Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Katherine Dacey

The Earl & The Fairy, Vol. 1

by 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Earl & The Fairy, Vol. 1

by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pick of the Week: Drops, Devil, & more

by , , and 3 Comments

The selection of new manga is wide at Midtown Comics this week. See the Battle Robot’s picks below!

KATE: My liver and I agree: this week’s must-read manga is volume three of The Drops of God. The genius of Drops is that it reads like a shonen tournament manga but has the soul of a Food Network show. Each volume manages to impart information about the world’s finest and rarest wines while delivering plenty of drama and adventure; it’s as if someone crossed Naruto with Oishinbo, and the results are totally, utterly entertaining, even if the characters spend a lot of time waxing rhapsodic about terroir and vintage. Really, what’s not to like about a series that dares to compare a 2001 Chateau Mont-Perac with Freddie Mercury’s singing?

SEAN: My pick this time is the 2nd volume of A Devil And Her Love Song, Viz’s new shoujo series for those of us who like our heroines with bite. However, leaving Maria aside, I’m also enjoying the way that the manga is giving us the traditional shoujo cliche of the happy blond guy and his more serious brunet friend. Maria manages to deconstruct the two of them almost right out of the box, and I look forward to seeing whether they plan to develop beyond the cliche. (I do expect the cliche to stay the same in one, way – serious guy is going to win the girl.) And, as ever with series where the girl is hated by her female classmates but surrounded by hot guy friends, there’s a hope for other sympathetic females.

MICHELLE: Oh man, this is a difficult week! I am definitely eager to read both Drops of God volume three and A Devil and Her Love Song volume two, but Kate and Sean advocated for them so eloquently that I’ve nothing left to add! I think, therefore, that I’ll go for volume two of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan. I knew nothing about the series going in, yet found it easy to follow and though it does have a little too much gross-out humor for my taste, it’s also got a lot of heart. It’s nice reading about a generally goofy protagonist who is also legitimately good at something. Recommended.

MJ: I’m anxious to read both the second volume of A Devil And Her Love Song and The Drops of God (I’m behind on GTO), but since these have already been mentioned, I’ll give my nod to the third volume of Rei Toma’s Dawn of the Arcana. Though at its core, it is a pretty typical shoujo love triangle, volume three finally manages to make the heroine’s supernatural ability interesting and introduces a new, fairly intriguing character as well. Even the political angles of the story are finally taking on some real heft. Though my enthusiasm for this series is still in-progress, this is beginning to look like a series I’ll enjoy following to completion. If you haven’t already, I’d say now is the right time to pick it up!

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Show Us Your Stuff: Sara Christina Barcelona

by 11 Comments

Hola, manga lovers! As you might guess from my salutation, this week’s featured contributor hails from Spain — Barcelona, to be exact — and she has a collection that will make American readers green with envy. Sara owns a little bit of everything: Riyoko Ikeda’s The Window of Orpheus, Sanpei Shirato’s The Legend of Kamui, Asao Takamori and Tetsuya Chiba’s Ashita no Joe, Naoko Takeuchi’s Codename: Sailor V, and Takashi Murakami’s Stargazing Dog are just a few of the manga gracing her bookshelves. Like our previous European contributors, Sara is multilingual, collecting manga in Catalan, Spanish, French, Italian, and English. – Katherine Dacey

Hi, everybody! I’m a girl from Barcelona and a passionate manga fan. I also love singing, having promenades, and speaking with friends. If possible, I buy manga in Catalan, but if the volumes I want aren’t available in this language, I don’t mind buying them in Spanish, English, French, or Italian (or other languages I haven’t had the opportunity to learn yet). I also own some Japanese editions, just to collect them, because I can’t understand them.

How long have you been collecting manga?
Eight and a half years, more or less. I think my parents have already assumed that I’ll be a manga fan for the rest of my life!

What was the first manga you bought?
Technically speaking, I have three “first” mangas:

  • Sailor Moon, Vol. 16: This was the very first manga volume I bought. I didn’t like it at all because translation was horrible. I had watched the anime, so for me it wasn’t a problem to follow the story.
  • Fushigi Yugi, Vol. 1: My first unflipped manga!
  • Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle: Although I now hate this series, it was the first one I collected seriously.

How big is your collection?
Right now, my collection is between 300 and 400 volumes. It’s quite small considering the number of years I have been collecting manga, but I can’t afford to buy more volumes and I don’t count mangas I’m trying to sell.

What is the rarest item in your collection?
Let me see… I own the French edition of Devilman Vol. 1, many volumes of the Catalan edition of Doraemon, Spanish editions of The Legend of Kamui: The Island of Sugaru and Baoh, and some older Spanish editions of Kaikisen, Barefoot Gen, and Promise. I have many other OOP Spanish editions, but they aren’t particularly rare. Finally, I don’t know if it’s rare, but I own the animal encyclopedia of the Nod·d·a·ringniche Island, which is magnificent, even if I can’t read it.

What is the weirdest item in your collection?
This one is easy: DDT and New National Kid. Both of them are quite similar: short stories by Suehiro Maruo, as weird as they are disgusting.

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?
As I started collecting Tsubasa, I became curious about CLAMPS’s work. Most of the manga I bought then was by CLAMP since I loved their style; when I tried something that wasn’t by CLAMP, I usually didn’t like it. (Shop assistants didn’t give me good advice!) I enjoyed Shin Shun Kaden’s story even if it wasn’t complete, I laughed like a mad with Miyuki-chan in the Wonderland, I was nostalgic with Shirahime-Syo and was traumatized by RG Veda.

When I passed volume 22 of Tsubasa, I started to dislike it and I didn’t find other mangas that satisfied me. This was my crisis manga period. Then one day I randomly borrowed the first volume of Rose of Versailles from a library… and it was so fascinating I couldn’t stop reading. I had to return to the library and take the other volumes the sooner the better. My manga crisis was over.

I’m still angry with CLAMP – so angry, in fact, that I didn’t try Kobato or Gate7 and didn’t finish xxxHolic. I think they have evolved, in both art and scripts. That said, I still like their ’90 mangas such as Tokyo Babylon and X.

Right now, I like well-constructed stories and dramas but I also enjoy good comedies. Even if the genres I read the most are shôjo, seinen and josei, I try to taste a bit of all (except from lolicon and shotacon, which I consider aberrations). Ah! And I love older mangas, especially the ones from the seventies, a decade when many masterpieces were conceived.



Who are your favorite comic artists?
Nowadays, my favorite one is Riyoko Ikeda: I love her dramas and the way her stories develop. Even though the Rose of Versailles Gaiden is horrible and I would have preferred that she hadn’t drawn it.

My favorite slice-of-life mangaka is Fumiyo Kôno: her drawings and scripts are so lovely. When I read her works I feel like floating. My favorite artist is Macoto Takahashi: his fairy tales landscapes are just breathtaking.

What is your favorite series?
This one is pretty difficult. I have many and I can’t just choose one. I’ll try not to name more than one manga per author: Oniisama e… (Riyoko Ikeda), Nagai Michi (Fumiyo Kôno), Coo no Sekai plus its sequel A Patch of Dreams (Hideji Oda), Tokyo Babylon (CLAMP), Fruits Basket (Natsuki Takaya), Ikkyû (Hisashi Sakaguchi), Sand Chronicles (Hinako Ashihara), The Willow Tree (Moto Hagio), Blue (Kiriko Nananan), Red Colored Elegy (Seiichi Hayashi), Calling You (Otsuichi & Hiro Kiyohara), Lovely Complex (Aya Nakahara), Gakuen Alice (Tachibana Higuchi), Uzumaki (Junji Ito) and Stargazing Dog (Takashi Murakami). Of course, they may change in the future as my own tastes evolve and I discover new works.

I suppose that I can’t choose because I haven’t found yet a manga I feel it’s been created just for me. Maybe someday I will.

What series are you actively collecting right now?
Just Gakuen Alice. In fact, I would like to collect actively more series, but I can’t afford it, so I just try to buy second hand books or special offers. There are a few series that I would like to finish/continue; if I can’t find someone selling them at a good price, I’ll buy them at comic shop. They are Ashita no Joe, Last Quarter and Lovely Complex.

I would buy more first-hand comics if the prices were lower. However, Spanish people prefer better-quality editions, and are willing to pay more for manga, even if translation is abominable.

Do you have any tips for fellow collectors (e.g. how to organize a collection, where to find rare books, where to score the best deals on new manga)?
Organization. I organize my manga collection by themed shelves, drawers, and boxes which can change as my collection grows. I also build my own manga boxes. It requires some time but I enjoy making them.

Bargain hunting. I buy a lot of second-hand manga and take advantage of special offers from shops. This is great way to find rare, OOP comics (and sometimes not so expensive, if you’re lucky) and to save money.

For second-hand books, I visit Spanish forums with a second-hand market section. I also visit Barcelona’s Newton shop and Barcelona’s Mercat de Sant Antoni, an old book, comic and videogame market which takes place every Sunday. I also try to find good second hand-offers in big manga/comic conventions, such as the Saló del Manga de Barcelona and Saló Internacional del Còmic de Barcelona.

For special offers, I often visit comic shops and check their promotional displays.

Collection purging. Sell items you don’t like! The best option is through forums or sites such as eBay, because if you try to sell them in a comic shop they’ll pay you nearly nothing. Sometimes, if I bought something really, really cheap I could even earn some money.

Mangas published in other countries. Sites such as Book Depository and Deastore are quite useful for people who know foreign languages but don’t plan to buy a lot of products. (The shipping costs are always free.) If you buy in bulk, you should compare the prices with Amazon, then, because the shipping costs are free if you spend meet a certain minimum. (Editor’s note: That minimum varies by country; in the United States, orders over $25.00 qualify for the free shipping promotion.)

Sara prepared a comprehensive list of her collection; you can view that list by clicking here to download a PDF version.

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

March madness

by

It’s almost time for the second annual Aniblog Tourney, in which dozens of anime blogs face off, March Madness style, for the honor of Best Anime Blog. This year, tournament organizers have widened the scope of the contest to include manga blogs as well, explaining that “The anime and manga spheres seem to be very disconnected from each other, so hopefully we can spread some of the readers of anime blogs into reading some manga blogs.”

Over at Manga Worth Reading, Ed Sizemore interviews Fanfare/Ponent Mon publisher Stephen Robson. As Ed notes, Fanfare is responsible for publishing almost 70% of the Jiro Taniguchi titles available in English.

Also at Manga Worth Reading: Ed Sizemore explores Jiro Taniguchi’s artistic influences.

VIZ Media announced that it would be producing an original graphic novel series based on the popular Redakai television series, currently airing on Cartoon Network. Look for the first full-color book in October 2012.

Connie has a licensing request: Setona Mitzushiro’s Heartbroken Chocolatier.

The Manga Bookshelf gang declare Dororo and Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service this week’s must-buy manga.

News from Japan: In a recent interview with Geijutsu Shincho, Katsuhiro Otomo revealed that he is working on his first long series since AKIRA. Otomo was stingy with details, saying only that the story would appear in a shonen magazine.

Reviews: In their latest Going Digital column, MJ and Sean Gaffney review both manga apps and online manga. Over at Experiments in Manga, Ash Brown shares his thoughts on A A’, King of Thorn, and Mister Mistress.

Connie on vol. 3 of Dawn of the Arcana (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on Golgo 13: Ice Lake Hit (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vols. 1-3 of Hana-Kimi (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 8 of Jormungand (Panel Patter)
Sakura Eries on vol. 7 of Oresama Teacher (The Fandom Post)
Matthew Warner on vol. 3 of Psyren (The Fandom Post)
Lori Henderson on The Quest for the Missing Girl (Manga Xanadu)
Rebecca Silverman on vols. 5-6 of Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura (Anime News Network)
Lori Henderson on Samurai Legend (Manga Xanadu)
Anna on vol. 7 of Stepping on Roses (Manga Report)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 2 of Summit of the Gods (Manga Worth Reading)
Anna on Tenka Ichi!! (Manga Report)
Sean Gaffney on Young Miss Holmes, Casebooks 1-2 (A Case Suitable for Treatment)

On the meaning of fan fic

by

Greetings, MangaBlog readers! Brigid is away on a top-secret mission at the moment, so she’s asked me to fill in for her until next week. As always, I’ll do my best to bring you the latest manga news and reviews, but please don’t be shy about pointing me towards articles I’ve missed. The next round-up will be on Monday morning.

New Manga Bookshelf columnist Aja Romano debunks three myths about fan fiction.

Continuing this week’s discussion about where fans buy manga, Matt Blind examines manga lovers’ online shopping habits. His conclusion: Naruto, Bleach, Black Bird, and Sailor Moon are just as popular online as they are in brick-and-mortar stores.

Jason Thompson dedicates his latest House of 1000 Manga column to Kouta Hirano’s Hellsing.

Erica Friedman discusses Monthly Comic Beam, “the magazine for the comic freaks.” (That’s the magazine’s tagline, not Erica’s assessment of it, BTW.)

Say it isn’t so: Vertical, Inc. revealed that the English-language edition of Twin Spica is likely to go out of print due to poor sales.

Self-proclaimed otaku Night Rose shows off her growing manga collection at The Manga Critic.

Over at Manga Worth Reading, Ed Sizemore rounds up the latest contributions to the Jiro Taniguchi Manga Movable Feast. Among the highlights is a thought-provoking essay by Craig Fischer on The Walking Man. “Taniguchi’s art is the antithesis of expressionism: he represents the world with as much objectivity as he can, and the results are both breathtaking (in its cascade of details) and a little abstract, a little detached, not unlike the Walking Man himself,” Fischer explains. “Taniguchi’s art is cool, more like mapmaking than passionate storytelling.”

News from Japan: Hiromu Arakawa has won the fifth annual Taisho Award for Silver Spoon, a shonen manga set an an agricultural school. After a one-year hiatus, Kariko Koyama will resume work on Sheryl: Kiss in the Galaxy, a spin-off of Macross Frontier than ran in Bessatsu Friend.

Reviews: For their latest BL Bookrack column, MJ and Michelle Smith cast a critical eye over four recent releases, including Tweeting Love Birds and You and Tonight.

Carlo Santos on vol. 19 of 20th Century Boys (Anime News Network)
Connie on vol. 4 of Afterschool Charisma (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin Bomba on vol. 7 of Butterflies, Flowers (Comic Attack!)
Sheena McNeil on vol. 1 of A Devil and Her Love Song (Sequential Tart)
Ed Sizemore on Koduko no Gourmet (Manga Worth Reading)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 15 of La Corda d’Oro (Anime News Network)
Sheena McNeil on vol. 7 of Rosario + Vampire Season II (Sequential Tart)
Connie on A Single Match (Slightly Biased Manga)
Wolfen Moondaughter on vol. 7 of Stepping on Roses (Sequential Tart)
Connie on Tired of Waiting for Love (Slightly Biased Manga)

Show Us Your Stuff: Night Rose’s Manga Shrine

by 4 Comments

It’s Thursday, which means that it’s time for another installment of Show Us Your Stuff. Our featured otaku is NightRose, who’s been collecting manga since 2008. She counts Arina Tanemura, Svetlana Chmakova, and Natsuki Takaya among her favorite artists, though she reads all kinds of manga: shojo, shonen, seinen, josei. Among the more unusual items in her collection is an art book for Alice in the Country of Hearts. Here’s what she has to say for herself, and her growing manga library. -Katherine Dacey

Hi, I’m NightRose, or Night, or Rose, or Chibi-chan, or Mili-chan, or… you get the point. I’m your typical shy girl with a love for manga and anything related to Japanese shtuff. I live in the USA currently and am a senior in high school, where I lead my school’s anime club. I’ve tried cosplaying, I’ve been to anime conventions (if you’ve been to ACen, I’m the girl with the big “Free Hugs” sign), and I’m trying to improve my drawing skills. Oh, and I like gaming and all that fun stuff. I also read anything that’s everything — I’m not that picky.

What first got me started into anime/manga was anime on TV. When I was little I was addicted to Cartoon Network (and some other cartoon channels I forgot the names of); I loved Cartoon Network with a passion. (Now I don’t have cable and Cartoon Network sucks anyway.) Then going into grade eight, my library had a “read 5 books get one free” program. I looked at the free books they had and I found Fruits Basket. I thought, “What the hell, why not?” I read it and loved it. I went back the next day to get more of the series and other manga. After a while I wanted to collect manga for myself, and here I am today with a mom nagging me about my collection.

How long have you been collecting manga?
I started to collect manga in 2008. When I almost finished all the manga series in the library (over 40+), I started to seriously collect in 2009.

What was the first manga you bought?
The first one I owned was Fruits Basket, but that was free from the library. The first one I bought… I think it was either Full Moon,  Naruto, or Cherry Juice. I’m pretty positive it was Full Moon, though.

How big is your collection?
404 volumes at the moment.

What is the rarest item in your collection?
I’m not sure what you mean by “rare”. But what I think of it, it would be my Alice in the Country of Hearts art/guide book. My then-boyfriend got it for me when he went to Japan. I also have several volumes of Kingdom Hearts manga that are hard to find. Another rare item I have is my Final Fantasy VII PS1 Video Game. That game is what made me start collecting all the Final Fantasy games for the PS1.

What is the weirdest item in your collection?
My maid dress! My ex-boyfriend got it for me as a joke. In terms of manga, I have The Otaku Encyclopedia. Sadly enough, it helped me with a lot of terms I didn’t know.

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?
When I first started to collect, I would just get anything I found at the store. I didn’t care what it was; I just wanted a lot of manga and to read more in different genres. When I discovered Half Price Books, I started to get different series that you don’t really see in stores. After I’d been collecting for a while, I started to get picky with what I bought. That said, I’m open to any genre besides yaoi, yuri, hentai, or anything in those categories.

Who are your favorite comic artists?
I don’t really have one per se… I like Arina Tanemura’s art but not her story lines, and I also love Svetlana Chmakova’s plots but not her art. Dramacon is amazing; if you haven’t read it then go read it now!

What series are you actively collecting right now?
Anything that’s not completed yet in my collection. I don’t follow what just came out. If I see a volume in a store that I need and I have money, I’ll get it.For example, I’d get Shugo Chara volume 3 if it’s available.

Do you have any tips for fellow collectors (e.g. how to organize a collection, where to find rare books, where to score the best deals on new manga)?
When you’re first getting into manga, I suggest reading a few different genres to know what you like.

If you don’t care about the condition of your books, find a used bookstore near you and see if they have any manga. Some of them are pretty good, like Half Price Books. Manga costs $2.00 – $5.00 there! Prices vary from store to store, however. I went to a used bookstore and was disappointed to see that not-so-new-looking manga was only $2.00 off the retail price. I would recommend going to used bookstores if you can’t find something you want, especially Tokyopop or CMX titles, older series that aren’t published anymore, etc.

If you want something newer, go to the bookstore (Barnes and Nobles) and get it. You can also get some deals like 10% off or the buy four get one free. You can also try eBay; people sell manga in bulk and sometimes it’s dead cheap.

Last but not least, when you get a bookshelf, make sure there are multiple holes on the sides so that you can add more shelves or make some of the spaces smaller/bigger.

I hope these tips help! Have fun collecting.

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

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Benkei in New York

by 11 Comments

I’ve always thought that I had something in common with Warren Ellis — besides a sailor’s fondness for colorful language, that is — and reading Benkei in New York confirmed my suspicions: we both like Jiro Taniguchi. Flip to the back cover of the VIZ Pulp edition, and you’ll see Ellis declaring that “Benkei is better than 96% of the crime fiction coming out of America right now.” I have no idea how he arrived at that figure, but eleven years after Benkei’s initial US release, I’m still inclined to agree with him.

Originally serialized in Big Comic Original, Benkei in New York (1991-96) is a collaboration between Taniguchi and writer Jinpachi Mori, best known in Japan for Kasai no Hito, a long-running manga about an eccentric but wise judge. The seven Benkei stories focus on a Japanese ex-pat living in New York. Like many New Yorkers, Benkei’s career is best characterized by slashes and hyphens: he’s a bartender-art forger-hitman who can paint a Millet from memory or assassinate a thug using a swordfish. (Let’s just say they call it “swordfish” for a reason.)

Benkei’s primary job, however, is seeking poetic justice for murder victims’ families. Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a story if Benkei simply used a gun; part of the series’ allure is watching him set elaborate traps for his prey, whether he’s borrowing a page from the Titus Andronicus playbook or using a grappling hook to wound an unscrupulous dockworker. In “Haggis,” for example, Benkei uses a draft-dodger’s memories of a 1968 trip to Scotland to win the man’s confidence, persuading him to visit an out-of-the-way bar where a gruesome dish awaits him. “Throw Back,” another stand-out, culminates in an elaborate showdown in the American Music of Natural History that gives new meaning to the phrase “interactive exhibits”; Benkei and his victim plunder display cases for weapons, dueling their way through the Hall of Human Origins.

As the scene in the Natural History Museum suggests, New York City is as much a “character” as Benkei himself. Taniguchi clearly spent hours poring over photographs of the city: his rendition of Coney Island, for example, doesn’t just show the Cyclone — an easy symbol for this iconic stretch of New York coastline — but all the bathhouses, apartment buildings, and other structures that line the boardwalk, including the distinctive facade of the New York Aquarium. Moreover, he captures the feeling of Coney Island in the off-season — the dark grey color of the ocean, the empty expanses of boardwalk, the absence of people — imbuing the scene with a melancholy authenticity.

Taniguchi’s eye for detail is evident in his busier scenes as well. In the opening pages of “Throw Back,” Benkei pursues his mark through the 42nd Street subway station. A series of narrow, horizontal panels convey the bustling energy of the platform, cross-cutting between a busker pounding on plastic drums (a subway fixture in the 1990s) and Benkei threading his way through the commuters. Taniguchi swiftly pulls back from extreme close-ups of the the drummer and Benkei to crowd scenes, in so doing helping us see this claustrophobic, noisy space as Benkei does: camouflage for the urban hunter.

Like many VIZ manga from the 1990s and early 2000s, Benkei in New York boasts a stylish translation. (Yuji Oniki is credited as the adapter.) The script crackles with wit and energy, as Benkei trades one-liners with clients and targets alike. One of my favorite exchanges occurs early in the volume, as Benkei talks business with the leader of an art forgery ring:

Forger: Timing is of crucial importance. Once we agree on a deal, it’s our responsibility to deliver the product to the client while they’re still drooling.
Benkei: You sound like you run a pizza joint.
Forger: What’s wrong with that? Selling pizzas is how I learned everything about New York.

Hokey as that conversation may be, it wouldn’t be out of place in a gangster flick; one could almost imagine a character in Goodfellas or The Godfather reminiscing about his past in a similar fashion.

If Benkei’s motives and methods are sometimes inscrutable — or downright illogical — the stories still work beautifully, with crack pacing and memorable denouements that can be as deeply unsettling as they are emotionally satisfying — or, in Warren Ellis’ words, Benkei in New York is “diabolically well-told.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

BENKEI IN NEW YORK • STORY BY JINPACHI MORI AND ART BY JIRO TANIGUCHI • VIZ • 224 pp. • RATING: MATURE (18+)

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Benkei in New York

by

I’ve always thought that I had something in common with Warren Ellis — besides a sailor’s fondness for colorful language, that is — and reading Benkei in New York confirmed my suspicions: we both like Jiro Taniguchi. Flip to the back cover of the VIZ Pulp edition, and you’ll see Ellis declaring that “Benkei is better than 96% of the crime fiction coming out of America right now.” I have no idea how he arrived at that figure, but eleven years after Benkei’s initial US release, I’m still inclined to agree with him.

Originally serialized in Big Comic Original, Benkei in New York (1991-96) is a collaboration between Taniguchi and writer Jinpachi Mori, best known in Japan for Kasai no Hito, a long-running manga about an eccentric but wise judge. The seven Benkei stories focus on a Japanese ex-pat living in New York. Like many New Yorkers, Benkei’s career is best characterized by slashes and hyphens: he’s a bartender-art forger-hitman who can paint a Millet from memory or assassinate a thug using a swordfish. (Let’s just say they call it “swordfish” for a reason.)

Benkei’s primary job, however, is seeking poetic justice for murder victims’ families. Of course, there wouldn’t be much of a story if Benkei simply used a gun; part of the series’ allure is watching him set elaborate traps for his prey, whether he’s borrowing a page from the Titus Andronicus playbook or using a grappling hook to wound an unscrupulous dockworker. In “Haggis,” for example, Benkei uses a draft-dodger’s memories of a 1968 trip to Scotland to win the man’s confidence, persuading him to visit an out-of-the-way bar where a gruesome dish awaits him. “Throw Back,” another stand-out, culminates in an elaborate showdown in the American Music of Natural History that gives new meaning to the phrase “interactive exhibits”; Benkei and his victim plunder display cases for weapons, dueling their way through the Hall of Human Origins.

As the scene in the Natural History Museum suggests, New York City is as much a “character” as Benkei himself. Taniguchi clearly spent hours poring over photographs of the city: his rendition of Coney Island, for example, doesn’t just show the Cyclone — an easy symbol for this iconic stretch of New York coastline — but all the bathhouses, apartment buildings, and other structures that line the boardwalk, including the distinctive facade of the New York Aquarium. Moreover, he captures the feeling of Coney Island in the off-season — the dark grey color of the ocean, the empty expanses of boardwalk, the absence of people — imbuing the scene with a melancholy authenticity.

Taniguchi’s eye for detail is evident in his busier scenes as well. In the opening pages of “Throw Back,” Benkei pursues his mark through the 42nd Street subway station. A series of narrow, horizontal panels convey the bustling energy of the platform, cross-cutting between a busker pounding on plastic drums (a subway fixture in the 1990s) and Benkei threading his way through the commuters. Taniguchi swiftly pulls back from extreme close-ups of the the drummer and Benkei to crowd scenes, in so doing helping us see this claustrophobic, noisy space as Benkei does: camouflage for the urban hunter.

Like many VIZ manga from the 1990s and early 2000s, Benkei in New York boasts a stylish translation. (Yuji Oniki is credited as the adapter.) The script crackles with wit and energy, as Benkei trades one-liners with clients and targets alike. One of my favorite exchanges occurs early in the volume, as Benkei talks business with the leader of an art forgery ring:

Forger: Timing is of crucial importance. Once we agree on a deal, it’s our responsibility to deliver the product to the client while they’re still drooling.
Benkei: You sound like you run a pizza joint.
Forger: What’s wrong with that? Selling pizzas is how I learned everything about New York.

Hokey as that conversation may be, it wouldn’t be out of place in a gangster flick; one could almost imagine a character in Goodfellas or The Godfather reminiscing about his past in a similar fashion.

If Benkei’s motives and methods are sometimes inscrutable — or downright illogical — the stories still work beautifully, with crack pacing and memorable denouements that can be as deeply unsettling as they are emotionally satisfying — or, in Warren Ellis’ words, Benkei in New York is “diabolically well-told.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

BENKEI IN NEW YORK • STORY BY JINPACHI MORI AND ART BY JIRO TANIGUCHI • VIZ • 224 pp. • RATING: MATURE (18+)

Bookshelf Briefs 3/19/12

by , and Leave a Comment

This week, Kate, Michelle, & Sean take a look at recent releases from Yen Press, VIZ Media, Seven Seas, and Kodansha Comics.

13th Boy, Vol. 11 | By SangEun Lee | Yen Press – Reviewing the penultimate volume of a series is always a challenge. Divulge too little, and long-time readers might wonder if the story is building to a satisfying conclusion; divulge too much and incur the wrath of the Spoiler Police. I’ll try to find a middle ground here by saying that SangEun Lee uses volume eleven to explore the relationship between Whie-Young and Hee-So in greater depth — a relationship that may come at a price too great for Whie-Young, Hee-So, and the long-suffering Beatrice, who owes his existence to Whie-Young’s magic. The major plot developments of volume eleven are related with Lee’s customary mix of slapstick humor and sentiment; few writers can tack between the two extremes with such grace as Lee, who uses those sudden tonal shifts to underscore her characters’ emotional volatility. I have no idea if the story will turn out the way I want it to, but I’m confident that whatever happens in volume twelve will feel like the right outcome for this odd, magical manhwa. -Katherine Dacey

Ai Ore!, Vol. 4 | By Mayu Shinjo | VIZ Media – This is the point in the series where Mayu Shinjo had her big falling out with Shogakukan, and as a consequence Ai Ore! moved to Kadokawa Shoten, starting to serialize in their magazine Asuka. Asuka not being nearly as porn-oriented as Shoujo Comic can get, there’s a definite change in mood. Akira has continued his slide towards being less horrible, which is a good thing. His relationship with Mizuki has also gotten far more chaste – they’re back to hand-holding. In its defense, the humor is just as sharp as prior volumes, and the best parts show a mangaka not taking anything seriously. (Mizuki in a cage will make you boggle.) On the down side, Mizuki continues to be the weak part of this series, even needing to be rescued here. But then, by now no one is reading the series for Mizuki anyway. Still sort of recommended-ish.-Sean Gaffney

A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 3 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa | Seven Seas – First off, we get the end of the battle between Misaki and Harumi, and it’s as brutal as you’d imagine. The backstory given is heartbreaking, especially since it involves children, and one hopes that this is not the last we see of it. Railgun is at its best doing serious and exciting action sequences – both with this and with the flashback showing a younger Kuroko in training – and given this is the majority of this volume, that makes it easily the best volume to date. Especially given the suggestion of more to Misaki’s destiny than she’s likely to be comfortable with. (Uiharu is also fantastic, lest I forget her.) I still think Kuroko is at her best when nowhere near Misaki, but that’s a minor point by now. Great action packed thriller manga.-Sean Gaffney

Mardock Scramble, Vol. 3 | Created by Tow Ubakata, Manga by Yoshitoki Oima | Kodansha Comics – If you asked me to summarize my response to volume three of Mardock Scramble, my one-word answer would be “grim.” (My two-word response: “really grim.”) Rune Balot plays cat-and-mouse with four of Boiled’s henchmen, dispatching each with gory zest. Though the plot flirts with moral complexity in later scenes — Balot seems to be enjoying her new-found powers in unexpected ways — that ambiguity feels unearned; Balot is such a flat, affectless character that her transformation feels too abrupt to be genuinely persuasive. A few startling images breathe life into the action scenes, but on the whole, volume three is so relentlessly brutal that few readers will want to continue with the series. -Katherine Dacey

Nabari No Ou, Vol. 9 | By Yuhki Kamatani | Published by Yen Press – Sometimes a volume of manga is good simply because it furnishes one with long-sought-after information. Volume nine of Nabari No Ou is just such a case, as it focuses primarily on Yukimi’s efforts to find out more about Yoite’s past. The momentum of the story is such that I was untroubled by that feeling I sometimes get with this series that it never quite manages to coalesce, and just simply enjoyed the revelations as they came. I still really don’t care about the search for five scrolls of secret ninja arts, but there are some good character moments in this volume that exemplify why I keep reading the series. The final pages are especially nice. Also, what I thought was going to be a depressing encounter with a malnourished kitten turned out to have a happy outcome. So, bonus points for that. – Michelle Smith

Rin-Ne, Vol. 8 | By Rumiko Takahashi | VIZ Media – By now readers should know that this is a manga where plot developments, if they happen at all, happen on a glacial scale. Shoujo writers, when they semi-retire, seem to gravitate to family stories in josei magazines for housewives. Takahashi seems to prefer going back to her roots, as this volume is filled with comedic one-to-two parters regarding Rinne and Sakura and their wacky soul-reaping adventures. We do get a longer arc involving Shoma, a young brat in the best Takahashi tradition (hi, Jariten), and this gets briefly serious when genuine innocent souls appear to be headed to hell. But for the most part, this manga is as calm and placid as its heroine, and is for fans who have read Takahashi for so long that they really have to keep reading her.-Sean Gaffney

Soul Eater, Vol. 8 | By Atsushi Ohkubo | Yen Press – It needs to be said right off the bat – if you hate snakes, or hate mental violation of children, do not read this volume of Soul Eater. Medusa’s takeover of Rachel is easily the most creepy and disturbing scene we have seen in the entire manga to date, and may honestly give nightmares. That said, Medusa and Arachnae’s confrontation is top-notch, and makes you want to see more of the two villains fighting for supremacy. Otherwise, it’s a fairly sedate volume of Soul Eater. Black*Star grows by tiny increments, and Crona discovers the warmth of friendship – very, very briefly. I’ve come to like this series for more than its art style, but it still leaves a weird feeling in your head as you read it – a sense that too much exposure might leave you ask insane as most of its characters. Recommended to those not easily squicked.-Sean Gaffney

Pick of the Week: Boy, Bunny, & Bride

by , , and 1 Comment

There’s a wealth of new manga shipping in to Midtown Comics, including popular titles from Kodansha Comics, VIZ Media, and Seven Seas. But it’s Yen Press who manages a clean sweep of the Battle Robot’s picks this week.

MJ: This week is really brutal on the pocketbook, or at least it is on mine. I see several must-buys on the list, including the latest volumes of favorites like House of Five Leaves, Bunny Drop, Sailor Moon, and Pandora Hearts, none of which I’d be willing to miss. And A Bride’s Story, for heaven’s sake! I couldn’t possibly pass that up! But for my pick this week, I’ll continue on in my endless crusade for SangEun Lee’s supernatural romance manhwa 13th Boy. I’ve followed this series rabidly since the beginning, and now that we’ve reached its penultimate volume, I’m bursting with anticipation. Though the series’ romantic destination has been clear (to me, anyway) from the start, the journey has always been the point, and I’m dying to see how Lee plans to take us there. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

MICHELLE: I’m in the same boat! I’ve touted both Sailor Moon and 13th Boy in the past, and love both with equal fervor. The tie-breaking factor, then, must come from how awesome the story is in each series at the present moment. Sailor Moon has just embarked on a new arc while 13th Boy is approaching its end, with all sorts of attendant drama. Put in that perspective, I think 13th Boy is the clear, “can’t miss” winner.

SEAN: I think we can all basically toss up a picture of Sailor Moon every time it comes out, and then say “in addition to this”. For me, my “in addition” is the 5th volume of Bunny Drop, the heartwarming josei manga about single parenthood. I’d noted when reviewing Volume 4 that I felt the series needed to shake things up a bit, and clearly Unita agreed with me – as the cover and back copy both note so no complaints – and so this volume timeskips ahead ten years to find Rin in high school, and Daikichi… well, just as single as he was. We’re going to have a whole new host of questions to wonder about and things to talk about. Hopefully this series can continue to keep the same high quality that has greeted us every time, even with this new development.

KATE: Tempting as those other titles are, my heart belongs to the third volume of A Bride’s Story. Kaoru Mori’s manga is awesome on many levels: it’s meticulously researched and meticulously drawn. It boasts a diverse, compelling cast of female characters who range in age from thirteen to seventy. And it has some of the funniest, weirdest omake of any series on the US market. (Seriously! Mori’s omake might be even better than Yellow Tanabe’s delightfully self-deprecating strips.) What really sold me on this title, however, is Mori’s ability to suggest the rhythm of daily life in nineteenth-century Central Asia; yes, the drama is compelling, but damned if I don’t find those chapters on weaving and bread-baking just as entertaining as the Big Confrontations.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

A Bride’s Story, Vols. 2-3

by 14 Comments

Around the age of ten, I had a brief but intense love affair with historical fiction. It began with Little House in the Big Woods — required reading for all American girls of a certain age — and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I then discovered Johnny Tremain, made an unsuccessful attempt to read The Last of the Mohicans — way over my head, I’m afraid — and devoured Summer of My German Soldier.

The books that had the greatest claim on my heart, however, were Lois Lenski’s American regional novels: Strawberry Girl, Cotton in My Sack, Blue Ridge Billy, Mama Hattie’s Girl, and Shoo-Fly Girl. Looking back on these books now, I can see that they weren’t as meticulously crafted as Roll of Thunder or Johnny Tremain; Lenski’s writing was, at times, pedestrian, and her characterizations thin. What Lenski did well, however, was help young readers imagine what it was like to live in rural areas before television, telephones, and electricity were fixtures of the American home. Her books were filled with vivid descriptions of everyday activities: baking pies, picking crops, making dresses from patterns, canning vegetables, feeding chickens, washing clothes. From my sheltered point of view, Lenski’s characters led exotic, fascinating lives: who wouldn’t want to turn a bolt of calico into an actual dress, or spend the day picking berries? (The answer turns out to be me, as I flunked Home Economics.)

Though I’ve read my share of historical novels in the intervening years, I’ve seldom loved those books with the same fierce intensity as I did Strawberry Girl. Some of that disenchantment could be chalked up to adolescence: as a teenager, music superseded books as my most important form of escapism, and I read far fewer novels. And some of my disenchantment reflected my academic training: as a college student, I majored in History, taking courses that gave me the tools for exploring other places and times. Reading A Bride’s Story, however, reminded me how powerful good historical fiction can be.

A Bride’s Story depicts everyday life in a long-ago setting — in this case, Central Asia in the nineteenth century, where the fictional Eihon clan herd sheep and make textiles. To give readers a better understanding of the period, Kaoru Mori devotes entire chapters to describing how her characters live. In chapter 6 of A Bride’s Story, for example, Mori documents “oven day,” a communal event in which women prepare and bake bread. Mori captures the scene in meticulous detail, showing us how the women shape and stamp the dough into elaborate patterns. At the same time, however, Mori uses this gathering to explore the social dynamic within the Eihon clan; though none of the women are overtly hostile to new bride Amir, her inexperience and outsider status make it all but impossible for her to join the circle.

Other rituals are depicted with similar care. In chapter 10, for example, British anthropologist Henry Smith observes the Eihon women embroidering linen. Smith is a clever device: he serves as a natural reader surrogate, neatly anticipating the reader’s questions about the materials and cultural significance of the patterns. His questions serve another equally important purpose: they prompt Balkirsch, the clan matriarch, to identify the author of each design, explaining who she was and where she came from, in the process giving an informal history of the village.

Even in volume three, which introduces a new romantic subplot, Mori continues to document everyday activities in painstaking detail. Once again, Henry Smith serves as our eyes and ears, this time during a brief stay with two women he meets on the road to Ankara. Mori does a superb job of contrasting these women’s existence with the Eihons’: unlike the Eihons, who live in a thriving village, these women live alone on the edge of a vast plain, occupying two modest yurts with little in the way of possessions. Talas, the younger woman, must do the work of two people, grinding grain by hand, spinning wool, preparing meals, and tending a flock of sheep, following them on foot for miles each day. Though her face is youthful, her body language is not; in stark contrast to the physically robust Amir, Talas’s stooped shoulders and downcast eyes suggest the physical toll her daily labors exert.

Though Mori punctuates these moments of quiet reflection with dramatic, juicy scenes — a nighttime raid on the Eihon compound, an interrogation by Cossack soldiers, an angry confrontation between suitors — A Bride’s Story is at its best when it focuses on women’s daily lives. As this reviewer observes, Mori is not critiquing Central Asian society so much as depicting it in its full complexity. Mori never shies away from showing us how vulnerable women are in a patriarchal culture, as Talas’ situation demonstrates: without a father to arrange a new marriage for her, her late husbands’ relatives may claim her as property.

At the same time, however, Mori recognizes that women find small but meaningful ways to exercise their agency in such cultures, carving out a sphere of influence for themselves. She celebrates their wisdom and resilience, honoring their hard work by documenting it in minute detail. Perhaps that’s why I love A Bride’s Story so much; like Strawberry Girl and Little House in the Big Woods, A Bride’s Story helps me imagine what my daily life as a woman would have been like, warts and all, had I been born in another place and time. Highly recommended.

Review copy of volume three provided by Yen Press.

A BRIDE’S STORY, VOLS. 2-3 • BY KAORU MORI • YEN PRESS • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

A Bride’s Story, Vols. 2-3

by

Around the age of ten, I had a brief but intense love affair with historical fiction. It began with Little House in the Big Woods — required reading for all American girls of a certain age — and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I then discovered Johnny Tremain, made an unsuccessful attempt to read The Last of the Mohicans — way over my head, I’m afraid — and devoured Summer of My German Soldier.

The books that had the greatest claim on my heart, however, were Lois Lenski’s American regional novels: Strawberry Girl, Cotton in My Sack, Blue Ridge Billy, Mama Hattie’s Girl, and Shoo-Fly Girl. Looking back on these books now, I can see that they weren’t as meticulously crafted as Roll of Thunder or Johnny Tremain; Lenski’s writing was, at times, pedestrian, and her characterizations thin. What Lenski did well, however, was help young readers imagine what it was like to live in rural areas before television, telephones, and electricity were fixtures of the American home. Her books were filled with vivid descriptions of everyday activities: baking pies, picking crops, making dresses from patterns, canning vegetables, feeding chickens, washing clothes. From my sheltered point of view, Lenski’s characters led exotic, fascinating lives: who wouldn’t want to turn a bolt of calico into an actual dress, or spend the day picking berries? (The answer turns out to be me, as I flunked Home Economics.)

Though I’ve read my share of historical novels in the intervening years, I’ve seldom loved those books with the same fierce intensity as I did Strawberry Girl. Some of that disenchantment could be chalked up to adolescence: as a teenager, music superseded books as my most important form of escapism, and I read far fewer novels. And some of my disenchantment reflected my academic training: as a college student, I majored in History, taking courses that gave me the tools for exploring other places and times. Reading A Bride’s Story, however, reminded me how powerful good historical fiction can be.

A Bride’s Story depicts everyday life in a long-ago setting — in this case, Central Asia in the nineteenth century, where the fictional Eihon clan herd sheep and make textiles. To give readers a better understanding of the period, Kaoru Mori devotes entire chapters to describing how her characters live. In chapter 6 of A Bride’s Story, for example, Mori documents “oven day,” a communal event in which women prepare and bake bread. Mori captures the scene in meticulous detail, showing us how the women shape and stamp the dough into elaborate patterns. At the same time, however, Mori uses this gathering to explore the social dynamic within the Eihon clan; though none of the women are overtly hostile to new bride Amir, her inexperience and outsider status make it all but impossible for her to join the circle.

Other rituals are depicted with similar care. In chapter 10, for example, British anthropologist Henry Smith observes the Eihon women embroidering linen. Smith is a clever device: he serves as a natural reader surrogate, neatly anticipating the reader’s questions about the materials and cultural significance of the patterns. His questions serve another equally important purpose: they prompt Balkirsch, the clan matriarch, to identify the author of each design, explaining who she was and where she came from, in the process giving an informal history of the village.

Even in volume three, which introduces a new romantic subplot, Mori continues to document everyday activities in painstaking detail. Once again, Henry Smith serves as our eyes and ears, this time during a brief stay with two women he meets on the road to Ankara. Mori does a superb job of contrasting these women’s existence with the Eihons’: unlike the Eihons, who live in a thriving village, these women live alone on the edge of a vast plain, occupying two modest yurts with little in the way of possessions. Talas, the younger woman, must do the work of two people, grinding grain by hand, spinning wool, preparing meals, and tending a flock of sheep, following them on foot for miles each day. Though her face is youthful, her body language is not; in stark contrast to the physically robust Amir, Talas’s stooped shoulders and downcast eyes suggest the physical toll her daily labors exert.

Though Mori punctuates these moments of quiet reflection with dramatic, juicy scenes — a nighttime raid on the Eihon compound, an interrogation by Cossack soldiers, an angry confrontation between suitors — A Bride’s Story is at its best when it focuses on women’s daily lives. As this reviewer observes, Mori is not critiquing Central Asian society so much as depicting it in its full complexity. Mori never shies away from showing us how vulnerable women are in a patriarchal culture, as Talas’ situation demonstrates: without a father to arrange a new marriage for her, her late husbands’ relatives may claim her as property.

At the same time, however, Mori recognizes that women find small but meaningful ways to exercise their agency in such cultures, carving out a sphere of influence for themselves. She celebrates their wisdom and resilience, honoring their hard work by documenting it in minute detail. Perhaps that’s why I love A Bride’s Story so much; like Strawberry Girl and Little House in the Big Woods, A Bride’s Story helps me imagine what my daily life as a woman would have been like, warts and all, had I been born in another place and time. Highly recommended.

Review copy of volume three provided by Yen Press.

A BRIDE’S STORY, VOLS. 2-3 • BY KAORU MORI • YEN PRESS • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Show Us Your Stuff: Neokitty’s Cat Soup Manga

by 2 Comments

This week’s contributor, Neokitty, has eclectic tastes. Her library includes fluffy shojo (Tail of the Moon), period dramas (A Bride’s Story), OOP classics (Kazan), and ultra-violent cult favorites (Berserk, The Monkey King) — now that’s diversity! Like some of our previous participants, Neokitty has dedicated a room in her home to manga, games, and figurines. As you’ll see from the photos, it’s an impressive collection, both in terms of size and organization. I think I need to hire her to whip my messy office/manga lair into shape! So without further ado, here’s Neokitty in her own words. – Katherine Dacey

My name is Terra but I go by Neokitty on almost every site. I trade a lot on Gametz and Mangatude. I also like making art and watching foreign movies and anime. My favorite series manga is Berserk and my favorite stand-alone manga is A Drunken Dream. I’ll also read anything by Kaoru Mori and Fumi Yoshinaga.

A view of Neokitty’s manga room.

How long have you been collecting manga?
Around 10 years.

What was the first manga you bought?
Sailor Moon.

How big is your collection?
Over 1,000 volumes.

What is the rarest item in your collection?
I think my Black Jack artbook is uncommon.

What is the weirdest item in your collection?
My Cat Soup (Nekojiru Udon) manga.

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?
At first, I mostly read shoujo; now I seem to read more gory stuff.

Who are your favorite comic artists?
Katsuya Terada (The Monkey King) is pretty cool, and Kaoru Mori art in A Bride’s Story is gorgeous.

Left to right: Neokitty’s yaoi shrine (plus a few favorite plushies); Berserk, Tramps Like Us, Nodame Cantabile, and Kage Tora all have pride of place on Neokitty’s shelves.

What series are you actively collecting right now?
Right now, I’m finishing up Black Jack and Barefoot Gen.

Do you have any tips for fellow collectors (e.g. how to organize a collection, where to find rare books, where to score the best deals on new manga)?
I try to organize my books according to publisher.

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

Pick of the Week: Twin Spica & Young Miss Holmes

by , , and 8 Comments

It’s an uneven week at Midtown Comics but the Battle Robot presents a nearly-united front on this week’s must-buy. See below!

SEAN: Well, there’s not quite as much going on with the list this week as there was last week. But we do get a final volume of a series I really enjoyed… and also tended to avoid. Twin Spica was very well written, emotional, and had wonderful character development, but I always kept putting off reading the volumes when I got them. Possibly as I knew they would be such an emotional wrench – the series is not depressing overall, but its lows can be quite low, and its highs always seem to be fleeting. But it has a fantastic likeable heroine in Asumi, and in the end I’m glad that Vertical took a chance on the series, even if it didn’t sell quite as well as hoped. In this final volume we’ll get to see who – if any – will be going to space. And whether Mr. Lion can finally find peace.

MJ: I’m definitely with Sean this week. Twin Spica has been a consistent high point over the past couple of years. It made my Best Of list with its debut in 2010, and has never once disappointed me over the entire course of its run. Twin Spica 12 is absolutely this week’s must-buy manga.

KATE: My votes also goes to Twin Spica, a series that hasn’t yet found the wide audience it so richly deserves. The artwork is clean and unfussy, yet very expressive; the characters are as interesting, complex, and contradictory as real people; and the science fiction elements are handled with skill and knowledge. (Anyone who’s read about the Mercury or Apollo programs will nod their head in recognition during the astronaut training sequences.) Kou Yaginuma even manages to introduce elements of magical realism into the story without compromising the serious tone. In short, Twin Spica is utterly heartfelt, speaking directly to adolescent fears and hopes, but is crafted with enough skill to sustain an adult’s interest. If you haven’t yet tried it, what are you waiting for?

MICHELLE: I concur on the Twin Spica front, though I’m lamentably behind in the series, but I am going to award my pick of the week to something that’s not on this list but which, according to Amazon, is coming out this week and that’s Young Miss Holmes, Casebook 1-2 from Seven Seas. I have a soft spot for mystery manga, and when you make it a seinen historical fiction mystery manga starring the niece of Sherlock Holmes, I surely cannot resist. I love that Seven Seas is packaging the series—now up to volume seven in Japan—in lovely two-volume chunks, as well!

Readers, what looks good to you this week?