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Upcoming 5/4/2011

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It’s ComicList time! First, go take a look at the Manga Bookshelf crew’s Picks of the Week, then peruse the latest installment of Bookshelf Briefs, in which I gush about an arriving shôjo volume that makes me as happy as another makes me sad.

This week also brings the fourth and final volume of Nobuaki Tadano’s Eisner-nominated 7 Billion Needles (Vertical). I’ve enjoyed this series throughout its run, mostly for the evolution of its heroine, Hikaru, a grieving teen who’s forced out of her isolated state by the arrival of warring interstellar entities Horizon and Maelstrom. Their destructive, survival-of-the-fittest squabbling puts the people around Hikaru in danger and forces her to acknowledge the fact that she cares about them. Emotionally speaking, the conclusion is essentially Hikaru’s victory lap, her chance to prove how far out of her shell she’s come. In an odd way, that lowers the finale’s stakes and forces Tadano to inflate the science-fiction mayhem to almost incoherent levels.

It’s easy enough to ignore the twaddle about weaponized evolution, though, as Hikaru is still compelling, even though her personal journey is pretty much over before the story begins. She’s held the series together this long, and it’s nice to see her put the things she’s learned into action, even if that action doesn’t make much sense at all.

The only thing not covered above that I look forward to reading is the eighth volume of Karuho Shiina’s consistently delightful Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Viz). The good shôjo arriving this week certainly overpowers the bad.

What looks enticing to you?

 

PotW: Hikaru no go, Lychee Light Club, Kekkaishi

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It’s a banner week for manga arrivals at Midtown Comics. See below for recommendations from the Manga Bookshelf bloggers and special guest Michelle Smith!

MICHELLE: There’s a lot of good stuff hitting Midtown Comics this week, including new volumes of several of my Shojo Beat favorites. But I simply must award my pick of the week to the 23rd and final volume of Hikaru no Go. I have loved this series for a long time—I read the first volume in June 2004, and that was after I’d seen the anime—and the fact that it’s finally ending is pretty bittersweet. I’ll miss following much-beloved characters as they, in the grand tradition of sports manga, try their best to get stronger, but at the same time, it’s hard to feel too bummed out knowing that I’ll now have the luxury of binging on the entire series at once. Not only is Hikaru no Go a keeper, it’s a treasure.

MJ: Well, wow, it’s incredibly tempting to second Michelle’s choice. I have a deep, deep love for Hikaru no Go, something you’ll all be hearing more about as the week goes on. In the interest of diversity, however, I’ll take up the torch for Usamaru Furuya’s Lychee Light Club, a highly-anticipated new title from Vertical, featuring a secret society of middle-school boys who are developing a lychee-fueled “thinking machine.” Billed by Vertical as “Lord of the Flies for our new century,” the book is reportedly dark and pretty graphic in terms of sexuality and gore. It’s also reportedly awesome. Given Vertical’s recent track record with me, I say, “sign me up!”

DAVID: It’s certainly an embarrassment of riches this week, and I certainly second both Michelle and MJ’s choices, and there are new volumes of some utterly winning shôjo series (Kimi ni Todoke and The Story of Saiunkoku leap to mind), but I’m going to cast my vote for the Kekkaishi 3-in-1 Edition by Yellow Tanabe. I’ve read some of this series and enjoyed it a great deal, and I’ve always meant to go start it from the beginning at some point, so I’m very pleased to have an easy and inexpensive entry point. Any book that Kate describes as “The Best Manga You’re Not Reading” is worth some serious attention, I think.

KATE: I’ve always been puzzled that Kekkaishi wasn’t a bigger hit here in the US, as it has so many things going for it: great characters, cool-looking monsters, and artfully choreographed fight scenes that are exciting and unpredictable. With the series coming to an end in Japan, VIZ seems to be re-doubling its efforts to make Kekkaishi a success, promoting the anime through its website and re-issuing the series in a wallet-friendly omnibus edition. I’d strongly encourage InuYasha fans to give it a try, as I think they’ll find a lot of positive similarities between the two series, from the authors’ imaginative use of folklore to the authors’ penchant for feisty, smart female characters who pull their own weight in battles.

Readers, what are your Picks this week?

Link of the day: On Ono

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Over at Otaku Champloo, Khursten Santos does a perfectly splendid job exploring the complex and varied works of Natsume Ono, one of the most interesting creators currently working in manga and certainly one of my personal favorites:

There’s more to Natsume Ono than Italian restaurants and kidnappers. In fact, doing this spotlight for Natsume Ono requires a journey for my readers. If you would allow me, I’d like to take you to a journey down to Ono’s lane because knowing her works takes more than just looking at her pictures. You’ve got to immerse yourself and experience her works to understand how Natsume Ono is definitely not simple.

It’s a great look at Ono’s body of work, especially welcome for its examination of some of her yet-to-be-licensed stories.

 

Bookshelf Briefs 5/2/11

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This week, Kate, David, MJ, and Michelle check out a batch of new releases from Viz Media, TOKYOPOP, and Vertical, Inc.

7 Billion Needles, Vol. 4 | By Nobuaki Tadano | Vertical, Inc. – The final volume of 7 Billion Needles epitomizes what’s good — and bad — about Nobuaki Tadano’s adaptation of Needle, Hal Clement’s 1950 novel. On the plus side, Tadano’s protagonist is a genuine improvement on Clement’s; with her quicksilver moods and impulsive behavior, Hikaru is a more intriguing, sympathetic character than the super-wholesome Bob. On the minus side, Tadano deviates from Clement’s novel in volumes three and four, introducing a confusing storyline about a planet-wide evolutionary crisis sparked by Horizon and Maelstrom’s arrival on Earth. Though Tadano’s apocalyptic imagery is suitably nightmarish, these later scenes aren’t as tense or clearly staged as the early cat-and-mouse game between Hikaru and Maelstrom; Tadano relies too heavily on a god-like character to explain what’s going on, sapping the story of its narrative urgency. On the whole, however, 7 Billion Needles is an ambitious, entertaining riff on Clement’s original story. – Katherine Dacey

Dengeki Daisy Vol. 4 | By Kyousuke Motomi | Viz Media – Warning: Reading this book while drowsy may seriously impair your ability to stay awake. In the previous volume, Teru found out that the mysterious DAISY with whom she’s been corresponding is really Kurosaki, the snarky custodian of her school and object of her affection. Now, uncertainty about how to act around him ensues. Once some equilibrium in that regard is restored, the plot bounces around disjointedly, from Teru considering attending a group date to hone her feminine wiles, to DAISY revealing regrets about his past, to a cell phone virus designed by a fake DAISY spreading around campus. There are a few decent moments to be found, but on the whole, this volume is a total yawn banquet. -Michelle Smith

Hikaru no Go, Vol. 23 | By Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata | Viz Media – After seven years and 23 volumes, this long-running shounen series finally comes to a close as Hikaru faces young Korean Go star Ko Yong Ha in the final round of the Hokuto Cup. While one might expect these chapters to focus on the competition itself, Yumi Hotta looks further, into the reasons these young men play the game at all. Though a quiet ending may not be typical for the genre, this series concludes with the same thoughtful elegance that has characterized it from the start, emphasizing the the long history and limitless future of game and those who choose to play it. While it’s sad to reach the end of a series that has so long been a favorite, it’s gratifying when that ends is so graceful and thought-provoking. Extras in this volume include character sketches from artist Takeshi Obata and two bonus chapters. Highly recommended.-MJ

The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko, Vol. 2 | By Ririko Tsujita | TOKYOPOP – Among the many sad results of the closing of Tokyopop is that readers have one less shôjo heroine who casually quotes Nietzsche. Kanoko, our sharply observant protagonist, continues to chronicle junior-high foolishness and allows herself to be drawn into the woes of her ever-changing roster of classmates. Aside from the fact that these stories are bracingly sarcastic and funny, they also feature nicely crafted messages – be yourself, know your limitations and strengths, say what’s on your mind, and so on. Tsujita makes the most of what could be a repetitive premise, crafting interesting characters and scenarios that allow Kanoko to do what she does best: spy and meddle. While it’s unfortunate that we probably won’t be getting the third and final volume of this series any time soon, it’s episodic in nature, and I don’t have any qualms about recommending you enjoy what we have. -David Welsh

The Story of Saiunkoku, Vol. 3 | By Kairi Yura and Sai Yukino | Viz Media – This is my favorite shôjo series currently in release. It’s got complex, sympathetic characters living in a well-developed, beautifully appointed world. This volume begins a new arc where the heat of summer is leaving the royal offices woefully understaffed. Our hardworking heroine Shurei dresses up as a boy so she can temp in the treasury. The experience is rewarding, but it leads her to wonder if her dream of becoming a civil servant (a profession that’s only for men in this culture) is worth pursuing, or if she should settle for traditionally female pursuits. The fact that the creators can thoughtfully address these kinds of issues and still pack the pages with comedy, romance, and courtly intrigue is a marvelous accomplishment. Like Shurei, the book is generous, smart, sincere, and ambitious. -David Welsh

From the stack: Ai Ore! vol. 1

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Who could have predicted that the comic I read this week that really made my skin crawl wasn’t Usumaru Furuya’s Lychee Light Club (Vertical)? No, that dubious honor goes to Mayu Shinja’s Ai Ore! (Viz). It manifests the kind of dreadful sexual politics I secretly hoped for from The Beautiful Skies of Hou Ou High, providing a handy reminder that one should always be careful about the wishes one makes.

It begins with an all-girl rock band losing its lead singer and the subsequent application of a boy for the vacant spot in the line-up. The band members are all sexy and androgynous, and they’re idols at their all-girl high school. The would-be singer is delicate and feminine, and his classmates have declared him the princess of their all-boy academy. Mizuki, the de facto leader of Blaue Rosen, is reluctant to admit Akira to the band. She doesn’t think she’s particularly fond of guys, but Akira is persistent. In fact, he’s creepily persistent. One might even say he doesn’t take no for an answer.

His desire to join the band is driven mostly by his obsession with Mizuki, and her repeatedly expressed disinterest doesn’t really penetrate Akira’s disconcerting determination. He’s one of those “just a matter of time” love interests who keeps acting like the girl’s already fallen for him (or that she doesn’t have a say in the matter). In spite of her formidable demeanor, Mizuki can’t seem to effectively fend off Mizuki’s persistent advances. Worse still, and obviously, she doesn’t really want to.

This is the part where I start ranting like an old prude, but dynamics like this really bother me. I hate the whole “I know what you want better than you do” précis, and I think it sends a horrible message. I really hate unwanted physical affection being presented as romantic or, even worse, cute. I hate when female characters are repeatedly put in peril so their stalker love interests can save them and look marginally better by comparison. And I hate Akira.

I find him repulsive. Part of this is due to the way that Shinja draws him. She’ll give Akira close-ups, narrated by Mizuki talking about how cute or ardent he looks. I think he looks demented in these panels, but maybe I’m just projecting my interpretation of his behavior on his appearance. It’s certainly partly because of the horrible lines he uses on Mizuki. (“Instead of singing about love, drown yourself in me.” “I came to take advantage of… your sadness, Mizuki-Chan.” “Don’t  you like me licking you?”) But mostly it’s just his obnoxious, menacing behavior. His final acts of the volume go so far beyond the pale that the second should begin with him being sent to jail.

Listen, I’m not naive enough to think that this kind of thing doesn’t have its audience, and I certainly don’t think that I’m going to make any difference by bitching about it. But when my primary response to a romantic narrative is “Nobody who actually loves you would treat you that way,” then it seems worth noting, at least for the record.

(Based on a review copy provided by the publisher.)

 

Blind date May 2011

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We have three candidates for this month’s boys’-love blind date, all courtesy of Digital Manga (a publisher I feel kind of owes me one). You can check out last month’s inaugural attempt for the parameters of my taste in this category and some disclaimers. Now, let’s check out the gents!

Sky Link, written and illustrated by Shiro Yamada: Ban Ritsuki was looking forward to his university life. Then, on his very first day, he bumps into a strange man on campus who tells him that he has the sort of face that he likes. Reacting badly, he tells the man he is disgusting. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the matter, as the stranger turns out to be one of his lecturers, Takagi Shoutaro. Ban finds this irritating enough, but Takagi can’t seem to get the message that he wants him to just leave him alone as much as possible. To be honest, Takagi just really pushes Ban’s rage buttons. That is, until one unguarded moment when Ban catches sight of Takagi sky gazing, with a look of intense melancholy upon his face. Finding his heart unexpectedly moved, Ban discovers that sometimes irritation can be a symptom of something besides anger, but what is it?

You get three guesses, Ban, and the first two don’t count. On the plus side, I like manga set in universities. On the down side, I’m getting a “no means yes” vibe from this. Yamada seems to have done a lot of Gin Tama doujinshi, which is a mitigating factor, as it seems like relatively intriguing slash fodder. Sky Link originally ran in Taiyo Tosho’s HertZ.

An Even More Beautiful Lie, written and illustrated by Kei Kanai: When art student Kurosu Keiichiro notices a young man leaving his umbrella on the train, he runs after him to return it. In so doing, he ends up missing his last train home. Feeling responsible, the young man offers his place for the night. Turns out he is a fellow student at Keiichiro’s university, one Yukari Yohito who has already garnered considerable attention for his artwork. Yukari may be a genius with paints and a canvas, but is completely hopeless at everything else as Keiichiro discovers. Striking up a friendship, Keiichiro begins coming by to take care of things for Yukari. The more he involves himself in Yukari’s life, however, the deeper Keiichiro’s feelings begin to run. It’s no longer mere friendship or even admiration that moves him, but just what should he do about it?

Bus stop, wet day, he’s there, I say, “Please share my umbrella.”

You guys, I seriously hate that song, but this comic sounds like it could be pretty good. This is obviously not qualitatively relevant, but it makes me smile that it’s right next to All Nippon Air Line in DMP’s title roster. An Even More Beautiful Lie also ran in HertZ.

Warning! Whispers of Love, written and illustrated by Puku Okuyama: The beginning of high school is a time of dreams, which are all too soon broken. So while one may fall in love at first sight, the other may run. But love and romance are a hard dream to kill off. Running prey simply have to be chased in order to be caught, right? And in the classroom, there is no real escape from whispered words and subtle actions. Comedy ensues when two classmates play cat and mouse, with their hearts at stake!

Since it features high-school boys, it would take some enormously persuasive argument to get me to seriously consider reading this comic. It would have to be really funny and surprising, and I’m already totally picturing the trite stuck-on-cleaning-duty-with-him scene. Warning! Whispers of Love ran in Taiyo Tosho’s Craft.

So, there are our mystery men. Thoughts?

 

New Let’s Get Visual: Funny Pages

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After taking March off, Michelle and I are back with a new installment of Let’s Get Visual, our monthly discussion of manga artwork.

For this month’s theme, to quote Michelle, “We examined intensely emotional moments in our last column, so this time we’re going in the opposite direction by highlighting pages that make us laugh.” Michelle begins first, bringing us a charming scene featuring Koh, the talking snake from Shiho Sugiura’s quasi-BL series, Silver Diamond (TOKYOPOP). I take my own selection from Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&!.

As always, the point of the column is to help us develop our ability as manga critics, so please join the discussion, especially if you have something new to teach us!

Find the column here at Michelle’s blog, Soliloquy in Blue.

Previews review May 2011

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After a couple of months of fairly jam-packed Previews catalogs, I suppose it could seem petty to complain that the current listings seem a little slender. There aren’t even enough debuts to manage a dubious manga poll for the month. Fortunately, there are some highlights worth noting.

Book of Human Insects, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka, Vertical, item code MAY 11 1268: How can one complain about a month that offers the English-language debut of crazy Tezuka seinen? This one originally ran in Akita Shoten’s Play Comic and has been published in French by Casterman as La femme insecte. It’s a mystery about an unscrupulous and manipulative woman. Vertical promises “more twists and turns than MW,” which hardly seems possible.

Veronica #208: Veronica Presents Kevin Keller #2: written and illustrated by Dan Parent, colored by Rich Koslowski, Archie Comics, item code MAY 11 0836: Okay, I missed mentioning the first issue of this, but Kevin (Robot 6) Melrose’s preview of part two of the mini-series about Riverdale’s newest resident, who happens to be gay, reminded me to be excited. (And just as a side note, who would have predicted that Archie would have proven to be the nimblest and most risk-friendly of pamphlet publishers? Not me, that’s for sure.)

Until the Full Moon, written and illustrated by Sanami Matoh, Kodansha Comics, item code MAY 11 1129: This isn’t a debut, per se, as the series was previously published by Broccoli Books. I thought the first volume was kind of dull back then, but I’m among the many who hold a special place in my heart for Matoh’s Fake (Tokyopop), so I thought this book’s return was worth mentioning.

That’s pretty much it as far as debuts go. Here are some particularly enticing new volumes of ongoing series.

Little Nothings volume 4: My Shadow in the Distance, written and illustrated by Lewis Trondheim, NBM, item code MAY 11 1142: These are smart, charming, observational-autobiographical comics from an incredibly talented creator, and they’re incredibly easy on the eye. You can check out a bunch of them at Trondheim’s blog for NBM.

And here’s a by-no-means complete list of new volumes of ongoing series that I’m looking forward to reading:

  • 20th Century Boys vol. 16, written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa, Viz Media, item code MAY 11 1241
  • Arisa vol. 3, written and illustrated by Natsumi (Kitchen Princess) Ando, Kodansha Comics, item code MAY 11 1122
  • Black Jack vol. 17, written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka, Vertical, item code MAY 11 1269
  • Book Girl and the Captive Fool, written by Mizuki Nomura, Yen Press, item code MAY 11 1281

I’ll post another blind date experiment with the current batch of boys’-love candidates tomorrow.

 

5 Reasons to Read InuYasha

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InuYasha was the first comic that I actively collected, the manga that introduced me to the Wednesday comic-buying ritual and the very notion of self-identifying as a fan. Though I followed it religiously for years, trading in my older editions for new ones, watching the anime, and speculating about the finale, my interest in the series gradually waned as I was exposed to new artists and new genres. Still, InuYasha held a special place in my heart; reading it was one of my seminal experiences as a comic fan, making me reluctant to re-visit InuYasha for fear of sullying those precious first-manga memories. VIZ’s recent decision to re-issue InuYasha in an omnibus edition, however, inspired me to pick it up again. I made a shocking discovery in the process of re-reading the first chapters: InuYasha is good. Really good, in fact, and deserving of more respect than it gets from many critics.

What makes InuYasha work? I can think of five reasons:

1. The story arcs are long enough to be complex and engaging, but not so long as to test the patience.

There’s a Zen quality to Rumiko Takahashi’s storytelling that might not be obvious at first glance; after all, she loves a pratfall or a sword fight as much as the next shonen manga-ka. Don’t let that surface activity fool you, however: Takahashi has a terrific sense of balance, staging a romantic interlude between a demon-of-the-week episode and a longer storyline involving Naraku’s minions, thus preventing the series from devolving into a punishing string of battle arcs. The other great advantage of this approach is that Takashi carves out more space for her characters to interact as people, not just combatants; as a result, InuYasha is one of the few shonen manga in which the characters’ relationships evolve over time.

2. Takahashi knows how to stage a fight scene that’s dramatic, tense, and mercifully short.

‘Nuff said.

3. InuYasha‘s villains are powerful and strange, not strawmen.

Though we know our heroes will prevail — it’s shonen, for Pete’s sake — Takahashi throws creative obstacles in their way that makes their eventual triumph more satisfying. Consider Naraku. In many respects, he’s a standard-issue bad guy: he’s omnipotent, charismatic, and manipulative, capable of finding the darkness and vulnerability in the purest soul. (He also has fabulous hair, another reliable indication of his villainy.) Yet the way in which Naraku wields power is genuinely unsettling, as he fashions warriors from pieces of himself, then reabsorbs them into his body when they outlive their usefulness. Naraku’s manifestations are peculiar, too. Some are female, some are children, some have monstrous bodies, and some have the power to create their own demonic offspring, but few look like the sort of golem I’d create if I wanted to wreak havoc. And therein lies Naraku’s true power: his opponents never know what form he’ll take next, or whether he’s already among them.

Sesshomaru, too, is another villain who proves more interesting than he first appears. In the very earliest chapters of the manga, he’s a bored sociopath who has no qualms about using InuYasha’s mama trauma to trick his younger brother into revealing the Tetsusaiga’s location. As the story progresses, however, Sesshomaru begins tolerating the company of a cheerful eight-year-old girl who, in a neat inversion of the usual human-canine relationship, is dependent on her dog-demon master for protection, food, and companionship. Takahashi resists the urge to fully “humanize” Sesshomaru, however; he remains InuYasha’s scornful adversary for most of the series, largely unchanged by his peculiar fixation with Rin.

And did I mention that Sesshomaru has awesome hair? Oh, to be a villain in a Takahashi manga!

4. InuYasha‘s female characters kick ass.

Back in 2008, Shaenon Garrity wrote a devastatingly funny article about the seven types of female characters in shonen manga, from The Tomboy to The Little Girl to The Experienced Older Woman. I’m pleased to report that none of these types appear in InuYasha; in fact, InuYasha boasts one of the smartest, toughest, and most appealing set of female characters in shonen manga. And by “tough,” I don’t mean that Kagome, Kikyo, and Sango brandish weapons while wearing provocative outfits; I mean they persist in the face of adversity, even if their own lives are at stake. They’re strong enough to hold their own against demons, ghosts, and heavily armed bandits, and wise enough to know when words are more effective than weapons. They’re not adverse to the idea of romance, but recovering the Shikon Jewel takes precedence over dating. And they’re woman enough to cry if something awful happens, though they’d rather shed their tears in private than show their pain to others.

5. The horror! The horror!

Takahashi may have the coolest resume of anyone working in manga today; not only did she study script writing with Kazuo Koike, she also worked as an assistant to Kazuo Umezu — an apprenticeship that’s evident in the early chapters of InuYasha. In between Kagome and InuYasha’s first encounters with Naraku are a handful of short but spooky stories in which seemingly benign objects — a noh mask, a peach tree — are transformed by Shikon Jewel shards into instruments of torture and killing. Takahashi’s horror stories are less florid than Umezu’s, with fewer detours into WTF? territory, but like Umezu, Takahashi has a vivid imagination that yields some decidedly scary images. Here, for example, is the demonic peach tree from chapter 79, “The Fruits of Evil”:

Takahashi doesn’t just use these images to shock; she uses them to illustrate the consequences of ugly emotions, impulsive actions, and violent behavior, to show us how these choices slowly corrode the soul and transform us into the most monstrous version of ourselves. (Also to show us the consequences of substituting human bones and blood for Miracle Gro. Kids, don’t try this at home.)

What Takahashi does better than almost anyone is walk the fine line between terror and horror. Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, author of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797), was one of the first writers to argue that terror and horror were different states of arousal. “Terror and Horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them,” she wrote in an 1826 essay, “On the Supernatural in Poetry.” Critiquing Radcliffe’s work in 1966, Devendra P. Varma explained that difference more concretely: “The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.” And that’s exactly where Takahashi operates: she gives us tantalizing, suggestive glimpses of scary things, then keeps them obscured until the denouement of the story, allowing our imaginations to supply most of the grisly details. We read her work in a heightened state of awareness, which only intensifies our pleasure — and revulsion — when the true nature of Kagome and InuYasha’s foes are revealed.

* * * * *

If you haven’t looked at InuYasha in a while, or missed it during the height of its popularity, now is a great time to give it a try. Each volume of the VIZBIG edition collects three issues, allowing readers to more fully immerse themselves in the story. And if you’re a purist about packaging, you’ll be happy to know that VIZ is finally issuing InuYasha in an unflipped format — a first in the series’ US history.

5 Reasons to Read InuYasha

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InuYasha was the first comic that I actively collected, the manga that introduced me to the Wednesday comic-buying ritual and the very notion of self-identifying as a fan. Though I followed it religiously for years, trading in my older editions for new ones, watching the anime, and speculating about the finale, my interest in the series gradually waned as I was exposed to new artists and new genres. Still, InuYasha held a special place in my heart; reading it was one of my seminal experiences as a comic fan, making me reluctant to re-visit InuYasha for fear of sullying those precious first-manga memories. VIZ’s recent decision to re-issue InuYasha in an omnibus edition, however, inspired me to pick it up again. I made a shocking discovery in the process of re-reading the first chapters: InuYasha is good. Really good, in fact, and deserving of more respect than it gets from many critics.

What makes InuYasha work? I can think of five reasons:

1. The story arcs are long enough to be complex and engaging, but not so long as to test the patience.

There’s a Zen quality to Rumiko Takahashi’s storytelling that might not be obvious at first glance; after all, she loves a pratfall or a sword fight as much as the next shonen manga-ka. Don’t let that surface activity fool you, however: Takahashi has a terrific sense of balance, staging a romantic interlude between a demon-of-the-week episode and a longer storyline involving Naraku’s minions, thus preventing the series from devolving into a punishing string of battle arcs. The other great advantage of this approach is that Takashi carves out more space for her characters to interact as people, not just combatants; as a result, InuYasha is one of the few shonen manga in which the characters’ relationships evolve over time.

2. Takahashi knows how to stage a fight scene that’s dramatic, tense, and mercifully short.

‘Nuff said.

3. InuYasha‘s villains are powerful and strange, not strawmen.

Though we know our heroes will prevail — it’s shonen, for Pete’s sake — Takahashi throws creative obstacles in their way that makes their eventual triumph more satisfying. Consider Naraku. In many respects, he’s a standard-issue bad guy: he’s omnipotent, charismatic, and manipulative, capable of finding the darkness and vulnerability in the purest soul. (He also has fabulous hair, another reliable indication of his villainy.) Yet the way in which Naraku wields power is genuinely unsettling, as he fashions warriors from pieces of himself, then reabsorbs them into his body when they outlive their usefulness. Naraku’s manifestations are peculiar, too. Some are female, some are children, some have monstrous bodies, and some have the power to create their own demonic offspring, but few look like the sort of golem I’d create if I wanted to wreak havoc. And therein lies Naraku’s true power: his opponents never know what form he’ll take next, or whether he’s already among them.

Sesshomaru, too, is another villain who proves more interesting than he first appears. In the very earliest chapters of the manga, he’s a bored sociopath who has no qualms about using InuYasha’s mama trauma to trick his younger brother into revealing the Tetsusaiga’s location. As the story progresses, however, Sesshomaru begins tolerating the company of a cheerful eight-year-old girl who, in a neat inversion of the usual human-canine relationship, is dependent on her dog-demon master for protection, food, and companionship. Takahashi resists the urge to fully “humanize” Sesshomaru, however; he remains InuYasha’s scornful adversary for most of the series, largely unchanged by his peculiar fixation with Rin.

And did I mention that Sesshomaru has awesome hair? Oh, to be a villain in a Takahashi manga!

4. InuYasha‘s female characters kick ass.

Back in 2008, Shaenon Garrity wrote a devastatingly funny article about the seven types of female characters in shonen manga, from The Tomboy to The Little Girl to The Experienced Older Woman. I’m pleased to report that none of these types appear in InuYasha; in fact, InuYasha boasts one of the smartest, toughest, and most appealing set of female characters in shonen manga. And by “tough,” I don’t mean that Kagome, Kikyo, and Sango brandish weapons while wearing provocative outfits; I mean they persist in the face of adversity, even if their own lives are at stake. They’re strong enough to hold their own against demons, ghosts, and heavily armed bandits, and wise enough to know when words are more effective than weapons. They’re not adverse to the idea of romance, but recovering the Shikon Jewel takes precedence over dating. And they’re woman enough to cry if something awful happens, though they’d rather shed their tears in private than show their pain to others.

5. The horror! The horror!

Takahashi may have the coolest resume of anyone working in manga today; not only did she study script writing with Kazuo Koike, she also worked as an assistant to Kazuo Umezu — an apprenticeship that’s evident in the early chapters of InuYasha. In between Kagome and InuYasha’s first encounters with Naraku are a handful of short but spooky stories in which seemingly benign objects — a noh mask, a peach tree — are transformed by Shikon Jewel shards into instruments of torture and killing. Takahashi’s horror stories are less florid than Umezu’s, with fewer detours into WTF? territory, but like Umezu, Takahashi has a vivid imagination that yields some decidedly scary images. Here, for example, is the demonic peach tree from chapter 79, “The Fruits of Evil”:

Takahashi doesn’t just use these images to shock; she uses them to illustrate the consequences of ugly emotions, impulsive actions, and violent behavior, to show us how these choices slowly corrode the soul and transform us into the most monstrous version of ourselves. (Also to show us the consequences of substituting human bones and blood for Miracle Gro. Kids, don’t try this at home.)

What Takahashi does better than almost anyone is walk the fine line between terror and horror. Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, author of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797), was one of the first writers to argue that terror and horror were different states of arousal. “Terror and Horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them,” she wrote in an 1826 essay, “On the Supernatural in Poetry.” Critiquing Radcliffe’s work in 1966, Devendra P. Varma explained that difference more concretely: “The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.” And that’s exactly where Takahashi operates: she gives us tantalizing, suggestive glimpses of scary things, then keeps them obscured until the denouement of the story, allowing our imaginations to supply most of the grisly details. We read her work in a heightened state of awareness, which only intensifies our pleasure — and revulsion — when the true nature of Kagome and InuYasha’s foes are revealed.

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If you haven’t looked at InuYasha in a while, or missed it during the height of its popularity, now is a great time to give it a try. Each volume of the VIZBIG edition collects three issues, allowing readers to more fully immerse themselves in the story. And if you’re a purist about packaging, you’ll be happy to know that VIZ is finally issuing InuYasha in an unflipped format — a first in the series’ US history.