Archives for September 2014

Manga Giveaway: Nana Giveaway Winner

September 3, 2014 by Ash Brown

And the winner of the Nana Giveaway is…Jocilyn!

As the winner, Jocilyn will be receiving a copy of Ai Yazawa’s Nana, Volume 1 as published by Viz Media. Nana is a fantastic series that, for whatever reason, took me two tries to really get into, but then I was hooked. I was curious to know if other readers ever gave a manga or series a second chance and what their experiences were. Most, but not all, of those who commented were willing to try a manga a second (or even third!) time. Sometimes their opinions would change after a second reading, and sometimes they still couldn’t enjoy it. Do check out the Nana Giveaway comments for the details of everyone’s story!

Some manga (that might be) worth a second look:
Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama
Berserk by Kentaro Miura
Fate/Stay Night by Dat Nishiwaki
Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden by Yuu Watase
Knights of Sidonia by Tsutomu Nihei
Nana by Ai Yazawa
Magi by Shinobu Ohtaka
Maka-Maka: Sex, Life, and Communication by Torajiro Kishi
Ogre Slayer by Kei Kusunoki
One Piece by Eiichiro Oda
Otomen by Aya Kanno
Shakugan no Shana written by Yashichiro Takahashi, illustrated by Ayato Sasakura
X by CLAMP
xxxHolic by CLAMP

Thank you for everyone who entered the giveaway and shared your manga-reading experiences. I hope to see you again for the next one!

Getting Used To The Renting Manga Service Renta!

September 2, 2014 by Justin Stroman 8 Comments

Way back in February this year, I wrote about all the legal manga sites people don’t seem to either know or want to talk about, for a multitude of reasons. Renta! was one of them. The description I gave it then was not very kind of the service.

Then, in my rant about the state of manga some months ago, I did notice that Renta! had undergone a…change:

Old site.

New site!

And I admitted it looked way, way better and actually accessible than before.

Flash forward to now, and I ended up getting contacted about a potential follow up article to the service now that it’s been changed. Not surprisingly, I joined in! I ended up speaking to Jay Hoare, who is the English checker for Renta!, among other things he does for the site. He was hired in April along with another person on the English Renta! site, and they’ve been working with 6 other non-native speakers since. (Just for comparison, the JP Renta site has 50+ people working on it.) He shares a lot of what he knows at this time:

Justin: What would you say Renta! is all about?

Jay Hoare: In a nutshell, we’re a site where you can rent and read manga online. We offer a rental service so people can try out the manga, and give them the option to upgrade to “unlimited” if they want to keep reading it whenever they like. To make the reading experience as smooth as possible, we’ve put a lot of effort into our manga viewer, so people can read everything online without having to download anything. Also, in order to differentiate ourselves from other manga sites, we’re trying as much as possible to provide people with manga that can only be read on our site.

What has been the biggest challenge in marketing Renta!, including the notion that we rent manga instead of purchasing them?

Oh man, where to start!? I guess there’ve been three main challenges:

a) Increasing the awareness of manga.

It still amazes me that despite the abundance of great titles available, and the infiltration of Japanese culture in the West, a lot of people still don’t know what manga is. (When I told my parents that I’d found a job with a manga website, instead of getting the “Congratulations! You’re the best son in the entire world that’s ever existed ever ever” that I was expecting, they simply said, “What’s manga?”) There’s a small but loyal community who are really into manga, which is wonderful, but, in terms of marketing, it’s important to reach as many people as possible, which has been really difficult. We’ve had no choice but to charge forward as best we can in the quest to attract new manga lovers.

b) Getting users to pay for manga.

At present, pirate sites rule the manga seas: they have a lot of content available, including the bigger titles that have been made into anime. As such, a lot of manga readers head that way. To try and differentiate ourselves from those sites, first and foremost we’re trying to provide high-quality content. I’ve been working alongside another native-English speaker to proofread the manga we put on our site; recently, we employed a new team of frankly wonderful, dedicated and talented translators who I work close with. We also offer content that’s exclusive to our site, a cheap rental service, and a customer support service that can’t be found on pirate sites.

c) Getting people used to the idea of renting manga.

A lot of users are used to paying for and downloading content. When you say “ebooks”, people often think “Kindle”. As our site is a rental-based system, the content comes with a rental period (unless people choose to rent unlimited of course), which I think puts some people off. However, the benefit of renting on our site means that people can view their manga on any device, be it PC/laptop, tablet or smartphone, and it’s cheaper than buying manga. However, even though our user base continues to expand, convincing people that there are benefits to renting instead of purchasing continues to be tricky.

I noticed you guys brought over Sakigake Otokojuku, a Shueisha property (and an older title) to your service. Can you explain your relationship with manga publishers and how they are helping you with providing content?

We deal directly with the Japanese publishers. Basically, we tell them which manga we’d like to put on our site and they contact the author. Once we get the OK from them, we go from there.

Will Renta! serve as that service that provides older manga like Otokojuku or is this more exception than the norm?

One of the things we’re really trying to do is get as much content as we can that’s exclusive to Renta!. As well as old classics, we also try to get newer stuff, too. So, summarily speaking, if we think our users will like the content, it doesn’t matter when it’s published.

You were brought over to Renta! in order to smooth out the English, among other things. There has been a trend where JP companies start up a site but have poor English (Manga Anime Guardians as a recent example). Do you know why this seems to be the case, especially if they’re trying to appeal to the English market?

A lot of the more famous Japanese companies set up a company in the region they want to sell to; as such, they’re able to employ people directly from that region. Before internetland existed, it was a given that any company wanting to do business abroad would set up a branch over there. However, with the introduction of the internet, companies have been able to reach the rest of the world from the comfort of their own office space. This means that it’s overall a lot cheaper to conduct business, which is great news for Japan, as a lot of its companies don’t have a lot of spare cash. Unfortunately, this lack of cash means that they tend to use their Japanese staff to do a lot of their English translation to reduce costs. As a result, you get some really weird and difficult-to-understand sites. (As you know, Renta! has been guilty of the same thing in the past, but we’ve finally started to get on top of that now!)

I had included in my write up of Renta! a pic which showed the type of content Renta! seemed to be providing. It doesn’t look like that’s changed. Would you say the site caters more to those 18+ and over, or is this just a case where publishers allow you to publish this type of content?

If you look at our home page, we’re making an effort to include more manga besides just pure adult stuff. We’re adding more to our Romance, Seinen, Shounen and Shoujo manga sections every week. Because there was a lot of adult content on the site to begin with, it’s going to take a while to balance everything out, but we’ve gotten the ball rolling in a positive direction, so over the next few months you’ll start to see the change more.

Will Renta! be looking to publish Josei manga, or at least if it’s there, have the genre listed in the near future?

Genre-naming has proven to be a tricky thing. On the one hand you’ve got avid manga readers who understand what “shounen”, “shojo”, etc. mean; on the other hand, you’ve got people who think “Dragon Ball” is a medical condition and don’t know what manga is. As a result we’re still in the process of figuring out what to call certain genres.

Regarding Josei manga, we have romance, yaoi and love manga, so there’s a lot on the site for people wanting that sort of content. They’ve all proven popular, which is why we’ve expanded them into separate genres.

As a side note, we’re aware that to a Japanese person “comics for males” and “comics for females” is inherently implied by words like “shounen” (“boys”), “seinen” (“men”), “shoujo” (“girls”), etc.. However, we’re trying to avoid explicitly labelling content on our site as “for boys” or “for girls”. We did in the past, but dropped the idea, simply because we feel it unnecessarily limits the choice of our users.

Can you recommend some manga people should consider reading on Renta!’s service?

You ready? Deep breath! Eleven Soul has a lot of depth to it as well as skillfully-drawn action sequences. Jeanne D’Arc is a really well-told and beautifully illustrated manga. If you like gritty stories, Mad Bull is engrossing, and often surprisingly funny. Of course, if you want a laugh though, I have to recommend Sakigake Otokojuku. If you like motion comics, there’s Karasuma Kyoko no Jikenbo, which has been slicky presented. For romance fans, we have the crazily popular His Wedding Ring of Revenge, The Italian Prince’s Proposal and The Billionaire’s Bride of Convenience. For shojo-lovers, there’s the emotional A Second Love Is Full of Tears. If you’re a yaoi fan, I’d say give Peach-Colored Taxi — 801 Yen to Ride a read; it’s proving to be a hit with our users.

What shall we be expecting from Renta in the next few months or so?

More manga! Also, we’re working our asses off to try and make the site more user-friendly, as well as investing in making it display more quickly. On top of all that, we’re trying to improve our tablet and smartphone versions of the site too. We’re a small team, but we’re all putting a lot of effort in (and a lot of late nights!), so I personally am looking forward to seeing the fruits of our labor in the coming months. We’re by no means a perfect site, but we’re trying our best to improve, so, if anyone has any suggestions, we’d love to hear them! Yoroshiku!

Justin is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. He’s desperately attempting to defeat his laziness every day. You can follow him on Twitter (@Kami_nomi)

Pick of the Week: Too Many Books

September 2, 2014 by Ash Brown, Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Anna N and MJ Leave a Comment

ASH: The first week of the month has quite a few manga releases and a good deal of variety among those. I’m always happy to see new volumes in series like What Did You Eat Yesterday? and Library Wars: Love & War, but I think my pick this week will go to the debut of Noragami: Stray God, a series that already shows a lot of promise in just its first volume. The manga’s premise might seem familiar, but it pulls it off with humor and charm.

SEAN: Busy week, but I will go with Library Wars: Love & War, a personal favorite.

MICHELLE: There are at least half a dozen appealing titles on this week’s release list, but I haven’t had a new volume of Skip Beat! to enthuse about since last December—and shan’t again ’til next April—so I simply must avail myself of the opportunity. Skip Beat! is great! Go, Skip Beat!.

ANNA: This is tough, as I am torn between Skip Beat! and Library Wars: Love & War. So torn, I think I’ll have to go for something completely different and pick Midnight Secretary. This final volume comes with a bonus story titled “Midnight Butler,” which was pretty great.

MJ: Well, there can never be too much Fumi Yoshinaga in the world for me, so I’ll be the one to go with the latest volume of What Did You Eat Yesterday?, out this week from Vertical. In a week with Yoshinaga, she’s likely to overshadow everything else with me, and this week is no exception. Gimme, gimme.

What looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 9/2/14

September 2, 2014 by Michelle Smith, MJ and Anna N Leave a Comment

This week, Michelle, MJ, & Anna look at recent releases from Viz Media & Yen Press.

Black Butler, Vol. 17 | By Yana Toboso | Yen Press – Ciel remains undercover at Weston, the Eton-inspired school where he has enrolled to look into student disappearances at the queen’s behest. In order to secure a meeting with the elusive headmaster, he must lead his house to victory on the ~~Quidditch~~ cricket pitch, which he does via ungentlemanly tactics. It’s a good thing I’m a sports manga fan, because otherwise this might’ve gone on too long, but I kind of liked the outrageousness of it. Unfortunately, it leads to a big reveal that made me feel absolutely nothing. And maybe that’s my main issue with Black Butler—it’s acceptably entertaining, but I just can’t really care. Was there someone, somewhere, who was thoroughly shocked by the final page? It’s hard to imagine that being the case. Anyway, I’ll probably keep reading out of idle curiosity. – Michelle Smith

Blood Lad, Vol. 5 | By Yuuki Kodama | Yen Press – Happy as I am to have this omnibus appear quicker than I thought it would, I am nonetheless kind of bummed that a promising new character doesn’t stick around for long. Instead, an old enemy becomes a super-powerful new enemy, and though it’s kind of cool to see the demon world united against a common foe, and to see our core group of protagonists looking for options to defeat him, it does still feel like we’ve been here before. Maybe I’m just grumpy ‘cos this volume wasn’t as funny as some others have been. Still, Blood Lad remains as compulsively readable as ever, even if I’m not entirely convinced that the overall trajectory of the series makes sense. As long as it remains enjoyable on an per-volume basis, I’ll keep reading. – Michelle Smith

The Infernal Devices, Vol. 3: Clockwork Princess | By Cassandra Clare & Hyekyung Baek | Yen Press – Adapting full-length prose into graphic novels is always a tricky business, and when dealing with multi-volume series, it is inevitably trickier with time. Condensing a single prose novel such that it may squeeze itself into the much sparser skin of a single graphic novel may read as “efficient” or “fast-paced,” but three volumes in, the cumulative effect of this process is much more likely to resemble “rushed” or even “nonsensical.” Sadly, both of these things may be said of The Infernal Devices. After holding up relatively well over the course of its first two volumes, the weight of the third is finally too much for this format to bear. Fans of the prose series are likely to be frustrated by what’s missing, while the rest of us are left simply confused, and Baek’s pretty pictures are not quite enough to compensate. Not recommended. – MJ

Loveless, Vol. 12 | By Yun Kouga | Viz Media – It’s been over a year since the last volume of Loveless came out. My strongest memory of it was the scene in which Soubi obeys Seimei’s command to become his fighter once more, leaving Ritsuka behind, and I wanted volume twelve to explore this. Perhaps some scenes from Soubi’s perspective, showing remorse? That would do nicely. But instead, we get some backstory on Seimei’s other fighter/obedient minion, Nisei. And just when that’s starting to become legitimately intriguing and I start to sympathize with a really quite unsympathetic character, Kouga suddenly tosses in a whimsical chapter about one of Ritsuka’s dreams. I don’t mean to complain, because there were still many good moments in this volume, but it was overall a bit disjointed and didn’t pack the emotional wallop I was hoping for. – Michelle Smith

Seraph of the End, Vol. 2 | by Takaya Kagami and Yamato Yamamoto | Viz Media – This shonen series continues to put together a team for brash hero Yuichiro. As he trains to become a member of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army, he finds yet another classmate to antagonize in Shiho Kimizuki, a tall, glasses-wearing boy who easily academically outshines Yuichiro. The new recruits are eager to get their demon weapons and the unconventional Lieutenant Colonel Ichinose decides to simply throw his most promising students into a pit of demons and see who survives. In the meantime, we get a bit of background into what has been happening to Yuichiro’s former best friend and adoptive brother Mikaela among the vampires. There are flashes of cynical humor in this shonen title that I quite enjoy, and so far I’m enjoying this series. With the youthful team powered up and ready to take on some vampires, I’m looking forward to more action in the next volume. – Anna N

Skip Beat!, Vol. 33 | By Yoshiki Nakamura | Viz Media – Hooray for new Skip Beat! Unfortunately, because of the time lag between releases, it feels like we have been on this “Ren and Kyoko impersonate the Heel siblings” arc for ages. What’s significant here, though, is that Kyoko finally admits to herself that she is reacting to steamy moments not purely in character, but as herself, and that she’s committed the gravely stupid move of unlocking her heart. What I love is that she is desperate for Ren not to find out, lest he be disappointed in her, and how the actions of a smitten costar serve to remind her of how completely she lost herself in devotion to Sho. It took 33 volumes for her to realize she loves him… how many more until he’s actually aware of it? I’d happily sign up for 33 more, but please… let’s move along from this arc soon, okay? – Michelle Smith

Sword Art Online, Vol. 2

September 2, 2014 by Sean Gaffney

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The author of this novel admits in his afterword that the first book was an excellent stand alone, but did not really make for much of an ongoing series. So, in order to fix that, he’s going back and adding a few elements that might a) expand the cast and draw in a few more fans of those ‘types’, b) expand the world of Aincrad a bit more before everyone is free of it, and c) give a bit more depth to Kirito’s mental and emotional issues while continuing to show off how amazing he is (really, if Kirito bothers you as a super awesome guy, you should probably find some other series to read. I’ve no real issues with it.)

This novel consists of four short stories, and while they all achieve something, I’d have to see it’s the last two that hold more emotional weight and are better written. In the first story we meet Silica, a young girl who has a rare beast and has let it go to her head, with potentially tragic circumstances. Kirito straight up admits (though later he reveals that part of this was a ploy) that he’s helping her as she reminds him of his younger sister. Having read Fairy Dance’s manga, I don’t really see it, but again, ploy. We see a bit of how criminal activity works in the world of SAO, and also how a young girl on her own would have to deal with creepers – Silica is well-known, popular, and underage, a dangerous combination even in a MMORPG.

Next we meet Lisbeth, a blacksmith who is friends with Asuna and indeed shares many of her qualities. Kirito comes to her looking for a second sword, and so they have to go on a quest for the mystery metal that can make it. I found this the weakest story in a few ways, but it does manage to highlight what it must be like for an outsider on coming across the relationship between Kirito and Asuna. The author may be adding more cute girls to fall for Kirito (we get three in this book alone), but never lets us forget that Kirito and Asuna are THE couple, and Lisbeth, much as it hurts, can’t bring herself to try to come between them. (She also gets first person narration, the first we’ve seen that isn’t Kirito’s.)

The third story was my favorite, and not coincidentally focused on Kirito and Asuna right after they get married, when they come across a young girl in the forest. The manga adapted this, but I hadn’t realized how much it was compressed – here we meet several more cast, and it’s revealed that most of the young kids in the game are not leveling up like Silica, but just wanting to survive. Sasha corralling them is a definite good thing. It’s also nice seeing a romantic couple that isn’t the main one – Yuriel attempts to frame Thinker as her commanding officer, but it becomes clear early on she’s deeply in love with him. Mostly, though, this is the heartbreaking story of an AI who overcomes mental blocks to help her parents, and a coulpe that experience the exquisite pain of losing their child.

The last short story is the shortest, and is the only story in first-person Kirito narration. It expands on the story he’d told us in the first book about the guild he joined that was wiped out – in particular Sachi, the young woman he reassures but can’t quite save. This is Kirito at his darkest and most driven, and it’s stated several times that he’s in a suicidal state. It’s stark and emotional, though the actual guild and their fate is more of a catalyst than anything else – this is not about them, it’s about how Kirito can get over his grief and start to recover.

As you’d expect, this was a lot more uneven than the first book, but I enjoy its leads, and I like the expanded worldbuilding. Now that we’ve done that, hopefully Book 3 will show us Kirito and Asuna happily reuniting in the real world. Well, unless something goes horribly wrong…

A Mostly Yen Press License Roundup

September 1, 2014 by Sean Gaffney

I was away for a few days, so naturally the license DELUGE hit. As such, let me ask you to turn to A Case Suitable for Treatment, for the very last in news. :) Let’s see what 17 million titles are coming out soon, however, and talk about them a bit.

First the non-Yen stuff. Seven Seas has three more Alice spinoffs coming, featuring, I believe, Gray, Elliot, and the Twins. They sell well, and there are PILES of the things, so I see no reason why Seven Seas shouldn’t license them till they run out.

Dark Horse just announced today the license of Fate/Zero, the prequel to Fate/Stay Night that runs in Kadokawa’s Young Ace. It’s based on a couple of light novels that tell the story of the ‘fourth Holy grail War’. I admit I didn’t read F/SN when Tokyopop was putting it out, but it’s certainly quite popular, and Fate/Zero seems to be the most respected of the side projects.

Now it’s time for Yen Press. On the manga front, a big recent license is the Karneval manga from Ichijinsha’s Comic Zero-Sum. There’s over a dozen volumes to date, and it’s been a highly discussed series. Featuring two innocents on the run from forces beyond their control who end up with a defense organization called Circus, it’s the sort of title that defines the words ‘fantasy manga for young women’ and should sell like hotcakes.

There’s more Madoka Magica manga, as we get Orico Magica’s side story which posits a different meeting between its leads, which I’m sure will lead to puppies and rainbows instead of tragedy; and Tart Magica, which features Jeanne D’Arc and three fellow pseudo-historical young women as magical girls in the 15th century, thus showing that Kyubey can ruin EVERYTHING.

And on the Disney front, sort of, we have Big Hero 6, which just debuted in Kodansha’s Magazine Special. Based on the film due out this November, it looks to be geared towards the younger set, and is a rare Kodansha license from this publisher.

Now let’s talk light novels. I’d mentioned that I thought Yen was pursuing a surprisingly aggressive approach to the new Yen On line, and it’s clear that if anything I was underestimating it. Kurt says they’re going to go even further next year, with over 2 dozen books out in 2015 alone, from a variety of series. Sword Art Online sold quite well, and has I expect inspired the licensing of the Progressive novels that will debut in April.

I have whined on Twitter about the lack of ebooks for SAO and the upcoming Index novels, and I suspect judging from Kurt’s response in the interview that this is not something that will be changing anytime soon. It seems to be the Japanese side more than our side, as Yen says that they make an effort to get them when they’re available. So perhaps I should whine at ASCII Mediaworks instead.

As for the new LN series announced, we have four. The first, Log Horizon, has a plot that may seem familiar to fans of Sword Art Online, as it also has a large group of MMORPG gamers who find themselves trapped in a virtual world. Log Horizon seems to have a broader focus, however, and less romance/harem/fanservice elements than SAO does. Yen has also licensed the manga, though we’re not sure yet which manga they have – there are three possibilities, all from different companies. The novel is from Enterbrain, who also do Book Girl, so I’m hoping for ebooks here.

Speaking of fanservices, No Game No Life seems to be the most ‘otaku-oriented’ title that was licensed in this batch. It’s from Media Factory, and involves (try not to contain your shock), an MMORPG. A brother/sister gaming team, who in real life are basically shut-ins, are transported to a fantasy world where they have to use their amazing gaming skills to save humanity.

The Devil Is A Part-Timer!, aka Hataraku Maou-sama!, is a Dengeki Bunko title (i.e., the SAO/Index company). It sounds like the funniest of the new series, as Satan and his lieutenant are on Earth and powerless, and must find work while scheming to regain their powers. To make things worse, the woman who defeated them in the first place is back to finish the job. Luckily, she’s lost her powers as well. This has fantasy elements in it, but the mere fact that it doesn’t involve an MMORPG makes it the most intriguing of these titles for me.

Lastly, for fans of Pandora Hearts, Yen is putting out the novels which contain side stories from the main manga, which are titled Caucus Race. These are also, I believe, from Square Enix.

Judging by their interview, Yen isn’t done yet, and I suspect we’ll have a few more light novels announced at NYCC. Which unlicensed title do you most want? You are not allowed to say Baccano!. Or Durarara!!. Or indeed any title by Narita. But other than those?

My Week in Manga: August 25-August 31, 2014

September 1, 2014 by Ash Brown

My News and Reviews

The most recent manga giveaway at Experiments in Manga is currently underway, and there is still time to enter for an opportunity to win Nana, Volume 1 by Ai Yazawa. All you have to do is tell me whether or not you’ve ever given a manga a second chance and what your experience was. I also posted two reviews last week. The first was for the third and final volume of Off*Beat by Jen Lee Quick, which I was very happy with. Nearly ten years after the series first began, fans finally have a chance to read its conclusion thanks to the efforts of Chromatic Press. The second review last week was for Keigo Higashino’s most recently translated mystery novel, Malice. I enjoy Higashino’s work tremendously and was not at all disappointed with Malice. The novel will be released in October and is recommended for readers who enjoy smart, clever mysteries. Although it was from a couple of weeks ago, my Spotlight on Masaichi Mukaide has been making the rounds and gaining some attention. I worked pretty hard on it, so I’m extremely pleased that people are finding the post interesting.

Elsewhere online, Organization of Anti-Social Geniuses has an interview with Vertical’s Ed Chavez, discussing the success of Knights of Sidonia. And speaking of Vertical, the Fall 2014’s reader survey and license request form has been launched. Comics Alliance has an interesting interview with Felipe Smith (whose series Peepo Choo was published by Vertical). Yen Press announced some new light novel and manga licenses. And for your enjoyment, one of Kate Beaton’s recent Hark! A Vagrant comics focuses on Natsume Sōseki’s classic novel Kokoro. (I actually really like Kokoro and reviewed it a few years ago.)

Quick Takes

Noragami: Stray God, Volume 1 by Adachitoka. Yato is a god of war that everyone has forgotten, or maybe never even knew about to being with. He has no temples or shrines, no followers or worshipers, but he’s determined to change all of that. Unfortunately, his personality leaves a bit to be desired and even his servants don’t like him; he’s had to resort to doing odd jobs and spreading his name (and number) by graffitiing the walls of bathroom stalls and alleyways. The beginning of Noragami: Stray God is somewhat uneven in tone, but by the end of the first volume it seems to have found a nice balance between the manga’s humor and the more serious aspects of the story. The introduction of the series’ other lead character–Hiyori, a human girl who has a little trouble with her spirit leaving her body after a near-death experience–helps to achieve this balance. She also happens to be a fan of professional wrestling, which actually comes into play in the story instead of just being a character quirk. I quite enjoyed the first volume of Noragami, finding it to be amusing and even a bit charming, and look forward to reading more of the series.

Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, and Jerry Ma. The followup anthology to Secret Identities, Shattered collects forty-three short comics and pin-ups from seventy-five contributors. Whereas Secret Identities focused on superhero stories, Shattered also includes other genres of comics–fantasy, science fiction, martial arts, historical, contemporary fiction, and so on. The volume is intended to address and subvert five stereotypical representations of Asians and Asian-Americans in media: The Brute, The Temptress, The Brain, The Alien, and The Manipulator. Although there are some absolute gems in the collection–personal favorites include Tak Toyoshima’s “Occupy Ethnic Foods” and the precursor to Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew’s graphic novel The Shadow Hero–for me Shattered works better in concept than in execution. Many of the comics are either incomplete or feel as though they are pitches for a longer series instead of being finished works in their own right, making for a rather unsatisfying reading experience. However, I did appreciate the wide variety of comics and creators included in the volume.

Shinobu Kokoro: Hidden Heart by Temari Matsumoto. Way back when, Shinobu Kokoro: Hidden Heart was one of the first boys’ love manga that I ever read. Had it been my only exposure to the genre, I might have given up on boys’ love because I didn’t enjoy Shinobu Kokoro much at all. And honestly I still don’t, despite there being a few elements that I like. Actually, it might be some of those elements that hinder my enjoyment of the manga. Two of the three couples in Shinobu Kokoro are ninja. When handled well, I generally like ninja. Sadly, they’re not handled particularly well in Shinobu Kokoro, or at least not believably. Subaru is so incredibly naive, I’m not sure how he’s managed to survive. Also because of this, the unbalanced power dynamics in his relationship with the head ninja come across as disconcerting rather than romantic. And it’s surprising that the ninja clan has continued to exist at all since Hiiragi and Asagi find it appropriate to take time to have sex while in the middle of an escape from a difficult mission. The third set of stories is about snow spirits, but I’ve since read better snow spirit stories, too. There is some nice artwork here and there, but overall I wasn’t especially impressed by Shinobu Kokoro.