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The Josei Alphabet: U

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“U” is for…

Umimachi Diary, written and illustrated by Akimi (Banana Fish) Yoshida, serialized in Shogakukan’s Flowers: Yoshida has been nominated for or won all kinds of awards for this tale of three sisters who meet a half-sister after their estranged father’s death. There’s really no legitimate reason that this hasn’t been licensed yet.

Umi Yori mo Fukaku, written and illustrated by Akemi Yoshimura, serialized in Shogakukan’s Petit Comic, 10 volumes: A fortune teller informs a college student that she’ll be dead within three years. In spite of the psychic’s subsequent arrest for fraud, his predictions seem to be coming true.

Uruwashi no Kouhi Elisabeth, written by Jean Des Cars, Tetsuya Tsukamoto, and Tomoko Naka, and illustrated by Naka, originally published by Tokuma Shoten, two volumes: This series tells the tale of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who apparently was quite the trailblazer when she married into the Hapsburg clan. (She did not pave new ways by being any more distantly related than first cousin to her husband, Franz Josef, but we blaze trails where we can.)

Utsukushiki Doukyonin, based on a novel by Laura Wright, adapted by Towa Isezaki, originally published by Ohzora Shuppan, one volume: A virginal matchmaker ends up with a hot lothario for a roommate and tries to turn him into marriage material. Try that, Patti Stanger. I dare you.

Uwasaya, written by Ayumu Hosaka, illustrated by Natsume Hasumi, serialized in Ichijinsha’s Zero-Sum Ward: Who better than a super-gifted cosplayer to help capture a vicious serial killer? I don’t know why there isn’t a cosplayer on Criminal Minds, now that I think of it. I mention this series mostly because it’s one of the few Zero-Sum titles that doesn’t look or sound a bunch like every other Zero-Sum title.

What starts with “U” in your josei alphabet?

 

BL Bookrack: Wild Adapter Roundtable

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MICHELLE: In celebration of the Manga Moveable Feast, we’re devoting this month’s BL Bookrack column to a discussion of Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter. Joining MJand me is our fellow Manga Bookshelf blogger and Wild Adapter enthusiast, David Welsh.

There was a time when I’d visit bookstores several times a week to assess their new manga acquisitions, and I vividly remember spotting early volumes of Wild Adapter lurking on the bottom shelf. It wasn’t until 2009, though, that I was sufficiently swayed by public opinion and actually read them. I’d been borrowing a set from one of MJ’s friends but knew very quickly that this series was something I would have to own for myself. Its vast reread potential was already evident.

What was your first experience with Wild Adapter?

DAVID: I was an early Adapter adopter. I’ve always found Lillian Diaz-Przybyl to be a very reliable source of recommendations, even when she was editing a book and obviously had a heightened personal stake in a given title’s commercial success. She’s a straight shooter, and our tastes often overlap, so I tried the series right out of the gate. Obviously, I’ve had no reason to regret that.

MJ: I was still quite new to manga when my friend Deanna Gauthier reviewed the first volume of Wild Adapter here in this very blog. I had never even heard of the series, but she was a huge fan, and after she had read all six volumes, she put them in the mail and sent them to me.

She had wrapped them in plain brown paper for shipping, and when they arrived, bundled up neatly in a anonymous little brick, my husband jokingly asked if she had sent me a package of cocaine. Later that evening, as I emerged from our back room, having ravenously devoured the first volume and eager to begin the second, I told him that he’d actually been right after all, because Wild Adapter was like crack.

MICHELLE: And then you sent that same package to me and got me addicted. It’s a vicious cycle!

As mentioned in the introduction to the Wild Adapter MMF, the series is composed in such a way so that each volume is self-contained, with the first volume serving as prologue and the fifth later filling in the gaps between volumes one and two. As I stated in the post referenced above, the fifth is my favorite (and remained so on a reread), partially because I love Shouta so much. Do either of you have particular favorite arcs?

DAVID: For me, it’s a dead tie between the first and the fifth. I think the thing that they have in common is that they objectively should not work. The first is all about characters trying to convince the reader that the protagonist is fascinating, which is such a recipe for failure in so many cases, but Minekura’s work is so subtle and assured that I found myself nodding emphatically. The fifth runs the very great risk of lapsing into Cousin Oliver Syndrome, inviting readers to see the leads through fresh, adorable eyes. Of course, Shouta is as complex in his own way as Kubota and Tokito are, so another common land mine is sidestepped. Minekura is amazing.

(click images to enlarge)




MJ: I agree with both of you, and probably I have the same answer as David, but I also am fairly fascinated with volume four, which is partly seen through the eyes of a lonely salaryman who snaps after killing a prostitute in a drug-induced rage. That volume uses the Japanese concept of kotodama as its overarching theme, and uses it better than any of the more supernaturally-themed series I have mostly seen it crop up in.

There is a quote at the beginning of the volume that stuck with me for a long time. “In this country, we have something called ‘kodotama.’ The spirit of words,” the salaryman says. ” Whatever you say with intent becomes… real. When I was in elementary school, we had to write essays on what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wrote, ‘Section Chief.’ My teacher laughed. ‘What a small dream.’ Those words hit the air, and I breathed them in and just as the teacher said… I grew up to be a perfectly small man.” He later tries to harness kotodama himself by repeating over and over again how he’ll get away with his crime and how everything will be fine. It’s kind of heartbreaking to watch, even though he’s not an especially sympathetic character, and it completely shatters the pattern we’d usually see in a supernatural manga by suggesting that the power of kotodama really is just all in our heads. It’s startlingly true to life.

One of the things Minekura does so brilliantly in this series is that she doesn’t just use her side characters as windows into the protagonists’ lives, but also as windows into the lives of her readers and their world, for better or worse, and sometimes that can be just as revealing.

MICHELLE: And sometimes their interactions with Kubota and Tokito actually affect how they relate to the world at large. Going back to Shouta, there’s a scene where he casually mentions to Tokito (unnamed at this point) that his first name might be Minoru. It’s obvious that Shouta thought he was going to be springing a good surprise, and is completely stunned when his comment instead triggers a traumatic memory and sends Tokito into violent freakout mode. The experience stays with him, and later informs his decision not to ask his parents about the arguments he’s been overhearing. “But I don’t ask them anything about it. I can’t. The moment I touch that subject, everything will fall apart.”

One of the things I like about volume five so much is that here are a couple of guys who arguably would be a bad influence on an impressionable kid, but because of the context in which he knows them (Shouta never learns the details of what Kubota does for a living, for example) they end up being a good influence. When Kubota, surprised by Shouta’s insightful observation, “Saying you don’t want to hurt something because it’s precious isn’t fair. Because it’s not an object… it’s a living being with a heart,” tells him that he’ll be a great writer, it brings to mind the kotodama idea all over again. Maybe Shouta will believe it and come to embody it, just because Kubota expressed confidence in him.

DAVID: I think you’re getting at something that’s at the core of the appeal of the series: the protagonists don’t really fall anywhere on the hero/villain continuum. They’re fascinatingly amoral in that they’re extremely focused on their own interests. Pretty much everything else is kind of collateral. It’s incredibly interesting to see these two do what amounts to the right thing and know that the rightness of that action is only a small component of why they chose to do it.

MJ: Your discussion here reminds me of a scene in the fourth volume in which we’re given a glimpse into Kubota’s past and his acquaintance with a woman named Anna who turns to him for consolation after her abusive boyfriend has run off with all her cash. Anna laments the fact that she always falls for “guys like that” and wishes that she could have fallen in love with Kubota (just a young teen at the time) instead. Later, when Kubota has beaten Anna’s ex-boyfriend nearly to death with an iron pipe, he says to her, “See? Aren’t you glad it wasn’t me?”

As a reader, we’re on Kubota’s side. He’s protected his friend from an abusive guy and (from our perspective) avenged her for wrongs done up to that time. But from another perspective, he’s just terrifying, calmly beating a man to a pulp with no real concern for what’s “right” at all, outside of the way things affect him and those he cares about in some way or another. And he’s far more brutal when protecting Tokito, whom he cares about much, much more.

MICHELLE: When Kubota kills in volume one, his mentality can be summed up by the line “It was him or me, and I always choose me.” After he meets Tokito, the jobs he takes may be dirty, but they’re not deadly. This side of him reemerges in volume six when his old boss, Sanada, orders Kubota’s replacement, Osamu, to kidnap Tokito and grill him for information related to Wild Adapter. Kubota’s revenge is swift, sure, and incredibly, incredibly lethal. Osamu realizes that he’s to blame for “baiting the monster,” which ultimately leads to an absolutely haunting page when Tokito and Kubota together take aim at Osamu and fire. They’ll leave you be if you return the favor, but provoke them and they will do anything to protect what they care about.

DAVID: And I think the key phrase there is do. I’m a big fan of talky manga where characters really articulate and examine their feelings, like in so many of Fumi Yoshinaga’s works. But the way that Minekura has these characters express the depth of their feelings for each other in actions is so effective and fascinating. It’s a brilliant execution of the “Show, don’t tell” mentality of storytelling. There’s terrific, astute, consise dialogue in Wild Adapter, but Minekura’s techniques in sharing the emotional truth of her leads is just amazing. It’s an appropriation and subversion of stereotypical masculinity, the whole “You touched my stuff” thing, and it’s been given so much urgency and truth.

MJ: That’s exactly it, isn’t it? That’s how Minekura so successfully creates such intimacy between her characters without ever having to pull them out of character by forcing them to reveal themselves with words they’d never say. In your post about volume three, David, you described the series as containing, ” improbably sexy characters posing through mostly outlandish scenarios, all of which manage to be unexpectedly involving beyond their considerable surface sheen.” And this is really how she manages that. Whatever else is going on–all the crazy plotting and stylized sensuality–it’s always grounded in emotional truth, which allows us to enjoy the cracktastic plot for all the fun that it is without sacrificing any of the stuff we’re really reading for. It’s satisfying on multiple levels.

MICHELLE: And it’s that very intimacy that helps the series to function as boys’ love without containing any scenes of overt sexuality. The art helps, too, of course. My favorite sexy pose is at the very beginning of volume six, where we first see Kubota lying shirtless in bed with Tokito’s discarded glove next to him, and then on another page see a shirtless Tokito holding Kubota’s glasses in his beasty hand. The glasses are such a part of Kubota, that for Tokito to be holding them in so familiar a manner is positively suggestive.

DAVID: Not to derail anything, as everything we’ve just been talking about is entirely true, but I feel like we’re neglecting the fact that the series is frequently, intentionally hilarious. There’s character-driven humor and some extremely clever scene construction.

MJ: I was thinking about that during our introduction, and trying to find good examples to scan in, but I realized that so much of it is hilarious over the course of a really well-crafted scene, it was often difficult to capture in a single page or two. Minekura’s humor is so much more clever than just a series of gags or punchlines.

MICHELLE: She does play with readers’ BL expectations a few times, though, by having Tokito make suggestive sounds while Kubota is beating him in a video game, or having them both play out a seduction scene for the benefit of the guys in a surveillance van outside. One of my favorite amusing things isn’t actually laugh-out-loud funny at all but just really neat, and that’s seeing the characters depicted in the style of the shounen manga Shouta is drawing. I especially loved Kou’s scientist persona.


MJ: Michelle, I’d say that Kou in general is some of what I find most funny in the manga. I absolutely adore his coded conversations with Kubota.

DAVID: Kou is a treat, no doubt. And that surveillance scene is still possibly the funniest scene I’ve ever read in a manga, just slightly ahead of the school festival in Flower of Life and the synchronized swimming in Sgt. Frog. It’s funny because that dialogue is note-perfect BL, right down to the faux-reluctance.

Minekura is an amazing mimic, and not just with BL tropes. Her seinen credentials also seem particularly strong, and I don’t think Wild Adapter would be out of place in something like Big Comic or Ultra Jump, especially with contemporary catering to a fujoshi audience. Frankly, her capacity to render credible, dramatic violence is right up there with the stars of the noir seinen category.

MJ: I absolutely agree, David, and I’ve wondered if there are regular MMF participants who have decided not to try Wild Adapter because they generally don’t like BL. I’m hoping that’s not the case, but I expect it might be. If so, that’s a shame. Not that there’s any guarantee they would like Wild Adapter, of course, but it’s definitely not exclusive to that audience in terms of appeal.

DAVID: I can honestly think of few series with BL elements that would cast as wide a net as Wild Adapter could.

MICHELLE: There’s definitely a lot about Wild Adapter that isn’t typical of the BL genre, and I totally agree that it would not be out of place at all in a seinen magazine. Fujoshi would see what they want to see, but for everyone else, the relationship between Kubota and Tokito could be read as a kind of intense bromance, like the one between Ban and Ginji in the thoroughly seinen GetBackers. In reality, though, the series run in a BL magazine (Chara). I’m wondering what about the series (if anything) does seem like typical BL to you.

DAVID: For me, the thing that’s most BL-ish is the lack of examination of sexual orientation or identity. It’s merely an intense and surprising relationship that happens to be between two men. There are asides where supporting characters wonder whether Kubota is gay or not, or prefers guys to girls, if that’s their reference point, but that’s just one component of the character’s mystique that people around him find puzzling. But Kubota and Tokito are both so enigmatic that a definition of their specific sexual orientation doesn’t really matter, though. For me, it’s one of those rare cases when that kind of real-world consideration wouldn’t make the BL elements any sharper or more interesting or persuasive. Minekura delivers their relationship without delving into specifics.

MJ: I agree with David about this being the most prominent BL element in the series, and I’ll also add that I actually quite appreciate the fact that other characters speculate about their sexual orientation, because it softens this issue for me a bit. Generally I dislike this aspect of BL, but at least Minekura acknowledges that same-sex orientation exists in the world and that people are thinking about these characters in those terms. Actually, along these lines, there’s a scene in one of the uncollected chapters of the series in which Tokito asks Kubota what kind of relationship they have, because somebody has asked him. Kubota’s reply is basically to say that it’s fine to just tell people something casual and vague, at which point he abruptly changes the subject. It’s a pretty interesting little moment, and it does make one wonder if Minekura might have planned to revisit the question later on in the series.

Other than that, I think the next most BL-like aspect would be the vilification of the series’ actual gay characters, Sanada (the yakuza boss who comes on to Kubota in volume one) and Sekiya, the youth leader from a rival group who is overtly feminized (in the Japanese version, he refers to himself with the feminine “atashi”) and frequently insulted by other characters using anti-gay slurs. The fact that both these characters are villains in the story actually reminds me a lot of Banana Fish, in which all the gay characters are rapists or pedophiles. Not that Banana Fish is BL (we’ve discussed that at length in this blog already), but you get my point. I’m not saying that Minekura intends to vilify gays. I don’t think she does. But homophobia is pretty common in BL, in my experience, so it does spring to mind.

MICHELLE: Wild Adapter does seem to have a touch of the everybody-is-gay syndrome that one sees in BL from time to time. Even though this isn’t overtly specified for the leads, you do have Sanada and Sekiya right off the bat, with each of them (in varying degrees) seeming to expect sexual favors from their underlings. So I don’t know that it’s a case of Minekura vilifying gays so much as the villains are just gay, too.

On the other hand, we do see plenty of other characters whose sexual orientations are not known or even part of the story, like Kou, Kasai, and Takizawa. And there’s some hetero boffing going on as well.

DAVID: For me, part of the appeal of the series is that Minekura is so vague about the specifics of the core relationship. It’s not that she’s entirely being a tease, because the emotional architecture is entirely clear, but she clearly has her own idea of what constitutes necessary detail beyond that. She either trusts her readers to come to their own conclusions, or she wants to leave the potential spectrum of those conclusions wide open, and she’s talented enough to get away with it.

MJ: I think you’re right, she does get away with it, and beautifully too. In that way, it’s more successful than Banana Fish and most other manga I’ve read in which the mangaka deliberately keeps the specifics of the main relationship vague. And actually, given the characters’ particular circumstances and personalities, I think it’s entirely possible (maybe even probable) that the specifics are vague on their part, too, which aids the believability of the whole thing.

MICHELLE: I’m conflicted a little on this point, because although I definitely think Minekura has skillfully crafted their relationship, I’m still a fairly literal-minded person, so I simultaneously wish for some kind of confirmation while being glad that Minekura isn’t giving me any. Does that make sense? Until I see proof otherwise, I’m going to assume they aren’t sexing it up. That obviously doesn’t preclude loving each other, of course.

DAVID: Count me among those who assume that they are sexing it up all the time, but I think your point is totally fair. And I’ve certainly enjoyed titles where we know exactly where the potential couple is on their road to intimacy. I’d list Sanami Matoh’s Fake (Tokyopop) as my very favorite from that subcategory. But I do have a weakness for mangaka who are confident and skilled enough to leave things unspoken.

MJ: And just to clarify my position, I’m assuming they probably are, but that it’s none of my business. So I suppose I’m in-between.

MICHELLE: And thus we provide a bit of something for everyone! :)

DAVID: And thus confirm Minekura’s genius.


MICHELLE: Earlier, MJ mentioned that some regular MMF participants might have decided not to try Wild Adapter because they’re not big fans of BL, but another deterrent for some potential readers might be the fact that it remains unfinished (though, I stress, it does not end on a cliffhanger). How much does that impact your enjoyment of the series?

DAVID: It does make me sad that the series is on hiatus, but it doesn’t leave me dissatisfied with the series itself. As you both noted in the introduction to the series, the volumes are largely self-contained, and they can be enjoyed individually. (I can’t really understand how someone could read one volume of Wild Adapter and not want to read all of them, but that might just be me.)

There are so many reasons that readers of translated manga may not see the end of a series — the publisher cuts its losses on a commercially unsuccessful property or goes out of business altogether — that can result in perfectly legitimate complaining, but I always feel reluctant to get up in a mangaka’s business when he or she is facing health issues. I mean, I’d love to read more Wild Adapter, volumes and volumes of it, but I don’t feel any sense of grievance about it. Does that make sense?

MJ: That makes a lot of sense to me, and I feel much the same way about it. Wild Adapter could go on forever, and I’d be thrilled. And yes, I’d very much like to get to the bottom of the W.A. mystery and learn the truth behind Tokito’s past, but the overarching plotline was never really the point. So while I’d read as much of it as Minekura and Tokuma Shoten were prepared to give me, I don’t feel left in a lurch at all. I do wish we would see some official release of the five chapters that have been left hanging. I’d buy that in a second, whether they filled an entire volume or not.

I will admit a bit of utterly unjustified pettiness over the fact that various incarnations of Saiyuki (which I like much, much less) demanded so much of Minekura’s time when she might have been producing more Wild Adapter, but I realize how ridiculous and entitled that sounds. I mean, seriously.

MICHELLE: I’ve only read a tiny bit of Saiyuki (the first three volumes) but I definitely understand your grievance.

And, like you say, the plotline is not really the point. I’m less interested in W.A. and Tokito’s past (though of the two, the latter is far more compelling) than I am in the characters’ reactions to this. There’s a particularly poignant scene in, I believe, volume six where Kubota has engaged Kou to look for Tokito and says something like, “If he’s regained his memory, then you don’t need to tell me where he is.” He also believes there’s a chance that Tokito, like some amnesia patients, might forget everything that happened while he was “ill.” Kubota isn’t hindering Tokito’s quest for answers, but at the same time, he realizes that when Tokito gets them, things may be over for both of them. That is the part of the story I’m most sad we haven’t seen and maybe never will see.

DAVID: And I am becoming leery of series about hot, emotionally disturbed, possibly romantically involved boys who are linked in some way to illicit pharmaceuticals. Between Wild Adapter and CLAMP’s Legal Drug (Tokyopop), I’m wondering if these series ever get finished.

MJ: You do have a point. Sadly.

MICHELLE: I guess the only thing left for us to do at this point is wish Minekura-sensei a full and speedy recovery.

MJ: Well said, Michelle. Thank you, David, for joining us for this special edition of BL Bookrack!

DAVID: It was my pleasure!

Dengeki Daisy Volumes 4 and 5

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Only in shoujo manga would you find yourself rooting for the romance between a peppy orphaned high school girl and an emotionally damaged ex-hacker turned school custodian. When this series first started I was hoping that the industrial espionage aspects would be more fully explored. As this series settles down for the long haul, it is clear that the mystery behind the death of Teru’s brother and the secret he left behind is really going to be used as more of a background element to either bring Teru and Kurosaki closer together or further complicate their relationship. I don’t mind the lack of industrial espionage at the forefront of the series, because I’ve come to care about the characters. Plus, wishy washy industrial espionage is a little more compelling than school club activities, evil student councils, sudden sibling scenarios or any of the other slightly shopworn plots used in much shoujo manga nowadays.

Dengeki Daisy Volume 4

The third volume ended with a plot development that had the potential to move things along nicely. Teru discovered that Kurosaki has been acting as her mysterious guardian and best friend via cell phone Daisy. As the fourth volume opens, she’s struggling with the fact that she knows Kurosaki’s secret but isn’t sure if she should admit it to him. She’s afraid of how their relationship might change if everything is out in the open. Teru is acting uncharacteristically awkward around Kurosaki and struggles to keep her usual tone when texting Daisy. Eventually they work through their issues, helped out by the memory of Teru’s brother and the revelation of the violent reason behind Daisy’s nickname. The comedic relief in this volume comes in the introduction of the school director. Ando was also linked to Teru’s brother, and he seems to spend most of his time skulking in odd corners, so the students start thinking that the school is haunted. It is interesting that at least three positions at the school are populated by people with a connection to Teru’s brother. Someone starts posing as Daisy in a cell phone hacking attempt, and Teru’s school life grows even more complicated.

Dengeki Daisy Volume 5

The shadowy menace gets emphasized in this volume as Kurosaki gets injured protecting Teru. Her other protectors kick into high gear. It is clear that Kurosaki knows that Teru knows that he’s Daisy, but she doesn’t know that he knows that she knows. So complicated! Kurosaki’s guilt may prevent him from ever having a relationship with Teru, and she seems to want things to remain as they are so she can just enjoy spending whatever time she can with him. Events from previous volumes are brought up again as Arai, the former student council advisor is investigated for possibly being the source of the fake Daisy scheme and the attacks on Teru. Teru struggles with what to do to help solve the situation and Kurosaki has one of his scary but cool moments when he targets the manipulative Miss Mori. Kurosaki’s glares and evil demeanor brought some extra energy to this volume, I always enjoy it when he starts acting as menacing as he was in the initial volumes.

I’m still enjoying this series very much. The slightly unconventional relationship, the mystery of Teru’s brother, and the slow revelations about Kurosaki’s past are all very satisfying. I realize that popular series like this will probably get spun out over several volumes but I’m still enjoying the slowly developing relationship in Dengeki Daisy.


Volume 5 provided by the publisher

Upcoming 6/22/2011

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Let’s take a quick pass through the current ComicList, then move on to some linkblogging! Diamond’s primary source of goodness this week is Viz, which offers a combination of Signature and Shonen Sunday titles:

I can’t believe we’ve hit the next-to penultimate volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s excellent Fullmetal Alchemist, but that’s the simple fact of the matter. This is probably the best shônen series to be published in English in the last five years, and I’m going to miss it when it’s done. (Update: Sorry about the false alarm. I transposed volume numbers on the list in my head.)

Other appealing Viz arrivals include:

One appalling Viz arrival is their debut of oh!great’s Tenjo Tenge. I detested what I read of it when it was being published by CMX, so I can’t imagine how a more faithful production could change that. Of all of the CMX titles to rescue, I ask you, why this one?

For a look at what’s due at a non-Diamond-dependent comic shop, check out the latest Pick of the Week over at Manga Bookshelf. For the battle robot’s verdicts on some recent releases, click on over to this week’s collection of Bookshelf Briefs. And to learn more about the truly awesome manga that is the subject of the current Manga Moveable Feast, take a peek at MJand Michelle’s introductory post.

 

MMF: Bathtub manga

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Whenever I think of Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter (Tokyopop), an image pops into my mind: my bathtub. The water is hot and scented with some kind of mood-altering essential oil, possibly juniper, maybe rosemary, occasionally lavender. There is an alcoholic beverage perched on the edge of the tub to help me stay hydrated. And there is a volume of manga nearby.

Yes, I am a bathtub reader. It’s not my go-to hygiene technique, more an occasional indulgence. And, if you’re going to indulge, why not gild the experience? (My fondness for baths is such that I really, really want someone to license Mari Yamazaki’s Thermae Romae. Erica Friedman sent me the first two Japanese volumes, and I can’t read a character of the dialogue, but it looks terrific.)

Now, not just any manga will do. It needs to have a certain languid, moody quality. Ideally, it should be impregnated with feelings, even if those feelings are ambiguous. I love One Piece (Viz), but it is not bathtub manga. I’m impatient for the next volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse), but it is not bathtub manga. A new volume of Bunny Drop (Yen Press) cannot come soon enough, but even it is not bathtub manga. Wild Adapter is bathtub manga.

Why is that? Well, it’s partly because, empirically good and ambitious as Wild Adapter is, it doesn’t wear its quality on its sleeve. It gives you the opportunity to believe that you’re indulging in a guilty pleasure, even though you’re actually seeing a spectacular piece of craftsmanship. That, right there, is what makes manga bathtub manga for me.

So, in celebration of the current Manga Moveable Feast, I thought I’d list some other titles that may achieve their fullest entertainment potential when paired with bubbles and booze:

Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga (Digital Manga): It’s very, very difficult to pick just one of Yoshinaga’s works for this list, because she’s all about the appearance of effortlessness. She can go very dark places in her storytelling, and she does so routinely in work like Ôoku: The Inner Chambers (Viz), but you’ll rarely see her congratulating herself on her daring. Darkness is a part of life, and it can consume a moment without warning, which is certainly a recurring motif in Antique Bakery. Of course, the primary adjectives the series suggests are “funny” and “sexy,” and there are tons of illustrations of beautiful desserts.

Emma by Kaoru Mori (CMX): If there’s a mangaka better than Mori at dissecting a single, seemingly trivial moment and turning it into something telling and revealing, I’m hard-pressed to think of one. Aside from Jiro Taniguchi’s The Walking Man (Fanfare/Ponent Mon), Emma may be one of the most leisurely manga I’ve ever encountered. There’s certainly a story here – a star-crossed romance between a domestic and a member of the emerging middle class – but it’s draped in such obsessive interest in the behaviors and values of the era in which its set that it scarcely matters if you find Emma and William’s relationship plausible or sympathetic. You can just lose yourself in the minutiae of their lives and still be really, really satisfied.

Genshiken by Kio Shimoku (Del Rey): A lot of nerd comedy is frantic and unfunny. Your average ugly duckling hero is thrown into humiliating misadventure, allowing the audience to laugh at them (and cringe at the parts of themselves that identify with the poor loser). That’s all well and good, and no one will ever go broke catering to the audience for that kind of material, but my nerd comedy of choice is pretty much embodied by Genshiken. I don’t think anyone would ever use the term “frantic” to describe it. It’s much more likely to be called “contemplative,” even “leisurely” and possibly “wistful.” Shimoku goes for neither shame comedy nor canonization with his cast of geeks. Instead, he takes them seriously as characters, which is to say he gives them highs and lows over a period of time and gives readers a clear and satisfying portrayal of their thoughts and feelings.

Nana by Ai Yazawa (Viz): Okay, the lead characters are sitting in a bathtub on the cover. A lesser blogger may simply rest his or her case based on the overwhelming evidence that image provides, but no! I will soldier on to say that it’s Yazawa’s facility for big, messy emotions writ achingly small and her feverish ability to convey a vibe that’s both stylish and strangely nostalgic that make Nana ideal for a good, long soak. She’s packed the book with fascinating, complex, sometime unlikable characters that interact in ways that are constantly surprising but make perfect sense. And, since they’re very often shown to be imbibing, you won’t have to drink alone.

Suppli by Mari Okazaki (Tokyopop): Of all the manga heroines who could use a good long soak in a buble-filled tub, I would have to rank Minami very near the top. She works too hard for an advertising agency that’s often unappreciative of her efforts. It would display an excess of delicacy to describe her love life as “messy.” And yet this manga is indulgent because it’s very beautifully drawn and because Minami’s trials feel so delicately true. She feels very much like someone you might know, and she’s definitely someone you wish well. And, since it seems likely that we may never see the remainder of this wonderful series, it’s nice to be someplace private where you can cry into your washcloth.

So, who’s with me? Are there any other bathtub manga readers out there? What are your titles of choice?

 

Pick of the Week: Diversity

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Another week, another batch of new (and not so new) releases at Midtown Comics. Check out our picks below!

KATE: This week’s new arrival list looks a little wonky. It includes a large batch of Vertical titles that have already been released (e.g. both volumes of Apollo’s Song) as well as a smattering of Tokyopop manga that most of us never expected to see the light of day (e.g. the final volume of Hanako and the Terror of Allegory). Buried among the reprints and orphans, I spotted the third volume of Afterschool Charisma, one of my new guilty pleasure titles. The story focuses on an academy for gifted teens. But the students at St. Kleio’s are no ordinary high schoolers; each has been cloned from a famous historical figure (e.g. Marie Curie, Joan of Arc, Napoleon) and is being groomed for a life of public service. Though the first two volumes were a bit of a mess, see-sawing between suspense and wacky hijinks, the story finds its legs in volume three, offering a nifty, third-act plot twist that casts the entire cloning project in a new and sinister light. And really, what’s not to like about a manga that depicts Sigmund Freud as a petulant bishonen who likes to tease his classmates about their daddy issues?

MICHELLE: I’ve already spoken of my love for the seventh volume of 13th Boy in a recent Off the Shelf column, so while I definitely still recommend checking out that series, the item that most intrigues me this week is the first volume of another Yen Press series, The Betrayal Knows My Name. I don’t know much about it, other than it ran in Asuka and seems to be a supernatural story with BL flavor. Although this is the first shoujo release for Hotaru Odagiri in English, she has had some BL titles released here, like Time Lag and Invisible Boy. As an added bonus, Yen is releasing the series in 2-in-1 omnibus editions!

MJ: I too must praise 13th Boy, but of the items on this week’s list that are actually new, my attention is most drawn by the second volume of Jason Thompson and Victor Hao’s King of RPGs. It’s been a year and a half since Del Rey released the first volume of this OEL series and I’d actually begun to fear that it was all we’d ever see, so I was pretty thrilled to spot it on the list. I reviewed the first volume as a guest at About.com, and while I have to acknowledge its nerd-specific appeal, as the spouse of a serious gamer, it could not have delighted me more. To quote my bottom line, “With its endless stream of geeky jokes and wildly exaggerated gaming scenes that easily rival the most outrageous shounen sports manga, King of RPGs barely comes up for air as it races to the end of its intense first volume. Crafted with deep and obvious affection, this comic is a love letter to gamers and manga fans everywhere.” Volume two, bring it on!

DAVID: I feel ambivalent about my pick, but I feel ambivalent about all things Tokyopop. It’s wistful and strange to see their last few new arrivals. And it’s downright unnerving to realize I didn’t dodge the bullet fired by readers of my blog in a previous dubious manga poll. So my pick is Nanki Satou’s Maid Shokun which is about maids and is not Emma,, so I think my anxiety can be forgiven. On the other hand, Lillian Diaz-Przybyl did compare it favorably to Honey and Clover, so maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. By the one volume of the series that may ever be published in English. Ambivalence! Like, cubed!

So, readers, what looks good to you this week?

Bookshelf Briefs 6/20/11

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This week, David, Kate, & Michelle take a look at a handful of titles from Vertical, Viz Media, and Digital Manga Publishing.

 

 

Black Jack, Vol. 14 | By Osamu Tezuka | Vertical — This volume of Tezuka’s medical melodrama classic run right down the middle in term of quality. It’s solidly entertaining throughout, and there are very few clunky moments, but there aren’t as many knock-it-out-of-the-park episodes as you might find in the best installments of the series. Since there’s no real cause for complaint overall, I’ll focus on my favorite piece, “A Rapid Current.” For my money, the best Black Jack stories throw our antihero out of his comfort zone and force him to set aside his hard-case persona. In “Current,” the good-bad doctor is stuck on a rapids-battered raft with an unflappable lady in an advanced state of pregnancy. The story is surprising, suspenseful, funny, and mournful, and it’s a perfect reminder of why it’s always worthwhile to pay a visit to this corner of Tezuka’s universe. –David Welsh

Grand Guignol Orchestra, Vol. 3 | By Kaori Yuki | Viz Media — With each new volume, this series comes closer to becoming the kind of glittering, gruesome guilty pleasure I hoped it would be. Yuki’s tale of traveling musicians who fight zombies is far from perfect, and Yuki is prone to some serious narrative gobbledygook, but the fun, creepy bits are gaining ground. This installment features vicious nuns, decadent nobles, shocking betrayal, cross-dressing espionage, and just enough grotesque perversion to keep things lively. I’ve always found Yuki’s manga visually beautiful, but I’ve also often found it incomprehensible. Moment-to-moment plotting still isn’t her strongest suit, but this is easily her best effort that I’ve sampled. I may even come to care about the characters beyond gawping at their violent high jinks. Even the sidebar notes – particularly the one where Yuki wishes good riddance on a villainous character she hated drawing – are entertaining. –David Welsh

Higurashi When They Cry: Demon Exposing Arc | By Ryukishi07 and En Kito | Yen Press – So far, the only portions of the Higurashi manga I’ve read have been peripheral to the main storyline, but each has convinced me that I will have to remedy that soon. This two-in-one omnibus collects the entirety of the Demon Exposing Arc, which depicts the insanity that befalls former Hinamizawa residents after said village is destroyed by a gas explosion. Normal teen Natsumi witnesses the madness firsthand and lives a bizarre double life wherein the boy she likes is confessing his feelings to her one moment, and her Hinamizawa-born grandma is drowning puppies in the bathtub the next. Soon her mother is exhibiting symptoms, leaving Natsumi with nowhere to turn. If the appeal of Higurashi is innocent-looking girls spattered with blood, then this creepy side story definitely lives up to the original. -Michelle Smith

La Quinta Camera | By Natsume Ono | VIZ Media – This collection of short, interconnected vignettes was Natsume Ono’s professional debut. Like Gente and Ristorante Paradiso, La Quinta Camera is set in Italy, and explores the lives of five people who share a common space — in this case, a five-room apartment inhabited by a handful of eccentric bachelors and a young Danish exchange student named Charlotte. As in Ono’s other Italian works, not much happens; characters plan parties, discuss the merits of living abroad, and occasionally share painful memories. The biggest difference between Camera and Ristorante Paradiso is craft: not only do the characters look flatter and squatter than the elegant gents of Casetta dell’Orso, but the writing is also not as polished, relying heavily on coincidence and sudden, emotional outbursts to advance the narrative. Despite its limitations, Camera still charms, offering a pleasant, if aimless, look at life in urban Italy. -Katherine Dacey

Moon and Blood, Vol. 1 | By Nao Yazawa | Digital Manga Publishing – There’s hardly anything to this short little volume from Nao Yazawa, better known here as the creator of the magical girl series Wedding Peach. It’s almost as if Yazawa is writing with a shoujo manga checklist in hand and marking off the clichés as she goes. Dense heroine, check. Mysterious boy, check. Jealous and excitable childhood friend, check. Situation in which boy—who is brilliant, athletic, and a great cook—is the son of a family friend and will now be living with the heroine and attending her school, check. There’s a small amount of supernatural intrigue—apparently the boy is a vampire and his cat-like sire is feeding off the heroine’s family—but it’s not enough to spark any genuine interest in this decidedly lackluster title. -Michelle Smith

From the stack: A Certain Scientific Railgun vol. 1

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The art is crisp and attractive, giving a reasonably clear rendering of events that range from stopping for a snack to frying a gang of thugs. Character designs are on the serviceable end of the spectrum, but they’re appealing enough.

Wait, I’m sorry. I started in the middle, and you don’t really have any idea what I’m talking about, do you? Isn’t that annoying? Let’s hit the reset button.

A Certain Scientific Railgun (Seven Seas), by Motoi Fuyukawa, is based on a side story from a very popular light-novel franchise, A Certain Magical Index, written by Kazuma Kamachi. There’s nothing in the way of publisher’s notes in Railgun to indicate that, but there are plenty of gaps in the story to suggest that you’re missing something. Characters and components of the fictional world have weight more by implication than by content which, let’s face it, is a lot less persuasive than it might be.

Railgun could be interesting on its own merits. It’s about a group of psychic schoolgirls who help keep the peace in their corner of a futuristic Tokyo. Some of them are on the law enforcement track, but the lead, Mikoto, is not, even though she’s one of the most powerful psychics in the city. This is never actually explained, and it never stops Mikoto from intervening, so the plot point hovers on the story’s fringes as a needless distraction. It’s hard not to like Mikoto for her toughness and independence, but it’s hard to care much about her adventures.

This is because Fuyukawa and Kamachi don’t seem to have much of an attention span for their actual story. Promising subplots and mysteries are put on hold for not-particularly-interesting slice-of-life sequences. I’m all in favor of manga where the heroines can both blow things up and take time to buy a new pair of pajamas, but these individual components actually seem to leech energy from one another rather than create an engaging or mutually supportive contrast. There’s an overall aimlessness that individual high points can’t overcome.

There are also bits of fan service that are both completely gratuitous and unimaginatively repetitive. The first time a classmate sneaks up on a scantily clad schoolgirl to feel her up, it’s jarring. The second time, the virtually identical staging makes me both irritated at the pandering and at the laziness. There isn’t a pervasive undercurrent of fan service, which makes these instances seem like somebody got a memo from the editor: “Our reader poll numbers are sagging. Throw in a girl-on-girl groping scene in the next chapter.”

Again, though, the real problem is that Railgun feels like a piece without a puzzle. If you squint (and search online), you can find the box with the picture, but that doesn’t improve the reading experience. I’d liken it to collecting one or two Marvel or DC comics that periodically get dragged into a major franchise event and have neither the time nor the inclination to fold that event into the narrative in an organic fashion. And that isn’t an experience I’m eager to repeat.

(Thanks to everyone who voted in the dubious manga poll that resulted in this review.)

MMF: Introduction to Wild Adapter

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MJ: Hello, everyone! I’m MJ.

MICHELLE: And I’m Michelle Smith.

MJ: We come before you today to introduce the subject of this month’s Manga Moveable Feast, Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter.

MICHELLE: It’s rather hard to describe Wild Adapter in a succint manner, so I think I am just going to quote myself, from my 2009 review of the series:

“On its surface, Wild Adapter is the story of Makoto Kubota, a former leader of a yakuza youth gang who is looking into a string of gruesome deaths, victims transformed into beasts by overdosing on a drug known as Wild Adapter. He takes in a “stray cat,” Minoru Tokito, with no memory of his past and a bestial right hand that indicates he’s had at least some exposure to the drug. Together, they attempt to unravel the mystery while Tokito strives to regain his memories and rival yakuza groups pursue Kubota for various reasons. Delving deeper, Wild Adapter is about two broken men who care for each other deeply but are so damaged that their affection manifests in unusual ways.”

Each volume can stand alone, as Kubota and Tokito, for example, infiltrate a cult with possible connections to Wild Adapter (volume three) or undergo questioning as a person of interest in a murder investigation (volume four). One unique trait of the series is that, in each volume, a new supporting character is introduced through whose eyes we see the lead characters. This results in all manner of interesting observations regarding them and their relationship. Kubota generally comes off as mysterious and untouchable and Tokito as brash yet honest, but only the more astute observers recognize how deeply the aloof Kubota, who has never cared for much of anything before, cares about and relies on Tokito. It’s pretty fascinating.

MJ: Wild Adapter has been serialized in Tokuma Shoten’s Chara since 2001, with six tankobon releases to date, all of which were published in English by TOKYOPOP (the last in November of 2008). The series has been on hiatus since 2009, leaving five chapters hanging without tankobon release or official translation. Given the author’s other obligations and many health problems it is unclear when or if it will be continued.

Minekura is best known for her series Saiyuki and its many offspring, originally published in Square Enix’s pretty, pretty shounen magazine, G-Fantasy and later moving onto the more overtly female-aimed pages of Ichijinsha’s Comic Zero-Sum, a progression that highlights one of the elements that makes Wild Adapter so appealing. With her talent for fantasy-adventure, Minekura prefers to explore the relationships between her male characters in the thick of battle rather than in the bedroom, even in a boys’ love series like Wild Adapter. She also prefers sly innuendo over explicit romance, which forces her to create intimacy in other ways, something I find particularly refreshing in a BL series. Like Akimi Yoshida’s Banana Fish, Minekura’s non-romance feels more intimate than many outright love stories. Unlike Yoshida, Minekura also has an unbeatable sense of style and a wicked sense of humor about the genre that’s difficult to resist.

MICHELLE: The fifth volume of the series is my favorite, because it combines all of the elements MJjust mentioned into a touching whole. This volume backtracks to fill in the missing year between volumes one and two and depicts the early days of Tokito and Kubota’s acquaintance, as seen through the eyes of their lonely elementary-school neighbor, Shouta. There’s action, as Kubota is pursued by yakuza toughs, and there’s humor, particularly in the form of the shounen-style manga Shouta is drawing about his neighbors, but the most affecting part of the story is the wary way in which Kubota and Tokito gradually get closer, as caring for someone else this much is new territory for both of them.

MJ: But why just take our word for it? Here are a few thoughts from other reviewers online:

“The third volume of Wild Adapter offers everything I loved about the first two: improbably sexy characters posing through mostly outlandish scenarios, all of which manage to be unexpectedly involving beyond their considerable surface sheen. From time to time, it’s also hysterically, intentionally funny. There’s a bit in the third volume that I don’t want to spoil, but it made me laugh out loud. It combines everything that I love about the book: deft plotting, high style, and Minekura’s standing as one of manga’s premiere teases.”
– David Welsh, The Manga Curmudgeon

“At risk of sounding like a repeat of my review of volume five, Wild Adapter continues to keep me completely hooked with its fast paced action, potent character drama and wickedly dark tone. My only disappointment is how short each volume feels by the time I’m done. As usual I’m looking forward to the next one with great anticipation and hope the series continues to maintain its grittily-charged charm.”
– Lissa Pattillo, Kuriousity

“Let’s not mince words. You’ve got a story about drugs and the mafia, so the M for Mature rating on the back cover should come as no surprise to you. There’s also a bit of boy love going on during several pages, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you might also consider passing on this series. Those who stick around, though, are in for a very well written series that definitely creates a dark and gritty tone…perfect for this kind of story. There’s a lot of roughness to the book, both in terms of artistic style and panel placement, which keeps things just a bit off center, never allowing the reader to feel truly balanced. Accidental or intentional, it complements this book nicely.”
– A. E. Sparrow, IGN

“I think this series is considered by many to be Kazuya Minekura’s strongest work, and it’s not hard to see why. The pacing and story construction of Wild Adapter are deliberate, artistic, and effective. The entire first volume works as a sort of prologue with a definite beginning, middle, and end, and the second lead doesn’t appear until the very end of said volume; it’s simultaneously self-contained and an excellent starting point for a broader premise. I like Volume 2 even more. Wild Adapter has its fair share of homosexual themes, but with the exception of a silly yazuka kiss, they’re handled with surprising care and subtlety–a far cry from the ridiculous nature of most Boy’s Love stories.”
– Lianne Sentar, Sleep is For the Weak

MICHELLE: Please join us throughout the week as we highlight more coverage of this remarkable series. Participation is highly encouraged (see this post for details) but not mandatory.

But, seriously, you really should read it.

MJ: We’ll be posting special Wild Adapter-themed features here from Wednesday through Saturday, and of course we’ll be collecting links to your contributions! All links will be archived on this page. Please remember to e-mail or message one of us with links to your posts. And if you happen to be blogless, we’ll be happy to post on your behalf!

Enjoy Wild Adapter!

Random weekend question: hot stuff

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While revisiting Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter (Tokyopop) for the upcoming Manga Moveable Feast, I’m reminded that it’s simply one of the sexiest manga I’ve ever read. The visual style, the design and conception of characters, the plot and pacing… everything about it is just cool. It’s a sleek, remorseless predator of a comic.

So I’m curious: what, in your opinions, are some of the sexiest comics you’ve read? I don’t necessarily mean books that contain a lot of sexual content. Manga Sutra (Tokyopop) is one of the least sexy comics I’ve ever read, for example. But what series have you found that have given off that vibe?