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Show Us Your Stuff: Safetygirl’s Otaku Room

February 17, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 14 Comments

Apologies for the late posting this week! Today’s featured collector is Safetygirl, a self-described Shinsengumi fan and avid manga collector who owns over 2,000 volumes. As you’ll see from her drool-worthy photos, her tastes run the gamut from Kaze Hikaru to Golgo 13 to Arata: The Legend. She’s so dedicated to anime and manga, in fact, that she custom designed a room in her house just to hold all her swag — and what a space it is! If anyone from Bravo or TLC is watching, I think Safetygirl’s organizational and decorating skills would make a swell basis for a reality show.

One quick programming note: since I will be hosting the Osamu Tezuka Manga Movable Feast next week, Show Us Your Stuff will be on hiatus until Thursday, March 1st. –Katherine Dacey

Hi, I’m Safetygirl! Welcome to my office, or, as a friend dubbed it, “the otaku room.” When I bought this house, I wanted a room for my computer and small manga collection, and it’s really expanded since then! Besides manga, this room is for my anime, cels, character goods, and doujinshi collections. I also LOVE the Shinsengumi, and collect anything with any version of the guys in baby blue.

Behold the Great Wall of Manga!

How long have you been collecting manga?
I was briefly into manga in the mid-’90s, mostly the stuff available in the old floppies, like Ranma ½, Maison Ikokku and Oh! My Goddess, but at that time I was all Marvel/DC/American superheros. Then I went to college and gave up on comics entirely, due to finances and being annoyed by the frequent rebootings and retconning of American comics.

That changed in 2003. That was when a friend let me borrow the first volumes of Kare Kano and Kindaichi Case Files, and I avoided reading them for a while. Then I finally read them… and I was hooked. I had just gotten a promotion at work and had extra disposable income, so a new hobby came just at the right time.

What was the first manga you bought?
I can’t remember what it was back in the ’90s—that was a long time ago! In more recent times, it was Kare Kano volume two. I was annoyed that the manga cows had been handling it and the spine was dinged, but I bought it anyway—I had to know what happened! It’s still in my collection now, even though my feelings towards the series has cooled appreciably since that time.

Close-ups of Safetygirl’s enormous (and drool-worthy) manga collection.

How big is your collection?
Over 2,100 volumes. Even though I cull and sell pretty aggressively, I’m running out of room! When I bought my house in 2004, I designed the custom-built shelves in my office to fit 1,300-1,400 books, which seemed like a lot—I had maybe 500 at the time, plus some character goods I wanted to display. As you can see, I’ve had to be pretty creative; I’ve found that manga can serve as great cord-hiders on the entertainment center. I bought a shelf at a Borders fixture sale, and it holds my Shinsengumi manga on one side while the other has my Yuu Watase titles (and a great place to display my Watase pin collection!). Recently I had to add another shelving unit; this one has my CLAMP collection (with a little room for expansion!) and Yumi Tamura. In the past couple of years, I’ve started stacking things vertically—I don’t like doing that, but the shelves aren’t deep enough for double rows.

What is the rarest item in your collection?
I wish I could say those super-expensive middle volumes of Basara, but I don’t have those yet. The French copies were an affordable placeholder, and it’ll be a good test of my French when I get there.

Beyond my manga, I also collect cels, and being one-of-a-kind, those are rare. The focus of that collection is Millennium Actress.

Safetygirl’s anime shrine. Bow before it and be humbled!

What is the weirdest item in your collection?
The original run of Golgo 13, as published by LEED here in the US in the mid ’80s. It’s flipped! Featuring strange coloring on the first chapters, where flesh tones are rendered in an Oompa-Loompa-ish orange! I’m not sure if it’s really weird, but it’s certainly early in the history of manga in the US.

How has your taste in manga evolved since you started your collection?
I think I was like a lot of people: I went on what my friends were reading, and things related to the anime I was watching on TV. I didn’t find the manga blogging/tweeting community until much later, and they’ve been an influence. But these days, I don’t do Jump titles like I used to—I’ve not liked one enough in a while to justify the investment of dozens and dozens of volumes. I’d like to say that I’m pickier now, and I use the manga community to help guide me towards things I might have either overlooked or dismissed. But what attracted me to manga was shojo, and that’s still what I love the most. I’ve also discovered that the rest of the world has manga, too, so I’ve been able to improve my rusty high school French AND finish Walkin’ Butterfly at the same time!

Kaze Hikaru artwork.

Who are your favorite comic artists?
Taeko Watanabe (Kaze Hikaru), Shigeru Takao (Teru Teru x Shonen), Yuu Watase, Miyuki Yamaguchi, Kaoru Mori, and my newest favorite is Yumi Tamura. I really wish I knew how to bribe the folks at Viz—brownies, maybe?—so they’d license 7SEEDS. For American comics, the only titles I still have left from my once-extensive collection are the trade paperbacks of Sandman and Astro City.

What series are you actively collecting right now?
I try to keep up to date—I fell behind a bit 2007-2008, which sent me scrambling during the CMX/GoComi shutdown era. Currently: Kaze Hikaru, Twin Spica, Black Bird, Dengeki Daisy, Kimi no Todoke, Oresama Teacher, xxxHolic, Arata, House of Five Leaves, Sayonara Zetsubo-Sensei, Bakuman, Kamisama Kiss, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Vampire Knight, Chi’s Sweet Home, Afterschool Charisma, Kingyo Used Books, Story of Saiunkoku, Ouran, Goong, Bunny Drop, Bride’s Story, Yotsuba, Black Butler, Arisa, Otomen, The Betrayal Knows my Name, Drops of God, Sailor Moon, Dawn of Arcana, A Devil and Her Love Song. There’s a lot of other series I would be buying, if they still were being printed. Looking forward to: The Earl and the Fairy, Sakuran.

I buy stuff from France and Germany, but since I tend to order in bunches on a quarterly basis, I wouldn’t say that I’m following anything. From Japan I buy Kaze Hikaru, and whatever Yamaguchi Miyuki and Shigeru Takao are putting out, and other things as needed. I have a weakness for anything from Hakusensha with a pretty cover. If I lived near a Book-Off, I would need another room. I subscribe to Flowers and Melody.

Manga, anime, and Hello Kitty! swag.

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)?
Catalog it, somewhere. I used to use Collectorz, but it no longer met my needs. Now I’m fairly happy on LibraryThing, though I still use Collectorz as my back-up. I once was a big fan of ListerX, but it suddenly closed and ALL of my work was lost. So no matter how much I trust LibraryThing, I *have* to have an offline record of my collection. However, one advantage to an online catalogue—it’s easy to access if you’re out book shopping! I also keep spreadsheets on my pre-orders and things I will pre-order, once RightStuf has a sale!

Manga about the Shinsengumi.

Organize it in a way that makes sense to you. I do alphabetical, but I do keep series together (sometimes there’s a name change, like how GoComi’s Ultimate Venus is Big Bang Venus in French), or file by common name. (Both Codename: Sailor V and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon are under “Sailor.”)

Deals and rarities—I scour comic book stores. Some bought into manga heavily during the boom, and have a lot of stock from that era. Good if you’re looking for Emma, not so much for something more recent. For new things, I wait for RightStuf studio sales, and I’m a member of their GotAnime? discount club. I buy a lot of manga; getting it 40% off helps a lot!

To see more of Safetygirl’s awesome otaku room, click here.

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

Guest Feature: The Geeky Heart of Taipei

February 17, 2012 by Sara K. 16 Comments

If you are a geek, and find yourself in Taipei, know this: you must visit the Huashan-Bade-Guanghua geek complex. They can supply any geek, whether food geek (there is a farmer’s market), korean drama geek (lots of korean drama DVDs) and even the jade geek (yep, there’s a jade market too).

Naturally, it’s the best place to buy comics books in Taipei, and possibly even the best place to buy comic books in all of Taiwan. First, let’s look at Huashan Cultural Park.

Once upon a time, Huashan was a factory. As Taipei de-industrialises, authorities try to repurpose the leftover structures, and Huashan is one of their more successful efforts. It has galleries, trendy cafes/eateries, a yoga center, and hosts various artsy/indy events. Futhermore, it’s a popular location for wedding photos. When I talk to young people about what places in Taipei they recommend visiting, Huashan is one of the places they mention the most often. However, there is not much in the way of comic books around Huashan.

Here is a temporary exhibit at Huashan dedicated to The M Riders, a Taiwanese fantasy TV series. I don’t know much about it, though based on what little I’ve seen, it looks like it has been heavily influenced by Harry Potter.

Now let’s head to the Bade Rd. market.

As you can see by the street signs, this section of Bade Rd. is full of technology stores.

This is a typical store-front.

Here, in the alleys, tech stores mix with vendors of standard Taiwanese street fare, in case you get hungry while browsing through wares (and it’s the wrong day of the week for the farmer’s market).

Of course, all of the geeks converging on Bade Rd. to get their gadgets also need something to read. Animate, one of Taiwan’s largest comic book stores, is right here to serve them.

Here is the magazine section.

Here is the staircase.

Unfortunately, they did not want me to take pictures of the second floor (where most of the store is). However, they have a huge selection of (new) manga of all kinds, as well as lots of light novels, and manhwa, and the type of manhua which is styled after Japanese manga. Alas, I have never seen any of the types of manhua which stray further from the Japanese style at Animate. But that’s just the front part of the store. In the back part of the store, they sell lots of anime/manga themed merchandise. And in the very, very back is the “18 and older” section, naturally.

But now it’s time to head to … GUANGHUA DIGITAL PLAZA!

Here’s a picture of the ground floor of Guanghua Digital Plaza. Though the ground floor has some eateries (which I do not care about) … the real business is selling the big gadgets. Like computers.

Of course, many of the tech stalls at Guanghua Digital Plaza are actually outposts of the (larger) stores in Bade Market. Because everything is much closer together inside Guanghua Digital Plaza, it’s easier to do comparison shopping, or to shop for mutiple items. Therefore Guanghua Digital Plaza gets much more foot traffic. All the stores want a slice of that.

This is the stall where I bought the computer I am using to write this post.

One of the features of shopping at Guanghua Digital Plaza is the haggling. It is easier to haggle at Guanghua Digital Plaza than at the Nova Arcade on Chongqing road (the other major spot in Taipei to buy electronic gadgets). It is often said that you should never accept the list price for anything (at least for the tech items). I am not good at haggling, so I can’t give advice, but you should definitely try to get as good a deal as you can.

Let’s go up to the second and third floors – where all the comic books are!

This is a pretty typical set up for comic book stores / rental shops throughout Taiwan – tall, shifting shelves to pack in as many comics as possible.

Here’s an outdoor-gear store. I told you this area catered to geeks of all kinds.

Now here is a little book store that I love. Though it’s small, they have a good selection of comic books:

Of course, with all of those comics stacked up on each other, browsing is a bit challenging – how can you know what’s buried under there? That’s why there is a list of all series currently in stock; if you indicate interest in a series, the store keeper will pull it out for you.

Here are some Korean pop stars showing off the visual quality of these monitors. All things K-pop are very popular in Taiwan (well … manhwa is not very popular in Taiwan, though I suspect it sells much better in Taiwan than in the United States). If you browse the monitors at Guanghua Digital Plaza, you will see a lot of K-pop dancing.

And here’s Mollie’s outpost at Guanghua Digital Plaza. Mollie’s Used Bookstore is one of the local used bookstore chains. While this Mollie’s merely has a small selection of comics, it’s always worth a look.

If you were disappointed that Animate does not sell manhua which veers from the Japanese style, this store has a nice selection of such manhua.

Somewhere on this floor is the store where I bought the camera I’m using to take all these pictures … but I can’t seem to find it.

Here’s another great comic books store. This place just sells used comics – specifically, it just sells bundled used comic books. It’s great if you want the full run of a semi-popular-thru-somewhat-obscure series without putting your wallet through too much pain.

And here’s a video store. There are a number of these throughout the second and third floor. They sell Hollywood fare, Hong Kong fare, Chinese fare, Japanese live-action fare, anime, lots and lots of Korean dramas, and local idol dramas. Notice that there is a sign on top for the Emma anime.

And here’s Wawa, which has by far the best selection of new comic books in all of Guanghua Digital Plaza. They even have some new comics which I have not seen at Animate.

For example, they have Every Single Volume Of Glass Mask. New. It’s not hard to find a used set of Glass Mask, but having new copies of the entire run in stock? That’s impressive.

And here’s another little store that I love.

Again, the comics are stacked up right out front, though there are also many comics inside too (I never understood how this store is organized, and that’s okay – it make is more like a treasure hunt).

And here’s the interior. Look at how books are spilling out of every book and cranny. While it’s not so good for the books, I love this kind of used bookstore. It feels so much warmer and cozy than bookstores where everything is neatly and coldly laid out.

So that’s Huashan-Bade-Guanghua. I admit that it’s quite commercial (well, Huashan Cultural Park is less so), but buying, selling, and trading what you love is quite exciting. Every time I visit, I think I already know everything that’s there – yet I always manage to discover something new. And if you visit yourself, I’m sure you’ll disover something new yourself.

Sara K. has previously written Why You Should Read Evyione and a review of Mary Stayed Out All Night for Manga Bookshelf. She now has her own blog, The Notes Which Do Not Fit, though you won’t find much about comic books or Asian culture over there. She currently lives in Taoyuan County, Taiwan.

Manga Radar: 5 February 2012

February 17, 2012 by Matt Blind Leave a Comment

Database Additions for 05 February

A Devil & Her Love Song 1 – Viz Shojo Beat, Feb 2012 ::
A Devil & Her Love Song 2 – Viz Shojo Beat, Apr 2012 ::
Chayamachi’s Collection: BLANC (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Jan 2012 ::
Flower Shadow’s Memory (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Jan 2012 ::
Gantz 22 – Dark Horse, May 2012 ::
Interval (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Jan 2012 ::
Kids Are Doing Fine Today! (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Jan 2012 ::
Novus Karma (ebook) 1 – MangaMagazine, Aug 2012 ::
Ooku: The Inner Chambers 7 – Viz Signature, Jul 2012 ::
Puella Magi Madoka Magica 1 – Yen Press, May 2012 ::
Puella Magi Madoka Magica 2 – Yen Press, Aug 2012 ::
Samejima-Kun & Sasahara-Kun – DMP Juné, May 2012 ::
Soul Eater 10 – Yen Press, Aug 2012 ::
The Secret World of Arrietty Picture Book – Viz Ghibli Library, Feb 2012 ::
The Tyrant Falls in Love 6 – DMP Juné, May 2012 ::
Trapped Wizard (ebook) – Yaoi Press, Feb 2012 ::
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX 9 – Viz Shonen Jump, Aug 2012 ::

Black Eyed Susan (ebook) chapters 1-10 – MangaMagazine, Jul 2011 ::
Hot Tails 1 – Fantagraphics Eros Comix, Dec 1998 ::
Midnight Hunters (ebook) chapters 1-10 – MangaMagazine, Aug 2011 ::
Silky Whip 1 – Fantagraphics Eros Comix, Feb 2002 ::
Super Taboo 1 – Fantagraphics Eros Comix, Oct 1998 ::
Super Taboo 2 – Fantagraphics Eros Comix, Apr 1999 ::
The Soul Chaser (ebook) 1 – MangaMagazine, Aug 2011 ::
Two Keys (ebook) 1 – MangaMagazine, Oct 2011 ::

A few notes: The Secret World of Arriety Picture Book, a simplified retelling of the movie’s story using filmcaps instead of new illustrations, is not the same as The Art of The Secret World of Arriety, which is a behind-the-scenes peek into process & production. Both are from Viz’s Ghibli Library imprint – if you like Miyazaki’s movies, its worth investing in those “Art of” books.

A Devil & Her Love Song has a listed publication date of 7 February on most sites, but has been in bookstores for about 2 weeks now; at least, I bought my copy a couple weeks ago.

I’m not sure what MangaMagazine.net‘s business model is, or how well they’re treating their artists, but I can tell you quite a few books are showing up in the Kindle store — or at least the chapters are, for 99¢ a pop. At that price, quite a few 1st chapters are selling well. (Well enough to start clogging up my bestseller chart, at any rate.) As you can see above, I’m going to list these chapters by respective volume (when known) or in a condensed listing (i.e. chapters 1-10 as seen above) just to keep thing neat.

The blast from the past this week is a quartet of books from Fantagraphics’s Eros imprint (I thought I had found all those but I guess I need to revisit the topic every now and then.) With a name like Eros, to say nothing of the titles, you can guess exactly what is in these books; Silky Whip is from Air Gear and Tenjo Tenge artist Oh!Great and so might be of (additional) interest.

Top Preorders

7. ↓-1 (6) : Naruto 54 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [383.5] ::
10. ↑2 (12) : Sailor Moon 4 – Kodansha Comics, Mar 2012 [352.0] ::
19. ↓-3 (16) : Sailor Moon 5 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2012 [297.6] ::
26. ↓-2 (24) : Sailor Moon 6 – Kodansha Comics, Jun 2012 [236.5] ::
41. ↑109 (150) : Bleach 38 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [180.7] ::
60. ↑10 (70) : Sailor Moon 7 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2012 [147.7] ::
61. ↑4 (65) : Naruto 55 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [146.2] ::
69. ↑15 (84) : Negima! 34 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2012 [133.7] ::
104. ↑19 (123) : Ambiguous Relationship – DMP Juné, Mar 2012 [93.7] ::
123. ↓-21 (102) : Dance in the Vampire Bund 12 – Seven Seas, Jun 2012 [85.2] ::

[more]

Manga Bestsellers: 2012, Week Ending 05 February

February 17, 2012 by Matt Blind Leave a Comment

Comparative Rankings Based on Consolidated Online Sales

last week’s charts
about the charts

Manga Bestsellers

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon 3 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [477.0] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Sailor Moon 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [427.5] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Sailor Moon 2 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2011 [422.3] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Black Butler 8 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [412.5] ::
5. ↑17 (22) : Negima! 33 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [398.4] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Maximum Ride 5 – Yen Press, Dec 2011 [393.1] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Naruto 54 – Viz Shonen Jump, Mar 2012 [383.5] ::
8. ↓-1 (7) : Sailor Moon Codename: Sailor V 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [375.3] ::
9. ↓-1 (8) : Naruto 53 – Viz Shonen Jump, Dec 2011 [355.1] ::
10. ↑2 (12) : Sailor Moon 4 – Kodansha Comics, Mar 2012 [352.0] ::

[more]

Top Imprints
Number of volumes ranking in the Top 500:

Yen Press 82
Viz Shonen Jump 81
Viz Shojo Beat 67
Kodansha Comics 46
Viz Shonen Jump Advanced 37
Seven Seas 21
Dark Horse 17
Vizkids 17
DMP Juné 16
HC/Tokyopop 10

[more]

Series/Property

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon – Kodansha Comics [1,115.5] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Naruto – Viz Shonen Jump [943.5] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Black Butler – Yen Press [846.5] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Maximum Ride – Yen Press [791.5] ::
5. ↑5 (10) : Negima! – Del Rey/Kodansha Comics [636.1] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Highschool of the Dead – Yen Press [590.8] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Fullmetal Alchemist – Viz [534.4] ::
8. ↑1 (9) : Rosario+Vampire – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced [524.9] ::
9. ↓-1 (8) : Pokemon – Vizkids [514.1] ::
10. ↓-3 (7) : Black Bird – Viz Shojo Beat [499.7] ::

[more]

New Releases
(Titles releasing/released This Month & Last)

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon 3 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [477.0] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Black Butler 8 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [412.5] ::
5. ↑17 (22) : Negima! 33 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [398.4] ::
11. ↓-1 (10) : Black Bird 12 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2012 [345.3] ::
12. ↓-1 (11) : Rosario+Vampire Season II 7 – Viz Shonen Jump Advanced, Jan 2012 [339.5] ::
14. ↑1 (15) : Highschool of the Dead 5 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [328.4] ::
18. ↓-5 (13) : Pandora Hearts 8 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [321.8] ::
21. ↓-4 (17) : Skip Beat! 26 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jan 2012 [269.0] ::
23. ↑7 (30) : Durarara!! 1 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [249.6] ::
27. ↓-4 (23) : Pokemon Black & White 5 – Vizkids, Jan 2012 [229.4] ::

[more]

Preorders

[more]

Manhwa

179. ↑314 (493) : Black God 15 – Yen Press, Jan 2012 [61.3] ::
268. ↓-5 (263) : JTF-3 Counter Ops (ebook) – RealinterfaceStudios.com, Mar 2011 [42.9] ::
356. ↑21 (377) : Bride of the Water God 9 – Dark Horse, Oct 2011 [31.5] ::
366. ↓-174 (192) : Laon 6 – Yen Press, Jul 2011 [30.4] ::
451. ↑163 (614) : March Story 3 – Viz Signature, Oct 2011 [23.3] ::
487. ↓-230 (257) : Totally Captivated 3 – Netcomics, Jun 2008 [20.8] ::
512. ↓-210 (302) : Totally Captivated 4 – Netcomics, Sep 2008 [19.1] ::
666. ↓-34 (632) : March Story 2 – Viz Signature, Apr 2011 [12.3] ::
736. ↑61 (797) : Goong 11 – Yen Press, May 2011 [9.9] ::
762. ↓-243 (519) : Totally Captivated 6 – Netcomics, Feb 2009 [9.2] ::

[more]

BL/Yaoi

47. ↑66 (113) : Finder Series 5 Truth in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Dec 2011 [169.1] ::
76. ↑15 (91) : Private Teacher 2 – DMP Juné, Jan 2012 [123.9] ::
80. ↓-18 (62) : Maelstrom (ebook) 1 – Yaoi Press, Jun 2011 [121.5] ::
101. ↑11 (112) : A Fallen Saint’s Kiss – 801 Media, Jan 2012 [96.9] ::
104. ↑19 (123) : Ambiguous Relationship – DMP Juné, Mar 2012 [93.7] ::
110. ↓-4 (106) : Seven Days Friday-Sunday – DMP Juné, Sep 2011 [91.4] ::
116. ↓-15 (101) : Mr. Tiger & Mr. Wolf – DMP Juné, Sep 2011 [87.1] ::
138. ↑50 (188) : Finder Series 4 Prisoner in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Aug 2011 [77.0] ::
177. ↑281 (458) : Seven Days Monday-Thursday – DMP Juné, Aug 2010 [61.6] ::
188. ↓-5 (183) : Maelstrom (ebook) 6 – Yaoi Press, Aug 2011 [59.9] ::

[more]

Ebooks

77. ↓-22 (55) : Amazing Agent Luna 1 – Seven Seas, Mar 2005 [123.0] ::
80. ↓-18 (62) : Maelstrom (ebook) 1 – Yaoi Press, Jun 2011 [121.5] ::
84. ↓-10 (74) : Vampire Cheerleaders 1 – Seven Seas, Mar 2011 [117.0] ::
88. ↓-17 (71) : How to Draw Manga (ebook) Lesson 1 Eyes – Japanime’s Manga University, May 2011 [113.3] ::
98. ↑33 (131) : Manga Cookbook – Japanime’s Manga University, Aug 2007 [100.2] ::
106. ↓-11 (95) : Amazing Agent Luna 2 – Seven Seas, Jul 2005 [92.6] ::
113. ↑30 (143) : Sin (ebook) chapters 1-10 – MangaMagazine, Sep 2011 [89.0] ::
119. ↓-23 (96) : The Outcast 1 – Seven Seas, Sep 2007 [86.1] ::
130. ↓-27 (103) : Dragon Ball Z Legend: The Quest Continues – Cocoro Books, May 2004 [82.2] ::
151. ↓-25 (126) : Kanji de Manga 1 – Japanime’s Manga University, Jan 2005 [71.6] ::

[more]

Combat Commentary: Bakuman Volume 6, Ch. 48-50

February 17, 2012 by Derek Bown 2 Comments

What’s that, you say? What am I doing looking at Bakuman? It’s not even a battle manga. Don’t I know the title of my own column? Well, allow me to explain. I’ve mentioned before that I am interested in looking at non-conventional fight scenes and battles. Not all conflict (or even fights) needs to be physical. Sometimes they can be battles of ideals, or of ideas. They can be mental mindgames, or cleverly constructed traps. One could even say that any form of conflict resolution is a battle.

While I will continue to focus on battles involving actual physical confrontation, every once in a while I plan to slip in a commentary on the more unconventional battles that are found in manga. With this entry at least I hope to show that a manga does not need punching to be shounen. Series like Bakuman are just as shounen, possibly even more so, than series involving a great deal of fighting.

What Happened?
After overworking himself, Mashiro collapses on the floor of his studio. His assistants find him, and he is admitted to the hospital. While Mashiro insists that he can keep working while in the hospital, his friends try to get him to stop until he recovers. But one by one he convinces them all, even Azuki, that he needs to keep drawing, no matter what. Once he finally has everyone on his side, and is finishing up the pages for the next chapter, the Editor in Chief says that their series will be put on hiatus until Mashiro and Takagi graduate from high school.

(click images to enlarge)

What Happens?
Everyone, including several of the editors, and all of Mashiro and Takagi’s manga artist friends, disagree with the Editor in Chief’s decision to put the series on hold, despite the fact that the decision is made with Mashiro’s well-being mind. Fukuda, and the rest of Team Fukuda, decide that they will protest the Editor in Chief’s decision by boycotting the magazine. They meet with their editors, and tell them that they fully intend to withhold their series from the magazine until the decision to put Muto Ashirogi on hiatus is reversed.

The Editor in Chief remains firm in his decision, and despite the next issue being printed without any of Team Fukuda’s manga, he refuses to change his mind. Miura tries to resolve the issue by getting Mashiro and Takagi to accept a hiatus until Mashiro is discharged from the hospital. He manages to do this, and Mashiro convinces Fukuda and Nizuma to put an end to the boycott. But even after getting the boycott resolved, the Editor in Chief refuses to change his mind. It is not until Mashiro leaves the hospital, and he and Takagi and Miura present the Editor in Chief with all the chapters they created while Mashiro was hospitalized, that the Editor in Chief finally relents and allows Trap to continue serialization in the next issue.

What Does it Mean?
Battles do not have to be physical to be battles. Sometimes they can be a mental game between two opponents, such as are found in Death Note. At their most basic, battles are a clash between opposing ideals. In every good battle, the protagonist and the antagonist’s ideals clash, and the battle does not end until one set of ideals has been proven superior. Generally these confrontations are simplified down to the stronger fighter having the correct ideals.

Even better, is when there is no clear right or wrong. Oftentimes the ideals are simplified down to clear black and white, but in the case of Bakuman, a lot of the driving force of the conflict is that both sides have good arguments. In a way, the Editor in Chief’s lone stand against the rest of the cast puts him in quite a heroic role, especially when considering his motivation is to protect Mashiro from sharing his uncle’s fate.

In a series mostly based in the real world, like Bakuman, fantastic physical confrontations are not possible. And while no blows are traded, two ideals are still pitted against each other. The Editor-in-Chief is convinced that if Mashiro keeps working, he will end up like his Uncle, and wants to protect him from this fate. While Mashiro and the rest of the cast believe in the youthful ideals of always working hard, no matter what puts itself in your path.

The battle is fought with sheer willpower. The same willpower that brings other shounen heroes back to their feet, is what keeps Mashiro drawing, despite his body rebelling against him. It is the same willpower that allows his friends to risk their careers to fight what they perceive as an unjust decision. And in the end, it is that exact same willpower that convinces the Editor-in-Chief to reinstate the series before he had intended to.

By digging deep, and finding examples of battles in even a series like Bakuman we find that battles are the core of every good narrative. Whether actual battles are fought or not, a story relies on the clash of ideals that happens when two opposing sides face each other. And it is the resolution of this conflict that gives every story worth reading its bite.

In a way, the series itself manages to focus not only on how manga is created, but it also uses its story as a way to show how to create good manga. Mashiro’s battle against the Editor-in-Chief has all the hallmarks of a good battle scene, and everything else about the manga sets up the ideas used to create good shounen manga. From Mashiro and Takagi’s incredible drive, to their rivalry against Nizuma (which only really started because they decided to make him their rival) which drives them on to become Number One. Not only are meta-battles used in all forms of storytelling, but Bakuman is a rare case in that the entire point of the series is to portray shounen manga in a different setting than normal.

Digital dilemma, a new day for Ken Akamatsu, and Tezuka’s gender bending

February 16, 2012 by Brigid Alverson

Lissa Pattillo discusses this week’s new manga releases in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA. Sean Gaffney picks the best of next week’s new manga at his blog.

Kate Dacey has the 411 on Kodoku no Gourmet, a foodie manga coming soon to JManga.

Ed Sizemore talks to Helen McCarthy, Ada Palmer, and Kate Dacey about gender roles in Osamu Tezuka’s Princess Knight in the latest Manga Out Loud podcast.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber asks the readers: Should she make the switch to digital in the middle of a series?

Matt Blind has the latest manga best-sellers and a new Manga Radar post as well at Manga Bookshelf.

Erica Friedman looks at Shueisha’s brand new magazine Cocohana, billed as a shoujo magazine for adults.

The American miniseries I Kill Giants has won the Japanese government’s International Manga Award.

News from Japan: AstroNerdBoy has been following Ken Akamatsu’s Tweets, which contain some interesting news: Akamatsu is no longer exclusive to Kodansha (the end of his contract coincides neatly with the end of Negima!), and he has gotten his original art back for a number of series. AstroNerdBoy speculates that Akamatsu may do his next manga on his free manga site J-Comi, possibly following up with print tankoubons. In other news, the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 manga will begin serialization in Newtype Ace with a 63-page opening chapter. Futabasha is suing three Chinese companies who are using Crayon Shin-Chan on their products without authorization. The manga museum in Ishinomaki, which was severely damaged in the earthquake and tsunami last year, has put up a display of manga art in 35 local stores. The Mainichi Daily News looks at the popularity of One Piece, suggesting that its message of hope and loyalty resonates in these uncertain times. And ANN has the most recent Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: It’s time for another round of rapid-fire reviews from Carlo Santos in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN.

Kristin on vol. 18 of 20th Century Boys and vol. 4 of Kingyo Used Books (Comic Attack)
Alexander Hoffman on Breathe Deeply (Manga Village)
Anna on vol. 1 of A Devil and Her Love Song (Manga Report)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Drifters (The Manga Critic)
Justin S. on vol. 1 of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Ken Haley on vols. 1 and 2 of Gunsmith Cats: Burst (Sequential Ink)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 19 of Hayate the Combat Butler (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 19 of Hayate the Combat Butler (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kate Dacey on How to Draw Shoujo Manga (The Manga Critic)
Joseph Luster on vol. 3 of No Longer Human (Otaku USA)
Kristin on One Piece Color Walk 2 and vol. 7 of Toriko (Comic Attack)
Kelakagandy on vol. 1 of Soulless (kelakagandy’s ramblings)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 4 of The Tyrant Falls in Love (Kuriousity)
Johanna Draper Carlson on Uglies: Shay’s Story (Comics Worth Reading)

From the Heart, Cocohana

February 16, 2012 by Erica Friedman 4 Comments

It’s not often I’m in the right place at the right time to see the birth of a new magazine. This time, I was. Shueisha’s Cocohana launched in time for January 2012 and I just happened to be at a store that carried it when it hit the shelves.

Cocohana is being positioned as a Shoujo magazine for adults. As a result, the feeling is neither quite Josei, nor Shoujo, but some hybrid creation. From my perspective, it works.

To bump up its appeal to an adult audience, Volume 1 started right off with a few power names on the roster, Higashimura Akiko (known for Kuragehime, known here as Jellyfish Princess,) with “Kakukaku Shikajika,” Yamashita Tomoko (Dining Bar Akira,) with a one-shot, “Biseinen,” and is reprinting some previously serialized stories from Chorus magazine, including Haruno Nanae’s classic Papa Told Me. (This gives me hope that, perhaps we’ll see her Pieta re-serialized. This story is one of my favorite older Yuri series and as the Yuri audience now exists as a thing on its own, I think Pieta‘s time has come.) “Ashi Girl,” by Morimoto Kozuek,o is the kind of fantastic mix of historical rewrite and female experience that I haven’t seen since Akaishi Michiyo’s Amakusa 1637. I’m looking forward to more of it.

Previews of most of the series running in Cocohana are avialable on the website: http://cocohana.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/index.html, as are messages from the manga artists. Uniquely, the Cocohana main page also includes a Twitter stream of messages by the manga
artists, something I haven’t seen any other magazine website include – despite the adoption of Twitter by many manga artists. The website also offers a personalized fortune-telling session, if you send your information in by form.

Scheduled for 28 volumes a year, Cocohana retails for 500 yen ($6.44 at time of writing,) for approximately 450 pages, which puts it at the high end of per-page cost for a manga magazine…another sign that this is for an older audience. Bolstering the idea that the magazine is Shoujo, not Josei, it comes with a giveaway – a small purse – but, with art by Anno Moyocco which confirms that the audience is adults. So far, in image and story, Cocohana is balanced perfectly to present a specific image.

Cocohana, the shoujo magazine for adults, from Shueisha: http://cocohana.shueisha.co.jp

Manga the Week of 2/22

February 15, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

The fourth week (but really the 3rd) of February gives us quite a few titles to choose from. And for once, none of them are from viz – it’s the other publishers that get a look in.

Dark Horse gives us the 20th volume of Oh My Goddess, which means they have now caught up with the ‘unflipped’ editions. Honestly, it’s a sign of how popular this series is with their fans that they even went to all the trouble of this giant re-release, and I’m impressed. As ever, Carl Horn supplements the releases with letters and endnotes. Going forward, starting with Volume 41, it’s all heading forward into the future, rather than reliving the glorious past.

As always, DMP’s yaoi publications always end up with the best titles. This week we have ‘Gentlemen’s Agreements Between A Rabbit And A Wolf’, which sorely needs a tiger in there as well, but I won’t quibble as I know it would destroy the beautiful seme/uke balance the title provides. And in more sedate titles, we also have the 5th volume of the deluxe reissue of Kizuna.

Kodansha gives us the 4th volume of 24-style thriller Bloody Monday, and the 4th volume of fantastic dinosaur art series Gon. Two series that really are unlikely to ever cross over. (Gon doesn’t appear in Cage of Eden, does he? Cause that would just make my year.)

Seven Seas is giving Midtown the 3rd volume of A Certain Scientific Railgun, which many other Diamond customers – including me – got this week. There is still no sign of the parent series, A Certain Magical Index, but Railgun is entertaining enough.

That’s right, it’s my blog, and so Higurashi gets the image again. The Atonement Arc hits Volume 3, and no doubt will feature increasing paranoia and bloodshed. Can the ircle be broken, or are we in for another depressing reset? Well, we won’t find out yet, but certainly this will ramp up the tension. Also from Yen, we have new volumes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (the normal manga version, not the SD one); ninja manga Nabari no Ou; ecchi harem fantasy catgirl samurai… thing Omamori Himari; the awesomely insane Soul Eater; and a new volume of Sumomomo Momomno, which is still going, to my surprise. it’s hit Volume 11 too! Sheesh, kids these days…

All this and the debut of Soulless: The Manga from artist REM! What interests you this week?

Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 19

February 15, 2012 by Sean Gaffney

By Kenjiro Hata. Released in Japan as “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Shogakukan, serialization ongoing in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz.

Hayate has reached the point now here, popular and enjoyable as it is, its cast is simply too large to use in one complete plot. So while I said last time that the cast was all going to wind up on a holiday in Greece, there are exceptions. And so Wataru, Saki and Sakuya end up in Las Vegas, which coincidentally has its own subplot waiting in the wings for them! This would be highly unrealistic and a detriment to any manga that is not as silly as this one, but (even after the Athena arc) the reader still has a tendency to say “Yeah, OK, whatever.”

The Las Vegas chapter introduces Wataru’s mother, who is… not a nice woman. Oh sure, on a scale of one to Hayate’s parents she’s still small time, but it’s clear she loves gambling and is not above humiliating her son and his friends just to show off how lucky and powerful she is. (You get a sense of where the manga is going with her when we see a flashback where Wataru hands her a doll he has made. It appears to be Nezumi Otoko from the children’s series Gegege no Kitaro. Oh kid, little do you know your mother is more like that doll than you think… In any case, the cliffhanger for this volume involves Wataru’s mother gambling with Saki (who doesn’t know how to play cards) for Wataru’s fate. It also includes Sakuya as a fanservice magnet, something that I think started in Japanese fanart circles and that Hata might have picked up on. Unlike those circles, Sakuya stays (mostly) decent, though.

Meanwhile, earlier in the manga, we get a chapter devoted to one of the Idiot Trio, Miki. She’s arguably the most intelligent and perceptive of the three (given she got a 36 on her most recent exam, this is very arguable), but that’s not really why we get this chapter. For a manga where every single woman seems to be in love with the hero, it is refreshing to see someone who isn’t. And, Ayumu’s teasing of Hina aside, we haven’t really had any yuri in this manga to date either. Now we get both – Miki is not interested in Hayate, mostly as she has her heart set on someone else. It can be a bit disheartening to hear Miki say she knows she’ll be rejected so has no plans to confess… but, knowing Hinagiku like we do, Miki’s probably correct. Oh well. Maybe she’ll get lucky if Hayate ends up with someone else! (By the way, notice how Hayate immediately makes the connection between Miki’s vague allusions and Hina. He’s very perceptive in anything not involving himself.)

Other than that, well, there’s plenty of humor in this volume. Which is good, as folks read Hayate for the gags. For those who worried that we’d be returning to the mood of the previous 2 volumes, that’s not happening right away. Of course, not much else is happening right away either. By the end of the book, half the cast are either in Greece or Vegas, but our hero and heroine are still stuck at home. The main flaw of this book is that, for everyone except maybe Maria fans, very little happens in this volume. We left off with the cast getting ready to go to Greece (where Athena awaits, let’s remember), and we’re still waiting here. Ah well. At least we haven some ominous foreshadowing with Hayate’s ‘King’s Jewel’ given to him by Nagi’s jerkass grandfather. Foreshadowing of dark, terrible events is always welcome in comedy gag manga.

How to Draw Shojo Manga

February 14, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

This slim how-to manual caters to the manga fan who wants to become an artist, but finds the technical aspects of comic creation daunting. “If you’ve ever flipped through a How to Draw Manga book in a bookstore, looked at the pages that explain character design and perspective and thought, ‘I have to learn all this hard stuff to be a manga artist?’ then you are exactly the person who we want to read this book,” the authors cheerfully assert.

The introduction is a little disingenuous, however, as the book assumes a level of artistic fluency on the part of the reader that isn’t reflected in that warmly inviting statement. No novice could use the passages on anatomy or perspective to learn either of these essential drafting skills; the authors don’t break down the process of sketching a body or a three-dimensional space into enough discrete steps for a newcomer to recreate the examples in the book. The same is true for their advice on tools; though the authors provide a detailed catalog of pens, nibs, erasers, templates, blades, and brushes favored by professional artists, the information about how to use these tools presumes that the reader has worked with similar implements.

What How to Draw Shojo Manga does well, however, is introduce novices to the concepts associated with creating sequential art. The authors review the basics, explaining the various types of camera angles and shots, and when they’re most effective; discussing the underlying philosophy behind character designs; and showing how an artist takes a script from words to storyboards to finished product. The book also includes an appendix with practical information about submitting work to contests — obviously less applicable to American readers — as well as strategies for handling criticism; in a thoughtful touch, the authors critique a short story (included in full in the book) so that readers can better appreciate the substance of the editorial comments. Whenever possible, the authors use examples from actual manga to underscore points about character design and layouts; sharp-eyed fans will recognize works from such Hakusensha magazines as Lala, Melody, and Hana to Yume.

The bottom line: How to Draw Shojo Manga won’t turn a greenhorn into Arina Tanemura, but it will help her identify areas of weakness (e.g. poor drafting skills) and provide her with the vocabulary to discuss — and learn more about — the creative process.

Editor’s note: This review was originally included in a Short Takes column from November 2010. When I reorganized my site in January 2012, I created a category for instruction manuals (How to Draw Manga) and decided that this review would be better suited as a stand-alone piece. Look for more how-to reviews in the coming months!

HOW TO DRAW SHOJO MANGA • WRITTEN BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF HANA TO YUME, BESSATSU HANE TO YUME, LALA, AND MELODY MAGAZINES • TOKYOPOP • 176 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)