Archives for April 6, 2012

Vertical rescues Paradise Kiss

April 6, 2012 by Brigid Alverson

Big licensing news today: Vertical announced they will be publishing Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss. The five-volume series was originally published in the U.S. by Tokyopop, and marketing director Ed Chavez Tweeted that Vertical will publish it as three 300-page volumes with color plates, new covers, and a new translation.

JManga announced a number of new releases for next week, including three by est em that have already been published in English: Age Called Blue, Red Blinds the Foolish, and Seduce Me After the Show. They are also having a big Takao Saito promotion, with six new volumes up this week and a 100-point rebate on all purchases of works by the Golgo 13 creator.

Jason Thompson checks out Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN:

In a manga world where every artist tries hard to create the most memorable character with the craziest hair, Black Jack is an icon among icons. That scar. That hair (too bad it’s often concealed under a surgical cap). That suit. That job. It’s nothing special to have a hero that looks like a villain, but it’s incredibly rare to have a hero whose power doesn’t involve killing; the opposite, in fact. Black Jack, the outlaw doctor, has waded through as much blood as anybody, but he only cuts people open to make them better.

Erica Friedman reports in from Yaoi and Yuri Con (YaYCon) in the Netherlands.

Feast your eyes on Morgan’s wonderful, and wonderfully organized, manga collection at The Manga Critic.

Sara K. has some more lovely manhua goodness from The Condor Trilogy at Manga Bookshelf.

News from Japan: Manga-ka Oh! Great is winding up Air Gear after just five more chapters. Yumeiro Pâtissière returns for a one-shot in Ribon magazine.

Job board: Viz is looking for interns.

Reviews

Kelakagandy on vol. 7 of Arisa (kelakagandy’s ramblings)
Anna on vols. 1-3 of Cousin (Manga Report)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of The Earl and the Fairy (The Manga Critic)
Milo on vols. 1 and 2 of The Monkey King (Blog of the North Star)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Skip Beat! (omnibus edition) (ICv2)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 21 of Slam Dunk (The Comic Book Bin)
Lissa Pattillo on Sun Fish Moon Fish (Kuriousity)
TSOTE on Tousei Gensou Hakubutsushi (Three Steps Over Japan)

Show Us Your Stuff: Morgan’s Reading Rainbow

April 6, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 20 Comments

Apologies for the late posting — yesterday was very hectic! This week’s featured collector is Morgan, a.k.a. ZepysGirl, a manga lover whose tastes run the gamut from CLAMP to Akira Toriyama. She attributes the size of her impressive library to her nose for deals; as she explains below, she rarely spends more than $5.40 on a volume of manga, even though she usually buys her books new or slightly used. Read on for her excellent shopping and organizational tips! – Katherine Dacey

Hi! I’m Morgan, aka ZepysGirl, and this is my manga collection. I’m a senior in college, planning to graduate soon and enter the industry. I’m kind of “in it” already: I work as a typesetter for the Digital Manga Guild group Purple Prose Killers. I would really love to spend all of my days surrounded by manga, and that’s reflected in my room. When we moved into this house, I declared that I would have a “Manga Wall” — and now I have two! My favorite genres are definitely fantasy and comedy, and I tend to skew more toward shojo than anything else.

How long have you been collecting manga?
I’ve been collecting since near the end of my freshman year in high school, so that would make it spring of 2005. So, about seven years! And everyone thought I would grow out of it…

What was the first manga you bought?
I was somewhere online when I came across a picture of the main characters from DN Angel. I couldn’t get the picture or the name out of my head, so I went on the hunt. At that point in time, I had no idea what manga or even anime was (I knew I liked Digimon, but had no idea it came from Japan. The search for DN Angel led me to a Waldenbooks, where I found a whole wall of manga! I bought up everything of DN Angel that was out at the time, then started moving through other series. I was so cute in those days; for a while, I honestly believed the only place you could buy manga was Waldenbooks!

There’s something ironic about the first series I ever started being one of the ones least likely to actually finish here any time soon…

How big is your collection?
I’m over 2,000 volumes; I’m edging into the territory where I just say “a lot” whenever people ask me.

What is the rarest item in your collection?
I tend to avoid looking up my out-of-print series on Amazon, but it’s probably a volume from one of those. I’d rather not know how expensive a book is on the secondary market, because I have no intention of selling any of them. The ones I like, I want to keep. Oh, and it’s not manga, but the “rarest” item is probably an art book I have for RG Veda. It’s a really nice hardcover book — complete with obi! — and it’s all in Japanese. I looked it up on Amazon once and it was going for $80. I bought it at a Half Price Books for $20!

What is the weirdest item in your collection?
Probably my German edition of Wild Rock. I honestly didn’t know it was German when I ordered it (you have to watch out for that with The Book Depository), and so the first time I opened it was quite a shock. A hilarious shock. I can’t even be annoyed with myself, it’s so entertaining.

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?
Not much. The series that I loved when I was younger are still some of my favorites now. One thing I have noticed, though, is that I tend to be more discriminating when deciding whether or not to continue/pick up a series (I know it might not seem like it, but it’s true!). A big factor of this is that I know my own tastes better now, and I’ve broken myself of the “But I already have the first volume… maybe it gets better!” mindset. Back in the beginning, I was buying almost at random because I was in love with the medium. Nowadays, I know the difference between “I like it” and “it’s okay” and adjust my buying habits accordingly.

Who are your favorite comic artists?
So many! So first, the people with their own shelves: Fumi Yoshinaga (love her stories!), You Higuri (love her art!), and CLAMP (love the stories AND art!).

There’s also Matsuri Hino, Yoshihiro Togashi, Sakura Tsukuba, Julietta Suzuki, Mizuho Kusanagi, Kaori Yuki (who really should have her own shelf), Karakara Kemuri, Matsuri Akino, Natsuki Takaya, Nari Kusakawa, Bisco Hatori, Yun Koga, Kyousuke Motomi, Svetlana Chmakova, Wann, Arina Tanemura, Usamaru Furuya, and Kazuya Minekura!

Okay! I… I think that’s all of them? You can see why I end up with so much manga, when I have so many manga-ka that I like…

What series are you actively collecting right now?
Ah heck, this is going to be even longer than the last list. Get ready, y’all: 13th Boy, Air Gear, Alice in the Country of Hearts/Clover, Arata: The Legend, Arisa, Black Butler, Blue Exorcist, Bride of the Water God, Countdown 7 Days, D.Gray-man, Dawn of the Arcana, Dengeki Daisy, The Drops of God, Fairy Tail, Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, Gate 7, Goong, Hunter x Hunter, the InuYasha VIZBIGs, Itsuwaribito, Jack Frost, Kamisama Kiss, Kekkaishi, Kimi ni Todoke, La Corda d’Oro, Loveless, Maoh: Juvenile Remix, Mardock Scramble, the Maximum Ride manga, Naruto, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Oresama Teacher, Ouran High School Host Club, Pandora Hearts, Psyren, Replica, Sailor Moon, Sakura Hime, Shugo Chara Chan, Skip Beat!, Soul Eater, Tegami Bachi, Tenjo Tenge, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, The Story of Saiunkoku, Vampire Knight, and The Wallflower.

So… around 50 series? And that’s not counting the new series I’m most likely going to start (A Devil & Her Love Song, Durarara!!, etc…) or the older ones I’m finishing up (The Antique Gift Shop, Gimmick!). See, this is the main reason why I have this many manga: I like too many series!

Out of all that I’m collecting at the moment, my favorites are Skip Beat, Dengeki Daisy, and Oresama Teacher! I read new volumes of those as soon as I get them, which is unusual for me; normally I wait until I have a big chunk before diving back in. My favorite “new” series (well, new to ME) is Gimmick! — and no, that’s not Hot Gimmick. Gimmick! is the type of series that I want to throw at anyone and everyone! It’s rare that I get this in love with a series, but I am definitely in the honeymoon stage with Gimmick! I can’t even think about it critically because my brain just keeps stuttering “WOW. I did not even KNOW I wanted this!” Yes, boys and girls, read Gimmick!: it will reduce you to a blathering fangirl/fanboy in the best possible way. I dare you not to squee.

Do you have any tips for fellow collectors (e.g. how to organize a collection, where to find rare books, where to score the best deals on new manga)?
Oh gosh, I could talk forever about how to find the cheap stuff!

Finding good deals on manga is what I live for. It’s almost to the point where I’ve been thinking about asking to guest-blog somewhere about how to shop for manga. More people should know the tricks to getting $2 manga, I say! Seriously, though: I only have so many manga because I’m very good at shopping for them. My average price per volume is $4.50, so it’s no joke when I say I’d only have half of what I do if I’d paid full price. Sales and coupons are very important, young Manga Padawan.

This is entirely too abbreviated, but:

General Organization & Deals: Amazon.com
Used Manga: GoHastings.com (sometimes Amazon as well)
New Manga: Right Stuf & Midtown Comics (and GoHastings, but only if there’s a book I have to have RIGHT THIS SECOND!)
Yaoi: Akadot Retail
Honorable Mentions: PaperbackSwap.com, The Book Depository

As far as rare books go, I’ve actually had some success finding them in physical stores, so check out your local half-price bookstore or comic shop. The comic shops ESPECIALLY because those guys never seem to realize what they have! As far as online shops go, I’ve had some luck finding OOP books at both The Book Depository and Midtown Comics.

And for organizing… there are many ways to organize, so just choose what works best for you. My manga are currently alpha-by-title, with a few exceptions. CLAMP is separate to ease lending those books out to other people. I’ve met a lot of people who have only read the popular CLAMP series and haven’t even heard of some of the shorter stuff. The yaoi is off by itself because most of them are one-shots and would get lost in the library otherwise. Oversized books get their own shelf because they simply don’t fit on half of the shelves (the wall-shelves are custom designed for normal manga size). And Fumi Yoshinaga and You Higuri only got their own space because I am severely lacking room in the over-sized bookshelf. I kind of have a shelf of what I need to read next, but that gets oft neglected and I end up reading something completely different. Also: rainbow-order looks really awesome, but you can’t find anything that way. It was short-lived.

To view Morgan’s entire album of pictures, click here.

Show Us Your Stuff is a regular column in which readers share pictures of their manga collections and discuss their favorite series. If you’d like to see your manga library featured here, please follow the directions on this page.

The Earl & The Fairy, Vol. 1

April 6, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

Meet Lydia Carlton: she’s a so-called “fairy doctor,” a healer who acts as an intermediary between the spirit and human worlds. The rapid advance of technology in Victorian England has made Lydia’s job obsolete; most people no longer seek magical remedies for their ailments, and view Lydia as a relic of a less enlightened time, someone who steadfastly clings to the belief that she can see and talk to these mischievous folk. Lydia knows better: not only are fairies real, but they continue to wreak havoc with humans, even in an age of railroads, telegraphs, and steam-powered ships.

Lydia’s predicament would make a swell basis for a manga, but her abilities are more a plot contrivance than a central element of the drama — at least in volume one of The Earl & The Fairy. The initial chapters focus on Lydia’s fraught relationship with Edgar Ashenbert, a dashing young man who claims to be descended from the Blue Knight, a legendary warrior. Edgar ~~enlists~~ kidnaps Lydia because he needs someone to help him find the Blue Knight’s sword, the location of which is inscribed on a coin that can only be read by a fairy doctor.

If you’ve read more than five or six shojo manga — or, for that matter, five or six Harlequin romances — you can guess what sort of chap Edgar is: he’s handsome, possessive, and smug, with a tender side that the heroine’s beauty and decency helps reveal. Lydia is a similarly predictable character: she’s feisty and conflicted, simultaneously drawn to and repelled by her captor. Lydia also happens to be one of the duller knives in the Shojo Beat drawer, placing her trust in anyone who approaches her; she’s kidnapped not once but twice in the very first chapter of the story.

For a grumpy old lady like me, stale, silly lead characters would usually be a deal-breaker. The lively supporting cast and lovely artwork, however, drew me into the story, even when Edgar and Lydia’s conversations inspired eyeball rolling and hair pulling. (In later chapters, Edgar narrates his tortured personal history in comic detail — it’s courtship by information dump.)

The best character in The Earl & The Fairy — so far, at least — is Nico, a magical being who assumes the form of a fussy talking cat. On one level, Nico is a standard animal sidekick, providing much-needed comic relief: in one running joke, for example, he bristles with indignation every time he’s served a bowl of milk. (He prefers wine.) On another level, however, Nico is a reader stand-in, giving voice to our frustration with Lydia’s naivete; in essence, it’s like watching a horror movie in which one of the characters says, “Don’t open that door, dude, the killer’s in there.” You don’t say.

Ermine and Raven, a sister-brother duo in Edgar’s employ, also add depth to the cast. Their backstory is pure manga: both were enslaved by a wicked “prince” working out of the sewers of an unnamed American city. After Edgar rescued them, Ermine and Raven became his most devoted servants, waiting on him hand and foot, defending him against enemies, and wooing Lydia on his behalf. To be sure, henchmen/servants are a standard manga type, but Ermine and Raven have enough idiosyncrasies to make them interesting; Ermine, in particular, is an unusual figure, a melancholy cross-dresser who seems caught between the male and female worlds.

The Earl & The Fairy‘s other saving grace is the artwork. The character designs are crisply executed; though none of the characters are especially distinguished looking, artist Ayuko draws elegant, well-proportioned figures that are pleasing to the eye. The settings are rendered with even greater care, capturing the technology and landscapes of mid-nineteenth century England in convincing detail. (Well, minus the ships: when viewed from a distance, they appear to be eighteenth-century sailing vessels, while their interiors suggest a Cunard ocean liner.) Ayuko pays similar attention to lighting; in several nocturnal scenes, she does a fine job of suggesting the meager, irregular quality of candlelight, using delicate crosshatching to mark the boundary between light and shadow.

If the parts of Earl are greater than the whole, it’s still an entertaining series. I don’t know if moody landscapes and talking cats are enough to justify my investment in all four volumes, but I’m certainly willing to read another before declaring this nice-looking romance a dud.

THE EARL & THE FAIRY, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY AYUKO, ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY MIZUE TANI • VIZ MEDIA • 186 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

The Earl & The Fairy, Vol. 1

April 6, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 1 Comment

THE EARL & THE FAIRY, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY AYUKO, ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY MIZUE TANI • VIZ MEDIA • 186 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: The Legendary Couple

April 6, 2012 by Sara K. 9 Comments

To see an example scene, please refer to the second post in this series, The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Fighting.

The Legendary Couple is Tony Wong’s version of the second novel, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ. Even though it’s the second novel, Tony Wong adapted this novel before he adapted the first novel.

Art

The style of The Legendary Couple, unsurprisingly, has a lot in common with Tony Wong’s Eagle-Shooting Heroes, but is less spectacular than the latter. The fights in The Legendary Couple are simpler and shorter—yet they are more confusing. There is less contrast to help readers quickly distinguish the various elements. That’s a pity, because I generally find the fights in Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ to be more engaging than the fights in Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn.

Sure, there are lots of swirls—but they are not as pretty as the ones in Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are also visual metaphors, but they are not as abundant or exciting as the visual metaphors in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are diagonals and slanted views, but not nearly as much as in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. There are also some sweeping vistas … but they are not as plentiful as in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes.

Almost everything in this manhua seems to happen at sunset or in the early evening. That’s rather appropriate. More than the other two parts of the trilogy, the second part is about things falling apart. Song China is collapsing under the weight of Mongol invasion. The main characters’ personal lives are constantly tottering on the brink of collapse, more so than in the other parts of the trilogy. The sunset and evening colors do help pull out the angst and melancholy.

Something that really comes through in this adaptation is how well Tony Wong can express characters through art. Comparing this with The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I don’t think the characters are actually drawn better in The Legendary Couple … but because the other elements of the art draw less attention, there is much more focus on the characters. Their movements are lively, but most importantly, the drawings clearly expose the characters’ feelings.

As soon as Huang Rong has finished giving birth, Xiaolongnü prompty kidnaps her newborn daughter. If that's not melodrama, I do not know what is.

What Tony Wong really does better in The Legendary Couple than in The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is hitting the high notes of the drama through art.

I particularly like the collages Tony Wong draws when characters are remembering earlier events.

And there are various visual gems throughout the manhua—for example, this use of color vs. black and white to show how these two characters only see each other and are unaware of their surroundings.

And this is one of my favourite pages in the entire manhua because it really lets the reader put the scene together—but first, this page needs some labels.

This page so perfectly captures the tension of this moment. The captive’s mother and sweethearts want to rescue her … but they also do not want her to get hurt, which is why they are staring at the Tibetans instead of attacking them. The Tibetans know that they are being stared at, but are confident that they have the upper hand. Everybody is too preoccupied to notice the people in the top-left corner of the page … but the wildcard characters are watching everything, unsure of what they want. Suffice to say, when the tension reaches a breaking point and the weapons come out, it’s the wildcard characters who decide the outcome.

While I prefer the art of Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes for its sheer majestic sweep, I have to admit that the art in The Legendary Couple does a better job of supporting the story itself.

Adaptation

Whereas I was not able to quite lose myself to the story again in Tony Wong’s Eagle-Shooting Heroes, I did get involved in the story of Legendary Couple. It’s still a streamlined version, with some parts of the story changed and many bits removed. Some of the changes bother me (I cannot describe them without spoiling), but most of my quibbles are minor. Overall The Legendary Couple is a more complete version of second novel than Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes is of the first novel. And I think that makes the difference.

It’s still not nearly as rich an experience as reading the original novel. The details left out in The Legendary Couple often come at the cost of the pathos and the depth of the characters. This adaptation is generally quite good at conveying the melodrama itself, but it is often not so good at conveying the other aspects of the story. The soft moments do not feel so soft, the quiet sad moments do not seem so quiet and sad, and in the joyful moments the joy feels a little muted. To be fair, the silly moments—at least the silly moments which were not cut out—are still quite silly in this adaptation. I think it is not the lack of drama which makes this adaptation feel a little thin—it’s the lack of the things which nuance the drama. Nonetheless, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ is such a passionate novel that even a watered-down version of it can still hold its own against, say, 70s shoujo manga.

Availability in English

ComicsOne published 7 volumes of The Legendary Couple in English. They are now out of print, but apparently not hard to acquire. I do not know how the ComicsOne edition corresponds to the Hong Kong or Taiwan editions, so I am not sure how far into the manhua it goes. Based on the covers, the ComicsOne edition seems to cut off somewhere in the Hong Qigong/Ouyang Feng arc. There is another manhua adapted from Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ which has been fully published in English—not to mention that the 1983 live-action drama, the 2006 live-action drama, and the anime are all available with English subtitles—so it is certainly possible to continue the story in English after the ComicsOne edition cuts off.

Conclusion

If you want a good comic to read, I would definitely recommend The Legendary Couple over Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. This manhua can definitely stand on its own, whereas I am not sure Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes would work for anybody who was not already familiar with the story.

Yet, I personally prefer Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. While The Legendary Couple is much better at capturing the spirit of the original and certainly has its moments, I feel that I did not get much from The Legendary Couple which I could not get from Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ—and the novel Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ has much more to offer. Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, in spite of its flaws, stretched my imagination. The Legendary Couple, for the most part, did not.

Discussion Question:

Which would you rather read, Tony Wong’s The Eagle-Shooting Heroes or The Legendary Couple?

Sara K. has been travelling for the past few days (these blog posts are canned), so she has not been terribly responsive. She is now back in Taoyuan county, and should finally be replying to whatever comments people left. Currently, she is reading Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (the novel, not the manhua, which also happened to be drawn by Tony Wong).