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The Edge of Darkness, Comic @Bunch

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If you’ve read anything I’ve written about manga magazines, you know I love the obscure and unique. Not AX unique, “look at me, I’m so experimental! Penises!” unique. I like unique when it comes by it honestly. Authentic oddballity, if you will.  Fortuitous circumstance lead me, therefore, to Monthly Comic @Bunch.

Monthly Comic @Bunch is a relative newcomer to the comic scene. Replacing Weekly Comic Bunch, along with Monthly Comic Zenon, Monthly Comic @Bunch began publication in January 2011. There are no circulation numbers available yet, and Weekly Comic Bunch last posted data in 2008, with a monthly circulation of 182,672. At 650 yen ( $8.50 at time of writing) for about 670 pages, you’re getting a page per yen of action, adventure and a fair measure of screaming, for one reason or another.

Compared with other Seinen magazines, Monthly Comic @Bunch  feels very much as if the editorial staff’s main requirement is that the artists draw something they want to draw, as opposed to something that will sell. As a result, there’s no one cohesive thread in Bunch’s choices.  Explosion- and violence-filled “BTOOOM!” by Inoue Junya sits side by side with Mizu Asato’s children-and-animals story “Meina no Fukurou.”

What will probably strike a Western audience first is that few, if any, of the creators or stories’ names are known here. With the exception of some of the “Hokuto no Ken” (Fist of the North Star) stories, and Usamaru Furuya’s manga adaptation of Dazai Osamu’s No Longer Human, both of which ran in Weekly Comic Bunch,  Monthly Comic @Bunch is filled with talented artists and skilled storytelling that we’ll probably never see here in English.

Monthly Comic @Bunch does have a website, Web@Bunch, with samples of manga, both running currently, and website-only. The site includes messages from the creators, a blog, links to published collected volumes and the usual sort of functions on magazine websites.

The standout Monthly Comic @Bunch series for me are Nakajima Michitsune’s fantasy war story, “Gunka no Baltzar” set in a Napoleonic War-style setting, about a young man moving up through the ranks; police action/adventure story “Ouroboros” by Kanzaki Hiroya, and the story that dragged me here in the first place, “Avare Senki” by Nakamura Ching. Let me talk a little bit about this story, because in a world where Bakuman is being talked about so often, there needs to be an “Avare Senki.”

Bakuman is a fictionalized story about two young men trying to make it in the manga world, written and drawn by two men who have made it in the manga world. “Avare Senki” (which translates to something like “Stingy Wars” or maybe the “Battle of Cheeseparing,” or “Miserly Combat,”) is a story about the bone-crushing poverty and exhaustion endured by a manga artist and her assistants when she’s working steadily, but has not “made” it. Wrapped in a plot of working on a fantasy series called Avare Senki, Nakamura-sensei draws a sobering, but not entirely depressing, tale of deadlines, ramen, smoking and recycling materials. For people who want to really see behind the curtain of a manga artist’s life, forget Bakuman, and turn to “Avare Senki.” It will open your eyes, I assure you.

When compared with many Seinen magazines, there’s a refreshing lack of creepy fanservice here. The magazine feels quite manly overall, and there is a sense of edginess to it that pervades most of the pages, even if it eschews the most banal tropes of fanservice. This isn’t to say there is none – but when compared with many of the top Shounen magazines, this magazine is significantly more mature.

For fans of the obscure, the authentically edgy, Monthly Comic @Bunch, is a don’t-miss magazine.

Monthly Comic @Bunch from Shinchosha Publishing: http://www.comicbunch.com/

The Favorites Alphabet: E

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Welcome to another installment of the Favorites Alphabet, where the Manga Bookshelf battle robot cast our loving gaze upon the titles in our respective collections to pick the manga title (or… ahem… titles) from each letter of the alphabet that stands (or… ahem… stand) above the rest, whenever possible. We’re trying to stick with books that have been licensed and published in English, but we recognize that the alphabet is long, so we’re keeping a little wiggle room in reserve.

“E” is for…

Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President | By Kaiji Kawaguchi | VIZ – As we prepare for another presidential election cycle, I find myself wishing, once again, that fictional New York Senator Kenneth Yamaoka would finally run for office. Yamaoka is, of course, the hero of Kaiji Kawaguchi’s Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, and, unlike most American politicians, Yamaoka is unapologetically liberal, thoroughly persuasive on controversial issues, and seemingly atheist. It’s a swell fantasy for older readers like me, who feel a twinge of nostalgia for the days when a presidential candidate could actually use the “L” word (that’s “liberal,” kids, for those of you who’ve only heard it used in a pejorative fashion) without embarrassment. At the same time, however, it’s a great, pulpy manly-man manga in which an ambitious character uses wit and integrity to defeat his rivals. Eagle is long out of print, but well worth the time and effort to track down. – Katherine Dacey

Emma | By Kaoru Mori | Published by CMX – Okay, okay, I sometimes pick titles that are out of print, but come on. How can I not include Mori’s beautifully subdued tale of a maid who falls in love well out of her class? For those who are just discovering her work through A Bride’s Story (Yen Press), this is the series where many English-language readers discovered Mori’s ability to turn tiny, mundane moments into arias of subtle emotion. To be honest, the plot here is secondary to the meticulous slices of period life that Mori serves up. Of course, those slices would probably have less impact without the acute observations about social constraints, not just between domestics and their employers but between old money and new and country and city and British and everyone else. And, as if that wasn’t enough, Mori does the hands-down funniest, most witheringly self-deprecating autobiographical strips I’ve ever seen in the back of a Japanese comic. – David Welsh

ES: Eternal Sabbath | By Fuyumi Soryo | Published by Del Rey – I have a particular fondness for creators who defy categorical constraints, so when I learned that shôjo manga-ka Fuyumi Soryo had done a sci-fi series for Kodansha’s Morning and that Del Rey was publishing it, I had to read it. I find that this partiality to fence hoppers is almost always rewarding, and that’s certainly the case with ES. It’s about a hot clone with amazing psychic powers who casts off the shackles of his scientist overlords to go see what life is like in the real world. His primary prism in that effort is a brilliant but emotionally remote scientist who senses something unusual in her new acquaintance but can’t quite figure out what it is. At least she can’t until a second, much less benevolent clone surfaces and starts exacting horrible and violent revenge on humanity. ES offers a great combination of thoughtful romance, scientific philosophy, and creepy horror. What more could you want? – David Welsh

Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga | By Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma | VIZ – Profane, raunchy, and thoroughly on the mark, this blistering satire pokes fun at every conceivable niche of mangadom, from ladies’ comics to salaryman manga. Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma gleefully skewer narrative cliches and overused tropes, all while offering solid (if sarcastically delivered) advice on how to produce a commercially successful manga. The highpoint (lowpoint?) of volume one is a table comparing sex scenes in different genres, with helpful suggestions for choosing appropriate sound effects. Yes, it’s rude, but it’s also a virtuoso display of artistic skill; Aihara and Takekuma are equally adept at drawing for mature female audiences and hormonal teenage boys. – Katherine Dacey

Excel Saga | By Rikdo Koshi | VIZ – Oh come on, you can’t pretend to be surprised that this is my pick. My pet series for the last 8 years, ever since Viz started to publish it in North America, Excel Saga has had a rough ride ever since folks realized that the anime it was based off of was telling the truth – Rikdo was giving permission for the anime to do whatever it wanted, while he made the manga into his own thing. After readers realized it wasn’t simply the anime on the page, sales dropped sharply – this is why Volumes 7 and 8 are so hard to find today. But the hardcore fans who stayed with it were rewarded with a satire of sentai shows and the collapse of the economic bubble, and characters who were no less insane than their anime counterparts. They get a deeper backstory, though, and there are touching and dramatic moments sprinkled through this comedic story. Carl Horn’s translation is also a classic example of a loose adaptation that’s handled correctly – it’s not word for word from the Japanese, but conveys the same spirit. And his end notes are the best in the business, bar none. There are only 5 volumes to go till its conclusion now, so maybe Viz can speed it up a bit from its one-per-year schedule – but if not, it makes a rare but delightful treat. – Sean Gaffney

Eyeshield 21 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata| VIZ Media – As mentioned back on letter C, I love sports manga, even when it’s kind of juvenile like Eyeshield 21. But even though the overuse of bathroom humor makes me sigh heavily, there are still many reasons to recommend Eyeshield 21. For one, it’s delightfully over-the-top, with the (possibly literally) demonic Hiruma, captain of the Deimon Devil Bats football team, doing everything possible to ensure the success of his team, including and not limited to blackmail. Secondly, it’s got some wonderful characters. My personal favorite is Komusubi, a small but fierce defensive lineman who looks like a muppet, but I also have a soft spot for “the Hah?! Brothers,” who started off as juvenile delinquents but have begun to experience what it’s like to actually be good at something and receive positive feedback for it. Growth like that will get me every time. – Michelle Smith

What starts with “E” in your favorites alphabet?

 

Bloody Monday, Vol. 1

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By Ryou Ryumon and Kouji Megumi. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine. Released in North America by Kodansha Comics.

Take a typical John le Carré novel, only have it star a bunch of Japanese high school students, and you might come close to what’s going on in Bloody Monday. This sort of story demands a certain suspension of disbelief (indeed, this particular story might need an entire suspension bridge for your disbelief), but once you get past that and accept the premise, there’s a lot of fun stuff to be found here.

The basic premise has our hero Takagi, who is an ordinary high school student – except he has absolute world-class hacking abilities, and his father appears to be a super-spy. But other than that? He goes to class, he worries about his sister, who apparently is hospitalized often, and he spends his spare time decrypting mysterious files that are vital to national security. His friends (who, at the start of this, are mostly unaware of his talents) are a typical shonen bunch: handsome laid-back best friend, tsundere childhood female friend, shy girl who probably has a crush on him, and geeky guy.

Unfortunately, his worlds are about to intersect. There’s a virus going around that makes folks cough up blood, collapse and die, and it would seem to be engineered by a nasty enemy agent (that’s her on the cover in her lingerie)… who now shows up at Takagi’s school as the new teacher, and gives off a lovely aura of ‘I am not an enemy spy honest’ for the rest of the book. What’s more, his father has disappeared after calling to tell him “Bloody Monday” (how cryptic… if it weren’t the title), and he’s getting special deliveries of boxed agents sent to defend him from mysterious foes.

Much of this volume is simply setting up the premise of the series, so things move pretty slowly at first. Takagi and his friend Otoya are the only ones who we really get to know, though we also get a nice impression of Takagi’s father before he is forced to leave the manga for reasons of plot. Takagi seems a bit too perfect, so I actually liked them undercutting this by having him reveal everything he knows to his friends… and the new teacher who mysteriously arrived there recently. Hey, she’s an authority figure! And stacked! I imagine as the series goes on this lack of precaution will become less common.

I was reminded of last year’s aborted Del Rey series Code: Breaker a bit with the style of this manga, which is very much in the thriller style. It may seem startling that it runs in Shonen Magazine, given the children coughing up blood and dying, as well as the enemy agent in her underwear, but honestly the magazine has always been like that – it’s the most fanservicey of the three, and also sometimes hardest to pin down in terms of genre.

In the meantime, we have a series that I suspect we won’t really know how good it is until three or four volumes in. Not that there’s anything really wrong with this first volume, but it’s much like reading Chapter 1 of a le Carré novel, then having to wait two months to read Volume 2. This may be a series to collect in batches.

Off the Shelf: NETCOMICS Lives!

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MICHELLE: Hey, MJ! What’s the best way to carve wood?

MJ: I don’t know, MIchelle. What is the best way to carve wood?

MICHELLE: Whittle by whittle!

MJ: Oooooo that one was a little painful.

MICHELLE: Sorry! I can’t help it; I love dumb jokes.

Okay, so. We should probably explain how this column is going to be a little different than most.

MJ: Yes, I suppose we should. Was it your idea? I think it might have been your idea.

MICHELLE: I can’t remember. Anyway… Before there were VIZManga.com, eManga, or JManga, there was NETCOMICS. Back when MJand I both wrote for Manga Recon, we got introduced to their site—where chapters of various series (mostly manhwa and BL) are available online for 25 cents each—and found some truly great titles just waiting to be discovered. The site remained a regular destination of mine, and I was concerned when no new releases were posted for about six months earlier this year.

Happily, NETCOMICS is now back with a vengeance and is currently actively releasing chapters from four series: Full House, Small-Minded Schoolgirls, So I Married an Anti-Fan, and Core Scramble. And it just so happened that three of those achieved a full volume’s worth of material within the past week or so, making them candidates for consideration in this week’s Off the Shelf!

MJ: Since Michelle and I are both such big fans of NETCOMICS manhwa, we decided to do mutual reads of all three of these new volumes, so while we usually each bring our own books to the table, this week, we’ve both read all of them!

MICHELLE: Indeed! So, where should we start? Perhaps with So I Married an Anti-Fan?

MJ: Excellent choice!

So I Married an Anti-Fan comes to us from the manhwa-ga Wann, author of 100% Perfect Girl, a series I liked…. really not at all. While trashy romance is certainly fine in my book, controlling love interests are not, and 100% Perfect Girl‘s Jarte was too awful for me to find romantic in the slightest. Fortunately, though I Married an Anti-Fan offers up a typically cold, arrogant male lead, our heroine is more than a match for him.

There’s a lot of plot in this first volume, but here’s the basic premise: Reporter Geunyoung Lee is drinking at a club, where she witnesses a popular male idol brutally rejecting a girl. In her stupor, she snaps a photo with her camera, but the idol, Joon Hoo, catches up to her as she flees the scene, and deletes the photo from her phone himself, at which point Geunyoung vomits on his shoes.

Thanks to the power of Joon’s agency, the incident costs Geunyoung her job and, ultimately, her apartment, which she can’t afford to keep. Enraged, she embarks on a fierce anti-fan campaign in an attempt to discredit Joon, which, through a series of wacky circumstances (in true K-drama form), results in her being chosen to basically live and work with Joon on a “reality” show called, “So I Married an Anti-Fan.”

MICHELLE: Though I never read 100% Perfect Girl myself, I definitely remembered your aversion to it, so was quite pleasantly surprised to find myself kind of loving this first volume. Part of what sold me were the modern touches—I loved seeing Geunyoung’s brawl with some Joon fangirls on YouTube, loved the sequence where she starts a blog and is immediately inundated with negative comments, and loved the whole reality series idea. How can it be that this hasn’t been the plot of a manhwa or manga before?! It’s so rife for cracktastic goodness!

I also liked that while Geunyoung is definitely fierce and a match for Joon, neither of them is exactly the archetype they may seem to be. Geunyoung, for example, is not always shrill and abrasive, but is honestly searching for what she wants to do with her life and mostly upset by the fact that she lost her job. Even though she didn’t love being a reporter, the writing was important to her. And Joon is not the arrogant celebrity, but honestly regrets what he did to Geunyoung—he had no idea she wasn’t really some ruthless paparazzi out for scandal—and finds peace in her presence because, since her opinion of him is already as low as it could get, he doesn’t have to worry about maintaining an idealistic image.

The reality show itself hasn’t started as of the first volume, but I find I am really looking forward to it! In fact, I’m tempted to read the two chapters of volume two that are now available, but figure the story will be best enjoyed in full-volume chunks.

MJ: I mentioned earlier that the plot here is in true K-drama form, and really, it reads just like a TV drama to me, which isn’t an insult in the slightest. This volume is well-paced and compelling, with a strong dose of my favorite flavor of grown-up girls’ manhwa humor. The romance is predictable, of course, but the upside of this is that I know I’m going to enjoy watching it play out. It’s a great fit for fans of something like You’re Beautiful, and actually less far-fetched. Definitely a check in the “win” column for NETCOMICS.

MICHELLE: I have yet to actually make it past the first episode of any K-drama, but if they’re like this perhaps I will have to make more of an effort. It also makes me think I should give another Wann series a chance. Perhaps not 100% Perfect Girl, but maybe Can’t Lose You, which is also available on the NETCOMICS site.

MJ: So, what’s next? Core Scramble?

MICHELLE: Sure! So, this is a boys’ love story that is actually pretty light on the romance so far. Our protagonist, Chaeun Shin, wields his magical powers in service of an organization called Clarus Orbis, which is tasked with doing away with “halls” (essentially interdimensional portals) and the “bugs” that come through them. Chaeun is devoted to his commander, Gayoon, even though Gayoon is a cold-hearted jerk who casually abandons his team mid-battle to go hang out with his girlfriend. And Chaeun’s never really tempted to leave Gayoon’s team, either, even though he’s presented with a perfectly viable alternative. Meanwhile, another group of magic users is interfering with the C.O. guys, but I never really understood what it is they’re after. In any case, their leader, Moonhoo, likes to feel Chaeun up whenever he’s presented with the opportunity.

MJ: That is a more coherent summary than I could possibly have mustered. I salute you, Michelle! That’s pretty much the story, or at least as much as we understand at this point.

Let’s face it: Core Scramble is a mess. It’s an attractive mess that has definitely caught my attention, but really, it’s a complete and utter mess. To be fair, I’m not sure this is all the author’s fault. The adaptation is sloppily executed, with some text clearly ending up in the wrong places here and there, making the story’s heavy exposition even more confusing than it has to be. Also, some of the BL elements feel a bit tacked on, as though the author was feeling pressure to get them in earlier than was natural, so that fans of the genre wouldn’t wander away before the story really got going.

There’s a lot I really want to love here. The BL market, at least here in the US, offers very little outside the standard romance genre, so I was pretty thrilled to see that Core Scramble is an all-out sci-fi/fantasy, with more plot packed into one volume than most BL series manage in their entire run. The protagonist, Chaeun, is very relatable, even when he’s inexplicably sticking by his complete ass of a boss. There’s too much going on for the volume to really gel, though, and it’s hard to say whether this will improve going forward.

What was your impression, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Much the same, I’m afraid. It seems to me that in trying to be both sci-fi and BL right out of the gate, it succeeds at neither. I really hate the “Hello, I’m Moonhoo and I’ll be your gropy seme for this book” introduction of that character, and when he randomly kisses Chaeun on their first meeting (under the guise of administering a drink or water or something) I was about ready to quit reading. And though I find Chaeun’s inexplicable loyalty to Gayoon kind of interesting, and think the C.O. organization has some potential, it’s just not defined well enough yet.

I will say, though, that I really enjoyed the kickass female soldier, Chief Song. Here’s a screenshot of her in action:

After recent internet talk this week about the so-called “sexually liberated” women of DC Comics, I thought, “Well, here’s a lady who looks simultaneously sexy and powerful. And though her clothes may be a bit skimpy, they’re really not that revealing. Her body is proportionate, and she looks absolutely confident and fearless. If you want to draw a scantily clad woman in your comic without offending female readers, this is the way to do it.

MJ: That’s a great point, Michelle! I’m completely with you on Chief Song.

And maybe this comic will recover from its early chaos, I don’t know. The introduction of Moonhoo you mention is exactly what I was thinking of when I said some of the BL felt tacked on. It’s obnoxious and doesn’t fit in with the story otherwise. On the other hand, their encounter in the last chapter of this volume was honestly intriguing and pretty sexy. If only that’s where the overt BL had started, I think it could have really worked. All the stuff earlier in the book just felt really off.

MICHELLE: I didn’t find the kiss itself at the end at all intriguing, but I like that Moonhoo is kind of amused by Chaeun’s attempts to protect him from harm (since Chaeun doesn’t know Moonhoo is affiliated with the other magic users) and I like that Chaeun interpreted the sudden smooch as a means to shock him out of his freakout mode over yet another desertion by Gayoon. It’s extra, surprising layers like that that will bring me back for volume two.

MJ: I think what I liked about it, is that in that moment, they both really just seemed like real people, enjoying a real attraction (even if their understanding of the moment doesn’t necessarily match), which is so much the opposite of the earlier groping scenes, which felt completely contrived. And yeah, despite my complaints, I’ll be back for volume two as well.

So… Full House… *happy sigh*.

MICHELLE: I have to admit I was finally and fully won over by volume five. I enjoyed it very much. It’s also worthy of note that, although Full House was previously published in English by CPM, they only got as far as volume four, so this is all-new material for us!

MJ: I am so pleased to hear that you’ve been won over! Now, I’ve discussed Full House at length before, but only the first two volumes. I hadn’t ever made it into volume three, so this was a big catch-up for me. And now having read the third and fourth volumes, I can understand better some of your complaints, as the screwball comedy bickering started to become a bit too much.

That said, volume five offers some pretty serious payoff, as Ryder’s (mistaken) anticipation of his own doom leads him to become in real life the sort of romantic hero he usually plays in films. He gives the house back to Ellie, and then when she is kidnapped, rushes in like a madman to save her. This could have been disastrous, but Sooyeon Won pulls it off so well, it really just swept me away. Ryder’s character shift feels completely real, and more importantly, Won is careful not to strip Ellie of her agency just to give Ryder his moment. Watching the two of them escape on the power of pure nerve was one of the most satisfying things I’ve seen in a while.

MICHELLE: Ryder’s shift does feel real, but I think Ellie’s does, too, since when he gives the house back to her with a minimum of fuss, she suddenly regrets having made his life so miserable up until that point. She starts to realize that, even though she’ll have the house, she may actually be losing something important. And, of course, I love that in the moment she most needs him, he is suddenly there, and reliable, and just thinking about that whole escape sequence is giving me a mild case of geekbumps because damn, they make a good team. I am really curious to see where Sooyeon Won will take the story from here.

MJ: I think I’ve always given Ellie the benefit of the doubt, mainly because I just like her, but yes, I agree that she does experience a shift here, too. And oh that moment, Michelle… I have never been a big fan of a man swooping in to save the woman, but when Ellie’s stuck, desperate and terrified, having exhausted all the options she can think of to escape her captors, and he’s just there… I admit I may have swooned.

MICHELLE: Oh, and then there’s this exchange:

Bad Guy: This rude, brash, crazy woman who doesn’t know what’s good for her. Not to mention she’s a plain-looking Asian who doesn’t stand out at all!

Ryder: You’re right!

Bad Guy: You don’t mean to say you love this girl, huh?

Ellie: What are you asking that for?

Ryder: … Probably.

I might’ve squeed (though, of course, Ryder’s comment is downplayed later). This reminds me, too, that the kidnapper’s identity completely surprised me and yet totally made sense in the context of the story. So, that made me enjoy it more than if it had just been some completely random kidnapping thrown in to manufacture some drama.

MJ: I most certainly squeed at that point. And, yes! The kidnapping made so much sense, it’s almost as if the author planned it from the beginning. If only more romantic comics really felt that way!

MICHELLE: And I don’t really want to spoil why Ryder is mistakenly anticipating his doom, but all of that makes a certain kind of sense, too. I’ve gone from being unable to comprehend there being sixteen volumes of this series (plus a sequel) to wanting all of that story to materialize right now. Happily, NETCOMICS already has the first chapter of volume six on their schedule for… today, actually, though it’s not up yet.

MJ: I expect I’ll be digging into that next chapter as soon as it’s available.

Thank you, NETCOMICS, for coming back to life. We missed you. Truly.

MICHELLE: Indeed. In just a few days, their update schedule for October will be revealed, and I hope it will be as packed as September. Of course, I’d also like to see some other series get updates (especially The Adventures of Young Det) but I am happy with the current lot, as well. And when the third volume of Small-Minded Schoolgirls is completed in a few weeks, I plan to talk about it in this space as well.

MJ: When I first realized that NETCOMICS had re-emerged, I felt some regret over having re-assimilated Manhwa Bookshelf. I hope they continue to make me regret that for a long time to come.

Manga the Week of 10/5

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First week of the month, and you know that means it’s time to be punched in the face with the enormity of Viz’s releases. But first, more ‘Midtown doesn’t list Kodansha anymore’ stuff. This means I have to guesstimate when stuff hits comic shops based on my own store’s list. And so sometimes I miss things. Like xxxHOLIC! Did you know it shipped this week? Surprise!

Kodansha should see the rest of September’s releases hit comic shops the first week of October. This includes Vol. 15 of Fairy Tail (just in time for Hiro Mashima at NYCC!), Vol. 26 of The Wallflower, Vol. 7 of Ninja Girls, and the 2nd Negima omnibus, containing Vols. 4-6. This will cover the ‘Kyoto’ arc, which is where most hardcore Negima fans say the story starts to improve.

The Penguin Group is also listing Gandhi: A Manga Biography. The artist is indeed Japanese, but I have to say the advance reviews have not exactly had me panting to pick up a copy.

And thus we come to Viz. The big debut this week is Psyren, the new Shonen Jump series that only SEEMS like it was licensed 8 years ago. It should be a lot of fun. There’s also new Bakuman! New Bleach omnibus of Vols. 7-9! The final Eyeshield 21, which had quite a long run for a sports manga in North America! New Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan! New Slam Dunk! (Well, it’s about 20 years old, but new to us!). And for you Jump Square fans, there are the wildly popular Blue Exorcist and Rosario + Vampire II!

In less exclamatory terms, there’s plenty of shoujo as well. Kamisama Kiss 5 comes out at the same time as Natsume’s Book of Friends 9 and Nura 5 just to overdose EVERYONE with yokai. (And yet, still no Gegege no Kitaro license. Le sigh…) New Sakura Hime from the ever popular Arina Tanemura. The final volume of highly underrated Betsucomi series Seiho Boys High School. Skip Beat has hit 25 volumes! And Vampire Knight 13, with all your broody vampire needs.

Lastly, in non-manga news, Hark! A Vagrant! hits comic shops next week as well, and you should all get copies. And there’s also 2 new Archie HCs (no, no, it only SEEMS like they’re out every week now), with Archie Americana: the 50s, and Best of Harry Lucey.

Anything excite you?

The Book of Human Insects

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While Osamu Tezuka’s The Book of Human Insects (Vertical) focuses its bug metaphors primarily on notions of transformation and parasitism, I find myself irresistibly reminded of that old fable by Aesop, “The Ant and the Grasshopper.” You know the one, where the lazy grasshopper assumes that the hard-working ant will care for him when things get tough, and the ant shows its conservative credentials by just letting the grasshopper die, because the ant has his, and that’s what counts.

With customary perversity, Tezuka turns the old morality play on its head. The grasshopper does benefit from the ant’s labors, because the grasshopper steals the ant’s stash and, if she feels it necessary, kills the ant for good measure. Preach on that, Aesop.

Tezuka follows dazzling celebrity Toshiko Tomura, who’s achieved remarkable and varied success. Though only in her twenties, she’s an acclaimed actress, gifted designer, and award-winning novelist. That she’s achieved this by seducing and metaphorically leaching the life blood of her mentors is of no moral consequence to Toshiko who, not unlike Aesop’s ant, got hers, which is all that matters to her.

Like Yuki from Tezuka’s MW (also Vertical), Toshiko is a quick and creative thinker. She’s not the sadist Yuki is, and she doesn’t have a grand plan beyond staving off boredom and getting what she wants. She also has a self-destructive streak, at least to the extent that she gets a gleam in her eye whenever her plans hit a roadblock. Part of the fun for Toshiko is reacting on the fly to remove unexpected obstacles. She doesn’t have Yuki’s emotional gravitas or his unapologetic perversity, but she has the same Energizer Bunny quality that helped make him such a fascinating protagonist.

And, yes, Toshiko is a protagonist, in that it’s her story and that Tezuka demands that the reader be invested in the outcome of her schemes. You don’t necessarily need to root for her, though I found myself doing so more than made me entirely comfortable, but you do need to care about what she does next and how it works out for her. The fact that she’s a clever and powerful woman at the center of a Tezuka noir tale helps enormously. Works from this category tend to push women to the side in terms of agency; they’re either doormats or harpies. Toshiko may be amoral, but she owns her choices and doesn’t shrink from adversity.

This is right in my Tezuka center of gravity. It’s a compelling story with a moral, though satirical core, taking the flaws of a generation to almost ridiculous extremes and crafting a thriller from that starting point. It’s great looking, possessed of a sexy energy that Tezuka’s adult works don’t always achieve with this level of confidence. And it’s got an indelible central figure, surrounded by an interesting cadre of marks and foes.

And it’s got one of my favorite recurring visual motifs, Toshiko in repose. When her stunts pay off, she takes a moment to just breathe and smirk, looking like a grasshopper on a sunny rock. You can almost see the ant’s leg sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

 

Skip Beat 25 and Seiho Boys' High School 8

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Skip Beat Volume 25 by Yoshiki Nakamura

Skip Beat is so great. For all the gangly limbs and oddly proportioned characters that Nakamura draws she is an absolute master at nuanced facial expressions, as evidenced in a series of confrontational scenes in this volume of Skip Beat!. I was happy to see some events happen to propel the slowly developing relationship between Ren and Kyoko forward at last. Sho, the evil pop idol and former target of Kyoko’s obsession and revenge shows up with an elaborate bouquet and engineers a dramatic kiss right in front of Ren and some of Kyoko’s co-workers. Since Sho is a spoiled brat who can’t abide not being the focus of Kyoko’s attention, he has decided to steal her first kiss and act obnoxious in the hopes that she’ll start thinking about him again. Ren goes from amazed, to annoyed, to dangerously furious as he watches this scene play out. Kyoko is left in hysterics about not getting her first kiss back and Ren chooses to deal with the situation in the best way possible; he appeals to her professionalism. When he notices her unglued he points out that it isn’t anything to get wrapped up over and that “What feels like your first kiss counts as your real first kiss.” He can’t maintain his impartial facade for long and warns her that he doesn’t want to see a repeat of the situation and Kyoko’s response is “I shall risk my life to preserve my purity!”

Kyoko and Ren dance around their emotions, not willing to admit anything to each other yet. Ren’s reactions and the way he behaves towards Kyoko are carefully calculated, not because he’s manipulative but because he doesn’t want to cause her any more emotional damage. His measured approach and awareness of her emotional fragility stands in stark contrast to Sho, whose innate selfishness ensures that he’s never going to be a good match for her. Kyoko has Ren on such a high pedestal, that she isn’t capable of entertaining the thought that he has feelings for her. It is a rare series that manages to rack up so many volumes and still keep me entertained when the romantic protagonists have barely kissed, but Skip Beat always manages to be both fun and interesting in the way the relationships between the characters continue to play out.

Seiho Boys’ High School Volume 8 by Kaneyoshi Izumi

This was a not-so-guilty-pleasure series for me, because it was much better than I expected a shoujo manga set in an all boys high school to be. The romantic issues of the main characters get a certain amount of resolution in this final volume, but the well worn plot device of misunderstandings serving to drive some of the couples apart makes me glad that the series stopped when it did. Maki is hearing that his girlfriend Takano has been hanging out with school heartthrob Kamiki. At first he resolutely denies the possibility, but then runs into Takano and Kamiki on the beach. Kamiki and Takano are only talking. She’s going through some changes in her life that she’s hiding from Maki and Kamiki warns her “Once you figure out that I can’t make you less lonely, talk to Maki.” Maki sees them together and abruptly breaks up, but Takano was hiding the fact that she’s headed overseas from him. Maki and Takano manage to get a little bit of resolution, but Kamiki is left to deal with his own problems.

Kamiki’s white knight tendencies are coming in the way of him actually getting to develop a real relationship with Miaji. She calls him out on this personality trait, saying “I don’t want your pity, I want your love.” She rejects his help and enters into a stressful project – taking care of a stray dog with Maki. Kamiki ends up helping anyway, saying “I wanted an excuse to talk to you, Miaji. Pretty sneaky of me, huh?” The series ends with the general sense that the main characters are all going to be ok. Having a shoujo series with a more male centric point of view was refreshing, and Izumi’s art has an element of clarity that ensures it is easy to read. The one thing that threw off my enjoyment of this manga was the back-up story called “Reverse Guilt” that has an extremely icky twist ending that contrasted with the more peaceful conclusions of the main story.

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Upcoming 9/28/2011

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Before we delve into the current ComicList, I just have to reinforce my Midtown Comics Pick of the Week: Osamu Tezuka’s Book of Human Insects (Vertical) is amazingly good pulp. Of course, I’m rather fixated on two belated arrivals to comic shops.

When one uses a variety of retail streams to acquire their comics, one can lose all sense of the orderly progression of time. One can also feel like the very last person on earth to get his hands on fabulous, classic shôjo. This is my way of leading up to saying that I will finally, finally be able to purchase my pre-ordered copies of Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon and its prequel, Codename Sailor V, both from Kodansha. With these and Dark Horse’s re-release of CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura, I feel like all of my magical-girl manga needs are being gloriously met. (Not punctually met, but gloriously.)

I still shouldn’t allow all of this delightful sparkle to distract myself from Viz’s contributions to the week’s bounty. There’s the 26th volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist, possibly my favorite shônen fantasy-adventure ever, and the fourth volume of Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves, certainly among my very favorite character-driven seinen series.

What looks good to you?

 

Bunny Drop, Vol. 4

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By Yumi Unita. Released in Japan as “Usagi Drop” by Shodensha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Feel Young. Released in North America by Yen Press.

Another volume of Bunny Drop, and another volume where we see Daikichi struggle with the joys and stresses of being a single dad. What’s more, life doesn’t stop just because you’re having difficulty keeping up. Will he be able to cope on his own?

I thought the start of the book was easily the strongest, with two chapters dealing with Daikichi’s cousin Haruko leaving her home for a bit and taking her daughter over to live with him and Rin. Daikichi is not generally a talkative and inquisitive person, so while we see him thinking about the awkwardness this creates, or wondering about what Haruko is going through, there’s very little actually said. The author’s strengths are frequently in the unsaid and absent, and although Haruko does reunite with her husband here, we get the feeling that her struggles will continue.

Honestly, Daikichi seems to have it pretty easy by now, even if he may not be aware of it. Rin’s a good kid who generally does what she’s told (we once again see Kouki’s still unnamed mother stressing out about getting constant meetings with the teacher), and even a bad cold doesn’t really put her down that much. She does get a few faults, such as her lack of physical ability… but even that’s dealt with here with the jump rope training, and she manages to overcome it a bit in a nice, heartwarming moment.

I will admit that the heartwarming moments are nice, but I could do with some forward plot motion. Rin’s mother wasn’t in this volume at all, and I’ve come to suspect that any potential romance between Daikichi and Kouki’s mother will mostly be hypothetical. What this means is that we get a volume that is, after the first two chapters, more ‘adorable kid raised by goofy yet nice dad’ stories. It’s perfect for Feel Young, the josei magazine it runs in, and likely worked better in monthly installments, but I admit I am starting to get weary of it.

That said, once again I get the feeling that I am not the audience for this series, and that forward movement of the plot is not the point. ‘The day passes, something else happens’ is a very common genre in Japan, especially in manga with children, and even though Daikichi is our viewpoint character here, that’s exactly what we get. We sympathize with him, grow frustrated sometimes, but mostly we’re watching Rin grow up alongside him. And while Rin may not have quite enough faults, she’s certainly cute as a button. Let’s see if Volume 5 can bring something new to the table, though.

(No spoilers in the comments, by the way. They will be deleted.)

Manga Bestsellers: 2011, Week Ending 25 September

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Comparative Rankings Based on Consolidated Online Sales

last week’s charts
about the charts

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Manga Bestsellers

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [432.0] ::
2. ↑3 (5) : Sailor Moon 2 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2011 [417.3] ::
3. ↑16 (19) : Fullmetal Alchemist 26 – Viz, Sep 2011 [405.0] ::
4. ↓-2 (2) : Sailor Moon Codename: Sailor V 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [403.8] ::
5. ↑4 (9) : One Piece 58 – Viz Shonen Jump, Sep 2011 [399.3] ::
6. ↔0 (6) : Bleach 36 – Viz Shonen Jump, Sep 2011 [380.5] ::
7. ↑1 (8) : xxxHolic 17 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [371.8] ::
8. ↓-4 (4) : Dengeki Daisy 6 – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2011 [364.8] ::
9. ↑3 (12) : Negima! 31 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [361.6] ::
10. ↓-7 (3) : Black Bird 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2011 [358.3] ::

[more]

Top Imprints
Number of volumes ranking in the Top 500:

Viz Shojo Beat 94
Yen Press 86
Viz Shonen Jump 71
Viz Shonen Jump Advanced 36
Kodansha Comics 35
Vizkids 26
Tokyopop 18
Del Rey 17
Seven Seas 16
DMP Juné 15

[more]

Series/Property

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon – Kodansha Comics [985.9] ::
2. ↑3 (5) : Negima! – Del Rey [739.3] ::
3. ↓-1 (2) : Naruto – Viz Shonen Jump [727.5] ::
4. ↓-1 (3) : Maximum Ride – Yen Press [726.7] ::
5. ↑3 (8) : Dengeki Daisy – Viz Shojo Beat [651.9] ::
6. ↓-2 (4) : Black Butler – Yen Press [649.8] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Bleach – Viz Shonen Jump [649.3] ::
8. ↑6 (14) : Fullmetal Alchemist – Viz [636.3] ::
9. ↓-2 (7) : Black Bird – Viz Shojo Beat [632.0] ::
10. ↓-1 (9) : Vampire Knight – Viz Shojo Beat [572.3] ::

[more]

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

1. ↔0 (1) : Sailor Moon 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [432.0] ::
3. ↑16 (19) : Fullmetal Alchemist 26 – Viz, Sep 2011 [405.0] ::
4. ↓-2 (2) : Sailor Moon Codename: Sailor V 1 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [403.8] ::
5. ↑4 (9) : One Piece 58 – Viz Shonen Jump, Sep 2011 [399.3] ::
6. ↔0 (6) : Bleach 36 – Viz Shonen Jump, Sep 2011 [380.5] ::
7. ↑1 (8) : xxxHolic 17 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [371.8] ::
8. ↓-4 (4) : Dengeki Daisy 6 – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2011 [364.8] ::
9. ↑3 (12) : Negima! 31 – Kodansha Comics, Sep 2011 [361.6] ::
10. ↓-7 (3) : Black Bird 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Sep 2011 [358.3] ::
12. ↑1 (13) : Finder Series 4 Prisoner in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Aug 2011 [346.5] ::

[more]

Preorders

2. ↑3 (5) : Sailor Moon 2 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2011 [417.3] ::
18. ↑19 (37) : Sailor Moon 3 – Kodansha Comics, Jan 2012 [288.5] ::
19. ↑21 (40) : Sailor Moon 4 – Kodansha Comics, Mar 2012 [281.8] ::
28. ↑16 (44) : Sailor Moon Codename: Sailor V 2 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2011 [232.6] ::
49. ↑144 (193) : Yotsuba&! 10 – Yen Press, Oct 2011 [179.6] ::
61. ↑162 (223) : Sailor Moon 5 – Kodansha Comics, Apr 2012 [159.8] ::
68. ↓-33 (35) : Finder Series 5 Truth in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Dec 2011 [150.1] ::
80. ↑63 (143) : Vampire Knight 13 – Viz Shojo Beat, Oct 2011 [139.1] ::
92. ↑57 (149) : An Even More Beautiful Lie – DMP Juné, Jan 2012 [128.8] ::
103. ↑35 (138) : Negima! 32 – Kodansha Comics, Nov 2011 [122.2] ::

[more]

Manhwa

98. ↑47 (145) : Jack Frost 4 – Yen Press, Dec 2010 [124.1] ::
115. ↑75 (190) : Jack Frost 3 – Yen Press, Jul 2010 [114.4] ::
160. ↑77 (237) : Angel Diary 13 – Yen Press, Dec 2010 [88.9] ::
251. ↑88 (339) : Laon 3 – Yen Press, Sep 2010 [61.0] ::
387. ↑48 (435) : Evyione: Ocean Fantasy 2 – Udon, Sep 2008 [40.8] ::
410. ↑40 (450) : Laon 5 – Yen Press, Apr 2011 [39.0] ::
412. ↑404 (816) : Laon 2 – Yen Press, May 2010 [38.8] ::
414. ↑ (last ranked 11 Sep 11) : 13th Boy 3 – Yen Press, Feb 2010 [38.5] ::
419. ↑577 (996) : Pig Bride 5 – Yen Press, Jul 2010 [38.2] ::
514. ↓-60 (454) : Bride of the Water God 8 – Dark Horse, May 2011 [29.9] ::

[more]

BL/Yaoi

12. ↑1 (13) : Finder Series 4 Prisoner in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Aug 2011 [346.5] ::
68. ↓-33 (35) : Finder Series 5 Truth in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Dec 2011 [150.1] ::
91. ↑3 (94) : Maelstrom (Kindle ebook) 1 – Yaoi Press, Jun 2011 [129.5] ::
92. ↑57 (149) : An Even More Beautiful Lie – DMP Juné, Jan 2012 [128.8] ::
166. ↓-19 (147) : Sky Link – DMP Juné, Sep 2011 [86.4] ::
194. ↓-3 (191) : Finder Series 3 One Wing in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Mar 2011 [72.4] ::
204. ↑5 (209) : About Love – DMP Juné, Nov 2011 [69.8] ::
225. ↑1261 (1486) : Tired of Waiting for Love (ebook) – DMP Digital Manga Guild, Sep 2011 [65.8] ::
231. ↑8 (239) : Secrecy of the Shivering Night – DMP Juné, Dec 2011 [64.5] ::
241. ↓-47 (194) : Maelstrom (Kindle ebook) 3 – Yaoi Press, Jul 2011 [63.3] ::

[more]