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Apology to readers

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This is a heartfelt apology to readers who rely on RSS or e-mail subscription to follow new posts on Manga Bookshelf.

It’s come to my attention that personal posts from another of my blogs are being displayed and distributed to Manga Bookshelf readers via Feedburner, thanks to my use of a (generally awesome) WordPress plugin, Sitewide Tags. I haven’t yet figured out how to keep this from happening without losing the vital functionality that plugin provides. But in the meantime, I want to apologize for any posts you’ve been delivered that may not be what you signed up for.

Thank you for your patience as I tackle this problem.

Sincerely,
MJ

Jyu-Oh-Sei Volumes 2 and 3

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Jyu-Oh-Sei Volumes 2 and 3 by Natsumi Itsuki

I enjoyed the first couple volumes of Itsuki’s Demon Sacred so much, it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to read the rest of Jyu-Oh-Sei, her pulpy science fiction series that Tokyopop released in omnibus format. I read the first volume some time ago, but it was easy for me to pick up the threads of the story again when revisiting the jungle planet of Kimaera.

Jyu-Oh-Sei Volume 2

Young Thor has unexpectedly survived being marooned on the inhospitable planet, and he becomes more and more important within the tribal structure of the planet’s inhabitants with every fight he wins. The third in command of the Ochre ring (conveniently named Third) is convinced that Thor should rise in the ranks to become the ruler of the planet, the Beast King. Third sets up a manipulated challenge that leaves Thor injured but he survives and is now the Ochre Ring’s Top. The story fast forwards a few years, and Thor and his girl second Tiz are all grown up and super-hot. Thor’s held on to his position of authority but everyone is shaken up when the leader of the Blanc Ring goes on a fighting rampage. It turns out that the Blanc Ring Top is an old acquaintance of Thor’s – Zagi who guided Thor when he was first dropped off on the planet.

Thor is caught between Zagi and Third. Zagi’s brutality in battle is extreme, but he tells Thor that becoming Beast King is for suckers. All the previous Beast Kings are frozen in a space station, ruling over nothing. Third urges Thor to take control by becoming Beast King in order to make the planet better. Romantic complications are introduced when Thor falls in love with Zagi’s second, a striking woman named Karim. This does not go over well with Tiz, who is still determined to bear Thor’s children even though he tends to view her as a sister. The second volumes sets up both emotional angst and the growing suspicion that the society on Kimaera might be engineered and controlled in a way that the natives don’t suspect. Many people are invested in Thor’s ability to lead, but why is he being singled out so much?

Jyu-Oh-Sei Volume 3

The first volume of Jyu-Oh-Sei felt like it was laying the foundation for Itsuki’s unique world. The planet itself was its own character, with the unique vegetation threatening human existence wherever Thor went. The second volume built more on the societal and emotional aspects of Kimaera, with Thor finally being portrayed as a grown-up instead of a lost boy. The concluding volume shifted into action movie territory, with surprising revelations about Thor’s own nature and a race against time to save the planet of the Beast King. I won’t go into the details too much to avoid spoiling the story, but after finishing this volume I had a renewed appreciation for Itsuki’s world building. Thor finds out the truth behind his adopted planet and confronts the people who had his parents murdered long ago. He then has to lead a small group of people in an attempt to save the planet from a desperate act. The structure of the final act of the story is circular, as the strange vegetation on the planet yet again plays a prominent role in the story.

I can see how this manga might not appeal to readers who don’t appreciate a healthy amount of exposition in their science fiction books. I liked seeing how Itsuki layered her story elements and carefully plotted out the details of her unique world. While I thoroughly enjoyed Jyu-Oh-Sei, it does lack the wackiness that causes me to look forward to the next volumes of Demon Sacred with so much affection. Jyu-Oh-Sei goes on a very short list of thoughtful science fiction manga that I wouldn’t hesitate to anyone looking for manga that features stories about the future of humanity. It has much more depth than the typical sci-fi manga, and I’d rank it up with Planetes as a favorite of the genre.

Pick of the Week: The Story of Saiunkoku

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Looking at this week’s manga arrivals at Midtown Comics, it’s a week filled with new volumes of great series, including Hikaru no Go, Crown of Love, Kimi ni Todoke… the list goes on. It’s even bigger if you consider what’s expected at Comicopia, where they have previous Pick Twin Spica on the docket.

Still, this week’s choice was a fairly easy one to make, as it’s the first volume of a new shojo series that charmed me significantly from the start. This week’s Pick is The Story of Saiunkoku, based on the light novels by Sai Yukino, adapted by Kairi Yura, published in English by Viz Media.

Here are some excerpts from my review of the first volume:

“The story revolves around a young woman named Shurei Hong, whose family, despite their noble bloodline, has fallen destitute. Shurei lives with her father (and their sole remaining retainer) and spends most of her time trying to earn money for the family, so when the opportunity to make 500 gold comes around, there’s no way she can say no, even if it means becoming consort to the country’s famously ineffective emperor. The emperor is a slacker with no interest in government and even less in women–two points that Shurei is tasked with remedying with by way of her civil responsibility and feminine wiles.

Despite the fact that I’d heard positive buzz about this series… based on that premise, I admit I was more than skeptical. The manga’s opening chapter didn’t do much to sway me, either, with its gag sensibility and creepy romantic overtones, all of which seemed contrary to the gravity of Shurei’s actual circumstances.

Fortunately, it quickly became clear that my first impressions were just wrong. While the series’ premise, as stated, is absolutely correct, its execution is thoughtful and unexpectedly nuanced.”

As I mentioned in a recent 3 Things Thursday, with just one volume, The Story of Saiunkoku has become one of my favorite currently running shojo series. Buy this book!

Viz iPad app – quick reactions

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So I assume that the big news that Viz Media was hinting about on twitter is the release of the Viz iPad App. The app lets you download some of Viz’s popular Shonen Jump titles like Bleach, Dragonball, One Piece, and Naruto. The first volume of Death Note is free for a limited time, and free sample chapters are also available.

It looks a lot like a skinned Comixology app to me, so similar that I was surprised Comixology wasn’t mentioned in the Publisher’s Weekly article. But maybe Viz just created a very similar app. I quickly downloaded Death Note. The reading experience is exactly what you’d expect if you’ve already been reading comics on the iPad. You can turn pages by swiping your finger in the direction you want to go, and it is easy to zoom in on the art.

What I’m curious about is the selection of titles that will ultimately be available. I’m probably not the main type of consumer Viz is going for, but I’d love to see some of the series in Viz’s back catalog be made available electronically. I’d totally buy some of Viz’s older shoujo series like Please Save My Earth or Kare First Love if they were made available electronically. I have so much manga in the house, having electronic copies would be one way to catch up on some of the series that I’ve missed reading before and I wouldn’t have to worry about my continually overburdened bookshelves. Also, I would likely sample some of the shonen series that I’ve dropped if some of the more recent volumes were available. $4.99 per volume seems like a decent price point. I’ll be checking out this app to see what happens when more titles are available.

Bakuman Volumes 1 and 2

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Bakuman Volumes 1 and 2 by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

This is another series I’d steered clear of initially, because even though I enjoyed Death Note despite the narrative shortcomings towards the end of the series, I wasn’t sure how interesting I’d find manga about manga to be. I also read some reviews that charged the series with sexism, so I was avoid the series for that reason as well. I found the first two volumes of Bakuman entertaining, and the sexism in the series seems like an accurate reflection of the attitudes of its protagonists – aspiring manga creators and schoolboys Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi.

Bakuman Volume 1

Mashiro is crushing on the coolest girl in his class, Azuki. He practices his drawing skills by sketching her portrait in his school notebook. When he leaves his notebook at school he rushes back to make sure no one will find out the secret of his drawing habit and his crush. He’s confronted by Akito Takagi, a boy who sits in the back of the classroom and prides himself on his observational powers. Takagi proposes a partnership: he’ll write stories and Mashiro will provide the drawings. They will become mangaka together. Mashiro loves drawing, but is reluctant to become a mangaka because his uncle used to be a professional who failed to build on the success of his initially popular gag series. He died broke and alone.

Takagi ends up forcing Masahiro to draw manga by dragging him to Azuki’s house and confessing their ambitions. Masahiro is so embarrassed, he randomly breaks out with a proposal of marriage, and she accepts on the condition that they marry after they’ve fulfilled their dreams. This ends up being somewhat convenient in a narrative sense, because Azuki ends up being a character that Masahiro can just use as a muse. She isn’t given much of a personality compared to her male counterparts.

I can see why people are criticizing Bakuman for being sexist, but the elements that someone would use to make that critique didn’t really bother me because they seemed to fit with the point of view of young Japanese teenage boys. Takagi makes a long speech about how clever Azuki is because she dedicates herself to being the perfect girl. Her grades aren’t too good. She has a socially acceptable goal of becoming a voice actress. She doesn’t act too stuck up, and she’s mediocre enough not to stand out so she doesn’t inspire jealousy in the other girls. Takagi attributes her behavior to careful calculation. This type of speech seems just like the type of thing a 14 year old boy with ambitions of becoming a writer would say.

Bakuman Volume 2

Seeing how Mashiro and Takagi evolve their ambitions and refine their approach to making manga was fascinating. I always knew manga polls in magazines were significant, but seeing the way the boys discuss the type of story they need to produce in order to get the poll numbers they need made me realize how much the creation of a successful series can be a numbers game. Mashiro and Takagi have a more cerebral, offbeat approach to the stories they create, while their prodigious rival Nizuma seems to be creating the straight-up action series that fans of Naurto would adore.

There were plot elements in Bakuman that seemed to make things just a little too easy. Takagi’s family has held on to his uncle’s studio and gives him access when he announces that he’s going to follow his dream. It turns out that Azuki’s mother was actually the long-lost love of Takagi’s uncle too. Azuki and Takagi agree to wait for each other while pursuing their respective dreams, freeing her up to be an objectified object of affection with the eventual couple only cheering each other on mostly through text messages. The genius fifteen year old manga creator Nizuma and the way he inspires the heros of the story to work harder seems more than a little reminiscent of the relationships between L, Mello, and Near in Death Note.

While all the details about manga creation were interesting, there was a slightly didactic or textbook-like quality to all the exposition. While I enjoyed reading Bakuman, I don’t think it would be the type of series I’d read over and over again. I put these volumes down with a renewed appreciation for Obata’s art. He makes playing Go look dynamic and filled with action, and similarly he makes the process of creating manga look gripping. I put these volumes down with an appreciation for the creative process and the business behind manga. It was interesting to see how Mashiro and Takagi started to revise their work after being taken under the wing of an editor. Seeing how difficult it is to even get a story published in the first place makes me appreciate manga creators even more. Bakuman isn’t a perfect work by any means, but I did feel like I got a lot out of reading it. I’d recommend this title for anyone who is curious about the process of manga creation.

Review copy of volume 2 provided by the publisher.

Digital Manga Guild: Revolution or Folly?

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Digital Manga Publishing has formally announced its new fan/publisher hybrid program, the Digital Manga Guild. According to a newsletter sent out this weekend, DMP expects to be able to offer “thousands more” manga through the new program, which will rely on fan translators, editors, and letterers to revolutionize its production of digital manga in English.

At the Guild’s new website, fans can apply to sign on as translators, editors/adapters, or letterers by providing online samples of their previous work. There is no up-front payment, but DMP promises compensation when actual sales are made. Though the arrangement may sound sketchy, this section of the company’s informational material is somewhat heartening for prospective participants:

However, no party — Digital Manga, Inc., the Japanese publishers, or you (the localizers) — will get paid until a sales transaction is made. That means, we are all in this together!

Though it’s too early to speculate on the program’s success, the BL fanbase, in particular, seems like the ideal community in which to try out something of this kind. BL fans tend to be consistent manga buyers, always looking for the latest in their genre, while also maintaining a dedicated scanlation community that focuses largely on unlicensed material. By offering potential income and a stamp of legitimacy (along with reasonably-priced digital manga) can DMP succeed in bringing scanlators and readers fully into the fold?

Many are sure to have an opinion on the subject, including professional translators and editors who currently struggle to make a living in their field. And, as Brigid Alverson points out in her Robot 6 write-up, scanlators are already questioning DMP’s motivations. Is this a pioneering moment or an industry trainwreck waiting to happen?

What do you think, readers?

Update 2/1/2011: Check it out.

Manhwa Monday: November Preview

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Welcome to another Manhwa Monday! As we’re thrust, brutally, into November on this chilly Monday morning, it seems like the appropriate time to step back from frantic news-seeking and take a moment to ponder the month ahead in manhwa.

Yen Press goes it alone this month, at least in the print market, with final volumes of three manhwa series, Legend, Moon Boy, and the aptly-named Very! Very! Sweet. Other Yen Press releases this month include new volumes of Raiders, Japanese-produced Black God, and Manhwa Bookshelf favorite Time and Again.

With so many of Yen’s manhwa series wrapping up this month, our real question of course is, “Will there be new licenses to replace them?” We remain cautiously hopeful.

In the digital realm, NETCOMICS’ update schedule remains empty at the moment, but we do have high hopes. Though they don’t seem to have followed through with their promise of a Dokebi Bride revival last week, perhaps we’ll see something shortly? Meanwhile, webtoon publisher iSeeToon reports that their Magician iOS app is still on track.

For a bit of levity, here’s a link to some humorous speculation on the part of the National Catholic Reporter, in which managing editor Dennis Coday asks (regarding the upcoming Priest movie, among others), “Is the Catholic church a sure-fire money-maker for comic book movies?”

Critics continue to weigh in on the first volume of Japanese-produced, Korean-created March Story (Viz Media), with reviews this past week from Bill Sherman, Julie Opipari, and Kate Dacey. And at Manga Village, Lori Henderson discusses volumes two and three of Time and Again (Yen Press). I include the series in my list of favorite ghost-hunting comics over at Manga Bookshelf as well.

That’s all for this week!

Is there something I’ve missed? Leave your manhwa-related links in comments!

Shoujo Mega-Pack giveaway

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I thought I’d celebrate moving into my new digs over here at Manga Report and do a manga giveaway. I’m going to give away to one reader:

INVU #5
A Tale of an Unknown Country #1
Nana #21
Butterflies, Flowers #4
Kobato #1

To enter, just leave a comment on this post with the name of your favorite manga heroine. I’ll select a winner at random on Nov 11. You must be 18 to enter.

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Princess Jellyfish

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Today’s Saturday morning cartoon is the opening sequence of Princess Jellyfish, a new anime that Funimation just started streaming. The characters are shown reenacting scenes from classic movies like Star Wars, Mary Poppins, James Bond, and The Graduate.

Ordinarily I don’t automatically tend to go for stories about female otaku, but Princess Jellyfish is very cute. Tsukumi from the first moment her mother took her to visit an aquarium. She moves to Tokyo to become an illustrator and moves into a shared apartment house owned by a shut-in manga creator who only communicates through papers shoved through her door. “The Sisterhood” that lives in the house are all made up of female otaku. One loves trains, one loves Kimono, there’s a woman obsessed with martial arts and the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. When a beautiful woman helps Tsukumi take home a jellyfish that is being mistreated by an ignorant aquarium owner, Tsukumi discovers that her unwanted new friend is actually a cross dresser.

Here’s the Hulu Channel for the show. Two episodes have been posted so far.

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading: Presents

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Back in 2007, John Jakala coined the trademark-worthy phrase “comeuppance theater” to describe horror stories in which a mean, violent, or greedy person gets his just desserts: a vain woman becomes visibly grotesque, a murderer dies at the hands of his victim’s ghost. In order for comeuppance theater to be dramatically persuasive, the author needs to do more than just dream up a suitably ironic punishment for the villain; he needs to convince us that the villain is sufficiently deserving of said punishment, that the villain is, in fact, monstrous in his desires or behavior and not simply an average joe exercising bad judgment. We may not be rooting for the villain’s demise — we may even feel a twinge of sympathy for him or self-identification with his plight — but if the author has done his job, the villain’s punishment seems necessary for restoring the social order.

In Presents (CMX), Kananko Inuki puts an interesting spin on the material, using our love of gifts as the jumping-off point for some funny, nasty, and intelligent episodes of comeuppance theater. The series’ host is Kurumi, a strange little girl who doles out presents to bad people and victims alike. Some gifts prove the recipients’ undoing: in “Present of Love,” for example, a manipulative college student goads her suitor into buying expensive jewelry that he can’t afford, even though she loathes him. His last gift to her — a set of earrings that Kurumi promised would “bring them together” — initiates a chain of events that unite the foolish pair in death. Other gifts provide victims a tool for payback: in “The Scary Present,” Kurumi gives a giant, man-eating box to a girl whose big sister gives horrific, mean-spirited gifts, while in “The Return Present,” Kurumi helps a bullied teen find an appropriate present for her tormentor.

Not all the stories follow this exact template; Kurumi becomes less central to the plots in volumes two or three, sometimes functioning as a passive observer, other times not appearing in the story at all. Volume two, for example, opens with a peculiar — and not entirely successful — trio of stories about Christmas gifts’ potential to corrupt little kids. Other stories read more like fairy tales: in “Dream Present,” a young woman endures a series of painful rituals in order to win a prince’s hand in marriage (in homage to Cinderella’s stepsisters, she even dispenses with a few toes), while in “Konotori” (or “stork”), magical cabbages bestow fertility on deserving couples.

The most potent stories shed light on the indignities of childhood, especially playground politics. Many of Presents‘ female characters are preoccupied with their place in the school’s pecking order, selecting uglier or quieter classmates to serve as foils more than friends. Rinko, the mean-girl villain of “The Return Gift,” is a classic example, calmly admitting that her friendship with the shy, slow Suzuko makes her “relax and feel better about herself,” then quietly fuming when Suzuko begins coming into her own socially and academically. The principal characters in “The Keepsake” and “The Most Wanted Present” are similarly opportunistic, demanding extreme fealty from lonely, passive classmates; when these eager-to-please girls die in an effort to honor their promises, their tormentors suffer retribution from beyond the grave.

Frenemies are a staple of young adult literature, of course, but the bald presentation of the issue in Presents conveys the cruelty of the behavior more effectively than a more restrained, realistic depiction could, capturing the intensity of both the bully and the victim’s feelings in an immediate, visceral fashion. Inuki’s imagery in all three stories is cartoonishly grotesque: Rinko, for example, develops monster zits that look more like the handiwork of an alien virus than P. acnes, while Mamiko, the manipulative frenemy in “The Keepsake,” winds up with a grotesque scar on her chest in the shape of her dead friend’s profile. (Mamiko coveted Sakiko’s cameo brooch.) The pimples and the scars make visible Rinko and Mamiko’s true selves; though both are fully aware of what they’re doing (“I was happy to see the look of distress on Sakiko’s face,” Mamiko narrates), it’s not until they see their deformed likenesses that they grasp how hurtful their behavior really is.

The fact that bullies, mean girls, and big sisters factor so prominently into Presents suggests that Inuki was writing for a younger audience, a supposition borne out by her fondness for goosing the story with fleeting but gross images: a box of cockroaches, pus-covered wounds, rotting corpses. It’s a pity, then, that CMX opted for a Mature rating, as I think the series works well for teens, depicting the emotional horrors of childhood in a vivid, gruesomely funny way. The stories are varied enough to sustain an adult’s interest as well; readers with fond memories of Tales from the Crypt or The Twilight Zone will find a lot to like about Inuki’s work, from the efficiently of her storytelling — many of Presents‘ best chapters are less than twenty pages — to the pointedness of her punishments.

PRESENTS, VOLS. 1-3 • BY KANAKO INUKI • CMX • RATING: MATURE (18+)

The Best Manga You’re Not Reading is an occasional feature that highlights titles that aren’t getting the critical attention — or readership — they deserve. Click here for the inaugural column; click here for the series archive.