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The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro

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Don’t be fooled by the kawaii covers: Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro is a melancholy little manga. The story focuses on an androgynous young woman on a pilgrimage. Kuro’s goal: to find the witch who inflicted a mysterious curse on her. Everywhere she goes, Kuro cuts a dramatic figure, wearing heavy black clothing, a Pilgrim hat, and a custom-sized coffin, which she straps to her back. Though she begins her journey with only a talking bat for a companion, she soon adds two members to her traveling “family”: Nijuku and Sanju, a pair of genetically engineered nekomimi whose creator was brutally murdered.

Kuro’s story is told primarily through four-panel, black-and-white strips, with full-color pages marking the beginning of each chapter. The format imposes a certain rhythm on the material that occasionally makes Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro a little too talky; I found myself wishing that Satoko Kiyuduki had allowed her spiky, expressive artwork to play a more prominent role in the storytelling. But the format also frees her from the constraints of a linear narrative, allowing the story to unfold in a less schematic, more relaxed fashion. The predominant mood is wistful bordering on elegiac; Kuro is always mindful that Nijuku and Sanju are too naive to understand what befell their creator, and worries what will happen to them at the end of their journey. Kuro, too, faces an uncertain future, as her body is slowly consumed by a deadly illness.

The jacket copy promises “all the whimsy of the most memorable fairy tales,” but I think that misses the point — if anything, Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro eschews whimsy in favor of dark complexity; anger and fear inform the behavior of many people Kuro meets in her travels, the threat of violence lurking just below the surface of their interactions. To be sure, the somber mood is lightened by plenty of broad comedy as various characters mistake Kuro for a vampire, a demon, a gravedigger, or — quelle horreur! — a boy. But even these comic moments are tinged with sadness: Kuro often finds herself cast out of towns, branded a witch, a weirdo, or worse, even though the residents are happy to profit from her skills.

Ultimately, it’s this mixture of melancholy and humor that makes Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro such a compelling read. The story never succumbs to mawkishness or easy sentiment, yet at the same time, it dares to tug a little at the heartstrings. Not everyone will find the series’ odd tone to their liking, especially those in search of a breezy riff on Western fairy tales. But for those looking something more thought-provoking — the kind of story that lingers in your mind after you’ve finished reading it — I highly recommend Kuro.

This is a revised version of a review that originally appeared at PopCultureShock on 4/29/08.

SHOULDER-A-COFFIN, KURO, VOLS. 1-2 • BY SATOKO KIYUDUKI • YEN PRESS • RATING: TEEN (13+)

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro

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Don’t be fooled by the kawaii covers: Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro is a melancholy little manga. The story focuses on an androgynous young woman on a pilgrimage. Kuro’s goal: to find the witch who inflicted a mysterious curse on her. Everywhere she goes, Kuro cuts a dramatic figure, wearing heavy black clothing, a Pilgrim hat, and a custom-sized coffin, which she straps to her back. Though she begins her journey with only a talking bat for a companion, she soon adds two members to her traveling “family”: Nijuku and Sanju, a pair of genetically engineered nekomimi whose creator was brutally murdered.

Kuro’s story is told primarily through four-panel, black-and-white strips, with full-color pages marking the beginning of each chapter. The format imposes a certain rhythm on the material that occasionally makes Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro a little too talky; I found myself wishing that Satoko Kiyuduki had allowed her spiky, expressive artwork to play a more prominent role in the storytelling. But the format also frees her from the constraints of a linear narrative, allowing the story to unfold in a less schematic, more relaxed fashion. The predominant mood is wistful bordering on elegiac; Kuro is always mindful that Nijuku and Sanju are too naive to understand what befell their creator, and worries what will happen to them at the end of their journey. Kuro, too, faces an uncertain future, as her body is slowly consumed by a deadly illness.

The jacket copy promises “all the whimsy of the most memorable fairy tales,” but I think that misses the point — if anything, Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro eschews whimsy in favor of dark complexity; anger and fear inform the behavior of many people Kuro meets in her travels, the threat of violence lurking just below the surface of their interactions. To be sure, the somber mood is lightened by plenty of broad comedy as various characters mistake Kuro for a vampire, a demon, a gravedigger, or — quelle horreur! — a boy. But even these comic moments are tinged with sadness: Kuro often finds herself cast out of towns, branded a witch, a weirdo, or worse, even though the residents are happy to profit from her skills.

Ultimately, it’s this mixture of melancholy and humor that makes Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro such a compelling read. The story never succumbs to mawkishness or easy sentiment, yet at the same time, it dares to tug a little at the heartstrings. Not everyone will find the series’ odd tone to their liking, especially those in search of a breezy riff on Western fairy tales. But for those looking something more thought-provoking — the kind of story that lingers in your mind after you’ve finished reading it — I highly recommend Kuro.

This is a revised version of a review that originally appeared at PopCultureShock on 4/29/08.

SHOULDER-A-COFFIN, KURO, VOLS. 1-2 • BY SATOKO KIYUDUKI • YEN PRESS • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Onwards and upwards with Vertical

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There’s some fabulous news from Vertical via Anime News Network. They’ve announced three new licenses, two of which are some of the most eagerly awaited of them all. (Coincidentally, both of those are license requests.)

First up is Osamu Tezuka’s Princess Knight, originally published in Kodansha’s Shôjo Club and to be released in two volumes here. Kodansha published bilingual editions ages ago, though they’re long out of print and very expensive. Viz published a sample chapter in its defunct Shojo Beat magazine, which raised hopes that a license might be imminent, but it took Tezuka specialists Vertical to make it happen. It was published in French by Soleil. (Update: It’s been suggested to me that Vertical is most likely to publish Tezuka’s second take on the series, which ran in Kodansha’s Nakayoshi roughly a decade after the original.) (Update 2: But they aren’t, and are, in fact, going with the original version. I’m delighted either way.)

Next is Drops of God, or Kami no Shizuku, written by Tadashi Agi (the pseudonym for wine-loving siblings Yuko and Shin Kibayashi) and illustrated by Shu Okimoto and serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning. I don’t think there’s ever been a Japanese comic that’s received as much ink in English-language media, in spite of the fact that it had yet to be published in English. There was some indication in April of 2010 that the book’s licensing was imminent. It’s being published in French by Glénat.

Last up is No Longer Human, Usumaru Furuya’s adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s novel of the same name. It’s currently running in Shinchosha’s Comic Bunch. It’s about a troubled man who hides his true nature from the people around him.

Aside from a perfectly understandable level of excitement about these titles for their own merits, it’s nice to see that Kodansha is still working with other publishers to release titles that help express the breadth of their catalog, and it’s great that they chose Vertical, a company with a strong track record of publishing both classic and unique contemporary titles.

From the stack: The Story of Saiunkoku vol. 1

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It’s been a while since I felt that a comic was actively flirting with me. There are certainly plenty that I’ve liked, but most of them have stopped somewhere short of actively… well… luring me with just about every quality they possess.

I admit that I initially judged The Story of Saiunkoku (Viz), adapted by Kairi Yura from Sai Yukino’s novels, on a surface level. The cover is bland, and I’m drawn more by weird compositions than pretty faces of people in elaborate costumes. But when Kate Dacey noted that the book “makes [her] feel thirteen years old again” in a good way, I had to reconsider.

While reading the first volume of The Story of Saiunkoku, it bought me drinks from across the bar. It sent me funny and thoughtful text messages. It put its best foot forward, and it became more and more attractive as the encounter progressed. We’re dating now, and I hope you can be happy for us.

I should state up front that there’s almost no way I could resist a comic that features a smart, spirited heroine, a hot, gay emperor, lavish costumes and appointments, and grumpy old men scheming in the background. That comic would have to be actively awful for me not to be at least a little drawn to it, even if I knew the relationship would be… well… conflicted. But The Story of Saiunkoku is miles and miles from actively awful. To channel my thirteen-year-old self, it’s really dreamy.

The Story of Saiunkoku is a period piece about the imperial court of Saiunkoku. It follows a penniless but diligent young noblewoman named Shurei Hong, who enters into the service of the nation’s unmotivated, mildly scandalous young emperor as his consort. Up to this point, Shurei had been scrambling to keep body and soul together, teaching and taking odd jobs to put food on the table of her crumbling family manor. She’d always hoped to enter civil service to help her struggling country, but the men-only strictures of that career blocked her ambition. Now, she can use her considerable intelligence and work ethic to better the country right from the top.

Shurei isn’t just a goody-two-shoes optimist. Yura and Yukino make it clear from the outset that their heroine has a temper and a sharp tongue. In spite of her high status, she isn’t a delicate, sheltered lady. She’s known real deprivation and anxiety, and, when she talks about poverty, she’s not talking about the genteel, abstract variety. Immersion into the rarefied air of the imperial court doesn’t eliminate her instinct to scrimp, the constant rattle of the abacus in her head that tallies how much things cost and what they’re worth. But she isn’t judgmental about it; she isn’t averse to comfort or elegance, just more cognizant of its price tag than those around her.

The emperor she’s meant to serve, Ryuki, is agreed to be a disappointment on every level. He has no interest in governance, and he’d rather bed men, so there isn’t even a chance of him creating a more malleable, promising heir. He won’t even interact with Shurei or his other advisors initially, and it’s only Shurei’s unassuming charm (slyly applied) that leads him to engage with his responsibilities.

This is the point where The Story of Saiunkoku really kicks in, when we see what kind of person the emperor seems to be and glimpses of what kind of person he may actually become. As one would assume, there’s more than meets the eye to him, but the ambiguity remains, and his motivations and ambitions are still deliciously unclear. And Ryuki’s façade is a treat – handsome, lazy, dim, selfish, and more than a little weird. While the glimpses of his inner depths that the creators provide are welcome, his public face is quirky and intriguing in its own right. One of the smartest things a storyteller can do is to create natural, temperamental conflict between protagonists, and the similarities and differences between Shurei and Ryuki are promising in the ways they may evolve and comfortingly familiar in their initial highs and lows.

Also comforting are Yura’s illustrations. Her detailed renderings of court life are appropriately sumptuous, and her page compositions are often very lovely. I also like her knack for facial expressions; she conveys a fine range of emotions in close-up, and her faces can be very funny without seeming rubbery. Yura does lapse into a fairly common failing found in stories that feature a number of attractive men; some of the character designs can be a little repetitive, which can lead to some confusing moments. Overall, though, her drawings are heartfelt eye candy.

It may seem weird, but I find myself comparing The Story of Saiunkoku to Hiroshi Hitara’s Satsuma Gishiden (Dark Horse). That gorgeously violent drama also frames its primary narrative aims in a clearly defined social context that’s concerned with issues of governance, justice, and class. While Yura and Yukino obviously have gentler priorities, the cultural context elevates those intentions in the same way they do for Hitara’s muscular hack-and-slash. Absorbing characters and a well-crafted plot are important, but placing those elements in a world that lives and breathes on its own is a tremendous asset.

And Saiunkoku’s royal court does live and breathe, with its factions and fashions and secrets. Most of all, it breathes thanks to its cast of passionate, distinct characters and the ways they hope to better their lives and their world. I’m hopelessly smitten. I admit it.

(The manga adaptation of The Story of Saiunkoku is running in Kadokawa Shoten’s Monthly Asuka. I’m not sure how many light novels are in Yukino’s series, and they haven’t been published in English, to my knowledge. The first season of the anime adaptation is available from Funimation.)

BL Bookrack: Yaoi for the New Year

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Welcome to 2011’s first BL Bookrack, a monthly feature co-written with Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith.

This month, we take a look at three offerings from Digital Manga Publishing’s Juné imprint, No Touching at All, volume one of Treasure, and volume two of The Tyrant Falls in Love, as well as BLU Manga’s You & Me, ETC..

No Touching At All | By Kou Yoneda | Published by Juné | Rated Mature (18+) | Buy at Akadot – The chief characteristic of No Touching At All is one that simultaneously boosts and deflates my enthusiasm for this well-done one-shot—it reminds me a lot of Future Lovers. Now, on the one hand, this is high praise, because Future Lovers is one of the best BL series I have ever read. On the other hand, being compared to something so awesome makes the very few complaints I have about No Touching At All stand out more than they ordinarily would.

Toshiaki Shima is awfully serious for a 26-year-old. When he reports to his new job and discovers that the stinky drunk he met in the elevator is his boss, Togawa, he’s less than enthused. Togawa is pretty insistent on getting to know his new employee, though, and somehow, after an evening out, the two end up in bed. Afterwards, Shima is upset. “I never learn,” he laments.

It turns out that Shima resigned from his previous job because the straight coworker with whom he’d been having an affair began to lob accusations of sexual harrassment towards Shima in order to save face. Shima’s tortured by that experience, and even when Togawa tells him quite plainly that his feelings have grown into love, Shima can’t believe it. Early in their relationship, Togawa expressed a desire for a family, and this conversation dogs Shima throughout the volume, making him certain that soon Togawa will tire of him and cast him aside.

This is similar to the plight facing the two leads in Future Lovers, but I think the constant reiteration of the theme here gets a bit repetitive. Both characters are very well-developed, so it’s not hard to sympathize with Shima, prickly and awkward though he may be, but man, that guy can angst!

I do like that the resolution to the story is satisfying, even though the couple’s problems haven’t been tied up in a neat little bow. This is something they’re going to have to deal with, and if there was ever a BL story I wanted a sequel to, this is it! In fact, even though I read an online review copy furnished by the publisher, I liked this so well that I plan to shell out my own hard-earned cash for a print copy when it gets released.

So, no. It’s no Future Lovers. But it is a story of two professional adults trying to have a relationship while dealing with their own personal baggage, a recipe for the very best kind of BL. Highly recommended.

-Review by Michelle Smith

Treasure, vol.1 | By Riyu Yamakami | Published by Juné | Rated YA (16+) | Buy at Akadot – Raised by his grandmother in a remote island village, teenaged Naoyuki is shipped off to the big city to live with relatives who can help give him “a broader perspective on things.” And though a “broader perspective” is indeed what Naoyuki receives, it’s probably safe to say that being coerced into exchanging sexual favors for tutoring wasn’t what grandma had in mind.

The “tutor,” Naoyuki’s older cousin Satoshi, is a tall, gorgeous bully, who loves to mock Naoyuki for his country-bumpkin ways nearly as much as he loves to bone him. And if you think I’ve had my fill of emotionally abusive, semi-incestuous love interests, you wouldn’t be wrong.

Mangaka Riyu Yamakimi pushes the envelope here by providing Naoyuki with a possessive lech both at home and at school, where Naoyuki meets sweet-faced Seitaro, who’s so determined to make “Nao” his, he follows him all around the school grounds, screeching things like, “What can I do to make you love me?”

With two such charming men in pursuit, is it any wonder that Naoyuki ends up passed out in the nurse’s office just a few weeks into school?

The story’s one saving grace is its protagonist, Naoyuki, who isn’t afraid to jump out of a second-story window to evade an unwanted suitor, or to punch out a roomful of would-be gang-rapists. And though it’s undeniably disappointing to watch him trudge down the well-worn path of BL heroes who fall in love with their harrassers, at least he gets in a few good swings on the way.

Yamakimi’s artwork is simple, but surprisingly effective, conveying a level of darkness that one might otherwise think she was entirely unaware of. If only she’d been willing to embrace that a bit further, what reads now as “disturbing romance” might have graduated to just “disturbing,” which would be a marked improvement in my book.

Maybe next time?

-Review by MJ

The Tyrant Falls in Love, vol. 2 | By Hinako Takanaga | Published by Juné | Rated Mature (18+) | Buy at Akadot – This volume opens two months after the end of the last, with absolutely nothing of a sexual nature having occurred between Morinaga and his tyrant in that time. Finally reaching critical desperation, Morinaga jumps Tatsumi in the lab, only to discover that Tatsumi’s been waiting to see how long it would take him in order to determine the frequency of their future encounters.

While the ensuing bout of haggling could easily read as just plain crass, Hinako Takanaga’s sharp sense of humor keeps the banter running smoothly and hilariously. The volume then takes a serious turn, as Morinaga’s estranged family launches a campaign to bring him back home for his older brother’s wedding, despite their continued refusal to accept his sexuality.

Man, I hate to admit that I’m wrong, but at least with manga, there’s a bright side to it all. After my overall dismay with this series’ first volume, nothing could possibly have surprised me more than my sincere enjoyment of the second. Though the series still wades into the murky waters of nonconsensual sex, this time, the main characters’ intimate history and visible affection really steal the show, even during the story’s roughest moments. While this dynamic was certainly present in volume one, it wasn’t quite enough to cover for its unfortunate romantic trajectory. But even with that damage already done, Takanaga’s wonderfully rich characterization is enough to rescue the series.

Morinaga is more genuinely relatable in this volume, still ruled by his sexual urges but revealing some real thoughtfulness about his own feelings, particularly when confronted by a painful memory from the past. It’s Tatsumi who really shines here, though, finally letting some of his own feelings show, at least enough so that even a cranky, jaded reader like me might actually believe he loves Morinaga.

Despite the series’ over-the-top sensibility, there’s a real subtlety to Takanaga’s storytelling that displays some pretty powerful craft behind the flailing. Her artwork, too, is especially expressive here, even in the throwaway side story at the end of the book.

There’s no doubt that The Tyrant Falls in Love was one of 2010’s most eagerly-anticipated English-language BL releases. It’s nice to finally be able to understand why.

-Review by MJ

You & Me, Etc. | By Kyugo | Published by BLU Manga | Rated Mature (18+) | Buy at Amazon – It can be hard to know what to expect with a collection of boys’ love short stories. Sometimes all are unappealing—the tales in Hinako Takanaga’s A Capable Man come to mind—but more often they’re a mixed bag. It’s much more rare for every story in a collection to actually be good, but You & Me, Etc. achieves this feat.

The collection is bookended by two stories about a pair of childhood friends, Keita Kanai and Iku Kirishima. They did everything together as they were growing up, including joining the junior high baseball team, but when Keita is injured in a car accident and can no longer play, guilt-ridden Iku gives up the game as well. Not only that, he distances himself from Keita and cultivates the air of a misanthropic loner. “Someday We…” recounts Keita’s efforts not to let their friendship slip away, and a dramatic scene in which he pleads for a return to closeness ultimately ends in a kiss. In the title story, the boys are unsure how to proceed from this moment, but end up working things out.

It sounds simple when described thusly, but there are plenty of moments that show how much the boys care for each other, and some amusing panels, as well. Two female characters play important roles—indeed, the first page features Keita’s girlfriend complaining that he doesn’t seem interested in making out with her—and I just generally love couples comprised of one seemingly surly guy and one more cheerful one. There’s a recurring theme of Iku showing rare vulnerability by clutching at Keita’s sleeve that’s nicely done, as well.

The other stories are equally as strong. “Cherry Blossom Pilgrimage” isn’t even a romance, though there are hints one could develop in time. Takahisa Sugaya is a ladies’ man, with plenty of girls but no real friends. He’s a bit of a slacker and is sure that upwardly mobile Yuu Fujishiro, generally considered to be the heir to the class presidency, would have nothing to do with someone like him. That is, until he discovers that Fujishiro is having a relationship with a male teacher. A genuine friendship develops between the boys, since Fujishiro doesn’t have to worry about appearing perfect when with Sugaya, and I would have liked to have read more about these two.

Indeed, that’s my one complaint—the stories end too quickly! Only the longest, the two-part “A Beautiful Tomorrow,” feels like it had enough time to develop. It’s the story of a famous writer who encounters the son of a former professor who has been cast out of his home by his step-mother after his father’s death. Their relationship builds slowly and naturally and, like the fellows in the title story, they’re never shown doing more than kissing. In fact, the volume earns its mature rating due to heterosexual content, not for the BL!

You & Me, Etc. was a very pleasant surprise. Kyugo doesn’t seem to have written too many original works, but her work is certainly impressive. I hope we see more of it soon!

-Review by Michelle Smith

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Kamisama Kiss Volume 2

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Kamisama Kiss Volume 2 by Julietta Suzuki

One of the things I liked about the first volume of this series was the way Nanami still continued to be a normal teenage girl even after achieving accidental godhood and taking up residence at a shrine. I liked the way Nanami journeyed back to the real world briefly, so I was happy to see that she makes the attempt to return to high school. What prompts her to return is a combination of boredom and a typical teen girl crush, when it is announced that the popular goth rock idol Kurama has just enrolled at her high school. He’s known as “a fallen angel with black wings” but he’s actually another yokai after Nanami’s power. Suzuki continues to have witty character designs for her yokai characters. Kurama is drawn almost as a parody of visual kei artists with heavy eyeliner, pointed fingernails, and black feathers floating in the air around him. While Tomoe sends Nanami to school wearing a goofy cat-head scarf in order to hide her mark of godhood, Kurama soon finds her out. He finds Nanami fascinating because after her initial meeting, she doesn’t immediately fawn over him like the other girls. She’s able to quickly perceive that Kurama has a stuck-up personality and her crush promptly fades. It seems like Kurama is going to stick around for awhile so it looks like Kamisama Kiss is going to be more conventionally shoujo than Karakuri Odette, with the normal girl being the crush object of two cute non-human guys.

Nanami’s high school classmates are almost uniformly obnoxious. The annoying boy from the first volume shows up again, and everyone makes fun of Nanami for being poor, until Tomoe makes a dramatic appearance to defend her. The other main storyline in this volume had many of the yokai of the week qualities of the first volume, but it ended up being in service of Nanami and Tomoe’s relationship developing further. A bright and powerful goddess with a shrine in the sky is dismayed to find out that Tomoe is in service to a human, so she announces that she’s taking over Nanami’s shrine, striking Tomoe with a cartoonish hammer to regress him into a child-like body. Nanami is soon placed in the role of Tomoe’s caretaker even though she’s lost her mystical powers. Nanami is determined to stick with Tomoe because she thinks he’s her only family. Seeing the power dynamic between Nanami completely reverse was interesting. Now Tomoe is helpless without his powers and unable to be intimidating because he looks like a three-year-old. He becomes dependent on Nanami to help him survive in the human world.

Overall, while Kamisama Kiss doesn’t quite have the quirky qualities I enjoy so much about Karakuri Odette, it is still a better than average shoujo series. There are fewer funny moments, but Kurama’s parodic goth appearance shows that Suzuki’s sense of humor is still intact.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Snowductivity

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The horrible weather and terrifying prospect of driving in it have left me with some unexpected leisure time, so I’ve been playing around with some minor navigation issues, mostly in response to people’s excellent suggestions. If you’ll look at the top of the sidebar on the right of the page, you’ll see a new “Features” header with three pages under it:

I’m definitely open to tweaking those pages and have already, so if you have thoughts on how these could be better organized or more useful, please pass them along.

It also struck me that I almost never explore a blog through its Archives function, just because I’m usually searching by subject rather than date. So I moved the Archive widget to the bottom, just in case there are people who find it useful.

And if you’d like to offer your two cents to the Manga Bookshelf empire as a whole, click here and toss them into the fountain.

The Seinen Alphabet: Z

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“Z” is for…

Zipang, written and illustrated by Kaiji Kawaguchi, serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning for 42 volumes. This series is about a modern Japanese defense vessel that gets thrown back in time to the Battle of Midway of World War II. The revision of history ensues. It won the Kodansha Manga Award in 2002. Kawaguchi’s A Spirit in the Sun tied for the Shogakukan Manga Award in 2006, so Kawaguchi is clearly a big deal in terms of yet-to-be licensed mangaka. Zipang is being released in French by Kana, and I want to say it’s made the finalist list either at Angoulême or in the Prix d’Asie, though I can’t find a reference to confirm that.

Zetman, written and illustrated by Masakazu (Video Girl Ai) Katsura, originally serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shônen Jump, then moved to Young Jump. It’s about rival heroes who fight monsters, and it ran for a total of 14 volumes. Tony (Manga Therapy) Yao said on Twitter that it has a Dark Knight kind of feel, which is certainly an improvement on the Ultimo vibe I get off of the cover.

Zenyasi, written and illustrated by Tobira Oda, serialized in Kodansha’s Morning Two. It’s about a sculpting competition at a grade school that ends in tragedy, and it ran for a single volume.

Zero, written and illustrated by Kei (Lament of the Lamb) Toume, serialized in Gentosha’s Comic Birz. It’s about a middle-school girl who wants revenge against everyone, and it ran for a single volume.

Zashiki Onna, written and illustrated by Minetaro (Dragon Head) Mochizuki, serialized in Kodansha’s Young Magazine. It’s about a college student who gets stalked by a creepy woman with horror-appropriate long hair. It ran for a single volume.

Zansho, written and illustrated by Mohiro (Bokurano: Ours) Kitoh, serialized in Shogakukan’s IKKI. This is a single-volume collection of short stories from a 20-year span in Kitoh’s career.

Zôkan Young GanGan is a seinen magazine published by Square Enix.

What starts with “Z” in your seinen alphabet?

Update:

Taiyo (Gogo Monster) Matsumoto is one of those creators who fall into the “I’ll read anything by this person” category, even if the comic is about a subject that doesn’t interest me even a little bit. So thanks to Matthew (365 zines a year) Murray for mentioning Zero, a two-volume tale about a boxer that originally ran in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits. The title refers not to the protagonist’s aptitude but to his loss record; he’s at the top of his game, but he’s getting older.

V.B. Rose Volume #11

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V.B. Rose Volume 11 Banri Hidaka

My first impulse is to steer clear of long running series, just because I’ve long since entered double-stacking territory on the bookshelves that house my manga collection. But VB Rose #11 reminded me of some of the rewards for the reader that come with sticking it out for a multi-volume series. This volume shows the middle school adventures of Yukari and Mitsuya, and if I hadn’t read the previous volumes to see the ways they banter back and forth as adults I probably wouldn’t have appreciated this manga origin story so much.

Ageha asks the friends how long they’ve known each other and Mitsuya enthusiastically announces that it has been 10 years since they first met, “We’ve almost made it to our diamond anniversary!” What follows is an extended flashback as Mitsuya describes the beginning of their friendship to an enthusiastic Ageha. Mitsuya uses his charm to always be the center of attention at school. One day he notices Yukari sitting alone, and assumes that he hasn’t notices Yukari before because he is so unremarkable. When Mitsuya takes a closer look at Yukari he realizes that “He’s criminally cute!” Mitsuya promptly develops a strong man-crush but all of his attempts to get to know Yukari are mercilessly rebuffed until he finds a fashion pattern book that Yukari left at school. Mitsuya spends the evening reading the book and goes to V.B. Rose to return it because Yukari’s been out of school due to an illness. It turns out that the sickness was helping his father with an important order for the wedding dress business. Yukari’s sewing at a professional level, but his pattern making still needs a lot of work. It turns out that Mitsuya’s drawing abilities give him the talent to be a great pattern maker. Yukari and Mitsuya develop a friendship, and Mitsuya is brought into the V.B. Rose family.

There’s always been a slightly manic quality to Mitsuya’s flirting and joking personality. It turns out that this is a carefully crafted facade, as he was horribly disappointed in love many years before and has deliberately shut off his feelings. Being needed at the shop and developing a deeper friendship with Yukari allows him to come out of his shell a little bit, but the revelation about the true object of Mitsuya’s affections sets up a storyline that I’m very eager to see resolved in the next volume. Hidaka’s middle school versions of Mitsuya and Yukari are extra adorable, and the emotional arc of this volume will make fans of the series fall in love with it all over again.

Gussying up

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As part of settling in to our new multi-blog format, we’ve been rearranging the furniture a bit over the past week at Manga Bookshelf, with a view towards improving navigation and making more recent content easily accessible from the front page. We’ve also picked up a brand new logo (thanks to Kuriousity‘s Lissa Pattillo), replacing the old, me-centric design with something that better represents the network as a whole.

Content is falling into place as well, including a new, collaborative incarnation of my old Pick of the Week, offering a more diverse selection of new manga for readers to choose from. Regular weekly and monthly features from each of the network’s blogs remain as they always have been, ensuring that there’s plenty new to read on pretty much any day of the week.

A couple of special features I’m aware of coming up in February:

2/12: Breaking Down Banana Fish, the next Banana Fish roundtable, covering volumes 11-13

2/23: A special edition of Off the Shelf, featuring Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako

So, readers, my question for you today: What would you most like to see from the new Manga Bookshelf?

More reviews? Roundtables? Collaborative features? Flame-inducing essays? We can’t make promises, but we’d really like to know!