Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Katherine Dacey

March madness

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

Bookshelf Briefs 3/12/12

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This week, Michelle, Kate, MJ, & Sean take a look at new releases from VIZ Media and Vertical, Inc.

Arata: The Legend, Vol. 9 | By Yuu Watase | VIZ Media – By now, I should probably be immune to such shounen staples as “hero’s weapon gets larger to signify an increase in power,” but I still always find it cool, and when it happens in this volume of Arata, it’s no exception. The first half of the book is mostly fighting, with a little bit of heartstring-pulling thrown in that is still affecting, even though it felt like Watase was ticking things off a checklist in a very business-like manner. The relationship angst ramps up a little in the final chapters, as Arata learns that not only is he the successor to a powerful king, but also that he will create a new world with a “chosen woman” by his side. I really like the overall tone of this series, and though it offers few surprises or innovations, it still consistently entertains me. – Michelle Smith

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 6 | By Kazue Kato | VIZ Media – There’s a lot going on in this volume, despite it being mid-arc. The plot regarding the stolen eyes, and the revelation about a traitor in the cast. Shiemi’s inability to get past her knee-jerk reaction to Rin’s background, which is contrasted with a cute short story showing how well the two work together with Yukio, both in exterminating evil and in being his conscience. But mostly this volume is about Bon, and what it means to have a father that you can’t respect. Or rather, Bon *wants* to respect his father, but everyone else’s attitude, plus his father’s own ambiguous attitude, make it next to impossible. This is the meat of the story, and makes the conflict with Rin (who also has father issues) very powerful. This is an excellent manga, even if you aren’t a Jump fan. – Sean Gaffney

GTO: The Early Years, Vol. 11 | By Toru Fujisawa | Vertical, Inc. – The first volume of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan was a pleasant surprise, a raucous comedy about an earnest but slightly dim homeroom teacher who wants to make a difference in his students’ lives. Given how much I enjoyed my introduction to the world of Great Teacher Onizuka, I thought volume 11 of GTO: The Early Years would deliver more of the same. Alas, I found it a crude cousin to the later series, with rough, uneven artwork and jokes that repeatedly fell flat. Vertical, Inc. has done a better job of packaging this series than Tokyopop did back in the mid-2000s, with a snazzy cover and a snappy translation that conveys some of the sexual chemistry between the characters, but even Vertical’s first-rate presentation can’t transform this sow’s ear into a silk purse. -Katherine Dacey

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 8 | By Julietta Suzuki | VIZ Media – I want to like Kamisama Kiss: it’s got a memorable hook, an appealing cast of supporting characters, and enough yokai intrigue for two Shojo Beat series. As I’ve dutifully read each volume, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that Julietta Suzuki has no real plan for how her story will end. Nanami doesn’t seem wiser or stronger than she was in the very first chapters of the book, while her relationship with Tomoe, the crotchety shrine guardian, has fallen into an irritatingly predictable holding pattern that offers few rewards for the loyal reader. Volume eight does little to dispel the sense of futility; even a detour into the underworld seems more a demonstration of how inept Nanami remains than an inspired subplot. Strictly for fans of supernatural romance. -Katherine Dacey

Kimi ni Todoke, Vol. 13 | By Karuho Shiina | VIZ Media – While Kazehaya and Sawako remain the stars – and seeing her meet his family is probably the cutest part of this volume – this focuses more on the group, which I appreciate now that the main romance has moved from ‘will they or won’t they’ to ‘so what now?’. Chizu is dealing with a rather attentive Ryu, who’s becoming more obvious – possibly by design. Meanwhile, Ayane is not only dealing with Kento finding her interesting (something which she seems to be ignoring, possibly as she doesn’t understand him as easily as she does everyone else), but with her own ideas of what love and dating are, which are not as ‘pure and innocent’ as her two friends. She agrees to go out with a guy who confesses to her near the end of the book, but I honestly can’t see it ending well. Also, terrific cover art. – Sean Gaffney

No Longer Human, Vol. 3 | By Usamaru Furuya | Vertical, Inc. – Though it’s no secret that I’ve been a fan of Usamaru Furuya’s inspired adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s classic novel from the beginning, as the rather unrelentingly optimistic type that I am, even I find this a bit surprising. Hopelessness has been assured far before cracking open Furuya’s final volume, yet it’s impossible to resist the need to follow Yozo’s journey to the end. Though this heartbreaking volume is remarkable on both dramatic and artistic levels, what I found perhaps most compelling were Furuya’s own notes at the end, describing his personal connection with Dazai’s work and how he came to write the adapation. Complete in three volumes, this series is a must-read for any grown-up manga fan. Highly recommended. – MJ

Oresama Teacher, Vol. 7 | By Izumi Tsubaki| VIZ Media – Another highly variable volume – I love this series, but the author still has issues with focus and pacing. At its best, we get chapters like the first one, where we learn about Takaomi’s motives. It’s good to see his character gain some depth, and you really begin to see how driven and goal-oriented he is – and how that inspires Mafuyu. Meanwhile, the ‘summer vacation’ chapters get progressively worse, with Mafuyu’s festival with Sakurada being quite funny, but the ‘haunted house’ chapter being possibly the worst we’ve seen this series – so confusing I had trouble telling who was who from panel to panel. Ah well. Hopefully she’ll get that out of her system soon and we’ll be back to school, where Mafuyu fares much better – as does the mangaka. At least we get plenty of silly faces. – Sean Gaffney

Is This A Zombie?, Vol. 1

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Here’s a tip for aspiring manga artists: if you’re going to spoof a genre, your jokes should be poking fun at said genre’s conventions, not slavishly adhering to them. Is This a Zombie? wants to be a send-up of magical girl manga and harem comedies, but focuses so heavily on panty shots, “accidental” nudity (of the “whoops, my clothes disintegrated!” variety), and girl fights that it’s easy to forget that the story is supposed to be a cheeky riposte to Cutie Honey, Sailor Moon, Love Hina, and Negima!

The other great problem plaguing Is This a Zombie? is focus. From the opening pages of volume one, a reader might reasonably conclude that the main plot revolves around teenager Ayumu Aikawa’s quest to find out who killed him. The sudden arrival of Haruna, a self-proclaimed “magikewl girl” who wears a maid’s costume and carries a pink chainsaw, complicates the picture, however. By means never fully explained, Haruna’s powers are accidentally transferred to Ayumu, who undergoes a full Sailor Moon-style transformation into a dress-wearing, weapon-wielding magical girl in the presence of other supernatural beings.

If Haruna’s arrival provided genuine comic relief, or advanced the plot in a meaningful way, the resulting horror-magical girl mishmash might not seem so incongruous. The lame cross-dressing jokes, however, do almost nothing for the story except reveal Shinichi Kimura’s steadfast belief that if a man in a frilly dress is hilarious, then a male magical girl in a frilly dress is exponentially funnier. And if the guy-in-a-dress gags weren’t tired enough, Kimura gives Ayumu a full-fledged harem that includes Eu, a necromancer, and Sera, a vampire ninja. True to harem comedy form, the three girls live with Ayumu, clamoring for Ayumu’s attention, bickering with each other during meals, and seeking his approval on outfits. Whatever “comedy” results from their competition is of a meager sort; Kimura seems to think that that the girls’ catty put-downs have sufficient zing to generate laughs. (They don’t.)

The artwork does little to enhance the story’s comedic tone. Ayumu is as generic a hero as they come, with a carefully tousled mop of hair, a standard-issue high school uniform, and a nose that’s ever-so-slightly larger than the female characters’. Of the three magical girls, only Sera is drawn as a mature teen; Eu and Haruna each look about ten or eleven years old. The girls’ youthful appearance would be less unsettling if they kept their clothing on, but Haruna’s frequent costume failures put an icky, exploitative spin on a sight gag that’s clearly meant to be sexy.

The backgrounds and action scenes have the same perfunctory quality as the character designs. All of the settings — cemeteries, schoolrooms, apartments — look the same, a collection of simple, square shapes that barely establish the location. And while that means the fight scenes are lean and mean, unburdened with excessive detail, it also means that the combat seems to be taking place in an alternate universe from the main story, one that lacks any meaningful visual continuity with the other scenes.

I wish I could find something to like about Is This a Zombie?, as the story wants to be the Naked Gun of manga spoofs, a naughty but good-natured comedy that invites readers to laugh at tired tropes. The resulting story, however, feels a lot more like Epic Movie, a scattershot, semi-exploitative grab-bag of superhero jokes, Pirates of the Caribbean gags, and sword-and-sandal send-ups; substitute “zombie manga,” “harem comedies,” and “magical-girl manga” for the aforementioned genres, and you’d have Is This a Zombie? in all its awfulness.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one will be available on March 27th.

IS THIS A ZOMBIE?, VOL. 1 • STORY BY SHINICHI KIMURA, ART BY SACCHI, CHARACTERS BY KOBUICHI – MURIRIN • YEN PRESS • 172 pp. • RATING: MATURE (NUDITY, LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE)

Is This A Zombie?, Vol. 1

by

Here’s a tip for aspiring manga artists: if you’re going to spoof a genre, your jokes should be poking fun at said genre’s conventions, not slavishly adhering to them. Is This a Zombie? wants to be a send-up of magical girl manga and harem comedies, but focuses so heavily on panty shots, “accidental” nudity (of the “whoops, my clothes disintegrated!” variety), and girl fights that it’s easy to forget that the story is supposed to be a cheeky riposte to Cutie Honey, Sailor Moon, Love Hina, and Negima!

The other great problem plaguing Is This a Zombie? is focus. From the opening pages of volume one, a reader might reasonably conclude that the main plot revolves around teenager Ayumu Aikawa’s quest to find out who killed him. The sudden arrival of Haruna, a self-proclaimed “magikewl girl” who wears a maid’s costume and carries a pink chainsaw, complicates the picture, however. By means never fully explained, Haruna’s powers are accidentally transferred to Ayumu, who undergoes a full Sailor Moon-style transformation into a dress-wearing, weapon-wielding magical girl in the presence of other supernatural beings.

If Haruna’s arrival provided genuine comic relief, or advanced the plot in a meaningful way, the resulting horror-magical girl mishmash might not seem so incongruous. The lame cross-dressing jokes, however, do almost nothing for the story except reveal Shinichi Kimura’s steadfast belief that if a man in a frilly dress is hilarious, then a male magical girl in a frilly dress is exponentially funnier. And if the guy-in-a-dress gags weren’t tired enough, Kimura gives Ayumu a full-fledged harem that includes Eu, a necromancer, and Sera, a vampire ninja. True to harem comedy form, the three girls live with Ayumu, clamoring for Ayumu’s attention, bickering with each other during meals, and seeking his approval on outfits. Whatever “comedy” results from their competition is of a meager sort; Kimura seems to think that that the girls’ catty put-downs have sufficient zing to generate laughs. (They don’t.)

The artwork does little to enhance the story’s comedic tone. Ayumu is as generic a hero as they come, with a carefully tousled mop of hair, a standard-issue high school uniform, and a nose that’s ever-so-slightly larger than the female characters’. Of the three magical girls, only Sera is drawn as a mature teen; Eu and Haruna each look about ten or eleven years old. The girls’ youthful appearance would be less unsettling if they kept their clothing on, but Haruna’s frequent costume failures put an icky, exploitative spin on a sight gag that’s clearly meant to be sexy.

The backgrounds and action scenes have the same perfunctory quality as the character designs. All of the settings — cemeteries, schoolrooms, apartments — look the same, a collection of simple, square shapes that barely establish the location. And while that means the fight scenes are lean and mean, unburdened with excessive detail, it also means that the combat seems to be taking place in an alternate universe from the main story, one that lacks any meaningful visual continuity with the other scenes.

I wish I could find something to like about Is This a Zombie?, as the story wants to be the Naked Gun of manga spoofs, a naughty but good-natured comedy that invites readers to laugh at tired tropes. The resulting story, however, feels a lot more like Epic Movie, a scattershot, semi-exploitative grab-bag of superhero jokes, Pirates of the Caribbean gags, and sword-and-sandal send-ups; substitute “zombie manga,” “harem comedies,” and “magical-girl manga” for the aforementioned genres, and you’d have Is This a Zombie? in all its awfulness.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one will be available on March 27th.

IS THIS A ZOMBIE?, VOL. 1 • STORY BY SHINICHI KIMURA, ART BY SACCHI, CHARACTERS BY KOBUICHI – MURIRIN • YEN PRESS • 172 pp. • RATING: MATURE (NUDITY, LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE)

Show Us Your Stuff: Lovely Duckie’s Manga Library

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Greetings! This Thursday’s featured collector is Candace, an avid reviewer who writes about manga and anime at her site Lovely Duckie’s Blog. Like many manga fans, Sailor Moon played an essential role in introducing her to Japanese animation and comics. In the nine years Candance has been a collector, her tastes have evolved to include a wide variety of shojo and josei titles — she counts Skip Beat! and Tokyo Crazy Paradise among her favorites — as well as series such as Bakuman, The Drops of God, and Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Oh, and her library is one of the largest we’ve featured to date, with other 2,600+ volumes. My only question: does she have staff to help her shelve and catalog it all?! – Katherine Dacey

How long have you been collecting manga?

January 2003. I started off REAL slow, I was only able to keep up with a single series at a time. As I got old enough to have a job my collection grew. I used to work one day at a bakery once a week to buy 3-4 volumes of manga every other week or so. Now that I’ve graduated college and have a job I pre-order whatever I want, it’s heaven.

What was the first manga you bought?

I pre-ordered volume one of Sailor Moon (Pocket Mixx) from the Barnes and Noble one town over from where I lived. The next series I tried out was Cardcaptor Sakura, but I was also eyeing Fushigi Yugi. (I didn’t actually read Fushigi Yugi until many years later.) After Cardcaptor Sakura, I had my hands full trying to buy every CLAMP series I could; the only ones I missed out on were Clover (THANK YOU Dark Horse for the re-release) and a couple of the CLAMP School volumes.

How big is your collection?

I’m at 2600+, the list I keep is a bit outdated but you can see most of what I own at this link (http://www.justmanga.com/vmb/13795). I’m in a situation where I can have lots of shelves and easy access to most of my manga, I recently had to pack up two bins and fill the top shelf of the guest bedroom closet because my figures were competing for the space. I decided to cut back on figures to save money and space, so those two bins may be able to be unpacked again, we’ll see. Not going to lie… when it’s time to move to a new home, this is going to be a major inconvenience for me and my significant other. When I moved last time I collected LOTS of wine boxes from the liquor store and packed them in those. Wine boxes are a nice size that makes it so I don’t accidentally make any one box that’s too heavy.

What is the rarest item in your collection?

I’m not sure, once I own the manga (or art book) I don’t really keep tabs on if it becomes rare or not…I’d guess perhaps owning all of Basara is the rarest series I own. Volumes 18-20 seem pretty overpriced at the moment. I also think a few of my Kindaichi Case Files manga volumes are difficult to buy at a reasonable price, back when I bought the set a few years ago some volumes were already starting to be a pain to find. And since Tokyopop is no more, I doubt there are any reprints of Kindaichi. I also own most of the Osamu Tezuka volumes released in the US including all of Phoenix. For art books… my Cardcaptor Sakura (English) #1-3 art books seem somewhat rare, I also have all the (Japanese) Aria art books.


What is the weirdest item in your collection?

It could be my used copy of InuYasha, which the previous owner colored in tops on all of the breasted yokai. There were a lot of harpie-like creatures so he/she had their work cut out for him/her! If an average friend off the street came into my collection room and selected a manga at random…there are quite a few series that I can think of that they would find weird. Hands down the weirdest series for me to read was After School Nightmare; the ending especially was an extremely weird moment for me. Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is another series I love that could be considered very weird, I can think of many scenes that are shocking to someone casually flipping through.

In terms of just items I own (not just manga)…the weirdest item is probably my Franky POP Megahouse Figure, his outfit/character design is extremely difficult to explain…and figure manufacturer really didn’t need to add that much detail to his speedo…darn you Megahouse for your accuracy.

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?

It was all magical girl stuff at first, then shoujo, then shonen, and now I read just about every genre. My favorite reads are good mystery series. I also tend to favor seinen, and slice-of-life series. I’ve found that if it’s available I prefer to watch the anime of my favorite shonen series over the manga, my all time favorite anime is One Piece, but I can’t say for sure it’s my all time favorite manga. In general I think most action series can be made significantly better by anime because the flow of the action is easier to appreciate, plus sometimes the (Japanese) voice actors breathe even more life into the character on top of the good structure made by the manga-ka.

Who are your favorite comic artists?

CLAMP, Yoshiki Nakamura, Ririko Tsujita, Osamu Tezuka, Eiichiro Oda, Kozue Amano, Fumiya Satō/Yōzaburō Kanari, Kenta Shinohara, Naoki Urasawa, Ai Yazawa, Inio Asano

What series are you actively collecting right now?

Too many to name. But some of the volumes I look forward to the most are Skip Beat!, A Bride’s Story, Higurashi When They Cry, Ai Ore!, Bakuman, Drops of God, Bunny Drop, Alice in the Country of Hearts, Yotsubato, Ikigami, Kingyo Used Books, Kobato, March Story, and Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

Favorite Series that were Dropped (US Release) 

The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko, Aria, V.B. Rose, Bride of Deimos, Kindaichi Case Files, Swan, GinTama, Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo, The Queen’s Knight, The Stellar Six of Gingacho

Favorite Series that may never make it to the US

Tokyo Crazy Paradise, Sket Dance, Glass Mask, Parfait Tic, Koi Dano Ai Dano


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 and put my complete series in spots that are more difficult to access, because I tend to have to disturb that shelf less often (adding more volumes and pulling down older volumes to re-read before reading the newest volumes). I tend to buy deep bookcases and double layer my manga (so entire rows are hidden from view by more manga), so do as I say and not as I do, if possible openly display all your ongoing series. It’s a major headache to read the latest volume of a series and then not be able to find where the rest of the series is.

Just because the first few volumes of a series are easy to find (and cheap) doesn’t mean the rest of the series will be easy to find too. In fact, sometimes it’s a sign of the exact opposite. If there is a series you’re interested in, go to Amazon and check to make sure no single volumes are out of print (OOP). It’s dangerous to the wallet to get deeply involved in a series that will later force you to separate with excessive amounts of money from a seller for a single volume. If this series has a few OOP volumes that are significantly overpriced, try to find some scans and read them on-line to preview the series. If it’s something you think you’ll REALLY love, then go to eBay and wait to buy the whole series as a set. Plan on having to pay more than the total MSRP of each book totaled, but USUALLY that total still ends up being less than separately tracking down each individual volume. Sure, the first 11 volumes may be available from sellers for 1 cent plus shipping, but those volumes in the teens that cost $50 – $90 a piece will completely suck away all your savings from the previous volumes. Plus if you buy them as a group on eBay you tend to get a set that’s less worn, all the worst condition volumes of manga I own were from sellers on Amazon not accurately describing the condition of the volume. (There is NO SUCH THING as a “like New” ex-library copy of manga in my opinion!) But DON’T underestimate buying from Amazon sellers either, I’ve had cases where I got an entire series at half its MSRP because I bought from lots of different sellers at 1 cent per volume.

If you like to keep up with all your series, and you have a lot of series originally priced at under $10, then use Amazon. If a manga is originally priced at under $10 it will be buy 3 get the 4th free with free shipping (free shipping at over $25 which is around what it will cost). Currently I wait for enough of my Viz  shoujo series to have a bunch of available pre-orders and put them on order all at once. And YES buy 3 get the 4th free does work on pre-orders too, now. But the drawback is that more and more manga is originally prices at over $9.99 these days, so I can’t apply the sale to as many series as I once did. But Amazon does a decent job discounting volumes that cost more than $9.99, too. Right Stuf also seems like a great source of manga. I can’t complain about their service or their available stock, and I REALLY like the catalog they send out.

Some of you might be asking…if you can get chapters scanned why pay for legitimate copies at all!? Some of my ALL TIME favorite series are only partially scanned online, OR not at all. Fan Scans don’t work if the series you love is a big hit in Japan but not so much where you live. Plus, I respect the mangaka too much to not put money in their pockets for their efforts.

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.