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Shojo Beat Quick Takes – Rasetsu and Butterflies Flowers

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Rasetsu Volume 8 by Chika Shiomi

I generally enjoy Chika Shiomi series. She has a predilection for creating male leads that are both attractive and somehow possessed by demons, which causes her heroines to be tormented by their love for these ultimate bad boys. I tried the first 4 volumes or so of Rasetsu and then stopped getting the series. While I enjoyed it, I wasn’t feeling as much of an emotional connection to the story as I did with Yurara, the series it was spun off from. But dipping back into it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this volume. The more episodic monster-hunting plot elements are cast aside in favor of the ongoing dilemma of Rasetsu’s love life. If she doesn’t find true love by the age of eighteen, a demon is going to come to claim her. Rasetsu and Yako’s attraction has been growing, but she doesn’t want to use him to escape her curse. Kyuru has always been Shiomi’s prototypical bad boy, and the reader finally gets an explanation as to his true nature. The series finally seems to be heading towards a final confrontation between Rasetsu and the demon who cursed her, and I’m curious to see what happens next. I am team Yako all the way, if he doesn’t get the girl at the end of Rasetsu after his heartbreak at the end of Yurara I am going to be very disappointed.

Butterflies, Flowers Volume 6 by Yuki Yoshihara

After six volumes Butterflies, Flowers isn’t exactly heading into new territory as it details the odd relationship between “Lady” turned office worker Choko and servant turned boss Masayuki, but each volume of this series usually has at least one incident that really makes me laugh. The panel in this volume that I thought was hilarious was Masayuki’s crestfallen expression when he realizes that Choko has been stolen away from him and he realizes that he has neglected to place his customary tracking bug in her underwear.

There’s plenty of the usual office hijinks as the staff travel to a hot springs for a vacation and Masayuki tries to protect Choko from potentially lecherous coworkers. Choko shows her tougher side when she faces down a bunch of thieves to protect Otaki, a strict new boss who transfers in to her company. Unfortunately seeing Choko in action causes Otaki to develop a strong crush on her and Masayuki is faced with more trouble ahead when his ex-girlfriend returns to work with him again. I’m actually impressed that the evil ex hasn’t made an appearance in this series until the sixth volume. For all the machinations and problems that get thrown in Choko’s and Masayuki’s path, they still seem to have a strong foundation as a couple. I’m still enjoying this manga’s combination of heartfelt proclamations of love and bizarre sex comedy.

Previews review March 2011

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The March 2011 edition of the Previews catalog is packed with noteworthy items, so let’s get right down to it.

My pick of the month would be Kaoru (Emma, Shirley) Mori’s A Bride’s Story (Yen Press), page 355:

The newest series from the critically acclaimed creator of Emma, A Bride’s Story tells the tale of a beautiful young bride in nineteenth-century Asia. At the age of twenty, Amir is sent to a neighboring town to be wed. But her surprise at learning her new husband, Karluk, is eight years younger than her is quickly replaced by a deep affection for the boy and his family. Though she hails from just beyond the mountains, Amir’s clan had very different customs, foods, and clothes from what Karluk is used to. As the two of them learn more about each other through their day-to-day lives, the bond of respect and love grows stronger.

Yen Press is proudly publishing Kaori Mori’s beautifully-illustrated tale in a deluxe hardcover edition.

If you’re like me, you would have been sold at “Kaoru Mori.” The series is ongoing in Enterbrain’s fellows!

CLAMP fans will be pleased with the arrival of another handsome omnibus treatment of one of their series, Magic Knight Rayearth, from Dark Horse (page 56). It originally ran in Kodansha’s Nakayoshi and was originally published in English by Tokyopop. Dark Horse’s version will be done-in-one, collecting all three volumes.

DC’s Vertigo imprint offers a new paperback printing of Howard Cruse’s Stuck Rubber Baby, a semi-autobiographical tale of a young gay man coming of age in the turbulent American south of the 1960s (page 130). Monkey See’s Glen Weldon provided a lovely overview of the book.

A new release from Fanfare/Ponent Mon is always worth noting, even if you’ve never heard of the book before. This month, they solicit Farm 54, written by Galit Seliktar and illustrated by Gilad Sliktar:

Farm 54 is a collection of semi-autobiographical stories that address three important periods in the life of the protagonist, Naga, growing up in Israel’s rural periphery… While these Israeli childhood stories take place in the shadow of war an occupation, they also reflect universal feelings, passions, and experiences.

Kodansha Comics lists new volumes of several of the series it picked up from Del Rey (pages 296 and 297):

  • Fairy Tail vol. 13, written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima
  • Rave Master volumes 33-35, written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima
  • Shugo Charai vol. 10, written and illustrated by Peach-Pit
  • Arisa vol. 2, written and illustrated by Natsumi Ando
  • Negima! vol. 29, written and illustrated by Ken Akamatsu
  • Ninja Girls vol. 5, written and illustrated by Hosana Tanaka

Speaking of comebacks, if the recent Manga Moveable Feast piqued your interest in Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, Last Gasp rolls out new printings of the first two volumes (page 297).

If you’re interested in seeing people do amazing things with the form of comics (and don’t care much about story or character), Picturebox unleashes more work by Yuichi (Travel, New Engineering) Yokoyama in the form of Garden (page 308). Being of somewhat more conventional tastes, I think I’ll hold off on this one.

Update: Over at Robot 6, Sean T. Collins interviews Yokoyama and shares several preview pages of Garden.

I may not be able to show suck restraint with Gajo Sakamoto’s Tank Tankuro from Presspop, Inc. (page 308):

The roots of Astro Boy – Tank Tankuro pioneered robot manga during the pre-World War II period in Japan. First published in 1934, Tank Tankuro was one of the most famous manga characters of the era. Tankuro is said to be the first robot ever to appear in Japanese comics. He and his villain, Kuro Kabuto, famous among Japanese SF fans for his resemblance to Darth Vader, laid the foundations for such manga greats as Tezuka, Sugiura, and Fujiko.

Christopher (Comics212) Butcher is very excited about this, which is almost always a good sign.

And, because someone who is not me but clearly has every right for their dreams to come true demanded it, Viz releases a new edition of Oh!great’s Tenjo Tenge which, they promise, is “Finally UNCENSORED!” It’s about dorks who like to fight, with plenty of fan service to help keep your interest (page 333). I wish I could find a copy of the cover image, because it positively screams “Not for me.”

 

Platform review: Viz on the iPad

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People made fun of the iPad when it was first announced, from its seemingly limited functionality to its unfortunate name, but over the last year it has proven to be probably the most exciting new device to enter the (as Steve Jobs likes to call it) “post-PC” market.

Besides offering much of the same day-to-day functionality we require of our desktop computers (web browsing, e-mail, and so on), it’s also a terrific tablet reader and possibly the best personal gaming device I’ve ever seen. Now with Apple’s recent announcement of the upcoming iPad 2, complete with new video cameras and (frankly amazing) new versions of iMovie and Garageband written especially for the iPad, it’s definitely the device every forward-thinking company wants a piece of.

If this is beginning to sound like a paid iPad commercial, that’s only because I have to pretty much fight my husband to get just a couple minutes of time on his iPad, that’s how much use he gets out of the thing. It has become the centerpiece of our gadget-geek household (which is saying quite a bit), so not much could make me happier than to see my own personal geek obsession making inroads in the iPad market. Comics publishers, including a few manga publishers, have been putting out apps left and right, and we’ve got ’em all.

Viz’s iPad app has an immediate edge over its current competitors in the manga market, simply because Viz has actually managed to acquire digital rights for titles from Japan, something that companies like Yen Press and Dark Horse have had some pretty obvious difficulty with.

Most of the titles offered are popular ones too, like Bleach, Naruto, and Vampire Knight, with a few surprising treats like older series Rurouni Kenshin and some quirky shoujo picks like Natsume’s Book of Friends and Otomen. Shounen series dominate the app by far at this point, with no sign at all of older-aimed titles from Viz’s IKKI and Signature catalogues, and just the barest sprinkling of shoujo.

Navigation is simple and pretty intuitive. The app’s landing page features three simple tabs in the middle of the screen for checking out new arrivals, as well as “featured” volumes and a small selection of free previews.

A button on the top right provides access to a list of all available series, though there doesn’t seem to be any way to flip through all available volumes, the way one might in the bookstore aisle. Not that browsing between series is a hardship at all, as the “All Series” button remains on every page of the app.

Purchasing or previewing a volume is pretty easy (though full volume downloads can take some time), and everything is purchased in-app. But the app does require that you create a Viz account before you can make purchases using iTunes. And since signing into your account moves you away from the screen where your purchase was initiated, you have to manually navigate back to the original page in order to complete the purchase. Fortunately, once you’ve signed in, you’re not required to do so again during the same session.

Getting to the important stuff: Viz’s manga looks great on the iPad, especially when viewed as single pages, portrait-style. Images are crisp and clear, and text is easy to read.

In wide-screen, double-page mode, artists with heavy inking and contrast fare the best (like Bakuman and Death Note‘s Obata), while those with a lighter, sketchier style suffer somewhat with the smaller page size, though nothing is genuinely difficult to see.

Enlargement of a single panel is incredibly easy. Double-tap on any panel for a close up, and then double-tap to return. The iOS two-finger pinching works on all pages as well, both in single and double-page mode.

Overall, the iPad makes a great comics reader, and Viz’s app takes full advantage of its capabilities.

Purchases are downloaded directly to the iPad, so they can be saved in your library forever–a much nicer deal than most of the online “rental” models we’ve seen from manga publishers up to now–and first volumes of all series are currently offered for just $.99 apiece, which is a pretty unbeatable deal.

The $4.99 price tag on subsequent volumes is a bit too high to encourage buying in bulk, especially when brand new physical volumes of most of these series can be found for just a few dollars more on Amazon (and for at least a couple of dollars less used). While it’s easy to imagine buying volumes of newer, currently running series (like Bakuman or Toriko, both available now) for that price, the idea of trying to catch up with long-running series (like Bleach or One Piece) at $5 a pop is much less enticing. Lowering the price of later volumes by even just a dollar would make these longer, older series more attractive, especially as bulk buys.

Accessing all your downloaded manga is very easy–just a single click on the “My Manga” button found at the bottom of every screen, and preferences can be set for maximum storage size. Any overflow can be deleted from the device as needed, then re-downloaded whenever you’re ready to read. The app’s storage settings allow you to see or hide titles not currently stored on your device, whichever you prefer. You can also choose to be notified (or not) when new volumes of your downloaded series are available for purchase.

With such a relatively small percentage of Viz’s catalogue (just sixteen series at this time) currently available in their iPad store, it would be a stretch to describe it as a great source for manga, but it’s not difficult to imagine the possibilities.

Many have already pointed out its potential as a platform for long, out-of-print series, particularly the scads of fantastic 80s and 90s shoujo Viz put out on their now-defunct shôjo imprint. Packaged “omnibus” editions with several volumes for a reduced price could be very exciting as well, making it truly feasible for both old and new fans to catch up on longer series they might have missed during their original print runs. Whether Viz is willing or able to make any significant volume of its back catalogue available remains to be seen, as is whether or not any of their more sophisticated titles will ever hit these digital shelves.

Still, Viz is adding new manga to their store at a pretty brisk pace, as Kate recently reported in her coverage of their new “March Madness” campaign. Let’s hope we’ll see much more to come!

Blood, brains, or brawn

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The new Previews catalog is here, so it’s time once again for me to throw myself at the mercy of you, my readers, to help me pick from three questionable manga prospects. Let’s begin!

Moon and Blood vol. 1, written and illustrated by Nao Yazawa, Digital Manga Publishing, page 281:

When high schooler Sayaka awoke one morning, to her surprise, she found an unexpected guest at the family kitchen table – Kai. A cool, handsome and aloof character, a so-called family friend of Sayaka’s father, his temporary stay in her household and attendance to Sayaka’s school, is more than she’s bargained for. But what secrets does Kai hold and what are his true intentions for his sudden appearance into Sayaka’s life? Why does he excel so well in school but sleep through every class? Here does he disappear every night? Will Sayaka find her answers? Or will her curiosity get her into trouble? And what is up with that black cat?

This generic-sounding title from the creator of Wedding Peach (Viz) originally ran in some magazine from some publisher that I cannot unearth in any of the usual sources. It almost certainly involves vampires. I almost always hate vampires.

A Certain Scientific Railgun vol. 1, written by Kazuma Kamachi and illustrated by Motoi Fuyukawa, Seven Seas, page 314:

Welcome to a world where mysticism and science collide, and supernatural powers are derived from either science or religion. In Academy City, an advanced metropolis populated by scholars, the majority of students are enrolled in the city’s “Power Curriculum Program,” where they must learn to master their latent psychic powers. Out of several million students, only seven are deemed powerful enough to have Level 5 status. Mikoto Misaka, the third most powerful Level 5 esper in Academy City, delves deep into the dark heart of the scientific sprawl she calls home – and uncovers secrets she wishes she hadn’t!

Aside from an awkward title and (again) generic premise, this series came to be in Media Works’ Dengeki Daioh, which has produced some great manga but has an uncomfortable fixation on little girls. Also, use of the word “esper” bugs me.

Kampfer vol. 1, written and illustrated by Yu Tachibana, Tokyopop, page 318:

Senou Natsuru is an everyday school boy, who wakes up one day to discover that he’s been chosen to be a Kampfer (fighters) whose objective is to fight other Kampfer. There’s just one catch: In order to fight others, he must turn into a girl!

Seeing as Tokyopop couldn’t be bothered to spell the name properly in its catalog listing, I don’t know why I should be expected to feign enthusiasm. Kampfer originally ran in Media Factory’s Comic Alive, which foisted Maria Holic on the world.

Those are your choices for the month. I’ll take a much more optimistic look at catalog on Monday. For now, please vote in the comments!

 

Dragon Girl Volume 2

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Dragon Girl Volume 2 by Toru Fujieda

I think it was a good decision for Yen Press to go with the omnibus format for this five volume series. I enjoyed this series very much, but if I was reading it spaced out over five volumes my interest might have started to wane a little bit. Being able to sit down and devour huge hunks of shoujo goodness with this slightly quirky manga made me enjoy it even more. Even though many of the plot elements in Dragon Girl evoke typical shoujo cliches, I am still amused by the odd and humorous elements Fujieda inserts in her story. For example, the hottie on the cover that heroine Rinna is embracing isn’t a high school boy who has a crush on her – it is her long lost father Sakuya, the globe trotting former traditional cheerleader captain/anthropologist. I think Sakuya, with his long hair, creative accessorizing, and breezy attitude would easily take the title in a coolest manga Dad contest.

Rinna and her friends in the cheering group struggle with getting their club officially reinstated and dealing with their rival high school. Rinna confesses her crush on childhood love Subaru, but finds out that a romance with him is impossible. Yatome and Rinna grow even closer but it seems like cheering captain Hasekura might finally get up the nerve to tell Rinna how he feels. There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about this title, but it is great comfort reading. I challenge anyone not to enjoy a manga where the heroine’s response to rumors being spread about her is to stand outside the school with a megaphone yelling her side of the story in order to set the record straight. Even thought the ending of Dragon Girl was predictable, I enjoyed seeing Hasekura’s reaction when he was finally able to meet Sakuya, his cheering idol. Also, when Hasekura finally changes his “manly” look, the response of the female students to actually being able to see his shaven face was hilarious. Even the evil scheming student council president doesn’t turn out to be so bad after all. Dragon Girl lets the reader momentarily escape into a world filled with camaraderie and costumed high school students yelling their hearts out. I finished this manga with a smile on my face.

Fanservice Friday: Intimacy porn

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I’ve had fanservice on the brain quite a bit lately, most recently thanks to this article by comics creator Michael Arthur at The Hooded Utilitarian. In it, Michael discussed his perspective on BL manga as a gay man and an artist, and though reception was mixed (for the record, I have pretty much equal appreciation for both his points and much of the criticism he received from female BL fans) what it really got me thinking about is fanservice for women, which inevitably led to thoughts about fanservice for me.

Pretty guys in shoujo and BL? Sure, I like ’em. I like them (maybe even more) in Korean manhwa as well, where “blond and willowy” also tends to equal “kick-ass,” at least in the stuff we’ve seen imported over here. It’s well established that girls frequently like their male idols to be pretty as, well, girls, and that taste doesn’t necessarily vanish with age, at least when it comes to fiction. The muscle-bound hunk has never done much for me, and while that may lend itself in “real life” to a preference for nerdy guys, I’m perfectly happy with the rail-thin pretty boys offered up to me in girls’ comics.

Pretty boys aren’t my real hook, though, not even if we’re talking porn–and when I use the term “porn” here, it’s in the broadest sense of the word, the sense that includes things like “food porn” and “shelf porn” or basically anything that feeds our inner obsessions with powerful visual stimuli. My real “porn,” what services me as a fan the way eye candy does for many, is emotional porn. Intimacy porn, if we’re going to get specific.

What’s great about intimacy porn, is that it is able to manifest itself in a number of different ways, none of which is exclusive to girls’ and women’s comics, though you’ll find it there in abundance. Some of it is clearly romantic in nature, like this scene from Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss.

Read right-to-left. Click for larger image

The scene takes place in the first volume of the manga, when these characters, George and Yukari, are just barely beginning to explore their attraction. It’s the small bits of physical intimacy that really work for me here… George’s fingers circling Yukari’s, the soft kiss on the back of her hand, the tilt of his head as he leans in to kiss her–not the kiss itself (which doesn’t happen here, as you may know), but the anticipation of it, the electricity in the air between two bodies so clearly attracted to one another. The moment feels intensely intimate, though they’re standing outside where anyone could see them. That’s what I’m talking about here. That’s the way to service me as a fan.

With this in mind, I took another look at this scene from Jeon JinSeok and Han SeungHee’s One Thousand and One Nights. I’d mentioned in my discussion with Michelle that it was a ridiculously obvious image, and that its success in context was a testament to the artists’ skill with romance, but I think its success with me goes even further than that.

Read left-to-right. Click for larger image

Where indeed skill comes into play, is that the characters’ intimacy has been so well-established before this point, without the use of such blatantly erotic imagery, that when this stunning show of emotional and sexual intimacy is played out right in front of enemy Crusaders and the sultan’s court, it actually feels real. Sehera’s expression of devotion here is so honest, so utterly without embarrassment, its public intimacy feels not only appropriate, but genuinely romantic.

Intimacy porn doesn’t have to be romantic, though, and often the best of it isn’t. This scene from Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter for instance:

Read right-to-left. Click for larger images

   

   

Though Wild Adapter is serialized in a BL magazine, the relationship between its two protagonists, Kubota and Tokito, is only subtly romantic. What the two really have is intimacy, and that’s what draws me so strongly to them and to their story. This scene has plenty of elements that might be typically used as fanservice–a shower, slouchy skinny guys, even nudity–but there’s no service here, not unless you count my kind, of which there’s service aplenty. This kind of intimacy–Tokito’s pain, unspoken, but acknowledged and understood between just the two of them–that’s my kind of porn, there.

To stray even further from romance, you can find this kind of intimacy porn far, far outside shoujo, josei, or BL. CLAMP’s xxxHolic, for example, was originally published in Young Magazine, a men’s publication, typically featuring bikini-clad women on its cover. Still, it’s filled with my kind of porn, including this scene:

Read right-to-left. Click for larger images



Here, Watanuki and Doumeki discuss the events of the day, while Doumeki makes his demands regarding the contents of rice balls. Their intimacy is apparent from the start… the verbal shorthand, the way the rice ball conversation weaves itself out of habit around the real issues at hand. At page 139 their surface banter comes to a halt, as Watanuki makes a rare, open statement revealing the true value of their relationship. It’s a gorgeously thick moment–you can just feel the weight of emotion in the air, all the unspoken trust and gratitude that Watanuki is usually unable to express–suspended just briefly in time, before Doumeki quickly swings things back into their comfort zone. The banter continues, no less intimately, but comfortable again for both of them. I probably read this scene ten times when I first picked up the volume. It’s exactly my kind of porn.

Intimacy porn doesn’t have to be between two characters, though. Sometimes an author is able to create this between a character and his/her readers. Going back to Yazawa for a moment, this time with NANA, note here how she’s used narrow close-ups of her characters’ eyes to open them up to the audience.

Read right-to-left. Click for larger image

Though the scene takes place between Reira and Shin, their circumstances make it difficult for them to connect with each other honestly. Instead, though they hide their feelings from each other, they’re sharing them with the reader, as openly and intimately as possible. This kind of intimacy has the effect of not breaking the fourth wall, but expanding it to include the reader, and can be even more powerful than something that’s established between characters. It’s difficult to do well, but Yazawa’s a master, and it most certainly contributes to my love of her work.

Is it fanservice? Maybe not, strictly speaking. But it services me better than a thousand pretty faces ever could on their own.

So, readers… what’s your porn?

License request day: Jin

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Anime News Network passed along the announcement of the manga nominees for the 15th Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize. You all know what that means, right? We’ve struck a vein of license request ore! It’s an interesting and diverse slate, and I’m sure it will fuel future license requests, but there’s one title that has an unshakable grasp on my imagination and curiosity.

That would be Jin, written and illustrated by Motoka Murakami and serialized in Shueisha’s Super Jump for a total of 20 volumes. Any manga that launches with a modern-day doctor finding a carcinogenic fetus in a patient’s skull, followed by that fetus then sending said doctor back in time is a manga I want to read very, very badly.

It’s being published in French by Tonkam, which makes it much easier for me to figure out details about the book. I’m guessing that the fetus is just a MacGuffin to send our hero, 30-something doctor Jin Minakata, back to the Edo period. He adapts to his new/old world and begins applying his modern medical knowledge to bygone problems.

A cholera epidemic in Yokohama… communicable diseases among the courtesans of the red-light district… “discovering” penicillin centuries ahead of time… a geisha with breast cancer… If you want to be a busy doctor and seem like a miraculous genius whether you are one or not, it seems like all you have to do is go back in time. (How you get there is your own problem. My suggestion would be to randomly x-ray the skulls of your patients for mysterious fetuses. Of course, any fetus you find in someone’s skull is bound to count as “mysterious.”)

Judging by the sample pages from the first volume that Tonkam has shared, the art looks very clean, detailed, and attractive in a seinen sort of way that won’t be unfamiliar to fans of creators like Jiro Taniguchi. And while it’s perhaps a little soon after asking for Zipang to dip into the well of rewritten history, I think Jin sounds different enough in era and focus that they wouldn’t cannibalize each other’s audience, should we see a day when they’re simultaneously published in English.

So that’s my first choice from the current Tezuka nominees. I’ve only chosen one cover image, because they’re all pretty similar, featuring a strangely blank Jin standing with a beautiful woman. I used to work at a local newspaper, and so many submitted wedding photos looked kind of like these covers, with the woman actively engaging the camera and the man staring out of the frame at something shiny.

Which of the Tezuka nominees would you most like to see licensed?

3 Things Thursday: TOKYOPOP

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It’s been a rough week in the blogosphere for TOKYOPOP, whose latest round of layoffs has inspired quite a bit of talk about the company’s less positive history, including this frank commentary from Brigid Alverson at Robot 6 and this ongoing round-up from Johanna Draper Carlson at Manga Worth Reading. My own history as a reader has been sketchy at times. Though TOKYOPOP’s titles have inspired some of my most passionate fangirling over the years, they’ve occasionally left me baffled, and some of their unfinished business has rendered me truly heartbroken.

For today’s 3 Things, let’s examine that a bit more closely.

3 faces of TOKYOPOP:

1. The Fangirling – From Paradise Kiss to Fruits Basket, from Tokyo Babylon to Wild Adapter, TOKYOPOP has offered up to me some of the most beloved series in my manga library. Read any of those linked reviews, and you’ll understand what I love about manga–that’s how well these series represent my personal feelings about the best of the medium, particularly when it comes to manga written and published for women and girls. Some of their newer shoujo acquisitions (like Demon Sacred and The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko) look to be joining their ranks someday as well.

What can we expect now from a company whose owner has seemingly given up on books? It’s hard to say.

2. The Bafflement – Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’m baffled why a series like KimiKiss (pictured to the right) was published, or even why it might be popular. A buxom teen removing her blouse on the cover is, I expect, money in the bank! What was baffling to me in particular about this release, was that it was apparently being marketed as shoujo, according to a little pamphlet I received along with one of the later volumes of Fruits Basket.

From my review summary at the time: “Kouchi and Mao have been friends since childhood, but now that they are in high school, Kouchi is depressed that he hasn’t managed to attract a girlfriend. Mao offers to help him become a “real stud” by teaching him how to be attractive to girls, beginning with lessons in kissing. The lessons start to get a bit steamy, especially after Mao is invited to sleep over with Kouchi’s little sister, resulting in a late-night tryst in Kouchi’s bed.” Sound like shoujo to you?

3. The Heartbreak – Everyone’s got their own tale of woe over a series that TOKYOPOP has canceled, but my broken heart belongs to Off*Beat, an almost finished series by OEL creator Jen Lee Quick. With just one volume remaining of its original 3-volume commission, fans like me were left to weep and weep, never knowing what finally happens to sweet Tory and his revealing obsession.

From my review: “Everything about this comic is a winner–the intriguing plot line, the wonderfully rich characters, the unique, expressive artwork, the subtle treatment of a gay teen’s sexual awakening that is refreshingly not played up or made “sexy” to please its female audience–and the fact that it languishes in cancellation limbo is honestly heartbreaking. This is a comic I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone. It truly deserves to be read.” *snif*

So readers, what are your 3 faces of TOKYOPOP?

More Ono due from Viz

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Viz just sent out a press release detailing its new titles due in the second half of 2011, and I’m sure someone will post it in its entirety, but I’m single-minded in my interest in one title above all others:

TESORO · Rated ‘T’ for Teens · MSRP: $12.99 US / $14.99 CAN ·

Available November 2011

This is an engrossing manga treasure trove containing 14 charming stories about family, friends, couples and unexpected bonds. Written by Natsume Ono over ten years, here is the long-awaited collection of her early work, including numerous illustrations and previously unpublished stories!

As a reminder, if you’re lucky enough to attend this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival, you can meet Ono in person. And, if you can’t wait until November for a new Ono title from Viz, there’s always La Quinta Camera, due in July.

 

 

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Qwan

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I have a bad habit of falling in love with commercially doomed series. Satsuma Gishiden was my first great disappointment: Dark Horse published three volumes of this manly-man samurai manga, only to put the series on ice in 2007. Duck Prince was another, with Ai Morinaga’s awesomely weird comedy getting the axe midway through its run, a victim of CPM’s perpetual cash flow problems. But the cancellation that really broke my heart was Qwan, a fantasy-adventure that drew heavily on Chinese history and folklore for its inspiration. Between 2005 and 2007, Tokyopop released four volumes before putting the series on hiatus, leaving Qwan‘s few die-hard fans stranded in the middle of a crucial story arc.

While I’d be the first to admit that reading an unfinished story can be an exercise in frustration, I’m going to recommend Qwan anyway because the four volumes that were published are awesome — Scout’s honor.

The story focuses on Qwan, a child-like figure whose naivete and enthusiasm belie super-human strength and speed. Though Qwan realizes he isn’t human, he’s never questioned his origins or abilities — that is, until he meets Shaga, a courtesan who urges him to seek the Essential Arts of Peace, a sutra that will reveal where Qwan came from and why he was sent to live among humans. He’s not the only one who wants the sutra, however; various political factions vie for the scrolls, hoping to unlock the scrolls’ power and hasten the Han Dynasty’s demise.

Questing boys and magical scrolls are de rigeur in fantasy-adventure stories, but Qwan distinguishes itself in two crucial areas. The first is well-rounded characters. Qwan isn’t a classic Shonen Jump hero, kind-hearted and dedicated to self-improvement, but a more ambiguous figure; he’s guileless and self-centered in the manner of a nine- or ten-year-old, unable to feel genuine sympathy for others. Early in volume one, for example, Qwan encounters a mysterious girl traveling in the company of a demon. Daki proves more a formidable opponent than Qwan anticipates, successfully countering his attack with powerful insect magic. Though it’s clear to the reader that Daki, like Qwan, is a supernatural being, caught between the human and demon worlds, Qwan himself never sees the parallels between their situations, repeatedly attacking Daki until he resigns himself to the futility of his efforts.

The second distinguishing feature of Qwan is Aki Shimizu’s gorgeous artwork, which draws on anime, guo hua (classical Chinese painting), and wuxia films for its aesthetic. Though Shimizu usually blends these different styles into a seamless whole, she occasionally makes explicit, almost self-conscious quotations of her influences. In this panel, which appears in the very first chapter, she gracefully echoes the undulating lines and shapes of Chinese landscape paintings, even adding a delicately stylized pine tree in the foreground:

Her fight scenes, too, are steeped in Chinese influences. Using dramatic angles, she makes her characters look as weightless as the wire-fu acrobats in Curse of the Golden Flower and House of Flying Daggers; her fight scenes are balletic, beautifully choreographed sequences of tumbling bodies and arcing swords. In this sequence, for example, Qwan goes mano-a-mano with a tiger demon, eventually gaining the upper hand by vaulting onto the monster’s back:

Qwan then consumes the demon at the end of their protracted battle, the demon’s body dissolving into an inky swirl:

Oh, and Shimizu draws some pretty nifty monsters, too. This one suggests a Maltese-water buffalo hybrid with prehensile toes:

So why wasn’t Qwan a bigger hit? I think narrative complexity was a factor. Though the story is a rich tapestry of political history and myth, Shimizu refuses to spoon feed information to the reader; we’re just as confused and disoriented as Qwan himself is. That kind of reading experience can be quite rewarding, but the absence of an omniscient narrator demands more of the audience, forcing us to pore over the text and make connections on our own. Shimizu’s artwork and characterizations are up to the task, but impatient readers will easily miss crucial details in their haste to get to the fight scenes.

I also think timing was a factor in Qwan’s cancellation, as Qwan‘s fourth volume appeared in 2007 at the height of the manga boom. If you remember that heady period, publishers were releasing more than 1,200 new volumes of manga per year. Titles that didn’t have an obvious hook — say, a popular anime adaptation or a cast of hot male vampires — faced an uphill battle, with bookstores unwilling to stock series whose first or second volumes sold poorly. With little support from the publisher, and few fans blogging about it, Qwan was all but consigned to the remainder bin.

I’m under no illusion that my paean to Qwan will save it from licensing purgatory; for every Yotsuba&!, there are two Tactics, manga that didn’t gain much traction even after a well-publicized rescue. But Qwan is so good that I can’t help but wish that someone will complete the series. It’s a manga for people who love great stories and vivid characters, who care more about the quality of the storytelling than the coolness of the concepts and costumes.

QWAN, VOLS. 1-4 • BY AKI SHIMIZU • TOKYOPOP • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)