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Seiho Boys’ High School, Vol. 8

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By Kaneyoshi Izumi. Released in Japan as “Men’s Kou” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Comic (“Betsucomi”). Released in North America by Viz.

I’d put off reviewing this final volume for a while. I’m a romantic sop at heart, and it has to be said that much of what we see here is bittersweet. But then Seiho hasn’t really been about the happy warm fuzzy moments of relationships in any case. This is realistic, and that’s not always pretty.

First off, Nogami and his nurse girlfriend don’t even get a mention. I guess we should assume they live happily ever… nah, I can’t. Presumably at some point Nogami says something colossally stupid and they break up. That leaves our two main couples, who have struggled with a) communication and b) how others see them since the start of this series, and it’s no different here. Miyabi has split up with Kamiki as she feels that she’s not cool enough to be seen beside him as his boyfriend. She also thinks of herself as stupid, which is questionable given how she shows easy flashes of understanding others in here. Kamiki is stubborn and understanding, though, and things eventually work out. Mostly, as it’s noted how fragile their relationship is.

Maki and Erika is another story. Having spent their entire time together talking around each other, it’s unsurprising to see their neither really knows how to read the other and see what the other one is thinking. And due to circumstances, Erika is leaving soon anyway. A lot of things come together here. The fact that they know little about each other; Maki jumping to conclusions; Erika having figured out that Maki is still in love with someone else (but not who it is)… and so they break up. (And the moment where Erika finds out about the other Erika, which I’d been waiting for for about 6 volumes, is actually very understated and quiet.) It’s very bittersweet, and though Maki indicates that he will definitely ask her out if he ever meets her again, it’s melancholy as well.

Still, the boys all move up to being third years, and Maki gets stuck with the RA job (which he’s perfect for, admittedly). All seems well. This means, like the first volume in this series, we have to end with a sleazy shoujo smut story complet4ely unrelated to Seiho itself. Reverse Guilt is about a former ‘princess’ whose grades weren’t good enough for an elite school and so is now shunned. She tries to hide from life, but has trouble with this as the hottest, jerkiest guy in school is in love with her. He used to be a poor, abused child. He isn’t anymore. More communication misunderstandings here, but this time it makes you yearn for the relative niceness of the Seiho cast. Even Nogami wouldn’t be quite as bad as the guy is in this short. There’s also some explicit sexual situations here, for those who note this is still rated OT.

Overall, despite that, the main series was a great pickup for Viz. I know it didn’t sell quite as well as their other licenses of this period, but then it’s not big or flashy. It’s a series about a bunch of goofy guys who remind us of ourselves, and their ephemeral high school years. Definitely a keeper.

Hey, Takano never found out that Maki’s old girlfriend had the same name! Grr…

Manga the Week of 11/23

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Sometimes these lists are long and involved. And then there are weeks like this. There’s 3 titles coming out via Diamond, all from Kodansha. Let’s see what they are.

First off, only one week late this time, it’s Volume 2 of Sailor Moon, and the 2nd and final volume of Sailor V. Both volumes are fantastic and worth a buy… and both are also more serious than their predecessors.

If Sailor Moon strikes you as too girly, or perhaps doesn’t have enough boobies for your tastes, may I recommend Volume 8 of Ninja Girls. I believe it’s the 2nd to last volume, which means I’d better work on my ‘Hosana in Excelcis’ pun to make it workable by the time Vol. 9 rolls around.

Since it’s so light, why not buy some non-manga? How about the new Pogo, which I keep shilling? Or the new Carl Barks volume, which has some fantastic storytelling? Or IDW’s Best of Samm Schwartz, which should have lots of Jughead stories? Or even Vol. 1 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hardcover, also out next week?

After you’ve bought Sailor Moon and Sailor V, of course.

Re-flipped: not simple

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I’m digging into the Flipped archives again. This one came out just as Natsume Ono’s work was starting to be licensed in English. It focuses primarily on her first licensed work, which generated some mixed reaction, though I loved it.

I’ve given up on prognostication. Experience has demonstrated that I’m usually too optimistic, and looking back at my predictions makes me realize that they’re more in the line of affirmations than realistic expectations. I will indulge in one, though: by the end of 2010, a lot more people will be aware of the work of Natsume Ono than they were when the year began.

To be honest, I’d never heard her name at the beginning of 2009. My first glimpse of her work came through a random copy of Kodansha’s Morning 2, which is serializing Ono’s Coppers. I remember thinking that those pages didn’t look much like anything else in the magazine. It took me a while to connect the creator of Coppers with my next encounter with Ono.

That happened at Viz Media’s online IKKI anthology, which serializes chapters of Ono’s House of Five Leaves. It’s one of those series that on first glance leave you not quite sure what you just read, though in a very pleasant way. The opening chapters leave the doors of possibility wide open, and subsequent installments don’t so much shut them as fill in the details of those possibilities.

It’s about an out-of-work samurai, Akitsu, who becomes entangled with a gang of kidnappers. Akitsu doesn’t resemble the standard manga samurai in physicality or disposition, lithe and diffident instead of sturdy and aggressive. It’s easy to see why he’s unemployed, but it’s enticingly unclear why gangster Yaichi lures Akitsu into his circle. It could be that Akitsu is easy to manipulate and the last person you’d expect of ulterior motives, or it could be simple, unexpected fondness. Yaichi might merely like to have Akitsu around.

Ono seems entirely comfortable with leaving readers to guess where things might be headed in terms of event and even intent, though I always have the sense that things are moving in interesting directions. Her work seems both confident and restrained. It also seems just slightly askew of what one might expect when one considers demographics like seinen (comics for adult men), josei (for adult women) or yaoi (male-male romance, which Ono has created under the name “Basso”). So it makes sense that the magazines that have featured her work – Morning 2, Shogakukan’s IKKI, the late Penguin Shobou’s Comic SEED! – seem less designed to cater to a specific demographic than to simply publish an interesting variety of comics by accomplished creators.

The first Ono title to see print in translation, not simple from Viz, arrives this week, and the publisher has posted the first chapter online. Comics creator, editor and critic Shaenon K. Garrity has described the book as “scary good,” and I’m in complete agreement. I think it compares favorably to one of the most acclaimed books of 2009, David Small’s Stitches: A Memoir (W.W. Norton). Like Small’s autobiography, not simple explores the hideous consequences of parental cowardice and cruelty, and, like Stitches, it’s constructed and paced with admirable precision and craft. As was the case in Stitches, I’m reluctant to describe the plot in too much detail, as a great deal of pleasure is derived in the timing with which Ono reveals the underlying facts of her characters’ lives.

The book follows a young Australian man named Ian, barely more than a boy, really, as he searches for his older sister, the only bright point in his grim experience with family life. Along the way, he meets a writer, Jim, who’s taken with Ian’s story both for its inherent pathos and for its narrative possibilities – he wants to know how Ian’s story comes out at least partly because he wants to tell it. Ian’s life and Jim’s novel intersect and overlap, and the story-within-a-story elements aren’t always entirely successful, but Jim’s mixture of sympathy and self-interest give Ian’s tragedies a needed edge and the possibility of at least a little remove on the part of the reader. One of the recurring criticisms I saw for Stitches was that it was just so depressing, a quality compounded by the fact that the events it portrayed actually happened. In not simple, Ono is playing with the idea of tragedy as an entertainment beyond merely presenting a tragic series of events. It’s an intriguing extra element, even if it isn’t seamlessly applied.

Ono doesn’t engage in the kind of experimental illustration that’s sprinkled throughout Small’s work, but her drawings are striking, characterized with a kind of crude fragility that supports the tone and content of her story. Like everything else about not simple, its look is deceptively… well… simple. Fans of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Lost at Sea (Oni Press) would feel very much at ease with a cartoonish style invested with emotional depth and urgency.

People who have sampled House of Five Leaves, which is scheduled for print release in April of this year, might be surprised that not simple was drawn by the same creator. The former has a lean elegance that’s really in contrast to the more stylized look of the latter. I’m fond of both styles for their individual virtues and for the fact that they both come from the same pen. It’s exciting to see that Ono’s versatility in terms of content and tone extends to her work as an illustrator.

There’s just so much to admire about Ono’s work – its variety, its uniqueness, the level of talent it suggests. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope that she becomes one of those creators whose popularity transcends the audience specifically interested in comics from Japan and those who are interested in well-made comics in general. Her work seems to have transcended any specific demographic in Japan, and I believe it will here.

 

Upcoming 11/16/2011

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I feel vaguely like Tom Sawyer, sitting back and watching other people do my work for me, at least in terms of an evaluation of this week’s ComicList. Instead of hacking out my own rundown of the new arrivals, I’ll simply point out this week’s Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week post. By now, you all know how I feel about Manga Moveable Feast star Natsume Ono’s Tesoro (Viz), and you’re only a click away from seeing why MJ and Kate Dacey share my enthusiasm for new volumes of Takehiko Inoue’s Real and Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments.

You’re also only a click away from this week’s round of Bookshelf Briefs. This week’s theme, at least for me, is finding that I quite enjoyed two books in spite of their clear intent to pander to specific audiences that don’t generally include me. (Those would be the second volume of A Certain Scientific Railgun from Seven Seas and the first volume of Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf from Digital Manga.)

But wait! There’s more! The Manga Bookshelf Battle Robot also assembled for a new installment of Going Digital, in which I beg iPad users to give Oishinbo a chance.

 

C.J.’s guide to cheap manga

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Collecting manga without breaking the bank: A guide to snagging manga for cheap

Hello! I’m C.J. Thomas, a manga fan who has been collecting for about a decade. In order to get my fix, I needed to find new ways to get what I love cheaper. Please enjoy the strategies I’ve developed over years of trial and error, and use them well!

Most of us around here collect manga, and most of us would collect more manga if the cost didn’t add up so quickly. I’m here to share with you my secrets to snagging vast quanities of manga at discounts of up to 60%! And it’s much easier to do then you might suspect.

1) Used book stores

Few used bookstores specialize in manga, but people trade in manga and other comics to them all the time. They will usually resell these for very cheap, maybe $4 a volume or less. These won’t be new manga, but if you are okay with the condition and price, it’s often worth the money. Used bookstores are the best way to find older titles that have been out of print for a while. Some used bookstores will only have what is sold directly to them locally, but other larger ones may have ways of getting more used manga from out of the area. Remainder bookstores may also have manga for very cheap as long as you don’t mind a black mark on the side.

If you don’t happen to live near a used bookstore, many bookstores will have some way of selling books on the internet, too. Alibris.com is one place where you can browse a selection of sellers for cheap manga. With shipping, it may cost a bit more than a brick and mortar used store, but the prices are usually still good and it’s a way to look out of state when you can’t actually get out of the area.

Some used book store successes for me include: Fruits Basket (14 used brick and mortar, 8 used online, 1 new ½ price B&N), GTO (18 used, 6 used at convention, 1 new), and Gimmick! (7 used, 2 via ebay).

2) Comic Book Shops

Ah, the local comic book shops… every Wednesday you can find a stream of people buying new comics, but what most of these people are not buying is manga. Despite this, manga are still comics and most comic shops will carry some manga. Since few people go to comic shops specifically for manga, it can sell at a snail’s pace in some shops, the upside being that very often rare volumes can be found on their shelves. Comic book shops are more likely to be sources for finding rare volumes than volumes for cheap, but keep in mind: sometimes MSRP is the cheapest price for rare manga.

Comic shops are special for other reasons too. First, almost every shop is unique. There are very few chain comic book stores, and the few that do exist are still usually local to a specific area. This makes each worth checking, as whatever random policy one has for keeping manga may be different than another, even one nearby. Comic book shops are also everywhere. Simply check Google if you are traveling to a new area, or visiting a relative. There’s sure to be a unique shop near them.

Secondly, comic book shops communicate with each other. If you try to request a specific volume, most shops will first check their system and supplier. If that fails, many will talk with other shops, and they may just be able to get that hard to find, mid-series volume!

And thirdly: some of the larger, privately owned comic book shops may buy dirt cheap overstock from other stores, and pass the savings on to you! I have found two comic shops that do this, and from both of them I have gotten complete series at ridiculously low prices. A lot of these are new, too.

Some of my comic book shop successes include: Kodocha (all 10 volumes brand new), Marmalade Boy (all 8 volumes brand new), Land of the Blindfolded (all 9 volumes brand new), and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne (all 7 volumes, like new).

Some of my comic book shop hard to find volumes include: Swallowing the Earth, Phoenix volume 5, and Emma volume 8.

3) The Library

Now, I don’t necessarily mean to buy manga here. A few libraries will sell used books, but most of them have moved to selling used books online. But what libraries are great for is test-driving manga. Rather then buying a series blind, borrow it first! If something caught your eye but you are not ready to commit, borrow it! Sometimes you will find that it is worth your money, other times not. Either way, you know before you spend your money.

4) Friends

There are many different ways to utilize friends when it comes to manga. Odds are that you can be used by them in turn.

First, there is trading. Sometimes you will discover that you have a series that a friend wants, and a simple trade can be made. Many of the series on my shelf are the result of trades. Not only does this net you new manga, it helps you clear out series that you are finished with. Alternatively, a lot of friends will also sell each other manga instead of trading. So always check out your friends’ sell piles!

Secondly, you can use friends to search for rare manga for you. If they live in another part of the country, they will have access to different used book stores and comic book stores. Just because a volume is not available in your area does not mean it’s not available anywhere. As long as your friend pays you or trades you back for the volume, it can be an easy way for both involved to get manga. This is a great means for extending tips 1 and 2 through other people, both for their sake and yours.

5) The Internet

It’s certainly easy to find manga online. I’ve already mentioned alibris.com, a site I use fairly often, and I’ve used eBay as well. Yes, some people on eBay will ask for ridiculous prices for manga, but it’s possible to find perfectly reasonable deals there, too. Searching for “manga lot” and “manga complete” can bring up a lot of search results. Don’t forget that you can also exclude search words on eBay by adding a minus sign before the word.

The internet also provides book trading sites. Paperbackswap.com is good source for all books (not just manga). Mangatude.com is specifically tailored to manga trading, though you will find anime and other related merchandise and games there as well. Mangatude will let you advertise the manga you want to trade for free and create a wishlist for others looking to trade with you.

Sites I like buying new manga from include rightstuf.com, which regularly has studio sales, saving you up to 40% off manga; amazon.com, which has a price guarantee if they lower their price before the book comes out; and bookdepository.com, a UK based company with free shipping worldwide! Being based in Europe, The Book Depository will often have French and German manga as well, and if you live in North America like I do, Book Depository is likely to be the cheapest way to get European manga.

6) Conventions

Conventions can be great fun for other reasons too, but a dealer’s room is always one of my favorite aspects of a convention. Manga is cheap and plentiful, and I have snatched up multiple complete series for at least 50% off! While many booths will charge full MSRP for anime, few, if any, will charge more than 80% of a manga’s price. Waiting until the last day can bring down the booths who were only selling 20% off, but it is not recommended to wait for any booth already selling 50% off or more. These booths are unlikely to discount any further, and much of their selection may be gone by the end of the con.

You can also meet people and make friends at conventions, furthering what you can accomplish using friends!

Some complete series I have gotten at conventions for 50% or more off the original price include: Kurogane (Kei Toume), Tower of the Future, Oyayubihime Infinity, Moon Child, and Me and the Devil Blues.

7) Learn another language!

This may not get you manga for cheap, but it can help expand your collection nonetheless. Odds are that some of you may know how to speak or read another language, perhaps not as fluently as your primary language, but enough to read and enjoy manga. Japanese is going to be the obvious motherload of manga, but there are wide selections of manga available in (especially) English, German, and French. As I’ve already said, The Book Depository is a great source for you to find manga in your secondary language, delivered to your door for a decent price. And most English speakers are unaware, but Chuang Yi, a Singapore-based company, publishes manga in both English and simplified Chinese.

Selection also varies widely between countries. You can buy some titles in any language, but others only in one. Some countries may also be further along in publishing a specific series. If a US manga publisher has shut down or canceled certain series, their incomplete titles may have been finished in another language. For example, Aria finished publishing in Germany, but was only published to the halfway point in English. If you really can’t find that one hard to find volume, it might be easy to find in another language. As a result, your set may be mismatched, but at least it can be completed!

Check out C.J.’s collection in the August edition of Show Us Your Stuff.

Only Serious About You, Vol. 1

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I suspect that Kai Asou might have been indulging in little irony when she titled Only Serious About You (Digital Manga Publishing), as her storytelling is extremely conscientious. She fleshes out every beat of the story, which makes it a little slow to start, but it proves to be a very rewarding strategy as the plot moves along.

Oosawa is a single father who works as a cook at a pub. He juggles his demanding job with the needs of his young daughter, Chizu. Yoshioka is a regular customer, a gay guy with a string of exes who can’t quite seem to entirely let go or fully commit. Oosawa finds Yoshioka’s romantic life baffling and his flirting irksome, but Yoshioka steps up when Chizu gets sick. He takes father and daughter into his home, and the visit is prolonged when Oosawa comes down with a fever himself.

There’s a degree of implausibility to the set-up, and I’ve never quite understood the dire import the Japanese seem to place on the common cold. Still, it forces Oosawa and Yoshioka into close proximity, and it allows Asou to explore Yoshioka’s true nature, which is much more generous and sensitive than his behavior in the pub suggested.

There’s also the pesky “suddenly possibly gay” gambit that crops up a lot in this category, but Asou’s meticulous approach helps smooth this over. This volume is much more about Oosawa getting to know Yoshioka as a person than it is about an instantaneous, inexplicable attraction. Both guys are fairly guarded for different reasons, and it’s very sweet to see Oosawa start to want to figure out what makes Yoshioka tick, then build on his understanding of his surprisingly dependable and compassionate new friend.

Readers might also wonder why Asou would place so much trust in a stranger, especially when it comes to the care of his daughter, but Asou makes that fairly easy to set aside. Oosawa is a very dedicated father, and the rendering of the challenges faced by a single parent feels very authentic. Low key as the story generally is, there’s a real sharpness to Asou’s portrayal of how one small thing can throw Oosawa’s life out of whack. It allows the reader to share in both his anxiety when things go wrong and his relief when thing work out.

The art is generically attractive. Asou clearly favors the lanky body type, but it’s easy to distinguish one character from another. (This isn’t always true, not just in yaoi but in just about any type of manga that features a large, primarily male cast.) She does a nice job with body language and day-to-day activities that help ground the work. There are also some funny little visual grace notes that any mangaka should have in her or his toolkit.

Asou gets little moments so right. In the beginning, this feels too scrupulous and mundane. As things progress, and as readers get to know the characters better, these articulated bits of life gain more weight. By the halfway point, I found myself smiling in recognition or indulging in a little wistfulness at how things were progressing. It’s quite a lovely experience – not particularly urgent and certainly not stylized, but definitely immersive in a very gentle way. I’m really looking forward to seeing how things turn out for these characters.

 

Twin Spica, Vol. 10

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By Kou Yaginuma. Released in Japan as “Futatsu no Spica” by Media Factory, serialized in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Vertical.

Foreshadowing can be a dangerous thing, especially when we want to be wrong. In amongst all of the love of space and hope for the future and plucky youngsters banding together, Twin Spica has taken us to some very uncomfortable places. And this volume makes us realize that they aren’t going away, and that our gang of five is not going to be together forever like many a manga series before it. Real life is intervening.

It’s especially ironic given that we also deal in this volume with the sheer stubborn determination to never give up that several of the lead characters have. Marika’s poor self-image and distrust of her own feelings and memories wars with her determination to go past that and see what she can achieve as her own person. Fuchuya continuing to persevere despite the fact that it still appears that he only is doing this so that he can be near Asumi. And of course Asumi herself, who may be incredibly tiny but still has the endurance of most grown men, and is running herself half to death even on her days off.

The middle of this volume shows the five kids relaxing once again in Asumi’s hometown for a vacation. It’s mentioned several times that they should try to do this every year – in fact, it starts to be a little ominous. And once Marika reveals her secret to the others, we begin to suspect that this story is going to end, if it does pick one, with only Asumi actually making it out into space. I don’t know any spoilers, but the basic theme of “keep on trying even if you lose your dream” seems to speak to that. Powerful words, but they can be hard to live up to.

In addition to Fuchuya’s crush, hidden to Asumi but obvious to everyone else, there’s also Kei and Shu. Her crush is even less hidden, and it’s possible that Shu does know about it, but he’s so inscrutable that it’s hard to get a handle on him. Their scene together at the festival is really sweet and heartwarming, giving you a brief look at typical awkward high school romance in a series that in generally not about that.

And then we get that ending, which I will attempt not to spoil. Again, I note Twin Spica’s ability to be both uplifting and soul crushing at the same time. The majority of this volume has tended towards the former, so we were probably due. Of course, it’s mostly a cliffhanger here, and I’m sure we will deal with the fallout in volume 11. But I admire the author’s ability to convey on the page what’s going on – that feeling where your heart stops, your head is buzzing and dizzy, and you want to deny everything that’s being told to you. This is where the silence of the printed page works best.

Due to Vertical’s condensing of the series into 12 volumes, we’re only 2 away from the end. (I believe that this volume was half of 11 and all of 12 in Japan). I’ll miss it. Asumi is a heroine you really want to root for, and I’m really curious as to how realistic this series will get. Will one of the group – OK, will Asumi if we’re honest – he able to get past all the roadblocks and make it into space? Or will this be like all those sports mangas that show the team all coming together but losing in the semifinals? And will I be able to read the start of Volume 11 without curling into a tiny little ball?

Pick of the Week: Variety

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This week’s bounty at Midtown Comics is especially diverse, though even that can’t quite satisfy the broad tastes of the Battle Robot. Check out our picks below!

KATE: Though VIZ is releasing several must-read manga this week — including Natsume Ono’s Tesoro and the tenth volume of Takehiko Inoue’s Real — my vote goes to the fourth volume of Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments. This beautifully illustrated drama focuses on a handful of window washers aboard an enormous space station. The characters’ job grants them access to every nook and cranny of the joint, offering them a window (no pun intended) into the lives of their wealthy and eccentric clientele. At the same time, however, their job is incredibly dangerous: as Iwaoka amply demonstrates throughout the series, the characters face UV exposure, strong solar winds, and a variety of other hazards, all of which can send them plunging to their deaths. Lest I make Saturn Apartments sound like an Upton Sinclair novel set in space, rest assured that the story isn’t unrelentingly grim, thanks to Iwaoka’s playful, imaginative artwork and her lively cast of supporting characters. My only complaint about the series: VIZ doesn’t release it frequently enough!

MICHELLE: I considered picking volume two of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon this week—for, despite the fact that Midtown Comics is not receiving it, other retailers are—but figured that enough people would buy it or had already pre-ordered it that it didn’t need my help! So, instead, I will cast my vote for volume three of Tsuta Suzuki’s A Strange and Mystifying Story, which I reviewed in the October BL Bookrack column. The series’ first two volumes depict a relationship between a sickly guy and the guardian beast that heals him, but volume three signifies a welcome new direction for the series. Here’s what I had to say about it:

“Mangaka Tsuta Suzuki is wise enough to know when a story is played out and brave enough to risk angering her fans by taking things in an entirely new direction. Akio and Setsu appear but briefly, therefore, as Suzuki devotes the first half of this volume to the absolutely adorable love story between two of Akio’s coworkers and the second half to a teenager named Tsumugi who has just encountered a guardian beast of his own.”

Even if you’re not into guardian beasts per se, the first half alone is worth the price of admission.

SEAN: Honestly, there is some manga I’m getting this week, but nothing that really makes me jump up and say Pick Of The Week. So I’m going to talk about Pogo again. There’s just so much nostalgia wrapped up in this release, even if it is only of the first two years (the comic ran 24 years before Kelly passed away). The odd passive love triangle between Pogo, Porkypine and Mam’selle Hepzibah; Howland Owl and Churchy LaFemme’s continued ability to get sucked into any incredibly stupid scheme they come across; Albert Alligator, despite being a loudmouth jerk most of the time, being an alligator you can truly believe is not eating most of the native populace; and Deacon Mushrat, who in these early strips is the closest the comic has to a villain, though in later volumes – it’ll be Vol. 3, I believe – he is easily supplanted by far more sinister characters. Much as fans of literature always point you towards the classics, fans of comics – both Japanese and American – should know their Pogo.

DAVID: I could easily pick the 10th volume of Takehiko Inoue’s splendid Real, but I’m going to favor Natsume Ono’s Tesoro for a couple of reasons. The first is that Alexander (Manga Widget) Hoffman is hosting a Manga Moveable Feast dedicated to Ono’s work. The second is that Tesoro is really charming. It contains some of Ono’s earliest professionally published works, but you could never tell if you haven’t read some of her more recent comics. And, even if you’ve read her more polished titles, there’s still plenty here to enjoy. I’m going to post a review of the book today, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but if you like charming, character-driven comics, then you should do yourself a favor and pick this up. The stories here are uniformly sweet and sometimes satisfyingly sad.

MJ: Anyone who knows me well will know that I’m probably the least likely person on earth to stand up as a champion of sports… anything, but I find myself unable to resist the opportunity to be the one to stand up for Takehiko Inoue’s Real. Here’s what I said about volume 9: “Though I’m not a big fan of sports manga … this is really my kind of sports manga. It’s dark, gritty, and mature in the very best sense of the word … though the games are definitely dramatic, they are really not the focus of the series at all. Much more time is spent off the court than on, especially in recent volumes, and most of the drama revolves around the characters’ struggles that bring them to the game, rather than the game itself.” It’s been a year since the last volume was released, so seeing more of this series in the US really is a treat.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 11/14/11

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This week, Michelle, David, Kate, & Sean take a look at new releases from Viz Media, Seven Seas, Digital Manga Publishing, and the Digital Manga Guild.

Arata: The Legend, Vol. 8 | By Yuu Watase | Viz Media – Although the back cover blurb mentions nothing aside from the fact that Arata Hinohara and friends engage in a bit of crossdressing, that’s far from being the most significant development in this installment. One of Hinohara’s companions, a boy named Kanate, has been looking for the gang of thieves that wronged him, but when he finally finds them he’s so desperate for strength enough to exact revenge that he makes a choice that will pit him against Hinohara in the future. I did not see this coming at all, but look forward to the eventual drama this will create—and really, many of Watase’s plot developments are like this. On one hand, they feel a little out-of-the-blue, but if you think about it, the groundwork has been laid and the things characters know and do make perfect sense. This is a really solid shounen fantasy and I look forward to more. – Michelle Smith

A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 2 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa | Seven Seas – This series works much better when it’s being as grim and dramatic as possible. The best moment in the volume for me was probably the phone conversation between Uiharu and Saiten, showing not only a depth of emotion but also giving some very personal reasons for why ‘normal’ people are getting into all this Level Upper in the first place. I also quite liked the eventual explanation for Level Upper, which is quite clever and works well with the context of the series. Unfortunately, there’s also a bit of humor too, which almost always falls flat. Shirai is a good action heroine but a horrible pseudo-lesbian, and Kiyama’s constant stripping was simply tedious. Lastly, I do admit every time we see Toma and he talks about mysterious things that never come up again, I get curious to see if this is stuff I’d know about if A Certain Magical Index was licensed. That can be frustrating. Still, keep getting grittier, Railgun: you’re better off for it.– Sean Gaffney

A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 2 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa | Seven Seas – I was inclined to write this series off after the first volume, but the second is a significant improvement. The issues posed by the fact that this is some kind of tertiary spin-off of a light-novel franchise that’s never been published in English are largely cast aside here in favor of a proper story. In a school community where psychic powers are commonplace (though not universal), someone has come up with a way for normal people to manifest abilities of their own. Unfortunately, it leaves a lot of them in a coma. The higher-ups aren’t taking the situation seriously, so our cast of super-girl hall monitors decides to investigate. What follows is a proper mystery with some nicely observed adolescent drama and solid action featuring resourceful young women who are strong and smart. The art is still just competent, but the plotting and character development are an order of magnitude better. – David Welsh

Kimi ni Todoke, Vol. 11 | By Karuho Shiina | Viz Media – Sawako and Kazehaya are finally together, and this volume mostly deals with the fallout from that. Kurumi’s defending Sawako, and Sawako’s own refusal to apologize (Kurumi noted she would have hit her if she had) is well played, and I think finally moves Kurumi out of the ‘villain’ area, though of course I may reckon without the long memory of some fans. Meanwhile, Yano is having her own self-image issues, which she keeps from her friends, and wonders if being a ‘pure’ kind person is better than one who is kind in a calculating way because it suits them. Pin points out, in the best part of the volume, that both sorts are kind, in the end. (Also, love that Yano/Kurumi ship tease there. “If I were a man” indeed…) Lastly, we see the start of the manga from Kazehaya’s perspective, and see he and Sawako going on their first date. This is the adorable half of the manga, and while I didn’t find it as gripping, it’s still very cute. Great stuff.– Sean Gaffney

Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf, Vol. 1 | By Ahiru Haruno | Digital Manga Publishing – I ordered this pursuant to a careful democratic process, knowing in advance that yaoi featuring characters with animal ears would have to do a very great deal to endear itself to me. It didn’t, but I certainly didn’t hate it, either. The series is basically one good-natured joke repeated over and over with reasonable portions of smut in the mix. An adult wolf adopts what he thinks is a tabby cat, but the tabby cat turns out to be a tiger… and a top! They deal with the disapproval of their respective species and Mr. Wolf’s insecurities about, of all things, his comparatively shorter lifespan. I don’t know how keen I am on inter-species conflict as coming-out metaphor in general, but Haruno uses a fairly light touch, so it ends up being sort of cute. The big problem here is repetition; Haruno seems to find her core premise funnier than I do and doesn’t exert a lot of extra effort. – David Welsh

Real, Vol. 10 | By Takehiko Inoue | Viz Media -The latest installment of Real skillfully juxtaposes two plotlines. In the first, Tomiya decides to pursue a career in basketball, while in the second, Takahashi makes a firm commitment to his physical rehabilitation after watching the Tigers and the Dreams play a scrimmage. Takehiko Inoue demonstrates an uncommon ability to make the characters’ everyday struggles as dramatic and compelling as the game play; watching Takahashi struggle up a long wheelchair ramp proves as nerve-racking as Tomiya’s bold drives to the basket. Better still, Real avoids easy uplift; Inoue resists the temptation to make his characters likable, allowing us to see them as unique individuals, rather than cardboard saints. Crisp artwork and smart dialogue complete the package. -Katherine Dacey

Tired of Waiting for Love | By Saki Aida & Yugi Yamada | Digital Manga Guild/eManga – When Kyousuke Sawaragi meets Shuuya Kasuga in prison he vows to have nothing to do with the younger man, who protects himself by doling out sexual favors. When an injured Shuuya turns up at Sawaragi’s place after his release, however, Sawaragi must examine the reason for his distance and, ultimately, help Shuuya see that there are people in the world whom he can truly trust. I must have a thing for yakuza BL or, more specifically, BL featuring yakuza characters determined to leave their past behind, because I liked this quite a lot. I was especially fond of the metaphor likening Shuuya to the stray cat he finds on the street, and how Sawaragi must choose between showing him a moment’s kindness or a lifetime’s. Plus, Yugi Yamada’s art is gorgeous and the cat is darned cute. Highly recommended. – Michelle Smith

Tesoro

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It makes me a little wistful to think that Tesoro is probably the last work by Natsume Ono that Viz will debut, at least for a while. Viz was responsible for introducing English-language readers to Ono’s work, at least in licensed form, and they’ve provided a steady supply since not simple arrived at the beginning of 2010. There’s more House of Five Leaves to come, which is reassuring, but Viz has pretty much run through her catalog of works that ran in Shogakukan’s IKKI or Ohta Shuppan’s Manga Erotics F.

She’s got a number of titles in progress, mostly for Kodansha’s Morning magazines, but Viz has almost never published a Kodansha title. Kodansha itself seems to be reluctant to publish its own seinen works, so the best hope of Ono fans would probably be Vertical. As for the yaoi titles she created under the name BASSO, I have no idea who might publish those, though perhaps Viz’s new boys’-love line might be a possible home.

I can see why Viz saved Tesoro for last. It’s charming, but it benefits from having a larger view of Ono’s body of work. It contains some of her earlier short works for magazines like IKKI and some self-published stories, and I can see it gaining a non-manga audience. It’s very much in an indie-comics vein, especially if we’re talking about recent indie comics where the creators seem to feel freer to indulge in some genial whimsy.

Readers who are familiar with the rather leisurely pace Ono adopts for her longer works might wonder how she manages a smaller number of pages. (Ono herself expresses skepticism about her abilities in this vein, though mangaka rarely sound confident in their author notes.) Given her facility for small, finely articulated moments, she proves to be a natural at short stories. There’s a lot of charming material in Tesoro, and while the tone tends to be genial, there’s a surprising amount of variety on display.

My favorite entry is “Senza titolo 1,” which dips into Ono’s beloved well of grumpy older Italian men. A sophisticated lady helps a doctor friend make his way home on a night when he’s had too much to drink. She learns the source of his distress, and, while he’s helped her in his capacity as a psychologist, she discovers that they share some of the same anxieties. It’s lovely and sad, and it’s probably the most sleekly drawn piece in the collection.

Other charmers here include the third of “Three Short Stories About Bento,” which is spare in its details but very emotionally potent in an understated way. It focuses clearly and compassionately on a parent-child relationship, which is also familiar Ono territory, and she revisits that ground a few times in this collection. In the “Froom family” shorts, she introduces a father who tries to carve out special time for his son that will give the kid a break from his bossy older sisters. I liked the quirky, chatty “Padre” strips about a baker with three demanding children better than “Senza titolo #6,” where we see the kids as somewhat dysfunctional adults.

Speaking of dysfunctional adults, or at least near-adults, the contingent that found not simple a bit too much will probably see its seeds in “Eva’s Memory.” I personally loved not simple, but I can look at “Eva’s Memory” and see justification for the accusations of contrivance and maudlin melodrama. “Senza titolo #5” is flawed in some of the same ways, but it’s on the sweeter side, so it’s easier to take.

On the whole, it’s a wonderful sampler of a lot of Ono’s core sensibilities. There are many characters here who have reason to be sad or discontent trying to focus on their pleasures and blessings. There’s a lot of eating and aimless chatter. And there are a lot of nicely observed moments, especially among messy, loving families. If you like Ono, Tesoro is essential, and if you’re unfamiliar with her work, it’s a good, gentle introduction that gives you a sense of her range.