Katherine Dacey

Domu: A Child’s Dream

October 25, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

domu1 Revisiting AKIRA prompted me to re-read Domu: A Child’s Dream, an earlier work that helped cement Katsuhiro Otomo’s reputation as the leading manga-ka of his generation. Though both series include elements of horror and science fiction, the two are utterly different in approach: AKIRA is sweeping, grand, and allegorical, whereas Domu is compact, a taut psychological thriller that unfolds in a mere 230 pages.

Domu begins like a police procedural: an older detective and his hot-headed young partner arrive at a Tokyo apartment complex to investigate a series of deaths. Though the victims’ histories suggest foul play rather than suicide, the detectives are baffled by the crime scenes: all of the victims have jumped off rooftops or slashed their own throats, with no evidence of anyone watching or aiding them. A few tantalizing clues lead investigators to “Old Cho,” a seemingly benign, senile resident who spends most of his time sitting on a bench and muttering. Inspectors Yamagawa and Tamura can’t connect Cho to the crimes, but Etsuko, a stolid little girl who has just moved into the complex, knows how Cho killed them: telekinesis and hypnotic suggestion.

What follows is an intensely creepy cat-and-mouse game between Etsuko and Cho. Though Cho is nominally an adult, his mind is terrifyingly child-like; he kills his neighbors for their “treasures”: a baseball cap with wings, a fake ruby ring, an umbrella, a stuffed toy. Cho initially regards Etsuko as an impediment to his fun, but when he discovers that Etsuko can also move objects with her mind, he begins testing her strength and sense of morality. Their battle begins in the narrow hallways and dim elevator shafts of Etsuko’s building, but quickly consumes the entire complex as Cho attempts to annihilate Etsuko.

domu_page

Though I found the artwork for AKIRA a bit dated, a relic of a particular moment in sci-fi history, Domu seemed less mired in the 1980s. The characters are refreshingly realistic in their appearance; Cho actually looks like an eighty-year-old man, with a stooped frame, a deeply-etched face, and liver-spotted hands, while Etsuko’s plump cheeks and slightly awkward proportions seem appropriate for an eight-year-old. Otomo lavishes similar attention on his bit players, too, giving each apartment dweller a distinctive look that speaks volumes about his economic status, age, and fear of being swept up in Yamagawa and Tamura’s murder investigation. Even the apartment complex functions as a kind of character, a sterile collection of high-rise buildings whose imposing exteriors give way to dark, dingy interiors and cramped apartments. As Otomo guides us through its labyrinthine hallways and stairwells, we feel a palpable sense of dread; the complex is filled with the kind of dead ends and blind spots that feature prominently in our worst nightmares.

Domu would be a solid, if not remarkable, thriller on the strength of its artwork alone, but Etsuko’s predicament gives the story an added jolt of energy and terror. She’s the strongest, most adult character in the story, the only one with a clear sense of what’s happening, and the only one powerful enough to stop Cho. Making her plight more compelling is the fact that Etsuko behaves like an eight-year-old who just happens to have a deadly gift, rather than a god-like creature who just happens to be eight years old; she’s small and vulnerable, eager for the comfort of her mother’s arms, but she’s also fiercely moral and incredibly brave in the face of nightmarish events, a child whose natural desire to set things right is cruelly tested by a childish adult.

N.B. Domu has been out of print for several years, though copies are relatively easy to find through eBay and Amazon’s extended seller network. Dark Horse released Domu in several formats, including three slim TPBs and an omnibus edition.

DOMU: A CHILD’S DREAM • BY KATSUHIRO OTOMO • DARK HORSE • NO RATING (RECOMMENDED FOR OLDER TEENS)

Manga Artifacts: Domu: A Child’s Dream

October 25, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Revisiting AKIRA prompted me to re-read Domu: A Child’s Dream, an earlier work that helped cement Katsuhiro Otomo’s reputation as the leading manga-ka of his generation. Though both series include elements of horror and science fiction, the two are utterly different in approach: AKIRA is sweeping, grand, and allegorical, whereas Domu is compact, a taut psychological thriller that unfolds in a mere 230 pages.

domu_page

DOMU: A CHILD’S DREAM • BY KATSUHIRO OTOMO • DARK HORSE • NO RATING (RECOMMENDED FOR OLDER TEENS)

AKIRA, Vol. 1

October 22, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

akira_cover My first exposure to Katsuhiro Otomo came in 1990, when a boyfriend insisted that we attend a screening of AKIRA at an artsy theater in the Village. I wish I could say that it had been a transforming experience, one that had awakened me to the possibilities of animation in general and Japanese visual storytelling in particular, but, in fact, I found the film tedious, gory, and self-important. Little did I imagine that I’d be reviewing AKIRA nineteen years later, let alone in its original graphic novel format.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Otomo’s epic tale works better on the page than it does on the screen, though it’s easy to see why Otomo felt the lengthy motorcycle chases and fight scenes were swell fodder for a movie. Ditto for the setting: what artist wouldn’t want the chance to destroy and rebuild a city as complex and ultra-modern as Tokyo?

The story, however, demands the more intimate medium of print, as those chases and fights seem more urgent and surprising on the page than on the screen. The story’s setting works better in print as well; the city feels feels more claustrophobic when rendered in black and white than in color. The story’s length, too, is a factor; the movie compresses over 2,000 pages of material into two hours, trimming some of the manga’s more interesting subplots and secondary characters in order to accommodate the explosions and high-speed chases. More significantly, the film grossly simplifies the relationship between principal characters Tetsuo and Kaneda, reducing Tetsuo’s transformation from juvenile delinquent to god-like being to a mere plot device. The manga, however, gives each character more room to be, and not just react; as a result, Tetsui and Kaneda seem like real teenage boys, not generic action figures.

Plot-wise, AKIRA is still as topical as ever. Its paranoid vibe seems as resonant in 2009 as it did when the manga was first released in 1982, as does its message about the devastating consequences of weapons of mass destruction. Watching China prepare for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 — leveling shanty towns, silencing protests — suggested parallels with AKIRA‘s own Olympic subplot, both in the secrecy surrounding the facilities’ construction and in the government’s adamant denial of citizen opposition.

The artwork hasn’t aged quite as gracefully as the story; it’s the manga equivalent of a mullet, betraying its early eighties roots. Otomo’s backgrounds and weaponry look liked they’ve been traced from The Star Wars Storybook, exuding the same mixture of sterility and rust that was a hallmark of period science fiction, while his characters have thick bodies and pudgy faces, just like the heroes of Tsukasa Hojo’s manga. Yet it’s hard to deny AKIRA‘s visual appeal. Otomo is one of the few artists who can make a chase or an explosion seem like it’s actually happening on the page, thanks to his ability to convey the “geography” of the scene: how big the space is, how far apart the characters are standing. The sound effects are almost superfluous, as Otomo does such a superb job of showing us how the characters move through the space that one can almost hear the whoosh! and vroom! as they fly past.

If you didn’t finish collecting AKIRA when it was still a Dark Horse property, you can round out your set without compromising its appearance on your shelf; the Kodansha edition is virtually identical, save for the logo on the spine. (No, really: it’s the same translation, same trim size, same cover design, and same price as the 2000 version.) And if you haven’t read it yet? Well, now’s your chance to read one of the medium’s greatest sci-fi epics in a nice, oversized package. Recommended.

Review updated on October 5, 2010.

AKIRA, VOL. 1 • BY KATSUHIRO OTOMO • KODANSHA • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+) • 368 pp.

AKIRA, Vol. 1

October 22, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

My first exposure to Katsuhiro Otomo came in 1990, when a college boyfriend insisted that we attend a screening of AKIRA at an artsy theater in the Village. I wish I could say that it had been a transforming experience, one that had awakened me to the possibilities of animation in general and Japanese visual storytelling in particular, but, in fact, I found the film tedious, gory, and self-important. Little did I imagine that I’d be reviewing AKIRA nineteen years later, let alone in its original graphic novel format.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Otomo’s epic tale works better on the page than it does on the screen, though it’s easy to see why Otomo felt the lengthy motorcycle chases and fight scenes were swell fodder for a movie. Ditto for the setting: what artist wouldn’t want the chance to rebuild a city as complex and ultra-modern as Tokyo from the ground up?

The story, however, demands the more intimate medium of print, as those chases and fights seem urgent and kinetic on the page, an essential tool for drawing the reader into the story, rather than an opportunity for the animators to dazzle audiences with their technical prowess. The story’s setting works better in print as well; the city feels feels more claustrophobic when rendered in black and white than in color. And the story’s length, too, is a factor; the movie compresses over 2,000 pages of material into two hours, trimming some of the manga’s more interesting subplots and secondary characters in order to accommodate the explosions and high-speed chases, and grossly simplifying the relationship between Tetsuo and Kaneda. As in the movie, neither personality is firmly established before Tetsuo begins morphing from juvenile delinquent to god-like psychopath, yet the manga gives each character more room to be, and not just react. As a result, both seem human and vulnerable, more teenage boys than action figures.

The basic plot has held up well. Its paranoid, don’t-trust-the-military vibe seems as resonant in 2009 as it did when the manga was first released in 1982, as does its message about the devastating consequences of WMDs. Watching China prepare for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 — leveling shanty towns, silencing protests — suggested parallels with AKIRA‘s own Olympic subplot, both in the secrecy surrounding the facilities’ construction and in the government’s adamant denial of citizen opposition to the projects.

The artwork hasn’t aged quite as gracefully as the story; it’s the manga equivalent of a mullet, betraying its early eighties roots. Otomo’s backgrounds and weaponry look liked they’ve been traced from The Star Wars Storybook, exuding the same mixture of sterility and rust that was a hallmark of period science fiction, while his characters have thick bodies and pudgy faces, just like the heroes of Tsukasa Hojo’s manga. Yet it’s hard to deny AKIRA‘s visual appeal. Otomo is one of the few artists who can make a chase or an explosion seem like it’s actually happening on the page, thanks to his ability to convey what I call the “geography” of the scene: how big the space is, how high off the ground it is, how far apart the characters are standing. The sound effects are almost superfluous, as Otomo does such a superb job of showing us how the characters move through the space that one can almost hear the whoosh! and vroom! as they fly past.

Review updated on October 5, 2010.

AKIRA, VOL. 1 • BY KATSUHIRO OTOMO • KODANSHA • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+) • 368 pp.

Rin-Ne, Vol. 1

October 18, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

I read a Rumiko Takahashi manga for the same reason I watch an Alfred Hitchcock thriller: I know exactly what I’m going to get. Certain plot elements and motifs recur throughout each artist’s work — Hitchcock loves pairing a brittle blond with a rakish cad on the run from authorities, for example, while Takahashi loves pairing a female “seer” with a demonically-tinged boy — yet the craft with which Hitchcock and Takahashi develop such tropes prevents either artist’s work from feeling stale or repetitive. Takahashi’s latest series gives ample proof that while she may have a limited repertory, she’s the undisputed master of the supernatural mystery.

Sakura Mamiya and Rinne Rokudo, Rin-ne‘s oil-and-water leads, are a classic Takahashi pair: Sakura is a seemingly ordinary teenager with the ability to see ghosts, while Rinne is a hot-headed boy who’s part human and part shinigami. The two meet cute in Sakura’s tenth-grade classroom when Rinne arrives to claim his long-empty seat. “Looks like he made it,” Sakura whispers to a friend before realizing that she’s the only person who can see the tall, flame-haired boy in a fancy ceremonial robe. Sakura then watches Rinne attempt to banish an enormous Chihuahua demon to the afterlife — an exorcism that goes horribly (and comically) awry when the dog’s spirit merges with the spirit of a love-starved teen. Now forced to contend with an even more powerful, angry ghost, Rinne uses Sakura to lure it to the Wheel of Reincarnation, an enormous portal that separates the material and spirit worlds.

…

Rin-Ne, Vol. 1

October 18, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

rinne_chihuahua

After their dramatic introduction, Sakura and Rinne forge a reluctant partnership. Sakura provides material assistance and ethical guidance to Rinne, while Rinne banishes the spirits that plague Sakura’s high school. Sakura soon learns that Rinne’s grandmother, a shinigami, fell in love with a young man whose spirit she was sent to collect. In exchange for extending his life by fifty years, Rinne’s grandmother agreed to “fulfill her shinigami duties at ten times her usual quota.” When she failed to reach that target, Rinne was forced to enter the family trade, operating on the fringes of both the human and spectral worlds with limited ability to function in either realm — hence his weak exorcism skills.

Where, exactly, Takahashi plans to take the story is still something of a mystery. As she did with InuYasha, she’s using the first few volumes to establish the premise, explain how the Wheel of Incarnation works, and develop the chemistry between her lead characters by subjecting them to a host of unhappy spirits. The first eight chapters have a pleasant, spook-of-the-week feeling, as Sakura and Rinne tangle with a ghostly cell phone caller, a damashigami (a shinigami who meets his quota by luring innocent people to their deaths), and an ochimusa (a disgraced warrior). At the same time, however, Takahashi is clearly laying the groundwork for a more extended storyline, introducing several supporting characters, leaving key questions about Sakura’s past unanswered, and creating space for a Naraku-esque villain to fill.

The first volume’s leisurely pace also allows Takahashi plenty of room to showcase her comedic talents. Though InuYasha, Mermaid Saga, and Rumic World have canted more strongly towards horror, Rin-ne is decidedly humorous, incorporating supernatural elements into everyday settings in delightfully absurd ways. Takahashi’s demon Chihuahua is a great example: the demon continues to behave like a nervous, short-haired toy even after it grows to enormous size, and remains susceptible to the savory appeal of milk bones. Rinne’s grandfather is another example of the supernatural made ridiculous; as Rinne’s grandmother wistfully notes, her husband was reincarnated as a mackerel — the destiny for which he was slated when she fell in love with him.

Though utterly enjoyable, Rin-ne has its flaws. Takahashi relies a little too heavily on interior monologues to cue us into what’s happening; Sakura is frequently called upon to mutter, “So that’s why no one can see him!” even when the illustrations make it plain that Rinne is invisible to humans when he dons his flame-patterned haori. Takahashi isn’t above recycling bits from other works, either; Rokumon, a familiar introduced in chapter six, bears a strong resemblance to InuYasha‘s Shippo in both appearance and plot function, comic relief in the form of a child-like animal spirit. Sakura, too, seems more like a Kagome clone than a character in her own right, though she’s a little edgier and more skeptical than her jewel-seeking predecessor.

Still, it’s hard to dismiss a manga that’s crafted with as much skill and good humor as Rin-ne. The story and characters may remind readers of other works in the Takahashi canon, but that strikes me as a good thing — yet another opportunity to spend time with the kind of spunky heroines, rash-but-kind heroes, and oddball supporting characters that give Takahashi’s work its distinctive flavor.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC. Volume one of Rin-ne will be available on October 20, 2009.

RIN-NE, VOL. 1 • BY RUMIKO TAKAHASHI • VIZ • 182 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Summit of the Gods, Vol. 1

October 12, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

On a brilliant summer day in 1924, British explorer George Mallory began what would be his third and final attempt to climb Mt. Everest. Armed with oxygen tanks and masks, he and fellow mountaineer Andrew Irvine began their approach to the summit on the morning of June 8th, reaching the Northeast Ridge around one o’clock in the afternoon — a potentially fatal mistake, as they had barely enough time to reach the peak and return safely to camp before nightfall. Noel Odell, another member of Mallory’s expedition, spotted the pair ascending the so-called “steps,” three rock formations located 2,000 vertical feet below the top. As he would recall in the 1924 book The Fight for Everest, Odell caught a brief glimpse of his mates through a break in the cloud cover:

I saw the whole summit ridge and final peak of Everest unveiled. I noticed far away on a snow slope leading up to what seemed to me to be the last step but one from the base of the final pyramid, a tiny object moving and approaching the rock step. A second object followed, and then the first climbed to the top of the step. As I stood intently watching this dramatic appearance, the scene became enveloped in cloud once more, and I could not actually be certain that I saw the second figure join the first. (p. 130)

Odell was the last to see either man alive; for the next 75 years, Mallory and Irvine’s fate remained a mystery, though a few tantalizing clues — Irvine’s ice axe, Mallory’s discarded oxygen canister — suggested that neither had reached the top. In 1999, a joint American-British expedition recovered Mallory’s body not far from where Irvine’s axe was discovered, spurring new questions about their climb: had Odell, in fact, watched the men descending the Steps after a successful trip to the summit? Had Irvine and Mallory become separated on the mountain face, or did they fall together to their deaths? And where was Irvine’s body?

…

Summit of the Gods, Vol. 1

October 12, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

I saw the whole summit ridge and final peak of Everest unveiled. I noticed far away on a snow slope leading up to what seemed to me to be the last step but one from the base of the final pyramid, a tiny object moving and approaching the rock step. A second object followed, and then the first climbed to the top of the step. As I stood intently watching this dramatic appearance, the scene became enveloped in cloud once more, and I could not actually be certain that I saw the second figure join the first. (p. 130)

The mystery surrounding Mallory’s disappearance forms the core of Yumemakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi’s award-winning series The Summit of the Gods. Based on a 1998 novel by Baku, Summit focuses on Makoto Fukamachi, a photographer who picks up Mallory’s trail in Kathmandu, where a 1924 Vestpocket Autographic Kodak Special — the camera Mallory supposedly carried up Everest — turns up in a second-hand store frequented by climbers and sherpas. As Fukamachi tracks the camera’s descent from Everest to Kathmandu, he crosses paths with Jouji Habu, a taciturn Japanese climber who knows more about the camera than he’s willing to reveal. Fukamachi begins trailing Habu, interrogating Habu’s acquaintances and climbing partners in hopes of learning what Habu is doing in Kathmandu. Though Fukamachi expects his questions will lead him to the camera’s source, he discovers instead that he and Habu have similarly haunting pasts: Fukamachi watched — and documented — two climbers fall to their deaths on an Everest glacier, while Habu tried — and failed — to rescue a climbing partner who lost his footing and plunged one hundred feet over a cliff in the Japanese Alps.

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Both characters’ backstories are as harrowing as any passage from Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, thanks to Taniguchi’s impeccable illustrations. Taniguchi captures the mountains’ desolation and danger with his meticulous renderings of rock formations, glaciers, and quick-changing weather patterns; one could be forgiven for wanting to clip into a securely anchored harness before reading volume one. Taniguchi’s talent for evoking the mood and energy of a landscape is also evident in his depiction of Kathmandu, a maze-like city filled with dead ends, bazaars, billboards, temples, and con artists eager to hustle European tourists. Through intricately detailed backgrounds juxtaposing squalid, overcrowded neighborhoods with sleek, modern buildings, Taniguchi suggests the city’s almost uncontainable energy.

The sheer beauty and power of these scenes distracts from the series’ biggest flaw: the omniscient narrator. In the afterward to volume one, Baku explains that he felt that Taniguchi was “the only artist” who could do justice to “the overwhelming massiveness of the mountains, the details of the climbing, the depictions of the characters.” In adapting his novel for a graphic medium, however, Baku never fully entrusts the artwork with the responsibility of telling the story; too often, Baku inserts unnecessary explanations into gracefully composed panels. In one scene, for example, Fukamachi dreams that he’s trailing a silent, mysterious figure up the summit of Everest, his calls going unheeded. To the reader, it’s obvious that Fukamachi is dreaming about Mallory, as Fukamachi has spent three days locked in his hotel room reading accounts of Mallory’s final climb. Yet the sequence is heavily scripted, with Baku decoding all of Taniguchi’s images rather baldly; it’s as if Baku is narrating the scene for someone who can’t see the pictures.

That Summit of the Gods remains compelling in spite of such editorial interventions is testament both to Taniguchi’s skill as a visual storyteller and to the story’s alluring location; as anyone who’s read Into Thin Air will tell you, the extreme conditions on Everest — the weather, the terrain, the frigid temperatures, the remoteness of the mountaintop — all but guarantee drama, even when the climbers are experienced and the weather cooperative. How Makafuchi and Habu will cope with these challenges remains to be seen, but it’s a sure bet that there will be plenty of nail-biting moments on the way to unraveling the mystery of what happened to George Mallory on that bright June day in 1924.

THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS, VOL. 1 • SCRIPT BY YUMEMAKURA BAKU, ART BY JIRO TANIGUCHI • FANFARE/PONENT MON • 328 pp. • NO RATING

Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, Vol. 1

September 27, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Moyasimon1_Cover Warning: the Surgeon General has determined that reading Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture may be hazardous to your health. Individuals who routinely consume large quantities of yogurt, miso, or natto; keep stashes of Purell in their purses and desk drawers; or have an irrational fear of germs or dirt are cautioned against reading Moyasimon. Side effects include disgust, nausea, and a strong desire to wash one’s hands repeatedly. Those with stronger constitutions, however, may find this odd little comedy fun, if a little too dependent on gross-out humor for laughs.

Moyasimon tells the story of Tadayasu, a country boy with an unusual gift: he can see and talk to bacteria. (In other words, he’s the Doctor Doolittle of the microbial world.) At the urging of his grandfather, Tadayasu leaves his small rural village to attend an agricultural college in Tokyo, his best friend Kei in tow. Tadayasu’s abilities bring him to the attention of the eccentric Professor Itsuki, a terraforming expert, and his foul-tempered research assistant Haruka Hasegawa, a graduate student who dresses like a dominatrix. Though they wax poetic about the scientific applications of Tadayasu’s gift, the pair seem more intent on making fermented delicacies — the smellier, the better — than actually conducting experiments. Also vying for Tadayasu’s attention are Misato and Kawahama, two sad-sack sophomores who reach out to him after bacteria compromise one of their numerous get-rich-quick schemes: bootleg sake.

…

Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, Vol. 1

September 27, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Warning: the Surgeon General has determined that reading Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture may be hazardous to your health. Individuals who routinely consume large quantities of yogurt, miso, or natto; keep stashes of Purell in their purses and desk drawers; or have an irrational fear of germs or dirt are cautioned against reading Moyasimon. Side effects include disgust, nausea, and a strong desire to wash one’s hands repeatedly. Those with stronger constitutions, however, may find this odd little comedy fun, if a little too dependent on gross-out humor for laughs.

Tadayasu, for his part, finds the attention unsettling. His dearest wish is to have a normal college experience, a desire frustrated by his family’s refusal to send him anywhere but an agricultural school. He also feels ambivalent about his gift. On the one hand, he understands its life-saving potential after thwarting an e-coli outbreak (he overhears the microorganisms rallying around the cry of “Brew ‘n’ kill!”); on the other hand, his microscopic “Spidey sense” makes many everyday activities — shaking hands, eating yogurt, visiting a messy dormitory room — agonizing, as he’s keenly aware of the bacteria’s presence. (In one of the story’s running gags, Tadayasu swoons whenever he visits Misato and Kawahama’s foul bachelor pad, a veritable bacteria playground of half-consumed beverages, dirty dishes, and fetid mattresses.)

hasegawa The humor is good-natured, though Masayuki Ishikawa indulges his inner ten-year-old’s penchant for gross-out jokes every chance he gets.He repeatedly subjects Tadayasu and Kei to Itsuki’s food fetishes, forcing them to watch Itsuki exhume and eat kiviak (a fermented seal whose belly has been stuffed with birds), or try a piece of hongohoe, a form of stingray sashimi so pungent it makes their eyes water. Ishikawa’s decision to render the bacteria as cute, roly-poly creatures with cheerful faces prevents the story from shading into horror, though it’s awfully hard to shake the image of bacteria frolicking in a bed of natto or around the slovenly Misato’s nostril.

Where Moyasimon really shines is the artwork. Ishikawa’s layouts are detailed yet clear and easy to follow, giving the reader a strong sense of the college and its shabby environs. Ishikawa’s character designs are similarly effective, whether he’s drawing an L. yogurti bacterium or an unscrupulous professor. Take Misato and Kawahama. The two are a classic Mutt-and-Jeff duo: Misato is tall with a scruffy beard, a greasy ponytail, and weasel eyes, while Kawahama is short and round with a dirty face. When we first meet them, we immediately recognize them as a pair of sweating, scheming losers whose big dreams yield little returns. Hasegawa provides another instructive example of how design can play a critical role in establishing character. She’s prickly and aggressive, personality traits amplified by her unusual choice of labwear — knee-high boots with dozens of buckles and sky-high heels, studded belts, and a leather miniskirt — her sharp facial features, and her preferred accessory: a scowl.

Though the art is solid and the characters firmly established, Moyasimon hasn’t quite found its groove yet. Ishikawa can’t make up his mind if he wants us to admire the diversity and tenacity of bacterial life or squirm at the thought of its ubiquity; every educational speech about bacteria’s numerous benefits is punctuated by an icky rim shot. Still, it’s hard to deny the odd appeal of Moyasimon, as Ishikawa takes an all-too-familiar trope — the teen who sees things that other people can’t — and gives it a fresh, idiosyncratic spin.

MOYASIMON: TALES OF AGRICULTURE, VOL. 1 • BY MASAYUKI ISHIKAWA • DEL REY • 224 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

The Manga Hall of Shame

September 20, 2009 by Katherine Dacey 66 Comments

Though my taste in manga is very particular, I’m much less discriminating in my reading habits. My willingness to try anything has yielded some wonderful surprises: Ai Morinaga’s Duck Prince, Taiyo Matsumoto’s No. 5, Shioko Mizuki’s Crossroad, Kazuo Umezu’s Scary Book, Motofumi Kobayashi’s Apocalypse Meow. The flipside of being a gourmand is that I’ve encountered my share of truly dreadful stuff, too — the kind of manga with such incoherent plots, unappealing characters, clumsy artwork, and tin-eared dialogue that they beg the question, Who thought this was a good idea?

Now that I’d donned my flame-proof pants, here are my candidates for the Manga Hall of Shame:

10. MIYUKI-CHAN IN WONDERLAND

CLAMP • Tokyopop • 1 volume

I’ve read my way through the highs and lows of the CLAMP canon, from the Gothic angst of Tokyo Babylon to the cutesy antics of Kobato, and can say with confidence that this odd one-shot represents the nadir of this talented quartet’s work. Miyuki-chan probably sounded like a great idea on paper: a young girl falls down a hole and finds herself in a sexed-up version of Lewis Carroll’s famous story. What better vehicle for Mokona and friends to demonstrate their talent for drawing fabulous costumes, Baroque hairdos, and trippy landscapes? Unfortunately, the story bears almost no resemblance to Alice in Wonderland; Miyuki-chan is just a pretext for CLAMP to draw scantily-clad beauties engaging in vaguely naughty behavior (usually making a pass at the vaguely horrified Miyuki or inviting her to play strip poker). The stories are short and repetitive, barely spanning 100 pages in total, and are so inane that they don’t work as pornography or parody. Strictly for the CLAMP completist.

9. NIGHTMARES FOR SALE

KAORU OHASHI • AURORA PUBLISHING • 2 VOLUMES

The premise of Nightmares for Sale is pure comeuppance theater: in exchange for having their dearest wishes granted – in this case, by the proprietors of Shadow’s Pawn Shop – bad people receive their just desserts. For this old-as-the-hills premise to succeed, three basic conditions need to be met. First, the audience needs to understand the subject is unrepentantly bad and not merely flawed or misguided. Second, the audience needs to see the chain of decisions that lead to the subject’s downfall. And third, the punishment needs to fit the crime. Alas, manga-ka Kaoru Ohashi doesn’t satisfy these basic criteria in Nightmares for Sale. A few characters get what they deserve: an overly ambitious model grows uglier and uglier, a bully is reincarnated as her victim. Many of the stories are sloppily executed, however; we don’t learn how or why the subject is being punished until Shadow appears at the end of the story to tell us. By far the worst chapter is “Children of Darkness,” in which a woman is tormented by the spirit of her unborn child. No matter what your personal convictions on abortion, the story is both macabre and misogynist, and shows an astonishing lack of compassion for the subject’s situation. Not even the artwork can redeem this clunker: it’s both busy and generic, a hot mess of awkwardly posed bodies and poorly applied screentones. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 11/28/07)

8. ARM OF KANNON

MASAKAZU YAMAHUCHI • TOKYOPOP • 9 VOLUMES

After a nearly three-year absence, archaeologist Tozo Mikami returns to his family with a mysterious object in tow: the Arm of Kannon, an ancient Buddhist relic that, unbeknownst to Mikami’s son Maso, is actually a parasitic weapon that feeds off its host’s life force while transforming him or her into a grotesque killing machine, complete with tentacles. Before we’re too far into volume one, the Arm of Kannon destroys Tozo, choosing Maso as its next host. What follows is an unholy marriage of gore, mystical mumbo-jumbo, and military conspiracy theories, as Maso rapes and dismembers people, gets captured by an army contractor (they want the Arm for their own dastardly purposes, natch), then kills some more. A third-act detour into the distant past adds unnecessary complications to the plot; it’s as if Yamaguchi got bored with his characters but realized that he hadn’t quite resolved things enough to simply end the story. The art is incredibly detailed, which is a mixed blessing; if you like your entrails rendered with anatomical specificity, Arm of Kannon might be your cup of tea. Anyone in search of a coherent plot or sympathetic characters, however, is advised to look elsewhere.

7. THE DEVIL WITHIN

RYO TAKAGI • GO! COMI • 2 VOLUMES

Go! Comi has licensed some terrific shojo — think Afterschool Nightmare, Crossroad, Tenshi Ja Nai!! — but the perennially popular The Devil Within is not among them. The main problem is its singularly unappealing heroine, Rion, a teenager who was traumatized by a scary movie involving demonic possession. Since the characters in the film attack women, Rion logically concludes that all adult men are evil and develops a full-on shota complex, gushing about the purity and hairlessness of young boys to such a degree I worried that federal authorities might arrest her. The plot is just as awful as its heroine: forced into choosing among three prospective fiances — all adults — Rion instead pins her hope on a young neighbor who happens to be a fifteen-year-old trapped in a five-year-old’s body. Perhaps as punishment for her predilections, Rion endures some truly grotesque forms of abuse from her suitors, making The Devil Within easily one of the most repellent and ridiculous stories I’ve read.

6. DRAGON SISTER!

NINI • TOKYOPOP • 2 VOLUMES, SUSPENDED

Buried beneath the slapstick, speedlines, and extreme mammary close-ups is an intriguing premise: what if ancient China’s greatest warriors were, in fact, women? Dragon Sister! begins around 184 AD, when three brothers—Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang—acquire a set of magical scrolls capable of granting any wish. In their desire to overthrow the Han Dynasty, the brothers pray that no more heroes will be born, only beautiful women. Their scheme backfires, however, transforming them into a cabal of power-hungry girls. As the country descends further into chaos, young nobleman Liu Bei forms a volunteer army to oppose the Zhang sisters (formerly brothers), recruiting two busty babes, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, to aid his cause. None of this is explained very clearly—we never have a sense of who the various factions are, or why Liu Bei remains faithful to a corrupt emperor. Instead, Nini treats us to a seemingly endless parade of costume failures, crude jokes, and scenes of predatory lesbianism, all delivered in speech that vacillates between present-day dudespeak and wuxia film formality. For the fanservice crowd. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 11/2/08)

5. THE GORGEOUS LIFE OF STRAWBERRY-CHAN

AI MORINAGA • MEDIA BLASTERS • 2 VOLUMES

I didn’t think it was possible to dislike anything by Ai Morinaga, but this sadistic boarding-school comedy proved me wrong. There’s no real story here; most of the “action” revolves around Akiyoshi, a fatuous pretty boy, and Strawberry-Chan, his talking frog. Akiyoshi delights in torturing his pet, squashing Strawberry-Chan, burying him alive, and even inflating him like a balloon via a well-placed straw. (If Morinaga is trying to make a greater point with her hero’s perverse antics, I can’t imagine what it is.) Adding insult to injury is the art, which is a riot of misapplied screentones, clashing patterns, and extreme facial close-ups—it’s the best representation of a migraine I’ve ever seen committed to paper, but some of the worst sequential art I’ve seen, period. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 5/31/08)

4. J-POP IDOL

STORY BY MILLENNI+ M, ART BY TOKO YASHIRO • TOKYOPOP • 2 VOLUMES, SUSPENDED

Until Tokyopop releases a Glitter Cinemanga, otaku eager for overripe musical drama will have to content themselves with J-Pop Idol. But unlike Glitter, which is bad in a jaw-dropping, can’t-take-my-eyes-off-it way (read: awesomely bad), J-Pop Idol is just plain bad. A big part of the problem is the story, which has been hastily cobbled together from dozens of similar, Star Is Born narratives–so hastily, in fact, that many scenes feel like complete non-sequitors. One of the most egregious examples can be found in the very first pages, when the members of an up-and-coming girl group face a test of their friendship: after winning a major talent competition, only one of them is singled out for a recording contract. From the context, however, it’s impossible to see why producers chose Maki over band mates Kay and Naomi, as Maki lacks the charisma, talent, and sex appeal that distinguished Diana Ross from her fellow Supremes (or Beyonce from Destiny’s other Children, for that matter). The rest of volume one charts Maki’s attempt to build a recording career under the tutelage of handsome idol Ken, who motivates his protege with tough talk and hard lessons learned on his way to the top. There’s also a subplot involving tuberculosis that might not seem out of place in a Joan Crawford weepie, but seems downright ludicrous in a manga aimed at a teenage audience. The bottom line: J-Pop Idol may have been a “#1 hit mobile manga in Japan,” but that endorsement carries about as much weight as Paula Abdul’s enthusiastic cheerleading on American Idol. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 3/10/08)

3. SERAPHIC FEATHER

ART BY HIROYUKI UTATANE, STORY BY YO MORIMOTO AND TOSHIYA TAKEDA • DARK HORSE • 6 VOLUMES, SUSPENDED

I love me a good sci-fi tale as much as the next person, but Hiroyuki Utatane’s Seraphic Feather left me cold. How cold, you ask? Colder than the vacuum of space, I tell you.

The plot revolves around the discovery of an alien spaceship on the far side of the Moon. Various factions compete for the downed ship, hoping to unlock its powers using something called the Emblem Seeds. Running in tandem with the main plot are a love story between a young man named Sunao and his childhood friend Kei, who mysteriously re-appears after dying in an explosion on the Moon, and subplot involving Kei’s brother Apep, who mysteriously sprouts a pair of wings. The dialogue is pure Mystery Science Theater fodder, with characters frequently explaining things to one another that, presumably, they already know. Utatane seems more interested in drawing buxom girls and explosions than actually moving the plot along; though characters yell and grab each other by the arm on almost every page, the story is dead in the water long before the end of volume one. Anyone who finds the cover art sexy will find the actual story an even bigger let-down, as it’s much tamer than all those leather bustiers and riding crops might suggest.

2. INNOCENT W

KEI KUSONOKE • TOKYOPOP • 4 VOLUMES

I can’t decide if Kei Kusonoke is exceptionally efficient or just plain disgusting. To wit: on the very first pages of this three-volume series, she treats us to a panty shot of a girl with a gruesome injury. (Talk about two-fers.) Things don’t improve much from there, as the story quickly devolves into a Wiccan Battle Royale, pitting a group of young witches against an assortment of sadistic weirdos in a remote, wooded area. The hunters rape, torture, and mutilate the young women for sport, leaving a trail of dismembered corpses in the forest before the survivors gain the upper hand. Perhaps more disturbing than the actual story is the artwork: Kusonoke lavishes considerable attention on the characters’ costumes and hairstyles, but can’t be bothered to endow their faces with any expression; it’s as if the entire cast consumed large amounts of valium right before the mayhem began. They look bored. Funny, I was too…

1. COLOR OF RAGE

STORY BY KAZUO KOIKE, ART BY SEISAKE KANO • DARK HORSE • 1 VOLUME

First published in 1973, this historical drama plays like a mash-up of The Last Samurai, Rush Hour, and Mandingo. The story begins in 1783, when a whaling ship goes down off the coast of Japan. Two men — George, who’s Japanese, and King, who’s African-American — wash ashore, cut off their shackles, and head inland, only to discover a landscape populated by unscrupulous samurai and feudal lords who hold the peasants in thrall. For such a far-fetched premise to work, its principal characters’ thoughts, words, and actions need to make sense in historical context. Yet George and King behave like two modern action heroes deposited in feudal Japan, not two products of the eighteenth century; it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine John Cho and Will Smith slashing and wise-cracking their way through a big-screen adaptation. Making things worse are several scenes of brutal misogyny — what the editors euphemistically call “pulpy sexiness” — that are made all the more cringe-worthy by the unexamined racial stereotypes on parade. Kazuo Koike is always pushing the boundaries of good taste — that’s part of what makes Crying Freeman and Lady Snowblood so much fun — but Color of Rage sails way over the line and keeps on going. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 5/18/08)

* * * * *

I’ll be the first to admit that this list reflects my own biases. I don’t have much patience for fanservice, sadism, or gore for gore’s sake; if I’m going to be treated to dismembered bodies and panty shots, there needs to be a story and some memorable characters for me to be on board with it. I realize that some folks don’t feel the same way as I do, and that’s OK. There’s plenty of room for all of us under the manga-loving tent, even if we can’t agree on whether Arm of Kannon is awesome or awful. (In other words: hate the manga, not the critic.)

So what manga belong on your all-time worst list and why? Inquiring minds want to know!

POSTSCRIPT, 9/28/09: Over at Okazu, Erica Friedman posts her Yuri Manga Hall of Shame, five blisteringly funny critiques of books like Suzunari and Alice on Deadlines. Go, read, and be glad you dodged a 4-koma manga about cat clone twincest.

The Manga Hall of Shame

September 20, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Now that I’d donned my flame-proof pants, here are my candidates for the Manga Hall of Shame:

miyuki 10. Miyuki-chan in Wonderland
By CLAMP • Tokyopop • 1 volume
I’ve read my way through the highs and lows of the CLAMP canon, from the Gothic angst of Tokyo Babylon to the cutesy antics of Kobato, and can say with great confidence that this odd one-shot represents the nadir of this talented quartet’s work. Miyuki-chan probably sounded like a great idea on paper: a young girl falls down a hole and finds herself in a sexed-up version of Lewis Carroll’s famous story. Unfortunately, the story bears almost no resemblance to Carroll’s original; Miyuki-chan is really just a pretext for CLAMP to draw scantily-clad beauties engaging in vaguely naughty behavior, usually by making a pass at Miyuki or inviting her to play strip poker. The stories are short and repetitive, barely spanning 100 pages in total, and are so inane that they don’t work as pornography or parody.

9. Nightmares for Sale
By Kaoru Ohashi • Aurora Publishing • 2 volumes
The premise of Nightmares for Sale is pure comeuppance theater: in exchange for having their dearest wishes granted – in this case, by the proprietors of Shadow’s Pawn Shop – bad people receive their just desserts. For this old-as-the-hills premise to succeed, three basic conditions need to be met. First, the audience needs to understand the subject is unrepentantly bad and not merely flawed or misguided. Second, the audience needs to see the chain of decisions that lead to the subject’s downfall. And third, the punishment needs to fit the crime. Alas, manga-ka Kaoru Ohashi doesn’t satisfy these basic criteria in Nightmares for Sale. A few characters get what they deserve, but many of the stories are sloppily executed; we don’t learn how or why the subject is being punished until Shadow appears at the end of the story to tell us. By far the worst chapter is “Children of Darkness,” in which a woman is tormented by the spirit of her unborn child. No matter what your personal convictions on abortion, the story is both macabre and misogynist, and shows an astonishing lack of compassion for the subject’s situation. Not even the artwork can redeem this clunker: it’s both busy and generic, a hot mess of awkwardly posed bodies and poorly applied screentones. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 11/28/07)

armkannon 8. Arm of Kannon
By Masakazu Yamaguchi • Tokyopop • 9 volumes
After a nearly three-year absence, archaeologist Tozo Mikami returns to his family with a mysterious object in tow: the Arm of Kannon, an ancient Buddhist relic that, unbeknownst to Mikami’s son Maso, is a parasitic weapon that feeds off its host’s life force while transforming him into a tentacled killing machine. Before we’re too far into volume one, the Arm of Kannon destroys Tozo, choosing Maso as its next host. What follows is an unholy marriage of gore, mystical mumbo-jumbo, and military conspiracy theories, as Maso rapes and dismembers people, gets captured by an army contractor, then kills some more. A third-act detour into the distant past adds unnecessary complications to the plot; it’s as if Yamaguchi got bored with his characters but realized that he hadn’t quite resolved things enough to simply end the story. The art is incredibly detailed, which is a mixed blessing: if you like your entrails rendered with anatomical specificity, Arm of Kannon might be your cup of tea. Anyone in search of a coherent plot or sympathetic characters, however, is advised to look elsewhere.

devilwithin 7. The Devil Within
By Ryo Takagi • Go! Comi • 2 volumes
If 98.7% of shojo heroines are kind, smart, enthusiastic, and/or sincere—read likeable—Rion, the sixteen-year-old heroine of The Devil Within is a rare outlier: she suffers from a full-on shota complex that makes her seem mentally unbalanced. Forced into choosing among three prospective fiances (all adults), Rion instead pins her hope on a young neighbor who happens to be a fifteen-year-old trapped in a five-year-old’s body. Making this whole distasteful concept even more unpalatable is the way in which manga-ka Ryo Takago treats the principle character; Rion endures truly grotesque forms of abuse from her suitors that results in her abject humiliation. Hats off to anyone who made it through the first volume without squirming — I couldn’t.

dragonsister 6. Dragon Sister!
By Nini • Tokyopop • 2 volumes
Buried beneath the slapstick, speedlines, and extreme mammary close-ups is an intriguing premise: what if ancient China’s greatest warriors were, in fact, women? Dragon Sister! begins around 184 AD, when three brothers—Zhang Jiao, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang—acquire a set of magical scrolls capable of granting any wish. In their desire to overthrow the Han Dynasty, the brothers pray that no more heroes will be born. Their scheme backfires, however, transforming them into a cabal of power-hungry girls. As the country descends further into chaos, young nobleman Liu Bei forms a volunteer army to oppose the Zhangs, recruiting two busty babes, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, to aid his cause. None of this is explained very clearly—we never have a sense of who the various factions are, or why Liu Bei remains faithful to a corrupt emperor. Instead, Nini treats us to a seemingly endless parade of costume failures, crude jokes, and scenes of predatory lesbianism, all delivered in speech that vacillates between present-day dudespeak and wuxia film formality. Strictly for the fanservice crowd. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 11/2/08)

gorgeouslife 5. The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry-chan
By Ai Morinaga • Media Blasters • 2 volumes
I didn’t think it was possible to dislike anything by Ai Morinaga, but this sadistic boarding-school comedy proved me wrong. There’s no real story here; most of the “action” revolves around Akiyoshi, a fatuous pretty boy, and Strawberry-Chan, his talking frog. Akiyoshi delights in torturing his pet, squashing Strawberry-Chan, burying him alive, and even inflating him like a balloon via a well-placed straw. (If Morinaga is trying to make a greater point with her hero’s perverse antics, I can’t imagine what it is.) Adding insult to injury is the art, which is a riot of misapplied screentones, clashing patterns, and extreme facial close-ups—it’s the best representation of a migraine I’ve ever seen committed to paper, but some of the worst sequential art I’ve seen, period. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 5/31/08)

jpopidol1 4. J-Pop Idol
Story by MILLENNI+ M, Art by Toko Tashiro • Tokyopop • 2 volumes
Until Tokyopop releases a Glitter Cinemanga, otaku eager for overripe musical drama will have to content themselves with J-Pop Idol. But unlike Glitter, which is bad in a jaw-dropping, can’t-take-my-eyes-off-it way, J-Pop Idol is just plain bad. A big part of the problem is the story, which has been hastily cobbled together from dozens of similar, Star Is Born narratives–so hastily, in fact, that many scenes feel like complete non-sequitors. One of the most egregious examples can be found in the very first pages, when the members of an up-and-coming girl group face a test of their friendship: after winning a major talent competition, only one of them is singled out for a recording contract. From the context, however, it’s impossible to see why producers chose Maki over band mates Kay and Naomi, as Maki lacks the charisma, talent, and sex appeal that distinguished Diana Ross from her fellow Supremes.

The rest of volume one charts Maki’s attempt to build a recording career under the tutelage of handsome idol Ken, who motivates his protege with tough talk and hard lessons. There’s also a subplot involving tuberculosis that might not seem out of place in a Joan Crawford weepie, but seems downright ludicrous in a manga aimed at a teenage audience. The bottom line: J-Pop Idol may have been a “#1 hit mobile manga in Japan,” but that endorsement carries about as much weight as Paula Abdul’s enthusiastic cheerleading on American Idol. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 3/10/08)

seraphicfeather 3. Seraphic Feather
Art by Hiroyuki Utatane • Story by Yo Morimoto and Toshiya Takeda • Dark Horse • 6 volumes
Seraphic Feather has three strikes against it: an overly fussy plot, tin-eared dialogue, and lousy artwork. The story revolves around the discovery of an alien spaceship on the far side of the Moon. Various Earthly factions compete for the downed ship, hoping to unlock its powers using the Emblem Seeds, ~~a high-protein energy bar~~ a mysterious power source. Running in tandem with the main plot are a love story between a young man named Sunao and his childhood friend Kei — who mysteriously re-appears after dying in an explosion on the Moon — and a subplot involving Kei’s brother Apep, who mysteriously sprouts a pair of wings. Making these baroque plot twists harder to take is the dialogue, all of which sounds like it was pilfered from an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The frosting on the cake, however, is the art: Hiroyuki Utatane seems more interested in drawing buxom girls and explosions than advancing the plot. Though characters yell and grab each other by the arm on almost every page, the story is dead in the water long before the end of volume one. Anyone who finds the cover art sexy will find the actual story an even bigger let-down, as it’s much tamer than the bustier and riding crop might suggest.

innocentw 2. Innocent W
By Kei Kusonoke • Tokyopop • 4 volumes
I can’t decide if Kei Kusonoke is exceptionally efficient or just plain disgusting. To wit: on the very first pages of this three-volume series, she treats us to a panty shot of a girl with a gruesome injury. Things don’t improve much from there, as the story quickly devolves into a Wiccan Battle Royale, pitting a group of young witches against an assortment of sadistic weirdos in a remote, wooded area. The hunters rape, torture, and mutilate the young women for sport, leaving a trail of dismembered corpses in the forest before the survivors gain the upper hand. Perhaps more disturbing than the actual story is the artwork. Kusonoke lavishes considerable attention on the characters’ costumes and hairstyles, but can’t be bothered to endow their faces with any expression; it’s as if the entire cast consumed large amounts of valium right before the mayhem began. They look bored. Funny, I was too…

colorofrage1 1. Color of Rage
Story by Kazuo Koike • Art by Seisake Kano • Dark Horse • 1 volume
First published in 1973, this historical drama plays like a mash-up of The Last Samurai, Rush Hour, and Mandingo. The story begins in 1783, when a whaling ship goes down off the coast of Japan. Two men — George, who’s Japanese, and King, who’s African-American — wash ashore, cut off their shackles, and head inland, only to discover a landscape populated by unscrupulous samurai and feudal lords who hold the peasants in thrall. For such a far-fetched premise to work, its principal characters’ thoughts, words, and actions need to make sense in historical context. Yet George and King behave like two modern action heroes deposited in feudal Japan, not two products of the eighteenth century; it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine John Cho and Will Smith slashing and wise-cracking their way through a big-screen adaptation. Making things worse are several scenes of brutal misogyny — what the editors euphemistically call “pulpy sexiness” — that are made all the more cringe-worthy by the unexamined racial stereotypes on parade. Kazuo Koike is always pushing the boundaries of good taste — that’s part of what makes Crying Freeman and Lady Snowblood so much fun — but Color of Rage sails way over the line and keeps on going. (Review originally posted at PopCultureShock, 5/18/08)

* * * * *

So what manga belong on your all-time worst list and why? Inquiring minds want to know!

Missin’ and Missin’ 2: Kasako

September 16, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

missin After reading Missin’ and Missin’ 2, I’m convinced that novelist Novala Takemoto was a teenage girl in a previous life. But not the kind of girl who was on the cheerleading squad, the volleyball team, or the school council — no, Takemoto was the too-cool-for-school girl, the one whose unique fashion sense, sullen demeanor, and indifference to high school mores made her seem more adult than her peers, even if her behavior and emotions were, in fact, just as juvenile as everyone else’s. Though this kind of angry female rebel is a stock character in young adult novels, Takemoto has a special gift for making them sound like real girls, not an adult’s idea of what a disaffected teenager sounds like.

Consider Kasako, the heroine of Missin’ and Missin’ 2. Kasako feels estranged from her peers’ pop-culture interests, finding refuge in “the antique, the outmoded, indeed, the passe.” Though she has a special affinity for Schubert lieder and Rococo artwork, she finds a kindred spirit in Nobuko Yoshiya, a popular romance novelist whose career spanned the Taisho and Showa periods. Like an earlier generation of schoolgirls, Kasako is enthralled with Yoshiya’s Hana monogatari (Tales of the Flower, 1916 – 1924), a pioneering work of Class S fiction, or stories about romantic friendships between teenage girls.

…

Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1

September 15, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

Built in 1607, the Ooku, or “great interior,” housed the women of the Tokugawa clan, from the shogun’s mother to his wife and concubines. Strict rules prevented residents from fraternizing with outsiders, or leaving the grounds of Edo Castle without permission. Within the Ooku, an elaborate hierarchy governed day-to-day life; at the very top were the joro otoshiyori, or senior elders, who supervised the shogun’s attendants and served as court liaisons; beneath them were a web of concubines, priests, pages, cooks, and char women who hailed from politically connected families. This elaborate social system was mirrored in the physical structure of the Ooku, which was divided into three distinct areas — the Rear Quarters, the Middle Interior, and the Front Quarters — each intended solely ladies of a particular rank. The only male permitted into the Ooku (unescorted, that is), was the shogun himself, who accessed the “great interior” by means of the Osuzu Roka, a long corridor that connected the shogun’s living quarters with the imperial harem.

…

Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1

September 15, 2009 by Katherine Dacey

The “great interior” plays a prominent role in Fumi Yoshinaga’s latest series, Ooku: The Inner Chamber. In Yoshinaga’s alternate history of eighteenth-century Japan, however, women run the show, thanks to a devastating plague that killed most of the country’s men. The shogun’s duties remain unchanged by this unexpected gender reversal, and she, too, enjoys the same perks that her male predecessors did. The twist: the Ooku is now home to hundreds of handsome men from important families, all of whom live according to the code established in Hideata Tokugawa’s reign.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Yoshinaga’s conceit is that so much remains the same, despite the sudden challenge to established gender norms. Marriage practices remain firmly rooted in money, social status, and fertility (men’s fertility, that is); palace residents continue observing the established pecking order and its attendant rituals; the shogun questions the cost, but not the necessity, of the Ooku itself. The men, in fact, embrace their subordinate roles without hesitation; their petty squabbles, hazing rituals, and political jockeying suggest their inability to imagine anything more important than competing for the shogun’s attention.

Where Yoshinaga takes the most risks is in her portrayal of Yoshimune, the newly appointed shogun. Yoshimune is a rare type in popular entertainment: a strong, intelligent, brusque, and frankly carnal woman with uncanny leadership instincts. She’s dismayed by excess and ritual, which she views as a drain on the shogunate’s dwindling resources; in her personal and political decision-making, she strives for simplicity and efficiency, even going so far as to restrict herself to two meals a day. In true Tokugawa fashion, Yoshimune is wary of the outside world; in one of the volume’s best scenes, she receives Dutch ambassador dressed in male attire, then uses her throne as a bully pulpit to inquire about the all-male crew of his ship. “‘Tis reported that there is not one woman in your entire company. Wherefore is that?” she demands of the bewildered captain. “Are all the women of Holland weak and sickly?”

Like Yoshinaga’s other costume dramas — especially Gerard and Jacques — Ooku is very talky. Too talky, in fact; the first three chapters unfold at what might charitably be described as a glacial pace, as we watch a young samurai enter the Ooku to avoid a financially beneficial but emotionally sterile marriage. Normally, Yoshinaga excels at conversation-driven storytelling, but the dialogue in Ooku falls flat, thanks to a stilted script that’s liberally peppered with “thees,” “wherefores,” and “forsooths.” (One character angrily addresses another as “thou vile cur!”, an insult that last carried weight in Elizabethan England, while another makes reference to a “man’s nether hole.”) Without an intimate knowledge of Japanese, it’s impossible to know if the problem originates with Yoshinaga’s script or Akemi Wegmuller’s translation; either way, the dialogue’s awkward marriage of contemporary and archaic language proves distracting, keeping the reader at arm’s length from the characters’ feelings.

The other problem with the script is that Yoshinaga uses conversation to explain everything, from the mysterious origins of the redface pox (the fictional disease that kills off the male population) to the elaborate rituals observed within the Ooku. Too often, the script reads like a history textbook; characters don’t have a discussion but lecture one another, revealing little about themselves in the process. Yoshinaga pauses from time to time to stage a dramatic moment — an attempted rape, a sword fight, a lovers’ parting — but she never quite brings the Ooku to life; the first few chapters feel more like a pageant or a historical re-enactment than a drama.

Yoshinaga’s artwork, on the other hand, is elegant and effective, capturing the opulence of Tokugawa-era fashions as well as the austere beauty of Edo Castle. As with all her manga, Yoshinaga’s limited repertoire of character designs seems less a flaw than a charming idiosyncrasy, as if she’s employing the same troupe of actors again and again. Yoshimune, for example, strongly resembles Flower of Life’s Majima, yet Majima’s sharp profile suits Yoshimune perfectly, as do the determined gait and fierce stare that distinguish Yoshimune from the softer, more stereotypically feminine women in her orbit. In service of Flower, those physical characteristics made Majima seem like a shifty operator, but when re-purposed for Ooku, these traits endow Yoshimune with an almost god-like aura, suggesting both her discipline and her strong sense of purpose.

I’ll be honest: I’m not quite sold on Ooku yet. For all its dramatic and socio-political ambitions, volume one isn’t nearly as daring or weird or pointed as it might have been. If anything, it reminds me of a BBC miniseries: it’s tasteful, meticulously researched, and a little too high-minded to be truly compelling. The introduction of the complex Yoshimune, however, bodes well for future volumes, as she brings a sense of urgency and purpose to a script that sometimes meanders.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

OOKU: THE INNER CHAMBERS, VOL. 1 • BY FUMI YOSHINAGA • VIZ • 216 pp. • RATING: MATURE