Katherine Dacey

Show Us Your Stuff: Benny B’s Old-School Manga Library

January 19, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 9 Comments

This week’s contributor is Benny B, a DJ and real estate mogul-in-training. I won’t embarrass myself by using an old lady’s idea of cool slang to describe his collection, but I will say he has excellent taste in manga: what’s not to like about Barefoot Gen, Buddha, Bug Boy, or Sanctuary, I ask? – Katherine Dacey

I am a DJ living in New York City. I also work as an office manager for a real estate company that has a TV show. My number one interest is manga. I read it at least twice a day, in the subway to and from work, and before I go to bed. My favorite kinds of manga are seinen and classic. I recently got the iPad2 and I love it – it’s perfect for reading manga. Other than that, I like to go out to eat, collect music, and get new DJ gigs. Get in touch:

benny@djbennyb.com
djbennyb.com
soundcloud.com/thatdjbennyb/
Twitter: @djbennyb
Instagram: @djbennyb

How long have you been collecting manga?
I have been buying a very small amount since the late 80’s. I really got into it in the last five years, though. I wasn’t a true collector before then. At first I was just re-buying the stuff I had as a kid, but now I’m really into current stuff, too.

What was the first manga you bought?
I first started buying manga in the late 80’s and early 90’s. As a kid, I used to sell candy and work at a fruit stand, so I blew all my earnings on comics and records. My first manga was probably Akira, Legend of Kamui (still have some of these) or Ranma – I don’t remember.

My parents first bought me an X-Men comic when I was 8 years old and after that I was hooked on comics for good. My favorites were X-Men and Batman. At first I would buy them in hardware stores and bodegas, which had these revolving wire racks. (Comics were really popular in America then – this was before Nintendo.) After a while, I discovered comics shops, and I saw alternative stuff from Dark Horse, Epic and Viz. A lot of American comic creators were being influenced by manga at that time and I didn’t know the difference between something like Usagi Yojimbo or Ronin and something like Orion or Akira. I started buying manga in comic book form; unfortunately, I lost most of them.

There was one called Memories that was a one-shot about a giant rose in outer space — I think it was by Otomo. Anyway, I should see if I can get that again because it was a favorite of mine. – Editor’s note: Memories is indeed by Katsuhiro Otomo and was originally published by Epic in 1992. Click here for more information.

How big is your collection?
I guess it’s pretty small – you tell me? All the other manga collections that have been posted look great.

What is the rarest item in your collection?
I guess it would be Kosaku Shima. Kosaku Shima is a fantastic manga in the “salary man” genre which is pretty much unrepresented in English translation. It’s a genre about office workers and corporate stuff. Shima is a James Bond-type figure except he’s just a regular office executive. The stories consist of him climbing the corporate ladder and include romance and adventure. The only ones available in the US are actually bilingual books that were published to help Japanese speakers learn English, so these are pretty rare. I have a few other bilingual editions, and I was about to start dropping a few bills on the Princess Knight editions, but Vertical came through with the translations.

Although some companies are doing great work, there are so few translated manga for grown folks that tracking down rare stuff like Kosaku Shima is really important to me.

What is the weirdest item in your collection?
The weirdest item would be Bug Boy or another horror comic. Bug Boy is about a nice boy who turns into a bug and watches his life turn into misery. Other weird ones I own and love are Parasyte, Cat-Eyed Boy, Berserk, Mu Shi Shi and I’ll Give It My All Tomorrow.

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?
I still like a lot of the same stuff I did when I first got into manga, actually. About 5 years ago, I started making a little more loot and, for nostalgic reasons, decided to buy up a lot of stuff I read as a kid. After I had re-bought all my X-Men comics, I realized that the manga holds up a lot better and I still enjoy it, whereas I don’t really enjoy superhero comics anymore.

I mostly read seinen. My favorite genres are crime, cooking, slice-of-life, horror — really everything that doesn’t have long, drawn-out fighting scenes. Also as you can see, I am a Tezuka freak. My favorite comic of all time is Barefoot Gen.

Who are your favorite comic artists?
Naoki Urasawa is just amazing to me. All of his stories are fantastic. They are vast and intricate and don’t rely on long fighting scenes to fill up the stories. I love One Piece like everybody else, but half of it is fighting scenes. Sometimes I’ll skip right over the fighting scenes and feel like I didn’t miss anything. But with Urasawa, you have this master storyteller who creates incredible novels and on top of that he is drawing everything as well! He’s an incredible artist and is just as good as any American comic artist, if not better. I mean, is there anything on Earth that really competes with that?

Favorite artists currently working: Naoki Urasawa, Takehiko Inoue, Hitoshi Iwaaki, Yamamoto Hideo, Makoto Yukimura and Jiro Taniguchi.

Favorite artists from the past: Osamu Tezuka, Keiji Nakazawa, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Buronson, Ryoichi Ikegami

As far as Tezuka goes, here are my 5 favorite Tezukas translated into English:

Buddha
Phoenix
Adolf
Apollo’s Song
Black Jack

Astro Boy is cool and everything, but it’s really just for kids. I felt this way about Dororo the first 2 or 3 times I read it, but now I think it’s pretty good.

What series are you actively collecting right now?
It’s hard for me to answer this question because I read manga so quickly that I don’t remember! My subway ride is about 30-40 minutes and sometimes I’ll knock down 100-200 pages in that time, which makes it an expensive habit. That’s why my collection is mostly used books. But right now, I’m reading Real, 20th Century Boys, Black Jack and any old stuff I pick up. Real is so awesome and Inoue is pretty close to Urasawa’s level, although Vagabond has too much fighting for me. I also read Shonen Jump and many different ones online.

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 can’t help anyone with organizing besides telling you to get a cool bookcase or a cool girlfriend who will help you organize it (my strategy).

The best place to find rare books is either online (Amazon or eBay) or at a used bookstore. The Book-Off store in New York City is the best place I know of for rare used books, and this is where I get most of my manga. I personally don’t care what the book looks like, I just want to read it. I will buy an old, beat-up copy or a book with a library sticker on it, so in that way I’m a lousy collector I suppose.

New manga I would buy from Amazon. Amazon is really great.

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 send me an email.

PotW: 13th Boy, Twin Spica, Book Girl, Durarara!!

January 16, 2012 by MJ, Katherine Dacey, Michelle Smith and Sean Gaffney 2 Comments

Midtown Comics has a lot to offer this week, from Pokemon to Twlight. MJ, Kate, Sean, and Michelle make their picks below!

MJ: It’s nearly impossible for me to choose just one title, with new volumes of several favorites arriving at Midtown Comics this week. This week’s list runs the gamut when it comes to my personal tastes as well, with series as different as, say, Twin Spica and Pandora Hearts tempting me with pretty much equal power. But in the end, I’ll do the predictable thing, and throw my vote to volume ten of SangEun Lee’s supernatural sunjeong manhwa, 13th Boy. I know I keep raving about this series, but seriously, it’s just that enjoyable. With only two more volumes to go, the drama really ramps up here in volume ten, and we begin to understand more clearly just what the connection is between weirdly gifted Whie-Young and the boy-cactus he gave life to, Beatrice. It’s all kind of heartbreaking, really, and as a reader, I’m torn over even what I want to happen. This is a great thing. If you’ve never gotten around to trying this series, keep your eyes open, as I’ll be doing a giveaway later this week.

KATE: My vote goes to volume eleven of Twin Spica. Writing about Twin Spica in 2010, when I named it one my best manga of the year, I noted that Twin Spica is “an all-too-rare example of a direct, heartfelt story that’s neither saccharine nor mawkish.” Asumi, the story’s heroine, is painfully sincere, but she isn’t the least bit annoying; if anything, she may be one of the strongest, most resilient female characters I’ve encountered in a comic, in spite of her small size. The supporting characters are just as memorable as Asumi. Kei, Asumi’s hot-headed friend, is a great example: she means well, but has a tendency to fire from the hip, unwittingly insulting people she cares about. We’ve all known someone just like Kei — perhaps when we were in high school — giving her scenes with Asumi, Marika, and the other students an extra charge of realism. These true-to-life characters prevent Twin Spica from becoming too precious, even when it flirts with magical realism. (See Mr. Lion.) A lovely coming-of-age story that works for stargazers of all ages.

MICHELLE: With MJso eloquently advocating for 13th Boy, a series I also feel strong affection for, I’m going to branch out a bit and recommend the first volume of Durarara!!. I just read it this week, and found it to be “weird but intriguing.” Frequently, I am daunted by series that introduce this many characters and ideas right up front—this is why it took me a while to get back into Pandora Hearts, after all—but that didn’t happen with Durarara!!. I think it’s the hints of interconnectedness between the subplots that really pulled me in, not to mention the incredibly cool Ikebukuro urban legend: the Black Rider. I have no idea how the manga compares to the novels or the anime, but I really enjoyed this volume and look forward to the next.

SEAN: And since Michelle was kind enough to mention Durarara!!, it falls to me to plug another volume of my favorite light novel series coming out over here to date. Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel is the 4th in the Book Girl series, each of which I have greatly enjoyed. The books aren’t perfect, but they’re fast reads and really good at getting inside the teen psyche. They can also be quite creepy when they want to be, and not just because the titular book girl is a ‘goblin’. Each volume has turned out to focus on a different member of Tohko and Konoha’s social circle, and judging by the description this new volume will finally focus on Nanase Kotobuki. I’ve found her a bit of a cliched tsundere in the previous books, but have no doubt that we’ll see different facets of her here. Highly recommended.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 1/16/12

January 16, 2012 by Michelle Smith, MJ, Katherine Dacey and Sean Gaffney 2 Comments

This week, MJ, Michelle, Kate, and Sean take a look at recent releases from Yen Press, Viz Media, and Kodansha Comics.

13th Boy, Vol. 10 | By SangEun Lee | Yen Press – I swear, this series just keeps getting better and better. About the only thing keeping it from a perfect score in my book is the occasional obnoxious behavior from protagonist Hee-So, but the well-executed story and character growth more than make up for that. In this volume, Beatrice the erstwhile cactus strives to establish independence (and learns the price Whie-Young pays for using his power), Hee-So does her best to see Beatrice as an ordinary boy with legitimate feelings for her, Whie-Young is given the chance for a normal lifespan if he meets a specific condition, and one of the aspects of that condition falls in to place. This last is a great twist that leaves me honestly rather terrified about what’s in store for these characters in the final two volumes—which I need right now, please—but I wouldn’t have it any other way. – Michelle Smith

Afterschool Charisma, Vol. 5 | By Kumiko Suekane | Viz Media – For most of the series, Kai, St. Kleio’s only “ordinary” student, has remained an enigma. Volume five at last sheds light on Kai’s origins with a lengthy flashback in which he discovers that he, too, is a clone. These scenes bristle with tension; one can feel Kai’s frustration as he struggles to assert his unique identity, in spite of the fact his clone looks and acts just like him. Kai’s backstory serves another important purpose as well, offering several important clues about St. Kleio’s true purpose. Though volume five is one of the most information-dense installments of Afterschool Charisma to date, crack pacing, surprise twists, and a cliffhanger ending make it a swift and engaging read. – Katherine Dacey

Bamboo Blade, Vol. 11 | By Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi | Yen Press – The start and end of this volume focuses on the self-doubts and backstory of Saya, the large tsukkomi of our little group of kendoists, and makes you think that this volume will be about the main cast. But just like Vol. 10 focused its attention on Ura and her backstory, here we get introduced to more participants in the television show that Kojiro’s team is going to be doing. There’s not much new here – the jealous actress who realizes that her co-star can outshine her in any athletic event has been seen in manga before this – but it’s still a good mine for humor, especially watching her flip moods and beat the hell out of her manager (and later yell at him for sexism, probably the manga’s best moment). Still, as enjoyable as this has been, and as much fun as Totsuka-san can make things, I’m really ready for the TV show to actually happen. I hope we see it in Vol. 12.-Sean Gaffney

Bleach, Vols. 36-37 | By Tite Kubo | Viz Media – Volume 36 is the best volume of Bleach since the conclusion of the Soul Society arc, as it takes us away from the interminable battle to rescue Orihime from Hueco Mundo and focuses instead on the history of enigmatic Kisuke Urahara and the first, secret betrayal by certain villainous Soul Reapers. Though it would’ve been cooler to have this information ten or fifteen volumes ago, it’s plenty engrossing as it is and even seems to reinvigorate the action when we return to present day. Volume 37 offers more awesome interaction between Orihime and her de-facto warden, and though I still don’t care much about Ichigo, I welcome the chance to see bishounen like Yumichika and Hisagi again, and actually find myself somewhat eager to continue the series. I haven’t felt that way about Bleach in a long time. – Michelle Smith

Dawn of the Arcana, Vol. 2 | By Rei Toma | Viz Media – The tension ramps up in this series’ second volume, as Princess Nakaba becomes more aware of her growing feelings for her new husband, as well as just how deeply those feelings conflict with her loyalty to long-time servant Loki. While this series is shaping up more and more to be another shoujo love triangle, it does have enough genuine intrigue to set it apart from the crowd. This volume also delves further into Nakaba’s preternatural abilities, which are perhaps more interesting than they first appeared. But what really makes this volume work is Nakaba’s inner conflict. Though there’s nothing really new going on there, it’s written from a place of real emotional truth, and that makes this series well worth reading. Toma’s expressive artwork is a highlight as well. Tentatively recommended. – MJ

Dengeki Daisy, Vol. 8 | By Kyousuke Motomi | Viz Media – Well, if you thought things would be easily resolved after last volume’s cliffhanger, think again. Kurosaki is quite aware that the message sent to Daisy was a fake – he says so on Page 21. But it doesn’t take much to make a broken soul shatter again, and Kurosaki is determined to remove himself from Teru’s life forever. Teru, after a brief chapter of self-pity and moping, isn’t having any of this, and asks everybody else to explain exactly what happened with Kurosaki and her brother. The explanation is the rest of the volume, and it’s by turns uplifting and crushing, as with most tragic backstories in shoujo. The drawback, of course, is that if you read this manga for the fun romance and humor between its two leads, there is precisely nothing here for you. Read it anyway, it’ll make the eventual reunion, presumably in Vol. 9 or 10, that much sweeter.-Sean Gaffney

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Vol. 3 | By Kenji Kuroda and Kazuo Maekawa | Kodansha Comics – The main reason for Phoenix Wright fans to pick up this third volume is featured prominently on the front cover – Franziska Von Karma is the prosecutor this time around, and that means a lot of foolish fools and a lot of whip jokes – none better than at the start, where her side job is revealed. In fact, that seems to be a problem with most of these Ace Attorney mangas – the setup is invariably more interesting than the trial. Anyone reading this for the mystery will be disappointed – it’s obvious. Those who read it to see more Phoenix adventures should be pleased – there’s even a few shoutouts to the Apollo Justice game, as Phoenix gets an eerily accurate fortune given to him. There’s also some nice art here, showcasing the dramatic poses and plot revelations in ways the writing can’t quite match up to.-Sean Gaffney

Toriko, Vol. 8 | By Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro | Viz Media – The eighth volume of Toriko offers readers an entertaining respite from hand-to-hand combat, as Toriko and Komatsu visit Chef Setsuno, one of four “gourmet living legends” in the world. Setsuno is a hoot: she’s a demon in the kitchen, dispatching a chicken with ferocious precision, slicing vegetables mid-air, and preparing a broth of such purity that it’s invisible to the eye. Lest anyone confuse Toriko for Oishinbo, however, this pleasant interlude is swiftly followed by an action-packed trip to the Antarctic, where Toriko wrestles sharks, serpents, and evil gourmands for the chance to taste century soup, a dish that only materializes once every hundred years. Subtle it isn’t, but the characters’ goofy antics and goofy powers (“Flying fork!” and “Long-range bazooka breath!” were my personal favorites) mitigate against macho excess. – Katherine Dacey

And the nominees are…

January 16, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

The nominees for this year’s Manga Taisho Award were just unveiled. Of the fifteen titles on the list, two — Flowers of Evil and Drifters — have been licensed in English. The nominees also include Hiromu Arakawa’s latest series Silver Spoon, Kengo Hanazawa’s previously nominated I Am a Hero, and Katsumasa Enokiya’s Hibi Rock.

Mark your calendars: the next Manga Movable Feast begins on January 22nd, and focuses on Usamaru Furuya. Ash Brown will host.

Deb Aoki updates her list of 15 Ways to Enjoy Manga (Without Going Broke).

The internet is still abuzz over DMP’s recent Kickstarter campaign, which raised over $8,700 towards the licensing and publication of Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara. Alex Hoffman and Lissa Patillo offer their thoughts, pro- and contra-, about DMP’s use of Kickstarter. Over at Manga Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson adds her two cents to the conversation.

And speaking of Tezuka, what classic manga would you like to see licensed next? Inquiring manga critics want to know!

Reviews: Ash Brown posts an assortment of brief manga, movie, and book reviews at Experiments in Manga. Here at Manga Bookshelf, the Battle Robot assembles to review a variety of titles, including the latest volumes of 13th Boy, Bamboo Blade, Dawn of the Arcana, and Toriko.

Kristin Bomba on vol. 3 of Ai Ore! Love Me (Comic Attack)
Rebecca Silverman on vols. 2-3 of Animal Land (Anime News Network)
Connie on The Art of Hideshi Hino (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin Bomba on vols. 7-9 of Bakuman (Comic Attack!)
Jenny on vols. 2-6 of Dengeki Daisy (No Flying No Tights)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 7 of Dengeki Daisy (Anime News Network)
Katherine Dacey on vol. 1 of A Devil and Her Love Song (The Manga Critic)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Girly (Okazu)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Love Hina Omnibus (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lori Henderson on vol. 3 of Oresama Teacher (Manga Xanadu)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 6 of Oresama Teacher (Anime News Network)
Nic on vols. 1-2 of Pokemon: Black and White (No Flying No Tights)

A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 1

January 15, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 12 Comments

Maria Kawai, heroine of A Devil and Her Love Song, is a cool customer. Not only is she beautiful, talented, and smart, she’s also tough — so tough, in fact, that she was expelled from a hoity-toity Catholic school for beating up a teacher. Her blunt demeanor further cements her bad-girl impression; within minutes of enrolling at a new high school, she antagonizes all the girls in her class with a few sharp observations about their behavior. Only two boys — Yusuke, a cheerful, popular student who avoids conflict at all costs, and Shin, a moody outsider — try defending Maria from her peers’ nasty comments and pranks.

So far, so good: Maria is spiky and complicated, a truth-teller who lacks the ability to censor herself, even though she’s aware of the potential consequences of speaking her mind. Throughout volume one, there are some wonderful comic moments as Maria struggles to put a “lovely spin” — Yusuke’s term — on her acid comments. Alas, Maria’s sideways head-tilt and doe-eyed gaze look more sinister than cute; not since Kazuo Umezu’s Scary Book has a manga-ka made a doll-like character look so thoroughly menacing, even when superimposed atop a backdrop of flowers and sparkles.

Having created such a vivid character, however, Miyoshi Tomori isn’t sure where to go with the story. In several scenes, Maria does things that contradict what we know about her: would someone as perceptive as Maria willingly attend a party hosted by the class mean girls, especially after they’d harassed her on a daily basis? And why would someone as outspoken as Maria refrain from pointing out her teacher’s judgmental behavior — especially when it’s plainly obvious to both the characters in the story and the reader? These kind of abrupt reversals might make sense if we knew more about Maria’s past, but at this stage in the story, they feel more like authorial floundering than a conscious revelation of character.

From time to time, however, Tomori convincingly hints at Maria’s softer side. Midway through volume one, for example, Maria makes tentative overtures towards Tomoya “Nippachi” Kohsaka, a fellow bullying victim. (“Nippachi” means “twenty-eight,” and is a mean-spirited reference to Tomoya’s poor academic performance.) That scene is both sad and real; anyone who’s ever seen two ostracized kids turn their classmates’ scorn on one another will immediately appreciate the dynamic between Maria and Nippachi. Maria’s exchanges with Shin, too, reveal a different side of her personality; though the pair frequently engage in the kind of rapid, antagonistic banter that’s de rigeur for romantic comedies, their quieter conversations suggest a grudging mutual respect.

Maria’s interactions with Nippachi and Shin fill me with hope that A Devil and Her Love Song will find its footing in later chapters. If Tomori can find a way to reveal Maria’s fundamental decency without compromising her heroine’s tart, outspoken personality, A Devil and Her Love Song will be a welcome addition to the Shojo Beat catalog, an all-too-rare example of a story in which the heroine isn’t the least bit concerned with being nice or popular. If Tomori can’t, Devil runs the risk of devolving into a YA Taming of the Shrew, with Shin (or, perhaps, Yosuke) playing Petruchio to Maria’s Katherina.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one will be released February 7, 2011.

A DEVIL AND HER LOVE SONG, VOL. 1 • BY MIYOSHI TOMORI • VIZ MEDIA • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

A Devil and Her Love Song, Vol. 1

January 15, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one will be released February 7, 2011.

A DEVIL AND HER LOVE SONG, VOL. 1 • BY MIYOSHI TOMORI • VIZ MEDIA • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Show Us Your Stuff: Bonjour, Gemini!

January 12, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 20 Comments

After a lengthy (and unintentional) hiatus, I’m pleased to report that Show Us Your Stuff is back with our first-ever international guest. Please help me welcome Gemini, who hails from the French city of Lyon. Though American readers may own many of the same manga as Gemini, they’ll also spot a few titles that have yet to be licensed for English-speaking audiences such as Ashita no Joe and Saint Young Men. His advice to frustrated otaku like me? Learn French! — Katherine Dacey

My name is Gemini, and I’m a French guy living in Lyon. When I was little, there was a lot of anime broadcast in France on a TV show named Le Club Dorothée; I think that the popularity of manga in my country is due to Dorothée, and I discovered manga thanks to that show. I read a lot of manga, but I’m also into French and American comic books, and I spend most of my remaining spare time watching movies. In fact, I couldn’t focus on only one of these activities; I need to read and to see different things.

How long have you been collecting manga? What was the first manga you bought?
I’ve read comic books since the age of 4. Only French ones at the beginning, but I started reading American ones when I was 10. Somebody offered me a manga in the nineties, but I can’t remember who or when exactly; I do remember that it was a volume of Dragon Ball, however. I really started collecting manga in 2001, when I bought my first volume of Saint Seiya, which was my favorite anime in Le Club Dorothée.

How big is your collection?
Today, I have 1,891 volumes of manga, including my art books. I buy only the series I like, and I always want to read my volumes again, so I rarely sell my manga. As a result, it’s very complicated to store all my books…

What is the rarest item in your collection?
Since I’ve been buying manga for a long time, I have a lot of volumes that are out-of-print. Some of them were second-hand when I bought them, so they were already a little bit rare. (I don’t buy used books if I can find the same ones new.)

The rarest items in my collection? I’d have to say Tsukasa Hojo‘s series, which are quite rare in France because they were published by different companies. Ten years ago, the rights to his manga were purchased by a new company. Though the company released such well-known series like Angel Heart and Cat’s Eye, they haven’t released shorter titles such as Rash!! or Komorebi no Moto de. Tsukasa Hojo has a lot of fans in France, so the few titles that were published are now very rare, and are quite expensive. But I managed to find them all, so I think that they’re the rarest manga I own. Editor’s note: Tsukasa Hojo is best known to English-speaking readers as the author of City Hunter, which was licensed by Gutsoon Entertainment but never completed.

What is the weirdest item in your collection?
I bought Tokyo Mew Mew a La Mode. I’m a boy, so that’s obviously weird!

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?
I don’t think that it’s evolved, it’s just that I know my own taste better every day. For example, I really like manga from the seventies or the eighties; that was just natural when I started reading manga, because they were readily available, but now they don’t sell well and become rarer and rarer. It wasn’t until I had difficulty finding older titles that I realized just how important they were to me.

Who are your favorite comic artists?
My favorite one is Osamu Tezuka. He was a true genius. But I have a lot of “favorite” artists: Leiji Matsumoto, Wataru Yoshizumi, Go Nagai, Riyoko Ikeda, and Tsukasa Hojo. As you can see, I’m really into “old” manga.

What series are you actively collecting right now?
You know, France is the country — just after Japan, of course — where manga sells the most. In 2011, 1,520 new volumes of manga were published. So there are a lot of series available, and I collect many of them, including Afterschool Charisma, Ame nochi Hare, Ashita no Joe, Bleach, Break Blade, Captain Tsubasa, Dr. Slump, Drifters, Highschool of the Dead, Hikari no Densetsu, Hokuto no Ken, Hunter x Hunter, K-On!, Ouran High School Host Club, Sabu to Ichi, Saint Seiya G, Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas, Saint Young Men, Shi Ki, The Legend of Kamui, Vinland Saga, and Yotsuba&!.

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)?
You should learn French, it’s easier than Japanese and we have a lot of different manga!

Yakuza Moon: The True Story of a Gangster’s Daughter

January 11, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 6 Comments

In the popular imagination, the yakuza are modern-day samurai, observing a rigid code of honor, decorating their bodies with elaborate tattoos, and meting out swift punishments to anyone who encroaches on their territory. When women appear in yakuza stories, they are usually unwitting victims of clan warfare or temptresses whose sexual allure threatens the established order; they are seldom leaders or soldiers in their own right.

Small wonder, then, that Shoko Tendo’s Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter (2007) caused a mild sensation in Japan when it was first published, as Tendo gave a voice to all the women who had been relegated to the margins of yakuza stories. In direct, unembellished prose, she described the devastating impact of her father’s criminal activities on his family. She cataloged her father’s drunken rages and dalliances with hostesses; recounted his subordinates’ unwanted sexual advances; and recalled the taunts and gossip that swirled around her family after her father’s incarceration.

Tendo turned an equally unsparing eye on herself, documenting her increasingly self-destructive behavior. At twelve, she joined a gang and skipped school; by her sixteenth birthday, she’d been arrested and imprisoned for fighting, and by her nineteenth birthday, she’d become addicted to speed and enmeshed in several violent relationships with married men. Only after a string of near-death experiences was Tendo able to break the cycle of abuse and addiction that had reduced her to a eighty-seven pound skeleton with scars and false teeth.

From this blunt, vivid narrative, Sean Michael Wilson and Michiru Morikawa have fashioned a curiously flat graphic memoir, Yakuza Moon: The True Story of a Gangster’s Daughter. Wilson, the script writer, hews closely to the structure of Tendo’s book, preserving the chapters and the major events of Tendo’s narrative. Yet for all his fidelity to the original, the results are uneven. Most of Tendo’s siblings and lovers, for example, are reduced from major characters to walk-on roles. To judge from Wilson and Morikawa’s adaptation, for example, Tendo’s older sister Maki was a casual acquaintance, yet in Tendo’s memoir, Maki occupied an important place in her sister’s life: first as an idol, someone Tendo emulated, then as a cautionary tale, someone Tendo feared becoming. Tendo’s other family members fare worse than Maki; readers could be excused for wondering how many siblings Tendo has, as her older brother and younger sister are mentioned only in passing late in the book, with little discussion of how their father’s lifestyle affected them.

Equally frustrating are the layouts: Yakuza Moon looks more like an illustrated novel than comics, with words carrying the burden of the storytelling and pictures playing an ancillary role. Only in Tendo’s sexual encounters does the artwork take a more prominent role; through nuanced facial expressions and body language, Morikawa speaks volumes about Tendo’s complicated relationships with men. We immediately sense which partners were bullies, and which were kind; which used physical intimidation to control Tendo, and which used emotional manipulation; and which she feared, and which she loved. There’s a frankness to these scenes that’s missing elsewhere in the book; Morikawa never shies away from depicting ugly or uncomfortable moments, but shows us what’s happening from Tendo’s point of view, rather than her partner’s.

And that, perhaps, is this graphic novel’s greatest strength: whatever compromises Wilson and Morikawa made in translating Tendo’s prose into images, the focus of the story remains squarely on Tendo. Yakuza activities — drug dealing, loansharking, beatings — take place off camera; we only see the terrible consequences, reminding us that no matter how elaborate the yakuza code of conduct may be, there’s no real honor among thieves.

YAKUZA MOON: THE TRUE STORY OF A GANGSTER’S DAUGHTER • BASED ON THE BOOK BY SHOKO TENDO, ADAPTED BY SEAN MICHAEL WILSON, ILLUSTRATED BY MICHIRO MORIKAWA • KODANSHA USA • 192 pp. • RATING: MATURE

Yakuza Moon: The True Story of a Gangster’s Daughter

January 11, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

Pick of the Week: Farewell, Bandai

January 9, 2012 by Sean Gaffney, Brigid Alverson, MJ, Katherine Dacey and Michelle Smith 1 Comment

The pickin’s are somewhat slim this week at Midtown Comics, but the Battle Robot is able to find a few comics worth buying.

SEAN: … I’ll be honest, nothing thrills me from this week’s manga list. Instead, my vote goes to Vol. 3 of IDW’s Best of Dan DeCarlo, another in their line of Archie Comics series devoted to classic authors. Admittedly, it would have been nice to see the fine folks at Archie show love to these artists while they were still alive, but we can’t have everything. The first collection of Dan’s work focused almost entirely on his Betty and Veronica classics, and that makes sense: Dan is most famous for the way he drew the female form, and those comics best show that off. Now that we’re three volumes in, I’m wondering if we’ll see some more variety. Plus this collection likely means even more scripts by Frank Doyle, who was simply the best writer Archie ever had in its classic years.

BRIGID: I probably wouldn’t do this if there were a stronger selection to choose from, but my pick is vol. 3 of Kannagi, both because it’s a nice series and as a tribute to the publisher, Bandai Entertainment, which is closing up shop next month. That means there will be no new volumes of Kannagi. That might be a good thing. The first volume was a pleasant surprise, the second volume a bit weaker. Still, I enjoy Eri Takenashi’s elegantly simple art, and Bandai did a nice job with production on these books. I’ll miss Kannagi.

MJ: I’m going to follow Brigid’s example here, and throw my vote to Kannagi. I enjoyed the series’ first volume quite a bit, and was disappointed by the second, but I’ve held out hope that the third might steer the story back to its original trajectory. I’m sorry to see Kannagi and Bandai go. Manga was never the compay’s focus, but they worked hard to do well by it and learned from their mistakes. It’s a shame this series won’t be completed in English.

KATE: My choice is the final volume of Hyde & Closer. At seven volumes, the series never overstays its welcome, offering readers an enjoyable mixture of comedy and horror, with a sprinkling of life lessons. The crisp, imaginative artwork is another plus; Haro Aso had a talent for transforming seemingly benign toys — a kokeshi doll, a teddy bear — into lethal weapons. (Do I really need to say more than “teddy bears with chainsaws” to sell you on the concept?) It’s a pity the series was saddled with an Older Teen rating, as it’s a perfect choice for younger teens who’ve outgrown material like BakeGyamon: Backwards Game but aren’t quite ready for the more mature shonen titles in VIZ, Yen Press, and Kodansha’s catalogs.

MICHELLE: Ordinarily, I’d cast my vote for volume five of Bokurano: Ours, but as I’ve done so at least once already, I’ll focus instead on volume 41 of Case Closed, which I talked about in a recent Off the Shelf column. I realize it’s unlikely that anyone new to a series would decide to start with volume 41, but Case Closed is the rare example of a manga where one could legitimately do this, not be lost, and enjoy it. All it takes is being in the mood for a mystery that features gadget-assisted sleuthing and convoluted murder puzzles. If this were seinen, no doubt the series would be more grim and realistic. Because it’s shounen, though, readers are in for uncomplicated fun.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 1/9/12

January 9, 2012 by MJ, Michelle Smith, Katherine Dacey and Sean Gaffney 1 Comment

This week, MJ, Michelle, Kate, & Sean take a look at new releases from Vertical Inc., Viz Media, Kodansha Comics, and Dark Horse.

Chi’s Sweet Home, Vol. 7 | By Konami Kanata | Vertical, Inc. – One might imagine that a manga series about the life of a cute cat would eventually become… boring. Fortunately, the appeal of Chi’s Sweet Home endures, adding to the internet’s growing body of evidence suggesting that the human fascination with feline behavior is essentially endless. In volume seven, Chi spends some time out of the house with stray cat Cocchi, who introduces her to the neighborhood’s best food sources, for better or worse. This series remains as fresh and charming as ever, and also stands as one of the few currently-running manga that can be successfully picked up at pretty much any point. This volume works as well as a stand-alone set of cute cat comics as it does as part of a heart-warming series, so there’s no excuse for passing on it, even if you’ve missed what’s come before. Still recommended. -MJ

Chi’s Sweet Home, Vol. 7 | By Konami Kanata | Vertical, Inc. – As a cat owner, I read Chi with a certain amount of sympathy for all parties concerned. This is especially true in this volume, wherein Chi eats something strange while exploring outside and ends up being whisked to the vet for treatment by her frantic owners. (Barf is such a ubiquitous part of cat ownership I’m actually pretty amazed that it took until chapter 127 for Kanata to get around to depicting it!) True, sometimes her owners still do very unwise things (like bring a new goldfish into their home), but Yohei continues to be adorable, as do Chi’s outdoor pals. I’m especially fond of Cocchi, a kitten without a home who plays gruff but secretly enjoys cuddling with Chi. His sad story—and Chi’s brush with danger—also serve to show that this series doesn’t need to rely on cuteness to affect its audience. Perennially recommended. – Michelle Smith

No Longer Human, Vol. 2 | Based on the novel by Osamu Dazai, Adapted by Usamaru Furuya | Vertical, Inc. – I’m of two minds about No Longer Human. On the one hand, Usamaru Furuya’s sense of pacing and narrative has never been stronger; working from Osamu Dazai’s text, Furuya has crafted a grim but compelling story about a young man’s fall from grace. On the other hand, Furuya’s interpretation of the lead character, Yozo, is less nuanced than Dazai’s; Yozo has been transformed a young man paralyzed by his own self awareness to a garden-variety narcissist who thinks only of himself. That small but important change gives the material a bitter aftertaste, making No Longer Human a difficult manga to read — not because bad things happen, but because the hero’s apathy makes him seem like more of a jerk than a wounded soul. An uneven but worthy introduction to Dazai’s work. -Katherine Dacey

Negima! Magister Negi Magi Omnibus, Vol. 3 | By Ken Akamatsu | Kodansha Comics. – This third omnibus, containing Vols. 7-9 of Negima, sees Akamatsu shuffle plot points into position, dot i’s and cross t’s, and generally prepare for the next big arc, the fighting tournament. Most of Vol. 7 is taken up with a fight between Negi and Asuna, who is at her most Naru-esque here, a trait she’ll lose as the series goes on. Vol. 8 reintroduces Kotaro, but on Negi’s side and becoming a much needed “male friend”. The translation by the Nibleys had less to alter here – Trish Ledoux was not as free as Peter David was – so it’s not as absolutely necessary a buy as 1 and 2 were. Still, those re-reading will enjoy the foreshadowing of things that happened years later Akamatsu throws in here, as well as casually dropping in his first big villain – one of Negi’s own students! There’s also less service here (though still quite a bit), leading me to think this is where Akamatsu gained control over Kodansha’s editors.-Sean Gaffney

Oh My Goddess, Vol. 40 | By Kosuke Fujishima | Dark Horse Comics. – If you skip to the Letters column of this very short volume, you’ll see Carl apologizing – it was only 112 pages in Japan as well, for unknown reasons. It’s supposed to be a one-time thing. Still, we do get some action in these 5 chapters, as Keiichi and the three goddesses begin their journey into Hell to battle Hild’s usurpers. Keiichi’s place in the group is brought up a few times, and we get a few good reasons why he’s there – he’s genuinely good at strategy and thinking on his feet, something we’ve seen before but tend to forget because it’s balanced with so much of him waffling and not shtupping Belldandy. Speaking of whom, Bell’s jealousy is really starting to get lampshaded in these chapters – Hild’s farewell kiss causes Bell to lose control of her powers, and when a demon threatens Keiichi, she’s quick to break in with a pointed threat. Those who have read the series all along will still enjoy this volume, small though it may be.-Sean Gaffney

Psyren, Vol. 2 | By Toshiaki Iwashiro | Viz Media – The second volume of Psyren is a minor improvement on the first, thanks in large part to the introduction of a second memorable female character, Matsuri Yagumo, a motorcycle-riding concert pianist who also wields a mean kitana. Though we’re treated to a few moments of Matsuri strutting her stuff, her primary role — in this volume, at least — is to explain the rules of Psyren to newcomers Ageha and Hiryu. Those exposition-dense passages dominate the volume, slowing the narrative to a crawl while Matsuri lectures the boys on how to use their psionic powers and what they can expect to see within the game. With the basic groundwork for the story laid, one can only hope that the talk-to-action ratio in volume three will cant more strongly towards the latter. -Katherine Dacey

Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll, Vol. 1

January 6, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 1 Comment

Critic proof: that’s my two-word assessment of Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll, a new all-ages manga starring one of Sanrio’s lesser-known characters. The story is a mixture of sincere sentiment and calculated product placement that’s been carefully designed to appeal to the under-ten crowd; an adult can practically hear the cha-ching of the cash register every time a new character or magical object is introduced.

The Cinnamaroll of the title is described in the introduction as a “boy puppy” with a tail like a bun. Unhappy among his litter mates — all of whom are big, puffy clouds — he finds his calling at a terrestrial bakery that specializes in breakfast treats. There he befriends an assortment of other dogs: Mocha, a “stylish chatterbox” who accessorizes with ribbons and flowers; Cappuccino, an easygoing pup who likes to nap and eat; Chiffon, a high-energy dog with ears that faintly resemble a chiffon cake; Espresso, a talented know-it-all who boasts a “distinguished Mozart hairstyle”; and Milk, a baby whose entire vocabulary consists of the all-purpose word “baboo.”

Volume one features a dozen or so stories involving picnics, treasure maps, trips to the beach, and letters to Santa Claus. Though there’s a strong element of fantasy in the gang’s adventures, there’s an even stronger whiff of didacticism: in one chapter, for example, Cinnamoroll must set aside his fear of the dark to rescue his friends, who are being held captive in a haunted house, while in another, Cinnamoroll learns to embrace the fact he’s different from the other “cloud kids.” Every conflict is neatly resolved in a few pages, with Cinnamoroll learning an important lesson about friendship, loyalty, or selflessness; only Cavity, a dark cloud with a devil’s tail, seems impervious to the other characters’ warmth and energy.

As an adult reader, it’s impossible not to feel a little jaded reading Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll. The stories have predictable scripts that have been carefully designed to stimulate the reader’s awwwww reflex at regular intervals. The artwork, too, lacks personality; though no one would deny its fundamental cuteness, the art looks prefabricated, as if each character had been assembled from interchangeable parts from the Sanrio plant. More puzzling still is that none of the pups look particularly canine; the artist could easily have described all of them as long-eared rabbits without compromising the story.

Yet for all the cynicism a project like Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll might inspire, I also understand its appeal: it looks like someone took the contents of my childhood sticker album and turned it into a story featuring puppies, unicorns, sweets, and rainbows. The stories, like the character designs, have a definite child logic to them, as the plots touch on a variety of pre-teen fantasies: being rich and famous, eating a diet of sweets, spending all your time playing with friends (no one goes to school), and learning that yes, indeed, you were born into the wrong family. If those stories aren’t executed with the grace or imagination of the best kids’ comics, they’ll still please the under-ten crowd with their whimsical settings and earnest characters. Just don’t be surprised when they ask the inevitable question: where can I get a Cinnamoroll doll?

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

FLUFFY, FLUFFY CINNAMOROLL, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY YUMI TSUKIRINO, ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY CHISATO SEKI • VIZ MEDIA • 160 pp. • RATING: ALL AGES

Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll, Vol. 1

January 6, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

Pick of the Week: Manga & More

January 2, 2012 by MJ, Katherine Dacey, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith 7 Comments

It’s a new year, and Midtown Comics gets things started with a hefty shipment of new manga. See what Michelle, Sean, Kate, and MJare looking forward to this week!

MICHELLE: It’s the first pick of the new year! There are actually several likely candidates on the list of manga due to arrive this week, including Kimi ni Todoke, One Piece, and Oresama Teacher. But I am going to have to award my pick to a shoujo manga that I continue to love even as it approaches its 30th volume: Skip Beat!. In practically any other series, the fact that the heroine, Kyoko, is still oblivious to the hero’s feelings for her would be series-droppingly annoying by this point, but somehow, Skip Beat! makes it work. It helps that Kyoko is spirited, determined, and focused on her career, and the funny moments (pretty much any time Kyoko wears a chicken costume) are also worth the price of admission.

KATE: I’m just getting up to speed with Skip Beat!, so my vote goes to Government Issue: Comics for the People, 1940s – 2000s. This anthology has actually been available for a couple of months, so it’s a little surprising to see it appear on the Midtown Comics list this week. But if you missed it when it was originally released in November, now’s your chance to see how the American government has harnessed the comics medium to educate its constituents about a range of topics, from nuclear war to AIDS. The book is divided into four sections: comics about the military; comics about employment and economics; comics about civil defense, safety, and health; and comics about landscapes and lifestyles. Though the contextual essays are a little too brief to be truly revelatory, the comics speak for themselves, offering readers a fascinating window into twentieth-century history.

SEAN: It’s getting so that every new volume of Oresama Teacher is making me even happier than the last. The author has a flair for writing very dumb characters in such a way that you not only like them but root for them, and yet at the same time your jaw drops every time they miss the blatantly obvious. It also manages to ride a very fine line, not quite being supportive of young teenagers being in gangs, but at the same time showing the deep bonds of friendship that exist within such structures. As for Mafuyu’s various relationships with the various males in the series, I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea who she’ll end up with, if anyone. Which is a rarity for most manga both shonen and shoujo, where the end pairing always seems set in stone from the very beginning. And she kicks everyone’s ass as well. Fantastic series.

MJ: Though this week is chock full of (mostly Viz) goodness, I find myself drifting to a book I picked up from last week’s list, volume two of Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son from Fantagraphics. I absolutely loved the first volume of this series, and I was thrilled to see this pop up a couple of weeks ahead of what I’d thought was its official release date. This is one of those highly-anticipated series that turned out to be even better than I expected, which is a pretty rare treat. Though its beautiful hardcover presentation puts it in a higher price bracket than most manga, it’s required reading as far as I’m concerned, deserving of a nice, long shelf life. Definitely worth saving up for.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

The Best Manga of 2011: The Manga Critic’s Picks

December 31, 2011 by Katherine Dacey 27 Comments

The usual gambit for introducing a year-end list is to remark on the abundance of good titles, acknowledge the difficulty in choosing just ten (or five, or three), and comment on the overall state of the industry. And while I certainly debated what to include on my list, I’ll be honest: 2011 yielded fewer contenders for Best Manga than any other year I’ve covered. The dearth of new titles was attributable to publishers’ financial prudence; companies released fewer books, licensed fewer series, and focused on repackaging older content for budget-conscious consumers. And though I selfishly wish that more new material had been released this year, I think manga publishers have done an excellent job of responding to their biggest challenges: a sluggish economy, digital piracy, and Borders’ bankruptcy.

So what titles made my 2011 list? My top ten are below, along with my list of favorite continuing series, favorite finales, and favorite guilty pleasures.

10. BREATHE DEEPLY (Yamaaki Doton; One Peace Books)

Part sci-fi thriller, part coming-of-age story, this engrossing drama examines the relationship between two young men: Sei, who grew up in a world of privilege, and Oishi, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Both Sei and Oishi fall in love with Yuko, a sickly girl whose incurable illness inspires her suitors to become medical researchers. In less capable hands, Breathe Deeply might have been a mawkish paean to the purity of young love, but the husband-and-wife team of Yamaaki Doton have a keen ear for dialogue; the interactions between Yuko and her two suitors are tinged with an authentic mixture of adolescent anxiety, sexual longing, and braggadocio. Clean, expressive artwork and well-rounded characters help sell the story, especially in its final pages. One of 2011’s best surprises.

9. THE SECRET NOTES OF LADY KANOKO (Ririko Tsujita; Tokyopop)

Kanoko, the sardonic heroine of The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko, is a student of human behavior, gleefully filling her notebooks with detailed observations about her classmates. Though Kanoko would like nothing more than to remain on the sidelines, she frequently becomes embroiled in her peers’ problems; they value her independent perspective, as Kanoko isn’t the least bit interested in dating, running for student council, or currying favor with the alpha clique. Kanoko’s sharp tongue and cool demeanor might make her the mean-girl villain in another shojo manga, but Ririko Tsujita embraces her heroine’s prickly, opinionated nature and makes it fundamental to Kanoko’s appeal. It’s a pity TOKYOPOP didn’t survive long enough to finish this three-volume series, as it’s one of the best shojo titles in recent memory.

8. WANDERING SON (Takako Shimura; Fantagraphics)

In her thoughtful review of volume one, Michelle Smith praised Takako Shimura’s deft use of perspective: “The main thing I kept thinking about while reading Wandering Son… is how things that seem insignificant to one person can be secretly, intensely significant to someone else.” Shimura’s ability to dramatize each character’s unique point of view is one of the reasons Wandering Son never feels preachy, even though the topic suggests an Afterschool Special; we are always exquisitely aware of the subtle but important changes in the way each character views herself, as well as her fears and hopes.

7. PRINCESS KNIGHT (Osamu Tezuka; Vertical, Inc.)

What Osamu Tezuka’s New Treasure Island (1946) was to shonen, his Princess Knight (1953-56) was to shojo: both were long-form adventure stories with cinematic flair. Neither could be said to be the “first” shonen or shojo manga, but both had a profound influence on the artists who came of age in the 1940s and 1950s, offering a new storytelling model for them to emulate. Viewed through a contemporary lens, Princess Knight hasn’t aged quite as well as New Treasure Island, as it’s saddled with some woefully antiquated notions of gender. At the same time, however, it’s easy to see why this story appealed to several generations of Japanese girls: Sapphire gets to eat her cake and have it too, having swashbuckling adventures *and* winning the hand of Prince Charming. –Reviewed at Manga Bookshelf on 11/21/11 and The Manga Critic on 12/19/10

6. TANK TANKURO: GAJO SAKAMOTO, MANGA’S PRE-WAR MASTER, 1934-35 (Gajo Sakamoto; Press Pop)

Almost twenty years before Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy took flight in the pages of Shonen Kobunsha magazine, Gajo Sakamoto’s Tank Tankuro enchanted Japanese youngsters with his monster-fighting exploits and cool gadgets. Though the series’ propaganda intent is impossible for contemporary readers to ignore — Tank fights the Chinese, who are portrayed in less-than-flattering terms — Presspop’s new anthology demonstrates that Sakamoto’s artistry has aged more gracefully than his storylines. Sakamoto’s work is packaged in a handsome, hardcover edition that includes thoughtful extras: a contextual essay by translator Sunsuke Nakazawa, an interview with Sakamoto’s son, and an article by Sakamoto himself, discussing the character’s origin.

5. STARGAZING DOG (Takashi Murakami; NBM/Comics Lit)

Consider yourself warned: Stargazing Dog is a five-hanky affair. The two interconnecting vignettes that comprise this slim volume explore the bond between Happie, a shiba inu, and Daddy, his owner. When Daddy loses his job, his home, and his family, he and Happie hit the road in search of a new life. Though the outcome of Happie and Daddy’s journey is never in doubt — we learn their fate in the opening pages of the book — Murakami draws the reader into their story with an honest and unsparing look at the human-dog compact that may remind cinephiles of Vittorio de Sica’s Umberto D. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 12/23/11

4. ONWARDS TOWARD OUR NOBLE DEATHS (Shigeru Mizuki; Drawn & Quarterly)

In this blistering indictment of Japanese militarism, Shigeru Mizuki draws on his own experiences during World War II to tell the story of a platoon stationed in Papua New Guinea. The soldiers face a terrible choice: fight a hopeless battle, or face execution for treason. Like many war stories, Onwards Toward Our Noble Deaths documents the tremendous human sacrifice of modern armed conflict: gruesome injuries, senseless deaths, devastated landscapes. What lends Mizuki’s narrative its special potency is his depiction of the senior officers; their perverse dedication to their mission turns them into tyrants, more concerned with saving face than saving their own soldiers’ skins. Essential reading for anyone interested in World War II.

3. THE DROPS OF GOD (Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto; Vertical, Inc.)

As Oishinbo handily demonstrated, a skilled writer can fold a considerable amount of educational detail into a story without reducing it to a textbook. The Drops of God follows a similar template, imparting highly specialized information about wine with the same natural ease that Law & Order illustrates the inner workings of a crime investigation. At the same time, however, Drops is a delicious soap opera, filled with domineering fathers, mustache-twirling villains, evil beauties, eccentric oenophiles, and down-on-their-luck restauranteurs. Even if the reader isn’t the least bit interested in wine, he’ll find the drama as irresistible as an episode of Dynasty. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 12/16/11

2. A ZOO IN WINTER (Jiro Taniguchi; Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Drawing on his own experiences, Jiro Taniguchi spins an engaging tale about a young man who abandons a promising career in textile design for the opportunity to become a manga artist. Though the basic plot invites comparison with Bakuman, Taniguchi does more than just document important milestones in Hamaguchi’s career: he shows us how Hamaguchi’s emotional maturation informs every aspect of his artistry — something that’s missing from many other portrait-of-an-artist-as-a-young-man sagas, which place much greater emphasis on the pleasure of professional recognition than on the satisfaction of mastering one’s craft. Lovely, moody artwork and an appealing cast of supporting characters complete this very satisfying package. —Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/28/11

1. A BRIDE’S STORY (Kaoru Mori; Yen Press)

A Bride’s Story, which takes place on the banks of the Caspian Sea, explores the relationship between Amir Halgal, a nineteen-year-old nomad, and Karluk Eihon, the eldest son of sheep herders. Though their marriage is one of political expedience, Amir is determined to be a good wife, doing her utmost to learn her new family’s customs, befriend the members of their extended clan, and earn her new husband’s respect. Kaoru Mori is as interested in observing Amir’s everyday life as she is in documenting the growing conflict between the Halgal and Eihon clans, yet A Bride’s Story is never dull, thanks to Mori’s smart, engaging dialogue; as she demonstrated in Emma and Shirley, Mori can make even the simplest moments revealing, whether her characters are preparing a manor house for the master’s return or skinning a freshly killed deer. By allowing her story to unfold in such a naturalistic fashion, A Bride’s Story manages to be both intimate and expansive, offering readers a window into life along the Silk Road. –Reviewed at The Manga Critic on 5/24/11

HONORABLE MENTIONS

As in previous years, I had difficulty limiting myself to just ten titles, so I compiled a list of manga that didn’t quite make my best-of list, but were thoroughly enjoyable:

OTHER AWESOME DEBUTS: The Book of Human Insects (Vertical, Inc.), Tesoro (VIZ)

BEST CONTINUING SERIES: 20th Century Boys (VIZ), Bunny Drop (Yen Press), Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical, Inc.), Cross Game (VIZ), Ooku: The Inner Chambers (VIZ), Twin Spica (Vertical, Inc.)

BEST NEW GUILTY PLEASURE: Blue Exorcist (VIZ), Oresama Teacher (VIZ)

BEST REPRINT EDITION: Magic Knight Rayearth (Dark Horse), Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Kodansha Comics)

BEST MANGA I THOUGHT I’D HATE: Cage of Eden (Kodansha Comics)

BEST FINALE: Black Jack, Vol. 17 (Vertical, Inc.)

So now I turn the floor over to you, readers: what were your favorite new manga of 2011?