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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Seinen

The Manga Review, 6/10/22

June 10, 2022 by Katherine Dacey Leave a Comment

After Kentarou Miura passed away last year, fans feared that they would never see his long-running saga Berserk reach a proper conclusion. Then on June 7th, artist Kouji Mori announced that he would take the reins from his friend and complete the final story arc. Ryan Dinsdale reports that Mori pledged to “only write the episodes that Miura talked to me about. I will not flesh it out. I will not write episodes that I don’t remember clearly. I will only write the lines and stories that Miura described to me. Of course, it will not be perfect. Still, I think I can almost tell the story that Miura wanted to tell.” The Fantasia Arc/Elf Island Chapter will begin serialization in the June 24th issue of Young Animal magazine.

NEWS

Over at The Comics Journal, Ian Thomas interviews members of the United Workers of Seven Seas about their unionization effort. “At Seven Seas Entertainment we never received basic benefits such as healthcare or 401ks in the first place,” organizers note. “Even with the staff roster going from 10 full-time employees in 2018 to over 40 today, we are stretched to our limit trying to keep up with the volume of work. Like workers in every sector of the entertainment industry, we are burnt out, and unfulfilled promises of “imminent” benefits have worn thin.” [The Comics Journal]

Are you following the UW7S on Twitter? If not, you should; in addition to regular updates about their unionization efforts, they’re also posting great threads about the important work that other labor organizations do. [Twitter]

Brigid Alverson takes a closer look at the May 2022 NPD BookScan chart for the top 20 Adult Graphic Novels. [ICv2]

Kodansha Comics announced that it will be releasing a new edition of Princess Knight and a first edition of Bomba! [Anime News Network] 

Kodansha is also sponsoring a Humble Bundle that includes volumes of Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, Grand Blue Dreaming, Initial D. Peach Girl, Tokyo Revengers, and Until Your Bones Rot. All proceeds will benefit The Trevor Project, a non-profit that focuses on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth. [Humble Bundle]

New title alert: VIZ just began serializing Fusai Naba’s Aliens Area on its Shonen Jump website. [VIZ Media]

And speaking of Shonen Jump, Netflix just posted a sneak peek of its forthcoming live-action adaptation of One Piece. I’ll let you decide for yourself if this project looks good:

FEATURES, INTERVIEWS, AND PODCASTS

Shimada Kazushi profiles the late Abiko Motoo, who, with Hiroshi Fujimoto, created some of postwar Japan’s most popular manga under the pseudonym Fujiko Fujio. [Nippon]

In honor of Sailor Moon‘s thirtieth birthday, Christopher Chiu-Tabet begins an arc-by-arc exploration of the beloved series. [Multiversity Comics]

Tony Yao deconstructs a favorite storyline in Tokyo Revengers, using it to meditate on friendship, self-love, and vulnerability. [Drop-In to Manga]

The dynamic podcasting duo of Elliot and Andy compare notes on two popular romantic comedies: How Do We Relationship? and Ouran High School Host Club. [Screentone Club]

Mike Toole and Joey Weiser join the Manga Mavericks to discuss Akira Toriyama’s under-appreciated masterpiece Dr. Slump. [Manga Mavericks]

If you’ve been on the fence about reading Blue Giant, let the Mangaplainers persuade you to try this entertaining, engaging series about a young saxophonist’s quest to become the next John Coltrane. (Seriously, this series is great–something I almost never say about music manga!) [Mangasplaining]

Looking for a good read? Anna Williams recommends five underrated seinen manga. [CBR]

The folks at Yatta-Tachi just posted a comprehensive list of this month’s light novel and manga releases. [Yatta-Tachi]

Matthew Hill interviews Japanese artist Kyo Machiko about Essential: My #stayhome Diary 2021-2022. “Being a cartoonist is not an ‘Essential’ profession, but imagining, creating, talking to each other, and living an ordinary life are ‘Essential’ things that are essential to living like a human being,” she explains. “I chose the title because I have been thinking about this for a long time with the COVID-19 Disaster. Most people are not ‘Essential’ in their professions, but there is no such thing as a person who doesn’t need to be in this world. By depicting the ordinary lives of ordinary people in the city, I hope to convey the message that all people are indispensable to each other.” [The Comics Journal]

REVIEWS

At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson posts reviews of I Want to Be a Wall and the “weird but strangely attractive fantasy” The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again, Today. Erica Friedman praises the twisty plot of Summer Time Rendering. “Its 374 pages have enough twists to appeal to the most hard-core of suspense readers,” she notes. “It made me gasp out loud – more than once! – and kept me glued to the page right through the astonishing end of the volume.” TCJ contributor Leonel Sepúlveda looks at Hideshi Hino’s The Town of Pigs, praising Hino’s ability to create the “feeling of being trapped in a nightmare,” while the crew at Beneath the Tangles posts short reviews of Fangirl, Crimson Prince, Deadpool Samurai, and more.

  • The Abandoned Empress, Vol. 2 (Carrie McClain, But Why Tho?)
  • Alice in Borderland, Vol. 1 (Josh, No Flying No Tights)
  • Baron (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Battles of the Wandering Chef (Krystallina, Daiyamanga)
  • Beastars, Vol. 18 (Al, Al’s Manga Blog)
  • Came the Mirror and Other Tales (Jerry, No Flying No Tights)
  • The Crater (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • Crazy Food Truck, Vol. 1 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Deadpool Samurai, Vol. 2 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Death Note Short Stories (Renee Scott, Good Comics for Kids)
  • From the Red Fog, Vol. 1 (Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network)
  • Ghost Reaper Girl, Vol. 1 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • High School Family, Vol. 1 (Danica Davidson, Otaku USA)
  • I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too, Vol. 1 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)
  • An Incurarable Case of Love, Vol. 1 (Kaley Connell, Yatta-Tachi)
  • Kaiju No. 8, Vol. 1 (Adam, No Flying No Tights)
  • Love After World Domination, Vol. 3 (Justin, The OASG)
  • Rosen Blood, Vol. 3 (Kate Sánchez, But Why Tho?)
  • Talk to My Back (Publisher’s Weekly)
  • Tomorrow, Make Me Yours (MrAJCosplay, Anime News Network)
  • Undead Unluck, Vols. 6-7 (King Baby Duck, Boston Bastard Brigade)
  • Watamote: No Matter How I Look At It, It’s Your Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular, Vol. 19 (Josh Piedra, The Outerhaven)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Kentaro Miura, Manga Sales Analysis, One Piece, Osamu Tezuka, princess knight, Seinen, Shonen Jump, UW7S

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

August 30, 2019 by Katherine Dacey

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Aki Irie, Iceland, Mystery/Suspense, Seinen, Vertical Comics

Versailles of the Dead, Vol. 1

November 6, 2018 by Katherine Dacey

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Horror/Supernatural, Kumiko Suekane, Seinen, Seven Seas, Versailles, Zombies

The Delinquent Housewife!, Vol. 1

September 25, 2018 by Katherine Dacey

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Bosozoku, Comedy, Nemu Yoko, Seinen, Vertical Comics

Chio’s School Road, Vol. 1

September 4, 2018 by Katherine Dacey

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Chio's School Road, Comedy, Seinen, Tadataka Kawasaki, yen press

Laid-Back Camp, Vol. 1

August 14, 2018 by Katherine Dacey

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

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

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

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Afro, Comedy, Laid-Back Camp, Seinen, yen press

Heaven’s Design Team, Vol. 1

June 4, 2018 by Katherine Dacey

Do you remember that moment in your manga-reading journey when you discovered that there was a manga about golf? Or pachinko? Or train station bento boxes? I do: I’d just read an entry in Shaenon Garrity’s Overlooked Manga Festival, and was astonished to discover that someone had written manga about Cup Noodle and 7-Eleven. I hadn’t been curious about the origins of either instant ramen or convenience stores, but the possibility of learning about them from manga was so irresistible that I tracked down copies. Neither manga were good, exactly, but I found them oddly compelling, both for their sincerity and their attention to small but interesting details.

I had a similar experience with Heaven’s Design Team, a new edu-manga that explains how different animal species are uniquely adapted to their environments. Its creative team has taken a bolder approach to their subject than Project X‘s, opting for humor over straightforward dramatization. The basic mode of storytelling, however, reminded me of Cup Noodle and 7-Eleven, relying heavily on talking heads to impart information.

Heaven’s Design Team has a faintly blasphemous premise: God is so busy running the world that He’s outsourced the creation of new animal and plant species to a crack team of designers. God still has a hand in deciding whether unicorns go into production or not, but He’s largely an invisible presence in the story, while the motley crew of consultants take center stage. Each designer has a signature animal — a horse, a cow, a snake, a bird — that he or she is trying to improve, and one well-defined personality trait — say, a fondness for lethal predators — that puts him or her into conflict with other team members.

That’s an imaginative strategy for teaching readers about the quirks of animal anatomy, but Heaven’s Design Team never quite finds its groove. Part of the problem lies with the authors’ dogged adherence to formula; at the beginning of every story, the design team fields an order from the Big Guy for an “adorably uncute animal” or “an animal that can eat tall plants,” then bickers their way to creating an actual species like the common egg snake, the giraffe, the armadillo, or the narwhal. Their design process yields nuggets of information about the creatures they’re envisioning that, at chapter’s end, turn out to be real attributes of real animals. So many of these factual tidbits are related through talking-head panels, however, that the manga often feels more like a PowerPoint presentation than a story, despite the authors’ attempts to make these info-dump conversations more animated with facial close-ups and dramatic poses.

From time to time, however, Heaven’s Design Team drops a joke that’s so weird or so well executed it earns a real laugh. In one scene, for example, two unicorns accidentally bump into one another, prompting a terse exchange straight out of Goodfellas. In another sight gag, Shimoda, the team’s most straight-laced member, visits the Insect Department, a division populated entirely by young men with identical haircuts and glasses–the ultimate worker bees. These moments last only a panel or two, but they hint at what the series might have been if the authors hadn’t suffered the same repetition compulsion as their characters. Your milage may vary. 

Heaven’s Design Team, Vol. 1
Written by Hebi-Zou and Tsuta Suzuki, Art by Tarako
Translated by
Kodansha Comics, 142 pp.
Rated E, for Everyone

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Comedy, Kodansha Comics, Seinen

CITY, Vol. 1

April 3, 2018 by Katherine Dacey

CITY, Keiichi Arawi’s latest series, charts the misadventures of Midori, a feckless undergrad who’s behind on the rent, in debt to her roommate, and surrounded by “not-quite-ordinary people.” In a last-ditch effort to stay in her apartment, she hatches several get-rich schemes — betting on horses, entering a photography contest — all of which backfire in spectacular fashion. That premise sounded ripe with comic potential, so I decided to pick up a copy of volume one.

I’ll be honest: I had a hard time reviewing CITY, a manga that seems to be tickling everyone else’s funny bone but mine. Though I could appreciate the skill and imagination behind Keiichi Arawi’s work, I found CITY too frantic to be amusing, thought-provoking, or interesting. My frustration boiled down to two basic observations about Arawi’s methods — first, his unwavering belief that repeating gags is a surefire strategy for laughs, and second, his unwavering belief that certain types of jokes subvert convention when, in fact, they’re just as cliche as the conventions they’re spoofing. Nowhere are those two tendencies more pronounced than in his depiction of Midori’s landlady, a feisty old broad who goes to violent lengths to collect the rent. A karate-chopping grandma sounds hilarious in the abstract, but you’ve seen this gag done better elsewhere, most spectacularly in Kung Fu Hustle, where the regal and ridiculous Yuen Qi steals the show from under Stephen Chow’s nose  — something that can’t be said of Midori’s landlady, whose shouting and punching barely distinguishes her from her equally batshit neighbors.

It’s only in the quieter interludes, when the focus shifts from Midori to her neighbors that Arawi’s flair for the absurd manifests itself. In “Officer,” for example, a neighborhood patrolman finds himself under citizen’s arrest for a theft he was asked to investigate. The officer’s placid expression and deadpan delivery contrast sharply with the physical and emotional indignities of his job, his beatific expression unbroken by the ordeal of being hog-tied by an overzealous mob. Another modestly amusing interlude — “Wako Izumi” — focuses on a control freak who’s distraught by the loss of a restaurant point card. Like the officer, Wako proves an unreliable narrator, her impulsive, weird behavior contradicting the Sgt. Friday-esque tone of her internal monologue. These moments of surrealism aren’t funny, exactly, but they at least feel original, something that can’t be said of the tired slapstick jokes and strenuously unpleasant main characters.

Verdict: Your mileage will vary. See my colleague Sean Gaffney’s review for a different perspective on CITY.

CITY, Vol. 1
Art & Story by Keiichi Arawa
Translated by Jenny McKeon
Vertical, Inc., 166 pp.
No rating

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: CITY, Comedy, Keiichi Arawi, Seinen, Vertical Comics

A First Look at Shojo FIGHT!

September 26, 2017 by Katherine Dacey

We’re in the middle of a sports-manga renaissance in the US, with publishers offering an unprecedented range of titles from Kurokuro’s Basketball and Haikyu!! to Yowamushi Pedal and Welcome to the Ballroom. Leading the pack is Kodansha Comics, which is making an astonishing range of titles available through their digital-only and digital-first initiatives. And astonishing it is: alongside obvious choices like the baseball-centric Ace of the Diamond, you’ll also find soccer manga (Days, Giant Killing, Sayanora, Football), rugby manga (All Out!!), mixed-martial arts manga (All-Rounder Meguru), and card game manga (Chihayafuru). Kodansha’s latest acquisition is Shojo FIGHT!, a volleyball series that reads like Dynasty with knee pads.

I mean that as a compliment.

The first chapter briskly introduces us to the three principle members of the Hakuumzan Private Academy Middle School volleyball team: Neri, a talented but difficult personality who has trouble playing well with others (literally and figuratively); Koyuki, a telegenic setter who moonlights on the Junior National team; and Chiyo, a jealous teammate who slots into the Joan Collins role of Queen Bitch. As we learn in the opening pages, Neri’s temper frequently relegates her to the bench, even though her teammates firmly believe that she’s in a league of her own as both a setter and a hitter — a point that Chiyo lords over the emotionally vulnerable Koyuki. Koyuki, for her part, feels isolated from her teammates who say nice things to her face but trash her playing when she’s not around. Though Chiyo bluntly dismisses Neri as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Koyuki makes a concerted effort to befriend Neri, whom she views as a peer on the court.

The dynamic between these three players would be enough for an entire series, but Yoko Nihonbashi surrounds them with a boisterous cast of supporting characters who run the gamut from Odagiri, a shy Neri fangirl, to the Shikisama brothers, two gifted volleyball players who are, of course, handsome, sharp-witted, and fiercely loyal to their childhood friend… well, I’ll let you figure out that particular triangle on your own, though it’s not hard to guess who she is. While these figures are sketched more hastily than the principle trio, Nihonbashi offers tantalizing clues about how they will figure into the conflict between Neri and her teammates.

What will make or break this series for most readers is the art. As numerous folks have observed, Nihonbashi’s thick lines, wide-eyed characters, and computer-generated fills more closely conform to Americans’ perception of what OEL manga looks like — think Peach Fuzz or Van Von Hunter — than a licensed seinen or shojo title. I think that’s a valid observation, though it’s worth noting that Nihonbashi is a Japanese artist writing for Evening magazine, not a Tokyopop Rising Star of Manga. The boldness of Nihonbashi’s linework, and her dense but well structured layouts, aren’t the least bit amateurish or unpolished. If anything, they demonstrate a good understanding of game mechanics and a flair for drawing expressive, animated faces that telegraph the characters’ emotional states; the malicious twinkle in Chiyo’s eye speaks more loudly than her poisonous words — and that’s saying something.

My suggestion: try before you buy! The first 50 pages of Shojo FIGHT! can be viewed for free at the Kodansha Comics website. There’s enough drama packed into that opening chapter to hook any soap opera fan or sports enthusiast, and if the sudsy plotting isn’t enough to pique your interest, Neri will be: she’s prickly and complicated but appealing, not least because she seems like a real teenage athlete struggling to reconcile her desire to dominate the court with her desire to be part of the team.

The entire first volume goes on sale today (September 26th) via Amazon, B&N, ComiXology, and other digital book platforms.

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Kodansha Comics, Seinen, Shojo Fight!, Sports Manga, Volleyball, Yoko Nihonbashi

Melody of Iron

August 11, 2017 by Katherine Dacey

Osamu Teuka hit rock bottom in 1973. Mushi Production, the animation studio he’d launched to great fanfare in 1961, had just declared bankruptcy. Although Tezuka had parted ways with Mushi in 1968, he was still linked to his old company in the public imagination — Mushi was, after all, the studio that had introduced Tetsuwan Atom to television viewers around the globe, and made Kimba the White Lion a household figure in Japan. Tezuka also faced a creative crisis: his work was out of step with emerging trends in what he called “young adult manga,” a point he plaintively addressed in the afterword to the 1974 short story collection Melody of Iron:

The media was whispering that I’d hit my wall… With a broken heart, but also rebellious determination, I blindly tackled magazine jobs …These are examples of my Young Adult Manga write during times when I was mentally hungry. There were many more. Ranging from pieces that were too dark and hopeless, to really harsh pieces that, in today’s day and age, would immediately receive protest from all sorts of organizations. All of my pieces then had really emotionless themes and I don’t remember enjoying writing most of them.

Manga publishers agreed with Tezuka’s glum self-assessment. In 1973, Weekly Shonen Champion offered Tezuka an opportunity to write a limited five-week series with the implicit assumption that Tezuka was publishing his final work. That series turned out to be the opening salvo in a new stage of Tezuka’s career, however, as Black Jack became one of Tezuka’s best-known, best-loved titles, a mixture of bold, expressive cartooning, crazy plot lines, and gut-punch endings all held together by one of the most memorable characters Tezuka ever created.

Not all of Tezuka’s work from the 1970s walks this melodramatic tightrope as effectively as Black Jack, a point underscored by Melody of Iron. The title story, for example, is a three-act mish-mash of gangster movie cliches and seventies pseudo-science. In the first act, a young man runs afoul of the mafia, ratting out one their assassins in court; as punishment, the Albanis cut off his arms and leave him to die. In the second act, Dan holes up in a mad scientist’s laboratory where he learns to use a set of psychokinetic prosthetic arms. And in the final act, Dan’s ability to harness PK proves a mixed blessing when the arms exact revenge against the Albanis… without him.

The finale exemplifies what’s good and bad about Tezuka’s crank-it-to-eleven approach. On the one hand, Tezuka has the cartooning chops to make the arms look sufficiently animated, a necessary condition for selling us on his Stephen King-meets-Mario Puzo concept. On the other hand, Tezuka’s own distinctive style works against the potential horror of the killer limbs; the arms aren’t menacing enough to be a convincing embodiment of Dan’s fierce anger, looking more like the Tin Man’s costume than instruments of death. The arms’ efficacy is further neutered by the staging of their grand murder spree, a string of over-the-top deaths that re-enact Dan’s initial humiliation in the most baldly literal fashion: look, Ma, no arms!

The story also stumbles in its efforts to depict American racial dynamics. Shortly after Dan’s bloody encounter with the Albani’s goons, for example, a mob of African American teenagers harasses Dan, pelting him with stones and mocking him for his missing arms. The way these characters are rendered — with thick lips and maliciously gleeful expressions — creates a profoundly uncomfortable moment for the modern Western reader, resurrecting the visual iconography of minstrel shows to dehumanize these unnamed teens. Dan is rescued by Birdie, a black Vietnam vet who counsels Dan to abandon his murderous plans. Birdie looks more recognizably human than the rock-throwing teens, but he’s more a construct than a character, a noble voice of reason whose primary purpose is to advance the plot by introducing Dan to the mad Dr. Macintosh.

The third strike against “Melody” — and, by extension, the entire anthology — is that the edgier content feels like a self-conscious effort to dress up the material in adult themes, rather than a vehicle for exploring the darker corners of the human psyche. This problem is most pronounced in “Revolution,” a short story about Yasue, a housewife who wakes up from a coma convinced that she’s a young radical named Minako Hotta. In an effort to prove to her husband that she is, in fact, Minako, Yasue describes Minako’s sexual encounters with a wounded revolutionary, explaining how Minako’s tender ministrations brought him back from death’s door. We’re clearly supposed to sympathize with Yasue’s husband — he’s disgusted by Yasue’s “memory” — but his boorish, violent behavior in previous scenes makes it hard for the reader to sympathize with his predicament. Worse still, Minako’s sacrifices are presented as a sign of her dedication to the cause, a notion so risible it seems more like a lame joke from Woody Allen’s Bananas than a credible character motivation.

As with Tezuka’s other work from the period, the principal characters in Melody of Iron are generically attractive types whose personalities emerge primarily through what they say, while the supporting cast members are vividly drawn caricatures whose personalities are established through how they look. Such visual shortcuts are a standard manga technique, of course, but in Tezuka’s hands these aesthetic decisions are effective since they’re rendered with flair and specificity; you know exactly what kind of person Dr. Macintosh is from the shape of his nose, the tousle of his hair, and the hunch of his shoulders. Tezuka also scatters a few Easter eggs through the collection, including a sequence modeled on The Godfather‘s iconic wedding scene, and a panel depicting Broadway’s signature jumble of lights and signs; look closely and you’ll see the names of several Tezuka titles gracing the marquees.

For all the flashes of imagination in Melody of Iron, however, Tezuka was onto something when he characterized his “young adult” stories as “less approachable” than his other work from the early 1970s. Even the most over-the-top scenes feel a little labored and dour, lacking the visual exuberance or emotional oomph that makes “Dingoes” and “Teratoid Cystoma” such memorable entries in the Black Jack canon. Readers looking for an introduction to Tezuka’s late work may find Melody of Iron a good point of entry, but anyone with dog-eared copies of Black Jack or Ode to Kirihito may be underwhelmed by this more workmanlike collection.

THE MELODY OF IRON • BY OSAMU TEZUKA • TRANSLATED BY ADAM SECORD • DIGITAL MANGA, INC. • RATED YOUNG ADULT (16+) FOR VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL CONTENT • 214 pp.

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Classic Manga, DMP, Horror/Supernatural, Osamu Tezuka, Seinen

Golden Kamuy, Vol. 1

June 15, 2017 by Katherine Dacey

If you have a strong constitution and a healthy appetite for adventure, you’ll cotton to Golden Kamuy, a solid, if sometimes workmanlike, manga that reads like a mash-up of The Revenant and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Set on the Hokkaido frontier in 1905, Golden Kamuy tells the story of Saichi “Immortal” Sugimoto, a battle-scarred veteran of the Russo-Japanese War who’s desperately trying to raise money for a fallen comrade’s widow. After a chance encounter with a chatty ex-con, Sugimoto learns about a hidden treasure worth millions. Sugimoto then sets off to find the gold — no mean feat, as the map pinpointing its location has been tattooed onto the backs of a dozen prisoners, each with his own design on the loot.

Sugimoto faces another major obstacle to success: the harsh Hokkaido winter. A second fortuitous meeting — this time with an Ainu teenager — furnishes Sugimoto with a expert guide to wilderness survival. Like Sugimoto, Asirpa is searching for the treasure, albeit for a different reason: the men in her village died to prevent it from falling into Japanese hands. Though Asirpa slots into the common and often stereotyped role of “native sidekick,” she’s not just a repository of useful skills and earthy wisdom; she’s an individual with the courage to challenge Sugimoto when his determination shades into ruthlessness, and the tenacity to fight her way out of difficult situations by improvising traps, creating smokescreens, and throwing punches. Oh, and she brings down a hungry bear with a single well-placed arrow. She’s a baller, and one of the best reasons to read Golden Kamuy.

As skillful as Noda may be in establishing his setting and characters, the script suffers from frequent — if brief — patches of clumsy dialogue and narration. One of the most egregious examples occurs in chapter four, when Sugimoto goes mano-a-mano with another soldier. The artwork makes it plain that Sugimoto’s opponent gets the best of him by grabbing and disabling his rifle, but Noda interrupts the scene to inform us, “The moment they moved away from each other, the man depressed the bolt stop and pulled out the bolt, rendering Sugimoto’s rifle useless.” Such intrusions are all the more puzzling because Noda’s draftsmanship is crisp, stylish, and easy to parse; even when Noda indulges in an extreme close-up or odd camera angle, we’re never in doubt about what’s happening.

Speaking of Noda’s artwork, he draws guts, wounds, and scars with a surgeon’s precision, offering a nightmarish vision of bodies torn apart by bullets — and bears. Though a few sequences skirt the line between dramatic necessity and cinematic flourish, these horrific images play an essential role in conveying the brutality of frontier experience and the horrors of trench warfare. Anything tamer would rob the story of its urgency, and reduce Sugimoto to a simple opportunist, rather than a fierce survivor who’s cheated death dozens of times.

So if you can soldier past the tin-eared dialogue and frequent arterial spray, you’ll be rewarded with a briskly paced thriller that transports you to another time and place, capturing the Hokkaido wilderness in all its squalor, beauty, and promise. Recommended.

A copy of volume one was provided by the publisher. Golden Kamuy will be available on June 20, 2017.

GOLDEN KAMUY, VOL. 1 • ART AND STORY BY SATORU NODA • TRANSLATION BY EIJI YASUDA • VIZ MEDIA • RATING: M FOR MATURE (FOR READERS 18+) • 192 pp.

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Action/Adventure, Satoru Noda, Seinen, VIZ Signature

Ultraman, Vol. 1

January 6, 2017 by Katherine Dacey

Dusting off a beloved franchise and making it appeal to a new generation is a hazardous undertaking: stray too far from the source material and incur the wrath of purists, but hew too closely to the original and risk camp. Manga-ka Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi have found an elegant strategy for introducing Ultraman to contemporary readers, using the original premise of the 1966 TV show as a starting point for a new chapter in the story.

The prelude to volume one neatly outlines Ultraman’s origins. Shin Hayata, member of the Science Special Search Party (a.k.a. the Science Patrol), unwittingly becomes the host for Ultraman, a powerful alien tasked with ridding Earth of dangerous monsters. Only a few members of the Science Patrol know Ultraman’s true identity–a secret they keep from Hayata, who is unaware that he is the vessel for Ultraman’s powers. The story then leaps forward thirty years: Ultraman has returned to his own world, Hayata has retired from the Science Patrol, and his son Shinjiro is beginning to manifest powers of his own.

In contrast to the introduction, which is a model of economy, the first chapter sags under the weight of too much expository dialogue. The characters relate their histories and concerns in such bald declarations that the entire chapter reads like a rejected Mystery Science Theater 3000 script.  (A sample exchange: “We certainly don’t see much of each other these days.” “Right, even though I work at the Ministry of Defense, too.”) The pace improves with the sudden appearance of Be Mular–one of Ultraman’s old adversaries–who lures the inexperienced Shinjiro into a rooftop battle. Although the script has a familiar rhythm–powerful attacks punctuated by snappy one-liners–the fight choreography is well executed; you can almost feel the force of Shinjiro’s punches. Equally important, the fight’s outcome is not a foregone conclusion: the chapter ends on a cliffhanger just as Shinjiro realizes that he isn’t strong enough to protect his family from Be Mular… yet.

If the 2.0 version of Ultraman sounds like a radical departure from the original series, rest assured that Shimizu and Shimoguchi haven’t strayed too far from the show’s roots. The proof lies in the character designs: they’ve done a nice job of bringing Ultraman and Be Mular’s appearance in line with contemporary seinen aesthetics while preserving the look and feel of the original characters. Ultraman and Be Mular don’t exactly resemble their rubber-suited predecessors, but a long-time fan will recognize them as spiritual descendants–a fair compromise for a series that’s toeing the line between 1960s kitsch and 2010s pop culture.

The verdict: The first chapter is a tough slog, but the combat is staged with enough panache that I’ll be checking out volume two.

Ultraman, Vol. 1
By Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi
Rated T, for teens
VIZ Media, $8.99 (digital edition)

This review originally appeared at MangaBlog on August 21, 2015.

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Seinen, Ultraman, VIZ

The Manga Revue: Prison School and Twin Star Exorcists

July 24, 2015 by Katherine Dacey

This week, I take a look at two new releases: Prison School, a hotly anticipated series about five boys trying to break out of an all-girls’ school, and Twin Star Exorcists, a shonen manga about two teenage onmyoji who hold the fate of the world in their hands. (Let’s hope they do their best–otherwise, we’re toast!)

Hiramoto_PrisonSchoolV1Prison School, Vol. 1
By Akira Hiramoto
Rated M, for mature readers (18+)
Yen Press, $20.00

Paging Russ Meyer! Prison School is a veritable parade of big-bosomed, wasp-waisted women brandishing whips, kicking ass, and eschewing bras. The target of their scorn: Kiyoshi, Kingo, Gackt, Joe, and Andre, the first five men to enroll at the Hachimitsu Private Academy in its fifty-year history. These hapless souls want nothing more than to “catch glances of breasts and panties,” but their efforts to spy on their classmates incur the wrath of the school’s Shadow Student Council, a secret organization whose primary role is to “crack down on illicit sexual relationships.” After a dramatic show trial in the school’s courtyard, Kiyoshi and friends are sentenced to hard time in the school penitentiary.

I’d be the first to admit that the premise has potential: what woman or girl hasn’t fantasized about coolly administering a karate chop to a lecherous jerk on the subway or in the street? What prevents Prison School from rising above grindhouse fare is Akira Hiramoto’s complete dehumanization of his characters. The Student Council members are portrayed as ball-busting man-haters, intent on humiliating the boys for their sexual proclivities, while the prisoners are depicted as sniveling pervs. The only genuinely sympathetic pair are Kiyoshi and Chiyo, a cute girl who shares Kiyoshi’s passion for sumo wrestling. Kiyoshi’s desire to have a normal relationship with Chiyo provides the story’s few emotionally authentic moments; by contrast, most scenes revel in the lurid, psychosexual relationship between the boys and their jailers.

Though all of the characters are objectified, no one fares as poorly as Meiko Shiraki, the Shadow Council’s Vice President. Hiramoto always draws her from an extreme angle–upskirt is one of his favorites–that emphasizes her monstrously distended breasts and reveals her penchant for wearing thongs. Perhaps a fifteen-year-old boy would find her terrifyingly sexy, but an older reader who’s seen actual breasts would have a hard time viewing Meiko as anything but a fetishist fantasy.

All of which is to say: Prison School could have been a sly riff on Escape from Alcatraz, The Great Escape, or even Caged, but Hiramoto’s strenuously raunchy scenarios overwhelm the other elements of the story, stopping it dead in its tracks.

The verdict: Prison School is an all-or-nothing proposition: you’ll either love it or hate it.

twin_starTwin Star Exorcists, Vol. 1
By Yoshiaki Sukeno
Rated T, for teens
VIZ Media, $9.99

Twin Star Exorcists is a love story dressed up as an action-packed supernatural adventure. At the beginning of volume one, the principal characters have a meet-cute that establishes their personalities in broad strokes: Rokuro is gifted but reluctant to use his exorcism skills, while Benio is gifted but trigger happy, nuking monsters at the slightest provocation. Making their Darcy-and-Elizabeth dynamic more complicated is that Rokuro and Benio are destined to marry and have a child who will save the world from the Kegare, a demonic race that lives in a parallel universe. (Rokuro and Benio are also fourteen, a point underscored by their endless bickering.)

Although the fight scenes are competently executed, the beats are so familiar that the combat feels superfluous. And therein lies Twin Star Exorcists‘ biggest problem: it’s boring. The plot lines, characters, and demon lore are so familiar that the story lacks a distinctive personality; even the setting is cliche. (Rokuro and Benio attend an exclusive academy for onmyoji in training.) Just two days after finishing the volume I couldn’t remember the principal characters’ names–a sure sign that the author treated each element of the story as something to be checked off a list, rather than an integral part of the narrative.

The verdict: Zzzzzz…..

Reviews: GC4K contributor Mike Pawuk praises Svetlana Chmakova’s Awkward, just out from Yen Press. Over at Heart of Manga, Laura posts brief reviews of He’s My Only Vampire, The Ancient Magus’ Bride, and Let’s Dance a Waltz. Joe McCulloch dedicates his latest TCJ column to CoroCoro magazine.

Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 17 of 07-Ghost (WatchPlayRead)
Connie on Alice in the Country of Clover: Nightmare (Slightly Biased Manga)
Alice Vernon on Awkward (Girls Like Comics)
Connie on vol. 29 of Blade of the Immortal (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sheena McNeil on vol. 7 of Deadman Wonderland (Sequential Tart)
Allen Kesinger on vol. 1 of The Devil is a Part-Timer! (No Flying No Tights)
Chris Randle on Fragments of Horror (The Guardian)
Frank Inglese on vol. 6 of Gangsta (Snap30)
Sarah on Kitaro (nagareboshi reviews)
Matthew Alexander on vol. 13 of Knights of Sidonia (The Fandom Post)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of Love Stage!! (Comic Book Bin)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Love Stage!! (Comics Worth Reading)
Marissa Lieberman on vol. 1 of Midnight Secretary (No Flying No Tights)
Thomas Maluck on vols. 1-3 of My Love Story!! (No Flying No Tights)
ebooksgirl on vol. 3 of My Neighbor Seki! (Geek Lit Etc.)
Helen and confused muse on Natsume’s Book of Friends (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of No Game No Life (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Erica Friedman on Okujou no Yuri Yurei-san Side B – Nakayoshi Quiz (Okazu)
A.J. Adejare on vol. 2 of Oreimo: Kureneko (The Fandom Post)
Connie on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of Phantom Thief Jeanne (Slight Biased Manga)
Sheena McNeil on vol. 3 of Pokemon X.Y (Sequential Tart)
Lostty on vols. 1-4 of Princess Jellyfish (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 17 of Rin-ne (WatchPlayRead)
Ash Brown on vol. 2 of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Legends (Experiments in Manga)
Frank Inglese on vol. 6 of Terra Formars (Snap30)
Sheena McNeil on vol. 9 of Voice Over! Seiyu Academy (Sequential Tart)
Lesley Tomsu on vols. 1-2 of Witch Buster (No Flying No Tights)
Ken H. on vol. 2 of Your Lie in April (Sequential Ink)

Filed Under: MANGABLOG, REVIEWS Tagged With: Manga Review, Prison School, Seinen, Shonen, Twin star Exorcists, viz media, yen press

Gangsta Vols 4 and 5

April 16, 2015 by Anna N

As I embarked on getting caught up on Gangsta, I found myself very grateful for the character bios and plot summaries in front of the volumes. The first couple volumes focused on the slightly more intimate lives of Alex as she meets and is taken in by the Handymen Worick and Nic inter cut with various scenes of violence, but the series is now headed into a full on gang war, and it is useful to be reminded of just who is who in the ever expanding cast of characters.

Gangsta Volume 4 by Kohske

The fourth volume deals with the personal problems of the characters as well as introducing more members of the sprawling underworld in the city of Ergastulum. The handymen are cleaning up after an attack, and Alex is distracted with memories of her younger brother. After shaking the dependency on the drugs she was previously addicted to, more of her normal memories are starting to come back, but she’s not yet able to recall the details of her past life. One of the things I like about this series is the artful way Kohske portrays her action scenes. Alex goes on an errand for the Handymen, and when she happens on a scene where another woman is being attacked, she grabs a stray piece of lumber and rushes in to defend a stranger without thinking of her own safety. Alex is about to get attacked herself, when on the next page a single panel of Nic in motion, mid-leap behind her attacker shows that the problem is being taken care of with almost frightening efficiency.

Alex and the Handymen go to a party thrown by the Cristiano Family, one of the weakest mafia families who is also the most charitable when it comes to taking care of Twilights who would otherwise not have a place to claim sanctuary. The head of the family is a tiny young girl named Loretta, who pragmatically surrounds herself with skilled bodyguards. An equally young twilight hunter shows up at the party and sets off a bloodbath. Another hunter names Erica appears, and while the Handymen and their allies manage to fight off the attack, they sustain huge losses in the process.

Gangsta Volume 5 by Kohske

In this volume it seems clear that the mafia factions in Ergastulum are going to be headed into war. The team of Destroyers becomes more defined, and the situation for regular Twilights not affiliated with an organization is looking worse and worse. Alex has gained even more of her memories, remarking to Nic that she knew him before, only to not get a response. Worick is forced to use his sense for objects to identify corpses, and he and Nic are separated throughout most of this volume, with dangerous consequences. The Destroyers begin to tear through the city, and identify themselves as agents of the Corsica family. Still, even in the middle of a tidal wave of violence, there are quick scenes of normal daily life, when Nic hands Alex a mug as soon as she wakes up from some disturbing dreams of her past. Nic heads off to help out Loretta, and Worick is left to help fend off an attack at the Monroe family house. Things are looking fairly grim for the found family the Handymen have built for themselves. We’re starting to get more caught up with the Japanese release of Gangsta, and I know I’m going to start getting impatient as the wait between volumes grows longer.

While Gangsta does feature plenty of action and grim themes centered around drugs, class issues, and the mafia, the core story circling around Alex and her relationship with the Handymen ensures that the violence in the manga always seems to have a narrative purpose. Koshke’s narrative start small and builds up to a intercut scenes of a sprawling cast headed into some serious confrontations is building more and more suspense and tension as the series progresses. I’m also always impressed with the variety of character designs and defined looks as the manga includes more and more characters. I’m glad that Viz is continuing to give quality seinen some serious attention in the Signature Line with this title.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Gangsta, Seinen, viz media, VIZ Signature

License This! Kinou Nani Tabeta? by Yoshinaga Fumi

December 22, 2012 by Travis Anderson 16 Comments

Hello again and welcome to another installment of This Is Why I Can’t Be Trusted To Write a Weekly Column…I mean License This! Because, yeah, wow, a month passed! That snuck up on me quickly.

So although I really want to be writing about some older series (and will eventually, I promise!), this time I will once again go with something current that doesn’t require me to do a lot of rereading to remember why I liked it so much. ^_^;;

Kinou Nani Tabeta? 5 Kinou Nani Tabeta? (What Did You Eat Yesterday?) by Yoshinaga Fumi is the story of Kakei Shiro, a forty-something gay lawyer who loves to cook, especially for Kenji, his live-in boyfriend. It’s a slice-of-life manga, with about half of each chapter given to preparing and eating a meal. And as you might expect from a known foodie like Yoshinaga, the cooking segments are really detailed. I mean really, really detailed. She is essentially writing a recipe book here in manga form, as Kakei thinks about each step of the meal during preparation (and actual recipes are generally included at the end of each chapter as well). But it’s not just about cooking. The meals are always well-integrated into the story, and with each chapter we learn more about Shiro and Kenji, as well as their friends, relatives, neighbors, and co-workers.

This is one I’m actually surprised is not licensed yet. Not only is Yoshinaga very popular with English-speaking audiences, but even her random book about eating food in Tokyo was published in English, so publishers are clearly willing to publish anything she writes. And yet this series is already at seven volumes in Japan (at a rate of about one per year, like most seinen manga) and no one’s picked it up? That kind of makes it seem hopeless, and yet I do hope that eventually it will be picked up, because it’s awesome.

With such a long gap between volumes, I often forget just how much I like it, but then a new one comes out and I’m utterly charmed once again. Maybe it’s the lack of clear genres that is stopping this from getting published. It’s a foodie manga (complete with the above-mentioned lovingly-rendered step-by-step instructions for everything Shiro cooks), but the protagonist is a gay man living with his boyfriend. And it runs in a seinen magazine, so while the protagonist and many supporting characters are gay, it’s not a romance and doesn’t feature the sort of BL tropes that so many love.

That’s a feature for me, though, not a bug! When I was younger and desperate for any stories about queer people, I read a whole lot of BL. Much of it I even enjoyed, simply because there was nothing else out there. But those tropes do bother me, and I am always thrilled to find manga with queer characters that isn’t BL (or the rare BL story that isn’t quite so tropey). And omg this really delivers. I enjoyed Antique Bakery quite a lot for similar reasons, but this is far and away the better manga, IMO, at least in that regard.

One of my favorite plotlines so far, which I think is a good example of just how dedicated Yoshinaga is to giving us a realistic view of what it’s like to be gay in Japan, is when a gay couple who are friends with Shiro and Kenji come to Shiro for legal advice.

I’ve taken the liberty of translating the page where Tetsu brings up why they’ve come to dinner:

Kinou Nani Tabeta? vol. 4 pg. 36

Not only do I love the way Yoshinaga tackles the topic (something I doubt would ever come up in a typical BL manga), but I love the expression on the guy’s face in the second-to-last panel. He doesn’t say why he wouldn’t want any money going to his parents, but he doesn’t have to. It’s clear to everyone present (as well as the readers) that they must have rejected him.

There’s just so much stuff like that. It’s not heavy-handed and it’s not like all the plots are About Being Gay. It’s just that these things are part of their lives and are incorporated as such. And I love it so much, but at the same time it makes me sad and angry that one reason I love it so much is because there is literally nothing else like it, and that sucks. I really hope that some publisher gives it a chance in English.

Filed Under: License This! Tagged With: fumi yoshinaga, kinou nani tabeta?, queer characters, Seinen

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