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Manga the Week of 9/14

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Given that next week is all about Yen Press, let’s start with them. (Yes, I know Sailor Moon and Sailor V come out 9/13. Did you really expect Diamond to ship it on the same day it hits bookstores? Have you been reading my posts at all this year?) There’s lots of stuff from Yen that deserves mention, but I want to focus on one title in particular first.

With the Light, a manga about a young mother struggling to raise her autistic child, was one of Yen’s first manga series announced, and their most exciting. A josei manga that clearly was intended to be marketed to a much broader audience than anime fans, it was a sign of great things to come. And it turned out to be even better when you read it, heartwarming and inspiring. Sadly, the author passed away before she could finish the series. Yen has worked with Akita Shoten to make the final volume, out next week, as complete as it is possible to be. Everyone who loves manga that goes outside the boundaries of ‘fight, train, laugh’ should pick up this series.

Of course, Yen has other stuff too. There’s Bamboo Blade 10, which is about to start up its next big arc. There’s Bunny Drop 4, which is a big turning point in the series. My Girlfriend’s a Geek 4 will no doubt feature more knowing humor about the fujoshi lifestyle. Zombie Loan… I’ve never read, I admit. I presume it’s about a library where you borrow zombies for things they’d be useful for? And the cute moe librarians who run Zombie Loan? No?

And though I don’t cover manwha, I suspect I would be filleted by my fellow Manga Bookshelf colleagues if I did not mention the new Goong and Raiders manga. And for fans of OEL, there’s Svetlana Chmakova’s new series Witch and Wizard, which is written by some other guy… oh right, James Patterson.

Viz also has titles! Albeit not many. But one is the 18th volume of Hayate the Combat Butler! Yes, it’s down to twice a year, and it seems to only garner bad reviews online these days (that will change when I get a hold of it), but this one resolves the ‘End of the World’ arc in a dramatic way, then kicks back to the comedy. And another final volume, as Detroit Metal City comes to a close. I kind of lost track of the series after the first couple of volumes, but I have a lot of friends who love it.

And Dark Horse is putting out the first volume of Yasuhiro Nightow’s new series, Blood Blockade Battlefront, no doubt meant to appeal to Trigun fans the same way Drifters is clearly designed to appeal to Hellsing fans. Sadly, on advice from my doctor, I can’t actually look at Nightow’s artwork anymore without a 24-hour nurse by my side, so I did not preorder it. But I’m sure hardier people than I will be willing to read it and try to figure out what the hell is happening in the panels.

(Apologies to Dark Horse… if it helps, I’ll be praising Drifters soon.)

So what intrigues you this week?

The Favorites Alphabet: B

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Welcome to another installment of the Favorites Alphabet, where the Manga Bookshelf battle robot gingerly approaches our meticulously organized collections to pick a favorite manga title from each letter of the alphabet, 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. And sometimes you can’t pick just one.

“B” is for…

Banana Fish | By Akimi Yoshida | VIZ Media — Given my frequent posts on the subject, this choice likely comes as no surprise. Yet even after all that verbiage, I think I’ve talked very little about one of the main reasons I so love this series. Yes, it’s got fast-paced action, well-developed characters, and an almost-BL vibe to die for, and watching Yoshida’s artistry develop over the course of 19 volumes is truly a pleasure. But one of the series’ greatest draws for me is very simply its sincerity. I recently described another manga as reading like “a bad teen-penned novel,” and while Banana Fish shares some of the same over-the-top sentimentality and naive fancy that tends to characterize stories written by teens, like S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, Banana Fish reads like a great one. Yoshida offers up genuine intrigue and compelling action sequences, but her most winning quality as a writer is how sincerely she loves her characters, even when she’s putting them through hell.  This is a series I’ve read and re-read, and will likely read many times more before my eyes finally give out on me. Melodrama and all, it’s one of my favorite manga of all time. – MJ

Basara | By Yumi Tamura | VIZ Media — I hardly know where to start in extolling the virtues of Basara, Yumi Tamura’s epic 27-volume shôjo manga about a girl named Sarasa who assumes the identity of her twin brother Tatara (the so-called “child of destiny”) after his death and leads her people in revolt against a tyrannical king. Sarasa is highly competent and inspires the admiration and loyalty of people from all walks of life, but Tamura never lets us forget that this strong leader is also just a girl who experiences feelings she doesn’t understand and who denies herself a lot in order to be who the people need her to be. Just thinking about the reveal that it’s actually Sarasa who’s been the “child of destiny” all along literally gives me goosebumps. I’d urge everyone to read Basara, even though some volumes are notoriously hard to come by. It really is worth the effort. — Michelle Smith


Black Blizzard | By Yoshihiro Tatsumi | Drawn & Quarterly — I’ve found most of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s work too bleak, too macho, or too bleakly macho to appeal to my own sensibilities, but Black Blizzard is a notable exception. Dating from the late 1950s, it’s thoroughly enjoyable pulp: a young murder suspect and a jaded criminal escape from custody into a raging snowstorm, police hot (cold?) on their heels. The story’s weaknesses are easy to catalog: the plot developments can be seen coming from a mile away, the characters are little more than types, and the ending is too compressed to be truly satisfactory. Black Blizzard leaves a fresh impression nonetheless, thanks to Tatsumi’s rough, energetic artwork; with all the slashing lines and images of trains in motion, you’d be forgiven for thinking that an Italian futurist had taken a stab at writing a comic book. — Kate Dacey

Black Jack | Osamu Tezuka | Vertical, Inc. — Part House MD, part globe-trotting adventure, Black Jack is easily Osamu Tezuka’s most accessible work. The stories often flirt with the outrageous: Black Jack performs a brain transplant, treats an extraterrestrial, and operates on himself while fending off dingoes in the outback. Yet the human dimensions of every story are never overwhelmed by the questionable medical diagnoses; at their best, the stories are parables about the importance of humility, responsibility, patience, and loyalty, using illness and injury to show us the best — and worst — of human nature. (Also: to show us that Black Jack is a complete bad-ass with a scalpel.) The series’ popularity meant that Tezuka cranked out more Black Jack tales than he probably should have (see “treats an extraterrestrial,” above), but even the weakest entries in the collection are still a lot of fun. — Kate Dacey

Black Jack | Osamu Tezuka | Vertical, Inc. — I’m going to second Kate’s endorsement of Black Jack for a very specific, possibly irrational reason. Sometimes a title becomes a favorite simply by virtue of the presence of a supporting character. In the case of this series, that character is Pinoko. She’s surly old Black Jack’s adorable kid assistant, except she’s actually a parasitic tumor that gestated for years in her twin sister’s abdomen until the good-bad doctor cut her out and gave her a twee little plastic body and took her in as his ward. Pinoko is wrong on every conceivable level – an 18-year-old woman with no meaningful life experience trapped in the body of an artificial child. On some subliminal level, I think every adorable kid sidekick is creepy, but Tezuka just goes there, and Pinoko’s every appearance is an unsettling, mildly heartbreaking, inappropriately funny treat. There are certainly Tezuka titles I like better than Black Jack, but there’s probably no Tezuka character who haunts me quite like Pinoko. – David Welsh

Bleach | By Tite Kubo | VIZ Media — In general, I enjoy talking about manga because I love it. I love finding underrated series I can promote the hell out of, I love reading the romantic ups and downs of a couple that grow and learn at a snail’s pace because it’s funnier that way, and I enjoy watching big guys hit each other. But sometimes you get obsessed with manga that you like… and hate as well.  It can be so good…  and so frustrating. No title currently being released over here does this to me more than Bleach, the second of Viz’s ‘Big Three’ Shonen Jump titles. Bleach has a fantastic cast of characters… who it abandons for years at a time to focus on other new characters. It has emotional resonance… which can sometimes get incredibly ham-fisted.  And while some manga work better in weekly installments, or in volumes, Bleach is one that works best by reading 5 volumes at a time then ignoring it for 6 months. Oh, and the shipping. God, the shipping. Love it or hate it, folks can’t stop talking about Bleach. Which, honestly, is even more valuable in a manga than a title that’s merely liked by everyone. — Sean Gaffney

What starts with “B” in your Favorites Alphabet?

 

Black Bird Volumes 9 and 10

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I know Black Bird is wildly popular, but I have a hard time getting into it. I read the first couple volumes and couldn’t get into all the weird wound licking, although I suppose demonic wound licking is at least a twist on the whole vampire romance trope. My main problem with this manga is that I find both of the main characters unappealing. Misao is basically the ultimate trophy bride, since she is a human girl who gives extra powers to whichever demon claims her. The demonic Kyo is just generally unsympathetic.

In Volume 9 Misao and Kyo deal with the aftermath of her allowing herself to be “claimed” by Kyo. Now that she’s Kyo’s woman officially, all the demon clans are on the prowl after her. Kyo’s clan wants Misao for the healing properties of her blood and the other demon clans are fighting back because they don’t want to support the sudden imbalance of power in the demon world. As a result other humans are targeted in the demonic civil war. Innocent humans are possessed by demons and sent after Misao, and Kyo has to fight them off. Misao is filled with guilt, but her response to the situation is to have a nervous breakdown instead of doing something more productive. Kyo is as contradictory as ever, as he orders Misao to “choose humanity” and throws her at demon hunter Raikoh only to suddenly appear and put on a big show by asking Raikoh if he wants to watch him rape her. Now, I’m pretty forgiving of the horrible sexual politics in manga just because I’m willing to forgive a lot for a story that is either humorous (Ai Ore, Butterflies, Flowers) or has a certain over the top soap opera tone (Hot Gimmick). But Black Bird doesn’t have this lighter touch which is why I find myself utterly unengaged in the story after scenes like that.

Volume 10 starts off a little more promising as Kyo’s estranged father pops up to give Misao the lowdown on Kyo’s tragic family past. The wars between the demon clans start to get more serious and it turns out that Kyo’s evil brother is alive and wearing an eyepatch (so you know he is extra evil). Kyo continues to act weirdly schizophrenic as he brings Misao to tears by telling her that she can’t come with him on his mission to restore order to the demon village only to suddenly change his mind and say “Just kidding….silly.” Seriously, Ryoki “You are my slave!” from Hot Gimmick seems like Prince Charming compared to Kyo.

Sakurkoji’s art is fine, with distinct character designs and interesting yet easy to follow panel layouts. I actually liked her short two volume series Backstage Prince, so I just wish that she’s hit it big with a series featuring characters that aren’t acting like jerks or spineless wimps all the time.

Upcoming 9/7/2011

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As the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week can testify, Viz is publishing enough manga this week to choke a horse. It’s even more crowded over at the ComicList than it is at Midtown Comics.

This gives me the opportunity to save another highlight for my own blog: the third three-volume omnibus of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkaishi (Viz). I’ve been enjoying the heck out of this tale of young exorcists finding their places in the family business, and I fully expect to keep enjoying it, especially since it’s so inexpensive, relatively speaking.

On the shôjo front, there’s the 10th volume of Karuho Shiina’s funky, sweet Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (also Viz). Spooky-looking but sparkling-on-the-inside heroine Sawako decides to really express her feelings to down-to-earth dreamboat Kazehaya, which could turn out… any number of ways, to be honest.

Ah, but the ComicList offers a seinen option as well! Vertical releases the one-volume Velveteen & Mandala by Jiro Matsumoto. It’s about schoolgirls who cut class to battle zombies in a satirically dystopian future. As I noted in a recent Bookshelf Brief, this didn’t really work for me, but I think that the comic itself isn’t exactly in my taste spectrum. Fans of this kind of thing, and I know you are numerous, should be perfectly content. It originally ran in Ohta Shuppan’s Manga Erotics F, which has given me plenty of manga to enjoy, so I can hardly complain that this fifth-genre magazine doesn’t succeed for me every time.

Speaking of Bookshelf Briefs, this week’s column includes a brief look at a boys’-love title that I read thanks to your crowd-sourced feedback, Puku Okuyama’s Warning! Whispers of Love (DMP).

Elsewhere on the Manga Bookshelf mother ship, where all of our robot limbs wait gleaming in hangars between battles, I contribute a review to the inaugural Going Digital column. A reasonable price and the lack of a physical copy to clutter my shelves entices me to try the first volume of the classic Lone Wolf and Cub (Dark Horse) by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.

 

Book Girl and the Captive Fool

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By Mizuki Nomura. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen Press.

By now I’ve grown somewhat used to how a Book Girl novel will feel. It will be based around a book of some sort (in this case, Saneatsu Mushanokoji’s 1919 novel Friendship) and the mystery plot will parallel the book in some way. It will flesh out the backstory of one of the minor characters we’ve met in the previous books. There will be dark, emotional themes that will connect with Konoha’s own thoughts and emotions. And in the end, Konoha will have grown a little bit more and moved on a bit from the girl in his past he can’t let go of.

But in general, the plot and mystery is not why anyone reads Book Girl. There were a few mystery aspects in this book, but I guessed at the most important one straight away, so they didn’t matter as much. However, it’s the characterization, style and prose that keep you coming back here, and in that respect Captive Fool is a worthy successor to the first two books.

This volume focuses on Konoha’s stoic and calm friend Akutagawa, and the discovery that much of his personality is a mask he puts on to conceal his past tragedies – both from others and from himself. Of course, this sounds a lot like what Konoha is doing now, and the irony is not lost on him. What’s more, the girl who was the focus of the first novel, Takeda, shows Konoha that being ‘cured’ of crushing emotional despair is not something that can happen over the course of a few weeks.

Much of the impetus of this book revolves around being unable to move on from a past tragedy, to the point where self-doubt and pressure make it impossible for you to do anything. Again, these novels are written for 15-17 year old readers, and I think these emotions would resonate well with them. How do you talk with someone after “ruining their life”? What if you make the exact same mistakes? What if one kind action turns out to be absolutely the wrong thing to do?

The author also manages to convey this to Konoha, the one who really needs to hear these words, in a way that doesn’t sound like everyone is acting as his therapist. The book Friendship mentioned above is being performed by the Book Club (and their assorted hangers-on) as a play, and so we see similar doubts and feelings play themselves out on three levels – elementary school (Akutagawa’s past), high school (Konoha’s present), and adulthood (the events of the novel/play). Growing up doesn’t always solve the problem.

Then there’s the ending to the book. I had discussed this with another reader, and it was felt that the revelation (which was a bit of a surprise, but not the complete shocker it was meant to be) was somewhat underwhelming, especially given that we’re only 3 volumes into what promises to be an 8-book “main story”. It seems a bit early for this particular plot gun to be fired off, in my opinion. But if nothing else, t shows us that when you are somebody’s mirror, you take on the same qualities as the person you are mirroring. Even if it’s unintentional.

Again, what I love most about this series is how much it makes me think about human nature. We see the growth of the characters, and even though it’s through artificial “what’s the mysterious tragic past of the novel?” means, that doesn’t make it less valid. And yeah, given the arc, I suspect the next book will focus on whatever demons Kotobuki has. But the writing and characters really make me want to find out what happens next. A great page turner, highly recommended.

Bookshelf Briefs pointer

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For those who read my reviews by category (like me), I have reviews of Deltora Quest 1, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 9 and The Story of Saiunkoku 4 in this week’s Bookshelf Briefs.

I also review the first volume of Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru in this month’s Going Digital.

Pick of the Week: All Viz, all the time

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It’s a Viz-heavy week at Midtown Comics. Check out picks from the Battle Robot below!

KATE: It’s time for the semi-monthly VIZ dump, which means new volumes of such long-running titles as Naruto and One Piece, as well as a random assortment of shojo and shonen series. My pick is the fourth volume of Oresama Teacher, a juvie-gone-straight comedy from the creator of Magic Touch. The fact that the same person is responsible for both series is nothing short of mind-blowing; I found Magic Touch tepid, tedious, and entirely too wholesome for its own good. Oresama, on the other hand, is fun and silly, with a great, feisty lead character and just enough edges that an old curmudgeon like me can enjoy it without needing an insulin injection.

MICHELLE: I actually thought the 58th volume of One Piece was coming out in October, so with Midtown’s list providing evidence to the contrary, how could I do otherwise than name this my pick of the week? It’s pretty special to be this excited about the 58th volume of a series, but mangaka Eiichiro Oda continues to do new and interesting things with the world and characters he’s created. In the current arc, for example, the simmering tensions between pirates and navy have finally come to a head in the form of an epic battle in the midst of which Luffy, and his kickass drag queen allies, strive to rescue his brother, Ace. Yes, I miss the other Straw Hats, but this is definitely going to be a volume I start reading immediately after coming into possession of it.

SEAN: First of all, I enjoyed The Magic Touch quite a bit, so neener neener neener. (Sorry, I had to respond, it’s contractual). For my pick of the week I will pick a final volume, the last of the josei experiment from our friends at Shojo Beat, Butterflies, Flowers. I have been back and forth about this title its entire run, generally depending on how much backbone its heroine is showing at the time. However, unlike some other shoujo series with bad reputations, Choko does show SOME backbone – when she puts her foot down it can be awesome. And the hero is of an over the top type we really haven’t seen over here – Tamaki from Ouran might match him for foolishness but is far too much of a gentleman to ever go as far into the gutter as Masayuki does throughout. Best of all, even if it’s offensive and wrong at times, it at least KNOWS it’s a comedy – which is more than one can say for Ai Ore half the time. I’ll miss it, and hope Viz tries more Josei Beat soon.

MJ: My choice is pretty surprising, or at least it is to me, but after reading the 36th volume of Bleach due out this week, I found myself more interested in the series than I have been for a long time. A long jump back in time might not be the most original storytelling convention ever, but it turns the focus away from battles and back to characterization, which is where I love Tite Kubo best. I don’t know for sure how long this backstory arc will last, but I’m grateful for it while it’s here. It’s nice to feel excited about reading Bleach again.

DAVID: I’m rather surprised to see myself type this, as I’m still on the fence about the series, but I’m going to go with the fourth volume of Kaori Yuki’s Grand Guignol Orchestra. My reaction to each volume so far has been mixed, but Yuki keeps bringing enough eye-popping weirdness and energy to the proceedings to keep me on the hook, even if consistency isn’t her watchword. Our band of zombie-fighting musicians has really put their collective feet in it as this volume begins, forcing Yuki to pay attention to her overarching plot. In my admittedly limited experience, her likelihood of success in this endeavor is about 50%, but I know there will at least be some freaky, “What the hell was that?” diversions.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 9/5/11

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This week, Sean, Kate, David, MJ, & Michelle look at recent releases from Yen Press, Kodansha Comics, Viz Media, and Digital Manga Publishing.

Black Bird, Vol. 10 | By Kanoko Sakurakoji | Viz Media – Dear Black Bird: I’ve nearly defeated you. After allowing you to work me into a state of blind fury over the course of nine volumes, I’ve finally become indifferent to your crimes. The constant belittlement of your heroine, her permanently flushed face—even the way your beloved hero always manages to blame her for his most abusive behavior no longer has the power to affect me. Wait, what am I saying? Okay, I admit I lied. You did get to me by the end of the volume, you sneaky devil. Sorry about those pages I ripped up and burned, but you have to admit you were asking for it. After all, I think you said it best. “There are times I want to treat you really well … and times when I want to treat you mean and make you cry … Which way I lean all depends on you. So don’t blame it all on me.” – MJ

Bleach, Vol. 36 | By Tite Kubo | Viz Media – It’s easy to become jaded as a manga reviewer, especially when it comes to long-running shounen manga. Though some series manage to transcend formula, others just seem to settle in, churning out pages of endless battles, increasingly generic foes, or whatever popular staples their genres require. Bleach has long walked the line between the two, just barely balancing compelling drama with mind-numbing repetition. After volume 35‘s strict conformity to this pattern, nothing could be more surprising than volume 36. Completely abandoning (for the moment) the battle set up in the volume before, Bleach 36 dives back into the past, promising new and exciting revelations about characters we already care about, including the enigmatic Kisuke Urahara and the entire lot of Visored. Though future tedium undoubtedly awaits, for the moment, Kubo gives us his very best. Unexpectedly recommended. – MJ

Deltora Quest, Vol. 1 | By Emily Rodda and Makoto Niwano | Yen Press –As a reviewer, sometimes you have to try to avoid the easy way out and grind through why you couldn’t really enjoy a title. It’s tempting, especially with a title as dull as Deltora Quest was, to simply wrote “No.” as a review and be done with it. But it’s my own fault, as I ordered the book even knowing that sword-and-sorcery fantasy is one of my least favorite genres, because it was part of a big pile of Kodansha Vol. 1s. And I have not even read the original novels by Emily Rodda either. Oh, and I’m not a 9-year-old boy. So, honestly, it should come as no surprise that I found this manga a tedious slog, with two-dimensional characters, action scenes where I kept flipping the pages faster and faster, and tortured exposition. Best of all, a time skip at the end shows us that the entire volume was mere prologue for the real story, which begins with the son of our protagonist next time. Also, kings should know better than to have grand viziers by now. It’s just asking for trouble. Skip this.– Sean Gaffney

Mardock Scramble, Vol. 1 | By Tow Ubukata and Yoshitoki Oima | Kodansha Comics – Mardock Scramble walks a fine line between dark and glum. The premise places it squarely in dark and compelling territory: a young woman gets a second chance at life — and a chance to bring her would-be killer to justice — after getting a bionic woman makeover. Rune Balot’s reluctance to embrace her new abilities, however, frequently threatens to drag Mardock into glum terrain; though it’s entirely plausible that someone as damaged as Rune isn’t ready to get all Lady Snowblood on her abuser’s ass, watching her passively resist self-actualization is a depressing and frustrating spectacle. Only the presence of Oefcoque, a cyborg mouse capable of transforming into just about anything, prevents the story from collapsing under the weight of its own grim agenda. – Katherine Dacey

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Vol. 9 | By Nagaru Tanigawa and Gaku Tsugano | Yen Press –This volume takes us through the end of Disappearance. For the most part, once again it’s simply poor when compared to the novel and the anime. I’ve no frame of reference to gauge how I’d feel about it if I hadn’t read/seen either of those, but I suspect I’d still find it wanting. I did note that Asakura is drawn far peppier and less evil/menacing than she appeared in the movie, which makes her final scene even creepier. There’s also a bonus story of the Christmas Party itself (which involves accidentally creating an ancient Egyptian hot pot), and another one set in Edo times (with Edo Haruhi being just as bad as the modern one, and wanting the perfect cup of tea), but neither add anything of note to the canon, nor are they bad enough to be entertaining on their own like the boxing story was last time. Substandard, though Vol. 10 apparently features Love at First Sight, a story as yet unanimated, so maybe it can try again there.– Sean Gaffney

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Vol. 2 | By Kenji Kuroda and Kazuo Maekawa | Kodansha Comics – I described the first volume of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as “blah,” and I’m pleased to report that second volume is more to my liking. I’m still having issues with suspension of disbelief—ask me to believe in yokai, cyborgs, or reincarnated moon princesses and I’m fine, but ask me to believe that suspects go on trial two days after the crime, and I balk—but I’ve been (mostly) won over by the Case Closed vibe the kooky murder methods conjure. It doesn’t hurt that half of this volume is occupied with investigating the murder of an amusement park employee who was garbed in the furry mascot costume of a character named “Twinklestar” at the time of his death. Phoenix and his assistant Maya take it seriously, of course, but I enjoy the sheer absurdity of it all. – Michelle Smith

The Story of Saiunkoku, Vol. 4 | By Sai Yukino and Kairi Yura | Viz Media –First of all, I cannot emphasize enough how disappointed I am by Ensei shaving. His rough and tumble beard made him look like a man from a completely different world in this manga filled with interchangeable bishies. Now he’s just another one of them. At least he has a scar, but still, it’s the principle of the thing. In addition, we get hung up here with a classic problem adapting a prose novel to visual – someone has been described as inhumanly beautiful. The artist does their level best, but in the end, nope, just another pretty bishie. To be fair, it’s impossible to draw ‘inhumanly beautiful’, so they did their best. As for the manga itself, it’s still good, mainly focusing on court intrigue and Shurei’s learning curve, with only a brief stop at romance (I am highly amused that the emperor is doing the right thing entirely through instinct, rather than overthinking things. An excellent read.– Sean Gaffney

Warning! Whispers of Love | By Puku Okuyama | Digital Manga Publishing – This addition to the reading list was the result of one of my boys’-love polls , monthly quests where I try to find gems among the new BL and yaoi releases. Okuyama’s storytelling has its charms, but I found myself wishing for a little more genuine feeling mixed in with the antics. The title story is about a game of cat and mouse between two high-school students where both realize they enjoy the game. Logic isn’t driving the bus here, but Okuyama manages a pretty good, weird, recurring joke along the way. The middle piece, about a guy who values his solitude taking in a roommate on impulse, brings more emotional authenticity to the table, though the creator clearly has a possibly excessive fondness for flaky gamines. The last story is pretty much all antics, but at least there’s a really cute dog to distract me from the underdeveloped human characters in the story. This was pleasant enough, but I don’t think I’d rush to read more of Okuyama’s work. – David Welsh

Slim… almost willowy… pickings

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It’s time once again to guide me through the purchasing process of a new boys’-love and/or yaoi title from the latest Previews catalog. There’s only one candidate debuting this month.

Storm Flower, by Ruma Knjiki, originally published in Taiyo Tosho’s Hertz, one volume: Sagano and Hazime Itirou face off at school and in their private lives, where traditions such as flower arranging and tea ceremony carry heavy responsibilities. With the weight of these things and the accompanying dark emotions, love can only come in a storm… but is it a love that can survive?

Bickering, skinny high-school boys with chins so pointy they could put an eye out if they slipped while kissing? This would be a hard sell, to be honest. But I’m nominally open to the possibility. I still reserve the right not to bother. I can always reread Tea for Two.

 

 

Going Digital: September 2011

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Welcome to Going Digital, a new, monthly feature focusing on manga available for digital viewing or download. On the first weekend of each month, the Manga Bookshelf bloggers will review comics we’ve read on our computers, phones, or tablet devices, to give readers a taste of what’s out there, old and new, and how well it works in digital form.

This month, we take a look at manga published for viewing on the iPad, Kindle, and web browser. Device, OS, and browser information is included with each review as appropriate, to let you know exactly how we accessed what we read.

iPad

Lone Wolf and Cub, Vol. 1 | By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima | Dark Horse App | iPad 2, iOS 4.3 – Reading comics on a tablet adds a whole new decision-making category. In the old days, there were simply comics you wanted to read enough to own and comics you didn’t. (I say this as someone who isn’t fortunate to live near a library with a large selection of comics.) Now, with a number of publisher-specific applications, there’s a new subset: comics one might like to read, assuming they didn’t have to kill a tree to do it, which can be purchased for less than the cost of a physical copy.

Lone Wolf and Cub is sort of the perfect inaugural for me in this category. It’s a very accomplished work, one that arguably belongs in a theoretical canon of licensed manga, but its subject matter doesn’t speak specifically to me as a reader. I enjoy reading the comic and find the variations on its episodic core – accomplished killer uses a baby in his murder-for-hire work – very clever and perversely funny, but I don’t necessarily want a whole shelf of volumes staring down at me. It’s great pulp, which isn’t something I want to read often or read repeatedly, but it’s something I can enjoy occasionally on a rainy weekend afternoon.

Koike does a splendid job coming up with scenarios that call for the specific, almost superhuman skills of his assassin protagonist. Koike also throws in some marvelous use of the assassin’s toddler companion; he’s a spooky little presence, and Koike invites the reader to wonder just how aware the kid is of how he’s being used. Kojima does absolute justice to the material, from evocative period details to energetically staged violence to ostensibly adorable little kids. Kojima makes it all happen in a seemingly effortless and fluid way, which is just what this kind of material demands.

I know a lot of people view this title as a classic, and it might be slightly sacrilegious to view it as an amusing diversion, but that’s my response, and it’s the reason I’ll keep it in mind when making manga purchases on my tablet. — David Welsh


Kindle

Hot Steamy Glasses | By Tatsumi Kaiya | Digital Manga Publishing | Kindle (3rd Generation) – Like many Americans, I got a Kindle last Christmas. One of the first purchases I made for the device was Hot Steamy Glasses, a BL title from DMP. Here is a dramatic reenactment of what happened next:

“The book downloads onto the Kindle. Michelle opens it. “Wow, this looks like crap,” she thinks. “I shall hit this button that resizes text.” Nothing. “I shall try zooming.” Teensy improvement ensues. “Well, so much for that, then.”

I never bought another manga for the Kindle after that, and I never read Hot Steamy Glasses, either, until now.

While it’s absolutely true that there is no real way to enlarge the text and that it is pretty durn small, it’s still readable and I got used to it after a while. It’s not a comfortable experience, though. It’s also impossible to offer any kind of art critique if you’re reading manga on the Kindle; as opposed to the crisp black-and-white pages you’d get at VIZManga, for example, on a Kindle everything is just sorta blurry and grey. On the plus side, at least I can sit on my couch and read.

Hot Steamy Glasses itself is oddly mediocre. It isn’t bad, but it’s pretty shallow and unconvincing in its portrayal of a determinedly straight guy (Fumiaki) who finally admits that he reciprocates the feelings that his long-time friend (Takeo) has been confessing for ages. There are some amusing things about it—once Fumiaki finally agrees to go out with Takeo, they spend their first five weekends sitting around watching anime, and it turns out that Takeo’s ideas about “going out” are incredibly pure. But I just never really bought Fumiaki’s sudden transformation, and kept expecting Takeo to end up with Fumiaki’s much nicer younger brother instead.

I guess paying $6 for a Kindle edition of a book I didn’t like very much is better than paying $13 for same, but my advice to those considering reading manga on their Kindle is simple: “Don’t.” – Michelle Smith


Web Browser

Madame Joker, Vol. 1 | By Naka Tomoko | Futubasha/JManga | OSX 10.6.7, Firefox 5.0 – As a woman of a certain age, I’m temperamentally predisposed to liking stories about women who are smart and confident but not in their first blush of youth. So when I read the description of Naka Tomoko’s Madame Joker, I knew I had to read it:

“Ranko Gekkouji; a woman, a widow, blessed with wealth, with beauty, and with adorable children. Everyone is jealous of her gorgeousness, the envy towards her countless. But, that won’t stop Ranko as she fearlessly solves cases!”

Alas, the execution isn’t quite as fabulous as the summary. Though Ranko is a brash, memorable character, the script suffers from a bad case of obviousness. Ranko’s family members spend a lot of time telling each other how they’re related and explaining Ranko’s behavior, though even the least attentive reader could deduce these things for herself. The description, too, makes Ranko sound like Jessica Fletcher’s spry, sexy daughter-in-law, when in fact Ranko is more of a clever meddler than a Miss Marple-in-training, derailing a two-timing novelist’s career and thwarting a hostess’ scheme to marry for money. And the artwork! “Hot mess” is being kind.

For all its clumsiness, however, Madame Joker scores points with its strong cast of female characters. Ranko and her mother-in-law are both appealingly frank, discussing men, sex, and money with a salty candor that’s hilarious; neither seems the least bit concerned with appearances, either, doing and saying what they please, even when it scandalizes the men of the household. It’s a stretch to call Madame Joker a female empowerment fantasy — Ranko’s power, after all, comes from being a beautiful, rich widow, not a surgeon, police officer, or mother — but it’s fun to see a forty-something women get to enjoy traditionally male privileges. – Katherine Dacey

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Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, Vol. 1 | By Masakazu Ishiguro. | Shonen Gahosha/JManga | Windows XP, Firefox 6.0.1 – I had recommended this Young King OURS title when we were discussing JManga, mostly for the virtue of being a title that was a) available and b) not from Futabasha or Leed, as I didn’t want to be too biased towards one publisher after my prior Futabasha reviews. JManga seems to be pushing it hard as well, having it be #1 on their list of ‘100 unpublished in NA manga’ on the site. Unfortunately, the manga doesn’t quite live up to the hype.

It’s not actively bad, and certainly good for a chuckle, but seeing this comedic take on a cafe, and the life of the plucky yet dense heroine, Hotori, who works there as a maid, I was reminded that most of the slice-of-life we see here these days tends to be 4-koma style. This has regular 16-17 page chapters, and as such I think I was expecting more forward plot and character development than there ended up being. There does seem to be a bit of a plot hook in Hotori being a mystery addict; in fact, the best chapter was one where she actually got to be clever, deducing a mystery about a 4-eyed painting.

Unfortunately, most of the volume is more about watching goofy Hotori do dumb things. The translation is decent – there were a few parts that even seemed to be adapted with an English reader in mind (Hotori worries about PETA after trying to capture a tailless cat), but overall there wasn’t quite enough here to make me hungry for future volumes. — Sean Gaffney

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Tired Of Waiting For Love | By Saki Aida & Yugi Yamada | Digital Manga Guild/eManga | Mac OS 10.7.1, Safari 5.1 – Kyousuke Sawaragi has been sentenced to five years in prison for dealing drugs for his yakuza boss. There, he meets Sone, a violent yakuza from a rival group, and his prison plaything, Shuuya. Though reluctant to get mixed up with either, Sawaragi finds himself protecting Shuuya and even becoming his cellmate, though he carefully resists Shuuya’s grateful advances. Once released from prison, Sawagari sheds his former life and devotes himself to the care of his widower brother-in-law and young nephew, but his past comes back to haunt him when he discovers Shuuya collapsed on the street.

This one-shot is significant as the first release from Digital Manga Publishing’s Digital Manga Guild, a new initiative intended to harness the talent and enthusiasm of fan translators, editors, and letterers in order to publish more manga in English without the prohibitive up-front costs associated with traditional licensing. Whether the DMG system is fair to its localizing teams or healthy for the industry as a whole is a conversation for another day, but what’s clear from the initiative’s first release is that it is capable of producing work roughly on par with DMP’s more conventionally localized works.

Kimiko Kotani, the one-woman localization team behind Tired of Waiting for Love, is clearly competent, though she does have her awkward moments when it comes to English prose. Sentences like “I have always lived my life the way that I wanted to live but the water that I was led to drink that should have been sweet, was always bitter,” cry out plaintively for editorial attention to punctuation and flow. Fortunately, these instances are few, and Kotani ultimately offers up a product that is clear, readable, and vastly more professional-looking than much of DMP’s other digital-only venture—its Harlequin Manga line.

It helps, of course, that the material is strong, particularly for a BL one-shot. Author Saki Aida and artist Yugi Yamada have crafted a touching, visually expressive tale that manages to maintain emotional believability within what is essentially a fantasy setting. And though the story never strays away from familiar BL territory, it’s consistently engaging.

All-in-all, Tired of Waiting for Love is a promising debut for both Kotani and the Digital Manga Guild. – MJ

Some reviews based on digital copies provided by the publisher.