Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Archives for June 2010

Off the Shelf: Manhwalicious

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Welcome to another edition of Off the Shelf with MJ & Michelle! As always, I’m joined by Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

After last week’s special MMF Edition where we discussed the first-ever Korean manhwa chosen for the Manga Moveable Feast, we thought it might be nice to take a look at some of the series that were not chosen in this week’s column.

MICHELLE: So, I think the both of us have been having a very manhwa-licious week here! Last week we talked about The Color Trilogy as part of the Manhwa Moveable Feast, and this week we’ve got three other series to discuss, all of which, I must say, I liked a lot more than our last topic of conversation!

MJ: So did I, Michelle. I voted pretty eagerly for a couple of these for last month’s Feast, so it’s a treat to have the chance to discuss them with you now! So, we’ve got three series to talk about. Where would you like to begin? …

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June Manhwa Moveable Feast: Endnotes

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As the month winds down, so does the fifth Manga Moveable Feast (or the first Manhwa Moveable Feast, however you care to look at it).

Before I close, here’s a quick look at the month’s final entry, from Alexander Hoffman at Eye of the Vortex. Alex’s take on the series manifests itself as a thoughtful, humorous comparison to so-called “Oscar bait.”

“When I read the Color of Trilogy, I am reminded immediately of the Oscars, and more specifically, the movies that that win Oscars because the Academy loves the trope of cinema these films belong to. Some cinegeeks call them “Oscarbait” and the reason is clear – they’re films that try their damnedest to win an Oscar by appealing to things that the Academy cares about, and they usually air within the last two months before the Oscars are awarded. Films like these are art-house indie flicks, and they are generally not well known to the general public. …

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Manga Artifacts: Pineapple Army

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About two years ago, I reached a tipping point in my manga consumption: I’d read enough just enough stories about teen mediums, masterless samurai, yakuza hit men, pirates, ninjas, robots, and magical girls to feel like I’d exhausted just about everything worth reading in English. Then I bought the first volume of Taiyo Matsumoto’s No. 5. A sci-fi tale rendered in a stark, primitivist style, Matsumoto’s artwork reminded me of Paul Gauguin’s with its mixture of fine, naturalistic observation and abstraction. I couldn’t tell you what the series was about (and after reading the second volume, still can’t), but Matsumoto’s precise yet energetic line work and wild, imaginative landscapes filled with me the same giddy excitement I felt when I first discovered the art of Rumiko Takahashi, CLAMP, and Goseki Kojima.

In a rush of enthusiasm to see what else was out there, I began trawling eBay for forgotten treasures, using Jason Thompson’s Manga: The Complete Guide as my map. What I found were an eclectic assortment of titles released in a variety of formats: Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories, Leiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999, Jiro Taniguchi’s Hotel Harbor View, Keiko Nishi’s Love Song. Some proved exciting, others abysmal, but all were interesting as artifacts of English-language manga’s pre-history, of the days before Fruits Basket and Naruto were ubiquitous in chain stores and malls. As I’ve been assembling a collection of older titles, I’ve found myself wondering why some of these books were originally licensed and whether there’s a place for them in the current market. To explore these questions, I decided to dedicate more space at my website to examining out-of-print titles, from the undiscovered gems to the unmitigated disasters.

goshiPINEAPPLE ARMY

For my inaugural Manga Artifacts column, I chose one of my happiest discoveries: Pineapple Army (VIZ), a collaboration between writer Kazuya Kudo (Mai the Psychic Girl) and artist Naoki Urasawa. Reading Pineapple Army is like opening a time capsule from the mid-1980s, when wars were Cold, American cities were crime-ridden, and Central America was as important a theater of operations as the Middle East. Jed Goshi, the reluctant hero of Pineapple Army, is an ex-Marine who hasn’t quite managed to re-integrate himself into civilian life after two tours of duty in ‘Nam. Goshi now works for a mysterious agency that helps people who can’t or won’t turn to the proper authorities for help. Though Goshi doggedly insists he’s an instructor, not a bodyguard — “I turn people into combat-ready soldiers in a short amount of time,” he informs one client — he always becomes embroiled in the action, rescuing an inexperienced fighter after a costly bungle or coaching a client out of a tight corner.

Pineapple Army is positively steeped in Reagan-era politics and paranoia. In “The Selva Game,” for example, Goshi runs afoul of the Sandinistas — remember that foreign policy fiasco? — while on a mission along the Honduran/Nicaraguan border, while “The Man From the Past” chronicles his experiences in Zaire, where he tried to teach US-backed troops to resist Communist guerillas. Other stories portray New York City as a kind of urban selva, filled with unscrupulous law enforcement officials, gangsters, and vigilantes; anyone who’s read Banana Fish will immediately recognize the milieu. These stories have the same ripped-from-the-headlines quality of the very earliest Law & Order episodes, borrowing elements of well-known criminal cases and putting a fictional spin on them: “The False Hero,” for example, pits a young female detective against a Curtis Sliwa-esque figure who treats the IRT as his own fiefdom, while “Goshi: The Preceptor” culminates in a showdown between a corrupt cop’s family and the gangster he swindled.

The artwork, like the stories, dates Pineapple Army to the decade of big hair and hair metal. Naoki Urasawa’s style was heavily influenced by Katsuhiro Otomo’s; the characters have the kind of well-fed look — stubby bodies, round faces, sturdy limbs — that Otomo popularized in the 1980s with AKIRA and Domu: A Child’s Dream. A few villains’ faces hint at the distinctive character designs that Urasawa would cultivate in later hits Master Keaton and Monster, but an unpracticed eye might reasonably attribute Pineapple Army to any number of competent artists. Urasawa’s trademark attention to detail, however, is evident throughout the series; he meticulously establishes the setting for each story, whether it’s an overgrown Mayan ruin, a Honduran hacienda, the grubby subway platforms of the IRT, or The Limelight, a church-cum-nightclub that was a Sixth Avenue fixture throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

The original series, which ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original from 1986-88, was collected in several different tankubon editions in Japan, each comprised of about 1,000 pages of material. For the US edition, VIZ cherry-picked ten stories, releasing them first as 32-page floppies, then as a single trade paperback. Though each story works reasonably well as a self-contained adventure, Pineapple Army suffers from some of the same continuity problems as Oishinbo, another longer series that was pared down and repackaged for Western readers. Two of the stories, for example, feature another agent named Janet, who spends most of her time trying to buttonhole Goshi for a date. We never learn much about her or how she knows Goshi, though it’s obvious the pair have some kind of history, perhaps related to their line of work. There’s also a reporter who trails Goshi from Africa to the US, hell-bent on exposing Goshi as a murderer; from their pulpy, melodramatic exchanges, one might infer they have a Jean Valjean-Inspector Javert relationship, but the VIZ edition doesn’t even bother to give the reporter a name. (No, really: Goshi and Janet both refer to him as “Mr. Reporter.”) Such small narrative hiccups are irritating but hardly fatal; the stories and crackling dialogue are strong enough to carry the reader past such interruptions.

Would VIZ ever re-issue Pineapple Army, perhaps in its entirety? I’m tempted to say no, as the artwork would strike most manga fans as passe. Urasawa’s tracings and screentone application sometimes look crude by contemporary standards, and his unfortunate tendency to draw black characters with thick, light-colored lips might necessitate revisions for a new American edition. (In Urasawa’s defense, the characters are not drawn in the grossly exaggerated style that Osamu Tezuka or Shotaro Ishinomori used in Swallowing the Earth or Cyborg 009, respectively, but for many American readers, a long history of nasty racial caricatures makes it difficult to excuse the practice.) Then, too, the stories have the same rhythm and sensibility of a 1980s TV show; one could be forgiven for comparing Pineapple Army with such period gems as The Equalizer, both for Pineapple Army‘s dogged adherence to formula and its deep suspicion of authority.

Yet it’s easy to overlook Pineapple Army‘s flaws, thanks to the strong script and dynamic layouts. Kudo and Urasawa create tough, memorable female characters; dream up creative ways to integrate current events into the storylines; and stage the kind of action scenes that were de rigeur on The A-Team and MacGuyver, complete with car chases, gun battles, and jerry-rigged explosive devices. The stories may be as predictable as taxes, but they’re still entertaining, especially for those of us with vivid memories of “Frankie Says Relax!” t-shirts and Bernhard Goetz’s subway vigilantism.

NOTE TO THE INTREPID BUYER

The comics are much easier to find than the trade paperback, and generally cheaper to boot; I picked up all ten issues for about $9 on eBay. Scanning the web, I’ve found almost no copies of the TPB available, although a few Amazon sellers appear to be offering it for non-usurious prices. French and Spanish speakers, see below for more information about European editions of Pineapple Army. (Hat tip to reader Althalus for information about both series’ availability.)

PINEAPPLE ARMY • STORY BY KAZUYA KUDO, ART BY NAOKI URASAWA • VIZ COMMMUNICATIONS

Manga Artifacts: Pineapple Army

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pineapple_glenatAbout two years ago, I reached a tipping point in my manga consumption: I’d read enough just enough stories about teen mediums, masterless samurai, yakuza hit men, pirates, ninjas, robots, and magical girls to feel like I’d exhausted just about everything worth reading in English. Then I bought the first volume of Taiyo Matsumoto’s No. 5. A sci-fi tale rendered in a stark, primitivist style, Matsumoto’s artwork reminded me of Paul Gauguin’s with its mixture of fine, naturalistic observation and abstraction. I couldn’t tell you what the series was about (and after reading the second volume, still can’t), but Matsumoto’s precise yet energetic line work and wild, imaginative landscapes filled with me the same giddy excitement I felt when I first discovered the art of Rumiko Takahashi, CLAMP, and Goseki Kojima.

In a rush of enthusiasm to see what else was out there, I began trawling eBay for forgotten treasures, using Jason Thompson’s Manga: The Complete Guide as my map. What I found were an eclectic assortment of titles released in a variety of formats: Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories, Leiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999, Jiro Taniguchi’s Hotel Harbor View, Keiko Nishi’s Love Song. Some proved exciting, others abysmal, but all were interesting as artifacts of English-language manga’s pre-history, of the days before Fruits Basket and Naruto were ubiquitous in chain stores and malls. As I’ve been assembling a collection of older titles, I’ve found myself wondering why some of these books were originally licensed and whether there’s a place for them in the current market. To explore these questions, I decided to dedicate more space at my website to examining out-of-print titles, from the undiscovered gems to the unmitigated disasters.

goshiPINEAPPLE ARMY

For my inaugural Manga Artifacts column, I chose one of my happiest discoveries: Pineapple Army (VIZ), a collaboration between writer Kazuya Kudo (Mai the Psychic Girl) and artist Naoki Urasawa. Reading Pineapple Army is like opening a time capsule from the mid-1980s, when wars were Cold, American cities were crime-ridden, and Central America was as important a theater of operations as the Middle East. Jed Goshi, the reluctant hero of Pineapple Army, is an ex-Marine who hasn’t quite managed to re-integrate himself into civilian life after two tours of duty in ‘Nam. Goshi now works for a mysterious agency that helps people who can’t or won’t turn to the proper authorities for help. Though Goshi doggedly insists he’s an instructor, not a bodyguard — “I turn people into combat-ready soldiers in a short amount of time,” he informs one client — he always becomes embroiled in the action, rescuing an inexperienced fighter after a costly bungle or coaching a client out of a tight corner.

Pineapple Army is positively steeped in Reagan-era politics and paranoia. In “The Selva Game,” for example, Goshi runs afoul of the Sandinistas — remember that foreign policy fiasco? — while on a mission along the Honduran/Nicaraguan border, while “The Man From the Past” chronicles his experiences in Zaire, where he tried to teach US-backed troops to resist Communist guerillas. Other stories portray New York City as a kind of urban selva, filled with unscrupulous law enforcement officials, gangsters, and vigilantes; anyone who’s read Banana Fish will immediately recognize the milieu. These stories have the same ripped-from-the-headlines quality of the very earliest Law & Order episodes, borrowing elements of well-known criminal cases and putting a fictional spin on them: “The False Hero,” for example, pits a young female detective against a Curtis Sliwa-esque figure who treats the IRT as his own fiefdom, while “Goshi: The Preceptor” culminates in a showdown between a corrupt cop’s family and the gangster he swindled.

The artwork, like the stories, dates Pineapple Army to the decade of big hair and hair metal. Naoki Urasawa’s style was heavily influenced by Katsuhiro Otomo’s; the characters have the kind of well-fed look — stubby bodies, round faces, sturdy limbs — that Otomo popularized in the 1980s with AKIRA and Domu: A Child’s Dream. A few villains’ faces hint at the distinctive character designs that Urasawa would cultivate in later hits Master Keaton and Monster, but an unpracticed eye might reasonably attribute Pineapple Army to any number of competent artists. Urasawa’s trademark attention to detail, however, is evident throughout the series; he meticulously establishes the setting for each story, whether it’s an overgrown Mayan ruin, a Honduran hacienda, the grubby subway platforms of the IRT, or The Limelight, a church-cum-nightclub that was a Sixth Avenue fixture throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

The original series, which ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original from 1986-88, was collected in several different tankubon editions in Japan, each comprised of about 1,000 pages of material. For the US edition, VIZ cherry-picked ten stories, releasing them first as 32-page floppies, then as a single trade paperback. Though each story works reasonably well as a self-contained adventure, Pineapple Army suffers from some of the same continuity problems as Oishinbo, another longer series that was pared down and repackaged for Western readers. Two of the stories, for example, feature another agent named Janet, who spends most of her time trying to buttonhole Goshi for a date. We never learn much about her or how she knows Goshi, though it’s obvious the pair have some kind of history, perhaps related to their line of work. There’s also a reporter who trails Goshi from Africa to the US, hell-bent on exposing Goshi as a murderer; from their pulpy, melodramatic exchanges, one might infer they have a Jean Valjean-Inspector Javert relationship, but the VIZ edition doesn’t even bother to give the reporter a name. (No, really: Goshi and Janet both refer to him as “Mr. Reporter.”) Such small narrative hiccups are irritating but hardly fatal; the stories and crackling dialogue are strong enough to carry the reader past such interruptions.

Would VIZ ever re-issue Pineapple Army, perhaps in its entirety? I’m tempted to say no, as the artwork would strike most manga fans as passe. Urasawa’s tracings and screentone application sometimes look crude by contemporary standards, and his unfortunate tendency to draw black characters with thick, light-colored lips might necessitate revisions for a new American edition. (In Urasawa’s defense, the characters are not drawn in the grossly exaggerated style that Osamu Tezuka or Shotaro Ishinomori used in Swallowing the Earth or Cyborg 009, respectively, but for many American readers, a long history of nasty racial caricatures makes it difficult to excuse the practice.) Then, too, the stories have the same rhythm and sensibility of a 1980s TV show; one could be forgiven for comparing Pineapple Army with such period gems as The Equalizer, both for Pineapple Army‘s dogged adherence to formula and its deep suspicion of authority.

Yet it’s easy to overlook Pineapple Army‘s flaws, thanks to the strong script and dynamic layouts. Kudo and Urasawa create tough, memorable female characters; dream up creative ways to integrate current events into the storylines; and stage the kind of action scenes that were de rigeur on The A-Team and MacGuyver, complete with car chases, gun battles, and jerry-rigged explosive devices. The stories may be as predictable as taxes, but they’re still entertaining, especially for those of us with vivid memories of “Frankie Says Relax!” t-shirts and Bernhard Goetz’s subway vigilantism.

NOTE TO THE INTREPID BUYER

The comics are much easier to find than the trade paperback, and generally cheaper to boot; I picked up all ten issues for about $9 on eBay. Scanning the web, I’ve found almost no copies of the TPB available, although a few Amazon sellers appear to be offering it for non-usurious prices. French and Spanish speakers, see below for more information about European editions of Pineapple Army. (Hat tip to reader Althalus for information about both series’ availability.)

PINEAPPLE ARMY • STORY BY KAZUYA KUDO, ART BY NAOKI URASAWA • VIZ COMMMUNICATIONS

Blood Honey

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By Sakyou Yozukura
BLU, 178 pp.
Rating: M (Mature)

Yuki Akabane is a vampire, but descended so far down the line, the only family trait he retains is a thirst for blood. His job as a nurse at a blood donor clinic keeps him hooked up with occasional meals, but his intake gets jacked up immensely by an obsessive donor named Osamu Mayazumi. Mayazumi is a teacher with a bad temper that seems to be quelled by donating blood, and thanks to a fear of needles, the only nurse he’ll trust is Akabane.

Frequent visits to the clinic shift to nightly dinners at Akabane’s home, and before they know it, the two are harboring feelings for each other more serious than those of donor and nurse.

Despite the fairly creepy premise, this series’ most consistent trait is that it is quite simply a lot of fun. Yozakura’s sense of humor fits her characters perfectly, particularly in the second half of the book, where she introduces Akabane’s precocious nephew, Kiri. The book is undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek, but it thankfully lacks the overblown ridiculousness of some humorous yaoi. As a bonus, there are some genuinely touching moments as well.

Yozukura’s artwork is quite expressive and frankly adorable, though her characters fall visually into the typical seme and uke roles, almost to the extreme. Thanks to that, both Akabane and his nephew look about fifteen, one of the book’s few major downsides.

Though it’s certainly not profound, Blood Honey is a fun, sexy, take on the current vampire trend.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at PopCultureShock.

Manhwa Monday: MMF & More!

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday! As the Manhwa Moveable Feast continues, here is a quick roundup of the latest contributions from participants.

First, at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Jason Yadao reviews the series with a humorous nod to its (literally) flowery, metaphorical language.

“From the opening pages, where two beetles are shown entwined in their tight rope of love, this story flows in one direction, carrying one theme: Life is all about the buds that blossom between a man and a woman; all other matters are mere leaves that fall and litter the ground. And under this canopy, the flowers of women can only bloom to their fullest potential with the gentle rain provided by men.”

Though Jason makes his point regarding the manhwa-ga’s …

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One Piece, Vols. 1-3

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One Piece, Vols. 1-3
By Eiichiro Oda
Published by Viz Media
Rated T (Teen)

Monkey D. Luffy wants to be the king of the pirates, but after accidentally eating the mysterious Gum-Gum fruit, his body turns to rubber, ensuring he’ll never be able to swim! Nothing deters Luffy, though, and soon he’s headed off to seek his fortune in the footsteps of his idol, Captain “Red-Haired” Shanks. His goal? To make his way through the infamous Grand Line to seek the greatest pirate treasure of all time, One Piece.

The series’ first three volumes follow Luffy on a series of adventures as he attempts to gather a crew for his trek. Using his rubber-man skills (which come with special names like “gum-gum pistol”) he manages to defeat a corrupt navy captain and two cruel, selfish pirate captains with the help of the crew members he picks up along the way. “Cruel” and “selfish” are key words here, because what sets Luffy and his crew apart from the other pirates they meet is their lack of interest in pillaging and intimidating ordinary folk in order to get what they want.

By the end of the third volume, Luffy has collected two volunteers for his crew. First comes Zolo, a former bounty hunter who aims to be the greatest swordsman on earth. Later, they meet Nami, a master thief and skilled navigator who is determined to find the One Piece herself. Neither are obvious candidates for piracy when Luffy meets them. Zolo, after all, makes his living hunting pirates for money. And Nami hates pirates, to whom she lost someone dear long ago. Fortunately, whether they intend to or not, everybody likes Luffy.

And who can blame them? Luffy’s a cockeyed optimist, but more than that, he’s just an incredibly confident guy, and not in the spastic or swaggering manner of so many shonen heroes. The unearthly, smiling calm with which he faces challenges like getting sucked into an ocean whirlpool or being shot at with a canon would inspire faith in anyone. The series offers action and fighting galore, but its true strength is its grinning hero who simply takes everything as it comes.

Not that Luffy’s the only draw. Though these early volumes follow a fairly strict formula, there is enough heart to keep it from becoming tiresome. One story involving a pet store watchdog who faithfully guards the store after his master’s death is particularly touching. Also, the series’ supporting characters are exceptionally well-developed, even just within the first three volumes, and there is obviously much more about them to be revealed.

The series’ greatest weakness at this point is that its strict adherence to formula keeps any of the overblown villains Luffy faces from actually being scary. There’s no doubt at all when reading these volumes that Luffy will prevail (as always), with no major casualties among those he cares about. As a result, though the series is incredibly fun and filled with exciting action and hi-jinx, there’s never any real sense of danger. While this is perfectly fine in the short-term, as a new reader, it will be interesting to see how/if this changes over the course of the series and whether it’s enough to hold my attention.

With 58 volumes published in Japan and more on the way, One Piece has more than proven its staying power. I certainly look forward to more!

Review copy provided by the publisher. This review is a part of Shonen Sundays, a collaborative project with Michelle Smith. Buy this book at Amazon.com

Just a quick personal note: Since this is the last of our Shonen Sundays posts, I’d like to thank Michelle for inviting me into this idea of hers and for recommending two great series for me to enjoy! It’s been a great shonen-filled month. Thanks to all of you, too, for indulging us!

Hissing, Vols. 1-6

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Hissing | By Kang EunYoung | Published by Yen Press | Rated T (Teen) – High school freshman Da-Eh is an aspiring manhwa artist who carefully ignores constant cries for attention from her doting younger brother. Fellow freshman Sun-Nam, the youngest of three boys, is bound and determined to become a “bad guy.” Finally, senior Ta-Jun, the school hottie, finds himself drawn to the one girl who can’t stand him, Da-Eh. If this is where the story stopped, there would be nothing at all remarkable about it, and over the course of the first volume or so, that’s seemingly where things stand. Fortunately, both the story and Kang’s method of telling it soon become more complex.

Read the rest at Brigid Alverson’s MangaBlog, where it’s been posted as a guest review! This series gets off to a very slow start, but for patient readers it is well worthwhile. This is my second guest appearance at MangaBlog. I hope you’ll let me know what you think! Check it out here.

Solanin

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The characters in Solanin are suffering from what I call a “pre-life crisis”—that moment in your twenties when you realize that it’s time to join the world of adult responsibility, but you aren’t quite ready to abandon dreams of indie-rock stardom, literary genius, or artistic greatness. From a dramatic standpoint, the pre-life crisis doesn’t make the best material for a novel, graphic or otherwise, as twenty-something angst can seem trivial when compared with the vicissitudes of middle and old age. Yet Asano Inio almost pulls it off on the strength of his appealing characters and astute observations.

Solanin focuses on a quartet of twenty-somethings, each struggling to shed their collegiate persona and forge adult identities. To be sure, these characters are familiar types, working dead-end jobs, remaining in relationships out of habit, and clinging to unrealistic dreams. Yet Inio never dismisses or romanticizes their pseudo-bohemian aspirations, instead viewing these angstful young adults with a parental mixture of frankness and affection.

Early in the book, for example, a young woman (Meiko) introduces her boyfriend (Naruo) to her mother while trying to conceal the fact they live together. Inio might have milked the scene for its dramatic potential, staging a confrontation between Meiko and her mother. Yet he opts for something quieter and, frankly, truer to life: Meiko’s mother calls her daughter’s bluff, then offers the couple practical advice and encouragement. Instead of being pleased, however, Meiko is dumbfounded and embarrassed, leaving Naruo to stumble alone through an awkward conversation with her mother. What makes this scene work is Inio’s even-handedness; though we feel sympathy for Meiko — she’s genuinely afraid of upsetting her parents — we also realize that she’s disappointed that her decision to move in with Naruo hasn’t caused a scandal, a symptom of her not-quite-adult-relationship with her mother.

Solanin flounders, however, when Inio injects some drama into the proceedings. His big plot twist wouldn’t seem out of place in a deliciously overripe soap opera like NANA, but it feels too contrived for a low-key, slice-of-life story like Solanin; more frustrating still, Inio telegraphs what’s going to happen more than a chapter before that Big, Life-Changing Event, blunting its emotional impact. The book never quite regains its footing, culminating in a concert scene that’s as hokey as anything in The Commitments. Granted, that scene is beautifully executed, using wordless panels to convey the blood, sweat, and tears needed to pull off a live performance, but it feels too pat to be a satisfactory resolution to what is, in essence, a detailed character study.

I also felt ambivalent about the artwork. On the one hand, Inio draws his characters in a refreshingly soft and realistic fashion; as David Welsh noted in his 2008 review, Inio captures the transitional nature of their age through small but important visual cues: gangly limbs, baby fat still evident in their cheeks and tummies, soul patches and other “unpersuasive” attempts to grow beards and mustaches. Inio nails their body language, too, evoking his characters’ emotional and physical awkwardness as they try to forge connections. In this scene, for example, Inio’s characters can barely look one another in the eye, even though it’s evident from their conversation that each has a deep personal investment in music that s/he wants to share with the other:

solanin_interior

On the other hand, the backgrounds sometimes look like poorly retouched clip art. Such shortcuts are common in manga, but when done poorly (as they are in a few sequences in Solanin), the resulting images look more like dioramas or collages than organic compositions. In several key scenes, the characters appear to be pasted into the picture frame, floating above their surroundings instead of actually inhabiting them, spoiling the mood and pulling me out of the moment.

Artistic and narrative shortcuts aside, I’d still recommend Solanin. Inio’s book is funny, rueful, and honest, filled with beautifully observed moments and conversations that ring true, even if it occasionally succumbs to Brat Pack cliche.

SOLANIN • BY INIO ASANO • VIZ MEDIA • 432 pp • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

This is a revised version of a review that appeared at PopCultureShock on 11/19/2008.

Solanin

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solanin_coverThe characters in Solanin are suffering from what I call a “pre-life crisis”—that moment in your twenties when you realize that it’s time to join the world of adult responsibility, but you aren’t quite ready to abandon dreams of indie-rock stardom, literary genius, or artistic greatness. From a dramatic standpoint, the pre-life crisis doesn’t make the best material for a novel, graphic or otherwise, as twenty-something angst can seem trivial when compared with the vicissitudes of middle and old age. Yet Asano Inio almost pulls it off on the strength of his appealing characters and astute observations.

Solanin focuses on a quartet of twenty-somethings, each struggling to shed their collegiate persona and forge adult identities. To be sure, these characters are familiar types, working dead-end jobs, remaining in relationships out of habit, and clinging to unrealistic dreams. Yet Inio never dismisses or romanticizes their pseudo-bohemian aspirations, instead viewing these angstful young adults with a parental mixture of frankness and affection.

…

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MMF: Weekend Linkage

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It’s been a lively week here for the Manhwa Moveable Feast! Here are links to a few recent contributions as we head off into the weekend:

First, at Extremely Graphic, Sadie Mattox uses her always powerful wit to compare the Color of Water to Dawson’s Creek:

“There’s been a lot of heat over why Ehwa seems so…delicate. But the answer is clear. It says so in the book – she’s a flower. Duh. A flower like Joey Potter. Which makes Bongsoon Jen Lindley. Look I dislike the flower analogy as much as the next person but it’s a comforting one. This whole book is about comfort, finding it in the past, finding it in innocence, finding it in love. There’s an entire bad world out there where people are not beautiful flowers and there’s plenty of books written about it.” …

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Chi’s Sweet Home, Vol. 1

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Come for the cat, stay for the cartooning — that’s how I’d summarize the appeal of Chi’s Sweet Home, a deceptively simple story about a family that adopts a wayward kitten. Chi certainly works as an all-ages comic, as the clean, simple layouts do a good job of telling the story, even without the addition of dialogue or voice-overs. But Chi is more than just cute kitty antics; it’s a thoughtful reflection on the joys and difficulties of pet ownership, one that invites readers of all ages to see the world through their cat or dog’s eyes and imagine how an animal adapts to life among humans.

Though Kanata Konami accomplishes some of this by revealing Chi’s thoughts in the form of a simple monologue, delivered — or should that be “dewivered”? — in a child-like voice, it’s the artwork that really drives home the point that Chi is bewildered and intrigued by her new environment. Early in the volume, for example, the newly-rescued Chi awakes in a panicked state: she doesn’t know where she is, and she’s desperate to find her mother. Konami first gives us an overhead view of the living room, tracing Chi’s frantic attempt to find the door, then cuts to a panel of Chi trapped against a wall, two pieces of furniture looming over her. Konami employs a similar tactic when Mr. Yamada takes Chi to the veterinarian for her first check-up, again using an overhead shot of the waiting room to establish the human scale of the space before offering a cat’s eye perspective; as Chi sees things, the vet’s office is filled with enormous, Godzilla-sized dogs who seemed poised to eat her. In both sequences, the quick shift in perspective gives the reader a clear sense of Chi’s disorientation by reminding us how small she is, and how alien the environment seems to her.

The other secret to Konami’s success are her character designs. Though Chi is clearly a cat, Konami draws her face as a round, moon-like shape with two enormous eyes — if anything, Chi resembles the heroine of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! more than, say, Neko Ramen‘s cat cook or Cat Paradise‘s feline warriors. Like Azuma, Konami demonstrates that it’s possible to contort and bend these simple, circular shapes into an enormous range of expressions, from wide-eyed wonder to fear, sadness, and, for want of a better term, hunterly attentiveness. (Chi considers all of her cat toys a form of prey.) Even the very youngest reader will immediately understand how Chi is feeling, even if he isn’t able to parse the accompanying text or make sense of other imagery. (To wit: there’s a marvelous, trippy dream sequence in which Chi is pursued by what could best be described as a canine matryoshka, a chain of barking dogs, each a smaller imitation of the one before it. I don’t know what a four-year-old would make of it, but Chi’s reaction is priceless.)

Given the strength of Konami’s artwork, I would have liked Chi’s Sweet Home even better without the voice-overs. Most of Chi’s comments seem obvious — cats usually fear dogs and vets — or deliberately calculated to tug at the heartstrings. Interior monologues of this kind are generally more effective when they ascribe uniquely human sentiments to an animal: think of Snoopy’s Walter Mitty-esque fascination with the Red Baron, or Garfield’s contempt for Jon Arbuckle, which stems less from a general disdain of humans and more from Garfield’s embarrassment that his owner is a loser. Chi’s voice-overs aren’t a deal-breaker by any means; at times, they prove quite effective, especially in illustrating Chi’s gradual transference of affection from her feline mother to her human family. Moreover, Konami wisely avoids putting words into Chi’s mouth that suggest an unnatural awareness of human behavior or language, allowing Chi to remain completely oblivious to the Yamadas’ numerous attempts to find her a new home. (Their apartment complex doesn’t allow pets.)

If you’re the kind of person who unironically refers to children and housepets as “social parasites,” Chi’s Sweet Home is not the manga for you. But if you’re ever lived with a cat or a dog or any other animal whose companionship you enjoyed, then you’ll find a lot to like about Chi, from its frank treatment of housebreaking and separation anxiety to the numerous scenes of Chi exploring her surroundings, transforming ordinary household items into “prey.” You don’t need to be a manga lover, either, to find Chi’s Sweet Home accessible; the simple artwork and flipped layout (Chi reads left to right, like an English-language book) make this a great place for newbies to begin their exploration of the medium. Highly recommended for readers of all ages.

Volume one will be released on June 29, 2010. Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.

CHI’S SWEET HOME, VOL. 1 • BY KONAMI KANATA • VERTICAL, INC. • 162 pp. • NO RATING

Chi’s Sweet Home, Vol. 1

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chi_coverCome for the cat, stay for the cartooning — that’s how I’d summarize the appeal of Chi’s Sweet Home, a deceptively simple story about a family that adopts a wayward kitten. Chi certainly works as an all-ages comic, as the clean, simple layouts do a good job of telling the story, even without the addition of dialogue or voice-overs. But Chi is more than just cute kitty antics; it’s a thoughtful reflection on the joys and difficulties of pet ownership, one that invites readers of all ages to see the world through their cat or dog’s eyes and imagine how an animal adapts to life among humans.

Though Kanata Konami accomplishes some of this by revealing Chi’s thoughts in the form of a simple monologue, delivered — or should that be “dewivered”? — in a child-like voice, it’s the artwork that really drives home the point that Chi is bewildered and intrigued by her new environment. Early in the volume, for example, the newly-rescued Chi awakes in a panicked state: she doesn’t know where she is, and she’s desperate to find her mother. Konami first gives us an overhead view of the living room, tracing Chi’s frantic attempt to find the door, then cuts to a panel of Chi trapped against a wall, two pieces of furniture looming over her. Konami employs a similar tactic when Mr. Yamada takes Chi to the veterinarian for her first check-up, again using an overhead shot of the waiting room to establish the human scale of the space before offering a cat’s eye perspective; as Chi sees things, the vet’s office is filled with enormous, Godzilla-sized dogs who seemed poised to eat her. In both sequences, the quick shift in perspective gives the reader a clear sense of Chi’s disorientation by reminding us how small she is, and how alien the environment seems to her.

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MMF Links: Mulling on Sexism

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The subject of sexism in the Color trilogy became central in yesterday’s new contributions to the Manhwa Moveable Feast, beginning with David Welsh’s post “Good girls don’t.

I’m not really inclined to appreciate Kim Dong Hwa’s The Color of… trilogy as an accurate representation of its time. I’m not a cultural historian, so I have no idea what things were like for women in pre-industrial Korea. I just know that I don’t really care for its portrayal of “good” women as passive and patient, no matter how elegantly drawn it is. “I think that the process of a girl becoming a woman is one of the biggest mysteries and wonders of life,” the creator said in an interview. I wish he had thought harder about that mystery and hadn’t imposed what strikes me as such a male notion of wonder upon it.

David goes on to discuss Kim’s treatment of Ehwa’s sexually active friend, Bongsoon.…

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Off the Shelf: MMF Edition

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Welcome to the fourth installment of Off the Shelf with MJ & Michelle! Joining me as always is Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

We’re going to shift our format a bit this week with a special look at Kim Dong Hwa’s Color trilogy (The Color of Earth, The Color of Water, and The Color of Heaven) published in English by First Second. Kim’s trilogy is the subject of this month’s Manhwa Moveable Feast, so I suspect it’s no surprise to hear that this is something both Michelle and I have been reading.

The Color trilogy traces the coming-of-age of Ehwa, a young girl in pre-industrialized rural Korea, from her first spark of sexual curiosity to her eventual marriage to her true love, Duksam. The story is also heavily focused on Ehwa’s relationship with her widowed mother, a tavern owner who discovers new love for herself in a traveling artist known only as “The Picture Man.” …

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