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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!

Upcoming 1/26/2011

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There are some truly terrifying titles on this week’s ComicList, though I think I found a promising Pick of the Week. My home blog choice is probably a result of weird shipping schedules, but for whatever reason, the second volume of Jiro Taniguchi’s The Summit of the Gods (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) is arriving at the local comic shop, and I’m delighted. Here’s a bit of my review of the first volume:

“Taniguchi is the ideal illustrator for this kind of material that has both epic scale and intimacy. If the crux of your story is the estimation of landscapes and people, it behooves you to find an artist that can capture the menace and nuance of both, and a writer is unlikely to find anyone better at that than Taniguchi. (As absent as women are from the narrative, it’s nice to read in a text piece that a woman made the collaboration possible, playing matchmaker for Baku and Taniguchi.) Taniguchi is probably the foremost renderer of the middle-aged man that I can think of. They wear their experiences, which is even more evident in a story like this that tracks Habu through the years. Just watching the ways that Habu ages is fascinating. And as far as landscapes and the physicality they demand of puny humans, do I even need to bother praising Taniguchi on that front? Icy cliff faces, Nepalese back alleys, Tokyo urbanity, leafy mountain trails… there’s no setting Taniguchi can’t conquer.”

Other than that, I’m intrigued by a light novel from Yen Press, Mizuki Nomura’s Book Girl and the Famished Spirit. I’m not a big follower of light novels, but Erica (Okazu) Friedman made a very persuasive case for Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime in her guest review.

What looks good to you?

PotW: Great reads for a wintery week

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It’s a pretty full week for manga, according to Midtown Comics. So bundle up, pour some cocoa, and take a look at this week’s Picks from the Manga Bookshelf bloggers and special guest Michelle Smith!

From Michelle: Wow, there’s quite a lot coming out this week! I’ll be buying several items on the list—I’ve been waiting for the second volume of Close the Last Door for a long time, and hoarding volumes of Gakuen Alice for probably about as long—but the release that most excites me is the second volume of Yuuki Fujimoto’s The Stellar Six of Gingacho. The first volume was surprisingly charming, and actually made me verklempt in its portrayal of six friends who drifted apart in middle school but reunite to help a neighbor in need. Bonus points for its positive depiction of an overweight character! I’ve been eagerly awaiting this second volume, so its purchase is a no-brainer!

From MJ: I have to agree with Michelle, there’s a lot worth buying this week! Big draws for me include new volumes of Bride of the Water God (Dark Horse), Pandora Hearts (Yen Press), and Michelle’s Pick, The Stellar Six of Gingacho (TOKYOPOP). I think this week, though, my Pick will have to be one that doesn’t appear on Midtown Comics’ list, but whose arrival was announced by the publisher via Twitter, volume thirteen of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack from Vertical, Inc. I got into Black Jack later than most. After receiving a copy of volume ten, I marathoned the series from the beginning to catch up, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Black Jack (like Dororo) is rare among what I’ve read of Tezuka’s work as a series I’d feel comfortable recommending to nearly anyone (teen or older), even as a first comic. It’s immediately compelling, easy to jump into at nearly any point, and though the story and its protagonist can both get quite dark, its episodic structure allows that to be consumed in small doses, to taste.

From David: I’m going to step out of my usual wheelhouse, whatever that is, and pick a yaoi title this week. It’s not that there isn’t a lot of manga in this category that I enjoy; it’s more a case that I tend to have to put titles through a fairly careful vetting process to make sure they eschew some popular plot elements that can sour a yaoi title for me. But based on some Twitter chatter from reliable sources like Kristin Bomba and Danielle Leigh, I’m going to make a point of seeking out Kou Yoneda’s No Touching At All (Digital Manga). According to Danielle, this one can be summarized thusly: “Adults acting like adults fall in love.” And that is pretty much exactly my yaoi wheelhouse. I’m very favorably inclined toward salaryman yaoi.

From Kate: For me, this week’s must-buy title is the eighth volume of Pet Shop of Horrors Tokyo (Tokyopop). The premise is pure comeuppance theater: troubled people seek out the eccentric Count D, who furnishes them with exotic “pets” — usually, a demon or magical creature with shape-shifting abilities — that are always more than the buyer bargained for. What makes these little morality plays work so well is that Matsuri Hino doesn’t just punish her characters for being weak, vain, or foolish; she explores what drove them to seek Count D’s help in the first place. The results are much more nuanced and unpredictable than most stories in the wish-granting-emporium genre, and can be genuinely moving. Best of all, you don’t need any background on Count D to fully appreciate what’s happening; aside from a few perfunctory scenes documenting his run-ins with local authorities, the stories are self-contained.

So readers, what are your picks this week?

Manhwa Monday: Grasping at straws

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday!

It’s been a slow week in manhwa news. And by “slow week” I mean that there are absolutely no bits of news or reviews to share with you at all.

So, what shall we talk about, readers? This week’s upcoming release of the latest volume of Bride of the Water God reminds me just how little new manhwa we’ve got to look forward to in the foreseeable future.

What I do have ahead of me, though, are a few fantastic reads and re-reads that are long overdue. A few reads upcoming for me:

1. Bride of the Water God (Dark Horse) – I actually have yet to dip into this series, which is long overdue. I’ll be marathoning it in the next couple of weeks (with a review of volume 6 upcoming), in hopes of soon acquiring this week’s new volume.

2. Cynical Orange (Yen Press) – After a long, long wait, I’ve finally gotten a copy of the one volume I was missing of this series. Look for a full series review in the near future (most likely offsite).

3. One Thousand and One Nights (Yen Press) – I’ve already talked on and on about this series, but an upcoming offsite feature has given me the excuse to reread it once again!

4. Milkyway Hitchhiking (Yen Press) – As a big fan of Sirial’s One Fine Day (interestingly featured in a recent column on Manga Bookshelf), I’m definitely looking forward to this new, cat-themed series.

So, readers, I put the question to you: What new (or old) manhwa are looking forward to reading in the near future?

A look at the Shogakukan winners

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Anime News Network lists the winners of the 56th Shogakukan Manga Awards. Only one of the slate is available in English, Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ôoku: The Inner Chambers (Viz), which won in the Girls’ Category and has also previously shared the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize with Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life (Drawn & Quarteroy), won the Tiptree Award, and made the top 10 in 2010’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.

Natsumi Matsumoto’s Yumeiro Pâtissière won in the Children’s Category. It’s about an enthusiastic young baker who enters an elite pastry school in spite of her clumsiness. She meets cute boys and is helped by a magical spirit named Vanilla. You can’t make a good dessert without a little Vanilla. It’s running in Shueisha’s Ribon. Viz has published Matsumoto’s St. Dragon Girl.

Takeshi Sasaki’s King Golf won in the Boys’ Category. It’s about a delinquent whose life changes when he takes up golf. I’m now picturing its chances for commercial success in the United States, which conjures images of middle-aged white men discussing the latest volume over highballs at the country club. Yeah. It’s being serialized in Shogakukan’s Shonen Sunday.

The General Category is split between two titles, the first being Shohei Manabe’s Ushijima the Loan Shark. Unsurprisingly, it’s a manga about the seedy criminal underbelly of loan sharks, the black market, and other unsavory activities, and I’d guess that it’s somewhat episodic in nature. It’s running in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits. Tokyopop published some of Manabe’s Smuggler and all of Dead End, though it lost the licenses when Kodansha reclaimed their properties.

It tied with Chûya Koyama’s Uchû Kyôdai, which was nominated for a Manga Taisho Award last year. It looks very promising.

But which of the unlicensed titles look good to you?

Kamisama Kiss Winner

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The winner of the giveaway according to random.org, is commenter #4, JRB. I hope you enjoy this cute manga!

I asked How would you force your hot fox-spirit familiar to bend to your will? in my Kamisama Kiss Giveaway and got many entertaining responses:

From Celeste:

I would find out what its weakness is (food, drink, comics…) and dangle it in front of them. If that doesn’t work then I’ll use blackmail, seems to work in some manga.

JRB:

Puppy dog eyes. Very shoujo.

#
Sesame:

I’d probably just get it drunk on sake or whatever its preferred drink is. I feel like I see depictions of Japanese spirits drinking all the time so I wouldn’t feel too bad about it.

PhoenixTerran:

Delicious food! (It works on me, anyway.) Of course, while I like my cooking the feeling isn’t universal. So, I would probably have to convince my housemates to make something for me first, ’cause they’re awesome when it comes to good food.

Tungwene:

I would threaten to make him eat my cooking for a week because I happen to be a terrible cook.

From Manga Critic:

Flossies: no self-respecting canid can do without them! My dog looks positively stoned when she chews one, I doubt that a fox spirit could resist them, either. (It’s like catnip for dogs.) As an added bonus, the fox spirit would have greatly improved breath as well.

From Jacob:

Cold iron. Fair folk can’t stand that ol’ col’ iron.

My Week in Manga: January 17-January 23, 2011

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My News and Reviews

The Manga Moveable Feast for Karakuri Odette finished up yesterday. I was pleased to contribute not one, but two posts this time around (three if you count my quick take of the entire series). This probably won’t happen very often, but we’ll see what I can do. My first post was an in-depth review of the first volume of Karakuri Odette. This is the second in-depth manga review for January, so I’ve met my goal for another month, hooray! I also took a closer look at the androids of Karakuri Odette to see how they measured up to Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. It’s kind of silly, but I had fun with it.

Did you get a chance to see the live-action Gantz film last week? Or maybe you just heard about it? Or perhaps you have no idea what I’m talking about? Regardless, there’s been an increased interest in the manga series it was based on, so I’ll be giving away a brand new copy of Gantz, Volume 1 by Hiroya Oku. The contest will begin this coming Wednesday, January 26 and will run for a week.

Quick Takes

ES: Eternal Sabbath, Volumes 1-8 by Fuyumi Soryo. I originally read the first four volumes of Eternal Sabbath from the library, but I liked the series so well that I picked up an entire set for myself. Shuro’s development as a character was particularly interesting. Incredibly intelligent and mature for his age, he is inexperienced emotionally and has to come to grips with this. And he isn’t the only character to grow and change throughout the series. The story itself explores some tough moral questions. The ending was a bit abrupt and parts of it were a little disappointing–Soryo probably could have used a couple more volumes finish–but I still really enjoyed the series.

Gantz, Volumes 1-5 by Hiroya Oku. The artwork is gloriously graphic and slightly disconcerting, but I do like it. However, there is bit more fan-service and misogyny than is necessary, although some of it is appropriate to the story. Gantz is dark. Gantz is violent. Gantz is edgy. It’s hard to say where Oku is going to go with the series and what the aim is or if there is some deeper meaning, but so far the examination of the human psyche is very interesting. The willingness that some characters show to participate in a deadly “game” that they don’t even understand is fascinating. I’ll probably keep with the series for a bit longer; I’d really like to know what is going on and there’s a lot of potential.

Sand Chronicles, Volume 10 by Hinako Ashihara. This is the final volume of Sand Chronicles which remains one of my favorite shoujo series. The main story ended with the eighth volume; volume ten is a side story that takes place when the main characters are in their thirties. They still struggle to accept and deal with their pasts which is not at all an easy thing. The emotional authenticity of Sand Chronicles has been one of its highlights throughout the series and the final volume is no exception. It provides a very satisfying conclusion (and continuation) to the series. The focus this time is on Daigo and it’s nice to see a bit more of the story from his perspective.

Under Grand Hotel, Volumes 1-2 by Mika Sadahiro. Incredibly intense, Under Grand Hotel is fiercely passionate and violent. Turn to a random page and you’ll most likely end up in the middle of a sex scene, but I was okay with that. Taking place in an underground prison, the manga is certainly a fantasy but a completely developed one. Sword is the shot-caller at UGH and Sen becomes his cellmate and lover for protection. At first it’s simply a convenient arrangement, but it soon becomes more. It’s not really a romantic love that is fostered, but instead the two men become mutually dependent upon one another and their lives are intertwined to such an extent that they can’t break free.

Departures directed by Yōjirō Takita. Departures won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009, an honor that is well deserved, among many, many other awards. Daigo lands his dream job as a cellist just before the orchestra is dissolved. (As a fellow “failed” musician, I completely understand what he is going through.) He returns to his hometown and, mostly by chance or fate, becomes the assistant to an encoffiner. It’s a misunderstood a job that isn’t looked well upon, and so he tries to hide it from his wife and is unsure about pursuing it himself. Departures is a beautiful film that faces life and death head on without getting too heavy.

Gantz (World Premiere Live Event) directed by Shinsuke Sato. It was really unfortunate that they decided to screen this with an English dub rather than subtitles. Otherwise, the films seem to be a fairly decent adaptation of the manga so far and the visuals are great. The suits in particular are fantastic. However, for as much action and violence that is in the movie, the pacing seems to drag quite a bit. It also seems to be missing some of the intensity and edge present in the manga. I did enjoy Kenji Kawai’s score and the music was just the right mixture of creepy and driving. The actors did a fine job, particularly Kenichi Matsuyama, and I’m interested in seeing the second part of Gantz when it is released latter this year.