Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Blog

Bookshelf Briefs 6/20/11

by , and 3 Comments

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

by

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

by and 7 Comments

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

by

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?

 

Follow Friday: The MB Gang

by 1 Comment

It’s been a while since I put together a Follow Friday post, and with all the recent additions to the Manga Bookshelf family, it seems only right to make sure you all know how and where to follow this fine group of writers. You can check out our About Us page for a full list of everyone who has ever written for this network, but here’s a quick rundown of our current and recent contributors.

Bloggers

Our brilliant main bloggers can all be found on Twitter, and all of them have been more communicative than I have been lately. Manga Critic Katherine Dacey is the @manga_critic there as well, just as Manga Curmudgeon David Welsh is known as @MangaCur. The lovely Michelle Smith of our newest blog, Soliloquy in Blue, can be found @swanjun.

Contributors

A number of our regular contributors are avid twitterers as well, including anime reviewer Cathy Yan (@twoif), manhwa maven Hana Lee (@troisroyaumes) and our newest addition to the team, Okazu‘s Erica Friedman (@Yuricon).

Guests

Furthermore, you should be following all our wonderful special guests! You can find a slew of these lovely folks on Twitter, including Eva Volin (@funnypages), Robin Brenner (@nfntrobin), Khursten Santos (@khursten), Connie C. (@simside), Ed Sizemore (@edsizemore), and Aja Romano (@ajafair).

I can, of course, be found on Twitter (@mjbeasi), and you can keep up with our daily postings at the main account (@mangabookshelf).

Hope to see you there!

License request day: Sakuna Hitona

by

Looking at the major French awards programs that honor comics from Japan, it’s not hard to conclude that there’s a bit of bias in favor of male creators. All of the current Prix Asie nominees were created by men, as were this year’s manga honorees at Angoulême.

On the plus side, the actual commercial market for comics in France seems just as enthusiastic for Japanese comics by women as you’d expect. As you also might predict, they’re well ahead of us in terms of josei offerings. Just look at Sakka’s selection. Since I’m still in the throes of The Josei Alphabet, I thought I’d pick among Sakka’s josei titles for this week’s license request.

I’m quite taken with the description of Mlle Ôishi, titled Sukana Hitona by original publisher Shodensha for its four-volume run in Feel Young. It’s about a 30-ish woman who becomes engaged to a divorced man and the various difficulties that relationship presents. It follows protagonist Kon from 28 to 32 years old and considers the plight of the Japanese woman in search of her soul mate.

Minami has quite a body of work, a fair amount of which explores yuri themes. She also recently launched a series (Hirake Koma!) in Kodansha’s always-reliable Morning. I’d be very interested to see some of her work in English.

 

Demon Sacred #4, Shinobi Life #7, and Karakuri Odette #6

by

Ah, the last volumes of series published by Tokyopop. I can’t help but feel wistful when I think about not being able to read the end of these series. And since a decent number of volumes for both of these were published, I can’t imagine another company would pick up the licenses. Fortunately after feeling mournful about Demon Sacred and Shinobi Life, I was able to read the concluding volume of the ever delightful Karakuri Odette.

Demon Sacred #4

After the first few volumes of non-stop insanity with all the demons manifesting on earth as pop idol duplicates and reverse aging syndrome, the fourth volume is a little bit more settled. It felt to me like Itsuki was digging in a bit with her typical slow world building. One revelation I found interesting was that the immortal demons are attracted to humans due to their mortality. If a human ever truely loves a demon, the demon may finally receive the gift of a revered type of death. Shinobu’s evil sister Zophie manages to coax her way into his apartment by bribing K2 with pastries, and as soon as she gets a glimpse of the demon she decides to use her cougar wiles on him. Mona is less than thrilled about her demon running off with an older woman. Rina is dealing with the emotional effects of her reverse aging. Shinobu’s family and the government are introducing an anti-demon military and propaganda campaign and they’ve decided to approach Keito to act as their celebrity spokesperson. I love the way Itsuki manages to construct a story out of the most improbably elements but still manage to make everything happening seem believable and natural. With so many volumes left in this series, I’m really curious about where the story would have gone.

Shinobi Life #7

It seems like with every volume of this series there’s a surprising character revelation. Beni is trapped in the past with a younger version of Kegetora, while Kagetora travels to a time in Beni’s past when she is a little girl and her mother is alive. Beni is navigating through all the treachery and suspicion that surrounds Kagetora’s ninja clan, struggling with her feelings for a teenage Kagetora who hasn’t turned into the man she loves yet. Kagetora gets to observe a young Beni’s interactions with her mother, and he makes the discovery that Beni’s father is a time traveler as well. Beni’s mother describes what happens when travelers meet themselves, and Kagetora is determined to keep jumping through time until he finds her again. This was another great volume of Shinobi Life, and I’m sorry that I won’t be able to read the rest of the series.

Karakuri Odette #6

The final volume of this series has one of those open-ended conclusions that I sometimes find annoying, but Karakuri Odette has always been so episodic it didn’t bother me that no big plots were wrapped up at the end. Odette’s robot girl uniqueness is explored further when the sibling robots of rival creator Dr Owen cause further complications in her life. Travis has decided that Odette should be his robot bride. Even though Grace has a lower level of artificial intelligence, she’s jealous of Odette. Owen sees that Odette is superior to his own creations and is determined to grab her so he can find out how she became so advanced. Owen’s strategies to capture Odette result in horrible failure. He underestimates the capabilities of his own robots to decide on their own actions. He approaches Odette himself with a “Hey little girl” type line that she immediately sees through. Finally, he tries to get Odette’s human best friend Asao to deliver Odette to him, with disastrous results. Odette is working through the idea that she might not have a companion for life. Asao is moving on and graduating, and as much has he professes not to care for the robot girl, he still appears to help her whenever she’s in trouble. Chris just lurks in the background being silently supportive and Travis isn’t suitable for a number of reasons. Odette’s final lesson in her journey to becoming human is understanding the nature of change. As the school year ends, all the characters seem to be capable of moving on in their own ways.

Off the Shelf: Good Reads & Oddities

by and 7 Comments

MICHELLE: I just ate an uncooked tortilla full of cheese.

MJ: I am eating bread stuffed with pepperoni.

MICHELLE: Assuming yours was actually cooked, I deem you the more sophisticated snacker. Shall we stop talking food and start talking manga?

MJ: Sure! I had a great week in manga, actually, with new volumes from two of my favorite creators arriving at my doorstep. It began with volume six of Ooku, Fumi Yoshinaga’s historical manga set in an alternate version of feudal Japan in which the male population has been nearly wiped out, leaving women to step into traditionally male roles.

This series has been fascinating from the start, and I’ve written quite a bit about it, especially in terms of the way it portrays a gender-reversed society that is essentially still patriarchal. This is still fascinating, but what really struck me in particular as I was reading this volume is just how much it reads like true history. Everything about this volume evokes a feeling of authenticity so strong, if I didn’t know anything about the history of Japan, I would absolutely believe it was non-fiction. That might not sound like a compliment, considering the quality of writing in a lot of non-fiction, but I absolutely mean it as such.

Every detail here, even the odd speech and awkward cadence, feels authentic. This is enhanced greatly by the strong sense, in this volume particularly, that everything here is far in the past, imbuing the story with an aura of inevitability I can’t quite describe. These events are fact, immutable and accepted by generations of people before us. That’s how the story feels.

The series gets pretty unsavory in places, and this volume is no exception there, but one experiences it with the same acceptance as one must when reading history. Even the ugliest moments are irrevocably part of the story’s time and place.

This may seem like a pretty simplistic observation, but really, it hadn’t hit me so strongly before this point. It honestly felt like a revelation of a sort.

MICHELLE: I wonder if that viewpoint will help me get past the hurdle of volume two. “Fictional cat, fictional cat,” I’ve been trying to tell myself. Maybe my mantra should be “Fictional cat a long, long time ago” instead.

MJ: Perhaps even “Real cat from a long time ago whose memory stays alive through poignant depiction of its fate.”

MICHELLE: That may be pushing it a bit.

MJ: Well then, moving on, what have you read this week? You know, that doesn’t involve an untimely feline death?

MICHELLE: Some interesting stuff, actually! As you might be aware, I’ve had some difficulty in pinpointing how I feel about Julietta Suzuki’s Kamisama Kiss. Each volume has been more or less enjoyable, yet I’ve remained disappointed.

I’m happy to report that the third volume has hopefully changed that. This has less to do with any alterations on Suzuki’s part, however, and more with one I made myself: I stopped waiting to be impressed. Because I liked Suzuki’s Karakuri Odette so much, I was waiting for her to transcend that series with this new one, and it just wasn’t happening. By volume three, this impulse had largely subsided and I was able to simply enjoy the series for what it is: an episodic supernatural sitcom.

Volumes two and three have established a pattern: Nanami goes to school and encounters some new supernatural hottie from whom Tomoe, her slightly grumpy but actually kind shinshi (familiar), must protect and/or rescue her. Volume three’s interloper is Mizuki, a shinshi whose master has disappeared due to lack of worshippers. He takes the form of a white snake, and when he randomly shows up at Nanami’s school in this guise, she prevents other students from harming him. He repays this favor by leaving a mark on her that means they are now engaged.

It’s gratifying to see Tomoe spurred to action on Nanami’s behalf, even as he tries to tell himself it’s only on account of his shinshi dignity, and they are both awakening to their feelings more swiftly than I’d expected. None of this is really new territory—the description “Black Bird Lite” would not be far off—but as long as one stops expecting some sort of innovation, it’s actually a pretty nice story.

MJ: Now, one of the things I liked about the first volume of this series, is that it didn’t contain any of the blatant misogyny so characteristic of Black Bird. Given that you’ve described it as a “Lite” version of that series, what should I expect? Has this changed?

MICHELLE: Oh, no, it hasn’t. I just meant you’ve got a heroine whom supernatural fellows seem to desire—though this is usually on account of her kami powers or her shrine and not because boffing her will convey some benefit—and who has yet another supernatural bishounen to protect her. Tomoe isn’t condescending towards Nanami, in fact he’s beginning to acknowledge her good qualities, and though she’s grateful for his help, it’s not in a creepy “you validate me” sort of way. I guess it’s more or less the premise that’s similar, but the character dynamics are much more tolerable in Kamisama Kiss.

MJ: Makes me want to pick up volumes two and three so I can catch up!

MICHELLE: You should! So, what else did you read this week?

MJ: Well, I also received a copy of Natsume Ono’s La Quinta Camera , due out next month. As you know, I’m a big fan of the author, so I snatched this up to read just as soon as it arrived.

La Quinta Camera (The Fifth Bedroom) peeks into the world of a five-bedroom apartment in Italy, which is occupied by four middle-aged men and a stream of disparate foreign students who temporarily occupy the apartment’s fifth room. The story begins with Charlotte, a Danish student who comes to Italy to study the language, and whose tumultuous entry into the country takes a turn for the better upon her arrival at the apartment. At first, it seems like this will be her story, but by the beginning of the second chapter, Charlotte is already moving out, and suddenly it’s obvious that the real story revolves around the apartment’s constants, rather than its revolving fifth room.

This is early Ono, and there’s no denying it. After reading later series like Ristorante Paradiso and House of Five Leaves, it’s a bit jarring to return to the simpler, less refined art style that characterized not simple. What really shows off this story’s youth, however, is its narrative shakiness. Even slice-of-life manga like this benefits from a strong thread to hold it together, and there’s not all that much here to do the trick.

That said, what is here is brilliant in its own way. Ono’s talent for quiet characterization truly shines, though perhaps even that is overshadowed by her gift for nuance, especially when it comes to human relationships. Though most of the manga’s few threads of story feel woefully underdeveloped, Ono’s characters really live here, and there’s a sense that their lives continue offscreen even as we read. Particularly compelling is the personal journey of Massimo, the apartment’s owner, whose attachment to his roommates becomes tearfully apparent by the end.

Is this my favorite of Ono’s works? No, it’s not. But it’s still Ono, and that’s worth a lot.

MICHELLE: It almost sounds like a dress rehearsal for Ristorante Paradiso, with the young woman coming to Italy to have her lives enriched by a bunch of older men. And even if it’s not Ono’s best, it’s always interesting to read an early work of such a unique creator and chart how she has grown over the years.

MJ: Yes, it really is wonderful to be given the opportunity to trace the evolution of her work like this. I’m so pleased Viz has been releasing so much of her work!

So, what do you bring to us as our last selection for the evening?

MICHELLE: A bit of an odd duck, I’m afraid. I’m talking about the sixth volume of Raiders, published by Yen Press, which has the distinction of being the only manhwa I’ve read that is distinctly geared for a male audience.

Raiders is set in England, and follows a young man named Irel Clark as he first discovers then drinks from a bottle containing the blood of Jesus, which renders him immortal. Also searching for this magical beverage is Lamia, a zombie hoping for a cure, and they eventually team up, with Irel serving as her food supply. By the sixth volume, Irel and Lamia have parted ways and are independently learning some shocking truths about Christianity.

There is so much that’s wrong with Raiders. The story is convoluted and difficult to follow. The same could be said of the action scenes, and the art in general is just too bright/white. It makes me wish the book came with a knob so I could adjust the picture. The breakneck pace makes each volume a breeze to read, but there’s not enough time for plot developments to sink in, and there are still characters whose names I don’t know.

Even with all of these issues, though, I don’t actually dislike Raiders. Though one is bounced between scenes without always understanding how they relate, the scenes are usually interesting enough in their own right, and gradually a picture is beginning to emerge of what the series actually is: a very cynical take on Christianity and religion as a whole. If more people were aware of Raiders, I could imagine it causing a stir with quotes like “Religious zealots are no different than gambling addicts. They are obsessed lunatics.” In the world of Raiders, Christianity is most decidedly a myth, and one created with megalomaniacal aims in mind. Irel, with his newfound immortality, presents a challenge to the man responsible, which could lead to all manner of intriguing developments.

While I can’t really recommend Raiders, therefore, I intend to keep reading it.

MJ: Actually, the whole religion-is-lunacy theme you’re describing here makes me feel suddenly interested in the series.

MICHELLE: I had a feeling it might. There’s a sci-fi angle to it as well, which really doesn’t make any sense at this point (and might never), but that theme is certainly what made me really sit up and take notice.

MJ: You know, I’d become a little jaded about zombie comics, but I think I have to give this one a look, finally.

MICHELLE: Yeah, it’s less about humans having to fend off zombie hordes than it is about zombies being bummed out about their unlives.

MJ: Something we can all relate to. Heh.

MICHELLE: Yeah, though I thankfully haven’t had the experience of my leg failing to reattach itself on account of being sliced by the special sword wielded by an albino vampire.

MJ: You haven’t? Geez, Michelle, you’re so sheltered.

MICHELLE: I should get out more.

MJ: Indeed.

Taking a Close Look at Ultra Jump

by 11 Comments

This article was originally published at Mangacast.net.

As sure as boys become men, some boys who read manga become men who read manga. And, at some point, battles for ninja clan supremacy fail to fully meet the emotional needs of that audience. No, that audience wants more violence, less focus on teamwork and strangely uncomfortable series that resolve without ending or end without resolving. For these readers, Ultra Jump is the magazine of choice.

Running 16 series currently, Ultra Jump is heavy on the sci-fi/fantasy and action, with some martial arts and a soupçon of magic. Ultra Jump got it’s start in 1999, some 30 years after it’s younger brother Shounen Jump. UJ is a monthly magazine, retailing in Japan for ￥560 ($6.65USD at time of writing) for just over 500 pages and like Shounen Jump, it’s available pretty much anywhere manga magazines are sold in Japan and in most Japanese bookstores in America. The 2010 circulation for Ultra Jump is reported to be 73,20 which is slightly up from 2009’s 70,834 and close to the 2008 circulation.  Ultra Jump has a digital magazine called Ultra Jump Egg, which provides sample chapters of manga series that have just begun to run in the magazine or, are perhaps being considered for it.

Of the series running currently in Ultra Jump, several have had a checkered experience on US shores. Infamously, Tenjou Tenge, which recently finished, was originally licensed by CMX, who had the nerve to deprive the readership of a glimpse of girl’s underwear and was therefore censured strongly by the folks least likely to actually buy the thing anyway. Viz has rescued this audience from that hell of not being able to see girl’s underwear, and new omnibus volumes are starting to hit the shelves.  Hayate x Blade (the actual reason that I get Ultra Jump) has been licensed and published through volume 6 by Seven Seas. Because Sevens Seas licensed the title from the original publisher, Mediaworks (who ran it in Dengeki Daioh magazine through Volume 8, when it moved to Shuiesha and Ultra Jump,) there is some confusion among fans whether Seven Seas will be able to continue it at least through that point or whether Volume 6 will be as far as the series makes it in English.

Because Ultra Jump is a Shueisha book, it’s no surprise that Viz has a strong presence in the UJ license game. Hyperviolent dystopian Gumn, known here as Battle Angel Alita, has undergone only slightly fewer iterations on these shores as it has in Japan and has managed to successfully reach Volume 14 of the Final Order series. Volume 15 is slated to be released in autumn 2011 Bastard!!, which made it to Volume 19 in English, is known for going on hiatus with some regularity (and has reached that stage of “venerable old series, which means it is serialized on the order of twice a year, perhaps.) Bastard!! is now on hiatus in English, as well. Also currently published by Viz is the hyperviolent dystopian Dogs, Bullets and Carnage.

Ultra Jump series have a tendency to be very long-running as manga series, (Ninku, Tenjou Tenge, Gunm, Steel Ball Run) but if they are turned into an anime at all, the anime tend to be OVAs or short series without second seasons. The overwhelming feeling as a reader is that this is a magazine for readers of manga, as opposed to anime/manga fans. And not just readers, but readers who are in for the long haul, who are content to see the plot develop through long fight arcs and the small spaces in between them. Of the remaining unlicensed titles, I can see Jumbor being ported here, fueled by any success with Takei Hiroyuki’s collaboration with Stan Lee, Ultimo – Jumbor has very similar character designs, but a slightly more classic sci-fi feel. And I wonder if America would be ready for a Wild West manga like Minagawa Ryouji’s Peace Maker. Viz is still slowly popping out Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, so there’s at least a chance that, when that finishes, Steel Ball Run, a hyperviolent dystopian tale of the meanest polo game you ever did see, might make it over here. That, or when they hit the lottery and want to throw some of that money away on something people want, but will never buy.

The hyperviolent dystopian magical series Anima Chal Lives (one of my personal faves in the magazine), Grandeek Reel, Heaven’s Prison and Hatsukoi Magical Blitz all have about the same chance of being licensed as Needless, which is to say little, for any number of reasons, from constant, uneditable nudity, to constant, uneditable semi-nudity. (The Needless anime was licensed, I’m still not sure why. never was there a better-named series.)

I’ve seen UJ alternately labeled shounen (for boys, say 12-15) and seinen (for young men, say 16-25.) I’d weigh in on the side of seinen. It’s not that young boys can’t or won’t read and stick with long series – One Piece proves the lie on that pretty quickly – but that the sensibility of the stories, and the crises of identities are more “adult,” if you will. When I began this article, I was surprised, pleasantly, at how many of the series for this magazine have made it over here.  Viz has already resurrected Tenjou Tenge and, damn I’d love to hear that Hayate x Blade will be continued.

Ultra Jump, published monthly by Shueisha. http://ultra.shueisha.co.jp/

Erica Friedman write reviews of Yuri Manga, Anime and related media at her blog Okazu .

iPadding

by

Thanks to my partner, who is never quite as much of a cautious adopter as I am, we’re now proud caregivers of a couple of iPads. I’m still figuring out what exactly to do with it aside from coo over the fact that it’s really neat, but I’m sure I’ll be able to incorporate it into my time-wasting infrastructure without too much difficulty.

So far, I’ve only dabbled with a few comics apps and downloaded a few freebies, mostly from Archie, to see how they read. They’ve all looked fine, and my protests of being a dead-tree partisan will undoubtedly abate as more material becomes available. I won’t be quite so cautious when it comes to making unreasonable requests about just what kind of material I’d like to see.

In that direction, it’s very convenient that Kate posted the latest i-nnouncement from Viz Media over at The Manga Critic. My first reaction to the content available on the Viz app was that it was extremely cautious. That’s a sensible enough decision to make from a business standpoint, but it doesn’t exactly set my consumer’s heart racing. Their initial offerings were exactly the kind of titles I’d have absolutely no difficulty finding in any chain bookstore just about anywhere in the continental United States.

The recent round of additions is a bit exciting in that three of my very favorite current Viz titles – Children of the Sea, Cross Game and The Story of Saiunkoku – have been added to the roster, but that’s the excitement of a partisan seeing increased availability of and exposure for products he enjoys and admires. So while it’s rewarding to see Viz add more shôjo and seinen, they have a ways to go before my personal needs will be served.

One of Kate’s suggestions for Viz particularly resonated for me:

“(3) dig into their archives and resurrect out-of-print gems such as A A’, Banana Fish, Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President, Firefighter! Daigo of Company M, From Far Away, Please Save My Earth, and Urusei Yatsura.”

And since I can never resist the urge to list things, I thought I’d throw out five Viz properties that should be made available on the iPad:

Sexy Voice and Robo, written and illustrated by Iou Kuroda: Part of my love for this comic is the physical production of it, with its phone-book dimensions and appropriately pulpy paper. It’s hard to find, though, and if we can assume that the average iPad user might be a little older, I think this book might find a new audience through this device.

Phoenix, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka: Until Vertical works out contractual agreements and unveils its own app, this is seems like a reasonable opportunity to get one of Tezuka’s masterworks available in digital form. You’re in great shape if you can read Japanese, but English-only readers are out of luck so far.

Four Shôjo Stories, featuring works by Moto Hagio, Keiko Nishi, and Shio Satô: This one is a result of pure selfishness, as the available copies of this out-of-print collection are just too damned expensive. From a more self-righteous place, I think every manga publisher should devote at least some effort to publishing challenging, off-the-beaten-path works by women for women. The iPad seems like a natural habitat for that kind of material.

The Drifting Classroom, written and illustrated by Kazuo Umezu: Seriously, is there any mass transit experience that couldn’t be improved by the ability to read deranged Umezu manga? Sure, you risk strange looks from fellow travelers as you giggle at the over-the-top violence and total disregard for the well-being of children, but come on. Tell me this wouldn’t rock. I dare you.

Monster, written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa: In spite of near-universal critical acclaim, Urasawa’s works don’t seem to have earned matching commercial success, which has always struck me as odd. He writes the kind of genre-bending, sort-of-intellectual thrillers that a lot of prose readers really love. Maybe digital availability would give those prose readers incentive to give a graphic version of their genre of choice a shot.

So what Viz titles would you like to see on one of their digital platforms?