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Guest Feature: Mary Stayed Out All Night

December 7, 2011 by Sara K. 5 Comments

Guest Feature: Mary Stayed Out All Night

Mary Stayed Out All Night is the manhwa that Sooyeon Won, the artist responsible for Let Dai, Full House, and The Devil’s Trill, is currently producing. Considering how much of Sooyeon Won’s work has been published by NETCOMICS, is it quite possible that they will license Mary Stayed Out All Night too.

The Story

Our heroine is an ordinary young woman. She makes the ‘mistake’ of getting involved with a young man who is both handsome and a movie star, a popular singer, rich, a prince, or some other glorious thing. When they first meet, they do not get along. And somehow, another handsome, popular, wealthy, or high-class young man gets involved.

Of course, these young men are not equal. One of them has a higher social status than the other. I will henceforth refer to the higher-status one as ‘overdog’ and the lower-status one as ‘underdog’.

Through a contrived set of circumstances, the heroine has to move in with and/or get married to at least one of these young men. Perhaps it is because she has financial problems, or perhaps because her family made her do it. While many people would love to live with/marry handsome, popular/wealthy/high-class young men, because the heroine was forced into this situation, her plight is sorrowful.

Overdog is not interested in the heroine at first. He even has a girlfriend that he has real feelings for. But he falls in love with our heroine, and covers up the fact that he is in love with her, saying that he only agreed to the arrangement for convenience or some social reason.

Underdog, on the other hand, is much more open about his feelings for our heroine. Our heroine is his first love. Whereas overdog is about as supportive as a block of ice, underdog is always there to offer our heroine a shoulder to cry on. Of course, even though underdog is not as popular/wealthy/high-class as overdog, he is still sufficiently so to attract the attention of other girls.

Sometimes comedic, sometimes dramatic, sometimes tragic, the heroine and the young men cry, tease, yell, whisper, argue, run, chase, kiss, cuddle, flirt, woo, manipulate, beg, lie, confess, etc. all for the reader’s entertainment.

That is an accurate plot description of Mary Stayed Out All Night. This also happens to be an accurate plot description of Goong. And there are a lot of sunjeong manhwa for which this plot description would be at least 75% accurate.

If you like other manhwa of this type, you would probably like Mary Stayed Out All Night. If you dislike this type of manhwa, Mary Stayed Out All Night probably would not change your opinion. There are two things which make Mary Stayed Out All Night stand out from other manhwa of this type.

Kang Moo-Kyul

I generally find the characters in Mary Stayed Out All Night uninteresting, with a major exception: Kang Moo-Kyul.

Kang Moo-Kyul is like a patch of grass which, after being stomped upon, straightens right back up. It is hard to put him in a bad mood, and even harder to keep him in a bad mood. Under circumstances which would have the leading males of most shojo/sunjeong comics convulsing with angst, he thinks about the situation, fixes what he can and stays calm. While he might not go back to his usual cheer right away, he recovers faster than most of his sunjeong/shoujo-male-character peers would. Of course, being about as mature as a typical 25-year old, he is more mature than most of those peers.

The word which best summaries Kang Moo-Kyul’s personality is ‘free’. He is not a conformist; he feels no obligation to do things the conventional way. He is also not a rebel; he is perfectly happy to do things the conventional way when it happens to be what he wants to do anyway. According to him, the best way to go to a wedding is to arrive on a kindergarten school bus – with the kindergarten students on board. And this freedom is what attracts other people – both his fans (his band – “Strawberry Corpse” renders death metal music in a cheerful and silly way) – and Mary herself.

Of course, while grass springs back quickly after being stomped upon once, it does not spring back quite as high the second time. After being stomped upon too many times, it does not spring back up at all. Kang Moo-Kyul gets stomped on a lot in the story. Furthermore, it is hinted that Mary’s father was a lot like Kang Moo-Kyul as a young man, so he presents of a vision of what Kang Moo-Kyul might become in the future – an unhappy future. While Kang Moo-Kyul’s spirits are still high, they are slowly sinking.

The Artwork

This is what I truly love about this manhwa. The Taiwanese edition shows off the artwork very well, with its enlarged page size. In fact, Sooyeon Won fans, even those who cannot read Chinese, should seriously consider buying the Taiwanese edition, or the Korean/Japanese editions if the production values are equally high.

First of all, the artwork is extremely expressive. It is the equivalent of casting top-notch actors to bring the story to life. Look at these examples:

The shading, color, and layout are the equivalent of hiring a top-notch director and top-notch designers to bring the story to life.

Notice the following things:

1. The way the band-mate is standing over Kang Moo-Kyul as he is lying down.
2. The way the top-right and bottom-left panels are boxed, whereas the top-left and bottom-right left panels are not boxed.
3. The way that Kang Moo-Kyul rises in the bottom-right panel – as if he were swinging on a pivot located at the bottom-right corner of the page.

These elements individually provoke visual interest – the perspective of standing versus lying down, the mix of boxed and un-boxed panels, and the movement as Kang Moo-Kyul rises. However, they combine together to lead the readers’ eyes in a diagonal line of sight from the top left to the bottom right – and diagonal lines of sight are almost always more dynamic than horizontal or vertical lines of sight.

There is also sporadic use of color. The rarity makes the moments where color is used special. My favorite use of color is this page.

Individually, both of these colors would read as ‘black’, but used together they are clearly distinguishable. It is a lot more subtle than using two pigments which would never be read as ‘black’, and really highlights how this moment is different from other moments in this manhwa, yet is very much in the flow of the story.

This was too subtle for my camera, so I had to tweak the image into order to make the effect visible, and my tweaks are quite crude. Nonetheless, it is at least possible to see what I am writing about.

And there is a moment which displays Sooyeon Won’s skill particularly well.

If, on a street, a woman was running in tears, a man was chasing the woman, and a second man was staring blankly, most bystanders would pay attention to the woman and the man chasing her. They would not even notice the man blankly staring. Look at this:

Sooyeon Won directs the readers attention to Jung-In and away from Mary and Kang Moo-Kyul. She does this by:

1. Only showing Jung-In’s eyes, and not showing Mary’s face (the tears would grab too much attention).
2. Putting Jung-In in the center.
3. Shading Mary and Kang Moo-Kyul while keeping Jung-In looking bright. The human eye tends to move away from dark things and towards bright things.

This moment is not about Mary or Kang Moo-Kyul – it is about Jung-In, and Sooyeon Won makes sure that the reader knows that. And having a very compelling subject (a man chasing a woman in tears) yet managing to pull all of the attention to a different subject is in itself very dynamic.

Conclusion

While I am most impressed by the artwork, the story is solid, the jokes are funny, and Kang Moo-Kyul more than compensates for the blandness of the other characters. I sincerely hope that NETCOMICS or another publisher will put this out in English, and sooner rather than later.

Sara K. has previously written the following guest posts for Manga Bookshelf: Why You Should Read (and Want More) Evyione:Ocean Fantasy part 1 and part 2. In order to have something to read on the train, she brought her copies of volume 3 and 4 of Mary Stayed Out All Night to the peak of Filial Son Mountain (yes, she even brought them up the ladder).

Manga the Week of 12/14

December 7, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

‘Tis Christmas, and still no offers of pantomime! No worries, though. We may not have Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp, but there’s a nice healthy chunk of manga there. So what’s in store, Widow Twankey?

Kodansha features the 3rd volume of the re-release of Gon. If you haven’t read the adventures of the tiny dinosaur scrapper, now’s the time to catch up.

It’s the second week of the month, so Manga must be Starting On Sundays again. From Shonen Sunday this time around we get Vol. 8 of Arata: The Legend, Vol. 4 of Itsuwaribito, the 29th volume of Kekkaishi (that’s quite an accomplishment for a Sunday series!), and the 8th volume of Maoh: Juvenile Remix, pictured above doing their best anti-censorship pose, and with this volume’s remix by The Art of Noise. Meanwhile, from the seinen end of things, we get a new 20th Century Boys, which at Vol. 18 is almost nearing its climax at last. And Vol. 5 of House of Five Leaves, which will continue to feature people talking to each other a lot and people staring while not talking to each other at all. Sometimes at the same time! And for those who did not get it this week like the rest of us did, Naruto 53 is on Midtown’s list as well.

Lastly, presumably not arriving with the pile of Yen that came in this week, we have Vol. 2 of The Betrayal Knows My Name, which has mysterious men with mysterious powers hiding mysterious pasts. Mysterious!

Clap if you’re going to buy manga this week! Oh come on, that wasn’t loud enough! Clap harder!

The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers (with Robert Eustace)

December 7, 2011 by Michelle Smith

From the back cover:
The grotesquely grinning corpse in the Devonshire shack was of a man who had died horribly—with a dish of mushrooms at his side. His body contained enough death-dealing muscarine to kill thirty people. Why would an expert on fungi feast on a large quantity of this particularly poisonous species? A clue to the brilliant murderer, who had baffled the best minds in London, was hidden in a series of letters and documents that no one seemed to care about, except the dead man’s son.

Review:
The Documents in the Case is the one full-length mystery novel penned by Dorothy L. Sayers that doesn’t star Lord Peter Wimsey. Before I’d read it, I knew of it merely as “the one with the mushrooms.” Now I’ll know it as “the really boring one with the mushrooms.”

For the most part, this is an epistolary novel in which letters written by the residents of a particular Bayswater address depict the state of family life before the death of patriarch and mushroom enthusiast, George Harrison (yes, really). Sayers expertly and efficiently depicts the character of each correspondent through their writing, including George himself; the young, flighty, and discontented lady of the house (Margaret); her deluded-to-the-point-of-insanity companion (Miss Milsom); the dashing artist tenant (Harwood Lathom); the deep-thought-having novelist tenant (John Munting); and George’s son from an earlier marriage (Paul), who has gathered the documents together in a bid to prove that his father was too much of an expert on mushrooms to have died from accidentally ingesting a poisonous variety.

Some of this is fairly interesting, some is irritating—seriously, although one can sympathize with Margaret for her repressive husband, she is still frequently too insincere and manipulative to bear—and some is downright tedious. Munting’s letters to his fiancée often lapse into pseudo-philosophizing, but the cake is taken by an extremely long and self-indulgent scene near the end in which Sayers uses a bunch of random professorial types as mouthpieces through which to espouse some theories on the origins of life. If I had a paper copy instead of an audiobook I would quote some of the dialogue from this section, but it will have to suffice it to say that my impatience caused me to hurl profanities at my innocent cassette player.

Eventually, this rambling conversation produces the means of proving the death was no accident, and then there’s a very brief postscript about how the culprit was hanged. The end.

Ultimately, I conclude that this one is only for completists. Completists, I wish I could say this was better, but perhaps it will be some small comfort to know that it is at least quite short.

The Wallflower, Vol. 27

December 7, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Tomoko Hayakawa. Released in Japan as “Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Friend (“Betsufure”). Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Every time I review a volume of this manga, I feel the need to explain my continued enjoyment of it. I enjoy the romance, while acknowledging it will likely never be satisfactorily resolved. I enjoy the comedy, which admitting that a lot of it is the exact same situation written over and over with variations. And I like the art, despite the author’s complete lack of attention to backgrounds and Sunako still being superdeformed much of the time. Despite all these flaws, I enjoy this manga as it’s a classic example of an artist knowing she has a narrow range and using that narrow range to her best advantage.

Since about Vol. 15 or so, the series has gotten into a pattern. The majority of the stories feature the stormy friendship/something more between grumpy Kyohei and twitchy Sunako, and yes, after 27 volumes, she’s still occasionally freaking out about his “brightness” and wanting to be a creature of darkness. Generally once every two volumes or so she will throw in a chapter about the stoic Takenaga and his gorgeous yet lacking in self confidence girlfriend Noi; or playboy Ranmaru and his far too tolerant fiancee Tamao. Once every 5-6 volumes we may see a chapter devoted to cute and sweet Yuki, who’s the guy on the cover of this volume, but generally not; the author doesn’t know what to do with him, really, as he’s far too normal. His own girlfriend is notably also very normal.

No one reads Wallflower stuff for normal. You read it for things like Sunako deciding that after the events of last volume she’s leaving the mansion again and working at a maid cafe… with the creepy otaku therein. (Word of warning: otaku are portrayed entirely negatively here.) Or Sunako getting possessed by a ghost – again, the others note – who wants to satisfy her desire to pick flowers with an incredibly handsome man (read: Kyohei). Or Sunako getting the flu and Kyohei being forced to take care of her, in what might be the most fanservicey chapter this story has had to date. Or even for the token Ranmaru story, where he is kidnapped by an S&M club and held for ransom.

The little things in each volume are what keep bringing me back. We actually see Sunako transform from superdeformed to her normal self (in three poses) in the first chapter, which once again makes us wonder about how this works in the ‘real world’. The chapter with the ghost shows off Kyohei’s reluctant caring side, as this particular possessive spirit isn’t as selfish as prior ones have been, and he can’t simply tell her to get out and give Sunako back. The chapter with Ranmaru is fun and horrible at the same time, as he blows off his fiancee, who is there to learn from Sunako how to make him delicious food, to date more cheating wives. Tamao is clearly ready to sacrifice a pile of money for his well-being, and though he is grateful, and seems to have some feelings for her (note she’s probably the only woman he won’t actually sleep with, and we all know what that means with playboys), we still question why she puts up with his assholish tendencies. (Luckily, Sunako is there throughout to make these points, as she gets kidnapped as well.)

Then there’s the flu chapter. I’m not the audience for this shoujo material. 18-19 year old girls are. And boy howdy, does this chapter deliver. Kyohei’s half-naked throughout, but that’s not the type of service we’re talking about, for once. No, this is all about the torrid sexual tension between these two epically stubborn people. Sunako’s flu-ridden fever dreams are about Kyohei kissing her, and it’s driving her insane. Kyohei, meanwhile, just wants her to change and get better, but she refuses to do anything she tells him and is generally a horrible patient. This culminates in his blindfolding himself and stripping her naked so he can change her sweaty clothes, which she finally acquiesces to. (It’s very noticeable that for almost 25 pages or so, she’s not superdeformed in the least). And then she runs out into the rain, and he’s going after her screaming that she’ll get more sick, and then they trip and fall on top of each other…

…and then a lightning bolt comes down from the sky and strikes the both of them, ending the chapter. It’s like the hand of God, but more accurately it’s the hand of the author, reminding us all that the manga is still running in Japan and she really does not want to resolve it at all. Sigh. Oh well, in this manga filled with frustrating characters and situations she has now rewritten at least five times each, we still find little oases of awesome. That’s why we keep coming back to this even after 27 volumes.

Pick of the Week: Balanced Diet

December 5, 2011 by MJ, David Welsh, Katherine Dacey, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith 8 Comments

We’ve got a hefty haul at Midtown Comics this week, ranging from classic staples to contemporary 4-koma. Check out the Battle Robot’s picks below!

MJ: Heavy shipping weeks like this are nearly as tough for me as the bleak ones. From such a bounty of manga, I hardly know what to choose. As a bit of a completist, though, I admit I’m drawn to big finishes, and we have a pretty spectacular one this week. I’m speaking, of course, of the final volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack, arriving at Midtown Comics this week from Vertical. Based on the Akita Deluxe Edition mapped out by Tezuka before his death, along with three additional stories in the hardcover special editions of the first three volumes, Vertical’s collection is one of the most comprehensive in any language to-date. Above all, though, Black Jack is just a really great comic, and it’s pretty thrilling to have so much of it available in English, produced with the kind of loving care that Vertical gives to all its licenses. This final volume also features an appendix at the back, containing the original publication dates of the stories contained in Vertical’s editions, as well as a chronological listing of every story in the series, including those that were “sealed” by the author. For any fan of the series, this volume is a must-buy.

DAVID: I can’t say that this particular arc of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece has been my very favorite ever, but a middling patch of One Piece is still superior to the vast majority of comics. I suspect that the 59th volume will be one of those heartbreakers that Oda can pull off when one least expects it. And I’m sure there will be some callback to it about six or seven volumes down the road that will break my heart all over again. For those who aren’t up to date, Luffy has been fighting like a demon to save his brother from execution, and, being Luffy, he’s ignited a huge war between the navy and pretty much every pirate in the world without even trying. We’re nearing the conclusion of that and – hopefully – the return of the regular supporting cast. I miss the Straw Hats something awful.

KATE: Though I heartily second MJ’s choice of Black Jack, my pick goes to Dawn of the Arcana, a new Shojo Beat title. Most early reviews were tepid, with critics grousing about the pace, the poor integration of the fantasy elements, or the author’s over-reliance on types (e.g. Brash Jerk with Heart of Gold, Fawning Admirer Who Would Throw Himself in Front of a Bus for You). Those are fair criticisms of Arcana, but I liked it nonetheless, as it features the kind of steely, smart heroine who can think her way out of a tough situation, rather than relying on her fists or her feminine wiles. I also happened to like the story’s brisk tempo; the author allows important information to be revealed through the natural unfolding of the story, rather than assaulting the reader with lengthy monologues about the setting or the characters’ histories.

MICHELLE: My pick this week goes to the seventeenth and penultimate volume of Bisco Hatori’s Ouran High School Host Club. I’m not blind to the flaws of this series—I groan often at the episodic hijinks—but I still nurture very fond feelings for it, and each volume usually contains just enough romantic progress from the two leads to leave me satisfied as I begin the long wait for the next installment. I can only assume that as the series draws nearer to its conclusion we will see less comedy and more romance, which will make me happy indeed. I love Haruhi and I really love Tamaki, so I want to see those kids work it out already!

SEAN: And I will likewise pick a final volume, though this series does not quite have the blogger cred that Black Jack does. But K-On! has been improving volume by volume, and in the 4th and final volume (for now) of the cast’s exploits, we see the cast trying to deal with passing their exams, getting into the right colleges, playing their final school concert, and dealing with the worst horror of all – the school play! There’s still plenty of laughs here (I love the chapter where everyone thinks Ritsu has a secret boyfriend), but the emphasis is on adorable and heartwarming, with a few tears sprinkled throughout. It probably won’t change anyone’s mind if they hadn’t liked what came before, but for those who did, this is the best of the four volumes. See you in University!

Amazon.com Widgets

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 12/5/11

December 5, 2011 by MJ, Michelle Smith and Katherine Dacey 2 Comments

This week, MJ, Michelle, & Kate look at new releases from Viz Media, Digital Manga Publishing, and Vertical, Inc.

About Love | By Narise Konohara and Tomo Ootake | Digital Manga Publishing – The unconventional cover on this one led me to expect a quirky story, but About Love is calm and melancholy as it depicts the friendship and romance between Asaka, a wedding planner, and Sasagawa, one of his first clients. What I found striking about this story was the lack of optimism from its protagonists—Sasagawa is convinced that Asaka only wants to be friends while Asaka is in love but has no intentions of ever revealing the relationship to his friends and family. Misunderstandings and work obligations conspire to keep the two apart and… I don’t know… usually one assumes a BL couple will ride happily off into the sunset, but I honestly am not sure that’ll happen here. Which is probably a good thing, right? Bucking convention and all that. In any case, it was an interesting read and I recommend it if you’re in the mood for something different. – Michelle Smith

Bakuman, Vol. 8 | By Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata | Viz Media – Bakuman‘s romantic entanglements have never been its strength, and unfortunately this volume is saddled with more than its fair share. Even more unfortunate is the authors’ portrayal of young novelist Aiko Iwase, a brilliant former schoolmate of our heroes, whose ambition is apparently driven entirely by romantic feelings for Takagi, but is presented without any of the genuine insight or sympathy granted to similarly love-obsessed artist Nakai. And while it’s admittedly pretty satisfying to see Nakai finally get smacked in the face (twice!) later in this volume, it’s even more of a relief to see Ohba and Obata turn the plot back to the craft and politics of the manga publishing biz, which is what really makes this series work. I’ll cross my fingers in hopes that we see more of this in the next volume. Still cautiously recommended. – MJ

Black Jack, Vol. 17 | By Osamu Tezuka | Vertical, Inc. – The final installment of Black Jack includes a mixture of good, great, and outstanding stories, the best of which feature Pinoko. I’d be the first to admit that Pinoko is my least favorite character of the series, as she’s always struck me as a nasty caricature of the Japanese housewife. In volume 17, however, Pinoko is forced to confront her liminal status as an adult — first when Black Jack tries to give her to a childless couple, then when her sister enters Black Jack’s life again. Both stories are an appealing mixture of humor, suspense, and pathos that cast this problematic character in a more sympathetic light; we feel Pinoko’s pain as she struggles to reconcile her eternally youthful appearance with her more mature feelings for Black Jack. As an added bonus, Tezuka stuffs these last stories with cameos from Phoenix, Ode to Kirihito, and Swallowing the Earth (to name a few), a lovely reward for his most devoted fans. – Katherine Dacey

I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, Vol. 4 | By Shunju Aono | Viz Media – After the crushing resignation of the editor who believed in him, Shizuo’s new editor—the embittered, no-nonsense daughter of a failed novelist—cuts him no slack, describing his work as self-indulgent justification for his own lifestyle. Surprisingly, Shizuo actually seems to listen, at least by the end of the volume, providing hope that the promised “Tomorrow” might actually be at hand. I’ve become frustrated with this series from time-to-time, as it vacillates between latching on to a real narrative and settling into the perpetual sitcom feel so common in comedic manga. But I do have some hope of it finally leaning towards the former, especially after this very strong volume. As usual, the series’ side characters are more interesting than its protagonist, but finally it seems like that protagonist might actually care. It’s fascinating to watch this series evolve in a way not dissimilar to our hero’s own journey, which may simply prove how brilliant it’s been from the start. Recommended. – MJ

The Innocent | By Avi Arad, Junichi Fujisaku, and Yasung Ko | Yen Press – I was initially baffled by the presence of quotes from Stan Lee and Sam Raimi on the back cover of The Innocent until a little research revealed that Arad is actually some kind of Marvel bigwig. Apparently, this is why he has the likes of Nicolas Cage proclaiming that his work “shows like an esoteric haiku by way of anime and Lichtenstein and achieves comic book poetry.” To which I say, “Um, what?” And also, “Were we reading the same book?” I found The Innocent to be uninspired, with unsympathetic characters, incredibly paper-thin villains, and incoherent action scenes. It’s possible that this could have been a cool story—it does feature a wrongly executed guy who comes back to life with a body made of ash, which he can manipulate in various nifty ways—but the flaws listed above prevented me from giving a hoot about any of it. – Michelle Smith

Real, Vol. 10 | By Takehiko Inoue | Viz Media – It’s been a long wait for the tenth volume of Real, but I am happy to report that the wait is well worthwhile! This volume maintains the sort of shounen-esque feel of volume nine, with a mixture of grand declarations, gritty determination, and talk of achieving one’s dreams, but without losing any of the realism that makes this series so compelling. It’s gratifying, really, to see a character like Takahashi discover a glimmer of aspiration at long last, and it’s surprising how possible Noyima’s seemingly unrealistic dream suddenly appears, now that his moment of trial has arrived. Inoue’s craftsmanship is as stunning as ever, and I’m constantly impressed by his ability to shift focus from character to character without ever losing the tension in even one of his delicately-overlapping storylines. Heavy as it can be, this series is always a pleasure to read, which is a true feat for any writer. It seems clear that this series will always be worth waiting for. Highly recommended. – MJ

Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Vol. 32

December 5, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

By Ken Akamatsu. Released in Japan as “Mahou Sensei Negima!” by Kodansha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

After two or three volumes of a giant fight/massacre, a break is much needed. You can’t simply have nonstop fighting in every chapter. And so this Negima is devoted to Negi attempting to gain more power and learn what he really wants from the fight, and for several of the others to get powers of their own. There’s lots of plot and character development to enjoy here.

First off, a great deal of time is dedicated to the four ‘sports girls’ who stowed away to the Magical World and are now having to deal with the consequences. We’ve followed Ako’s arc more than the others, so it’s good to see the other three getting equal time. This is not to say that Ako gets nothing to do – her pactio is quite sweet, and I liked the fact that she’s aware of her feelings for Negi and is stamping them down as being wrong – this is a constant theme in this manga, given Negi’s age, and it helps to remind fans that in reality, it *is* squicky. She’s also still crushing on Nagi, even now that she knows he doesn’t exist, and this is a reason why she refuses to pactio with an ‘aged-up’ Negi. Her Pactio is also hilarious, though we don’t know what it does yet.

The other big revelatoin is regarding Yuna. We’ve known for some time that her father and mother were mages, and that Yuna had been kept in the dark about it. Now Takane feels they’re in a situation where it’s too dangerous not to know, and reveal the truth to her. Yuna, being of the ‘spunky take life as it comes’ variety, is seemingly okay with this, and notes she’d worked most of it out beforehand. She’s also reasoned this through to the end, and asks Takane if her mother’s death was really an accident like she’d been told. Takane’s response, and Yuna’s reaction, shows how well Akamatsu has mastered subtlety when the situation calls for it. We don’t see Yuna’s face when she reacts to the news, and that makes it all the more sad.

As for Makie and Akira, they aren’t quite as heartwarming, but still well done. Akira is first and foremost concerned for her friends, and tries to help Negi realize the situations he’s gotten himself into while not overwhelming him. Makie, who gets one of the best lines of the volume “I don’t understand men or women…” is as always a fairly simple girl, in a good way. She admires Negi and is happy to pactio with him, and that’s all that matters. So now three of the four girls have magical abilities (Akira is too shy/nervous to try), some of which, as Ako quickly notes, are more badass than others. (Yuna’s guns are implied to be special in particular – I have a feeling they may have been her mother’s.)

Negi, meanwhile, has finally broken free of the mental wall that’s been keeping him from using his full abilities – he realizes that he’s basically becoming something that isn’t human, and is okay with it if it’s to protect his friends. And what’s more, he’s leveled up in his thoughts on Fate as well – it used to be “I want to beat him”, now it’s “I want to be friends with him”. Well done, Negi, you’ve recognized you’re in a shonen manga. Now if we can just get Fate, who’s acting like an impatient boyfriend waiting for his date, to realize the same.

Speaking of which, I would be remiss if I did not mention Tsukuyomi. She made the transition from goofy villain to terrifyingly insane villain some time ago, but she really shows off her chops here. She goes toe to toe with Fate for a while, apparently because she’s bored, and forces him to actually have to get serious briefly. Then, bored again, she goes off to kill a few of Negi’s friends, starting with Colette, who is another ‘wooden doll’ in this world. Luckily Negi is there to stop her, but then we get her reaction to his newfound magical strength. I’m sorry, but it’s really hard to say anything other than “she sees his power and has an orgasm”. It’s that blatant. Then when Negi suggests that, as a hired mercenary, he could buy her off, she comes out with the chilling “There is no meaning in this world. All I want is blood and battle.” Something tells me we will not be befriending her like we will Fate.

Finally, we get everyone in position. Things are moving more rapidly than anticipated due to Tsukuyomi leaving behind a horde of demons to attack them, but Negi’s party gets to the Gravekeeper’s Palace with minimal fuss and is ready to go. And then they’re stopped. By… well, I’ll say who it is when I review Volume 33. I’ll just note that when this chapter came out in Japanese, it was generally regarded as the biggest surprise of the entire series to date. No one guessed this.

(I will note briefly that Kodansha’s lack of editors has done it again – the character bio and cover design is missing from this volume. The Nibleys said they did translate it, so it’s all on the editors. Sigh.)

There’s actually minimal fanservice in this volume as well. It’s straight ahead storytelling, with no detours in hot springs, and the pactios we get are mostly serious business. Could this be the manga’s final endgame we’re heading into? Will we ever get an entire chapter of Negi sneezing everyone’s clothes off again? Tune in next time!

Frank Zappa – Carnegie Hall

December 4, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

It has to be said, many of the complete concerts we’ve seen since Frank’s death 18 years ago would not have been released were he alive. Frank was very fond of cutting, fixing, overdubbing, and replacing, and generally rarely liked complete performances enough to put them out on record. Since his death, however, we’ve seen several complete concerts from the folks handling the Zappa family trust, with concerts from Australia in 1976; Philadelphia in 1976 and Buffalo in 1980, as well as a collection from several concerts at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1978.

This particular concert, though, is unique for many reasons. It’s Frank’s only appearance at the esteemed Carnegie Hall. Apparently the venue was tricked by a promoter into thinking that Frank was performing with an orchestra, which he had previously done in 1970. Instead, Frank was touring with the ‘Flo & Eddie’ version of the Mothers of Invention, and things were definitely more in a rock and roll-oriented comedy group vein. We get both the early and the late show at Carnegie, something that is possible mostly as Frank’s setlists are not as long as they would later get. It’s in mono – probably a reason Frank never saw fit to release it, as stereo was the norm for most everything by 1971. It also, uniquely for a Zappa record, features the opening act – acappella doo-wop group The Persuasions, whose first album was released on Zappa’s record label.

The makers of this CD set apologized for the less than stellar sound, and this is most apparent during the Persuasions set, which is more muffled than the main set. It’s quite listenable, though, and it’s always a pleasure to hear acappella groups. They take a tour through several old 50s and 60s classics, including many obscure records as well as some hits still beloved today, such as Tears on My Pillow and The Great Pretender. Their set runs about 25 minutes long, and features 3 ‘medleys’, the second and third of which produce acappella versions of more modern hits such as the Temptations’ Cloud Nine and Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend.

It’s then time for the early show for Zappa’s Mothers. As I noted, this band featured former Turtles Flo & Eddie, aka Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, on vocals and entertaining skits. Frank wrote his compositions to suit his bands, and the Flo & Eddie period was filled with lots of falsetto vocals, tales of groupies and sordid sexual situations – it was 1971, after all, where the Summer of Love was turning into the Autumn of Casual Sex. Also in the band were fellow ex-Turtle Jim Pons on bass guitar and bass vocals; Aynsley Dunbar, who would later go on to be a founding member of Journey, on drums and British sex appeal; Ian Underwood (the ‘straight’ member of the group) on alto sax and keyboards; and Don Preston on synthesizers and gong. Ian and Don were in the early 1960s Mothers; the others were unique to this band.

The first show begins, as most of this band’s shows did, with the 1967 album track Call Any Vegetable. This was one of the more straight-ahead rock numbers the band performed, and allowed Flo & Eddie to sing the ridiculous lyrics while Frank got to perform a smoking guitar solo. The second half of the song varied from venue to venue, as Frank would improvise a monologue about what to say to a vegetable; these usually revolved around the city or country they were playing in, and this was no exception. It wraps up with a quick reprise, then segues (with another NYC-based improvised monologue, this one by Howard Kaylan) into an even earlier song, the Freak Out classic Anyway The Wind Blows. This starts off similar to the album, but as we near the end, it gains speed and volume.

The next song is probably the one reason that I would recommend you buy this album only after you’re already familiar with Frank’s work. It’s well known that Frank Zappa wrote songs many people consider offensive; in fact, I have a few I consider offensive myself. Indeed, later in the show we’ll see songs about a groupie preparing to get laid, and in the 2nd show we’ll see God’s girlfriend beg a pig to screw her, and a young yuppie executive coat his thighs with syrup to that flies can surround them and lift him into the air.

Magdalena, though, is special even by these standards. It’s a song about a father and daughter living in Montreal, and the father realizing that his daughter is now grown up, and that he’s attracted to her. Now, to be fair, this is viewed in the lyrics as sick and wrong, and Magdalena herself rejects his advances and stomps off. However, the majority of the song is sung from the POV of the father, so you get lots of exhortations for his daughter to see reason and return to him. Naturally, as with many of Frank’s most offensive songs, the song itself is very catchy and you find yourself wanting to sing along, almost despite yourself. And this is also another song with an improvised monologue, as Howard once again uses the NYC area to try to seduce poor Magdalena.

After this, we’re back in safer territory, with a straight on performance of the Uncle Meat classic Dog Breath, which (as with almost all Flo & Eddie version of old Zappa songs) is more of a rocker now. This ends the first disc, but the show continues on CD2 with Peaches En Regalia, an instrumental and one of Frank’s most well-known songs. It segues right into Tears Began To Fall, the band’s current ‘hit single’ (that was not a hit), which is a standard love song about the lack of love. We then get ‘Shove It Right In’, a collection of three tunes from the 200 Motels movie. This is the groupie song I mentioned earlier, and is about a young girl putting on makeup, clothes, deodorant, etc. in order to go out and make herself attractive for the band members who are playing that evening. In the movie, it’s separated by instrumental orchestration, so never really gets going. Here, it’s just the songs themselves, and it becomes a raging beast.

After this it’s time for one of the band’s finest – King Kong. Frank played this instrumental piece for almost his entire career. It was in some of his earliest known performances in the 1960s, and it features prominently on the final tour in 1988. This is where the other type of Zappa fan, more in love with the music and soloing than the vocal shenanigans, sits up and gets excited. After the main theme, Don Preston gets to solo on his keyboard synthesizers. It’s worth noting that synths in 1971 were still fairly new and surprising, and that hearing what Don is doing with them must have been startling. Don enjoyed starting from a drone and building up swathes of noise, rather than playing straight ahead melodies. We then get Ian Underwood, Aynsley Dunbar, and Frank himself, all playing long and involved solos that extend the piece to just over half an hour. (Flo & Eddie, being vocalists only this tour, did not get a chance to solo. And Jim Pons either did not want to or was not asked to solo in any of their shows.)

We wrap the main set up with a piece first seen in the 200 Motels movie as part of the ending to ‘Strictly Genteel’. Frank separated it from the classical portion of the song and took it on tour with just the rock band finale, which he called, appropriately enough, 200 Motels Finale. It’s a great way to end a show, with the band telling everyone that they’re all exhausted and that after the show they’re all going out to get wasted. Before they do that, however, they need to come back for an encore. This is one of the big treats of this whole release: we finally have a nice version of the Flo & Eddie rewrite of Who Are The Brain Police?, Frank’s scary Freak Out classic. He noted at several other shows that he rewrote it to ‘make it sound like Canned Heat’, and it is fantastic, with a long and energetic Zappa guitar solo, and a strange vocal coda that will give you the shivers. And thus ends the early show.

The late show starts with Frank once again making fun of the fact that they actually managed to get booked at Carnegie Hall, before starting into one of their two big ‘skit’ sings from the Fall 1971 tour. The piece as a whole is called Divan, and most of it has been heard on official releases, but not as one piece. It’s the story of a fat maroon sofa which sits in the middle of a vast emptiness. The Lord sees this sofa and demands some flooring be put underneath it. The band then plays Sofa, as heard on the One Size Fits All album, complete with the lyrics in German. (Frank explains that much of this song is in German as that’s the way the Lord talks whenever it’s heavy business.) We then go back to Frank’s monologue about the Lord, who by now has brought along his short girlfriend… and Squat the Magic Pig. (Yes, when I called the band a rock-oriented comedy group, I was not kidding.) They then move into a big surprise for casual Zappa fans – the song Stick It Out, which would not be officially released by Frank until the Joe’s Garage album in 1979. It works better here, where the girlfriend screaming at the pig to screw her in German is contextualized within the sketch better than Joe and his roto-plooker. And yes, I do think that a girl demanding a pig screw her in German while the Lord films it with his home movie camera is less offensive than Magdalena, if only due to its sheer ludicrousness.

Divan ends with a piece we’ve heard before with that title on the Playground Psychotics album, which is vocal-oriented, quieter, and also in German and English. By the way, don’t actually try to learn German from this song. Then we hear another of Frank’s most beloved instrumentals, which also appeared from his first few concerts to his last, Pound for a Brown. For this tour, it wasn’t the giant solo vehicle that it could be on other tours, but a straightforward vehicle for Frank to play a guitar solo. As with all Pound performances until 1975, it then segues into another piece from Uncle Meat, Sleeping In A Jar – though this version is an instrumental. After this, we get a three-song medley of pieces that all lead into one another. Wonderful Wino was written for former Mothers bass player Jeff Simmons, and now that Jeff is gone Flo & Eddie share vocal duties. It’s, well, about a wino. Sharleena is another love song where the singers exhort the heroine to return to their loving arms. And Cruising For Burgers is pure 50s nostalgia, though as always with Frank’s nostalgia there’s a bit of wry tongue in cheek there as well.

Next comes, for me, the highlight of the entire release. In the spring of 1971, Frank wrote a huge musical comedy number titled Billy The Mountain. The story involved a California mountain getting a royalty check for all the postcards he’s posed for over the years. Deciding to use the money to take a vacation, he and his wife Ethel (who is a tree growing off his shoulder) head off to New York City, stopping along the way in Las Vegas and other touristy attractions. This naturally causes untold destruction, as Billy is a MOUNTAIN. Things get even worse when Billy is drafted, and refuses to report for his induction physical. The government decides to send a superhero to stop him – Studebaker Hoch, whose voice may not match up to his image but who is plenty badass in his own right.

As you can imagine, this plot takes a while to sing. Especially as, as with many songs in the first show, Frank, Flo & Eddie take the time to localize the song for its audience – so we get a news reporter from WNEW telling us about Ethel’s communist tendencies. It first appeared on Just Another Band from L.A. – edited, with the solos and a few of the more litigious parts removed. (Halfway through the tour, Frank and company changed the name of “George Putnam, the right-wing fascist creepo newscaster” to George Pontoon, possibly as the real Putnam might get upset. Given they stated “And it is this reporter’s opinion” – a Putnam trademark – it wasn’t hard to figure out anyway.) On Playground Psychotics, we got a half-hour version that left in the solos, but was also lacking many of the extended improvisations from later in the tour. This is the latest version we have officially released, and it’s by far the longest – over 45 minutes! There’s 13 minutes of solos, and we also have the full uncut production itself, including the ‘Tibetan Memory Trick’ which Flo & Eddie inserted into each Billy the Mountain from about this time onwards.

A brief interlude, as some may not be aware of the awesome Tibetan Memory Trick:
One hen
Two ducks
Three squawking geese
Four Limerick oysters
Five corpulent porpoises
Six pairs of Don Alverzo’s tweezers
Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array
Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt
Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth
Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who haul stall around the corner of the quo of the quay of the quivery of the quarry, all at the same time.

As you can imagine, it was fun to hear in concert, delivered at an extremely fast pace. We then get the end of the piece. Studebaker Hoch has come to reason with Billy by going into a phone booth and getting the flies within to take him to New York by the method I mentioned above. Once there, he foolishly threatens Billy, who just laughs. And when a mountain laughs, you’re in trouble. Studebaker is knocked 200 feet into the rubble below. Billy The Mountain is almost a time capsule of a song, being so 1971 it hurts. It’s filled with puns (Studebaker Hawk, anyone?), and though a lot of it isn’t as funny as the band seem to think it is, it’s carried along by pure mood. A joy to hear. The solos are once again by Don, Ian, Aynsley and Frank, though Frank’s is quite short. (His guitar is low in the mix for both concerts, which may be why his efforts weren’t as long as usual.)

This is the end of the main set, and it’s after midnight. Frank comes out and tells the crowd that he’d have to pay $600 extra before they’d let him play an encore. The crowd is clearly upset, but Frank is setting them up. “So I said of COURSE I’d pay an extra six hundred to play for you!” Frank spends a couple more minutes mocking the inflexible union rules that lead to such arrangements, and then gives us The Mud Shark. This was originally part of the extended “Groupie Opera” piece performed by this band, much of which can be heard on the album Fillmore East – June 1971. They’d mostly dropped this by now in favor of the new, equally long Divan. Audiences loved the Mud Shark, which was the story of a band (most folks know it as Led Zeppelin, but Frank always told it as being Vanilla Fudge) who stayed at a hotel in Seattle where you could fish out of your hotel room. There they caught a Mud Shark (aka dogfish) and proceeded to use it on a young groupie. We don’t really get into the sordid part of the story, however, because the “Mud Shark Dance” (which mostly involves pretending to swim like a fish) gets extended out more and more. This version is thirteen and a half minutes long, and includes the band trying to get the audience to leave the hall and Mud Shark their way down Broadway. The last 7 minutes or so are pure groove, and makes you want to see what it must have been like visually.

There are a few moments during the concert where the sound quality gets degraded, likely as they were changing reels. However, for the most part this sounds excellent, even in mono. Fons of drumming in particular will enjoy Aynsley Dunbar being right up front in the mix, and his skills are quite underrated compared to later, more famous Zappa drummers such as Terry Bozzio or Vince Colaiuta. There’s also a booklet with details of the shows and some liner notes by Zappa fan Al Malkin and Gail Zappa. There’s also a few photos of the band, though oddly Don Preston does not get an individual photo. It’s possible he refused permission or that the ZFT removed him – they don’t get along at all these days – but given he is in the group shots, we must resort to speculation.

If you’re a casual Zappa fan and have never heard Flo & Eddie before, you might want to start with Chunga’s Revenge and work your way in slower. For those who want more, though, these two sets are a great example of this particular band hitting on all cylinders. Carnegie Hall never knew what hit it. Sadly, two months from this date, Frank would be playing in London when a crazed fan pushed him off the stage and into the orchestra pit. He had several fractures and a crushed larynx, and the band went its separate ways while he recovered. The Flo & Eddie Mothers can be an acquired taste – Frank made fun of his own band in 200 Motels, having the band complain about “only playing comedy music”. Many Zappa fans agree with the band. Still, I’m very happy to hear any new Zappa, and this one in particular is a stellar release, warts and all.

Let’s Get Visual: The Jibblies

December 3, 2011 by Michelle Smith

MICHELLE: So, in our last installment of Let’s Get Visual we celebrated the pretty, so it seems only fitting that this time we devote our attentions to images that make us shudder with a feeling I like to call “the jibblies.” Just like beauty, creepy is a subjective thing, so we’ve each chosen a variety of images that get our personal hackles rising.

MJ, you want to go first this time?

MJ: Sure!

So, as I was perusing my manga collection for things that creep me out, it became increasingly clear to me that I’m very simple when it comes to what scares me. All it takes to really get to me is a single disturbing image–especially one that distorts something human into something sinister. I’m apparently not scared of monsters so much as I am of monsters in human clothing.

My first example comes from Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare. In this series, a group of teenagers is regularly drawn into a shared dreamworld in which they each appear as physical manifestations of their own worst fears. Some of these are visually more disturbing than others. The series’ main character, Ichijo, for instance, most fears his own confusion about gender, so his skirt-wearing dream self is really horrifying only to him. Some of the other students, however, wear their fears in a much more visually distorted manner. This short spread features two of those students.

After School Nightmare, Vol. 1 (Go! Comi)

First, you’ll see a student who appears only as an arm and hand, twisting itself around Ichijo. Second, a girl appears with giant cavities replacing her face and chest. While the second of these has the most stunning, immediate affect on my psyche, the first creeps up on me as I try to move away from the page. Both images stick with me long after I’ve put the book down, and this seems to be the real key to scaring the bejeezus out of me. If I can’t get the image out of my mind, it easily haunts me for days. That’s the power of a single, shocking image.

MICHELLE: My first thought upon hearing of your aversion to “a single disturbing image” is that you shouldn’t read Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, followed by the thought that you should read it.

My reaction to the image above differs from yours, though, in that while these images certainly provoke in me an “ew” reaction, they aren’t the type that haunt me. I definitely think that the slinky arm creature is the more creepy in the image you displayed. For me, it’s because the gaping images of emptiness are immediately recognizable as symbols for what that character is feeling, but what on earth is causing that other student to appear like a grasping, creeping arm?! I feel like their circumstances in life might ultimately be the more disturbing! (This comes from someone who’s read only one volume of After School Nightmare, so I don’t know if this turns out to be the case.)

MJ: I think part of what makes the gaping holes in the second student so horrifying for me, is that (for whatever reason) I’m strongly affected by a lack of face. I have the same reaction to images of people with blank faces. It creeps the hell out of me when I can’t assess a person’s feelings/personality from their expression. It feels very threatening to me.

Perhaps it’s further evidence of how much a face means to me, actually, that both of my follow-up images are pretty much face-only. First, from CLAMP’s Tokyo Babylon, we have the face of a dead child who pleads with her mother to avenge her, and secondly, from Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts, the face of a girl that reveals itself to be a monster underneath.

Tokyo Babylon, Vol. 4 (TOKYOPOP)

Pandora Hearts, Vol. 1 (Yen Press)

I actually find both of these to be creepier than the images from After School Nightmare, though they are much simpler. Something they have in common is that they are presented against a stark, black background, giving the distorted expressions full focus. After that, though, they are nearly opposites of each other. The face of the girl in Tokyo Babylon is all too real, distorted by the power of raw emotion, while the character in Pandora Hearts is revealed to have no emotion at all, or at least none that matched what was on her false human face. Yet in the end, which is more monstrous?

MICHELLE: It’s interesting how much the things that creep us out reveal about us, isn’t it? I’d wager you get the same threatening feeling from the girl who is revealed to be a monster underneath as you do the girl with no face at all. People pretending to be what they’re not, hiding their real selves, etc. That’s definitely something all of us have experienced at one time or another.

Getting back to actual attempts at visual analysis, those deep black backgrounds really do focus the reader’s eye on what the mangaka wants them to see. It’s as if they’re saying, “I don’t want you to be distracted by anything else.”

MJ: Your analysis of me is spot-on, that’s for sure!

And yes, I think the black backgrounds achieve exactly that, while also evoking our natural fear of the dark, or what we can’t see. It’s a powerful tool for both showing us something and not showing us something, if that makes sense.

MICHELLE: It definitely does.

Now I’m reflecting on what the images I’ve chosen say about me. There’s hardly a face among them, for one thing, because I am less creeped out by shocking images than I am by imagining an experience, specifically an experience during which one is forced to endure something horrible for a really, really long period of time with no means of escape. Ugh, just thinking about the short story my images come from—”The Enigma of Amigara Fault” by Junji Ito—has given me the jibblies while typing this paragraph!

Gyo, Volume 2, “The Enigma of Amigara Fault” (VIZ Media)

Page 178

Page 185

Page 198

Page 203

Page 204

I’ve chosen this particular sequence of images from this short story because they illustrate the entire plot without me needing to introduce it beforehand. By now you probably don’t need me to explain that when the TV news reports on a mountainside full of people-shaped holes revealed by a recent earthquake, people flock to the site and can’t be dissuaded from climbing into their personal holes, where long, icky agony awaits them. At first the site seems innocent enough, if a bit strange, but soon people are walking into holes, having nightmares about what happens to you in a hole, and eventually discovering the exit and…. Holy crap, it’s terrifying. This is the kind of thing that will haunt me for ages.

I’m honestly trying to analyze Ito’s artistic techniques dispassionately here, but I find that the disturbing power of the images is so great that it is affecting my ability to reason even now!

MJ: Hmmm, I’m wondering if what it’s saying is that while I’m terrified of people betraying me, you’re terrified of your environment betraying you. Or something like that.

In any case, these panels are undeniably creepy. Even if they creep me out in a less personal way, I can certainly see what’s giving you the jibblies! Interestingly, we again see the human form distorted, though in this case it’s happening sort of *to* the character we’re relating to rather than in front of him. (Maybe I’m afraid of the people I trust being compromised, and you’re afraid of yourself being compromised?)

This has a Twilight Zone feel to me, where some unexplained supernatural phenomenon is turning the lives of ordinary people into a nightmare. The artist does a great job of evoking the real terror of what’s happening, too. The texture of the stone walls around the man gives the images a three-dimensional look that makes it feel more real than a lot of what we see in manga. It’s the only thing that has that kind of thick texture, too, so it really stands out.

MICHELLE: More like I’m terrified of taking a step that can’t be undone and ending up in eternal torment because of it!

And yes, now that I’ve regained my senses, I agree that it’s the realistic three-dimensional detail that really makes it so disturbing. The details of the setting itself establish it firmly in the here and now, and then we’re shown that within the here and now exists something completely alien and unexplainable! Regarding the texture of the stone walls… it’s that bit of dialogue about how they’re carved to prevent backtracking that really gets to me. It’s mute, immobile stone, and it’s going to be your tormentor for the next several months, slowly inflicting more gruesome horrors upon you than something living could ever do. Uh-oh… jibblies.

MJ: There, there!

MICHELLE: Thanks. I also really love the bottom left panel on page 185, when you see the outside world from inside the tunnel. Interestingly, this is an angle from which the guy who just entered the hole could never have seen the characters. He’s got his back turned to this world, and is resolutely leaving it behind. And, too, I love the “less is more” approach here. We don’t see the distorted figure actually emerge from the mountain and thrash around terrorizing people. One glimpse is enough to confirm what has happened. It’s almost kind of elegant in its structure.

MJ: Yeah, I agree, the threat of what is about to happen is actually scarier by itself than it might be if we actually saw it happen. Or at least it’s creepier that way.

MICHELLE: Well, I fear this column has actually been more about us than the art, but it’s been the art that made us feel that way, and that’s something, isn’t it?

MJ: It is!

MICHELLE: So, that’s it for us this month. What gives you the jibblies?

The Current State of Weekly Magazine and Jump

December 2, 2011 by Sean Gaffney

Every once in a while, I take a look at the various shonen magazines out there and see what is already licensed, likely to be licensed, and highly unlikely to be licensed. The shonen market can be vicious, and now that Kodansha is mostly back to normal over here, and Viz is where it’s always been, I want to take a look at their two magazines and see where we are today, and where we could be in the future.

(Look, I apologize to Shonen Sunday fans, but… no. It’s a mug’s game. Viz will probably license Silver Spoon when it get enough volumes. That’s all I got. I wish it sold better.)

I’ll start with Magazine, which has a slightly broader variety of content, though it also panders more towards the older teen/younger man who likes breasts and panties more than Jump does. (Arguably Jump panders more to the yaoi fangirl lately as well, but that’s a highly controversial topic, and it’s easy to see their core titles as still all being for young teen boys.)

Magazine’s final issue of 2011 (pictured above) has 24 stories in it. Five of those are licensed in some way or another: Air Gear, Negima, Fairy Tail, Bloody Monday (the current series is the ‘Final (3rd) Season’, Kodansha has licensed the first so far), and Cage of Eden. Another series which is on break this issue is also licensed: Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei. And a 7th series was licensed by Del Rey but is currently in that limbo state of “It’s not cancelled, we’re just never releasing any more of it”: Code:Breaker. Lastly, Vertical has licensed the recently finished Onizuka manga, GTO: Shonan 14 Days.

That leaves a lot of stuff in the current magazine that’s never hit North American shores. (And yes, there are other options as well: popular series now finished but still unlicensed, like Yankee-kun to Megane-chan, and other ‘licensed by Del Rey but probably cancelled’ old series such as Suzuka and School Rumble. But I’m looking at the current magazine.)

First, there are the brand new, just started series that are too new to get a handle on. These include Star Children, which debuts in this issue, and seems to be about an astronaut school. Tanteiken Sherdock is about the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes as a cute small dog, and is from the author of cult favorite Psychometrer Eiji. Lastly, there’s Dragon Collection: Ryuu o Suberumono, which is apparently based on a video game, and honestly might have the best chance to get picked up of this whole lot, especially if Deltora Quest does well.

Then there are the gag manga, most of which never get licensed over here as the humor frequently never translates well, is very ‘Osaka-style’, and has art styles that are best described as stylized (i.e., they are unpretty). Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei is an exception to this, but then it also has more pages and more of a plot than most gag manga. (Well, pseudo-plot.) Zeus no Tane, Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san, and Mou, Shimasen Kara have very little chance of making it to these shores. There’s also Seitokai Yakuindomo, which has an anime to its name. However, it has another major killer: it’s an entire manga about sex jokes. If you like seeing young high school girls make jokes about their hymens and the male lead’s penis every single page, then it’s perfect for you. Otherwise, I’m fairly sure Kodansha is happy to leave it as a Japanese phenomenon.

There are also a large number of sports manga, many of which have multiple volumes, and almost all of which are unlikely to appear here. Daiya no A (baseball), Ahiru no Sora (basketball), Area no Kishi (soccer), and Baby Steps (tennis). I’ll also throw Gamaran in here, which is in the Edo period, but still is unlikely to be licensed as it’s a martial arts manga with fighting on almost every page. Lastly, we have Hajime no Ippo, which deserves special mention as it’s not only a boxing manga but also has so many volumes that Dallas Middaugh would have a heart attack just trying to schedule it.

Now we have the rest of the magazine. A-Bout is a delinquents series, and I’ve discussed the popularity of these in Japan as opposed to America before. Kimi to Iru Machi is a romantic comedy from the author of Suzuka. If Suzuka didn’t sell here (and they tried – it had fancy oversize volumes and everything) why try something by the same artist? AKB49 – Renai Kinshi Jourei is the sort of thing that might get licensed if it were shoujo (it’s about celebrity singers, it features a guy cross-dressing as a girl, etc.) – but it’s not shoujo. It’s also a tie-in to real life idol singers, and thus might be too ‘Japan-specific’. There is GE – Good Ending, another romantic comedy/drama. Shonen romantic comedies don’t sell anymore, as their fans tend to read them online and them complain about each chapter being the ‘last one they’ll ever read’ a lot. This one also apparently has one of those casts that makes you want to kill everyone in it with fire. Lastly, we have Tobaku Haouden Rei: Gyankihen. First off, gambling is a uniquely popular Japanese shonen genre that really hasn’t taken off here. Second, it has Pointy Chin Syndrome, and its faces are simply too ‘interesting’ to be licensed. Third, it’s a sequel.

So, really, I think we’re good with Magazine titles for the moment. Kodansha and Vertical might agree with me, seeing as their new licenses came from the Magazine spinoffs instead.

Jump this week has twenty-one series in it, eight of which have been licensed: One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Bakuman, Toriko, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Reborn!, and Hunter x Hunter. There’s also Gintama, which is still running in Japan but has been cancelled here. (Of note: Bleach has been incredibly unpopular in Japan recently. After the end of the ‘Aizen’ arc, it plummeted to the bottom of Jump’s TOC (which is partly based on a reader poll), and with one or two exceptions has remained there since. I doubt it will be cancelled anytime soon, however.)

Again, let’s start by removing the gag manga. This includes Genson! Kodai Seibutsushi Pakki, which involves dinosaurs, and is fairly new; and Inamaru Dashi, which is about kindergartners and I imagine loaded with hard-to-translate jokes.

We can also remove the very recent series, which we don’t know enough about to see how they’ll do. Nise Koi, a romantic comedy about two high school kids who are from rival yakuza families and forced to date. Kagami no Kuni no Harisugawa is a rather strange title about a magic mirror, but is essentially another romantic comedy. And Kurogane is a kendo manga, which is one strike against it, and is also named Kurogane. Do we really need another manga called Kurogane on these shores?

In its own separate level of licensing hell is Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo, aka Kochikame. It’s 176 volumes, and is a comedy about a doofus cop and his wacky misadventures. I’ve talked about it before. Maybe – MAYBE – If Shueisha forces Viz to release some sort of best-of, a la Oishinbo. Otherwise forget it.

What’s left? More series I’ve discussed before, and also talked about how they aren’t very licensable before. Sket Dance, about a group of high school kids who form a club devoted to odd jobs, is too similar to the recently cancelled Gintama. (The two series even crossed over recently in Japan, with Gin noting the similarities.) Beelzebub is highly promising, with lots of fights, several supernatural demons, and the son of Satan. Sadly, the son of Satan is a naked infant, and we see his naked infant penis a lot. A whole lot. If it was licensed, it would be Dr. Slump times twelve, and fans would have a complete freakout. Kuroku no Basket is a basketball manga, and while interesting, wouldn’t be licensed till Viz finishes Slam Dunk anyway. And Medaka Box I’ve given its own page in the past, and despite now having an upcoming anime produced by Gainax, I still think it has the same issues with being licensed. It’s now the most promising of that category, though.

The other promising unlicensed title here is Magico, a fantasy about a girl with sealed memories who has the potential for world-destroying dark magic, and the sorcerer who protects her from the entire world trying to kill her. It’s fairly new, and has sunk to the bottom of the magazine, but if it survives it seems very promising. And last in the magazine is ST&RS, another manga about an astronaut academy (which predates the one in Magazine), which is very likely to be cancelled soon. If you want an astronaut manga, either read Twin Spica or read Uchu Kyodai from Kodansha’s Weekly Morning.

So what have we learned here? That I would not want to be the sort of person who makes licensing decisions, as I tend to be very cynical. Also, there’s a lot of interesting unlicensed stuff out there regardless. Don’t take my talking about these series being hopeless cases for licenses meaning I think they’re bad. Some are excellent, some are guilty pleasures, and some are just fun. Which of them would you license if you suddenly had a publishing company, permission from Japan and a huge amount of money? (I’m sure that day will come soon for all of us…)