Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Katherine Dacey

The Flowers of Evil, Vol. 1

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If you grew up in a small town, you probably knew someone like Takao Kasuga, the nebbish-hero of The Flowers of Evil. Kasuga is a precocious middle-schooler who copes with provincial life by burying his nose in a book. His peers tolerate him, but find him a little too smug and strange to be one of the guys. Kasuga, for his part, takes pride in his sophisticated reading habits, stashing poems in his desk and telling his classmates that they’re too stupid to appreciate his favorite writer, Charles Baudelaire.

In a moment of impulse, Kasuga steals the gym outfit of beautiful classmate Nanako Saeki — an act witnessed by Sawa Nakamura, the class outcast. Nakamura confronts Kasuga after school, threatening to expose him as the thief unless he complies with her requests. Her motives for blackmailing Kasuga are complex, a mixture of prurient interest in Kasuga’s sexual fantasies and sadistic delight in wielding power over a boy. At times Nakamura  physically dominates him — she punches and tackles him — and at times she manipulates him with humiliating tasks and questions.

I’d be the first to admit that the similarities between Flowers of Evil and Sundome — however superficial — predisposed me to dislike the book. I didn’t think I had the stomach for another story in which a ball-busting girl sexually and psychologically tortured a sad-sack boy. Yet Flowers of Evil proved a far more compelling and honest look at adolescent sexuality than Sundome, thanks, in large part, to Shuzo Oshimi’s sympathetic portrayal of Kasuga.

Throughout the book, author Shuzo Oshimi hints that Kasuga’s character was inspired by his own experiences as a book-toting misfit. “I read Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil for the first time in middle school,” he explains at the end of chapter one. “I didn’t understand much of it, but the book’s feel — suspicious, indecent, yet nastily noble — made me think, I’m so cool for reading it.” Kasuga, too, clearly feels a sense of superiority for having discovered Baudelaire at a young age; in a fit of self-pity, he muses, “How many people in this town understand Baudelaire?” At the same time, however, he’s keenly aware that his peers think he’s weird. Kasuga may be mature enough to appreciate Baudelaire — or perhaps, more accurately, to think he understands Baudelaire — but he isn’t quite old enough to shake off his classmates’ teasing.

Oshimi also does an exceptional job of dramatizing Kasuga’s inner sexual turmoil. Early in the book, for example, Kasuga catches sight of Saeki. In a flash, he pictures her clad in gym clothes, blushing and telling him, “I love you.” His acute embarrassment at being discovered mid-reverie is all the more palpable for the way in which he’s drawn: Kasuga sinks into his chair, his shoulders slumped, brows furrowed, and body foreshortened, making him look like a moist ragdoll. In later chapters, Oshimi uses surreal imagery — a wall of eyes, a fun-house mirror, a giant sink hole — to suggest that Kasuga’s normal teenage discomfort with sexual feelings has become something more powerful and destructive: shame.

If Kasuga is a sympathetic character, Nakamura poses greater difficulties for the reader. She claims her true agenda is to expose him as a pervert, but nothing about Kasuga’s behavior indicates that he is; if anything, Kasuga is naive, torn between romantic and sexual ideas about love. (That he calls Saeki “my muse, my femme fatale, my Venus” suggests the extent of his confusion.) Nakamura, too, appears to wrestling with complicated sexual feelings; in several scenes, she hints at her own predilections, only to accuse Kasuga of harboring even nastier ones. In short, Nakamura seems intent on finding someone more self-loathing and sexually confused than she is, yet her behavior is so violent and manipulative it sometimes feels as if Oshimi is trying too hard to suggest her disaffection; Nakamura’s character veers dangerously close to being a symbol of castration anxiety, rather than an emotionally damaged teenage girl.

That said, The Flowers of Evil is a shockingly readable story that vividly — one might even say queasily — evokes the fear and confusion of discovering one’s own sexuality. Recommended.

THE FLOWERS OF EVIL, VOL. 1 • BY SHUZO OSHIMI • VERTICAL, INC. • 202 pp. • NO RATING (BEST FOR OLDER TEENS)

Bookshelf Briefs 5/7/12

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This week, Kate, Sean, and Michelle look at recent releases from Yen Press, Dark Horse, VIZ Media, and Digital Manga Publishing.

Highschool of the Dead, Vol. 6 | Story by Daisuke Sato, Art by Shouji Sato | Yen Press – After reading the first six volumes of this Dawn of the Dead rip-off, I’m still mystified by its appeal. The layouts are busy and poorly composed, a riot of screentones, traced elements, and grossly distended breasts, while the script consists mostly of characters ordering one another around. Yes, there are plenty of scenes of zombie carnage, but even those aren’t executed with much imagination. In volume six, for example, our heroes try to fight their way out a shopping mall, eventually taking refuge on the roof. Sound familiar? That’s because volume one follows the same basic trajectory — just swap “school” for “mall,” and the two storylines are virtually interchangeable. That kind of lazy storytelling might be excusable if Highschool of the Dead were funny or exceptionally gory, but when the laughs and scares are in such short supply, it’s hard to fathom why horror fans are making do with such weak sauce. -Katherine Dacey

Itazura Na Kiss, Vol. 7 | By Kaoru Tada | Digital Manga Publishing – We’re now over halfway through this series, and so we begin to get some new plotlines and characters debut in order to give us more to chew on than “When will Naoki be nice/when will Kotoko be smart?” So we get a new girl who is clearly introduced to be the ‘consolation prize’ to nice yet loser-ish Kinnosuke. It works here, though, as Chris is so much fun – kudos to DMP for translating her fractured Japanese in a way that shows how she sounds to everyone else – and you’re also rooting for her. As for Kotoko, reality slaps her in the face again here, despite minor triumphs like winning over Naoki’s family. Naoki is correct in that Kotoko works best when she isn’t coddled or sympathized with. What’s impressive here is that she realizes it as well. She really may be finally growing up. –Sean Gaffney

Itazura Na Kiss, Vol. 8 | By Kaoru Tada | Digital Manga Publishing – And if the last book showed us Kotoko, if not getting smarter, then at least learning her strengths and limitations, this volume is for Naoki. No, he’s not really all that nicer, but he is at last realizing that he can’t simply expect declarations of love to be entirely one-sided on his wife’s part. Naoki simply doesn’t do emotions – except around Kotoko, who has taught him the joys of frustration, anger, exasperation… and love, reluctant as he still is to admit it. He admits this publicly for one reason – a serious threat to his marriage arrives, and starts pointing out all of his worst flaws. Keita is not particularly in danger of stealing Kotoko – she’s not all that interested. But Naoki here not only admits that he needs Kotoko to be more human – and to be more loving. Which is why the final part of the book is the two of them skipping their anniversary party and sharing a drink and a kiss on a quiet bench. –Sean Gaffney

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 8 | By Julietta Suzuki | VIZ Media – The annual kami conference is underway, and Nanami has been assigned the special task of sealing the entrance to the land of the dead, which is always besieged by yokai when its guardian kami is away. Unfortunately, she and a mysterious human named Kirihito end up trapped on the other side. So basically, this is yet another “Tomoe to the rescue” scenario. True, Nanami exhibits some bona fide powers as she works to free herself and Kirihito, but ultimately it’s Tomoe who must save her. One nice side effect is that Tomoe seems to realize his feelings for Nanami at long last and some secrets concerning his past—that even he is unaware of—are touched upon. I continue to enjoy Kamisama Kiss, but it must be said that this particular volume was not particularly riveting. – Michelle Smith

Magic Knight Rayearth 2 | By CLAMP | Dark Horse Comics – Needless to say, although it had a great ending, it cannot be denied that the way the last Rayearth manga ended was a bit… well, depressing. So let’s have a sequel where we bring our heroines back and have them save the world again! This omnibus has more flaws than the first – too many characters and a messy and confusing plotline. That said, it explores the idea of what would happen to a world which is collapsing after the woman keeping it idyllic is killed quite well. And it is nice seeing the cute couples that barely had time to be suggested in the first series having a bit more time to develop now – aged-up Ascot is adorable, and I love Caldina and Lafarga too… (Sorry, Rafaga. Damn romanizations.) And of course there’s Hikaru, Lantis and Eagle, which is about as close as one can get to a canonical threesome without a wedding. Not as essential as the first, but still fun. –Sean Gaffney

Psyren, Vol. 4 | By Toshiaki Iwashiro | VIZ Media – The plot of Psyren is moving right along. Oh, sure, there’s the obligatory shounen stuff wherein the heroes are determined to get stronger and the main character must gain control of his tremendous yet potentially destructive power, but we also get more information about how the world of Psyren came to be and how far ahead it is from the present for our characters. Each volume of Psyren is a lot of fun, though I’m beginning to suspect that I would enjoy it even more if I had a lovely stack to consume at once—each time I finish a volume, I wonder when the next will be coming out, which is a pretty big compliment. If you’re weary or wary of certain shounen clichés, Psyren might be different enough to satisfy. As an added bonus, at sixteen volumes, it’s considerably shorter than many titles in this demographic. – Michelle Smith

Voltron Force: Shelter from the Storm, Vol. 1 | Story by Brian Smith, Art by Jacob Chabot | VIZ Media – Back in the 1980s — the golden age of cruddy cartoons with merchandising tie-ins — Voltron: Defender of the Universe introduced a generation of American kids to mecha. Nickelodeon revived the series last year, giving it a fresh look and new cast of cadets. In keeping with the spirit of the original, the new Voltron has inspired its fair share of spin-off products, including a series of original graphic novels published by VIZ. When contrasted with similar comics — especially the original Ben 10 “manga” — Voltron Force: Shelter from the Storm is a superior product, with crisp artwork, sophisticated storytelling, and teenage characters who sound and act enough like teenagers to pass muster with the comic’s target audience of seven-to-ten-year-old boys. The language is sufficiently challenging for advanced readers but not too overwhelming for kids who have just graduated to chapter books, while the diverse cast of characters ensures that boys and girls alike will find a cast member to identify with. A solid addition to the elementary school classroom library. -Katherine Dacey

Pick of the Week: Saiunkoku, NonNonBa, FLCL

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KATE: Looking over Midtown Comics‘ brief shipping list, I’m not particularly interested in Blood Blockade Battlefront—though I admit it’s fun to say—and I haven’t read FLCL yet, so my pick is volume seven of The Story of Saiunkoku. I realize that “spunky” is one of the most abused adjectives in the manga critic’s lexicon, but Shurei, Saiunkoku‘s heroine, is spunky in the best sense of the word: she’s smart, determined, and upbeat without being Pollyannish. That she’s surrounded by an agreeable cast of bishonen makes Saiunkoku a special treat; no matter what your preference, there’s a cast member who will make your heart sing. (I’m a Minister Ko partisan, FWIW.) I’ve fallen a little behind with this series, but the release of a new volume offers me a fine incentive for diving back in.

SEAN: Yeah, I think I’m going to have to give Midtown’s list a pass this week. Half of what I’m getting is last week’s order late, anyway. I am excited for the appearance of Shigeru Mizuki’s NonNonBa from Drawn & Quarterly, though, which Diamond says it is shipping to me this week. We’re in a bit of a yokai renaissance right now, what with Natsume’s Book of Friends, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, and Kamisama Kiss. But no one can possibly top the creator of Gegege no Kitaro for yokai, both in scares, laughs, and pure strangeness. This book is half-autobiographical, and also touches on what life was like growing up in pre-World War II Japan. It’s a must buy.

MJ: Technically, I’m with Kate. The one book I know I’ll enjoy from this week’s tiny list is The Story of Saiunkoku. It’s one of my favorite currently-running shoujo series—probably one of my top three or four, in fact. But since Kate has already recommended it so thoroughly (my heart is singing already), I’ll throw my vote to FLCL. This is a bit of a risky pick for me. I enjoyed the anime series when I first saw it several years ago, despite the fact that it contains a number of elements that generally lose with me (mecha, maids, and a sort of fetishization of teen depression are just a few). And though I don’t tend to have a lot of confidence in manga adapted from anime (as opposed to the other way around), I’ll give this one a shot.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

7 Essential VIZ Signature Manga

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Are you an adult reader new to manga? Or a librarian who’s looking to add more graphic novels to your adult collection? Then this list is for you! The VIZ Signature imprint is one of the best resources for adults who read — or are curious about — manga. All of the Signature titles originally appeared in Japanese magazines that cater to grown-up tastes. As a result, the Signature line has broader appeal than many of VIZ’s other imprints, offering something for manga lovers who have “aged out” of Naruto as well as general interest readers who are more likely to discover a graphic novel through The New York Times than The Comics Journal.

Below, I’ve compiled a list of seven titles that best represent the VIZ Signature catalog. In choosing manga for this list, I was less concerned about identifying the “best” titles and more concerned with steering readers towards stories that resonate with their taste in movies, television, and comics. I’ve also focused on more recent series, as some of the line’s older titles — Monster, Sexy Voice and Robo, Phoenix — are out of print. Manga fans are strongly encouraged to add their recommendations in the comments section!

ALL MY DARLING DAUGHTERS

FUMI YOSHINAGA • 1 VOLUME

The five vignettes in All My Darling Daughters depict women negotiating difficult personal relationships: a daughter confronts her mother about mom’s new, much younger husband; a college student seduces her professor, only to dump him when he tries to court her properly; a beautiful young woman contemplates an arranged marriage. Like all of Yoshinaga’s work, the characters in All My Darling Daughters love to talk. That chattiness isn’t always an asset to Yoshinaga’s storytelling, but here the dialogue is perfectly calibrated to reveal just how complex and ambivalent these relationships really are. Yoshinaga’s artwork is understated but effective, as she uses small details — how a character stands or carries her shoulders — to offer a more complete and nuanced portrait of each woman. (One of my picks for Best New Manga of 2010.)

Recommended for: Readers who liked Drinking at the Movies, Dykes to Watch Out For, Make Me a Woman, and other graphic novels exploring the everyday lives of women; readers who are reluctant to commit to a multi-volume series.

BIOMEGA

TSUTOMU NIHEI • 6 VOLUMES

In this sci-fi/horror hybrid, an outbreak of a mysterious virus turns all but one resident of an island colony into zombies. Zoichi Kanoe, a corporate bounty hunter, is sent to retrieve that survivor, only to discover that she’s being guarded by a talking, gun-toting bear. Tsutomu Nihei has the artistic chops to pull off some outlandish stuff, including a rooftop chase scene that borrows a few pages from Bullitt and a spooky Martian prologue that would do John Carpenter proud. Nihei also has the good sense to exercise restraint — if one can describe an apocalyptic zombie scenario with pistol-packing grizzlies as “restrained” — revealing key bits of information only as the characters learn them. The result is a lean, fast-paced shoot-em-up that has just enough thought behind it to make it plausible but not so much that it seems ham-fistedly allegorical. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 2/14/10.)

Recommended for: Readers who like science fiction with elements of horror (e.g. Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing); readers who like zombie fiction, comics, and movies.

DETROIT METAL CITY

KIMINORI WAKASUHI • 10 VOLUMES

Satirizing death metal is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel: how hard can it be to parody a style associated with bands named Cannibal Corpse or Necrophagia? Poking fun at death metal while respecting the sincerity of its followers, however, is a much more difficult trick to pull off, yet Kiminori Wakasugi does just that in Detroit Metal City, ridiculing the music — the violent lyrics, the crudely sexual theatrics — while recognizing the depth of DMC fans’ commitment to the metal lifestyle. Though the musical parodies are hilarious, the series’ funniest moments arise from classic fish-out-of-water situations: Negishi driving a tractor on his parent’s farm while dressed as alter ego Lord Krauser (complete with makeup, fright wig, and platform boots), Negishi bringing a fruit basket to a hospitalized DMC fan while dressed as Krauser… you get the idea. The series begins to run out of gas around volume six, but has the decency not to overstay its welcome. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/28/09.)

Recommended for: Readers who love musical parodies (e.g. This Is Spinal Tap, South Park, Flight of the Conchords); readers who have fond memories of attending KISS or GWAR concerts back in the day.

HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES

NATSUME ONO • 7 VOLUMES, ONGOING (8 TOTAL)

Timid ronin Akitsu Masanosuke can’t hold a steady job, despite his formidable swordsmanship. When a businessman approaches him with work, Masanosuke readily accepts, not realizing that his new employer, Yaichi, runs a crime syndicate that specializes in kidnapping. Masanosuke’s unwitting participation in a blackmailing scheme prevents him from severing his ties to Yaichi; Masanosuke must then decide if he will join the House of Five Leaves or bide his time until he can escape. Though Toshiro Mifune and Hiroyuki Sanada have made entire careers out of playing characters like Masanosuke, Natsume Ono makes a persuasive case that you don’t need a flesh-and-blood actor to tell this kind of story with heartbreaking intensity; she can do the slow-burn on the printed page with the same skill as Masaki Kobayashi (Hara Kiri, Samurai Rebellion) and Yoji Yamada (The Twilight Samurai) did on the big screen. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 8/20/10.)

Recommended for: Kurosawa junkies; readers who like costume dramas; readers with an interest in Japanese history.

OISHINBO A LA CARTE

STORY BY TETSY KARIYA, ART BY HANASAKI AKIRA • 7 VOLUMES

Equal parts Iron Wok Jan, Mostly Martha, and The Manga Cookbook, this educational, entertaining series explores Japanese cuisine at its most refined — sake, seabream sashimi — and its most basic — rice, pub food. The stories fall into two categories: stories celebrating the important role of food in creating community, and stories celebrating the culinary expertise of its principal characters, newspaperman Yamaoka Shiro and his curmudgeonly father Kaibara Yuzan. (Fun fact: Yuzan is such a food snob that he drove Yamaoka’s mother to an early grave, causing an irreparable break between father and son.) Though the competition between Yamaoka and Yuzan yields some elegant, mouth-watering dishes, Oishinbo is at its best when it focuses on everyday food in everyday settings, shedding light on how the Japanese prepare everything from bean sprouts to ramen. Warning: never read on an empty stomach! (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 6/24/09.)

Recommended for: Foodies, gourmets, and other people who like to watch the Food Network (or have daydreamed about becoming a restaurant critic); readers who enjoy The Drops of God.

REAL

TAKEHIKO INOUE • 10 VOLUMES, ONGOING

In lesser hands, REAL might have been an Afterschool Special in manga form, an earnest, uplifting story about disabled teens who find a new sense of purpose on the basketball court. Takehiko Inoue, however, steers clear of easy sentiment; his characters are tough, competitive, and profane, occasionally self-pitying, and fiercely determined to create a space for themselves that’s theirs—and theirs alone. Though the court scenes are brief (at least by shonen sports manga standards, where matches can take several volumes to unfold), Inoue captures the speed and energy of his athletes with consummate skill. A funny, honest, and sometimes rueful series that works equally well for teens and adults. (My choice for Best New Manga of 2008 at PopCultureShock; reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/3/09.)

Recommended for: Basketball enthusiasts; readers who enjoy sports stories with a human interest angle.

20TH CENTURY BOYS

NAOKI URASAWA • 20 VOLUMES, ONGOING (24 TOTAL)

Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys tells a twisty, layered story about ordinary people saving the world from annihilation. Other auteurs have explore similar turf — Tim Kring’s Heroes comes to mind — but Urasawa manages to sustain the reader’s interest without succumbing to cliche or unduly testing our patience. The key to Urasawa’s success is strong script with vivid characters and a clear sense of purpose, reassuring the reader that all the plot strands are just that: strands, not loose threads. Crisp, detailed artwork helps sell the more ludicrous aspects of the story, and distinguish the sprawling cast from one another. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 1/9/10.)

Recommended for: Conspiracy theory buffs; readers who enjoy television programs that blend elements of science fiction, suspense, and paranoia (e.g. Alcatraz, Heroes, Lost).

7 Essential VIZ Signature Manga

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Are you an adult reader new to manga? Or a librarian who’s looking to add more graphic novels to your adult collection? Then this list is for you! The VIZ Signature imprint is one of the best resources for adults who read — or are curious about — manga. All of the Signature titles originally appeared in Japanese magazines that cater to grown-up tastes. As a result, the Signature line has broader appeal than many of VIZ’s other imprints, offering something for manga lovers who have “aged out” of Naruto as well as general interest readers who are more likely to discover a graphic novel through The New York Times than The Comics Journal.

Below, I’ve compiled a list of seven titles that best represent the VIZ Signature catalog. In choosing manga for this list, I was less concerned about identifying the “best” titles and more concerned with steering readers towards stories that resonate with their taste in movies, television, and comics. I’ve also focused on more recent series, as some of the line’s older titles — Monster, Sexy Voice and Robo, Phoenix — are out of print. Manga fans are strongly encouraged to add their recommendations in the comments section!

All My Darling Daughters
By Fumi Yoshinaga • 1 volume
The five vignettes in All My Darling Daughters depict women negotiating difficult personal relationships: a daughter confronts her mother about mom’s new, much younger husband; a college student seduces her professor, only to dump him when he tries to court her properly; a beautiful young woman contemplates an arranged marriage. Like all of Yoshinaga’s work, the characters in All My Darling Daughters love to talk. That chattiness isn’t always an asset to Yoshinaga’s storytelling, but here the dialogue is perfectly calibrated to reveal just how complex and ambivalent these relationships really are. Yoshinaga’s artwork is understated but effective, as she uses small details — how a character stands or carries her shoulders — to offer a more complete and nuanced portrait of each woman. (One of my picks for Best New Manga of 2010.)

Recommended for: Readers who liked Drinking at the Movies, Dykes to Watch Out For, Make Me a Woman, and other graphic novels exploring the everyday lives of women; readers who are reluctant to commit to a multi-volume series.

Biomega
By Tsutomu Nihei • 6 volumes
In this sci-fi/horror hybrid, an outbreak of a mysterious virus turns all but one resident of an island colony into zombies. Zoichi Kanoe, a corporate bounty hunter, is sent to retrieve that survivor, only to discover that she’s being guarded by a talking, gun-toting bear. Tsutomu Nihei has the artistic chops to pull off some outlandish stuff, including a rooftop chase scene that borrows a few pages from Bullitt and a spooky Martian prologue that would do John Carpenter proud. Nihei also has the good sense to exercise restraint — if one can describe an apocalyptic zombie scenario with pistol-packing grizzlies as “restrained” — revealing key bits of information only as the characters learn them. The result is a lean, fast-paced shoot-em-up that has just enough thought behind it to make it plausible but not so much that it seems ham-fistedly allegorical. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 2/14/10.)

Recommended for: Readers who like science fiction with elements of horror (e.g. Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing); readers who like zombie fiction, comics, and movies.

Detroit Metal City
By Kiminori Wakasuhi • 10 volumes
Satirizing death metal is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel: how hard can it be to parody a style associated with bands named Cannibal Corpse or Necrophagia? Poking fun at death metal while respecting the sincerity of its followers, however, is a much more difficult trick to pull off, yet Kiminori Wakasugi does just that in Detroit Metal City, ridiculing the music — the violent lyrics, the crudely sexual theatrics — while recognizing the depth of DMC fans’ commitment to the metal lifestyle. Though the musical parodies are hilarious, the series’ funniest moments arise from classic fish-out-of-water situations: Negishi driving a tractor on his parent’s farm while dressed as alter ego Lord Krauser (complete with makeup, fright wig, and platform boots), Negishi bringing a fruit basket to a hospitalized DMC fan while dressed as Krauser… you get the idea. The series begins to run out of gas around volume six, but has the decency not to overstay its welcome. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/28/09.)

Recommended for: Readers who love musical parodies (e.g. This Is Spinal Tap, South Park, Flight of the Conchords); readers who have fond memories of attending KISS or GWAR concerts back in the day.

House of Five Leaves
By Natsume Ono • 8 volumes
Timid ronin Akitsu Masanosuke can’t hold a steady job, despite his formidable swordsmanship. When a businessman approaches him with work, Masanosuke readily accepts, not realizing that his new employer, Yaichi, runs a crime syndicate that specializes in kidnapping. Masanosuke’s unwitting participation in a blackmailing scheme prevents him from severing his ties to Yaichi; Masanosuke must then decide if he will join the House of Five Leaves or bide his time until he can escape. Though Toshiro Mifune and Hiroyuki Sanada have made entire careers out of playing characters like Masanosuke, Natsume Ono makes a persuasive case that you don’t need a flesh-and-blood actor to tell this kind of story with heartbreaking intensity; she can do the slow-burn on the printed page with the same skill as Masaki Kobayashi (Hara Kiri, Samurai Rebellion) and Yoji Yamada (The Twilight Samurai) did on the big screen. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 8/20/10.)

Recommended for: Kurosawa junkies; readers who like costume dramas; readers with an interest in Japanese history.

Oishinbo a la Carte
Story by Tetsy Kariya, Art by Hanasaki Akira • 7 volumes
Equal parts Iron Wok Jan, Mostly Martha, and The Manga Cookbook, this educational, entertaining series explores Japanese cuisine at its most refined — sake, seabream sashimi — and its most basic — rice, pub food. The stories fall into two categories: stories celebrating the important role of food in creating community, and stories celebrating the culinary expertise of its principal characters, newspaperman Yamaoka Shiro and his curmudgeonly father Kaibara Yuzan. (Fun fact: Yuzan is such a food snob that he drove Yamaoka’s mother to an early grave, causing an irreparable break between father and son.) Though the competition between Yamaoka and Yuzan yields some elegant, mouth-watering dishes, Oishinbo is at its best when it focuses on everyday food in everyday settings, shedding light on how the Japanese prepare everything from bean sprouts to ramen. Warning: never read on an empty stomach! (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 6/24/09.)

Recommended for: Foodies, gourmets, and other people who like to watch the Food Network (or have daydreamed about becoming a restaurant critic); readers who enjoy The Drops of God.

Real
By Takehiko Inoue • 15 volumes (ongoing)
In lesser hands, REAL might have been an Afterschool Special in manga form, an earnest, uplifting story about disabled teens who find a new sense of purpose on the basketball court. Takehiko Inoue, however, steers clear of easy sentiment; his characters are tough, competitive, and profane, occasionally self-pitying, and fiercely determined to create a space for themselves that’s theirs—and theirs alone. Though the court scenes are brief (at least by shonen sports manga standards, where matches can take several volumes to unfold), Inoue captures the speed and energy of his athletes with consummate skill. A funny, honest, and sometimes rueful series that works equally well for teens and adults. (My choice for Best New Manga of 2008 at PopCultureShock; reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/3/09.)

Recommended for: Basketball enthusiasts; readers who enjoy sports stories with a human interest angle.

20th Century Boys
By Naoki Urasawa • 24 vols.
Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys tells a twisty, layered story about ordinary people saving the world from annihilation. Other auteurs have explore similar turf — Tim Kring’s Heroes comes to mind — but Urasawa manages to sustain the reader’s interest without succumbing to cliche or unduly testing our patience. The key to Urasawa’s success is strong script with vivid characters and a clear sense of purpose, reassuring the reader that all the plot strands are just that: strands, not loose threads. Crisp, detailed artwork helps sell the more ludicrous aspects of the story, and distinguish the sprawling cast from one another. (Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 1/9/10.)

Recommended for: Conspiracy theory buffs; readers who enjoy television programs that blend elements of science fiction, suspense, and paranoia (e.g. Alcatraz, Heroes, Lost).

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow

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I’m not a big fan of squirm-inducing comedies like The Office; it’s hard to root for a loser who makes everyone uncomfortable with his general lack of self-awareness and humility. Yet The Office was undeniably compelling, even if it was sometimes hard to watch. The genius was in Ricky Gervais’ performance: he embodied a type that we’ve all encountered in our working lives, someone who felt small but used his job to make himself seem bigger or more important than he really was. Gervais never tried to make his character appealing in his vulnerability, and in so doing, forced the audience to confront the fundamental falseness of the lovable loser stereotype; we may feel better about ourselves for identifying with a decent underdog, but we probably have more in common with David Brent than we’d care to admit.

I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, an unsparing farce about a forty-year-old father who quits his job to become a manga artist, inspires a similar mixture of love and squick. Shunjo Aono makes no effort to endear his protagonist to readers; Shizuo is a loser with big dreams but terrible follow-through. Like many daydreamers, Shizuo failed to realize that his fantasy job would be just as grueling as the one he quit, a revelation that sends him into a tailspin of binge drinking, prostitution, and video gaming. The first volume’s blunt, unsparing tone yields some squirm-inducing moments that are just a little too truthful to be funny, such as when Shizuo bumps into his eighteen-year-old daughter at a love hotel or parties with younger colleagues.

As the story progress, however, Shizuo spends less time pretending to be twenty and more time writing stories. Volume two opens with a scene of Shizuo pitching an ill-advised story Murakami, the one editor at EKKE magazine who can tolerate Shizuo. Following the dictum of “write what you know,” Shizuo has penned “The History of Me,” an autobiographical comic depicting Shizuo’s ongoing struggle to find his true gift, the thing that, in his own words, makes him “different from other people.” It’s an exquisitely uncomfortable scene, as Murakami must endure Shizuo’s pompous editorializing, making it almost inevitable that Shizuo’s work will be rejected swiftly. Worse still, Shizuo’s journey of self-discovery is anything but; he’s failed at everything he’s tried — street tough, folk singer, salary man — yet hasn’t abandoned the delusion that he’s “too big” for the “little” opportunities he’s been given thus far.

In subsequent volumes, Shizuo’s progress remains fitful, impeded by his ego and his inexperience. When he does have an epiphany, it’s usually because he’s failed spectacularly and must rationalize the choices he’s made. In volume four, for example, Shizuo is assigned to a new editor, Aya Unami. After reading his latest excruciatingly autobiographical manuscript, “Live to 300,” she promptly tells him, “I think you need to know when to give up.” Oguro is initially stunned, but soon realizes that Aya might be the only person with the vision and honesty to help him improve. Whether she’s willing to coach him, and whether he can accept her guidance, however, are a different story; it’s hard to imagine Aono treating this moment as a major breakthrough in Shizuo’s journey from amateur to professional, the first meeting between a gifted natural and the coach who will lead him to stardom.

The artwork mirrors Shizuo’s skill level and emotional maturity: the lines are thick and imperfect, the shapes are basic, and the characters’ bodies are awkwardly proportioned. Shizuo has an enormous, round head that seems ill-suited for his body, and tiny eyes that remind us just how myopic he is in every aspect of his life. (See “bumping into teenage daughter at a love motel,” above.) In a particularly skillful touch, Shizuo’s own drawing mirrors that of Aono’s, only executed with less command of line and form — a subtle reminder that the prevailing aesthetic of both stories is meant to reflect how Shizuo sees the world, not an artistic failing on Aono’s part.

I’m probably making I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow sound like a colossal downer; after all, it’s hard to laugh at a character who seems so pitiful. Yet for all Shizuo’s self-aggrandizement, there’s something honest about his efforts, and that’s what makes this squirm-inducing comedy readable. We may do our best to be responsible — to hold good-paying jobs, pay our mortgages, and raise our children to be good students and citizens — but for many of us, a soft, nagging voice asks, “Is that all there is?” Shizuo’s decision to act on that doubt isn’t wise or noble, but it’s testament to a deeply human need: to create meaning out of our experiences, and to find proof that our lives are intrinsically interesting to other people. Recommended, though you may want a stiff drink afterwards.

This is an expanded version of reviews that previously appeared at The Manga Critic on 8/20/09, 11/08/10, and 11/28/11.

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow

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I’m not a big fan of squirm-inducing comedies like The Office; it’s hard to root for a loser who makes everyone uncomfortable with his general lack of self-awareness and humility. Yet The Office was undeniably compelling, even if it was sometimes hard to watch. The genius was in Ricky Gervais’ performance: he embodied a type that we’ve all encountered in our working lives, someone who felt small but used his job to make himself seem bigger or more important than he really was. Gervais never tried to make his character appealing in his vulnerability, and in so doing, forced the audience to confront the fundamental falseness of the lovable loser stereotype; we may feel better about ourselves for identifying with a decent underdog, but we probably have more in common with David Brent than we’d care to admit.

I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, an unsparing farce about a forty-year-old father who quits his job to become a manga artist, inspires a similar mixture of love and squick. Shunjo Aono makes no effort to endear his protagonist to readers; Shizuo is a loser with big dreams but terrible follow-through. Like many daydreamers, Shizuo failed to realize that his fantasy job would be just as grueling as the one he quit, a revelation that sends him into a tailspin of binge drinking, prostitution, and video gaming. The first volume’s blunt, unsparing tone yields some squirm-inducing moments that are just a little too truthful to be funny, such as when Shizuo bumps into his eighteen-year-old daughter at a love hotel or parties with younger colleagues.

As the story progress, however, Shizuo spends less time pretending to be twenty and more time writing stories. Volume two opens with a scene of Shizuo pitching an ill-advised story Murakami, the one editor at EKKE magazine who can tolerate Shizuo. Following the dictum of “write what you know,” Shizuo has penned “The History of Me,” an autobiographical comic depicting Shizuo’s ongoing struggle to find his true gift, the thing that, in his own words, makes him “different from other people.” It’s an exquisitely uncomfortable scene, as Murakami must endure Shizuo’s pompous editorializing, making it almost inevitable that Shizuo’s work will be rejected swiftly. Worse still, Shizuo’s journey of self-discovery is anything but; he’s failed at everything he’s tried — street tough, folk singer, salary man — yet hasn’t abandoned the delusion that he’s “too big” for the “little” opportunities he’s been given thus far.

In subsequent volumes, Shizuo’s progress remains fitful, impeded by his ego and his inexperience. When he does have an epiphany, it’s usually because he’s failed spectacularly and must rationalize the choices he’s made. In volume four, for example, Shizuo is assigned to a new editor, Aya Unami. After reading his latest excruciatingly autobiographical manuscript, “Live to 300,” she promptly tells him, “I think you need to know when to give up.” Oguro is initially stunned, but soon realizes that Aya might be the only person with the vision and honesty to help him improve. Whether she’s willing to coach him, and whether he can accept her guidance, however, are a different story; it’s hard to imagine Aono treating this moment as a major breakthrough in Shizuo’s journey from amateur to professional, the first meeting between a gifted natural and the coach who will lead him to stardom.

The artwork mirrors Shizuo’s skill level and emotional maturity: the lines are thick and imperfect, the shapes are basic, and the characters’ bodies are awkwardly proportioned. Shizuo has an enormous, round head that seems ill-suited for his body, and tiny eyes that remind us just how myopic he is in every aspect of his life. (See “bumping into teenage daughter at a love motel,” above.) In a particularly skillful touch, Shizuo’s own drawing mirrors that of Aono’s, only executed with less command of line and form — a subtle reminder that the prevailing aesthetic of both stories is meant to reflect how Shizuo sees the world, not an artistic failing on Aono’s part.

I’m probably making I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow sound like a colossal downer; after all, it’s hard to laugh at a character who seems so pitiful. Yet for all Shizuo’s self-aggrandizement, there’s something honest about his efforts, and that’s what makes this squirm-inducing comedy readable. We may do our best to be responsible — to hold good-paying jobs, pay our mortgages, and raise our children to be good students and citizens — but for many of us, a soft, nagging voice asks, “Is that all there is?” Shizuo’s decision to act on that doubt isn’t wise or noble, but it’s testament to a deeply human need: to create meaning out of our experiences, and to find proof that our lives are intrinsically interesting to other people. Recommended, though you may want a stiff drink afterwards.

This is an expanded version of reviews that previously appeared at The Manga Critic on 8/20/09, 11/08/10, and 11/28/11.

Bookshelf Briefs 4/23/12

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This week, Sean, Kate, & Michelle look at recent releases from Viz Media, Kodansha Comics, Dark Horse, and JManga.

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 7 | By Kazue Kato | VIZ Media – With this volume, we catch up with Japan, so it will be a while before we get 8. Which is a shame, as there’s once again lots to love here.Blue Exorcist being in Jump Square means it gets 35-40 pages per chapter rather than 20, which I think really helps its pacing. The bad guy is definitely on the rise now, as the true moles have been ferreted out (though the sympathetic one is already regretting her actions). Meanwhile, it seems only Rin can save them – but Rin doesn’t trust his self-control, so is useless. Luckily, Shiemi, in her best scene to date, helps him realize that he’s more than just ‘Satan’s kid with fire that kills’. There’s nothing really original here (this is Jump, let me remind you), but the pieces combine very well, and the action and infodumps do as well (though a few too many flashbacks). This is a solid series that rewards the reader. Now to wait for Vol. 8. –Sean Gaffney

Bono Bono, Vol. 1 | By Mikio Igarashi | JManga – I’m on record as being an animal sap, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that I snapped up volume one of Bono Bono, an award-winning manga about a sea otter and his woodland pals. (No, that’s not a typo. More on the squirrels in a minute.) Much as I like the *idea* of a cute animal comic, however, I didn’t like the comic itself; I felt as if the jokes and philosophical musings were tepid at best. The characters, too, were a disappointment. I don’t mind an artist taking creative liberties with his talking animals, but the juxtaposition of forest- and ocean-dwellers is never rationalized; you’d be forgiven for thinking that Mikio Igarashi settled on bears and chipmunks because he couldn’t muster a decent sea lion. About the best I can say for Bono Bono is that Igarashi’s primitive-cute style has genuine charm; he draws his characters as outlines, rather than fully realized, three-dimensional objects, imbuing the stories with a child-like quality. -Katherine Dacey

Cage of Eden, Vol. 5 | By Yoshinobu Yamada | Kodansha Comics – Perhaps I’ve just gotten used to it, but it felt like there was less blatant fanservice this volume. Of course, it could be that there was simply no time for that sort of thing – half the volume is spent trying to escape a cave filled with murderous teens, and the other half showing that pretending that everything’s the same as always isn’t going to work. More to the point, however, the three focus characters here are all male. Seeing Akira’s bond with Kohei makes the reality that much more tragic (and I appreciated that they noted Kohei could not be forgiven for the murders he’d committed, just understood), and Yarai shows off his utter badass nature while finally being impressed with what Akira can do. His suggestion is a good one – they need a home base, a “country” – and I wonder if it will be taken up in the future. Still good adventure manga writing, if overly focused on the busty female form. –Sean Gaffney

Oh My Goddess!, Vol. 41 | By Kosuke Fujishima | Dark Horse Comics – This volume is back up to a normal page count, but still feels like it’s over too quickly. Of course, that’s because we’re in the middle of a Journey to the Center of Hell – there’s no time for stopping to take in the sights. Keiichi continues to be the brains behind the three goddesses’ brawn, and while I could have done without Belldandy’s “apologize for now saying how awesome Keiichi is” near the end, he has shown himself to be more than just Bell’s morality chain. I also very much liked Thrym, who is a huge powerful bodybuilder girl, and her strength is shown in loving detail. Fujishima’s love of powerful machines extends at times to powerful goddesses/demons, and you can see he had fun drawing Thrym – who, like most of the ‘evil’ cast, is not *really* evil. Recommended for Oh My Goddess readers only, of course. –Sean Gaffney

Skip Beat!, Vol. 27 | By Yoshiki Nakamura | VIZ Media – What a gold mine Yoshiki Nakamura hit when she created the character of Lory Takarada, the eccentric (and that’s putting it mildly) president of the talent agency to which Kyoko and Ren belong. With his quirks well established, it’s perfectly in character for him to dream up kooky schemes to pair up the two leads, and with his position of authority, they can’t exactly refuse. His latest idea is for them to masquerade as a pair of punk rock siblings (in preparation for Ren’s latest role), which involves them living together in a hotel room so that Kyoko can make sure Ren remembers to eat. Ren, predictably, soon starts coming undone with all this close proximity, and in some unexpected ways that offer hints about his past. Kyoko is oblivious as usual, but perhaps not quite as much as she lets on to Ren. It’s good stuff! – Michelle Smith

Pick of the Week: Centaurs & More

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It’s a sparse week at Midtown Comics, but there’s always something to buy. Check out the Battle Robot’s picks below!

MJ: Okay, I’ll just say it. There’s almost nothing shipping in to Midtown Comics this week. And though volume twelve of GTO: The Early Years is a strong choice by all accounts, I feel rather disingenuous picking it, since I haven’t yet read volume 11. Instead, I’m turning my attention to JManga, which has been putting out some pretty exciting releases lately, including two new volumes from one of my long-time favorites, est em, Apartments of Calle Feliz and Working Kentauros. Though Apartments is the volume *I* covered in yesterday’s Going Digital, the one I’ve really got my eye on now is Working Kentauros, described by Michelle as “Highly, highly recommended.” Salaryman centaurs? BL salaryman centaurs?? Sign me up!

MICHELLE: I suppose it goes without saying that, with an endorsement like that, Working Kentauros is my pick of the week, as well! It’s quirky, charming, and moving, just like one would expect from est em.

SEAN: Um, well. There’s two titles, and I don’t read one of them, so hey, it’s the other one! Admittedly, there’s a good chance I would have chosen GTO: The Early Years, Vol. 12 regardless. As with most of this series (and indeed GTO and 14 Days in Shonan, albeit from a different ‘perspective’, this is about life as a teenager, where you feel no one understands you, where your family is uncaring, where all you have are your friends. Admittedly, it’s still a shonen manga, so there are perhaps a few more drag races, violent punchouts, and moral messages than I recall in my own teenage years, but that’s because Eikichi and Ryuuji are more interesting than I was. It’s actually astonishing how retro this title now seems, given it ran in the early to mid 1990s. Old school is 1995 now? Really?

KATE: “The angst of being a teen. The thrill of being a boat!” So goes the tagline for Dave Roman’s latest project, Teen Boat. Like Astronaut Academy, the premise of Roman’s comic is neatly — one might even say baldly — encapsulated in the title. Teen Boat is a teen who can transform into… well, a boat. If that doesn’t sound like the most fruitful idea for a comic, never fear: Roman brings his trademark wit to the proceedings, poking fun at YA cliches, action-movie tropes, nautical lore, and whatever else pops into his head. John Green’s smart, stylish artwork is the perfect complement to Roman’s script, helping sell the Teen Boat idea at its most ludicrous. And really, how can you *not* like a comic about a boat who loves a girl named Nina Pinta Santa Maria?

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

MMF: An Introduction to the VIZ Signature Imprint

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If TOKYOPOP was the company that first embraced the teen market, licensing Sailor Moon and bringing manga to big chain stores, then VIZ was the company that first wooed adult readers, using distinctive packaging and punchy trade names to help older manga fans distinguish stories about boy ninjas from stories about disillusioned samurai. VIZ wasn’t the only company courting older fans, of course; Dark Horse has been synonymous with manly-man manga for most of its licensing history, while TOKYOPOP made several unsuccessful forays into ladies’ comics. VIZ, however, has done more than any major American publisher to create a market for titles like Oishinbo and 20th Century Boys, seinen works that appeal equally to male and female readers in their twenties, thirties, and beyond.

One of VIZ’s first branding experiments was its short-lived Spectrum Editions line (1990-91). VIZ published three seinen titles in a prestige format with vinyl dust jackets, high-quality paper, and a large trim size. Those titles — Natsuo Sekikawa and Jiro Taniguchi’s Hotel Harbour View, Yukinobu Hoshino’s Saber Tiger, and Yu Kinutani’s Shion: Blade of the Minstrel — didn’t make much of a splash in the market, but they anticipated some of the design choices that VIZ would make with its Editor’s Choice and Signature imprints a decade later.

Another important precedent for the VIZ Signature line was PULP: The Manga Magazine. First launched in 1997, VIZ billed its monthly anthology as “manga for grownups,” and featured edgier stories than its companion magazines Animerica and Manga Vizion. Titles such as Banana Fish, Bakune Young, Dance Til Tomorrow, Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, Short Cuts, Strain, and Uzumaki debuted in PULP before they were collected into graphic novels that bore the magazine’s name.

After struggling to find an audience, PULP was canceled in 2002. The significance of PULP wasn’t lost on its editors, however; when the magazine ceased production, they issued the following statement, summarizing their achievement:

PULP was the first English-language magazine to run the kind of manga that make comics a mass medium for ordinary adults in Japan, from dynamic action narratives to avant-garde ventures, when it debuted in December 1997… PULP offered readers a Japanese comics contrast to both the superhero genre that typifies American comics and the stereotypical “anime-esque” manga often offered to U.S. readers.

After VIZ phased out the magazine, several PULP titles — Dance Til Tomorrow, No. 5 — found a home at the newly created Editor’s Choice imprint. Like PULP, the Editor’s Choice line was designed to appeal to older readers, featuring titles such as Maison Ikkoku, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Phoenix, and Saikano. The Editor’s Choice imprint had something else in common with PULP: it was short-lived. By 2006, VIZ had rebranded the catalog with the VIZ Signature name, using it to help adult readers distinguish Naoki Urasawa’s Monster from Naruto.

In its six years of existence, the VIZ Signature line has been steadily diversifying to serve a wider audience. Speaking to Publisher’s Weekly in 2009, VIZ Managing Editor Leyla Ayker explained that one of the goals of the line was “to create a balance between the more ‘literary’ works that would appeal to readers of Western graphic novels like Fun Home or Asterios Polyp and the more ‘action’ works that would appeal to readers of American superhero comics and genre fiction.” To that end, VIZ has been licensing a mixture of highbrow titles — All My Darling Daughters, Oishinbo A La Carte, Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka — and pulp fiction for mature readers — Black Lagoon, Biomega, Dogs: Bullets and Carnage.

The Signature line was never tied to a print magazine, but in 2009, VIZ launched an ambitious collaboration with the Japanese anthology IKKI: select IKKI titles would be serialized online, allowing North American readers to read free monthly updates of series such as I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow and Saturn Apartments. VIZ would then publish those series as part of its Signature line, with a special logo to distinguish the IKKI titles from other Signature manga. For a year and a half, the site flourished, offering readers a mixture of new comics and feature articles: an interview with Q Hayashida (Dorohedoro), a comic drawn by one of the VIZ designers. By the end of 2011, however, regular updates to the site had ceased, prompting speculation about the future of the project.

Whatever the future of SigIKKI, the project epitomizes what the VIZ Signature line does best: publishing high-quality manga that appeal to a wide spectrum of adult readers As Leyla Aker explained to Publisher’s Weekly:

The reason why IKKI and Signature are such a good fit is because their objectives are the same: to publish series that offer a diverse range of content but that are all marked by creative excellence. Another factor is that both lines are gender-neutral, so to speak; their content is aimed at both adult men and women, which is fairly unusual for manga.

And that, in a nutshell, is the VIZ Signature imprint: 43 titles that run the gamut from kitchen-sink drama (All My Darling Daughtes, Gente: The People of Ristorante Paradiso) to horror stories (Cat-Eyed Boy, Uzumaki), sword-and-sandal epics (Vagabond), science fiction (Bokurano: Ours, Saturn Apartments), thrillers (Black Lagoon, Monster), romances (Ristorante Paradiso), mysteries (not simple, Sexy Voice and Robo), and fantasies (Dorohedoro, GoGo Monster).

N.B. VIZ began designing a new Signature website which remains unfinished as of 4/22/12. In the comments below, reader Eric Rupe notes that VIZ doesn’t seem to have made much progress on the site; links redirect the reader to an empty product page at viz.com.

* * * * *

The goal of this month’s Manga Movable Feast is to create a place where grown-ups can discuss their favorite — or least favorite — VIZ Signature manga. Anyone can contribute: all you need to do is send me a link to an essay, podcast, or review about a VIZ Signature title, and I’ll feature it in one of my daily round-ups. (Email or Twitter are the best way to submit links; Twitter submissions should be directed to @manga_critic.) Note that the feast runs from today (Sunday, April 22nd) through Saturday (April 28th). For more information, please visit the VIZ Signature MMF archive.

An Introduction to the VIZ Signature Imprint

by

If TOKYOPOP was the company that first embraced the teen market, licensing Sailor Moon and bringing manga to big chain stores, then VIZ was the company that first wooed adult readers, using distinctive packaging and punchy trade names to help older manga fans distinguish stories about boy ninjas from stories about disillusioned samurai. VIZ wasn’t the only company courting older fans, of course; Dark Horse has been synonymous with manly-man manga for most of its licensing history, while TOKYOPOP made several unsuccessful forays into ladies’ comics. VIZ, however, has done more than any major American publisher to create a market for titles like Oishinbo and 20th Century Boys, seinen works that appeal equally to male and female readers in their twenties, thirties, and beyond.

One of VIZ’s first branding experiments was its short-lived Spectrum Editions line (1990-91). VIZ published three seinen titles in a prestige format with vinyl dust jackets, high-quality paper, and a large trim size. Those titles — Natsuo Sekikawa and Jiro Taniguchi’s Hotel Harbour View, Yukinobu Hoshino’s Saber Tiger, and Yu Kinutani’s Shion: Blade of the Minstrel — didn’t make much of a splash in the market, but they anticipated some of the design choices that VIZ would make with its Editor’s Choice and Signature imprints a decade later.

Another important precedent for the VIZ Signature line was PULP: The Manga Magazine. First launched in 1997, VIZ billed its monthly anthology as “manga for grownups,” and featured edgier stories than its companion magazines Animerica and Manga Vizion. Titles such as Banana Fish, Bakune Young, Dance Til Tomorrow, Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, Short Cuts, Strain, and Uzumaki debuted in PULP before they were collected into graphic novels that bore the magazine’s name.

After struggling to find an audience, PULP was canceled in 2002. The significance of PULP wasn’t lost on its editors, however; when the magazine ceased production, they issued the following statement, summarizing their achievement:

PULP was the first English-language magazine to run the kind of manga that make comics a mass medium for ordinary adults in Japan, from dynamic action narratives to avant-garde ventures, when it debuted in December 1997… PULP offered readers a Japanese comics contrast to both the superhero genre that typifies American comics and the stereotypical “anime-esque” manga often offered to U.S. readers.

After VIZ phased out the magazine, several PULP titles — Dance Til Tomorrow, No. 5 — found a home at the newly created Editor’s Choice imprint. Like PULP, the Editor’s Choice line was designed to appeal to older readers, featuring titles such as Maison Ikkoku, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Phoenix, and Saikano. The Editor’s Choice imprint had something else in common with PULP: it was short-lived. By 2006, VIZ had rebranded the catalog with the VIZ Signature name, using it to help adult readers distinguish Naoki Urasawa’s Monster from Naruto.

In its six years of existence, the VIZ Signature line has been steadily diversifying to serve a wider audience. Speaking to Publisher’s Weekly in 2009, VIZ Managing Editor Leyla Ayker explained that one of the goals of the line was “to create a balance between the more ‘literary’ works that would appeal to readers of Western graphic novels like Fun Home or Asterios Polyp and the more ‘action’ works that would appeal to readers of American superhero comics and genre fiction.” To that end, VIZ has been licensing a mixture of highbrow titles — All My Darling Daughters, Oishinbo A La Carte, Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka — and pulp fiction for mature readers — Black Lagoon, Biomega, Dogs: Bullets and Carnage.

The Signature line was never tied to a print magazine, but in 2009, VIZ launched an ambitious collaboration with the Japanese anthology IKKI: select IKKI titles would be serialized online, allowing North American readers to read free monthly updates of series such as I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow and Saturn Apartments. VIZ would then publish those series as part of its Signature line, with a special logo to distinguish the IKKI titles from other Signature manga. For a year and a half, the site flourished, offering readers a mixture of new comics and feature articles: an interview with Q Hayashida (Dorohedoro), a comic drawn by one of the VIZ designers. By the end of 2011, however, regular updates to the site had ceased, prompting speculation about the future of the project.

Whatever the future of SigIKKI, the project epitomizes what the VIZ Signature line does best: publishing high-quality manga that appeal to a wide spectrum of adult readers As Leyla Aker explained to Publisher’s Weekly:

The reason why IKKI and Signature are such a good fit is because their objectives are the same: to publish series that offer a diverse range of content but that are all marked by creative excellence. Another factor is that both lines are gender-neutral, so to speak; their content is aimed at both adult men and women, which is fairly unusual for manga.

And that, in a nutshell, is the VIZ Signature imprint: 43 titles that run the gamut from kitchen-sink drama (All My Darling Daughtes, Gente: The People of Ristorante Paradiso) to horror stories (Cat-Eyed Boy, Uzumaki), sword-and-sandal epics (Vagabond), science fiction (Bokurano: Ours, Saturn Apartments), thrillers (Black Lagoon, Monster), romances (Ristorante Paradiso), mysteries (not simple, Sexy Voice and Robo), and fantasies (Dorohedoro, GoGo Monster).

N.B. VIZ began designing a new Signature website which remains unfinished as of 4/22/12. In the comments below, reader Eric Rupe notes that VIZ doesn’t seem to have made much progress on the site; links redirect the reader to an empty product page at viz.com.

* * * * *

The goal of this month’s Manga Movable Feast is to create a place where grown-ups can discuss their favorite — or least favorite — VIZ Signature manga. Anyone can contribute: all you need to do is send me a link to an essay, podcast, or review about a VIZ Signature title, and I’ll feature it in one of my daily round-ups. (Email or Twitter are the best way to submit links; Twitter submissions should be directed to @manga_critic.) Note that the feast runs from today (Sunday, April 22nd) through Saturday (April 28th). For more information, please visit the VIZ Signature MMF archive.

Manga Artifacts: Love Song

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Back in the 1990s, Matt Thorn labored hard to make Keiko Nishi a household name among American manga readers, translating six of her stories for VIZ. Two appeared in Four Shojo Stories alongside work by Moto Hagio and Shio Sato, and four appeared in a stand-alone volume called Love Song.

VIZ made a conscious effort to present Nishi’s work not just as comics, but as literature. Love Song boasted fancy endpapers — the kind you might find in the Everyman’s edition of Middlemarch — and a back cover blurb that defined shojo manga as “a literary genre of Japanese comics in which the relationships between characters are as meticulously crafted as the story’s action.” Lest the reader interpreted that statement to mean, “Here be romance comics,” the editor optimistically declared that shojo manga was “created by women for everyone!”

Though Nishi didn’t catch on with Western readers, it’s easy to see why Thorn championed her work: she’s a terrific, versatile storyteller, equally capable of writing light-hearted fantasies and character studies of deeply damaged people. Of the four stories that appear in Love Song, two are standouts: “Jewels of the Seaside,” a black comedy about three sisters who compete for the same man’s affection, with disastrous results, and “The Skin of Her Heart,” a sci-fi tale about a young woman torn between what she wants and what her mother wants for her. The other two stories — “Love Song” and “The Signal Goes Blink, Blink” — are also strong, if more conventional. “Love Song” focuses on an angry young woman who dominates her saintly boyfriend, while “The Signal Goes Blink, Blink” explores how fame transforms the life of a bullied teen.

Common to all four stories is a palpable sense of longing. The characters desperately seek human connection, but face genuine obstacles to their happiness. Yoshio Yamada, hero of “Signal,” is a perfect example: he’s the kind of small, quiet person whose shyness makes him a natural target for other kids’ scorn. (Even his own family detests him for his weakness.) When his newly discovered healing abilities land him television appearances, he worries what will happen if his powers fail him — not because he fears the stigma of being discredited, but because he fears being alone. “I’m afraid that if I lose this power, I’ll just go back to being a nobody again,” he tells his agent. “Are those people going to play with me? Will they come to school with me?”

The female protagonists of “Love Song” and “Skin of Her Heart” are also dissatisfied, though neither can fully articulate what they want. Saki, the heroine of “Love Song,” is perplexed by the intensity of her anger; though she readily admits that she was scarred by her first romantic experience, that alone cannot explain the cruel delight she takes in manipulating her current boyfriend. Lin-Lin, protagonist of “Skin,” also has difficulty pinpointing the source of her frustration, rejecting a suitor who could solve all of her financial and family problems. Only in the final pages of the story does she realize that moving to another space colony might change her life in ways that would help her “learn to open my heart to someone.”

Even the “Seaside” sisters are prisoners of their own desires. All three fancy their cousin Daniel, a handsome, polite young man, but each secretly worries that she compares unfavorably with her siblings. Their desperation is played for macabre laughs — poison factors into the narrative — but each sister’s pain and fear of rejection is very real; the punchline of the story is simultaneously amusing and horrifying, as we realize the true cost of their insecurities.

Nishi’s artwork is the perfect vehicle for such nuanced character studies, at times precise, elegant, and naturalistic, and at times loose and sketchy, with the white of the page playing an important role in underscoring the emotional distance between her characters. Her minimalist approach won’t be to every shojo fan’s liking, but she demonstrates that it’s perfectly possible to convey the interior lives of her characters without resorting to the kind of visual shorthands — flowers, sweatdrops, nosebleeds — that have been overused in contemporary shojo manga.

Readers wishing to track down a copy of Love Song should know that the title is officially out of print. (You won’t find it listed anywhere on the VIZ website.) Unlike Four Shojo Stories or A, A’, however, Love Song is still relatively easy to obtain through online retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and eBay. Highly recommended.

Manga Artifacts is a monthly feature exploring older, out-of-print manga published in the 1980s and 1990s. For a fuller description of the series’ purpose, see the inaugural column.

LOVE SONG • BY KEIKO NISHI • VIZ • 208 pp. • NO RATING

Manga Artifacts: Love Song

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Back in the 1990s, Rachel Thorn labored hard to make Keiko Nishi a household name among American manga readers, translating six of her stories for VIZ. Two appeared in Four Shojo Stories alongside work by Moto Hagio and Shio Sato, and four appeared in a stand-alone volume called Love Song.

VIZ made a conscious effort to present Nishi’s work not just as comics, but as literature. Love Song boasted fancy endpapers — the kind you might find in the Everyman’s edition of Middlemarch — and a back cover blurb that defined shojo manga as “a literary genre of Japanese comics in which the relationships between characters are as meticulously crafted as the story’s action.” Lest the reader interpreted that statement to mean, “Here be romance comics,” the editor optimistically declared that shojo manga was “created by women for everyone!”

Though Nishi didn’t catch on with Western readers, it’s easy to see why Thorn championed her work: she’s a terrific, versatile storyteller, equally capable of writing light-hearted fantasies and character studies of deeply damaged people. Of the four stories that appear in Love Song, two are standouts: “Jewels of the Seaside,” a black comedy about three sisters who compete for the same man’s affection, with disastrous results, and “The Skin of Her Heart,” a sci-fi tale about a young woman torn between what she wants and what her mother wants for her. The other two stories — “Love Song” and “The Signal Goes Blink, Blink” — are also strong, if more conventional. “Love Song” focuses on an angry young woman who dominates her saintly boyfriend, while “The Signal Goes Blink, Blink” explores how fame transforms the life of a bullied teen.

Common to all four stories is a palpable sense of longing. The characters desperately seek human connection, but face genuine obstacles to their happiness. Yoshio Yamada, hero of “Signal,” is a perfect example: he’s the kind of small, quiet person whose shyness makes him a natural target for other kids’ scorn. (Even his own family detests him for his weakness.) When his newly discovered healing abilities land him television appearances, he worries what will happen if his powers fail him — not because he fears the stigma of being discredited, but because he fears being alone. “I’m afraid that if I lose this power, I’ll just go back to being a nobody again,” he tells his agent. “Are those people going to play with me? Will they come to school with me?”

The female protagonists of “Love Song” and “Skin of Her Heart” are also dissatisfied, though neither can fully articulate what they want. Saki, the heroine of “Love Song,” is perplexed by the intensity of her anger; though she readily admits that she was scarred by her first romantic experience, that alone cannot explain the cruel delight she takes in manipulating her current boyfriend. Lin-Lin, protagonist of “Skin,” also has difficulty pinpointing the source of her frustration, rejecting a suitor who could solve all of her financial and family problems. Only in the final pages of the story does she realize that moving to another space colony might change her life in ways that would help her “learn to open my heart to someone.”

Even the “Seaside” sisters are prisoners of their own desires. All three fancy their cousin Daniel, a handsome, polite young man, but each secretly worries that she compares unfavorably with her siblings. Their desperation is played for macabre laughs — poison factors into the narrative — but each sister’s pain and fear of rejection is very real; the punchline of the story is simultaneously amusing and horrifying, as we realize the true cost of their insecurities.

Nishi’s artwork is the perfect vehicle for such nuanced character studies, at times precise, elegant, and naturalistic, and at times loose and sketchy, with the white of the page playing an important role in underscoring the emotional distance between her characters. Her minimalist approach won’t be to every shojo fan’s liking, but she demonstrates that it’s perfectly possible to convey the interior lives of her characters without resorting to the kind of visual shorthands — flowers, sweatdrops, nosebleeds — that have been overused in contemporary shojo manga.

Readers wishing to track down a copy of Love Song should know that the title is officially out of print. (You won’t find it listed anywhere on the VIZ website.) Unlike Four Shojo Stories or A, A’, however, Love Song is still relatively easy to obtain through online retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and eBay. Highly recommended.

Manga Artifacts is a monthly feature exploring older, out-of-print manga published in the 1980s and 1990s. For a fuller description of the series’ purpose, see the inaugural column.

LOVE SONG • BY KEIKO NISHI • VIZ • 208 pp. • NO RATING

The Apartments of Calle Feliz

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The Apartments of Calle Feliz begins with a scene cribbed from an Audrey Tatou flick. Luca, a struggling writer, has a terrible day: he breaks up with his boyfriend, then fights with his editor, who chastises him for writing “dark” endings. (“Nobody wants to read your sad story during a recession,” he tells Luca.) Desperate for a new place to live, Luca answers an ad in the paper for an apartment on — irony alert! — Calle Feliz (a.k.a. Happy Street), in a building affectionately known as “Final Feliz,” or “Happy End.” Javi, the landlord, offers Luca a couch, rent-free, until Luca can get back on his feet. At Javi’s urging, Luca decides to pen a novel about the other tenants.

Somewhere in the middle of the prologue, my Geiger counter began registering dangerous levels of whimsy: impossible coincidences! unnatural and impulsive behavior! a character who wants to fix other people’s lives! It’s a measure of just how much I like est em that I continued reading; she’s one of a handful of authors I trust to turn such a cutesy premise into a compelling story.

What follows is a series of vignettes about Luca’s new neighbors. In the first story, for example, we meet Dino, a designer, and Salvador, his boyfriend, who are slowly drifting apart, thanks to Salvador’s eccentric behavior: he declines all social invitations, preferring instead to wander around their apartment in the nude. Though they have maintained an uneasy truce for years, an upcoming business trip threatens to destroy their relationship. Dino and Salvador’s inevitable confrontation is heartbreaking; as silly as the plot may be — doesn’t Salvador ever get cold? what about crumbs? — Salvador’s pain is real, as is Dino’s inability to understand Salvador’s unusual strategy for coping with fear of loss and change.

Other stories illustrate similar themes of loss and estrangement. In chapter four, for example, Pepe, a dollmaker, befriends Matias, a lonely teen. Matias has become painfully self-conscious about his voice; once a source of pride, the onset of puberty has lowered and coarsened it, making him ashamed to sing in public. Only his visits to Pepe give him a sense of purpose, as Pepe’s dolls provide Matias an outlet for ventriloquizing his feelings about his mother’s recent death, and about the changes to his voice.

These stories succeed in spite of their art-movie preciousness largely on the strength of est em’s artwork. Like many boys’ love artists, she draws characters with sharp features and lean, angular bodies. est em softens those shapes with energetic, scribbly linework that helps individualize her characters, whether she’s adding a bump to a long nose or deepening the circles under an older man’s eyes. These subtle imperfections help make the characters’ interior states more accessible to the reader, helping us understand how each character inhabits his skin; when Pepe or Dino stares into the distance, we can practically see what they’re thinking. Even when we’re asked to accept an outlandish premise — a man who falls in love with identical twins, a transvestite who lives with a troupe of noisy circus musicians — the characters’ reactions to one another register as true to life; we appreciate the degree to which routine, silence, and complacency erode human connection and exact a toll on the body and spirit.

est em demonstrates a similar talent for resolving her stories in a nuanced fashion. Some endings are sad, some funny; some are surprising, while others seem inevitable. Whatever happens at the end of each story feels right for the characters and their situations, however; there’s never a moment of sitcom cuteness or sentimentality.

So if you can tolerate a bit of forced whimsy, The Apartments of Calle Feliz offers bountiful rewards: elegant artwork, memorable characters, and happy endings that are neither predictable nor pat. Recommended.

THE APARTMENTS OF CALLE FELIZ • EST EM • CITRON COMICS/JMANGA • 190 pp. • NO RATING (BEST FOR MATURE READERS)

Pick of the Week: Dorohedoro, Durarara!!, X

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There’s quite a bit to choose from this week at Midtown Comics. What will the Battle Robot be buying this week? See below!

SEAN: There are many, many worthy titles this week, which is why I’m glad we have multiple folks picking them out. For myself, I will go with the 6th volume of Dorohedoro, Viz’s comedic fantasy action mystery manga thing. As you might guess by that description, this is an Ikki title. This volume promises to finally give us some answers regarding Nikaido and her sorcery, as well as more insight on En. And of course I’m expecting more of what I love about Dorohedoro: complicated artwork that I love to revisit; crackling dialogue with lots of Pulp Fiction-esque conversations. And Shin and Noi, who would merit a fantastic manga if it was only them, but here are merely part of a cast of great characters. Also, this volume has all new never-before-on-the-web chapters! (OK, that’s because SigIkki seems to be dead, but hey…)

KATE: I only have eyes for one title this week: X. Of all CLAMP’s early works, X has held up the best, even if the artwork is pure 1990s, with cascades of feathers and shoulder pads worthy of Crystal Carrington. One of the things I like best about X is its moral ambiguity; I’m never entirely certain who I’m supposed to be rooting for: Kamui? Fuma? The Earth? The other thing I like about X is the elegant way in which CLAMP uses the visual language of shojo manga to tell a story that could just as easily be at home in a shonen or seinen magazine. The new VIZ edition is a marked improvement over the last; the oversized trim and full-color plates give CLAMP’s elaborate battle scenes more room to breathe.

MJ: Though I’m not quite with Kate on CLAMP’s early works (I’m still a much bigger fan of Tokyo Babylon, and likely always will be), I’m completely with her on X as this week’s must-buy manga. As I mentioned back in November, though Viz’s new-and-improved omnibus release hasn’t quite yet made me *love* X, it’s definitely given me a deeper appreciation for it, in a way that suggests that true love could be on the horizon. In any case, I’m determined to find out. This week, it’s X all the way.

MICHELLE: I’m going with the second volume of Durarara!!, from Yen Press. “Weird but intriguing” was my verdict for the first volume, which managed to convey a lot of information without overwhelming the reader. I still feel like I know next to nothing about the series, and am really looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?