fujimaru’s penis gets a character page.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a lovely film. It’s more or less a sequel to the 1967 novel of the same name by Yasutaka Tsutsui. Although likeable, Makoto isn’t the smartest or most coordinated person in her class. Instead of thinking about her future, she’d rather just play catch with her two best friends Chiaki and Kousuke. But she soon finds herself thinking a lot about time when she discovers she has the ability to travel back into the past. And so she does, trying to change events to make things better for her and her friends or to avoid conversations and confrontations that she’d rather not have. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time has both a lighthearted and a serious side which are balanced nicely.

Filed Under: My Week in Manga Tagged With: anime, Girl Who Leapt Through Time, King of Thorn, manga, Mister Mistress, moto hagio, Rize Shinba, Yuji Iwahara

Six to grow on

May 6, 2011 by David Welsh

Viz has certainly delivered some beloved manga to English-reading audiences in their almost-25-year history, haven’t they? Yesterday’s discussion has certainly reinforced that belief. So, by all means, let us extend warm and gracious thanks for the seinen, the shônen, the shôjo, the josei, the fifth genre, and so on!

And yet…

It would not be Friday if I didn’t at least obliquely express a little dissatisfaction with what’s on our shelves, and Viz co-owners Shueisha and Shogakukan certainly aren’t exempt in terms of onus for rectifying perceived shortcomings. So, instead of adding a new, unlicensed title to the pile, I’ll offer a polite but firm reminder of some of the titles these two publishing giants might consider sending through the Viz pipeline.

Bartender, written by Akari Joh and Illustrated by Kenji Nagatomo, currently serialized in Shueisha’s Super Jump. While I hope Vertical’s release of wine epic Drops of God succeeds for its own sake, I hope one of the side effects is that it helps create a market for intoxicant-driven manga like this one. Sure, it’s great to enjoy a cocktail while reading manga, but it would be even better to enjoy a cocktail while reading manga that’s about cocktails.

The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, written and illustrated by Setona Mizushiro, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Judy. If you’re looking for someone who can explain to you why there isn’t more Mizushiro manga available in English, you can just keep on looking, because I am not even remotely equipped to do so. It’s honestly hard to pick just one of Mizushiro’s yet-to-be-licensed works, but I settled on this one to add a little boys’-love spice to the mix.

Gokusen, written and illustrated by Kozueko Morimoto, originally serialized in Shueisha’s You. If assembling The Josei Alphabet has led me to no other conclusion, it’s further convinced me that we need more josei in English. By all accounts, this tale of a math teacher trying to get the delinquents at her all-boys’ school on the right path, is funny and sprightly and could certainly reach a fairly diverse audience.

Hime-Chan’s Ribbon, written and illustrated by Megumi Mizusawa, originally serialized in Shueisha’s Ribon. There are almost certainly more important shôjo titles in both Shogakukan and Shueisha’s catalogs that are crying out for licensing, but this one sounds really adorable, and its accessory-driven storytelling might both catch and support the wave that I hope is created by the re-release of Sailor Moon.

Otherworld Barbara, written and illustrated by Moto Hagio, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s Flowers. I give Viz all the credit in the world for being the first stateside publisher to introduce Hagio’s work to readers, but what have they done for us lately? It’s been a long time since Fantagraphics released A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, and I need a new Hagio fix. This award-winning, four-volume series would do the trick.

Witches, written and illustrated by Daisuke Igarashi, originally serialized in Shogakukan’s IKKI. I love Viz’s SigIKKI initiative, but they desperately need to add another substantial, ongoing series to their roster, and I would love it if that series was Witches, because I can star at Igarashi’s illustrations for hours.

So there are my top six Viz-friendly license requests of the moment. What about you? What Shueisha or Shogakukan titles top your wish lists?

 

Filed Under: LICENSE REQUESTS Tagged With: Daisuke Igarashi, Flowers, IKKI, Josei, Judy, moto hagio, Ribon, Seinen, Shogakukan, shojo, Shueisha, Super Jump, You

My Viz 25

May 5, 2011 by David Welsh

Viz is celebrating will celebrate its 25th anniversary this summer, which is quite an accomplishment. Given how many English-language manga publishers have fallen away over time, you have to give Viz credit for sticking around, no matter how well resourced they may be. They’ve always struck me as grown-ups and professionals, which certainly helps. Beyond that, I appreciate the range of material they’ve published over time and that they continue to try and publish.

So, in preparation for the milestone, I thought I’d list 25 of my favorite Viz manga. It’s impressive that it was actually difficult to limit this list to 25, and I ended up having to institute a one-title-per-creator rule to make it possible. Here they are in alphabetical order:

  1. 20th Century Boys, written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa: my favorite of Urasawa’s paranoid thriller, because it’s as frisky and funny as it is suspenseful.
  2. A, A1, written and illustrated by Moto Hagio: dreamy science fiction about people with too many feelings for the universe to contain.
  3. Benkei in New York, written by Jinpachi Mori, illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi: beautifully drawn (because it’s Taniguchi) and slyly written noir tales of a mysterious Japanese man in the Big Apple.
  4. Children of the Sea, written and illustrated by Daisuke Igarashi: some of the most viscerally absorbing art I’ve ever seen in a comic used to tell a solid environmental fable.
  5. Cross Game, written and illustrated by Mitsuru Adachi: simply the bet, funniest, most heartfelt sport manga I’ve ever read.
  6. The Drifting Classroom, written and illustrated by Kazuo Umezu: an elementary school gets blown into a dangerous wasteland, and everything falls apart in the most gruesome, hilarious ways.
  7. Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, written and illustrated by Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma: much more than a parody of instruction manuals, it’s a hilarious take-down of the form itself and the sausage-factory elements that can produce it.
  8. Fullmetal Alchemist, written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa: a great shônen adventure series with some of the crispest, most focused storytelling you’re likely to find in this category.
  9. GoGo Monster, written and illustrated by Taiyo Matsumoto: gorgeous art used in service of an imaginative, emotionally complex story, beautifully packaged for bonus points.
  10. Hikaru no Go, written by Yumi Hotta, illustrated by Takeshi Obata: the series that will make you ask how a comic about a board game can be so exciting.
  11. Honey and Clover, written and illustrated by Chica Umino: art-school students give a master class in mono no aware.
  12. House of Five Leaves, written and illustrated by Natsume Ono: elegant, character-driven examination of a group of kidnappers in Edo era Japan.
  13. I’ll Give it My All… Tomorrow, written and illustrated by Shunju Aono: one of the few comics about losers trying to make comics that I can truly love, because Aono knows he’s writing about a loser and spares his protagonist virtually nothing.
  14. Maison Ikkoku, written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi: further evidence, as if it was needed, that Takahashi is queen of the well-told situation comedy.
  15. Nana, written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa: the lives and love of two very different young women who share the same name and an enduring friendship through life’s ups and downs in rock-and-roll Tokyo.
  16. Oishinbo, written by Tetu Karia, illustrated by Akira Hanasaki: gone too soon, but much appreciated for its food-obsessed tour through Japan’s culinary culture.
  17. One Piece, written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda: an absolutely magical blend of high adventure, low comedy, heartbreaking drama, and whatever the hell else Oda feels like throwing into the mix.
  18. Ôoku: The Inner Chambers, written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga: an engrossing alternate universe where most of the men have died, leaving the survivor to sly, courtly intrigue and surprising emotional brutality.
  19. Phoenix, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka: a sprawling example of Tezuka at his peak.
  20. Real, written and illustrated by Takehiko Inoue: as smart and sensitive as it is gorgeous and visceral, telling the stories of wheelchair basketball players.
  21. Sand Chronicles, written and illustrated by Hinako Ashihara: heartfelt melodrama about a girl’s troubled journey from early adolescence to womanhood.
  22. Saturn Apartments, written and illustrated by Hisae Iwaoka: another example of why I love slice-of-life science fiction with down-to-earth people in out-of-this-world circumstances.
  23. Secret Comics Japan, written and illustrated by various artists: long before Ax came this wooly and marvelous collection of alternative manga shorts.
  24. Sexy Voice and Robo, written and illustrated by Iou Kuroda: a nosy girl drags a hapless guy into her sometimes-perilous odd jobs snooping for a retired mobster, offering great variety of tones but consistently sharp observations about human nature.
  25. Uzumaki, written and illustrated by Junji Ito: because you always love your first Ito manga best, and this one is an excellent representation of his horrifying work. Of course, if Viz had published Tomie first…

What are your favorite Viz series? If you’d rather post a similar list at your own blog, I’d love to read it (and link to it). Otherwise, let loose in the comments.

 

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER Tagged With: Ai Yazawa, Chica Umino, Daisuke Igarashi, fumi yoshinaga, Iou Kuroda, Josei, Junji Ito, Kazuo Umezu, Mitsuru Adachi, moto hagio, Naoki Urasawa, Osamu Tezuka, Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, shojo, Shonen, Taiyo Matsumoto, Takehiko Inoue

The Best Manga of 2010: The Manga Critic’s Picks

December 6, 2010 by Katherine Dacey 16 Comments

For all the upheaval within the manga industry — the demise of CMX, Del Rey, and Go! Comi, the layoffs at VIZ — 2010 proved an exceptionally good year for storytelling. True, titles like Black Butler, Naruto, and Nabari no Ou dominated sales charts, but publishers made a concerted effort to woo grown-ups with vintage manga — Black Blizzard, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories — edgy sci-fi — Biomega, 7 Billion Needles — underground comix — AX: A Collection of Alternative Manga, The Box Man — and good old-fashioned drama — All My Darling Daughters, Bunny Drop. I had a hard time limiting myself to just ten titles this year, so I’ve borrowed a few categories from my former PCS cohort Erin Finnegan, from Best New Guilty Pleasure to Best Manga You Thought You’d Hate. Please feel free to add your own thoughts: what titles did I unjustly omit? What titles did I like but you didn’t? Inquiring minds want to know!

10. CROSS GAME (Mitsuri Adachi; VIZ)

In this sometimes funny, sometimes melancholy coming-of-age story, a family tragedy brings teenager Ko Kitamura closer to neighbor Aoba Tsukishima, with whom he has a fraught relationship. Though the two bicker with the antagonistic gusto of Beatrice and Benedict, their shared love of baseball helps smooth the course of their budding romance. To be sure, Cross Game can’t escape a certain amount of sports-manga cliche, but Mitsuri Adachi is more interested in showing us how the characters relate to each other than in celebrating their amazing baseball skills. (Not that he skimps on the game play; Adachi clearly knows his way around the diamond.) The result is an agreeable dramedy that has the rhythm of a good situation comedy and the emotional depth of a well-crafted YA novel, with just enough shop-talk to win over baseball enthusiasts, too.

9. AX: A COLLECTION OF ALTERNATIVE MANGA (Various Artists; Top Shelf)

The next time someone dismisses manga as a “style” characterized by youthful-looking, big-eyed characters with button noses, I’m going to hand them a copy of AX, a rude, gleeful, and sometimes disturbing rebuke to the homogenized artwork and storylines found in mainstream manga publications. No one will confuse AX for Young Jump or even Big Comic Spirits; the stories in AX run the gamut from the grotesquely detailed to the playfully abstract, often flaunting their ugliness with the cheerful insistence of a ten-year-old boy waving a dead animal at squeamish classmates. Nor will anyone confuse Yoshihiro Tatsumi or Einosuke’s outlook with the humanism of Osamu Tezuka or Keiji Nakazawa; the stories in AX revel in the darker side of human nature, the part of us that’s fascinated with pain, death, sex, and bodily functions. Like all anthologies, the collection is somewhat uneven, with a few too many scatological tales for its own good, but the very best stories — “The Hare and the Tortoise,” “Push Pin Woman,” “Six Paths of Wealth,” “Puppy Love,” “Inside the Gourd” — attest to the diversity of talent contributing to this seminal manga magazine. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/21/10

8. NEKO RAMEN (Kenji Sonishi; Tokyopop)

If you’ve ever lived with a cat or dog, you know that no meal is complete without a pet hair garnish. Now imagine that your beloved companion actually prepared your meals instead of watching you eat them: what sort of unimaginable horrors might you encounter beyond the stray hair? That’s the starting point for Neko Ramen, a 4-koma manga about a cat whose big dream is to run a noodle shop, but author Kenji Sonishi quickly moves past hair balls and litter box jokes to mine a richer vein of humor, poking fun at his cat cook’s delusions of entrepreneurial grandeur. Taisho is the Don Quixote of ramen vendors, dreaming up ludicrous giveaways and unappetizing dishes in an effort to promote his business, never realizing that he is the store’s real selling point. The loose, sketchy artwork gives the series an improvisational feel, while the script has the pleasant, absurdist zing of an Abbott and Costello routine. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 6/2/10

7. AYAKO (Osamu Tezuka; Vertical, Inc.)

Combining the psychological realism of Dostoevsky with the social consciousness of Tolstoy and Zola, Osamu Tezuka uses conflicts within the once-powerful Tenge clan to dramatize the social, political, and economic upheaval caused by the American occupation of post-war Japan. No subject is off-limits for Tezuka: the Tenge commit murders, spy for the Americans, join the Communist Party, imprison a family member in an underground cell, and engage in incest. It’s one of Tezuka’s most sober and damning stories, at once tremendously powerful and seriously disturbing, with none of the cartoonish excess of Ode to Kirihito or MW. The ending is perhaps too pat and loaded with symbolism for its own good, but like Tezuka’s best work, Ayako forces the reader to confront the darkest, most corruptible corners of the human soul. As with Apollo’s Song, Black Jack, and Buddha, Vertical has done a superb job of making Tezuka accessible to Western readers with flipped artwork and a fluid translation.

6. BUNNY DROP (Yumi Unita; Yen Press)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a thirty-something bachelor unexpectedly becomes a parent to a cute little girl, leading to hijinks, misunderstandings, and heart-tugging moments. That’s a fair summary of what happens in Bunny Drop, but Yumi Unita wisely avoids the pitfalls of the single-dad genre — the cheap sentiment, the unfunny scenes of dad recoiling in horror at diapers, runny noses, and tears — instead focusing on the unique bond between Daikichi and Rin, the six-year-old whom he impetuously adopts after the rest of the family disavows her. (Rin is the product of a liaison between Daikichi’s grandfather and a much younger woman.) Though Daikichi struggles to find day care, buy clothes for Rin, and make sense of her standoffish behavior, he isn’t a buffoon or a straight man for Rin’s antics; Unita portrays him as a smart, sensitive person blessed with good instincts and common sense. Clean, expressive artwork and true-to-life dialogue further inoculate Bunny Drop against a terminal case of sitcom cuteness, making it one of the most thoughtful, moving, and adult manga of the year.

5. BLACK BLIZZARD (Yoshihiro Tatsumi; Drawn & Quarterly)

Written in just twenty days, this feverish pulp thriller plays like a mash-up of The Fugitive, The 39 Steps, and The Defiant Ones as two convicts — one a hardened criminal, the other a down-on-his luck musician — go on the lam during a blinding snowstorm. The heroes are more archetypes than characters, drawn in bold strokes, but the interaction between them crackles with antagonistic energy; they’re as much enemies as partners, roles that they constantly renegotiate during their escape. Evocative artwork — slashing lines, dramatic camera angles, images of speeding trains — infuses Black Blizzard with a raw, nervous energy that nicely mirrors the characters’ internal state. Only in the final, rushed pages does manga-ka Yoshihiro Tatsumi falter, tidily resolving the story through an all-too-convenient plot twist that hinges on coincidence. Still, that’s a minor criticism of a thoroughly entertaining story written during a crucial stage of Tatsumi’s artistic development. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 9/9/10

4. HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES (Natsume Ono; VIZ)

Timid ronin Akitsu Masanosuke can’t hold a steady job, despite his formidable swordsmanship. When a businessman approaches him with work, Masanosuke readily accepts, not realizing that his new employer, Yaichi, runs a crime syndicate that specializes in kidnapping. Masanosuke’s unwitting participation in a blackmailing scheme prevents him from severing his ties to Yaichi; Masanosuke must then decide if he will join the House of Five Leaves or bide his time until he can escape. Though Toshiro Mifune and Hiroyuki Sanada have made entire careers out of playing characters like Masanosuke, Natsume Ono makes a persuasive case that you don’t need a flesh-and-blood actor to tell this kind of story with heartbreaking intensity; she can do the slow-burn on the printed page with the same skill as Masaki Kobayashi (Hara Kiri, Samurai Rebellion) and Yoji Yamada (The Twilight Samurai) did on the big screen. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 8/20/10

3. TWIN SPICA (Kou Yaginuma; Vertical, Inc.)

Asumi Kamogawa is a small girl with a big dream: to be an astronaut on Japan’s first manned space flight. Though she passes the entrance exam for Tokyo Space School, she faces several additional hurdles to realizing her goal, from her child-like stature — she’s thirteen going on eight — to a faculty member who blames her father for causing a fiery rocket crash that claimed hundreds of civilian lives. Yet for all the setbacks she’s experienced, Asumi proves resilient, a gentle girl who perseveres in difficult situations, offers friendship in lieu of judgment, and demonstrates a preternatural awareness of life’s fragility. Twin Spica follows Asumi through every stage of training, from physics lectures to zero-G simulations, showing us how she befriends her fellow cadets and gradually learns to rely on herself, rather than her imaginary friend, Mr. Lion. Though Twin Spica was serialized in a seinen magazine, it works surprisingly well for young adults, too, an all-too-rare example of a direct, heartfelt story that’s neither saccharine nor mawkish.  –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/3/10

2. ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS (Fumi Yoshinaga; VIZ)

The five vignettes in All My Darling Daughters depict women negotiating difficult personal relationships: a daughter confronts her mother about mom’s new, much younger husband; a college student seduces her professor, only to dump him when he tries to court her properly; a beautiful young woman contemplates an arranged marriage. Like all of Yoshinaga’s work, the characters in All My Darling Daughters love to talk. That chattiness isn’t always an asset to Yoshinaga’s storytelling (see Gerard and Jacques), but here the dialogue is perfectly calibrated to reveal just how complex and ambivalent these relationships really are. Yoshinaga’s artwork is understated but effective, as she uses small details — how a character stands or carries her shoulders — to offer a more complete and nuanced portrait of each woman. Quite possibly my favorite work by Yoshinaga.

1. A DRUNKEN DREAM AND OTHER STORIES (Moto Hagio; Fantagraphics)

Not coincidentally, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories was my nomination for Best New Graphic Novel of 2010 as well. Here’s what I had to say about the title over at Flashlight Worthy Books:

Moto Hagio is to shojo manga what Will Eisner is to American comics, a seminal creator whose distinctive style and sensibility profoundly changed the medium. Though Hagio has been actively publishing stories since the late 1960s, very little of her work has been translated into English. A Drunken Dream, published by Fantagraphics, is an excellent corrective — a handsomely produced, meticulously edited collection of Hagio’s short stories that span her career from 1970 to 2007. Readers new to Hagio’s work will appreciate the inclusion of two contextual essays by manga scholar Matt Thorn, one an introduction to Hagio and her peers, the other an interview with Hagio. What emerges is a portrait of a gifted artist who draws inspiration from many sources: Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishimonori, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, Frances Hodgson Burnett and L.M. Montgomery.

For the complete list — including nominations from David “Manga Curmudgeon” Welsh, Brigid “MangaBlog” Alverson, Lorena “i heart manga” Ruggero, and Matthew “Warren Peace Sings the Blues” Brady — click here. To read my full review of A Drunken Dream, click here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Done because there are too menny… great manga, that is, to confine myself to a traditional top ten list. With apologies to Thomas Hardy, here are some of the other titles that tickled my fancy in 2010:

  • OTHER AWESOME DEBUTS: Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me Happy (Yen Press), Saturn Apartments (VIZ), 7 Billion Needles (Vertical, Inc.)
  • BEST CONTINUING SERIES: Itazura na Kiss (DMP), Ooku: The Inner Chambers (VIZ), Suppli (Tokyopop), 20th Century Boys (VIZ)
  • BEST NEW ALL-AGES MANGA: Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical, Inc.)
  • BEST NEW SERIES THAT’S ALREADY ON HIATUS: Diamond Girl (CMX), Stolen Hearts (CMX)
  • BEST NEW GUILTY PLEASURE: Demon Sacred (Tokyopop), Dragon Girl (Yen Press)
  • BEST REPRINT EDITION: Cardcaptor Sakura (Dark Horse), Little Butterfly Omnibus (DMP)
  • BEST MANGA I THOUGHT I’D HATE: Higurashi When They Cry: Beyond Midnight Arc (Yen Press)
  • BEST FINALE: Pluto: Tezuka x Urasawa (VIZ)

Filed Under: Manga Critic Tagged With: cmx, Dark Horse, DMP, Drawn & Quarterly, fantagraphics, fumi yoshinaga, moto hagio, Naoki Urasawa, Osamu Tezuka, SigIKKI, Tokyopop, Top Shelf, vertical, VIZ, yen press, Yoshihiro Tatsumi

The Best Manga of 2010: The Manga Critic’s Picks

December 6, 2010 by Katherine Dacey

For all the upheaval within the manga industry — the demise of CMX, Del Rey, and Go! Comi, the layoffs at VIZ — 2010 proved an exceptionally good year for storytelling. True, titles like Black Butler, Naruto, and Nabari no Ou dominated sales charts, but publishers made a concerted effort to woo grown-ups with vintage manga — Black Blizzard, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories — edgy sci-fi — Biomega, 7 Billion Needles — underground comix — AX: A Collection of Alternative Manga, The Box Man — and good old-fashioned drama — All My Darling Daughters, Bunny Drop. I had a hard time limiting myself to just ten titles this year, so I’ve borrowed a few categories from my former PCS cohort Erin Finnegan, from Best New Guilty Pleasure to Best Manga You Thought You’d Hate. Please feel free to add your own thoughts: what titles did I unjustly omit? What titles did I like but you didn’t? Inquiring minds want to know!

10. CROSS GAME (Mitsuri Adachi; VIZ)

In this sometimes funny, sometimes melancholy coming-of-age story, a family tragedy brings teenager Ko Kitamura closer to neighbor Aoba Tsukishima, with whom he has a fraught relationship. Though the two bicker with the antagonistic gusto of Beatrice and Benedict, their shared love of baseball helps smooth the course of their budding romance. To be sure, Cross Game can’t escape a certain amount of sports-manga cliche, but Mitsuri Adachi is more interested in showing us how the characters relate to each other than in celebrating their amazing baseball skills. (Not that he skimps on the game play; Adachi clearly knows his way around the diamond.) The result is an agreeable dramedy that has the rhythm of a good situation comedy and the emotional depth of a well-crafted YA novel, with just enough shop-talk to win over baseball enthusiasts, too.

9. AX: A COLLECTION OF ALTERNATIVE MANGA (Various Artists; Top Shelf)

The next time someone dismisses manga as a “style” characterized by youthful-looking, big-eyed characters with button noses, I’m going to hand them a copy of AX, a rude, gleeful, and sometimes disturbing rebuke to the homogenized artwork and storylines found in mainstream manga publications. No one will confuse AX for Young Jump or even Big Comic Spirits; the stories in AX run the gamut from the grotesquely detailed to the playfully abstract, often flaunting their ugliness with the cheerful insistence of a ten-year-old boy waving a dead animal at squeamish classmates. Nor will anyone confuse Yoshihiro Tatsumi or Einosuke’s outlook with the humanism of Osamu Tezuka or Keiji Nakazawa; the stories in AX revel in the darker side of human nature, the part of us that’s fascinated with pain, death, sex, and bodily functions. Like all anthologies, the collection is somewhat uneven, with a few too many scatological tales for its own good, but the very best stories — “The Hare and the Tortoise,” “Push Pin Woman,” “Six Paths of Wealth,” “Puppy Love,” “Inside the Gourd” — attest to the diversity of talent contributing to this seminal manga magazine. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/21/10

8. NEKO RAMEN (Kenji Sonishi; Tokyopop)

If you’ve ever lived with a cat or dog, you know that no meal is complete without a pet hair garnish. Now imagine that your beloved companion actually prepared your meals instead of watching you eat them: what sort of unimaginable horrors might you encounter beyond the stray hair? That’s the starting point for Neko Ramen, a 4-koma manga about a cat whose big dream is to run a noodle shop, but author Kenji Sonishi quickly moves past hair balls and litter box jokes to mine a richer vein of humor, poking fun at his cat cook’s delusions of entrepreneurial grandeur. Taisho is the Don Quixote of ramen vendors, dreaming up ludicrous giveaways and unappetizing dishes in an effort to promote his business, never realizing that he is the store’s real selling point. The loose, sketchy artwork gives the series an improvisational feel, while the script has the pleasant, absurdist zing of an Abbott and Costello routine. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 6/2/10

7. AYAKO (Osamu Tezuka; Vertical, Inc.)

Combining the psychological realism of Dostoevsky with the social consciousness of Tolstoy and Zola, Osamu Tezuka uses conflicts within the once-powerful Tenge clan to dramatize the social, political, and economic upheaval caused by the American occupation of post-war Japan. No subject is off-limits for Tezuka: the Tenge commit murders, spy for the Americans, join the Communist Party, imprison a family member in an underground cell, and engage in incest. It’s one of Tezuka’s most sober and damning stories, at once tremendously powerful and seriously disturbing, with none of the cartoonish excess of Ode to Kirihito or MW. The ending is perhaps too pat and loaded with symbolism for its own good, but like Tezuka’s best work, Ayako forces the reader to confront the darkest, most corruptible corners of the human soul. As with Apollo’s Song, Black Jack, and Buddha, Vertical has done a superb job of making Tezuka accessible to Western readers with flipped artwork and a fluid translation.

6. BUNNY DROP (Yumi Unita; Yen Press)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a thirty-something bachelor unexpectedly becomes a parent to a cute little girl, leading to hijinks, misunderstandings, and heart-tugging moments. That’s a fair summary of what happens in Bunny Drop, but Yumi Unita wisely avoids the pitfalls of the single-dad genre — the cheap sentiment, the unfunny scenes of dad recoiling in horror at diapers, runny noses, and tears — instead focusing on the unique bond between Daikichi and Rin, the six-year-old whom he impetuously adopts after the rest of the family disavows her. (Rin is the product of a liaison between Daikichi’s grandfather and a much younger woman.) Though Daikichi struggles to find day care, buy clothes for Rin, and make sense of her standoffish behavior, he isn’t a buffoon or a straight man for Rin’s antics; Unita portrays him as a smart, sensitive person blessed with good instincts and common sense. Clean, expressive artwork and true-to-life dialogue further inoculate Bunny Drop against a terminal case of sitcom cuteness, making it one of the most thoughtful, moving, and adult manga of the year.

5. BLACK BLIZZARD (Yoshihiro Tatsumi; Drawn & Quarterly)

Written in just twenty days, this feverish pulp thriller plays like a mash-up of The Fugitive, The 39 Steps, and The Defiant Ones as two convicts — one a hardened criminal, the other a down-on-his luck musician — go on the lam during a blinding snowstorm. The heroes are more archetypes than characters, drawn in bold strokes, but the interaction between them crackles with antagonistic energy; they’re as much enemies as partners, roles that they constantly renegotiate during their escape. Evocative artwork — slashing lines, dramatic camera angles, images of speeding trains — infuses Black Blizzard with a raw, nervous energy that nicely mirrors the characters’ internal state. Only in the final, rushed pages does manga-ka Yoshihiro Tatsumi falter, tidily resolving the story through an all-too-convenient plot twist that hinges on coincidence. Still, that’s a minor criticism of a thoroughly entertaining story written during a crucial stage of Tatsumi’s artistic development. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 9/9/10

4. HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES (Natsume Ono; VIZ)

Timid ronin Akitsu Masanosuke can’t hold a steady job, despite his formidable swordsmanship. When a businessman approaches him with work, Masanosuke readily accepts, not realizing that his new employer, Yaichi, runs a crime syndicate that specializes in kidnapping. Masanosuke’s unwitting participation in a blackmailing scheme prevents him from severing his ties to Yaichi; Masanosuke must then decide if he will join the House of Five Leaves or bide his time until he can escape. Though Toshiro Mifune and Hiroyuki Sanada have made entire careers out of playing characters like Masanosuke, Natsume Ono makes a persuasive case that you don’t need a flesh-and-blood actor to tell this kind of story with heartbreaking intensity; she can do the slow-burn on the printed page with the same skill as Masaki Kobayashi (Hara Kiri, Samurai Rebellion) and Yoji Yamada (The Twilight Samurai) did on the big screen. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 8/20/10

3. TWIN SPICA (Kou Yaginuma; Vertical, Inc.)

Asumi Kamogawa is a small girl with a big dream: to be an astronaut on Japan’s first manned space flight. Though she passes the entrance exam for Tokyo Space School, she faces several additional hurdles to realizing her goal, from her child-like stature — she’s thirteen going on eight — to a faculty member who blames her father for causing a fiery rocket crash that claimed hundreds of civilian lives. Yet for all the setbacks she’s experienced, Asumi proves resilient, a gentle girl who perseveres in difficult situations, offers friendship in lieu of judgment, and demonstrates a preternatural awareness of life’s fragility. Twin Spica follows Asumi through every stage of training, from physics lectures to zero-G simulations, showing us how she befriends her fellow cadets and gradually learns to rely on herself, rather than her imaginary friend, Mr. Lion. Though Twin Spica was serialized in a seinen magazine, it works surprisingly well for young adults, too, an all-too-rare example of a direct, heartfelt story that’s neither saccharine nor mawkish.  —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/3/10

2. ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS (Fumi Yoshinaga; VIZ)

The five vignettes in All My Darling Daughters depict women negotiating difficult personal relationships: a daughter confronts her mother about mom’s new, much younger husband; a college student seduces her professor, only to dump him when he tries to court her properly; a beautiful young woman contemplates an arranged marriage. Like all of Yoshinaga’s work, the characters in All My Darling Daughters love to talk. That chattiness isn’t always an asset to Yoshinaga’s storytelling (see Gerard and Jacques), but here the dialogue is perfectly calibrated to reveal just how complex and ambivalent these relationships really are. Yoshinaga’s artwork is understated but effective, as she uses small details — how a character stands or carries her shoulders — to offer a more complete and nuanced portrait of each woman. Quite possibly my favorite work by Yoshinaga.

1. A DRUNKEN DREAM AND OTHER STORIES (Moto Hagio; Fantagraphics)

Not coincidentally, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories was my nomination for Best New Graphic Novel of 2010 as well. Here’s what I had to say about the title over at Flashlight Worthy Books:

Moto Hagio is to shojo manga what Will Eisner is to American comics, a seminal creator whose distinctive style and sensibility profoundly changed the medium. Though Hagio has been actively publishing stories since the late 1960s, very little of her work has been translated into English. A Drunken Dream, published by Fantagraphics, is an excellent corrective — a handsomely produced, meticulously edited collection of Hagio’s short stories that span her career from 1970 to 2007. Readers new to Hagio’s work will appreciate the inclusion of two contextual essays by manga scholar Matt Thorn, one an introduction to Hagio and her peers, the other an interview with Hagio. What emerges is a portrait of a gifted artist who draws inspiration from many sources: Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishimonori, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, Frances Hodgson Burnett and L.M. Montgomery.

For the complete list — including nominations from David “Manga Curmudgeon” Welsh, Brigid “MangaBlog” Alverson, Lorena “i heart manga” Ruggero, and Matthew “Warren Peace Sings the Blues” Brady — click here. To read my full review of A Drunken Dream, click here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Done because there are too menny… great manga, that is, to confine myself to a traditional top ten list. With apologies to Thomas Hardy, here are some of the other titles that tickled my fancy in 2010:

  • OTHER AWESOME DEBUTS: Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me Happy (Yen Press), Saturn Apartments (VIZ), 7 Billion Needles (Vertical, Inc.)
  • BEST CONTINUING SERIES: Itazura na Kiss (DMP), Ooku: The Inner Chambers (VIZ), Suppli (Tokyopop), 20th Century Boys (VIZ)
  • BEST NEW ALL-AGES MANGA: Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical, Inc.)
  • BEST NEW SERIES THAT’S ALREADY ON HIATUS: Diamond Girl (CMX), Stolen Hearts (CMX)
  • BEST NEW GUILTY PLEASURE: Demon Sacred (Tokyopop), Dragon Girl (Yen Press)
  • BEST REPRINT EDITION: Cardcaptor Sakura (Dark Horse), Little Butterfly Omnibus (DMP)
  • BEST MANGA I THOUGHT I’D HATE: Higurashi When They Cry: Beyond Midnight Arc (Yen Press)
  • BEST FINALE: Pluto: Tezuka x Urasawa (VIZ)

Filed Under: Classic Manga Critic, Manga, Manga Critic, Recommended Reading Tagged With: cmx, Dark Horse, DMP, Drawn & Quarterly, fantagraphics, fumi yoshinaga, moto hagio, Naoki Urasawa, Osamu Tezuka, SigIKKI, Tokyopop, Top Shelf, vertical, VIZ, yen press, Yoshihiro Tatsumi

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