Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

VIZ

Short Takes: No Guns Life and Ryuko

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This month’s Short Takes column checks in with two previously-reviewed series: No Guns Life, a sci-fi thriller whose principled hero sounds like Sam Spade and looks like a Remington; and Ryuko, a thriller starring a yakuza assassin who’s hell-bent on avenging her mother’s kidnapping.

No Guns Life, Vol. 2
Story and Art by Tasuku Karasuma
Translation by Joe Yamazaki; Adaptation by Stan!
VIZ Media, 224 pp.
Rated T+ (Older Teens)

After a decent, if predictable, first volume, Tasuku Karasuma finds his groove in volume two of No Guns Life, maintaining a brisk pace while allowing his characters’ personalities to emerge more fully. Though the action occasionally pauses for the characters to expound on important plot developments, these dialogues are less of a drag on the story than they were in volume one; here, they add badly needed layers of  complexity to a familiar noir plot line. Better still, Karasuma introduces several new characters who push the narrative in a more interesting direction, hinting at the power and secrecy of the Berühen Corporation, as well as the general public’s mixed feelings about living alongside cyborgs. If Karasuma engages in a little too much fanservice, or relies too heavily on speedlines and sound effects to enliven his fight scenes, No Guns Life is still entertaining enough to make all but the most discriminating reader root for Juzo to succeed. Recommended.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. Click here to read my review of volume one.

Ryuko, Vol. 2
Story and Art by Eldo Yoshimizu
Translation by Motoko Tamamuro and Jonathan Clements
Titan Comics, 226 pp.
No rating (Best suited for older teen and adult readers)

Paging the exposition police! The second volume of Ryuko has all the swagger of the first, but leans more heavily into Talking Points Conversation to help expedite its resolution. In some respects, these exchanges are a welcome development, as they clearly—one might say baldly—delineate the various factions’ interest in the Golden Seal, an object whose significance was glossed over in volume one. These passages also help the reader untangle the complex web of relationships among the characters, making it easier to grasp why Ryuko forges an alliance with an avowed enemy and why US military forces are trying to manipulate the outcome of her feud with the Sheqing-Ban. These conversations would feel less forced if the pacing were more even, but the two-volume format is too compressed for such an ambitious, labyrinthine plot to unfold at a reader-friendly pace.

Volume two’s chief attraction is the same as volume one’s: the artwork. Eldo Yoshimizu has a flair for staging car chases, fist fights, gun battles, and dramatic escapes, immersing the reader in the action with his creative use of perspective and fastidious attention to detail; Ryuko’s leopard-print catsuit is practically a character in its own right. In less capable hands, this maximalist approach might be overwhelming, but Yoshimizu’s layouts have a strong narrative pull that leads the eye across the page at the speed of the action, creating an almost cinematic experience. The final confrontation between Ryuko and evil American operatives is a show-stopper involving a motorcycle stunt so outrageous that even Jackie Chan would be impressed with its audacity. None of the story makes much sense, but Yoshimizu’s energetic, bold, and—yes—sexy artwork is cool enough to carry the day. Recommended.

Click here to read my review of volume one. 

Cats of the Louvre

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Weird. Uncanny. Melancholy. Beautiful. Those were just a few of the adjectives I jotted down while reading Taiyo Matsumoto’s Cats of the Louvre, the latest volume in the museum’s ongoing graphic novel series. Like Nicholas De Crécy’s Glacial Period and Jiro Taniguchi’s Guardians of the Louvre, Cats of the Louvre is less an illustrated guide to the museum than a story that happens to take place within its walls—in this case, the attic, where a colony of cats have taken up residence. Through a series of eighteen vignettes, Matsumoto gradually reveals that the cats’ primary caretaker—an elderly night watchman—has dedicated his life to searching the museum for his missing sister, who disappeared into one of the paintings when she was a child.

The key to finding Arrieta turns out to be Snowbébé, a kitten who frequently escapes from the attic to roam the galleries, hiding inside canvases to avoid detection. Snowbébé’s gift is both an essential plot point and an opportunity for Matsumoto to luxuriate in the smaller details of his favorite paintings, as is evident in a lovely, strange sequence that unfolds inside Henri Lerambert’s The Funeral Procession of Love (1580). From a modern viewer’s standpoint, Lerambert’s painting seems a little kitschy, with its parade of cherubs, poets, and philosophers strolling under the watchful eye of the goddess Diana:

Once Snowbébé steps into the painting, however, the landscape comes to life in unexpected ways: the flowers grin, the animals speak, and the laws of gravity disappear. In one brief but delightful sequence, for example, Snowbébé and Arrieta cavort across the ceilings and walls of a temple, while in another they board Diana’s chariot for a ride through the Milky Way. Yet for all the joyful (and weird) imagery, there’s a wistful quality to these two chapters, as Snowbébé slowly realizes that he cannot remain inside the Parade forever; his presence has disturbed the painting’s equilibrium, bringing storm clouds and disrupting the flow of time itself, forcing him to choose between staying with his new friend, or returning to the “cold and smelly and noisy” world of the Louvre.

What prevents Snowbébé’s odyssey from seeming twee or precious is Matsumoto’s studied primitivism; his characters’ mask-like faces, oddly proportioned bodies, and grotesque smiles are genuinely unnerving, creating a surreal atmosphere in which the boundaries between reality and imagination are blurred. Nowhere is this tendency more obvious than in the way he draws Snowbébé and his friends: the cats look like animals to their caretakers, but assume a humanoid form when interacting with each other. In Matsumoto’s hands, they look more like people in cat costumes than pussycats, with their essential feline features—ears, whiskers, tails, elongated limbs—rendered in an exaggerated fashion that gives them a faintly alien appearance.

Matsumoto’s depiction of the Louvre is more straightforward, recreating iconic works with fidelity to the originals, whether he’s drawing a lesser-known genre painting or a genuinely famous sculpture. His rendition of the physical environment—the claustrophobic, dusty garret where the cats live, the grand staircases and hallways that lead to the galleries—is similarly precise, helping the reader envision the sheer size and opulence of the museum. As a result, the Louvre transcends its basic function as a setting, taking on the qualities of a living, breathing organism whose vaulted ceilings and majestic columns invite comparisons with dinosaurs or whales:

And while all the comics in the Louvre Collection have done an admirable job of depicting the museum, Cats of the Louvre approaches its subject matter without didacticism or pedantry; though Matsumoto’s human characters express strong feelings about art, those conversations spring organically from the story. Equally important, Cats of the Louvre has its own personality; unlike Hirohiko Araki’s Rohan at the Louvre, which recycled ideas and characters from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Matsumoto’s story stands on its own, capturing his unique response to the museum and its collection. But the best reason to read Cats of the Louvre is its hero Snowbébé, whose quest to find his place in the world invites us to see the Louvre through fresh eyes, as a place of danger and sadness, but also of wonder, magic, and possibility. Recommended.

A review copy was provided by VIZ Media. To read a short preview, click here.

CATS OF THE LOUVRE • STORY AND ART BY TAIYO MATSUMOTO • TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL ARIAS • RATING: TEEN • 432 pp.

The Drifting Classroom Signature Edition, Vol. 1

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In a 2009 interview with Tokyo Scum Brigade, Kazuo Umezu acknowledged that his debt to Osamu Tezuka went beyond storyboarding and character designs. Tezuka “didn’t pull any punches for children or dumb down his works,” Umezu explained. “He dealt with complicated themes and let the readers work it out on their own.” The 1972 classic The Drifting Classroom reveals just how profoundly Umezu absorbed this lesson. Though it ran in Weekly Shonen Sunday, a magazine aimed at grade schoolers, Umezu’s work was bleak, subversive, and weirdly thrilling, depicting a nightmarish world where kids resorted to violence and deception to survive.

The Drifting Classroom begins with a freak accident in which a rift in the space-time continuum sends the Yamato Elementary School and its occupants into the distant future. Initially, the students and teachers believe that they are the sole survivors of a devastating nuclear attack, and the area immediately surrounding the school supports their hypothesis: it’s a barren wasteland with no water, plants, or signs of human habitation save a pile or two or non-degradable trash. As the school’s occupants realize the severity of the crisis, panic sets in. Teachers and students engage in a brutal competition for dwindling supplies while attempting to solve the mystery of what happened to them. And when I say “brutal,” I mean it: the body count in volume one is astonishing, with murders, mass suicides, fist fights, knife fights, and rampaging monsters culling the herd at a breathtaking rate.

It’s sorely tempting to compare The Drifting Classroom to The Lord of the Flies, as both stories depict school children creating their own societies in the absence of adult authority. But Kazuo Umezu’s series is more sinister than Golding’s novel, as Classroom‘s youthful survivors have been forced to band together to defend themselves against their former teachers, many of whom have become unhinged at the realization that they may never return to the present. Umezu creates an atmosphere of almost unbearable dread that conveys both the hopelessness of the children’s situation and their terror at being abandoned by the grown-ups, a point underscored by one student’s observation that adults “depend on logic and reason to deal with things.” He continues:

When something happens and they can’t use reason or logic to explain it, they can’t handle it. I don’t think they were able to accept that we’ve traveled to the future. You know how adults are always saying that kids are making things up? It’s because they only know things to be one way. Kids can imagine all kinds of possibilities. That’s why we’ve managed to survive here.

That speech is delivered by The Drifting Classroom‘s plucky protagonist Sho, a sixth grader who becomes the children’s de facto leader. When we first meet Sho, he’s behaving petulantly, pouting over his mother’s decision to throw away his marbles. The intensity of his anger is drawn in broad strokes, but it firmly establishes him as an honest-to-goodness ten year old, caught between his desire to play and his parents’ desire to mold him into a responsible teenager. Once transported to the future, Sho’s strategies for scavenging supplies or subduing a rampaging teacher are astute but not adult; there are flourishes of imagination and kid logic guiding his actions that remind us just how young and vulnerable he is. As a result, Sho’s pain at being separated from his parents, and of losing his comrades, is genuinely agonizing.

Umezu’s artwork further emphasizes the precarity of Sho’s situation. Sho and his classmates have doll-like faces and awkwardly proportioned bodies that harken back to Umezu’s work for shojo magazines such as Sho-Comi and Shoujo Friend, yet their somewhat unnatural appearance serves a vital dramatic function, underscoring how small they are when contrasted with their adult guardians. The adults, on the other hand, initially appear normal, but descend into monstrous or feckless caricatures as their plight becomes more desperate. Only Sho’s mother—who is stuck in the present day—escapes such unflattering treatment, a testament to her devotion, courage, and imagination; while her husband and friends have accepted the official story about the school’s fate, Sho’s mother is open to the possibility that Sho may be reaching across time to communicate with her.

Like his character designs, Umezu’s landscapes are willfully ugly, evoking feelings of disgust, fear, and anxiety that are almost palpable, whether he’s drawing an abandoned building or a garden filled with grotesquely misshapen plants. The area just outside the school gates, for example, resembles the slopes of an active volcano, with sulfurous clouds wafting over a rocky expanse that seems both frozen and molten—an apt metaphor the characters’ state of mind as they first glimpse their new surroundings:

Though The Drifting Classroom‘s imagery still resonates in 2019, its gender politics do not, as an egregious subplot involving a sadistic girl gang demonstrates. When the gang attempts to seize control of the school, a classmate urges Sho to oppose them on the grounds that girls are fundamentally unsuited for leadership roles. (“Women are made to give birth and rear children so they can’t think long term,” Gamo helpfully opines.) Umezu’s goal here, I think, is to suggest that girls are as capable of violence and cruelty as boys, but the dialogue suggests the gang’s behavior is a symptom of innate irrationality instead of a genuine and logical response to a desperate situation. Making matters worse is that the few sympathetic female characters are consigned to stereotypically feminine roles that give them little to do besides scream, run, and comfort the younger children; even Sakiko, the smartest girl in the class, never gets a chance to solve a problem or offer a useful opinion.

Yet for all its obvious shortcomings, The Drifting Classroom is a thoughtful meditation on adult hypocrisy, exposing all the ways that adults manipulate and terrorize children for their own convenience. “Adults are humans, children are animals,” a cafeteria worker tells Sho and his friends. “That’s why adults have the power of life and death over kids.” That Sho and his followers cling to their humanity despite the adults’ selfish behavior reminds us that children are innocent but not naive; Sho and his friends are clear-eyed about their teachers’ failings, yet choose to persevere. Recommended.

This is a greatly expanded–and reconsidered–review of The Drifting Classroom that appeared at PopCultureShock in 2006. VIZ Media provided a review copy. Read a free preview here.

THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY KAZUO UMEZZ • TRANSLATED BY SHELDON DRZKA • ADAPTED BY MOLLY TANZER • RATED T+, FOR OLDER TEENS (VIOLENCE, HORROR, GORE) • 744 pp.

The Way of the Househusband, Vol. 1

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If you’ve seen Lillehammer or My Blue Heaven, you’ll immediately recognize the foundation on which The Way of the Househusband is built: a mafia don or hit man renounces his old life and joins the ranks of ordinary civilians working nine-to-five jobs, mowing lawns, and attending school plays. Predictably, the transition from whacking rivals to whacking weeds is a bumpy one, as the former criminal discovers that the skills he acquired in his old line of work haven’t fully equipped him for a more prosaic existence; seemingly benign interactions at the principal’s office or the post office are fraught with peril, as they’re guided by unfamiliar social codes. Then, too, there’s the specter of his old life—the possibility that a former associate might recognize him or seek him out for one last job.

The Way of the Househusband covers all of this well-spaded ground, earning its laughs by putting fresh twists on familiar scenarios. Its protagonist, the stone-faced Tatsu, is a former yakuza boss-cum-househusband who spends his days making elaborate bento boxes for his wife and scouring the grocery store for bargains. As is standard for this particular fish-out-of-water genre, Tatsu’s sangfroid is sorely tested by the minor annoyances of civilian life: a visit from the neighborhood association president, a trip to the mall.

When a knife salesman knocks on Tatsu’s door, for example, author Kousuke Oono teases the idea that his characters’ interactions might end in violence or a harrowing demonstration of Tatsu’s knife-wielding skills. Instead, Tatsu has an opportunity to show off his culinary prowess, winning over the understandably nervous salesman with his “patented hamburger steak plate.” The salesman’s rhapsodic expression and interior monologue put the gag over the top, as the salesman identifies the dish’s secret ingredient—“minced fish paste”—and muses that its flavor “takes me back to my hometown.”

Strong artwork is essential to selling a slapstick premise like Househusband’s, and for the most part, Oono succeeds. Oono’s characters have distinctive appearances that makes it easy to “read” their comic function–the suspicious neighbor, the former crime associate–but Oono never relies on this technique alone, often giving bit players an unexpected moment of steeliness or resourcefulness that nudges the joke in an unexpected direction. The salesman, for example, looks like a soft, middle-aged man, but turns out to be stronger, pushier, and more determined than his initial reaction to Tatsu might suggest, quickly recovering his composure after Tatsu answers the door wearing a bloody apron. (“I was just, uh, doin’ a little butcherin’,” Tatsu explains sheepishly.)

Appearance-wise, Oono does a great job of making Tatsu look utterly incongruous with his surroundings. With his pencil-thin mustache, scarred face, and aviator sunglasses–not to mention his black suit and tattoos–Tatsu cuts a striking figure in the supermarket and on the street. Oono invigorates this obvious sight gag by swathing Tatsu in housewife “drag,” outfitting him in a kerchief and apron emblazoned with a shiba inu to further emphasize just what a fish out of water Tatsu is. That same attention to detail extends to the way that Tatsu moves; Oono draws him like a human cobra whose sinewy, explosive movements strike terror into his enemies’–and his neighbors’–hearts.

Sheldon Drzka and Jennifer LeBlanc’s skillful adaptation of the script is the icing on the cake, giving every character a distinctive voice, and every exchange the pleasant zing of a good Saturday Night Live or Key & Peele sketch–no mean feat, given the cultural specificity of the jokes.

As good as the script and art are, however, I have a sneaking suspicion that Way of the Househusband might run out of gas after three or four volumes unless Oono pivots the storyline in a new direction–say, by introducing a baby into the picture, or revealing that Tatsu’s hard-charging wife has a secret past of her own. But for now, I’m happy to continue reading any series that pits a former yakuza boss against a Roomba and a frisky cat, or depicts a manly man going to extreme lengths to ensure that his wife has a tasty lunch. In the immortal words of Paris Hilton, that’s hawt. Recommended.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. Read a free preview here.

THE WAY OF THE HOUSEHUSBAND, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY KOUSUKE OONO • TRANSLATION BY SHELDON DRZKA, ADAPTATION BY JENNIFER LEBLANC • VIZ MEDIA, LLC • 166 pp. • RATED T+, FOR OLDER TEENS (SUGGESTED VIOLENCE, YAKUZA JOKES)

The Right Way to Make Jump

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Vol. 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

A review copy was supplied by VIZ Media.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, Vol. 1

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

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

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

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

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

Kenka Bancho Otome: Love’s Battle Royale, Vol. 1

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For a manga based on a dating game, Kenka Bancho Otome is far better than it ought to be. It’s a fast-paced, loose-limbed story that’s both cheerfully stupid and mildly subversive, buoyed by its deliciously queer premise: a girl goes undercover in an all-boys’ high school where her androgynous beauty and lethal karate chops inflame her classmates’ hearts.

The plot is set in motion by an accidental encounter between Hinako Nakayama, an orphan, and her long-lost twin Hikaru, whom she rescues from the path of an oncoming car. In the aftermath of the accident, Hikaru cajoles his sister into impersonating him for a day, lending her his school uniform and dropping her at the campus gates. Hinako soon realizes the folly of her brother’s request, however; Shishiku Academy is more like Rock ’n’ Roll High School than prep school, as its entire curriculum—if one could call it that—centers on fighting. Making matters worse is that everyone wants to fight Hinako because they believe she’s the heir apparent to the Onigumo crime family. She isn’t, of course, but Hikaru is, a detail he conveniently omitted when roping her into his charade. 

If you’ve read more than one shojo comedy, you know what happens next: Hinako befriends and beguiles the best-looking delinquents at the school, from Totomaru, an earnest cutie who’s prone to nosebleeds and blushing, to Kira, a tousle-haired bishonen with a sensitive side. Author Chie Shimada has the good graces to keep the hot guys and fist-fights coming — the better to distract from the thinness of the plot —and the imagination to add small but delightful quirks to her main characters’ personalities. Her best running gag is Hikaru, who seems more at home impersonating his sister than inhabiting his own skin; though his temper suggests he’d be a ruthless crime boss, his obvious joy in looking pretty and flirting with Miraku, Shinsiku Academy’s resident idol, add a fresh dimension to the identity-swapping formula. 

As you might expect, the artwork is more serviceable than memorable. Shimada proves capable of drawing a variety of familiar bishonen types — lanky guys with ponytails, serious guys with glasses — though the pro forma nature of the character designs occasionally makes it difficult to parse the fight scenes. (All those artfully coiffed young men have the same lanky, spike-haired silhouette.) Then, too, there are riotously busy pages where Shimada’s screentone is so thick and smudgy it’s almost palpable; the phrase “applied with a trowel” comes to mind.

Still, the Shishiku gang’s bonhomie is hard to resist, carrying the reader past the story’s creakier moments. So, too, is Hinako’s sincerity; her journey towards self-actualization is both touching and amusing, as she discovers that she might, in fact, be a more natural bancho than her twin. That she wins her fellow delinquents’ admiration with a mean right hook and a roundhouse kick is less important than the fact they appreciate her for her pluck, kindness, and thirst for justice — a nuance that elevates Kenka Bancho Otome from otome rehash to actual story. Recommended.

KENKA BANCHO OTOME: LOVE’S BATTLE ROYALE, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY CHIE SHIMADA • ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY SPIKE CHUNSOFT • VIZ MEDIA • 194 pp. • RATED T, FOR TEENS (13+)

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 2

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The first volume of The Promised Neverland was a masterclass in how to launch a series: the plotting was intricate but the brisk pacing and well-timed twists prevented an exposition-heavy story from sagging under the weight of its own ambition. Of necessity, volume two unfurls at a slower clip than the first, as the principal trio of Emma, Ray, and Norman work through the logistics of escaping Gracefield Manor, weighing the pros and cons of each element in their intricate plan. Kaiu Shirai also expands the cast to include other stakeholders, dedicating several chapters to Krone, Mother’s new subordinate, and Don and Gilda, two high-achieving students who haven’t yet learned the true purpose of Gracefield Manor.

These character moments are one of the great strengths of volume two. Krone, for example, turns out to be more resourceful than we might have guessed from her brief introduction in volume one; Shirai and Posuka Demizu use a woodland game of tag to reveal Krone’s formidable strength, speed, and cunning, establishing her as yet another major obstacle to escape. In other passages, Shirai peels away the outer layers of her principal characters, complicating the reader’s understanding of who they are, what motivates them to escape, and with whom their true allegiance lies — a necessary corrective to the first volume, which portrayed Emma, Ray, and Norman as just a little too smart, too capable, and too thoughtful to fully register as twelve-year-olds.

Volume two hits an occasional speed bump when characters discuss the escape plan. One overly deliberate scene, for example, finds Roy and Norman in full Scooby Doo mode, explaining how they figured out there was a mole among the residents. And volume two’s physical depiction of Krone is, frankly, uncomfortable, as some of her facial features have been exaggerated in ways that recall the iconography of blackface minstrelsy. Despite these lapses, The Promised Neverland remains suspenseful thanks, in no small part, to Demizu’s brief but horrific dream sequences; these suggestive images — a swirl of bodies, teeth, and monstrous eyes — provide a potent reminder of what’s at stake if the kids don’t escape Mother’s clutches.

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 2
Story by Kaiu Shirai, Art by Posuka Demizu
Translated by Satsuki Yamashita
VIZ Media; 192 pp.
Rated T, for Teen

Takane & Hana, Vol. 1

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The opening pages of Takane & Hana offer a uniquely Japanese twist on the meet cute: the couple in question are set up by a marriage broker who thinks she’s introducing a twenty-three year old beauty to a twenty-six-year-old bachelor. The bride-to-be, however, is a sixteen-year-old high school student who’s posing as her older sister — don’t ask — while the potential groom is an impossibly handsome jerk who’s angry that his family is pressuring him to settle down. Guess what happens next? If you said, “Opposites attract!”, you wouldn’t be wrong, though the course of true love hits a few potholes along the way.

I’m of two minds about Takane & Hana. My fifteen-year-old self adores Hana for being so smart and sassy, the kind of girl who says devastatingly true things and still manages to stay in other people’s good graces. My forty-five-year-old self, however, feels uncomfortable with the ten-year age gap between its lead characters. While Yuki Shiwasu cheerfully acknowledges the troubling power dynamic between Takane and Hana, she wants to eat her cake and have it, too: Hana’s incisive comments are supposed to level the playing field with the older, more experienced Takane, making it OK for the two to flirt, date, and kiss. At the end of the day, however, the economic and educational gulf between Hana and Takane still seems vast, making Takane seem like a predatory creep for preferring the company of a mature sixteen-year-old over a woman his age.

I know, I know: I’m humorless. A killjoy. A big ol’ capital-F feminist. But in a moment when we’re having serious conversations about power and consent, I’m having difficulty getting caught up in Takane and Hana’s romantic shenanigans, however much Hana sounds like a teenaged Rosalind Russell, or how wonderfully elastic Takane and Hana’s faces may be. Takane & Hana is unquestionably someone’s guilty pleasure — just not mine.

Takane & Hana, Vol. 1
Story and Art by Yuki Shiwasu
Adaptation by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane
VIZ Media, 200 pp.
Rated T, for Teens

A First Look at The Promised Neverland

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Crack pacing, crisp artwork, and a shocking plot twist in chapter one — those are just three reasons to pick up The Promised Neverland when it arrives in comic shops on December 5th. The first volume is a masterful exercise in world-building, introducing the principal characters and the main conflict in a few economic strokes, avoiding the trap that ensnares so many fantasy authors: the info-dump introduction. Instead, the writer-artist team of Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu allow the reader to figure out what’s happening by revealing important plot details as the characters uncover them, and letting the artwork establish the setting. That makes the very earliest pages of the story flow more like a rollercoaster than a Star Wars screen crawl, making every page turn feel like an urgent necessity.

The story begins at Grace Field House, an orphanage plucked from a Victorian novel: the main building is a homey Tudor villa that’s surrounded by open meadows and lush forest, perfect for a game of tag. Our first hint that something is amiss comes just six pages into the story, as Emma, the narrator, makes a mental note of all the things she’s grateful for: “a warm bed, delicious food” and “an all-white uniform.” Before we can ponder the significance of the uniform, however, Demizu inserts a panel revealing that every resident of Grace Field House has a number tattooed on her neck, a sure sign that the orphans are more prisoners than temporary wards:

A smattering of other clues — including a series of daily IQ tests and a fence encircling the property — reinforce our perception that Emma and her friends Roy and Norman are in grave danger. And while the earliest chapters occasionally bow to Shonen Jump convention with on-the-nose narration, it’s the artwork, not Emma’s voice-over, that makes each new revelation feel so sinister. Consider the panel that introduces the testing ritual:

In the first ten pages of the story, Demizu uses little to no shading to create volume or contrast, instead depicting the setting and characters through clean, graceful linework. The image above, which appears on pages 12-13, is the first time that we see such a dramatic use of tone; the students at the back of the frame look like they’re being swallowed by a black hole, while the students at the front sit under a klieg light’s glare. Demizu’s subsequent drawings are more restrained than this particular sequence, but her artwork becomes more detailed and complex than what we saw in the story’s first pages — it’s as if the setting is coming into focus for the first time, complicating our initial impressions of Grace Field House as a place of refuge.

I’m reluctant to say more about the plot, since the first chapter’s spell loses some of its potency if you know the Big Terrible Secret beforehand. (If you absolutely, positively must know what happens, Wikipedia has a decent, one-paragraph summary of the premise.) By the time Emma, Roy, and Norman realize the real purpose of their incarceration, however, the basic “rules” of the Promised Neverland universe have been firmly established, and the characters fleshed out enough for us to care whether they succeed in escaping. More importantly, the lead trio are smart and capable without seeming like miniature adults, making their likelihood of success seem uncertain, rather than preordained. That element of suspense may be difficult to sustain for 10 or 20 volumes, but hot damn — volume one is a nail-biter. Count me in for more!

Volume one debuts on December 5th in print and ebook form. Chapters 1-3 are available for free on the VIZ website; the story is currently being serialized in the English edition of Weekly Shonen Jump.

Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga

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Part manifesto, part how-to manual, Hirohiko Araki’s Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga is as idiosyncratic as the series that made him a household name in Japan. Araki characterizes his book as both a map, guiding the aspiring artist along the “golden way” of manga, and a tool kit for developing one’s storytelling chops. “If you were to go hiking on an unfamiliar mountain, you’d bring a map, right?” he states. “If you also have with you a foundation of mountaineering skill, you could wander onto side paths and discover unexpected scenery, and if you were to come across any dangers, you could find your way around them and still reach the summit” (12-13).

Araki’s own map to the summit was Hitchcock/Truffaut. First published in 1967, the book traced Hitchcock’s journey from title boy at Paramount’s Famous Players to director of Rear Window, analyzed Hitchcock’s signature techniques, and considered Hitchcock’s contributions to the development of film. It’s not hard to imagine why Truffaut and Hitchcock’s words beguiled Araki; they provided Araki practical tips for creating memorable characters and surprising plot twists while reassuring him that a popular medium like film or comics could, in fact, be a high art form.

That fancy pedigree helps explain what differentiates Manga in Theory and Practice from hundreds of other books aimed at the manga novice. Instead of tutorials on choosing pen nibs or drawing “manga” eyes, Araki offers a chatty, first-person treatise on writing a hit series, explaining the techniques he uses to sustain to a long-form story with examples from his favorite movies, manga, and novels. Araki also uses his own manga to illustrate how his ideas work in practice, narrating scenes from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Poker Under Arms, and Cool Shock B.T. By choosing material from every stage of his career, he allows the reader to appreciate just how much his own style has evolved through years of study, practice, and editorial critique — a valuable example for any aspiring manga artist.

The book’s core chapters — “Designing Characters,” “How to Write a Story,” “Art Expresses Everything,” “What Setting Is to Manga,” and “All Elements Connect to the Theme” — outline Araki’s process for creating characters and settings, offering sound advice about which genres are best suited to serialization. Though Araki’s techniques are highly individual, the thoroughness with which he approaches world building is a useful model for less experienced writers. Araki even includes a detailed chart for capturing “sixty facts for fleshing out your characters,” from the obvious — age, gender, size — to the mundane — handedness, favorite brands.

Another recurring theme of Manga in Theory and Practice is that art is a means to an end, not an end in itself. “What your readers will see is the artwork,” Araki observes, “but behind those drawings exist the interconnected elements of character, story, setting, and theme” (41). To illustrate this point, Araki devotes several pages to explaining the difference between signification and realism, suggesting when one technique is more effective than the other. Using Jiro Taniguchi’s Solitary Gourmet (Kodoku no Gourmet) as an example, Araki notes that the hero “is drawn as an everyday salaryman, but the food is drawn with complete realism.” By drawing Goro in less detail than the food, Araki argues, Taniguchi directs the reader’s eye to the presentation, texture, and ingredients of every dish, rather than Goro’s reaction to the meal — a subtle but effective way to highlight the uniqueness of each restaurant Goro visits (45).

Araki returns to this idea later in the book, noting that the artist’s credibility lies, in part, with his ability to convince the reader that the story is taking place in a real world where characters walk, drive, text, cook, shop, and go to school. Under the provocative heading “How to Draw Guns,” Araki explains that hands-on experience with “machinery and tools” is essential to creating a realistic setting. “If you are drawing a motorcycle or bicycle, and you don’t understand how the wheels are attached or where the handlebars are placed, the result will be unsuitable for riding upon, and your setting will become incoherent,” he notes (131-32).

As pragmatic as Araki’s advice is, the book sometimes sags under the weight of Araki’s pedantic tone; it’s a little like reading a how-to book written by Polonius or your pompous Uncle Frank. In a section titled “The Difference Between Drawing Men and Women,” for example, Araki counsels the aspiring manga-ka that “nowadays, both men and women can become heroes.” And if that advice seems self-evident, what follows is even less useful. “If anything sets apart male and female characters, it’s only visual,” he elaborates. The decision to include female characters “is purely a matter of your own taste,” he continues, “as long as your characters are appealing, you could get away with a world of all men” (58-59). Small wonder so many male comic artists have no idea how to write female characters.

More amusing is a passage in which Araki castigates Francis Ford Coppola for extending the storyline of The Godfather beyond Michael Corleone’s promotion to family don. As Araki sees it, the plot developments that follow Michael’s ascent — Fredo’s betrayal, his divorce from Kay — violate Araki’s dictum that “protagonists are always rising.” “In the sequels,” Araki opines, “Michael is beset by troubles and family betrayals in a series of realistic scenes that are brilliantly rendered, but from the point of view of the audience, are unwanted and depressing” (100). Araki does praise Coppola’s commitment to this dreary vision of mob life, but it’s hard to escape the idea that Araki is dissing Coppola for the The Godfather II‘s downbeat ending.

And while I’m tickled by Araki’s assessment of The Godfather II, these odd digressions are part of Manga in Theory and Practice‘s charm. It’s one of the few how-to manuals that seems to have been written by a flesh-and-blood person working in the industry, rather than a manga illustration bot. More importantly, Manga in Theory and Practice is a valuable reference work, filling a niche that most manga manuals ignore: how to unify images and words into a dynamic story. Recommended.

VIZ Media provided a review copy.

Works Cited

Araki, Hirohito. Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga, translated by Nathan A. Collins, VIZ Media, 2017.

Astra Lost in Space, Vol. 1

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While the US manga market has plenty to offer teen readers, there’s a dearth of titles for kids who have aged out of Yokai Watch but aren’t quite ready for Bleach or Soul Eater. Astra Lost in Space, a new addition to the VIZ catalog, is a perfect transitional title for ten, eleven, and twelve-year-olds who want to read “real” manga: its slick illustrations and adventure-driven plot feel just edgy enough for this group, while the content falls safely within the boundaries of what’s appropriate for the middle school crowd.

The plot of Astra Lost in Space may remind older fans of Moto Hagio’s sci-fi classic “They Were Eleven”: nine high school students find themselves stranded aboard a spaceship whose communication system has been disabled. With only a few days’ supply of water and food on board, the group is forced to improvise a plan for making the five-month journey home. Their solution: hopscotching between planets — let’s call them “Class M” for the sake of convenience — where an abundant supply of water, plants, and animals await harvesting.

As you might guess, the planet-of-the-week formula provides artist Kenta Shinohara (Sket Dance) ample opportunity to draw menacing fauna and flora, and stage imaginative action sequences. In the volume’s best scene, for example, team captain Kanata Hoshijima leap-frogs across a field of sky-high lily pads to rescue the group’s youngest member from a flying, six-legged monster. Shinohara lavishes more attention to detail on Kanata’s long jump technique than on the turgon itself, breaking down each of Kanata’s jumps into discrete steps recognizable to any track-and-field fan: the approach, the takeoff, the hang, and the landing. In a further nod to realism, Shinohara shows us the physical toll that each jump exacts from Kanata; we can practically hear Kanata’s heaving breaths as he readies himself for the next one, an effective gambit for casting doubt on Kanata’s ability to reach Funicia.

For all the skill with which this rescue is staged, Shinohara can’t disguise the fact his characters feel like they’re the products of a Shonen Jump reader’s poll, rather than original creations. Kanata, for example, is a walking, talking checklist of shonen hero traits: he’s strong, friendly, over-confident, and burdened with a tragic backstory that gives him the will to persevere in any situation, no matter how dire. He also happens to be a decathlete, a fact that’s revealed as he rescues Funicia from the turgon’s grip. (At least that explains his javelin-throwing skills.) The other characters are less developed than Kanata, but will seem familiar to anyone who’s read three or four Shonen Jump titles: there’s Quittierre, a pretty rich girl whose tantrums conceal a good heart; Aries, a cute spaz who makes Edith Bunker look like a genius; Zack, a calm, smart boy who speaks in complete paragraphs; Charce, a boy who’s so handsome he sparkles; and a handful of less-defined characters who — according to the Third Law of Manga Plot Dynamics — will either be monster fodder or directly responsible for their classmates’ terrible predicament.

Manga novitiates, however, will be less troubled by these nods to convention, thanks to the story’s brisk pacing, smart-looking layouts, and game attempts at humor. Though there’s a mild bit of fanservice and “fantasy violence” (VIZ’s term, not mine), parents, teachers, and librarians should feel comfortable allowing middle school students to read Astra.

N.B. The first 45 chapters are currently available through the VIZ website for anyone wishing to screen the story for younger readers. Volume one of Astra is also available in a Kindle edition, and will be available in a print edition that’s slated for a December 5th release.

ASTRA LOST IN SPACE, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY KENTO SHINOHARA • TRANSLATED BY ADRIENNE BECK • VIZ • 204 pp. • RATED T for TEEN

After Hours and My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness

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After Hours and My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness epitomize a small but growing trend in yuri manga licensing: both focus on women in their twenties exploring their sexuality, rather than depicting middle- or high-school aged girls crushing on each other.

After Hours is the more upbeat of the two, a sympathetic portrait of twenty-three-year-old Emi, a recent college graduate who’s just quit her job and is struggling to figure out what comes next. A chance encounter with Kei, a twenty-nine-year-old deejay, is a turning point in Emi’s young adult life: not only is she drawn to Kei’s confidence, she’s also intrigued by Kei’s passion for spinning records. As their connection deepens, Emi takes a more active role in supporting Kei’s career, joining Kei’s circle of friends and trying her hand at “veejaying,” selecting videos to complement Kei’s set lists.

One of the most striking aspects of After Hours is Yuhta Nishio’s sensitive depiction of Emi and Kei’s sexual encounters. He uses a handful of discrete signifiers — a pile of clothing on the floor, a tender embrace, a flirtatious post-coital chat — rather than explicit or provocative imagery. That’s a wise choice, I think, as it allows Nishio to portray Emi and Kei as grown women with healthy sexual urges without reducing them to sexualized objects. Nishio’s restrained approach also emphasizes the aspects of Emi and Kei’s bodily intimacy that foster a mutual sense of trust, familiarity, and affection — a dimension of sexual experience that’s often missing from straight romance manga.

Though the first chapters are largely uneventful, future volumes promise dramatic complications. Emi has yet to disclose her relationship to her friends or her not-quite-ex-boyfriend, with whom she’s still sharing an apartment. More interestingly, Emi hasn’t really thought about what it means to be in a relationship with another woman; she’s initially surprised by her attraction to Kei, but resists labeling those feelings as lesbian, bisexual, or queer, choosing instead to savor the sense of purpose and joy that being with Kei brings to her life. The ease with which Emi embraces her new love is a refreshing development, a quiet rebuttal of the idea that sexual orientation is absolute or easily defined.

By contrast, Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is a more complex story, a confessional comic documenting the author’s sexual awakening in her late twenties. Nagata narrates her odyssey with candor, acknowledging the degree to which mental illness dictated her adult life. She describes the bodily ravages of disordered eating — she vacillated between anoxeria and bulimia — and the emotional toll of disordered thinking, noting the degree to which both depression and body dysmorphia prevented her from holding down a job, maintaining friendships, or thinking about herself as a sexual person. She also ruminates on her chilly relationship with her parents, and her profound sense of shame in disappointing them by not becoming a “real” adult with a conventional office job.

After hitting rock bottom, Nagata realizes the degree to which she’s suppressed her sexuality. In an effort to reassert control over her life, Nagata decides to hire a female escort for her first sexual experience. Nagata documents this encounter in an almost clinical fashion, contrasting her feverish anticipation with her stiff, detached response to being touched. For all of her progress towards mental health and self-acceptance, she realizes that she cannot yet surrender to the bodily sensations of desire — a tension that remains unresolved at the end of her narrative, even though Nagata’s final panels suggest her sense of relief and pride for taking such a bold step.

That Nagata’s journey is more inspiring than depressing is a testament to her writing skills (and, I might add, Jocelyne Allen’s artfully wry translation). Though Nagata never shies away from describing uncomfortable thoughts or self-destructive behavior, she finds moments of grace and humor in even the darkest situations, especially as she begins to contemplate what it means to be a sexual person. In three sharp, economical panels, for example, she explores her profound discomfort with binary gender labels, even as she begins to recognize her sexual attraction to women:

It feels churlish to criticize such a personal work, and yet I found myself wishing that Nagata’s art felt more essential to the story she was telling. Writing for The Comics Journal, critic Katie Skelly voiced similar concerns, arguing that Nagata’s tendency to mix big blocks of text with cute drawings keeps the reader at arm’s length when Nagata discloses intimate, sometimes disturbing, details of her eating disorders and self-mutilation. “Nagata can’t find a suitable bridge to mend the gap between the story of her experience and aesthetic,” Skelly notes. “[H]er style can read as generic and her tone never quite finds its mark.” I admit to feeling the same way about Nagata’s work: I admired her raw honesty, but felt that My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness could have been a book, a movie, or a Moth Radio Hour segment just as easily as a comic; nothing about the way Nagata related her experiences felt like it was uniquely suited to manga, as her drawings were more illustrative of what she felt than genuinely revelatory about why she felt such profound self-loathing.

For all the things that go unsaid in My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, however, there’s much wisdom in Nagata’s story, especially for people struggling with what it means to be healthy, whole, and sexual. Nagata’s recovery is a testament to the human capacity for resilience, and her willingness to share her most vulnerable moments with strangers an act of genuine courage. Here’s hoping that she continues to document her journey of self-discovery.

VIZ Media provided a complimentary review copy of After Hours.

AFTER HOURS • STORY AND ART BY YUHTA NISHIO • TRANSLATION BY ABBY LEHRKE • 160 pp. • RATED TEEN+ (for older teens)

MY LESBIAN EXPERIENCE WITH LONELINESS • STORY AND ART BY NAGATA KABI • TRANSLATED BY JOCELYNE ALLEN • SEVEN SEAS • 152 pp. • RATED OT (for older teens)